"You're crazy," Spencer said, laughing as he pulled Brooke into his lap. "You know that right?"

She snuggled close, breathing in the scent of sawdust and turpentine. "Just because I think we should drive away after the wedding on your bike instead of a limo? That doesn't make me crazy. Just crazy for you."

She lifted her head long enough to kiss his lower lip, right above his beard, then relaxed as his arms tightened around her.

"Well, then we're equal. Because I'm nuts about you, too." Humor and love laced his voice, and she smiled to herself, happy to hear that tone of joy. These last few days had been so damn hard for him. Hell, for all of them.

Honestly, the news was so tragic—so heartbreaking—that she'd even suggested postponing the wedding. But he wouldn't hear of it. "Postponing the wedding wouldn't change anything. And besides, I can't give you the chance to find someone better, can I?"

His tone was joking, but the words made her wince. Because even though she loved him with a ferocity that sometimes scared her, she knew that he secretly feared that she'd come to her senses, realize her parents were right, and find a man with an MD and a trust fund to marry.

As if.

Brooke might only be twenty-three, but she knew who she wanted. And that was Spencer. And she didn't give a flying fuck what her parents thought of him or his family.

Spencer had never hidden his background from her. He'd told her over and over that he knew her family would disapprove, and he wanted her to go into the relationship with eyes open. And because he'd wanted her from the first moment he saw her, he'd told her his story on the night they'd met.

It had been getting on toward midnight almost two years ago when he'd pulled up on his bike and helped her change a tire. Well, help wasn't entirely accurate, as she'd been doing nothing other than searching her purse for her AAA car so that she could call for assistance. But assistance had materialized in the form of a dark man with an unkempt beard, a leather jacket, and the kind of tight jeans that had made her breath catch in her throat.

He'd changed the tire in record time, then asked if he could buy her a beer. She'd never known for sure what made her say yes, but she thought it was something in his eyes. The flecks of gold in the brown that looked like starlight and seemed to promise her the universe. As if he held the power to lay the world at her feet.

Her yes had been barely audible, but it had been enough. And she'd followed him in her car to a divey joint tucked away in a section of East Austin into which she'd never ventured.

They'd played pool, drank beer, and swapped life stories. And he'd made no bones about the fact that he'd grown up piss-poor in one of the roughest neighborhoods in East Austin. Or that his brother was on death row. "I want you to know," he'd said. And she'd desperately wanted to hear.

"My dad—Billy—was as white trash as they come, and in his teens and twenties, his gang was his family." But then Billy met Carina, the woman who would become Spencer's mom, and he'd sworn to clean up his act. He managed to extricate himself from gang life and made a decent living doing construction work. They got married, had Richie, and then seven years later, Spencer came along.

But Carina died when Spencer was four. Complications from a third pregnancy, and neither mother nor child made it.

"I only remember bits and pieces, but my dad pretty much spun out. And that's when Richie stepped in to be the man of the house. All of eleven, and he was supporting all of us."

"That's not possible."

"Yeah," Spence had said. "It is. He just had to find another kind of family."

"A gang."

"The Crimson Eights. Fingers in drugs, guns, probably human trafficking, though I don't know for sure. Heard of them?"

She'd shook her head. "I don't think so."

"You said you live in Westlake, right?"

She felt embarrassed to admit that she came from such a well-off Austin neighborhood, but she gave a little nod. "So?"

"I'm not surprised you haven't heard. Not much in the way of grit is reported in that area."

"You talk like you know it."

"I went to Trinity," he'd said, then laughed as her eyes went wide at the reference to the exclusive private school. "Don't worry. No gang dollars financed my education. I was there from middle school through my sophomore year. Their scholarship program. It's all about community outreach. My brother really pushed my dad to get me in, and so Dad pretty much hounded the committee until they relented."

"That's great."

He nodded. "Yeah. My dad got his shit back together once he realized what Richie was doing to keep food on our table. And he made it his mission to make sure I didn't get sucked into the gang life. Not hard, because Richie didn't want me in it either."

"But Richie stayed in?"

"He stayed in," Spencer had acknowledged. "Despite my dad's pushing and prodding and fighting." He exhaled. "And that choice cost Richie everything."

The death penalty.

It had cost Spencer, too. He'd dropped out school after Richie's arrest. "I went off the rails," he'd told her. "I was angry at the world. At life. At fucking everything. Was lucky I didn't get tossed into foster care or into a juvie center. Or, hell, tried as an adult. You'd think I'd know better after Richie, but it was like I was trying to be like him. Basically, I was a fucking mess."

"But you got it together," she'd said, and he'd nodded. "I put all my energy into working with my hands. Carpentry. Bricklaying. Roofing. Framing. Electrical work. If I didn't already know it, I learned it.”

Now, safe in Spencer's arms on the couch, she thought about the man she'd met only once behind a piece of Plexiglass. A man who'd been living in a cell for ten years by then. They'd spoken to each other across an old-fashioned handset, and Spencer had introduced her as his bride-to-be.

Richie's face had bloomed with the news. "You're doing good, little brother. Don't fuck it up."

Spencer had laughed and kissed her. "Never happen."

There'd been hope in the air that day. Richie's lawyers were arguing one more appeal in the morning. With luck, Richie would walk. At the very least, the family was hopeful that he'd be transferred off Death Row.

Brooke shuddered, the pain of the memory washing over her. That hadn't happened.

"You okay?"

"Only a chill," she lied, pulling the soft throw over them both. "I'm perfect."

He chuckled. "Yeah," he said. "You are."

She turned in his arms, then pressed her palm against his cheek. "Are you okay?"

For a moment, she thought he'd lie and tell her that he was fine. That he could handle it. But then he blinked, and she saw the tears in his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was rough and raw, full of anger and pain and futility.

"I can't believe they're really going to do it. Three more months and then my brother will be gone."

Tears spilled down her own cheeks. "I know. I wish—God, I would give anything to change it. To make it better for him. For you."

They'd learned only yesterday—two days before the wedding—that the last of Richie's appeals had been denied, and his execution date had been set. And Brooke had never felt more helpless than she had when she saw Spencer take the phone call, then collapse into a chair, as if every ounce of strength had left his body.

"You do, Angel," he said as he stroked her hair, her cheek. "Don't you know that you make everything better?"

"Spencer." Emotion overwhelmed her, so intense that she almost couldn't breathe. She'd never in her life felt the way she did in his arms. Cherished. Loved. Beautiful. With Spencer, she believed that everything was possible. That she could follow the life she craved and not the one her parents had planned for her. That she could actually make it work. And it tore at her heart that they both had to face Richie's execution—such harsh evidence that even in the arms of perfection, the world could go horribly, ridiculously wrong.

“Come here,” he demanded, though he didn’t give her time to respond. Instead, he buried his fingers in her hair at the nape and pulled her down to him. He took her mouth in a long, slow kiss. A kiss that tasted like sunshine and promised the world. A strong, magical kiss that had the power to push them through the pain of Richie’s pending execution to the future of a life together.

A kiss that built in passion as they moved against each other, both craving the release. The connection.

She shifted so that she was straddling him. She wore a pair of his old sweatpants, cut off to make shorts, with nothing else underneath. Now, the soft material bunched up her legs so that her bare ass and legs rubbed against his jeans in a deliciously enticing way.

With Spencer, need always hovered close to the surface, and it rose now, the sweetness of that initial kiss giving way to a wild abandon, more intense and desperate today because of all they wanted to forget—Richie’s execution, her family’s disapproval, the frustration of a world they couldn’t control.

But this—the wildness between them—was something they could claim and control and celebrate.

“I need you.” Spencer’s growl cut through her, his tone affecting her as intimately as a caress.

“You have me.” Her voice came out raspy with need. “Please, Spencer. I—“

“Yes. God, yes.” He captured her in a kiss again, and this time, his free hand slid under her tank top, his fingers teasing her bare breast and sending ripples of electricity rolling through her body.

Shamelessly, she ground against his pelvis, still tightly clad in denim. He was hard, his erection straining, and, dammit, she didn’t want to wait. With her mouth, she nipped at his lower lip, and as she did, she used her fingers to fumble open the button on his jeans and carefully lower his zipper.

“Christ,” he whispered when she reached in to free him from his boxers. “If you want to go slow, I think I just might die.”

“Fast,” she agreed as his fingers slid up her thigh, then under the fleece of her shorts. She was desperately wet, and he teased her with his fingertip, playing with her clit and making her breath come in gasps.

“Please,” she begged. “I want you inside me.”

He complied, thrusting a finger into her, which she rode shamelessly, all the while telling him that his finger wasn’t what she had in mind.

“Then show me,” he teased, and she reached to untie the drawstring of her shorts. His hand stilled hers. “No,” he said, then tugged the crotch aside. “Like this.”

The words were like an order, and she obeyed willingly, rubbing against his cock until the head was at her core, then slowly—so deliciously, painfully slowly—easing him inside. She wanted to ride him slow, to make it last for both of them, but that was out of the question.

Her body was demanding hard and fast—and so was Spencer. He had his hands on her hips, and with each of her thrusts, he drew her down hard, her tender flesh rubbing against the denim he still wore as his length filled her, the sensations inside and against her clit sending her spiraling higher and higher.

“I can’t wait,” he said, and she cried out that she couldn’t either.

She came wildly, violently, her body breaking apart in the most wondrous way, and then slowly and sweetly coming back together in his arms before drifting away on a sea of contentment.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew was that she was alone.

"Spencer?" Her voice came out low, groggy, and she pushed herself up on her elbows as she searched the dark room for him.

A sliver of light crept out from around the bathroom door, which had been left cracked slightly. Immediately, a wave of relief washed over her, and only then did she realize how on edge she'd been upon waking without him.

"Silly," she whispered, intending to roll over and go to sleep, but then she heard him. The sobs coming from the bathroom. The anguish of losing a man who'd been like a father to him for so much of his childhood. And the anguish of losing his father, too. Not to death, but to dementia, the victim of a stroke that had knocked the old man down the day Richie's first appeal had been denied.

For a moment, she considered going to him. But she stayed in bed, the sheet pulled tight around her and her eyes shut tight as she prayed for a way to save Richie. And by saving him, also saving the man she loved.

* * *

Brooke had made peace with the fact that her parents weren't coming to the wedding. Her mother had avoided the real issue, saying that she was on call all week at the hospital and couldn't get away. A ridiculous excuse since the wedding was being held at a friend's house in Central Austin, a short drive from the hospital where Brooke's mother was on staff.

Her father hadn't bothered trying to wrap his absence in a bullshit excuse. He'd simply said that she was a spoiled little fool who didn't appreciate everything he did for her. And that if she was going to marry a man who came from that kind of family, then she was on her own.

She'd been okay with that, though it hurt to know that her parents were so quick to cut themselves off from the little girl they'd always claimed to love so fiercely.

Still, she had no illusions about her father. Randall Hamlin saw the world in black and white, not shades of gray. And that was a perspective that had fueled every trial he'd ever won—and so far, that was each and every one of them.

So she'd been unprepared when he arrived at her apartment the night before the wedding.

"You're still determined to go through with this charade, I assume?"

"Daddy, I love you. But I'm done. If you came to try to talk me out of the wedding, then just go away. I have some girlfriends coming over in couple of hours, and we're going to celebrate by drinking wine and watching chick flicks. I really don't need you in my head. Okay?"

She started to close the door, but he stepped over the threshold, a hand thrust out to keep the door open. "That's not why I came. Please, baby girl. Hear me out."

She almost insisted he leave, but it had been so long since he'd used that endearment that her defenses went down. Besides, no matter what else he might be, he was her father. And some desperate, needy part of her wanted to fix things between them.

"Ten minutes," she said, opening the door fully to allow him to enter.

He stepped inside, and before she even had time to offer him a drink, he spoke. "I've been in touch with the governor. I say the word, and he's prepared to grant clemency to Richard Dean."

All of the breath left her body, and she was glad she hadn't reached for her glass of wine. "What do you mean? You can get him released?"

"No. Not that. But I can get his sentence reduced. The death penalty removed. His sentence commuted to life in prison. And with the possibility of parole."

"I see." She licked her lips, her heart pounding so hard she was having a difficult time thinking. "This is—Daddy, this is incredible." She reached for her phone. "I need to call Spencer. He'll be—"

"No."

The word came out with the force of a demand, and she froze, cold terror creeping up her spine.

"You know that I'm close with the governor. And I'll tell you right now that I've already spoken to him about this. I say the word, and he'll take action."

"And you'll say the word when?"

"When you break off this wedding. When you walk away from that man."

She closed her eyes, knowing in that moment how it felt to hate someone you'd once loved. "That's horrible."

"Is it?"

"You're playing with a man's life, and you're making me a pawn in some goddamn medieval game."

"He already chose his path. He drove that car. He was involved in a murder."

"He wasn't," she protested. "He thought he was driving his friend to a convenience store. He had no idea the other guy was going to rob the place, much less kill the clerk."

"He was a participant. And he had a gun."

"Because he always had a gun. It was holstered under his jacket, but he was outside in the parking lot, and—"

"Felony murder," her father said coldly. "He drove the car."

"Wrong time, wrong place," she retorted.

"Perhaps. And perhaps that's why I'm making this offer."

"Contingent on me walking away from the man I love?" This was a nightmare. An epic, horrible nightmare. "You're going to let a man die—"

"The law is clear." Her father's voice was cold. "And so is my conscience."

"Daddy." She heard the plea in her voice and hated it. But she'd get down on her knees and beg if that would convince him.

But there was no convincing him.

"You walk away. You don't tell him why—I won't risk the governor's reputation being tarnished. Or mine, for that matter. You walk, Brooke. And you don't look back."

He left without another word, leaving her alone to make her choice.

She canceled the girls' night, then spent the longest night of her life trying to decide what to do. A marriage balanced against the weight of the life of a man.

She was still awake when the sun rose, and she numbly dressed to go to her friend's house for the wedding. It wasn't meant to be fancy, and she held her simple white dress over her arm, still not sure what she was going to do.

It wasn't until she saw Brian, Spencer's best friend from Trinity, that everything became clear.

"Hey, gorgeous," he called as she walked down the gravel drive to the guest house where the wedding would be held. She turned, recognizing his voice, but not finding the speaker. Then she saw Brian sitting in the gazebo drinking a beer. She cut over to him and offered him a smile that she hoped looked genuine. Despite it being her wedding day, she wasn't in much of a mood to smile.

He lifted his beer in greeting and offered her a dazzling white grin. With his Robert Redford eyes, blond frat boy looks, and trust fund attitude, Brian hardly seemed like the kind of guy to claim Spencer as a friend. But the two had met on Spence's first day at Trinity and had struck up a solid friendship.

Although they'd taken different paths—Spence dropping out, Brian on the fast track to an MBA—they still saw each other regularly for beer and football and shooting the shit. Often enough, in fact, that Brooke had come to know Brian well, and for the most part, she liked him.

Of course, there'd been a few awkward moments. Brian made no secret that he was attracted to her. And although she was totally devoted to Spencer, she had to admit that he was easy on the eyes. In a world without Spence, she might have willingly caught one of his passes. But in the world as it was, he was just another pretty piece of scenery on the fringes of her life.

"Is he getting ready?" she asked Brian, who nodded.

"Rough night. He kept talking about how if things were different, Richie would be his best man. Not that he begrudges me the job, but—"

"Yeah. I know."

"You okay?" Brian peered at her.

"Of course. Just not enough sleep. Typical for a bride, right?"

"Mmm." He studied her a moment longer, his frown deepening. "You're not upset about the honeymoon, are you? Or the lack of a honeymoon."

"Are you kidding?" For over a year, Spencer had been pulling strings to land a network real estate flipping program. He'd finally—finally—got a contract with The Design and Destination Channel for a show called Spencer's Place. The producers had even committed to an unprecedented five-season run. But the kicker was that the producers wanted to start filming right away, and for that to happen, Spencer and Brooke had to cancel their honeymoon.

"We can take a trip anytime," Brooke said honestly. "This opportunity is way too important."

"I thought that's how you felt. But I wanted to make sure. You look a little off."

She forced a grin. "Exactly what a bride wants to hear."

"Wanna tell me?"

She sighed. Since Brian had a thing for her, she generally tried to keep her distance simply because she didn't want him to feel awkward when his interest wasn't returned.

So normally, she would have brushed off his comment, not wanting to get too down in the weeds with him. But today, with her heart hurting and her head confused, she accepted the offer to unburden herself, at least a little. "It's Richie," she said. "I feel so bad about Richie."

"Yeah, it's pretty much killing Spencer. And it's only gonna get worse."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a total fluke, but there's nothing he can do about it. Except Spencer says he can't handle it, and the network says that they can't reschedule. So they're at an impasse. I think Spencer's afraid they're going to throw up their hands and pull the plug."

Alarm bells clanged in her head. "Brian. What are you talking about?"

"The first day of filming. It's the day of Richie's execution."

She shuddered, then closed her eyes, opening them only when she felt Brian take her hand. "He's refusing to show up for filming, isn't he?" She knew the answer. He'd never abandon Richie, and certainly not at the end.

Brian squeezed her hand, and she clung to him, craving comfort.

"Those bastards," she said. "They can't bump it one fucking day?"

"You need to tell him, Brooke," Brian said. "Tell him that Richie wouldn't want him to lose this chance."

She couldn't tell him that. He'd never listen, and she didn't believe it, anyway.

But there was still something she could do. A way to make it better. To save Richie, and to save the show.

And all it would cost was her happiness. And Spencer's.