Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 105231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
“What the fuck was that?” Jace asked as he walked up to him. He was the biggest of all his brothers.
“I don’t know. I’m suspicious. He seemed almost . . . happy to see me.” He felt sick.
“Well, that can’t be right,” Clay joked as he walked up on his other side.
“Hey! A lot of people are happy to see me!” he protested.
“Like who?” Tyler asked as he appeared.
“Where the hell have you all been hiding?” he grumbled at his brothers. “What were you doing? Lurking in the shadows and watching me?”
“Well, if we were, we’d tell you that you really fucked that up with Caren,” Jace said.
“How did I fuck anything up?” he grumbled. “There’s nothing to fuck up. I don’t even know her anymore.”
“No, then why did she seem to annoy you so much?” Clay asked.
“I just remember how heartbroken Lacey was when she left without a word,” he said. “She was always rude and self-involved.”
“Really?” Rusty said. “I always thought she was sad and quiet.”
Sad?
He didn’t remember that. But maybe his memory was faulty.
Rusty didn’t always say much. When he did, it paid to listen to him, though. He was the middle brother. Travis was the oldest, followed by Clay who was probably the most easygoing. Then there was Rusty, Jace, and finally Tyler.
“You don’t recall the way she’d always snatch up food, never leaving anything for anyone else? And just stuff it into her mouth without using her manners?” he asked.
“Sounds like she was hungry,” Tyler said.
Hungry?
That couldn’t be right, could it?
She had been a skinny little thing with big blue eyes. She was still small, but man, that ass.
Fuck.
Stop staring at her ass.
He did not need to be admiring Caren Stanford’s ass. Or her hips. Or the way she smiled as she spoke to Josh, an employee of Black-Gray Investigations. Why was she standing so close to him?
And now she was putting her hand on his arm? Didn’t he have a woman? What was she going to think about him flirting with another woman?
But then his woman came up and gave Caren a huge hug.
Huh.
“Is Rory here?” Jace asked. “I haven’t seen her.”
Travis shot his biggest brother a look. It wasn’t like Jace to ask after anyone who wasn’t family or a very close friend. He had distanced himself from most people ever since he’d quit the police force. So why would he ask about Rory?
“No. Gray’s worried about her. His mother doesn’t know where she is.”
Jace scowled. “She should know better than to disappear on her brother’s big day.”
“Big day?” Travis said. “This is just a rehearsal.”
“Still don’t understand what we’re supposed to rehearse,” Tyler said. “Never had a wedding rehearsal for my marriage. Then again, we all know how that ended.”
Badly. Very badly.
“I’m sure Rory will be here for the wedding,” Travis said.
But Jace’s scowl didn’t ease. Hmm. What was going on there? Was he annoyed by Rory’s rudeness? Or something else?
A loud laugh caught his attention and he scowled over at Caren as she placed her hand on a man’s arm and leaned back, laughing with her entire body.
What the hell? What was she doing? And if that guy didn’t take his gaze off her breasts . . . then he was about to do something that he probably wasn’t supposed to do at a wedding dinner rehearsal.
“Travis, you’re glaring at her still,” Tyler warned.
“Yeah, well, I just don’t want her hurting Lacey’s feelings again.”
“Lacey’s thirty-six, not sixteen anymore, man,” Jace said. “You can’t intimidate or get rid of everyone that looks sideways at her.”
“Of course I can,” he said, then he went back to their original comment about no one being happy to see him. “And I’ll have you all know that plenty of people are pleased to see me. The subs at Whip It for instance.”
“They hide from you,” Clay said. “Well, except for the masochists.”
“The subs don’t hide from me,” he told them.
None of his brothers could look him in the eyes.
He refused to believe he was that grouchy that subs ran from him at Whip It.
“You’re getting worse in your old age,” Jace said.
Maybe he was. He was getting tired of . . . being alone.
Fuck.
He’d never really thought that before. But watching Lacey with Gray. Watching all of the employees of Black-Gray Investigations with their women . . . yeah, he couldn’t help but feel that perhaps it was time.
“I think it’s time I got married.”
After dropping that bomb, he walked away. He could hear his brothers calling after him, but his gaze had been caught again.
That really was a fantastic ass.
Too bad it belonged to Caren Stanford.
Oh, well, he’d never see her again so he pushed her out of his mind.
3
Caren walked into her small apartment in Dallas and shut the door, leaning back against it. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart.