The Truest Thing (Hart's Boardwalk 4)

It would be fair to say Jack Devlin did not like Dana Kellerman Lawson.

In fact, she’d caused the first real argument between him and Coop.

Sometimes, Jack still couldn’t believe Cooper had disregarded Jack’s opinion.

For years, they’d joked about Jack’s superpower—his ability to smell bullshit on someone from a mile away. Perhaps it was growing up in a house like the one he had with manipulative bastards around every corner. But Jack had instincts about folks, and he wasn’t often wrong. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been wrong about someone.

And when Dana Kellerman came back to Hartwell from college and set her sights on Cooper, Jack tried to make his friend see sense. However, Coop couldn’t see past Dana’s beauty or that falsely sweet smile. Or the way she seemed to rely on him entirely, something that fed the protective, alpha-male shit Coop always had going on with the women in his life.

However, Jack saw right through Dana. He saw past her movie-star looks and what did he find?

A whole lot of nothing.

That woman only wanted Cooper because other women wanted him, and they failed to nail him down.

It probably didn’t hurt he owned lucrative property on the boardwalk.

She wanted a handsome husband who bought her nice stuff and took care of everything and that’s what she got in Cooper. Seriously, she didn’t lift a finger to do a damn thing. They even had a housekeeper to look after their average-sized, three-bedroom house, something Cooper complained about because his mom had raised him to clean up after himself.

Worse, whenever Cooper had a problem or was worried about the bar, Dana didn’t want to hear it. So Cooper laid that shit on Jack. What was the point of having a wife if it wasn’t a partnership, a support system? Jack had asked this, and Coop shut him down every time, so he stopped asking.

After he’d warned Cooper not to propose to Dana, calling her shallow as a kiddie pool, he and Cooper hadn’t spoken for days. Jack finally had to apologize, knowing he’d lose his friend if he didn’t just let him do what he needed to do with Dana.

Still, standing up as his best man at the wedding had not been an outstanding day for Jack.

Cooper was more brother to him than his own brothers, and Jack wanted the absolute best for him.

He deserved better than Dana, something that was becoming more apparent with each passing year.

She’d realized Jack didn’t like her, and Dana didn’t know what to do with that. She expected all men to fall at her feet in worship and the fact that Jack didn’t was a challenge.

Dana had been getting in his face lately, and Jack had been working overtime to avoid her, which wasn’t easy when she was married to his best friend.

“Self-care?” Old Archie snorted. “What the hell does she need self-care for? The woman spends all day every day self-caring.”

Jack’s lips twitched around his beer bottle as he stared determinedly at the screen.

“She works,” Cooper said easily. “At the salon.”

“For one day a week and only to catch up on the latest gossip.” Iris’s voice sounded behind Jack and he glanced over his shoulder. Iris Green, along with her husband, Ira, owned Antonio’s, an Italian pizzeria on the boardwalk. They weren’t Italian but their food certainly was. Jack lifted his chin at Iris.

She smiled and patted his shoulder before looking at Cooper. “You got that table for three I reserved?”

“Yeah, reserved you a booth.” Cooper nodded to the back of the bar. “You going to introduce us?”

Wondering who Coop meant, Jack leaned so he could see past Iris.

He spotted Ira standing next to a tall woman with pale-blond hair that spilled down a slender back in attractive waves. She wore a long, dark blue dress made of a material that clung to her body. And what a body it was. At least from what he could tell from the back. Narrow waist, gentle roundness to her hips, and the dress clung to an ass that made all the blood in his body travel south.

Fuck me, he thought. Turn around so I can see that face.

“Emery’s kind of shy.” Iris’s words pulled his attention from the new woman to her.

“Emery?” Why was that name familiar?

“She inherited the Burger Shack,” Cooper said, leaning on the bar.

“The woman who’s turning it into a bookstore?” Jack had heard about her. Everyone had. Property on the boardwalk was prime real estate. His father, Ian Devlin, owned a lot of property in Hartwell. What he didn’t own was boardwalk property. Jack endured Sunday dinners at his parents’ house every second week and when news of Emery’s arrival hit, his father was disgruntled, to put it politely. “Some little upstart from New York inherited th