“I poured at your wedding.”
“That doesn’t count. Pouring at the wedding is the best man’s job.” Ace refilled each of their glasses and then set the bottle on the sanded planks of the porch. His expression sobered right along with his tone. With a jerk of his chin he indicated the wedding group. “Are you all right with this?”
Ace worried too much. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Maybe because just a while back you were telling me how you’d give your eyeteeth to have a steady woman with whom to settle down, build a family...”
Damn Ace for his memory. “I think I was drinking at the time.”
“Not that much.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Rumor was you were sweet on Hester.”
Luke could feel the weight of Ace’s concern. “She had potential.”
Ace’s gaze turned assessing. “It’s not like you to underestimate a situation.”
Luke switched his attention to the happy couple who were holding hands and sharing a smile warmer than the hot August sun. No doubt about it, they looked right together. Another pang of what-if hit. He shook it off. No bigger waste of a man’s time than pondering what-ifs. “Truth is, I just wasn’t any competition for your father-in-law.”
“Uh-huh.” Despite the skepticism in those two syllables, Ace changed the subject. “Our Hester’s come a long way, hasn’t she?”
“That she has.”
Looking at Hester now, dressed in the beautiful pale pink gown that clashed somehow perfectly with her red, curly hair, it was hard to believe that she’d been abandoned by her husband and forced into prostitution to feed her children. It’d been a scandal around Simple when her new fiancé, Jarl, had filed a petition for divorce on Hester’s behalf to formally sever her ties to her former husband, who’d already remarried. It’d been a bold move that had cost the mayor his position and his new family. Jarl Wayfield didn’t fool around when it came to what was his. Luke had to respect him for that. “Dougall should have done right by Hester rather than trying to grind her into the dirt.”
Ace lifted his drink toward the newlyweds in a silent toast. “Got to respect a man who knows how to dole out payback.”
“Yeah, well, wherever his sorry ass is, I’m sure Dougall wishes Jarl was a bit less proficient. That arrogance of Dougall’s cost him everything.”
Dougall had slipped out of town in the dead of night right after the scandal became public. Disgrace had lingered in his wake like a vindictive cloud. There’d be no getting that reputation back. Especially with Jarl funding explicit wanted posters all over the country. Jarl had no intention of giving the man peace.
Luke took another sip. This time without the grimace. Whiskey had always had a way of making things more palatable. “You know we’re indebted to Jarl now. Hell’s Eight owed Hester for protecting Petunia when that drunk Brian tried to kill her.”
“Petunia only acted after she noticed he was beating his kid every time he tied one on. Which was nightly,” Ace reminded him.
“You don’t have to defend her actions to me,” Luke soothed. “I went with you to fetch him, remember?” Recalling how the boy had looked when they’d rode up to that dilapidated shack Brian called a home, thin and bruised in clothes as tattered as his trust, Luke just gritted his teeth. Some men didn’t deserve their sons. “Doesn’t change the fact that in his eyes, she stole his son.”
Ace’s expression hardened. “He needed stealing.”
Ace had a soft spot for kids and underdogs. “Yeah he did, but I still can’t decide if your wife is one of the bravest women I know or the most foolish. A lot of men would be afraid to go up against Brian and his temper yet Petunia never hesitated.”
Ace’s expression softened around the edges the way it always did when he thought about his wife. “She’s got a reckless side, for sure.”
“To match yours.” Luke smiled, waiting for the inevitable response. It wasn’t long in coming.
Ace glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “I prefer calculated risks to impulsive actions.”
“Uh-huh.” Luke suppressed a smile. “The fact remains, the kid’s much happier living at the orphanage Petunia started.”
“Don’t let Petunia hear you call her school an orphanage. She’d likely spill that drink into the dirt.”
Luke sighed. “The woman has no respect for good liquor.”
“Not a lick.” Ace swirled his drink with a certain satisfaction. “You realize that since Jarl paid our debt to Hester by taking care of Dougall, we now owe that hardheaded son of a bitch.”
“Yup.” And he wasn’t upset with the reality. Texas wasn’t a place for the weak. It was a hard land that demanded strong alliances to survive. Jarl might be an Easterner, but he’d proven himself.
Luke took another drink and let the liquor bite into his melancholy as happiness floated all around him, captured in the melodic trill of songbirds and the laughter of the guests. There, but somehow just out of reach. Damn, weddings were depressing.
A feminine voice rose above the cheer. Sweet and high, resonating with deeper notes that stroked along Luke’s nerves like a silk glove. A tightening in his groin heralded recognition. The little photographer, Josie Kinder. Like a homing pigeon, his gaze narrowed in on her. Jarl had brought the woman out from back East, his wedding gift to Hester—a photographic record of their union. All the guests were excited to have their image plastered flat on a piece of metal. And Josie was just as excited to do it.
Luke was unfathomably excited about the photographer. Unfathomably because, at first glance, she had no confidence, no fashion sense and no social skills. But that first impression didn’t hold up once she brought out her camera. Once she picked up the camera, she changed in an indefinable way that was at once both mysterious and challenging. He was a sucker for a challenge.
He watched her direct people around, the feathers in her beribboned hat bobbing as she bustled about, putting people here and there and positioning them this way and that. She looked for all the world like a child bossing about her elders until she turned sideways and those curves of hers swelled into view. Damn, that woman was blessed with a fine figure.
Ace followed his gaze. He pushed back his hat and his eyebrows rose. “So that’s how it is.”
Luke ignored the twitch of Ace’s lips. The problem with good friends was sometimes they knew you too well.
“Keep your nose out of my business, Ace,” he muttered.
“Like you kept yours out of mine?”
“No.”
Josie bustled about, waving folk back into place as they shifted with impatience. Luke couldn’t help but watch. Whatever it took to make a photograph, it wasn’t quick. She tripped over her skirt. Half the people she’d just positioned—the male half—lunged to catch her. She
