Kansas City Countdown. Julie Miller

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       Prologue

      “You’re a bad boy, Detective Watson.”

      Keir Watson laughed at the teasing gibe from Natalie Fensom Parker, the bridesmaid he was escorting down the aisle at his sister’s wedding. He adjusted the cherry-red bow tie that matched the vest he wore with his black tuxedo and doffed a salute to Al Junkert as they walked past. Al was an old family friend and KCPD senior officer who’d once partnered with Keir’s father, Thomas, before a shattered leg had forced Thomas into early retirement from the department. “No, ma’am. I’m a truth teller. You are absolutely the prettiest pregnant lady here today. The guests can’t keep their eyes off you.”

      Natalie’s bouquet of red and white carnations seemed to rest on her swollen belly as she giggled. “Everyone’s eyes will be on your sister and Gabe today. Nobody is watching me waddle down the aisle.”

      “Your husband is.”

      “Maybe Jim is watching you.” She beamed a smile to her husband as they walked by. “He and your sister, Olivia, have been partners for some time now. I’ve got the scoop on all three of you Watson boys. Third generation cops like your father and grandfather before you. He knows your reputation around the precinct offices.”

      “That I’m a sharp-eyed detective who is as tough as he is resourceful? That I’ll make sergeant detective and be running my own task force before I turn thirty-five?”

      “No, that you’re a flirt.” Her fingers squeezed his arm to take the sting out of the accusation. “But Jim assures me you’re harmless.”

      “Natalie, you wound me.”

      “Well, better me than my husband.”

      “The warning is duly noted.” Keir patted Natalie’s hand and grinned. Jim Parker was a lucky man to have this woman love him. His soon-to-be brother-in-law, Gabe Knight, was lucky to have Liv so head over heels for him. And though Keir modestly suspected that there was at least one single woman in the crowded church he could charm into going home with him by the end of the wedding reception, he instead felt a stab of envy that these good people had found their happily-ever-afters. Not that he’d ever admit that little taste of bitterness out loud.

      Marriage vows and 2.5 children just weren’t in the cards for the youngest Watson brother.

      Once he’d wanted what his father and late mother had had until she’d been torn from their lives by her senseless murder by a doped-up thief. He’d seen how devastated his father had been. Keir had felt the grief just as keenly, though as an eleven-year-old he hadn’t quite understood why his mother wasn’t coming home or why Grandpa Seamus and a new housekeeper/cook were coming to live with them.

      Once he’d wanted that goofy smile kind of happiness Natalie and Jim Parker shared. Like them, he’d imagined starting his own family one day. A few years back he’d almost taken the plunge. But patience wasn’t always a virtue. He’d waited too long to put his heart on the line. He’d let the high standard of his mother’s example of what he wanted in a wife and his ambitious career plans with KCPD get in the way of grasping happiness when the opportunity presented itself.

      With the engagement ring he’d hoped to give her buried in his pocket, Keir had waited hours for Sophie Collins to meet him at the restaurant where he’d planned to propose, only to find out the next day that she’d eloped with a friend of his from the police academy—the same man who’d introduced them two years earlier. While he’d been busy studying for his detective’s exam and taking extra training courses to be ready for any assignment opportunity, letting the relationship slide to the back burner, the other two had been spending lots of time together. Sophie considered Keir to be the friend, expected him to be happy for her. So he’d kissed her cheek, said all the right words and walked away.

      He’d been walking away ever since.

      That day, he’d picked his pride up off the floor and closed off his heart to that kind of loss and humiliation ever again. He wasn’t averse to enjoying a woman’s company, and took pride in being a gentleman and showing a lady a good time—whichever she preferred. But let anything get too serious, too close to feeling like he was giving a woman control over his heart, and Keir moved on. He had plenty of friends, and his career at KCPD was taking off. He’d made detective that first year he was eligible and he’d gotten several plum assignments, including his position now with the major case squad.

      What more could a man need to have a successful life?

      Right. Family. As Keir neared the front of the church, he reached out and squeezed his hand over the shoulder of his grandpa, Seamus Watson. The eighty-year-old retired KCPD desk sergeant laid his bony fingers over Keir’s and smiled, and Keir knew he had all the love a man could need with this close, supportive family. He caught the smile of the plump, silver-haired woman sitting behind Seamus and winked. Grinning at the blush that colored her cheeks, Keir blew a kiss to Millie Leighter, the woman who’d raised him and his brothers and sister after their mother’s death. More aunt or grandmother than housekeeper and cook, Millie was family, too.

      Yeah. Keir Watson had enough for his life to be a success. The past was what it was. He was moving on.

      He released Natalie as they’d rehearsed the night before and joined his older brothers—Duff, the detective, and Niall, an autopsy doctor at the KCPD Crime Lab—on the top step of the altar. A grin curved his lips as he saw Niall adjusting the dark frames of his glasses and nailing him with a piercing glare.

      “Natalie is married to Liv’s partner, you know,” Niall whispered.

      “Relax, Charm School Dropout.” Keir clapped his tallest brother on the shoulder of his matching black tuxedo and moved in behind him. “Young or old, married or not—it never hurts to be friendly.”

      Olivia must have given Niall a directive about keeping his brothers in line, because the bespectacled medical examiner now turned his attention to Keir’s oldest brother, Duff. “Seriously? Are you packing today?”

      Duff’s massive shoulders shifted as he turned to whisper a response. “Hey. You wear your glasses every day, Poindexter. I wear my gun.”

      “I wasn’t aware that you knew what the term Poindexter meant.”

      “I’m smarter than I look,” was Duff’s terse response.

      Keir couldn’t let that straight line go without saying something. “He’d have to be.”

      Duff turned his square jaw toward Keir. “So help me, baby brother, if you give me any grief today, I will lay you out flat.”

      He probably could. If Niall was the brains of the family, Duff was definitely the brawn. But Keir had vowed from a tender age to never go down without a fight—or at least without a smart-aleck protest or two.

      But before he could utter the barb on the tip of his tongue, Niall was shushing them. “Zip it. Both of you. You, mind your manners.” Keir put up a hand, acquiescing to the terse command, while Niall got on Duff’s case, too. “And you stop fidgeting like a little kid.”