Jo regarded Lara’s jeans. “Are you wearing a white dress for the ceremony?”
“No. No white dresses for me. I’m wearing a sundress. It’s a light purple.”
Jo raised a brow. “The throwback carnivore marries the artsy vegetarian.”
Lara and Jo both were laughing when Cassidy burst through the front door. Her dark hair was swept up on her head, and she wore a black dress with a large silver concho belt and red cowboy boots. “Let’s get this party started!”
Lara laughed. “My life is gonna be interesting.”
Brody’s tie coiled around his neck extra tight as he took his seat on a white folding chair under the large tent. He and two dozen other Rangers and their wives sat behind Jim’s mother and grandfather. A bluegrass band played standard tunes as a cool breeze blew over the tall grass and into the tent.
Jim stood at the front with his younger brother at his side. Both wore dark blue suits that highlighted the olive complexion they’d inherited from their mother and the broad shoulders from their grandfather. Lincoln sat peacefully beside Jim, his collar decorated with small, rather unmanly flowers, which Jim had announced were coming off right after the ceremony.
When a set of guitars started to play the wedding march, everyone rose and faced the dirt path that led back toward the house. The first to appear was Jo. When Brody spotted her, unexpected tension tightened his gut. He’d always found her business suits a little erotic but today’s sweep of her hair over her pale shoulders and the green halter dress had him hardening like a teenager.
Her gaze fixed on the minister, she grinned broadly, moving down the aisle. As she moved past, she didn’t spare a glance at him, but his gaze locked on her. He caught the whiff of a perfume she’d not worn before. Spicy. And sensual.
He straightened his shoulders and clasped his hands in front of him as she passed. He’d never been one for looking back or wishing away what was, but right now he’d have paid dearly for a clean slate with Jo Granger.
Next on deck was the brunet with the red cowboy boots. Cassidy. She was one hell of a looker in her own right. Nothing like Jo. Not his type. But stunning.
And then Lara emerged. She wore a purple peasant-style sundress that brushed the ground and her sandaled feet. Her long hair hung loose around her shoulders and someone had woven small flowers into several strands. Woodstock would have greeted Jim’s artist bride with open arms.
Lara’s gaze locked on Jim’s, and she moved toward him with a pace that purists might consider too fast. She looked eager and ready to jump into this marriage. Jim looked equally as happy, and the first twist of jealousy Brody had had in years snapped. Back in the day, he’d coveted a new bike, a new car, better bats, and the number one pitcher job, but now all that was downright meaningless. What he coveted was what Jim and Lara shared.
The reception was the kind Brody liked: an old-fashioned Texas barbecue. The bride and groom didn’t have the overstressed expressions he’d seen at too many weddings, and the guests looked comfortable. The men had taken off their sport jackets, and the women mostly wore sandals, not those punishing high heels that sent them searching for Band-Aids halfway through a party.
Brody stood with several Rangers talking about a recent trip to the shooting range. Scores were compared. Jokes made. Challenges issued. The talk rumbled around him as he scanned the crowd for Jo. He found her by the food table, a soda in her hand as she talked to Santos. When she smiled at him her eyes lit up and her posture was relaxed, not stiff and defensive. Santos leaned forward and said something close to her ear, and she tossed back her head and laughed out loud. It struck him that he’d never heard her laugh. He suspected now that the laughter had always been there, but he’d been too bullheaded and self-pitying to coax it.
He took a long pull on his beer and imagined landing a punch on Santos’s grinning jaw as the other Ranger held out his hand to Jo and the two went to the dance floor in front of the bluegrass band.
Santos led Jo through a two-step, which she had no talent for. The more she protested and laughed at her own missteps, the more endearing she became to Santos and him. After one sloppy spin, she lost her footing, only to have Santos steady her and pull her close. Her hand went to his chest as her other gripped his forearm.
Brody finished off his beer.
“You don’t look like the happiest padre I’ve ever seen.” Jim, who’d taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, stared squarely at Brody. “Looks like you could gnaw on broken glass.”
Brody tore his gaze from Jo and shrugged. “Naw.”
Jim looked past Brody to Jo. “I didn’t realize you had a hard-on for the good doctor.”
His temper rumbled. “I don’t have a hard-on for Dr. Granger.”
Jim laughed. “I’m trained to spot liars.”
Brody, like any good cop, could lie as well as any thief, but his tense posture and biting grip on his beer bottle were giving him away. He opted to change the subject. “Lara looks nice.”
Jim’s gaze locked on his bride who was snapping pictures of her guests. “She’s pretty damn perfect.”
“You two lovebirds taking a honeymoon?”
“Not now. She’s teaching, and I’m in the middle of a couple of cases. We’re taking a road trip to Galveston in about six weeks.”
“Should be a good trip.”
Jim drew his gaze away from his wife. “Looking forward to it.”
He pondered his empty beer and wished for a second. “Hell of a party.”
“Fussy is not our style.”
“Amen.”
The band stopped playing and the couples on the dance floor stopped and clapped. The bandleader announced a fifteen-minute break. Good. No more dancing.
“So you gonna talk to her?” Jim said. “Or are you gonna stand there like a yellow-belly coward?”
Brody met Jim’s amused gaze. “Is this middle school, pal?”
Jim held up his hands in mock surrender. “I know when a guy is smitten. And padre, you’ve been bitten by the bug.”
Brody rubbed the back of his neck with his hands. “I’m about the last guy that Jo Granger would date.”
“Why’s that? She strikes me as the type to stand up to your type.”
“And my type is?”
“Let’s face it. Like any good cop you can be an ass when pushed. I’ll bet you hate hearing no and you think everything should stop when you speak.”
Brody didn’t deny it. The Jo from college days had been tentative and worried about offending anyone. But somewhere along the way she’d grown up into
a sharp gal. “More the type to settle with a doctor or a lawyer.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why’d you say that?”
“Just guessing.”
“You might be right. Lots of Rangers have circled and sniffed around her, but she keeps them all at arm’s distance.”
Sniffing around. Shit. “Santos looks like he’s doing his share of sniffing.”
“Ah, I wouldn’t worry about that. He’s a pal to her.”
Brody’s laugh was dark and mirthless. “Don’t seem too pal-like to me.”
“She helped him with his sister, Maria, when their mom died. He’s more like a brother to her.”
“He isn’t having brotherly thoughts.”
“He can have all the thoughts he wants. According to what she told Lara she sees him as a friend.”
Good.
Shit. He shouldn’t care one way or the other.
He didn’t have the right to stand here moping and wishing away a relationship that would make her happy. He’d lost all those claims a long time ago.
“What is it between you two?” Jim pushed.
Brody’s fingernail dug into the label on his bottle. He considered dodging the question but refused to shy away from the plain facts. “Would you believe Jo and I used to be married?”
Jim stared at him openmouthed.
Brody had never shared that bit of information. Never made sense to talk about his past. But the present and the past were getting tangled up and suddenly it mattered. “Son, you’re going to catch a fly with that trap.”
Jim shook his head. “I’ve known Jo for two years. Never a word about a marriage. Not that she’d share much anyway. That’s not her style.”
“It was in college. She was a freshman and I was a senior. We had a lot of emotion and not much common sense. We met in the fall and were divorced by spring.”
“Damn.” Jim shook his head. “Just too young, I suppose.”