“We’re not kids any more.”

“I know,” Brody replied quietly. “Doesn’t mean we can’t talk.”

“No.” Irena couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from his lips. “It doesn’t.”

She was standing as close to him as a heartbeat. She could feel his breath on her face when he spoke. The feel of his breath on her skin stirred her.

Was she just being needy again?

Was she missing Ryan, struggling to put his memory to rest?

No, it wasn’t that. She’d made peace with all that. This was something else, something different.

All she knew was that she was very, very attracted to the man she had always considered her best friend.

Had it been there all along, waiting to be discovered?

Loving the Right Brother

By

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, has written over one hundred and fifty novels for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella. com.

Available in September 2010

from Mills & Boon®

Special Moments™

The Texas Billionaire’s Bride

by Crystal Green

&

The Texas Bodyguard’s Proposal

by Karen Rose Smith

Kids on the Doorstep

by Kimberly Van Meter

&

Cop on Loan

by Jeannie Watt

The Texan’s Tennessee Romance

by Gina Wilkins

&

The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess

by Christine Flynn

Loving the Right Brother

by Marie Ferrarella

A Weaver Baby

by Allison Leigh

A Small-Town Temptation

by Terry McLaughlin

A Not-So-Perfect Past

by Beth Andrews

To

Gail Chasan,

for being kind enough

to include me in this

celebration of families

and for always being

such a mensch.

Chapter One

There was wilderness everywhere she looked. For all intents and purposes, civilization had vanished since she’d left Anchorage.

Nothing’s changed. Except for me.

After all this time, it seemed odd to return to a place she’d sworn she’d never set foot in again. A place that she had spent the first eighteen years of her life dreaming about leaving. And when she finally had, there’d been tears. Tears that had nothing to do with anticipated nostalgia.

They were the kind of tears generated by a broken heart.

In a way, it was a little like trying on an old sweater you knew you no longer wanted. Even so, the familiar feel of it against your skin evoked bittersweet memories you were heretofore certain you had either forgotten or at least successfully blocked out of your mind.

She didn’t want to remember.

But wasn’t that why she was coming back? Because she remembered?

Irena Yovich stared out the window, watching Hades, Alaska, growing from a speck to a 500-citizen town as one of the several “taxiplanes” owned by Kevin Quintano and his wife, June, drew closer.

The young woman piloting the small passenger plane was June Yearling, the best damn mechanic for two hundred miles the year that Irene had left Hades for Seattle and college. Everyone in Hades knew that if it had an engine, June could fix it. And now, according to what June was saying on this hundred-mile run from Anchorage to Hades, she was not only a successful businesswoman but she was a wife and a mother of two, to be expanded to three in the not-too-distant future.

June had been her best friend once. She’d been one of the very few who hadn’t gone behind her back to betray her. Possibly the only one, Irena thought with a trace of cynicism born in the wake of her rude awakening ten years ago.

“But when I heard you needed a ride from the airport, I told Kevin there was no way anyone else but me was flying the plane to bring you to Hades. He likes to give me a hard time because he doesn’t think a woman in my condition should be piloting a plane, but I got him to give in.” June ended with a gleeful, triumphant laugh. Her voice swelled with affection as she added, “Kevin’s really a good guy.”

Undoubtedly the last of a dying, if not dead, breed, Irena thought.

Since, as far as she could see, her friend wasn’t showing and, more to the point, when June had thrown her arms around her and hugged her, June’s stomach hadn’t made contact first, she couldn’t help asking, “Just how far along are you?”

“Only three months,” June tossed over her shoulder, then added, in a somewhat quieter voice, “and four weeks.”

Irena felt just the slightest bit of a smile touch her lips. June always had a way of twisting things in her favor. “Unless my math’s totally off, that’s actually four months.”

June sighed dramatically. “I know, I know, but I just had to see if it was you or someone else with the same name.”

Irena laughed out loud for the first time since she had gotten her grandfather’s phone call yesterday morning, telling her that Ryan Hayes was dead by his own hand. Thanks to June, some of the tension drained from her.

Temporarily.

“And just how many Irena Yoviches could there be?” she asked her old friend.

She saw June’s shoulders rise and fall beneath her fur-lined parka. “In Alaska, maybe not all that many, but in Russia, who knows? There’s no telling, but one of them might have wanted to check out a place that was named after hell and is frozen over for six months out of the year, cut off from the rest of the world except for our little passenger service. And the doctors’ planes, of course. Did I tell you that April’s married to a doctor?” June said, referring to her older sister. “Jimmy’s Kevin’s younger brother,” she added quickly. “He came to Hades to visit their sister Alison. She’s a nurse here—and married to Jean Luc. Max married their sister Lily. They met when she came up here to visit, too. Come for a visit and stay forever. We’re thinking of making it a city motto,” June teased.

God, the people in Hades certainly had been busy, getting married and having lives, Irena thought. It made her feel out of sync, even though she knew that when it came to a successful career, she undoubtedly had them all beat. But as of late, her career hadn’t been nearly the comfort it had been at first.

“Well, it’s me,” she said to June. “Does that make it worth the white lie you told your husband when you bent the truth?”

“Oh, Kevin’s pretty good at math,” June assured her. “Among other things.”

Irena’s view of June was restricted to the back of the latter’s blond head; but by the sound of it, there was a satisfied, mischievous smile on June’s lips.

“Good for you,” Irena said, genuinely happy for the way her friend’s life had turned out.

“So, how about you?” June pressed. “Are you married or anything yet?”

Ah, the question her mother managed to work into the conversation every time she called, Irena thought.

“No, I’m not ‘married or anything yet.’ And before you ask, there’s nobody special at the moment.”

She’d thrown in the last three words as camouflage. Despite the fact that she’d actually been engaged for a while a few years ago—a mistake from the moment she’d said “yes”—there hadn’t been anyone really special in her life. Not since Ryan. Even that had turned out to be a lie. Ryan had never been the person she’d thought he was.

No, she upbraided herself sternly. He’d turned out to be exactly the person she’d thought he was. She’d just believed he’d changed for her. God, how could she have been so naive? From the moment he’d hit puberty, Ryan Hayes had been the Hades resident “bad boy,” so good-looking that it’d been impossible for any female with a pulse to look at him without feeling instant infatuation.

In a state where there were seven men for every woman, Ryan Hayes had far more than his share of adoring females available to him. Tall, dark, with incredible green eyes and a look that made hearts pound wildly, he had been as faithful as a honeybee in the middle of spring, flying from one willing flower to the next. But for a while—three years to be exact—she’d believed Ryan when he had sworn that he was being faithful to her.

She’d believed him when he’d promised to go away with her to college. She remembered how proud of herself she’d been. Ryan was two years older than she was, and he’d had no intentions of furthering his education. She actually thought she’d talked him into it. She’d believed him when he told her that he’d been accepted by the same university that she had. Believed him even though he remained evasive whenever she asked to see his acceptance letter.

What an idiot she’d been. But she’d wanted to believe in him—in them—so much that, in hindsight, she’d stubbornly overlooked so many of the telltale signs. She’d thought that others, envious of Ryan’s looks and his money, were telling lies about him in an effort to break them up.

She went right on believing that they were destined for a fairy tale life and that everything was going to work out for the best. Until the night she walked in on him and Trisha Brooks without a stitch of clothing between them, obviously consumed with the intent to create their own fire.

As she ran out, she could almost literally feel her heart breaking within her chest. Stunned, she wasn’t sure which of them she’d been angrier with—Trisha who had always maintained that she was one of her closest friends or Ryan, to whom she’d given her heart and her soul as well as her body.

In the end, she forgave Trisha because she knew firsthand how persuasive Ryan could be, how just being around him could make a woman forsake her common sense. But she refused to forgive Ryan. She finally admitted that she had been deluding herself all that time about their future together. There was no future. Coming to grips with that had hurt like hell, because, even though she’d initially tried to resist, she’d wound up loving him with all her heart.

And she still loved him. An ache filtered all through her. Despite her ambitions, her goal to become a topflight criminal lawyer, her young world had revolved around Ryan. He was the center of everything for her.

Once she realized that he didn’t love her the way she loved him, her sense of loss was almost overwhelming. In the days that followed her discovery, she went into a tailspin, simultaneously numb and in agony. A sense of indifference came over her, holding her prisoner. She was going to give it all up—her ambitions, her dreams of being a lawyer, college, everything. Not to remain with Ryan, she knew there was no way that was going to happen, but because she’d lost her drive, her spark, her very focus.

It was her grandfather, Yuri, who sat down with her and slowly, patiently, talked her back to the land of the living. And it was Yuri who, filled with pride and together with her mother, came to see her graduate with top honors three years later. And again three years after that when she graduated from law school.

She’d fast-tracked her studies for both her undergraduate and her law degree. She deliberately excluded everything and anything that didn’t have to do with her studies. For six years, she didn’t have a personal life outside of those times when her grandfather and her mother came to visit her. It was the only way she could get over Ryan.

After law school, she’d gone to work at one of the most prestigious law firms in Seattle, Farley & Roberson. When her mother, Wanda, realized that she was never coming back to Hades, she had moved down to Seattle to be with her. Shortly after her move, Wanda, having lost her husband to a mining accident more than twenty years ago, met someone. A year later, she was Mrs. Jon Alexander and happy beyond belief.

Irena supposed that, in an indirect way, she had Ryan to thank for her mother’s happiness. Wanda Yovich would have never moved to Seattle and wound up being Wanda Alexander if she hadn’t told her mother she was never coming back to Hades. Because of Ryan.

Irena leaned her forehead against the window, looking at the desolate land.

Funny how “never” wound up having a finite life span. But she knew in her heart once she received her grandfather’s phone call telling her that Ryan Hayes had been found dead by his younger brother, Brody, when he’d come home two nights ago, that she was going back to Hades. There was no way she could stay away.

Ten years ago, after her grandfather’s pep talk, she’d come to terms with the fact that she and Ryan would never be married, that the very concept of their marriage would have been a disaster waiting to happen. But she had to admit she felt absolutely awful as she tried to imagine a world without him.

Even now, as she waited for June to finally land the small passenger plane, Irena could feel her eyes beginning to sting once more as the impact of the loss struck her again.

Get angry, idiot. In the end, he treated you like dirt. You know that. He’s not worth your tears.

But it wasn’t in her to be angry—not anymore. Time and distance had allowed her to view the past in a calmer frame of mind. She wasn’t that heartbroken eighteen-year-old. She was twenty-eight and, having dealt with a larger cross-section of humanity in Seattle than she ever could have if she’d remained in Hades, she viewed things differently now. She could see why Ryan had been the way he had, at least in part.

When it came to the reasons for Ryan’s wanton, misguided behavior, there was an incredible amount of blame to lay at more than just one doorstep. For starters, nothing was expected of him. Born to wealth, he had none of the pressures that the average person in Hades was faced with. Ryan didn’t have to hustle, didn’t have to try to help support his family, or even himself for that matter. Life didn’t present him with any challenges, other than seeing just how many women he could bed.

In addition, he had no immediate role models to turn to. Certainly not his father. Eric Hayes had moved to Alaska, specifically to Hades, with his two young sons when he’d lost his wife in a freak boating accident. At the time, Hades was as far away from humanity as he could go without literally moving into a cave.

Some people said that the reason for his downward spiral was because he couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing that he might have been able to save his wife from a watery grave but had been too involved in saving himself to notice that she had fallen overboard, as well. The only way Eric could find to get even temporary respite from the inner pain was to anesthetize himself with alcohol. As time passed, it took more and more to achieve numbness.

He passed that lesson on to his older son. Ryan had once boasted to her that he’d had his first drink, served to him by his father, when he was nine. At the time, not wanting to be judgmental, she’d told herself that it was just Ryan’s way. That he could walk away from drinking any time he wanted to. The problem was that he didn’t want to.

But she was so blindly in love with him, so certain that he loved her back until that fateful evening. In the months that followed, she’d often wondered if Ryan wanted her to discover him with Trisha. He knew her penchant for turning up early. Did he thrive on the wild rush of getting away with it, or had he wanted to show her that he wanted to move on? He had to have known that finding him like that would devastate her. And he had still done it.

He’d been a piece of work, all right, Irena thought now, trying desperately to shut away the memories. A piece of work and she was an absolute fool for having loved him as much as she had.

And for still having feelings for him.

“Wait until you see Hades.” June suddenly spoke up, trying to fill the silence that seemed louder than the plane’s small engine.

June anticipated Irena’s reaction to the town she hadn’t seen in the last ten years as she began the plane’s slow descent.

The airstrip where their small fleet of passenger planes were housed was just up ahead. June smiled to herself. Hades really was growing, she thought fondly. And more than just a little. She and Kevin had slowly built up their business. They now had their own air taxi service as well as her original auto repair store. Kevin had encouraged her to buy it back shortly after the wedding. It was as if he’d sensed what it really meant to her. Which was why she loved him so much. He understood her.

“You won’t recognize the place.”

Irena laughed shortly. “That’s good, because I didn’t care for the old Hades.”

It was a sentiment shared by a great many of the young people in the area. The moment they turned eighteen, many left to find a life less desolate, or, as in the case of Hades, wasn’t isolated from the rest of the world for six months of the year. They all felt that Alaska was a good place to be from, but definitely not to live.

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” June told her. She herself had never experienced that urge to flee the way so many, including her older sister, April, had. “But it’s really been growing these last ten years. Ike’s turned into a real entrepreneur. He and Jean Luc have really helped build up the place.”

“Ike?” Irena echoed in surprise. “The guy who runs the Salty Dog Saloon?”

“The very same one,” June told her. There was no missing the pride in her voice. “He’s gotten things really moving around here. We’ve got a hotel now, and just last year, Ike and Jean Luc brought a movie complex to Hades. And they’ve expanded the general store. You wouldn’t recognize it.”

Irena laughed, shaking her head. June’s verbal list of changes fell woefully short of progress in her book. “Wow, that puts the town into what, the middle of the twentieth century? Only sixty more years to catch up, I guess.”

June spared her one glance before focusing back on the runway up ahead.

“Nothing that a good mall and a good lawyer can’t fix,” she told her friend. “You know, we still don’t have a really good lawyer in Hades. We would if you came back.” Her teasing tone vanished as she suddenly braced herself. “Hang on, Irena. This last patch can be a little rough.”

Irena was about to tell her there wasn’t enough money in the world to tempt her to make her return permanent. That she was more than satisfied practicing law in Seattle. Granted, she was only one of a large group of lawyers, but that was just fine. She didn’t need the pressure of being the only defense lawyer in a hundred-mile radius. The pace in Seattle was hectic, but still far more to her liking than life in Hades had ever been.

For the moment, she was too busy holding her breath and gripping the armrests to say any of that. The somewhat choppy flight ended with an even choppier landing. Irena continued clutching the armrests until the plane stopped moving. When it finally came to a halt, she realized that her legs felt rubbery. Getting out of the plane was going to be tricky.

June unbuckled her seat belt and turned around, smiling broadly and obviously pleased with herself.

“Got your money’s worth that time,” she declared. “The landing turned out better than I thought.”

“Right,” Irena murmured, more to herself than to June. “We could have crashed.”

“You’re a lot less optimistic than I remember you,” June said, only half kidding.

The next moment, a tall, handsome man with just a smattering of gray at his temples had thrown open the small plane’s door. His attention was directed to June and not the plane’s single passenger.

“That’s it, June,” he told her firmly. “No more flying for you until the baby’s here.”

“Honey, you’re not showing your best side,” June chided.

“That’s because my ‘best side’ had a heart attack, watching you land the plane,” he informed her, helping her down.

On the ground, June turned and watched Kevin help her friend down. She smiled beatifically, as if to erase the dialogue that had just transpired.

“Irena, I want you to meet my husband, Kevin. And he doesn’t always frown like this.”

“Only when June’s determined to give me a heart attack,” Kevin explained, setting the plane’s lone passenger down on the ground beside his wife. Kevin extended his hand to her. “I’m Kevin Quintano.”

Irena nodded, thinking that he had kind eyes. She took his hand and shook it. “Irena Yovich.”

“Yovich,” Kevin repeated. Surprised, he glanced at June before asking, “Any relation to Yuri Yovich?”

About to pick up her suitcase, she watched Kevin take it for her. “He’s my grandfather.”

The three of them walked to the small terminal that mostly housed his office and the tools that June used to work on the planes.

“I guess that makes us kind of related,” Kevin speculated, “Since Yuri married June’s grandmother, Ursula.”

Work, as well as a desire not to run into Ryan, had kept her from the wedding; but she’d had her grandfather and his new wife to her home, where she’d held a reception for them that included her mother and her stepfather. “Ursula isn’t still the postmistress, is she?”

“Of course she is,” June assured her. “The only way my grandmother would ever stop being Hades’s postmistress is when they carry her out of the office, feet first.”

Irena nodded. Ursula had been the postmistress in Hades for as long as she could remember. “Things really haven’t changed all that much,” she concluded.

“You’d be surprised,” June contradicted. They stopped before the terminal. “Look, if you haven’t got a place to stay, I’d love to put you up at our place.”

Irena smiled as she shook her head. “Thanks, but my grandfather said he’d never forgive me if I didn’t stay with him and his ‘bride.’”

June nodded. She knew that her step-grandfather meant it. A sense of family was very important for survival out here.

“They’re very cute together,” she confided. “And,” June added happily, “best of all, he’s not showing any sign of wearing out.”

“Wearing out?” Irena echoed, not following June’s meaning.

“My grandmother buried three husbands,” June reminded her. “She’s a very vibrant lady for someone in her late seventies.”

“Vibrant,” Kevin echoed with an amused grin. “I think the word that June is looking for is ‘lusty.’”

Irena thought about the colorful postmistress who was also the keeper of the town’s gossip. Apparently, just as she thought, despite the new coats of paint that had been applied here and there, not all that much had really changed here.

Chapter Two

Because the wind had started to pick up, Irena waited until they reached the shelter of the small terminal before she asked June, “Is there any place that I can rent a car?”

Because the Hades she knew didn’t have the simplest of amenities, she wouldn’t have even asked about a car rental agency. But since June had insisted that the small hamlet was well on its way to being a thriving city, she had nothing to lose by asking. Adequate transportation was supposed to be part of a growing city, wasn’t it?

“To rent? No,” June replied before Irena could even nod her head in response to the question. “But to borrow? Sure.”

June spared her husband a glance and Kevin nodded. They had their own form of communication, Irena thought with just a touch of longing.

“Do you remember how to handle a four-wheel drive vehicle?” her friend asked. Again, before she could answer, June was talking again, “Or has city life made you soft?”

“It’s like riding a bike,” Irena said with a shade more confidence than she actually felt. Challenges always did that to her—made her step up and agree to things she normally would have thought twice about. But in this case, it was all right. Though she’d relied predominantly on public transportation and taxis in the last ten years, she was certain driving anything would come back to her. That was why she’d maintained her driver’s license. “You never quite forget how.”

June nodded, obviously pleased. Digging into the pocket of her jacket, she produced a set of keys and held them out to her. “You can borrow my car while you’re here.”

Irena made no attempt to reach for the keys. “I can’t do that,” she protested.

“Sure you can.” To prove it, June placed the keys into Irena’s hand and then closed her fingers over them with her own. She pushed Irena’s hand back to her. “I insist.”

Irena looked down at the keys, torn. She didn’t want to be dependent on someone else to get around while she was here, but at the same time, she couldn’t just take June’s car from her.

“But don’t you need a car to get around?”

June nodded toward Kevin. “I’ll just steal Kevin’s car. That’s the best part of having your husband work with you.” June slanted a glance at Kevin’s profile and then smiled, her eyes dancing in response to the thought that had just crossed her mind. “Well, maybe not the best part, but it’s up there.”

The June of ten years ago hadn’t wanted all that much to do with the male population. She seemed far more outgoing now, reminding her a bit of Ursula, Irena thought.

“Are you sure you want to part with your car?” Irena asked once again.

June waved away her concern. “Don’t give it another thought.” She cocked her head. “Still remember your way around here?”

The town was spread out, but even so, there wasn’t all that much to Hades. A few streets in the center and most of the homes were along the outskirts of town or a bit further out.

“Some things you never forget. I’m going to surprise my grandfather,” she explained. “I wasn’t sure when I would get here. I think he’s expecting me to arrive late tonight.”

June nodded, then began to go toward where the vehicles were housed. With summer over, it was time to shelter the cars from critically dropping temperatures. “Let me show you your way around Clarisse.”

“Clarisse?” Irena asked, and then she laughed, remembering. “I forgot that you name cars.”

“Makes them easier to handle,” June replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world to address four-wheeled vehicles by regular names.

Irena had every intention of driving June’s Jeep straight to the cabin where her grandfather lived with his wife. She wasn’t completely sure just how she wound up going in the opposite direction. Most likely, nostalgia had directed her, she decided. Before she was fully conscious of her crimes, she headed toward the building where she had spent her early childhood. Before tragedy had found her family.

She remembered the house with warmth. She and her mother had lived there until her father had been killed in the cave-in. Her mother had never sold the house, most likely for the same reason that she found herself driving toward it now. Sentimental attachment.

Part of Irena couldn’t help wondering if the building was still standing.

It was.

The feeling of nostalgia grew more intense the closer she came to the house. Accustomed to the bustle of Seattle, Irena thought the old house looked exceptionally lonely.

Maybe she could even stay here until the funeral. At least here she wouldn’t feel as if she was in anyone’s way or disrupting anyone’s daily routine.

Moreover, she wouldn’t be forced to put on a public face to mask the emotional turmoil going on inside of her. She wanted time to deal with that on her own, without receiving any well meaning advice from anyone.

Her grandfather would most likely give her an argument about staying here alone, but she could be as stubborn as he was. Something, she knew, that secretly delighted him. And, in the end, he’d bluster but he would agree—and even boast about it to his friends, saying how she was “just like” him.

A movement on the side of the house caught her eye. Irena peered closer.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel the second she saw him. Her fingers turned icy, brittle, threatening to break off one by one.

Was that…?

It couldn’t be.

Oh, God. Ryan?

Her heart pounding, Irena floored the accelerator. The Jeep seemed to jump ahead. In less than a heartbeat, she was all but on top of him.

Standing near the top of a ladder leaning against the house, the man who had caused her heart to stop was patching a hole just underneath the second floor bedroom window.

Her parents’ bedroom, she recalled.

Rather than just use wood to haphazardly board the hole up, he employed some kind of compound and applied it carefully to the gaping hole.

She was hallucinating.

She had to be, Irena silently insisted, unable to breathe. She was here for Ryan’s funeral. How could he be standing on a ladder, working so diligently when he was supposed to be dead?

Was it all a hoax?

Or had she crashed in June’s plane and this was really the afterlife?

If the afterlife was taking place in Hades, it left a good many things to be desired, she thought.

Was she hallucinating?

Getting out of the car, she left the door hanging open and cautiously approached the ladder.

“Ryan?” she whispered uncertainly.

The moment he turned around to look down at her, she saw her mistake. It wasn’t Ryan; it was Brody, Ryan’s younger brother.

The last ten years had made the brothers look almost eerily alike. Or rather, Brody now looked the way Ryan had then. He had the same body type, the same jet-black hair. The same green eyes, she realized, stilling the quiver in her stomach as he glared down at her.

“No,” the deep voice told her, a trace of disappointment in his face. “I’m—”

“Brody,” she supplied. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry, but you just looked so much like him…”

“So people tell me.” She couldn’t tell from his tone if it bothered him or if, being Brody, he just took it in stride.

Brody made his way down the ladder, placing the materials he’d been working with aside when he reached bottom. A lifetime of self-discipline had him banking down the burst of emotion he’d felt upon suddenly seeing her after all this time.

It didn’t seem possible, but Irena was even more beautiful than she had been ten years ago. She took his very breath away. Brody paused a moment to collect himself.

“Hello, Irena. How’ve you been?”

Brody sounded as if they’d seen each other only last month rather than ten years ago. It reinforced her feelings that, despite a few cosmetic things being done, things never changed in Hades.

“Fine. Terrific.” Unless Brody’d gotten married, losing Ryan made him the last of his family. Her heart went out to him. And then, because she’d always felt close to Ryan’s brother, was always able to talk to him, Irena asked, “Got a hug for an old friend?”

“Always.” Opening up his arms, he enfolded her in them.

Inwardly, he braced himself. Brody refused to recognize or even admit to the potpourri of emotions and sensations racing through him. And if the scent of Irena’s golden blond hair against his cheek stirred up old memories, he did his very best to ignore them.

For a moment, Irena allowed herself to get swept away. With very little effort, she could almost imagine herself in Ryan’s arms. But pretending Brody was Ryan, even for a moment, wasn’t going to lead to anything except deeper heartache.

Placing her hands against his chest, Irena created a wedge between them and drew back. She glanced at her old home, then at him. This was the last place she’d expect to find Brody.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Squatting down, he deposited his tools back into the case he’d brought. “I never left Hades.”

“No.” She waved her hand toward the house. “I mean here, at my parents’ old home.”

Rising, he glanced over his shoulder as if to make sure he understood her meaning. But he was really avoiding eye contact until he got himself completely under control again. Brody hadn’t expected that seeing her would have such an effect on him, but it did.

“Getting it ready for you,” he answered simply.

Irena looked at him, confused. “You knew I was coming?”

There was a smile in his green eyes. “Your grandfather’s married to Ursula.”

Well, that certainly answered the question. If Ursula knew, everyone knew.

“I forgot about that.” And then Irena backtracked. “But if you know that, then you’d also have to know that I’m supposed to be staying with my grandfather and Ursula while I’m in Hades.”

“I do,” he acknowledged. “I also remember how independent you liked to be. I figured there was a good chance that you’d want to be on your own, at least part of the time.”

Irena smiled at him. If only his brother had been half as intuitive, half as dependable as Brody, life might have turned out very differently for her and Ryan. “You always did know me so well.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”

Didn’t help me, though, did it, Irena? Brody couldn’t help thinking, although his expression never changed. He’d learned long ago how to mask his feelings so that no one ever suspected how in love he’d been with his brother’s girl.

“If you do want to stay here,” he went on, “I’ve had the electricity turned on. And the water. The telephone is going to take me a little longer to get up and running so you might want to use Yuri’s line if you need to make a call to anyone, let them know you’ve arrived safely, things like that.”

There was no one to call. Her mother and stepfather were away on a cruise, and she didn’t keep in close contact with anyone else. Her boss, Eli Farley, certainly didn’t need to be notified of her safe arrival.

Her hand in her pocket, Irena curled her fingers around her cell phone. Taking it out, she held it up. “I take it there’s still no cell phone reception.”

He surprised her when he didn’t automatically confirm her assumptions. “There’s some, actually. But it plays by its own set of rules. Reception has a tendency of whimsically going in and out.”

Irena laughed. “Not all that different from the lower forty-eight.”

She saw the corners of his mouth curve. Unlike Ryan, Brody’s smile was boyish—or at least it had been, she realized. There was something almost sexy about it now. Or was that just her imagination, running off with her like it had when she’d first glimpsed Brody and thought he was Ryan?

“What?” she asked, wanting to be let in on the joke if there was one.

“Nothing, you just sound like a tourist instead of a native.”

“I’m not a native anymore,” she told him. “My home is in Seattle these days. I just came…” Suddenly, her voice failed her. For a second, emotion choked her throat, blocking her words. This was silly, she silently insisted. Fighting past it, she tried again. “I just came—”

“For closure?” Brody supplied.

Closure. My God but that sounded so trendy, so pretentious. She wasn’t here for closure; she was here to say goodbye to her youth. To love, because she’d loved Ryan Hayes with all of her young, naive heart. Loved him the way she’d never loved again and in all likelihood, would never love again.

“To pay my respects,” she finally concluded.

Brody stared at her for a long moment. “I doubt if you really mean that.” He saw the surprise on her face. She opened her mouth to protest. He cut her off. “He was my brother and I loved him, but Ryan didn’t deserve anyone’s respect. Because he never gave any.”

She hadn’t expected that from Brody. He’d always been so easygoing. “You’ve gotten harder than I remember.”

“Not harder, just more honest,” he corrected. “But I should have been harder. Maybe if someone had gotten tougher with Ryan, if someone took the trouble to shake him up a little and made him fly right, he might still be around.”

It wasn’t easy keeping the sorrow out of his voice. He still hadn’t worked through the anger he felt. Anger because at bottom, he felt what Ryan had done was a waste. It was a terrible, terrible waste of a human life.

Looking back, he supposed it had been a waste for a very long time.

She placed her hand on his arm, feeling his pain. Brody had never been one to talk about his feelings. Maybe they could help one another.

“What happened, Brody?” she asked softly. “My grandfather said that Ryan…that he died by his own hand.” It was a polite way of saying that he committed suicide, but she just couldn’t bring herself to use the words. It was just too awful to imagine Ryan willingly killing himself.

“That was the immediate cause of death,” Brody confirmed. Ryan had been found in a pool of blood, holding the gun that he’d used to end his life. “But the process for Ryan started long before this Monday.” He saw the look that came into her eyes and instantly realized what she was thinking. Irena had a tendency to take things on, to shoulder blame where there wasn’t any. “No, not ten years ago. You’re not to blame,” he said firmly. “Hell, you were the best thing that ever happened to him, but he was too dumb at the time to realize it. And as for what I just said, Ryan started destroying himself long before you left.”

Guilt still spouted, taking root at the speed of light. If she’d remained, maybe she could have helped Ryan, kept him from destroying himself.

“But if I hadn’t left—”

Brody shook his head. In his own way, when it came to Irena and Ryan, it was Ryan who had the strong personality. He could always bend Irena to his will.

“If you hadn’t left, Ryan would have probably managed somehow to take you down with him.” A hint of a smile surfaced again. “Although I don’t know. You were always pretty strong.”

She laughed at the notion, shaking her head. “I certainly didn’t feel strong.”

“Well, you were,” he contradicted. “Nobody else ever walked out on Ryan. When you did, it really shook him up. I thought—hoped—that it would wind up being a wake-up call for him. Instead, he just wound up drinking a little more.”

She knew it wasn’t his intention, but the words cut deep. “Then it was my fault.”

“No,” he insisted. Damn you, Ryan, you’re dead and you’re still messing with her. “It wasn’t your fault any more than it was my fault.” He took her hands in his as he spoke. “Don’t go down that path, Irena. It’s self-destructive, and there’s nothing to be gained. Ryan was a big boy and he was responsible for himself. He had looks, money, charm. He could have done anything, but he wanted to be a drunk.” Brody’s mouth twisted in a cynical smile. “Not the wisest of career choices. My father certainly proved that. His death should have served as a warning to Ryan. But it didn’t.”

Her eyes searched his face. “How did you manage to escape?”

Brody shrugged. It was a question that he’d asked himself more than once in the last decade, whenever a sadness gripped him or when his spirits plummeted so low he couldn’t even locate them.

“I supposed what saved me was that I wanted to be everything that they weren’t. Instead of focusing on me, I looked around and saw that I could be accomplishing things with my life, with my money, beyond just making Ike a wealthy man.” He grinned. “No offense to Ike.”

She didn’t quite follow him. “Ike? How does he figure into it?”

“Ike and his cousin, Jean Luc, own the Salty Dog, the saloon that Ryan practically lived in during the last few years of his life. Whenever he was there, Ike would cut him off at a sensible point or refuse to allow him to be served if Ryan came in already a couple sheets to the wind. But—I don’t know if you heard—Ike and his cousin have a number of irons in the fire these days, and he divides his time between different establishments when he’s not home, doting on his wife and kids. I couldn’t expect him to be Ryan’s guardian angel.”

“I heard about the first part,” she told him, “but not the second. Ike’s married?” It seemed impossible to imagine. Almost as impossible as imagining Ryan married, but for a different reason. Ike was, or had been, a flirt, but he’d made no secret of the fact that he loved women and felt that each had a unique quality all her own. “Ike, the eternal bachelor?”

Brody grinned again. “Not anymore. His sister, Juneau, died, leaving her baby daughter for him to raise. He got really domestic after that. And when Dr. Shayne Kerrigan’s wife had her best friend come up for a visit, Ike just lost his heart.”

Pausing in his narrative, Brody looked up at the sky. It was swiftly turning an ominous shade of gray, and once again, the wind was picking up.

“You know, I don’t mind catching you up this way, but I think that we should either do it inside the house, or better yet, drive over to your grandfather’s before it snows and strands us here.”

Although, he added silently, that wouldn’t exactly be the worst thing in the world. How often had he played that very scenario in his head—he and Irena, stranded in a cabin? And it had always ended the same way, with Irena suddenly realizing that she’d loved him all along and not Ryan.

“I know that Yuri’s anxious to see you again—and he’ll worry until he sees you walk through the door, especially if it starts snowing again.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she agreed.

“I always am.” There was a twinkle in his eye as he appraised her.

Irena laughed, feeling the tension drain away. Brody could always make her relax, she thought. She’d missed him. Missed talking to him. She’d shared a good part of her childhood with him, and all of her feelings. It felt good, finding out that she could pick up almost where she’d left off with him.

“God, it’s good to see you,” she told him with feeling.

She couldn’t quite fathom the smile that played across his lips. “Right back at you.”

Moved by impulse and fueled by a swirling mixture of feelings that she had yet to label, Irena threw her arms around Brody and kissed him. She kissed him for a number of reasons. To connect to the past, to show Brody her gratitude that the years hadn’t changed him. And maybe just because she needed to.

She hadn’t expected him to pull back.

Chapter Three

“I’m—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to…”

Embarrassed, at a loss as to what to say, Irena felt color creeping up her neck to her cheeks. She abruptly turned away and was about to hurry into her vehicle.

But Brody caught her by the arm, preventing her getaway. “Sorry,” he said, apologizing for his reaction. “You just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

After years of reining in his feelings whenever he was around her, he’d reacted instinctively and pulled back.

But there was no reason to react that way anymore. Irena was no longer Ryan’s girl, not even if his brother were still alive. More so now that Ryan was gone. He didn’t have to keep her at a respectful arm’s length or secretly enjoying the contact between them while behaving as if she were his sister instead of the woman he’d been in love with since middle school. He was free to make his feelings known—if he so chose.

Old habits died hard.

“No, it’s my fault,” Irena said, not wanting him to feel as if he had done anything wrong. The misstep was hers. “For a second, it was as if no time had gone by at all.” Color flushed over her cheeks again as she told him, “I just took it for granted that you were still just Brody.”

Smiling Brody assured her, “I am.”

“I mean—”

Since when had her tongue gotten so thick and unwieldy? Finding the right words had never been a problem for her. These days, she stood up in front of juries, making brilliant summations. That wasn’t her observation; it belonged to Eli Farley, the oldest senior partner of the firm. And very little pleased Eli, not the least of which was her taking time off to fly to Hades. She’d made sure that her cases were all well covered. Eli had still been displeased.

But, despite her ability to find the right word at the right time, her mind was close to a blank right now. Why was that?

Because she’d made a mistake, taken a situation for granted, and she shouldn’t have.

“You’re probably happily married and here I am, behaving as if we were still in high school. If your wife saw us—”

“There is no wife,” he told her quietly, cutting into her words. “I’m not married.”

Irena closed her mouth and looked at him. Brody was such a wonderful person. Why hadn’t some woman snatched him up by now?

“You’re not? Why?”

Brody glanced down at her left hand and saw that it was conspicuously devoid of jewelry. “Why aren’t you married?” he countered.

She shook her head, not about to focus on herself. “I asked first.”

“I’ve been too busy working to take time out to cultivate the kind of relationship women out here have come to expect.” And because the only woman I ever loved left ten years ago.

He’d come to realize falling in love was not an inalienable right guaranteed to happen. Love was a mysterious emotion made up of many components. He’d never had all the pieces available to him once Irena had left Hades.

“Busy?” she repeated, her curiosity aroused. “Doing what?” Ryan had told her that his father had left them both enough money to make sure that neither one of them ever needed to work. And Ryan, she knew, had taken full advantage of that.

But then, Brody had always been different from his brother. Now that she thought about it, the fact that he had dedicated himself to a career didn’t really surprise her.

“Using the funds that Dad left us to help out some of the less fortunate people in the area.”

He should have known that it wasn’t enough to satisfy her. Instead, it only raised more questions.

“Less fortunate?” she repeated, raising her voice to be heard above the wind that had begun to moan. “And how do you help them?”

He didn’t want to talk about himself. Because the temperature was dropping, Brody raised her collar for her. Tiny fingers of emotion swept all through him as he did so. He caught himself just drinking in the sight of her. Before he knew it, she’d be gone again. Leaving the same void she’d left the first time.

He nodded toward the house. “Do you want to go inside?”

That was why she had come here first, Irena reminded herself. The sight of Brody, looking so much like his brother, had driven that right out of her head. But now she nodded.

“Sure.”

The front door was unlocked. Pushing it open, she walked in. Irena fully expected to find a mess. After all, time had a way of taking its toll, and neither she nor her mother had lived here for more than eighteen years. They’d moved out when Yuri insisted they come live with him shortly after his son had been killed during the cave-in.

Hesitating at first, her mother had wound up agreeing because she just couldn’t bear to stay in a house haunted with memories. Memories that lived in every corner of the single-story house and would ambush her without any warning.

But, by the same token, because there were so many memories here, her mother couldn’t bring herself to part with the house and sell it. So it had remained in the family. A silent shadow of the past.

Irena scanned the rooms. Instead of being buried under the grit of almost two decades, the house was amazingly spotless. There wasn’t so much as a spider’s web visible anywhere.

Stunned, she turned to Brody. He’d mentioned electricity and water and she’d seen him making repairs. Had he cleaned up the rooms as well?

“Did you—”

Brody knew what she was going to ask. “No, can’t take the credit for this,” he told her. “Sydney, Marta, Alison, Lily and some of the other women from town pitched in to clean this up, just in case you wanted to stay here.”

He didn’t add that it had been his initial suggestion to Dr. Shayne Kerrigan’s wife that had gotten the ball rolling. Remembering how she had felt when she had first come to Hades and had seen the chaotic condition of Shayne’s house, Sydney had instantly gotten her friends together to restore order in the abandoned residence.

Irena eyed him, puzzled. “I don’t know any of them.” Why would total strangers do something like this for her?

Again, he could see the unspoken question in her eyes. Ten years and he could read her like a book. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Did you forget how neighborly everyone is here?” he asked her.

She had a nodding acquaintance with her neighbors back in Seattle, but for the most part, she didn’t even know their names and they didn’t know hers. Anonymity was something she had come to take for granted.

“I suppose I did.” Her eyes swept over the living room again, remembering happy times. She didn’t realize that she was smiling now. “This is wonderful. You’ve got to introduce me to Sydney and the others so I can thank them properly.”

He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed just watching her react to things. He’d loved her innocence, her naïveté back then. There was still a glimmer of the girl she used to be in the woman she had become. The discovery warmed him. “No problem. You’ll probably meet them at the Salty Dog tonight.”

“Excuse me?” She had no real firm plans, other than seeing her grandfather and going to the funeral parlor where Ryan was laid out.

“Another thing you forgot,” Brody observed, amused. “The people here like to throw parties to welcome people when they come to Hades,” he told her, watching her face for any signs that she remembered what he was talking about.

She recalled the tradition, but it didn’t apply to her. “But I’m not staying long,” she reminded him.

“Doesn’t matter. There’s still going to be a party. Lily’s been cooking all day.” The look on her face told him she needed another clarification. “Lily runs the main restaurant here.”

“Ike’s got competition?” As she recalled, the Salty Dog Saloon offered simple meals to its patrons, which virtually included the entire population of Hades.

“He couldn’t begin to compete with Lily’s,” Brody told her. “The restaurant Lily ran in Seattle won awards.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

“Being in love,” Brody told her simply. “Lily married Max, the sheriff.”

“Oh, right, April told me that,” she recalled.

Brody looked down at her hand again. “Okay, I told you why I’m not married.” And, since he was baring his soul, he had the right to ask her a question. “Now it’s your turn. Why are you still single?”

Irena shrugged, pretending to look around the house some more. She really didn’t like talking about herself. They had that in common, she recalled. “Same reason.”

“Too busy helping the less fortunate?” he guessed, tongue in cheek.

Irena laughed. This time, she looked at him. “No, wise guy, too busy with work to take the time to socialize.”

That was only part of it. He still had the ability to know when she was lying. “Oh, I thought maybe it had something to do with the way Ryan thoughtlessly broke your heart.”

She shrugged again, uncomfortable with the way Brody had honed in on the reason. She wasn’t used to blatant honesty anymore. It pleased her that Brody could still see through her smoke screen and lies.

“There was some of that, too,” she admitted. Then, because they verged on an uncomfortable topic, she turned the conversation back to him. “So, what is it that you do to ‘help the less fortunate,’ exactly?”

He saw through her but knew when not to push. Irena could get extremely stubborn if she was pushed.

“Whatever it takes.” He smiled as he thought about what he had managed to organize. “There’s an impressive network here in Hades. Sydney and Marta volunteer some of their free time to help teach some of the Native American children who have fallen behind, get their grades up to par. Dr. Shayne, his brother Ben and Dr. Jimmy, April’s husband, as well as Alyson, who’s a nurse-practitioner at the clinic—and Jimmy’s sister—” he added as a sidebar, trying to educate her about the dynamics in Hades as he went along “—volunteer some of their so-called free time to help treat the families on the reservation. I reimburse them for the medicines as much as I’m able.”

He was being modest, as always. Brody always did play down his part in things, but she knew better. She had no doubt that he was the mover and the shaker behind all this, knew that while the others might have had good intentions, it was Brody who had organized them and turned them into a well-oiled machine.

How different Brody was from his late brother. Ryan had wanted nothing more from life than to have a good time. That involved women and alcohol and a great deal of indulgence. Brody’s idea of a good time was helping others.

“You should take some time for yourself,” she urged when he finished telling her about the program he had going.

“I get a lot of pleasure doing what I do, knowing that in some small way, because of me a kid didn’t have to go to bed hungry tonight. Knowing that because I hooked him up to Shayne or Jimmy or Ben, another sick kid will get the treatment he needs in order to get well.”

Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at him. “Very noble, Brody.”

But he shook his head. “Not noble, just right,” he corrected.

Irena stopped wandering around the immaculate house and turned to look at him. He had sounded so somber just now. As if he was on some kind of a solemn mission. She could only think of one thing that would make him feel like that. “Are you trying to make up for your brother and father?”

That would take two lifetimes, Brody thought. At least. Most likely, more.

He shook his head. “Just trying to do my fair share, that’s all.” He debated saying the next words, then decided that he had nothing to lose. “If you want, the next time I go to the Kenaitze village, you’re welcome to come with me.”

“I’d like that,” she said, then felt she needed to qualify her answer. “If I’m still here.”

He inclined his head. “That was understood.” It was getting dark within the house. He started to cross to the nearest light switch on the wall, then stopped. He looked at Irena over his shoulder. There was a big, gray flagstone fireplace in the living room. “I can light a fire in the fireplace if you’d like,” he offered.

She glanced at the fireplace. Her father had toasted marshmallows with her there one year. Marshmallows had never tasted so good.

“It sounds wonderfully cozy,” she acknowledged.

He picked up the note of slight hesitation in her voice and interpreted it. “But you really need to get going.”

So far, he’d guessed everything right. It didn’t surprise her. Her smile began in her eyes. “Still clairvoyant, I see.”

“Just with certain people.” Actually, the only one he seemed to be in sync with was her, but he refrained from mentioning that. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea. Or, in this case, the right one.

“Am I that transparent?” she asked. Her laugh rang a little flat to her ears.

Brody was quick to reassure her. “I just know how you think. Nice to know that some things haven’t changed.”

“I don’t imagine too much has changed here.” Despite what June had told her, she added silently. How much growth could there have been? Their population had only increased by twenty or so, according to the atlas she’d glanced at before leaving for the airport.

“You’d be surprised,” he said, turning toward the window that faced the front of the house. Snow began to fall languidly. How soon before that turned into a blizzard? “Tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll take you around town so you can see for yourself.”

He made it sound like an all-day undertaking. She knew better. “What will we do with the other twenty-three and three-quarter hours?”

He laughed. “Hades has gotten bigger,” he insisted. “Really.”

She studied him for a moment, vaguely aware that his features had matured in a way that made him even better looking. “Is that pride I hear in your voice?”

Brody was about to deny it, then stopped to reconsider. “Yeah, I guess maybe it is. Surviving and thriving against the odds is an accomplishment to be proud of.”

Something in the way he said it caught her attention. “Are you talking about the town, or yourself?”

“Actually,” Brody admitted, “I was thinking about you.”

He knew she was right, that they had to get going, but he was in no hurry to leave. Once they were outside, he fully intended to guide Irena to her grandfather’s house. It was already getting dark—they were in that half of the year where, very quickly, there would be a minimum of light available to them—and even natives had been known to lose their way in a storm. And, unless he missed his guess, the sky looked as if it was ready to blanket the area with snow.

But once he was in his car and she in hers, they couldn’t talk anymore, and he really enjoyed talking to her. He savored it now, especially since he had no idea when the next opportunity might arise. And besides, before he knew it, she’d be gone again.

He leaned his hand against the wall above her head, unconsciously creating a small alcove for them. “We all expected you to come back, you know.” Hoped, really, he added silently. “At first, from college and then after you graduated. But you didn’t.”

She shrugged, looking away. “Things didn’t work out that way.” And then she looked back up at him. “You went away to college, too,” she remembered.

He’d thought that he could forget her if he was busy enough. He was wrong. “Yeah, but I came back.”

“You had no reason not to.” She remembered that he had been one of the few who had no desire to escape Hades. “You weren’t trying to forget something.”

“Maybe I was, in my own way.”

The moment the words were out, he regretted them. He had no idea what made him say that. He kept his feeling to himself all this time, not saying a word to anyone, although he suspected that Ryan had known.

It wasn’t typical of his brother not to bring it up, not to tease him. Sensitivity had never been Ryan’s strong suit, but in this one instance, somehow his brother had known enough to leave the subject, his feelings for Irena, alone.

Except for that one time.

It was the day before he took his own life. Ryan had been oddly forthright and talkative that afternoon, going over a litany of the mistakes he’d made over the years. He remembered that Irena had appeared twice on his brother’s list. Once because he regretted treating her so badly and the second time because, Ryan had told him, he realized that he, Brody, was the one who actually deserved to have her.

“Irena deserved someone better than me, and you deserved someone like her,” Ryan had concluded that day, being unusually serious. “If it hadn’t been for me getting in the way, who knows? Maybe the two of you might have gotten married. Or at least had a lot of fun together.” Ryan had winked then and chuckled. He’d wound up having a coughing fit.

“You’re babbling now,” he’d remembered telling his brother, doing his best to get Ryan to bed so that he could sleep it off. Four o’clock in the afternoon and Ryan was already drunk out of his mind.

“Maybe,” Ryan had allowed, falling into bed like a child-worn rag doll. “But I’m babbling the truth.” Ryan had grabbed the front of his shirt, raising himself off the bed for a moment as he underscored his point. “I know you love her. It’s there in your eyes.”

He’d very gently disengaged Ryan’s fingers from his shirt and put him back down again. “You’re hallucinating, Ryan,” he’d said with feeling.

“No, I’m not,” Ryan insisted. “I’ve always known it. Maybe that was even the reason I went after her,” he’d admitted, not because he was proud of himself, but because, Brody now realized, his brother had needed to confess the deed. “Because I wanted to take what you wanted. I’m sorry, Brody, I’m sorry.” He began to cry then. “I screwed up for all of us.”

It had taken him a while to calm Ryan down again. As for the apology, at the time he’d chalked up the words as the ramblings of an alcoholic. He’d heard enough so-called confessions and protestations of regret from both his father and his brother to know that there would be no memory of this in the morning.

But instead, this time there was no Ryan in the morning.

It was the last conversation they’d had.

“What?” Irena asked now, pressing him for an answer. “What were you trying to forget?”

Brody shook his head. “Sorry, didn’t mean to come off sounding so melodramatic.” He glanced out the front window again. It was looking worse by the minute. “If we don’t leave now, we’re going to wind up getting snowed in here,” he warned again. “Without any working phone lines, we’ll be stranded.”

“My grandfather would find us,” she assured him with a fond smile. “He has this uncanny instinct when it comes to family. But,” she agreed, lifting up the hood of her parka, “there’s no reason to put it to the test. You’re right, let’s go.”

Brody closed the door behind him as he followed her out. He didn’t bother locking it. Everything worth stealing had just walked out ahead of him.

Chapter Four

“You are really being here, Little One! It is so wonderful to be seeing you!”

The moment Yuri Yovich threw open his front door and saw who was standing on his doorstep, joy exploded all over his sun-weathered face. The rugged ex-miner looked at least a full decade younger than his seventy-nine years.

He gleefully swept his granddaughter into a fierce, warm embrace as, momentarily lapsing into Russian, he offered up several words of thanksgiving that she had arrived safely.

Creating a little space between them, he anointed first her left cheek, then her right in a traditional, exuberant greeting.

“I am so sorry that this is not being a happier occasion for you,” he confessed, pulling her to him once more. “I did not think you are coming until later. Why for you did not call me?” he asked, his accent thickening in the wake of his excitement at her arrival. “I would have coming to get you.”

Looking over her head, Yuri realized that his granddaughter was not alone. One arm around Irena, he motioned Brody in with the other. “Ah, Brody, thank you for bringing her to me.” He quickly closed the door to keep out the cold.

Brody smiled as he shook his head. Yuri should know better, he thought, placing her suitcase on the floor. “No one ‘brings’ Irena, Yuri. She drove herself here. I just followed to make sure she got here safely.”

Yuri turned toward Irena, confused. Had she driven from the Anchorage airport? “You are driving? With a car? How is this possible?”

Very few vehicles could make, or even attempt to make, the trip from Anchorage to Hades this time of year. September was the beginning of the six-month period that, before Shayne Kerrigan had bought a plane, the citizens of Hades found themselves completely cut off from the rest of the world.

“June flew me in, and she insisted that I use her Jeep,” Irena explained. “I offered to rent it, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

Yuri nodded with feeling, his shaggy gray hair swaying. “Ah, now I am understanding. June, she is a good girl.” Beaming, he framed Irena’s face with his massive hands. “Let me looking at you.” Joy vibrated in every word he uttered. “It is being much too long, Little One.”

“Yes, it has,” she agreed. She’d forgotten how much she loved this bear of a man with his gentle touch and flowing mane. “You and Ursula should come and visit me more often.”

“Ahh,” he made a little noise as he waved his hand at the suggestion. “I am not liking all that city noise. Better that you are here. How is your mother? Well, I am hoping.”

“She’s very well,” Irena assured him. “And very much in love.”

“Love is good,” he said with feeling, again nodding his head. The pronouncement led him to think of the larger than life woman he had finally talked into marrying him. Thoughts of Ursula always made him smile. “Ursula will be so happy to be seeing you.” And that led him to yet another thought. “Oh,” he said as if suddenly startled.

“Oh?” Irena echoed, both amused and curious. Glancing at Brody, she saw him raise his shoulders, letting her know that he had no clue why the older man looked as if he’d just become aware of something.

“I am needing to leave. I must picking up my bride from where she is working.” Yuri went to the coatrack and removed his parka. “I am telling her she should stop, but she is refusing.” He lowered his voice, as if to share a secret. “She likes being the post person.” Shoving his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, he sighed dramatically. But it was obvious that he wasn’t really upset about the situation. “Ursula is doing what she is wanting to do.” Pulling a colorful scarf out of his pocket, he draped it over his neck. “I will be coming right back,” he promised.

Yuri paused to peer out the front window. “The snow, it is stopping. You bring me good luck,” he announced, kissing Irena on both cheeks again. And then he turned to Brody. “You will staying to keep her company until I be back?”

She didn’t want Brody to be put on the spot. “Grandpa, I don’t need a babysitter.”

“No babysitter. Friend,” Yuri answered innocently. He glanced at Brody for confirmation. “And everyone is needing friend, yes?”

“Yes.” She laughed. Irena tucked the ends of her grandfather’s scarf into his jacket and then pulled up the zipper for him. “Be careful.”

“Always,” he said solemnly, kissing her forehead. And then, just as he was about to leave, he tossed off, “And when I coming back, we go.”

Surprised, Irena caught his arm to stop him. “Go? Go where?”

Yuri looked at his granddaughter incredulously. “Where we always are going to celebrate. To the Salty Dog.”

Brody merely smiled at Yuri’s statement as the older man left the house. Once Yuri was gone, Brody looked at Irena. “I told you there’d be a get-together at Ike’s.”

She appreciated that her grandfather was happy to see her, appreciated that old friends wanted to see her, but the truth of it was, she didn’t feel very festive.

“I’d rather go to the funeral parlor,” she told Brody.

“There’s not much point in you going, especially not tonight.” He saw the quizzical look that came into her eyes. “It’s a closed casket,” he explained. “Nathan and his wife couldn’t make Ryan presentable enough for viewing.”

He left it at that, not elaborating that Ryan had obviously placed the muzzle of his gun underneath his chin. It was the ultimate irony. Ryan’s looks were what his older brother had always traded on. His face had been his free ticket to countless bedrooms, and in the end, he’d destroyed it. Intentionally? There was no way of knowing, but he did have his suspicions.

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