how kissing Jules had made him feel. After everyone had finally left last night, he’d gone back to bed determined to pick up on his dream where he’d left off. He hadn’t been able to, because his mind had been filled with memories of their kiss...how she’d tasted and how she’d felt in his arms.
Realizing his brothers were watching him, he decided to get them off the subject of him and Jules. “Now I have a question for you, Jace.”
“What?”
“How on Earth did you know Carson had a thing for Dad?”
Jace chuckled softly. “She doesn’t have a thing for him, Dalton. She’s in love with him. There’s a difference. One day, you’ll realize the difference when you come to know love for yourself, and then you can easily recognize it in someone else.”
“I agree,” Caden chimed in. “I caught on when I noticed the look in her eyes whenever she said Dad’s name. I don’t know what his feelings are for her, but I can say she has very deep feelings for him.”
“I can’t believe you called her out on it,” Dalton said, grinning. “Surprised the hell out of me when you did.”
Jace took a sip of the water sitting on his desk. “I surprised myself. I was out of line in doing that, and I apologized to her before she left last night.” Jace rubbed the back of his neck. “My only excuse is that there were so many shockers revealed last night—Carson being a woman, the fact we’ve had bodyguards for over a month now and that one even went on my honeymoon, and our very professional and business-minded father’s close relationship with Stonewall, Quasar and Striker. I guess I had one of those moments when I felt the need to reveal something for a change.”
Dalton didn’t say anything for a moment, thinking that last night definitely had been one big surprise after another. Carson Boyett was definitely a looker, and he could see his father falling for her. He stood up. “So what do we do about Dad? I think we should just get in the car and drive over to Delvers right now.”
“Oh, so now you want to go see Dad when you haven’t gone to see him in over a month?”
“Stay off my ass, Caden. I had planned to go see Dad this week, but now I’ll do it sooner. Especially since Stonewall, Quasar and Striker won’t let up until Dad gives the word. I was followed to work this morning.”
“So were we,” Jace said, “so stop whining. We need to let Dad work this out for himself. But regardless, we will reopen the case, and I think he knows it. He’s worried, and he has every right to be. Let’s give him the rest of the day, and if we don’t hear from him by then, we’ll go to Delvers tomorrow.”
Both Dalton and Caden nodded their agreement.
* * *
“Well, I must say, Jules, it sounds like you and Shana had a very interesting night,” Ben Bradford said, leaning back in his chair at the kitchen table.
Jules had just finished telling him everything, including the fact that for the past month Sheppard Granger had assigned bodyguards to protect his sons. The ex-cop in Ben thought the three guys were pretty good if they’d gone undetected until now. And he wasn’t surprised it had been Jules who’d figured out Dalton was being followed. He knew she was good at what she did.
“You should have seen Shana’s face when Quasar admitted to having gone to South Africa with them on their honeymoon,” Jules said, grinning.
Ben didn’t say anything as he took another sip of his iced tea. He knew Jules was trying to bring a little humor to the situation, but she knew as well as he did that if Sheppard Granger thought his sons needed protection from professional bodyguards, then things must be pretty serious. It didn’t help matters that by being married to Jace, Shana could also very well be caught in the line of fire.
“I wonder who doesn’t want Sheppard Granger’s case reopened.”
He met Jules’s gaze. He knew that she was doing more than wondering. Her mind had already dissected every piece of information she had heard last night, and in addition to that, she intended to do her own research. This time she was driven by more than mere inquisitiveness—her sister might be in danger.
“I don’t know,” he said, placing his glass of tea aside. Having one daughter who could possibly be in danger was bad enough. He didn’t need two.
“You researched the case, right, Dad?”
Yes, he had done his research when he’d known Shana was marrying Jace. He’d known Jace’s father was in prison for killing Jace’s mother and wanted to know more about it. “Yes, and it seemed pretty cut-and-dried. Sheppard Granger’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon, and he and his wife had been having marital problems. There was even evidence presented that he was having an affair...although no other woman was named. All they had to go on were hotel receipts.”
Jules rolled her eyes. “Circumstantial evidence. Why wasn’t that part thrown out of court?”
“Not sure. His attorney should have been on top of his game. Doesn’t sound like he was.”
Jules nodded as she took a sip of her lemonade. “The issue of Sheppard Granger’s replacing his attorney with Carson Boyett did come up last night. She admitted Mr. Granger felt that Jess Washington, his previous counsel, didn’t do a good job representing him at the trial. And now it seems that Mr. Granger is wondering whether it was intentional, since Vidal Duncan, the man who tried to kill Jace not long ago, was the one who recommended Washington.”
Ben stood to take his plate to the sink. “Under the circumstances, I would wonder the same thing.”
Jules nodded as she ate the last of the fried fish her father had prepared for their lunch. It had been close to three in the morning when everyone had finally left Dalton’s condo. Instead of driving home, although it was only another ten miles, she’d come here to spend the night, only to find her father had spent the night elsewhere. Since she had a key, she had let herself in and used the guest bedroom as usual.
She glanced over at her dad. He was loading the dishwasher, smiling and whistling. He’d been doing both things a lot lately, so she couldn’t be mad at Mona. She probably should be thanking the woman for her father’s jubilant moods. Ben and Mona had met in the grocery store almost six months ago, although for the life of her, Jules couldn’t imagine her six-foot-three-inch, sixty-two-year-old father hanging around any store long enough to hit on a woman. In her opinion, her father had always been a handsome man, but during all the years after their mom had died, neither she nor Shana had known him to be involved with a woman. Oh, they knew he’d dated once in a while, since she could still recall the packs of condoms she and her sister had found in his drawer one year. But he’d never brought any of those dates home to meet his daughters.
Now, not only had he brought Mona, a college professor at the University of Virginia, home, but he was bringing her to family functions, too, like Shana’s wedding and Sunday dinners. Although Mona was legally blind, there was a fifty-fifty chance she could get her eyesight back, since her optic nerve hadn’t been damaged in the auto accident, just her peripheral nerves.
Jules had slept until almost noon that morning, and it had been the smell of the fish her father was frying in the kitchen downstairs that had awakened her. She loved all types of seafood, with fish and shrimp topping the list as her favorites. Luckily for her, her father enjoyed fishing. And no one fried fish and cooked hush puppies like Ben Bradford.
