CHAPTER ONE

      “I DON’T LIKE the looks of this,” Derrick Matthews said to his three brothers as they huddled around the beach bonfire, waiting for their mother’s news. He hunched deeper into the fleece jacket worn over a T-shirt and jeans as a brisk wind whipped over the water. As the sun sank into the horizon, a damp chill settled in. The stacked logs snapped and crackled, pieces of ash rising in the air before being swept away.

      “She’s been cagey, even more than usual,” Dante replied as he eyed the crowd. “Which is saying a lot.”

      “You don’t think…” Dylan trailed off at the nods sent in his direction.

      “Oh, yeah,” Derrick confirmed. “They’re going to make it official.”

      He and his brothers stared into the burning flames. Their mother was going to marry a man with a sketchy past and if they valued their relationship with her, there wasn’t a thing they could do about it.

      “It’s not like we didn’t expect this,” Deke reasoned.

      Derrick leaned back in the beach chair, his gaze traveling to his mother, Jasmine, who was currently surrounded by a circle of friends. “Still, this is Mom we’re talking about.”

      He couldn’t deny she looked happy. Happier than he’d ever seen her in the years since their father had died. Shouldn’t that count for something?

      As the conversation faded, Deke and Dante, his two youngest brothers, rose and wandered over to their girlfriends. Derrick watched, the envy he’d tried to ignore all weekend making a repeat appearance. He was happy for his brothers, too, wasn’t he?

      “You okay with Mom doing this?” he asked Dylan, the second brother in the Matthews line. All the brothers were dark-haired, with varied shades of blue eyes, concerned about the woman who had raised them.

      “Not particularly, but it’s what she wants.”

      “And you’re tired of arguing with her?” Derrick asked, amused by his brother’s failed attempt to rein in their mother.

      “She’s stubborn,” Dylan muttered.

      “I tried to talk to her, but she ended up lecturing me, so I gave up.”

      “She lectured you?”

      “What can I say? I was deep into a case and she caught me off guard.”

      “Like she manages to do with all of us,” Dylan said.

      “You know you could investigate. We threatened Stanhope we’d do it.”

      Dylan looked at Derrick like he’d lost his mind. “Not if I prize my future.”

      Derrick chuckled. “Exactly.”

      “So I’ll let it go. For tonight.”

      The Cypress Pointe crowd had gathered for the special occasion, which was all the insight their mother would allow. Neighbors, townsfolk, kids and teens swarmed the beach located not far from the city park. The sand ran up to the grassy area, which then led to sidewalks, picnic benches and a large gazebo used for town, or private, events. Everyone brought a dish to share. There were drinks galore, plenty of riveting conversation and the occasional firecracker set off farther up the beach. It reminded Derrick of his youth, even if he hadn’t grown up in this particular Florida location, but the antics were still the same.

      “So when’s your big day?” Derrick asked, referring to Dylan’s upcoming wedding.

      “This summer.”

      “You’re going to brave the Florida heat?”

      “It’s what Kady wants.”

      Right. Dylan’s fiancée. The first of the brothers to make it to the altar.

      Dylan and Kady had met during a DEA investigation in this sleepy little tourist town. Since then, Jasmine Matthews had moved to Cypress Pointe to be near one of her sons because the rest were scattered. What they hadn’t expected was for her to fall for a man and remarry.

      Derrick and his brothers were law enforcement, following in their police commissioner father’s footsteps, or had been, anyway. Dylan had met Kady during an undercover stint in town, but was still on the job. Former criminal forensics, Deke had gone off to the Georgia mountains to get a line on the man in their mother’s life and had fallen in love with Grace. He now worked as an outdoor guide for her family’s adventure vacation business. And Dante, the youngest, had left his position as a detective with