Loving the Right Brother

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.