One

      “You need a woman.”

      Connor MacLaren stopped reading the business agreement he was working on and glanced up. His older brother Ian stood blocking his office doorway.

      “What’d you say?” Connor asked. He couldn’t have heard him correctly.

      “A woman,” Ian repeated slowly. “You need one.”

      “Well, sure,” Connor said agreeably. “Who doesn’t? But—”

      “And you’re going to have to buy a new suit, maybe two,” his brother Jake said as he strolled into his office.

      Ian followed Jake across the wide space and they took the two visitors’ chairs facing Connor.

      Connor’s gaze shifted from one brother to the other. “What are you two? The social police?”

      Ian shook his head in disgust. “We just got off the phone with Jonas Wellstone’s son, Paul. We set up a meeting with us and the old man during the festival.”

      Connor frowned at the two of them. “And for this you expect me to buy a new suit? You’ve got to be kidding.”

      “We’re not kidding,” Ian said, then stood as if that was the end of the discussion.

      “Wait a minute,” Connor insisted. “Let’s get serious. The festival is all about beer. Drinking beer, making beer, beer-battered everything. This is not a ballet recital we’re going to.”

      “That’s not the point,” Ian began.

      “You’re right,” Connor persisted. “The point is that I’ve never worn a suit and tie to a beer festival and I’m not about to start now. Hell, nobody would even recognize me in a suit.”

      That much was true. Connor was far more identifiable in his signature look of faded jeans, ancient fisherman’s sweater and rugged hiking boots than in one of those five-thousand-dollar power suits his two brothers were inclined to wear on a daily basis.

      Frankly, this was why he preferred to work at MacLaren Brewery, located in the rugged back hills of Marin County, thirty miles north and a million virtual light years away from MacLaren Corporation in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. The brothers had grown up running wild through those hills. That’s where they had built their first home brewery, in the barn behind their mom’s house.

      Over the past ten years, the company had grown into a multinational corporation with offices in ten countries. But the heart and soul of MacLaren Brewery still thrived in those hills, and Connor was in charge of it all: not just the brewery, but also the surrounding farmland, the dairy, the fishery, the vineyards and the brew pub in town.

      And he wasn’t about to wear a freaking business suit while he did it.

      Meanwhile his older brothers, Jake, the CEO, and Ian, the marketing guru, took care of wheeling and dealing at their corporate headquarters in San Francisco. They both lived in the city and loved the fast pace. Connor, on the other hand, avoided the frantic pace of the city whenever possible. He only ventured into headquarters on days like this one because his brothers demanded his presence at the company’s board meetings once a month. Even then, he wore his standard outfit of jeans, work shirt and boots. He’d be damned if he’d put on a monkey suit just to discuss stock options and expansion deals with his brothers.

      Connor glanced at the two men, who were closer to him than any two people on the planet. “What made you think I would ever dress up for the Autumn Brew Festival? I’d be laughed off the convention floor.”

      True, the festival had become a very important venue for the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar beer production industry. In the past few years it had expanded to become the largest gathering of its type in the world. The powers that be had even changed the name of the event to reflect its importance. It was now called the International Brewery Convention, but Connor and his brothers still called it the festival because more than anything else, people showed up to have a good time.

      It was a point of pride that the festival was held annually in their hometown at the Point Cairn Convention Center next to the picturesque marina and harbor. It was one of the biggest draws of the year, and the MacLaren men had done their best to ensure that it continued to be a not-to-be-missed event on the calendars of beer makers and breweries around the world.

      But that still didn’t mean Connor would dress up for