As most everyone in his house tonight could attest, Connor wasn’t used to failing. He was one of the most sought-after corporate attorneys in the Western U.S. with a courtroom reputation even his friends referred to as notorious—due in part to the impressive number of times and ways he’s been held in contempt for his clients.

So sue him, he enjoyed the rough and tumble victories. He fought hard for his wins, and he did it well.

But when it came to helping his little brother cope with being a widower at the age of thirty, Connor had no clue who to fight, or how to win.

Aside from paying off a decade’s worth of hospital and care facility bills from his sister-in-law’s battle with early-onset Huntington’s, and creating a scholarship in Beth’s name for youth plagued with the debilitating disease, Connor had felt useless to Brian after her death. All he’d been able to do was give him space, the only thing Brian insisted he needed.

For nearly a year.

Logically understanding that Brian had to tackle this on his own didn’t make it any less of a bitch for Connor; it just made him craftier about how he snuck in the big brother thing.

Luckily, it was summer in Arizona, he had a pool, and Brian had a pre-teen daughter. Simple as that. After a month of regular family cookouts, it was no longer uncommon for Brian to show up at the house unannounced, grab an unoffered beer, and plant himself on the couch to catch a game uninvited.

It was nice having his brother back.

For the better part of a decade, Brian’s singular mission had been to give his wife a lifetime’s worth of happiness every day, while hiding his own anguish over her heartwrenching physical and psychological decline. Connor knew it used to kill Brian to watch Beth gradually give up raising her own child the worse her motor functions became. Even before she’d become bedridden.

That’s when Connor had begun jumping in to watch his niece Skylar as much he could, mainly since the eldest Sullivan matriarch had about as much experience being a warm grandma as she’d had being ‘mom’ instead of ‘mother’ when he and Brian were kids.

In fact, she’d specifically asked to be third in the caretaker line-up—meaning in dire asteroids-falling-from-the-sky cases only—following Brian’s friend from college, a nice girl Connor vaguely recalled meeting years ago.

Between the two of them, they were never in the same place at the same time, but somehow managed to take the place of one full-time secondary caretaker whose sole mission was to shield Skylar from what was happening to her mom.

There had been no shielding Brian, however.

Truth be told, while Connor had always admired Brian’s extraordinary, wholly nonhereditary capacity for love, he’d been a little glad to see the tragic love story finally come to an end.

Awful as that sounds.

He’d adored his sister-in-law, really. But the time was long past for Brian to move on with his life.

Tonight, it looked like he was finally starting to.

“I’m going over to say hi to my brother. Do you want to come along or are you good here?” Connor asked his date for the night, the always stunning Victoria, a divorce lawyer from a rival firm who just happened to be between men this week.

“Brian’s here tonight? How wonderful,” replied Victoria with her token radiant smile, the most effective tool in her arsenal to detract attention from her constantly wandering eyes. “Give him my best will you? I’m going to mingle. The Adonis in the gray pinstripe is looking mighty lonely there in the corner.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Alright, have fun. Just be sure to stay away from the men at my firm…the women too, for that matter. Last year alone, you sent our sweet, bright-eyed bankruptcy fifth-year into a funk and later had two of the probate guys ready to kill each other.”

He frowned in remembrance of that catastrophe. “Actually, you know what? Check where they work before you even start speaking to them at all.”

“No promises,” she sang out as she sashayed off.

He sighed. Despite the very real threat her refusal to behave was sure to present, Connor still found himself smiling after her. Victoria was the only constant female in his life for four years running now. How that managed to happen was one of life’s great mysteries. He supposed she fell in the friends with benefits category, though calling her a friend was a bit of a stretch…and he’d politely stopped all transactional ‘benefits’ after the first month.

Okay, so she was more of a trophy-date-on-demand with a well-advertised rolling re-enrollment policy on lapsed benefits.

That aside, they actually had a very nice thing going. She’d accompany him to black tie functions to save him from vapid socialites on the prowl, and he’d reciprocate if ever she needed.

Fortunately, her revolving dating door spun faster than his did so he rarely had to carry out his end. Not that she wasn’t a nice enough woman. But her glib old money view on the world was a bit much to take at times.

Hearing the unmistakable peal of Victoria’s flirt-giggle carry across the room, Connor found himself mildly curious about who she was trying to close, so soon in the game. Peering over, he snorted out a laugh when he saw it was none other than Clay Gibbs, the man who put the ass in pompous.

The only reason Connor let his assistant invite the privileged nitwit tonight was because Clay was a third generation firm client on a very short leash. With him here, the bail money they kept in the safe for him actually had a fighting chance to remain there.

“Oh, what a surprise, Victoria didn’t stay to say hi.”

The long lost sound of Brian busting his chops had Connor beaming ear to ear—it’d been a while since he’d heard him do it. “Yeah, well, you know Victoria.”

“Nope, I sure as hell don’t. And I prefer to keep it that way.”

Connor chuckled. “I’ll be sure to tell her there’s a man in Arizona inexplicably immune to her charms. Glad you could make it out tonight, man. And with a lovely date, no less.”

Looking over at the pretty brunette standing beside Brian, Connor had to work hard to keep his reaction in check. Seeing her vintage pin-up girl figure from across the room earlier, he hadn’t expected the face accompanying the voluptuous body to be so…sweet.

Wholesome even.

“I’m Connor,” he said smiling, thrown a bit by the quick glimmer of humor he saw flash in her eyes.

“Hi, Connor. It’s nice to see you again.”

Again? Crap, did he know her?

He carefully scanned her fresh-faced features once more. Wide, guileless eyes—a charming novelty he was positive he hadn’t encountered in years—untinted lips, a light tan that actually appeared to be from the sun, and deep, dark reddish brown locks done up in a ponytail more comfortable than fashionable.

There was no way in hell he knew her.

She was the very definition of a buxom beach babe brunette, if such a category existed, with an appealing blend of innocence and intelligence behind a pair of unaccountably sexy, cliché-free glasses. Definitely not his usual type.

Pity.

“I’m so sorry, have we met before?”

Brian glared at him, looking more than a little disappointed. “Dude, it’s Abby. Abby Bartlett?”

This was Brian’s friend from college? Wow, she sure grew up. In a nice girl with a hot halo sort of way.

“Abby, of course. My apologies. We met in the hospital right after Skylar’s birth.”

Those deep brown eyes of hers were outright laughing at him now. “And maybe a couple more times since then.”

Well that just ratcheted his chagrin up to full-blown guilt.

Her quick hey-don’t-sweat-it smile didn’t help one bit…the playful brow tilt that followed soon after, however, did. “Relax, Connor. How about this—the next time you introduce yourself to me again, I’ll be sure to pretend I know what the inside of your house looks like for ‘other’ reasons. Be all indignant. Make you squirm a bit. That ought to square us.”