Across the park, Jake’s familiar green pick-up truck pulled into the lot. Jake wasn’t that much like their father, actually. He’d be an amazing, hands-on dad to the baby his wife Dani was currently carrying. As sappy as it was, even Dean could say that Jake had managed to figure out how to have a healthy, fulfilling relationship—something Dean had never even tried, Matt skillfully avoided, and Sean…well, who wanted to fall in love with an asshole?
Jake was also the only one out of the four of them that had what could be called a good relationship with the old man.
Matt would probably say he did. Dean would beg to differ—avoiding all conflict was not the same thing as not being in conflict.
And Sean made Dean’s strained relationship with the Colonel look downright cozy.
The similarities between Dean and his youngest brother pained him. It was one thing to be a fearful, mistrusting jerk at twenty-six. It was another at thirty-seven. There was a reason Dean avoided psychoanalyzing himself—he never liked where it took him.
— —
The party was wellunder way by the time Dean made it to the coolers to grab his first beer. Almost everyone was there. Rafe and Olivia Minelli with their daughter Sophie, Ryan’s entire family—which reminded Dean he still hadn’t explained to the other man about stopping there the day before. Jake and Dani, and Dani’s older brother Zander, Dean’s new business partner. They needed to sit down at some point today, too, since it was Dean’s official first day on the new job.
But right now, Zander was otherwise occupied, one arm wrapped around his fiancé and the other clasped firmly on the shoulder of his future step-son.
Another man who’d found the kind of love that terrified Dean to his very core.
He looked at these women that his brother and friends had fallen for, and he saw the worst case scenario—illness, loss, grief so intense it would immobilize them. It didn’t matter that it was completely irrational.
He looked at a man in love and saw his father, broken-hearted and useless. Then later, cold and removed.
Dean knew that he’d go down that same road, if he let himself. And that wasn’t worth the risk.
But he admired Zander—and Jake, and Rafe, and Ryan—for putting their families first. He could identify with that, if in a different way. For the last twenty-five years, since his mother passed when he was twelve, he’d been putting his siblings first.
And he always would.
But there was a limit to how much responsibility one man could bear and still keep a sense of self. Dean knew his limits.
He strolled over to the back of his pick-up truck and hopped onto the tailgate.
Zander materialized in front of him.
“Speak of the devil,” Dean said, grinning at his partner. “I was just thinking about finding you.”
“We’ve got a potential client.” That was fantastic news. But Zander’s voice was full of wary caution, and he was glancing around the party like he was looking for something—or someone.
“What’s the catch?” His pulse thudded with anticipation. What did it say about him that he was relieved to have the distraction of work on what should have been a day off?
Zander grimaced. “It’s complicated.”
“How so?”
“The client is expected to be reluctant.”
“How reluctant?”
“She wasn’t the one who hired us.”
“Ah.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me who it is?”
“I figure you’re drawing this out for a reason.”
Zander snorted. “Yeah.” He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “Liana Hansen.”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up, probably all the way to his hairline. Shit.
