Her eyebrows drew together as she grouped stemmed cherries. Interruptions while she worked were common—but that didn’t mean she had to like them. Added to it, she hadn’t expected Parker’s brother to drop by during an event.

Then again, she reminded herself, he came and went as he pleased.

But when she spotted his hand reaching for one of her containers, she slapped it smartly away.

“Hands off.”

“Like you’re going to miss a couple blackberries.”

“I don’t know where your hands have been.” She set a trio of mint leaves, and didn’t bother—yet—to spare him a glance. “What do you want? We’re working.”

“Me, too. More or less. Lawyer capacity. I had some paperwork to drop off.”

He handled all their legal dealings, both individually and as a business. She knew, very well, he put in long hours on their behalf, and often on his own time. But if she didn’t jab at him, she’d break long-standing tradition.

“And timed it so you could mooch from catering.”

“There ought to be some perks. Brunch deal?”

She gave in and turned. His choice of jeans and a T-shirt didn’t make him less of an Ivy League lawyer—not to her mind. Delaney Brown of the Connecticut Browns, she thought. Tall, appealingly rangy, his dense brown hair just a smidgen longer than lawyerly fashion might dictate.

Did he do that on purpose? She imagined so, as he was a man who always had a plan. He shared those deep, midnight blue eyes with Parker, but though she’d known him all her life, she could rarely read what was behind them.

He was, in her opinion, too handsome for his own good, too smooth for anyone else’s. He was also unflinchingly loyal, quietly generous—and annoyingly overprotective.

He smiled at her now, quick and easy with a disarming flash of humor she imagined served as a lethal weapon in court. Or the bedroom.

“Cold poached salmon, mini chicken florentine, grilled summer vegetables, potato pancakes, a variety of quiches, caviar with full accompaniment, assorted pastries and breads, along with a fruit and cheese display, followed by the poppy-seed cake with orange marmalade filling and Grand Marnier buttercream frosting, topped with fresh fruit.”

“Sign me up.”

“I expect you can sweet-talk the caterers,” she said. She rolled her shoulders, circled her head on her neck as she chose the next berries.

“Something hurt?”

“The basket weave’s a killer on the neck and shoulders.”

His hands lifted, then retreated to his pockets. “Are Jack and Carter around?”

“Somewhere. I haven’t seen them today.”

“Maybe I’ll go hunt them down.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

But he wandered across the room to the windows and looked down at the flower-decked terrace, the white slippered chairs, the pretty bride turned toward the smiling groom.

“They’re doing the ring thing,” Del called out.