Wedding at King’s Convenience Read Online Free Page B

presence of one you lost and felt better for knowing it?”
    “I have,” he admitted quietly. “Though it’s not something I’ve ever talked about before.”
    “Why should you?” She smiled at him again. “It’s a private thing, after all.”
    Jefferson looked at her for a long moment and she tried to read what thoughts might be rushing through his mind. But his eyes were cool, shadowed with old pain, so she was forced to wait until he spoke.
    “Ten years ago, my parents died together in a car accident that nearly killed one of my brothers, too.” He finished the last of his beer in one swallow, set the glass down and said, “Later, once my three brothers and I had lived through the grief, we all realized that if they’d had a choice, our folks would have elected to go together. Neither of them would have been complete without the other.”
    “I know just what you mean.” Maura sighed through a sad smile. Music played on in the background and dozens of voices rose and fell in waves of conversation. Yet here in the shadow-filled booth, she felt as if she and Jefferson were alone in the room. “My father died when Cara was small and my mother was never the same without him. She tried, for our sakes of course, but for her, there was always something missing. A love like that, I think, is both blessing and curse.”
    He lifted his beer glass in a toast. “You might be right about that.”
    He smiled, too, and she thought how odd it was that they would find this mutual understanding in memories of pain. But somehow, sitting in the near dark with Jefferson, sharing stories of loss made her feel closer to him than she had to anyone in a long time.
    “Still,” she said, her voice soft and low, “even knowing your parents were together, it must have been hard on you and your brothers.”
    “It was.” A slight frown creased his features briefly. “I’d finally recovered from…” He stopped, caught himself and said instead, “Doesn’t matter. The point is, when we needed it the most, my brothers and I had each other. And we had to help Justice recover.”
    She wondered what he’d been about to say. What he’d thought better of sharing with her. And wondered why, if it was so many years ago, that thought could have left a shadow of pain flashing in his eyes. His secret, whatever it was, had hit him deeply, cutting him in his heart and soul. So much so that even now, he didn’t talk about it.
    Maura buried her curiosity for the moment and said only, “Justice? An interesting name.”
    “Interesting man,” Jefferson told her with a quick smile that was filled, she thought, with a bit of gratitude for her ignoring his earlier slip of the tongue. “He runs the family ranch.”
    Delighted by the image, she smiled. “So he’s a cowboy, then?”
    “Yeah, he is.” He grinned suddenly, though sorrowstill glittered in his eyes. “And he’s married now, with a son and another baby on the way.”
    “Lovely,” she said, envying him his large family. “And your other brothers?”
    “The youngest, Jesse, is married, too. His wife just had a baby boy a few months back.” He stopped and grinned. “Jesse passed out during the delivery. We love to remind him of that.”
    “What a wonderful story,” Maura said. “His love and worry for his wife making him faint. He must be a lovely man.”
    “Lovely?” Jefferson thought about it and shrugged. “I’m sure his wife Bella thinks so.”
    The sorrow in his eyes was fading, the longer he talked about his brothers, and Maura realized she thought even more of him now that she knew how close he was to his family. “And your other brother?”
    “Jericho is in the Marines. He’s serving in the Middle East right now.”
    “That’s a worry for you.” She saw the truth of that in the way his jaw clenched briefly.
    “Yeah, it is. But he’s doing what he loves, so…”
    “I understand.” Maura drew a fingertip through the ring of damp her beer glass had left