The best part about the picture, to Brock’s way of thinking, was the twinkling diamond you could only just see on Tess’s ring finger which was curled around the ivory-ribbon-wrapped long stems of her bouquet, that huge-ass diamond sitting on top of a very wide, very brilliant gold band that, only minutes before, Brock had slid on her finger. A band that matched a wider, no less brilliant one that Brock now wore that, that day, she had slid on his.

And, of course, another best part were those f**k-me shoes, an invitation he’d accepted approximately five hours after the picture was taken.

And, lastly, the fact that her smile was wide, her beautiful white teeth showing, her eyes shining because she was laughing.

Donald Heller studied that photo for a long time.

Then, head still bent to the photo, he whispered, “She looks happy.”

“She is,” Brock confirmed and Heller’s head came up.

Brock didn’t come often but he came regular. He did this because the man in front of him loved Tess. He also did it because the man in front of him sired an ass**le but the last act his ass**le son perpetrated on this earth was trying to keep Brock’s Tess from harm.

Damian Heller had picked apart the bones of Brock Lucas’s life and in doing so, Damian Heller had learned about Josiah Burkett. And Damian Heller had the means to keep an eye on Burkett and an ear. He knew Burkett was planning revenge. He should have told Brock and, if not Brock, then the cops but if he did, he couldn’t play out his knight in shining armor act.

Even so, he went down so Tess wouldn’t. He was an ass**le, his play was foolish and could have caused Tess the harm he wanted to shield her from but Brock couldn’t deny his going down was worth something.

There was no way he was going to try and talk Tess into letting this man and the demons he didn’t want to hold for her but couldn’t avoid back into her life, a life Brock took pains to keep demon free, an effort that had, for nearly a year, succeeded and he’d do just about anything to make certain that streak continued.

But he owed this man the knowledge those pictures shared.

“Vegas?” Donald Heller asked.

“Yep,” Brock answered.

“When?”

“Late last month.”

He looked down again at the photo then up at Brock.

“Her mother and sister made it,” he noted.

“Everyone did,” Brock replied.

And everyone did. It had been a f**king blast, wild, two days of family fun during the day then Kalie, Kellie, Joel and Rex looked after the kids and it was two days of drunken adult fun at night. Then they had the wedding after which they ate, drank, danced and laughed themselves sick and the next morning everyone left. Brock’s Mom had looked after Joey and Rex while Brock and Tess stayed in Vegas and had four days of adult one-on-one fun, the first two of which they didn’t leave their hotel room.

Definitely wild. Definitely a blast.

Perfect.

Heller looked back down at the photo then again at Brock.

“You have good-looking sons,” he remarked.

Brock didn’t thank him for telling him something he knew.

Instead, he informed him, “They love her.”

“Hard not to love Tess,” he whispered.

That was the damned truth.

Then he asked the last question he always asked before Brock left.

“Can I keep these?”

And Brock gave him the answer he always gave.

“Yeah.”

He nodded.

Brock nodded back.

He opened the door and Brock went through it, turning as Donald Heller murmured,

“Until next time.”

Brock jerked up his chin and walked to his truck.

* * * * *

Brock crouched in the wet grass. They’d had a relatively warm winter, a couple of snows, nothing that really stuck and when it did it didn’t stay for too long.

Tess loved it.

The boys hated it.

Brock didn’t care either way.

He shoved his hand into his inside overcoat pocket and pulled out the photo, another copy of the one that fascinated Donald Heller. A photo that, blown up, was framed and sitting pride of place on the shelves in their family’s living room.

Then he reached out and set it at the base of the grave stone.

“Shoulda been there, Dad,” he whispered to the gleaming marble.

The marble had no reply.

* * * * *

“Shit,” he heard Mitch Lawson say and his head came up to look across their desks to his partner.

If someone told Brock two years ago that he’d be partnered with Mitch Lawson, he would have laughed or, possibly, growled.

Lawson was involved in the situation with Hawk Delgado and his now-wife Gwen.

Lawson had a thing for Gwen then, he had another thing going now, a much better thing, a thing that had been a pain in his ass to win but, then again, most things worth winning were worth a pain in the ass to win them. But back then, Lawson had also not been happy with the plays Brock made that put him into contact with Hawk and Gwen Delgado.

But, like many cops, Mitch heard that Brock’s woman was in the hands of a sick, dangerous man bent on revenge and, like many cops, he’d dropped everything to hunt for her.

Sharp as a tack, something that was good to have in a partner, Mitch contacted Delgado, a man who had more money and more resources but less strictures than the DPD, and they searched together. It was intel that Brock had handed over that took them to her. Burkett wasn’t stupid, it was not where Brock had found him years ago after what he did to Bree, but it was information he found when he was hunting him. A house kept in the family but for some reason unused, Bree’s great aunt’s house, Burkett’s mother’s house, where he grew up.

Luck or good instinct, it didn’t matter which, sent Delgado and Lawson there first when the information Brock gave started making the rounds. This meant they got to her quick. This meant she’d only been in the hands of a madman for less than an hour before she was safe.

After it was done, Lawson told him Tess had taken care of the situation herself before they arrived. Although Burkett was old, this surprised Brock but not as much as it alarmed him.

This was because Burkett was armed and very willing to use his weapon and he’d demonstrated this to Tess. Still, somehow she did it and outside of getting clocked on the jaw, which caused her a few days pain and brought up some swelling and minor bruising, she miraculously did it without getting hurt.

In other words, that day, Brock Lucas learned the power of prayer and he still didn’t utilize it often but that didn’t mean God didn’t hear from him more than He used to.