Loving the Right Brother

by Marie Ferrarella

  Brody placed his hand over hers, aborting her search. “A willing pair of hands is more than enough.”

  She’d already said she’d help, but she wanted to do more. Should do more since she’d once lived here. “No one can ever have enough money.”

  “Yeah, they can,” he told her. “My father and Ryan had more than enough for the rest of their lives and look where it got them. My father drank himself to death and Ryan ‘executed’ himself.”

  A wave of guilt went through her. Irena pressed her lips together. She’d walked right into that, didn’t she? “Sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “No, you did. You were thinking of the people on the reservation, and you were being generous. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but really, having you pitch in tomorrow is more than enough. Everyone’s got more than enough to do here.” Life in Hades could be very hard. “Getting volunteers isn’t always easy.”

  She nodded, then her eyes grew bright as she had an idea. “You could call it a party.”

  Her eyes mesmerized him. It took effort to tear his own away and focus on what she was saying. “What?”

  “Well, as you pointed out, the citizens of Hades love getting together for a little celebration for any reason.” She grinned. “Move the party out of Ike’s place and to the reservation.”

  He turned her words over in his head. “You know,” he said with a grin, “that just might work.”

  “Sure it will,” she encouraged.

  They’d have to do it when they had daylight, which meant the heart of the day. But if they had enough people, a lot could be accomplished. He recalled that that was the way the firehouse had been built. “Maybe I’ll try it next weekend.”

  Next weekend. She’d be gone by then. Back to her life. She almost felt sorry. The key word being “almost.” “Too bad I won’t be here to see how it goes.”

  Though his expression never changed, Brody felt something inside of him plummet. “How soon do you have to leave?”

  She’d purposely left her return ticket open-ended because her grandfather hadn’t been certain when the funeral was going to be held. She still didn’t know. “I was thinking the day after the funeral. By the way, when is the funeral?”

  He had made all the arrangements yesterday afternoon. And after that, he’d gotten on his treadmill and run for ten miles, trying to work his way through his grief and silently cursing Ryan for being so damn selfishly stupid.

  “Saturday, at eleven,” he told her.

  Saturday. That meant she had to stay here five days, counting today. She thought of her boss. Eli had wanted her back before she even left. He wasn’t going to be happy that she wasn’t going to be in until Monday morning. “Then I’ll be leaving on Sunday.”

  Sunday. Today was Wednesday. That gave him three full days. Three days with her. It didn’t seem like nearly enough. But he supposed in comparison to not having any time at all, this would have to do.

  He had no idea he was going to ask—until he did. “You really have to leave so soon?”

  She nodded. “I’ve got a lot of cases I’m juggling. It was hard enough getting any time off. My boss isn’t a big fan of his people having private lives,” she told Brody.

  That didn’t sound like something the Irena he knew would have put up with.

  “Are you happy?” he asked her suddenly. She eyed him quizzically. “This lawyering stuff that you do, does it make you happy?”

  She felt herself growing defensive. Of late, she found herself becoming combative much too often. A side effect of always having to be on her toes, always fighting to get the best cases.

  “I make a difference,” she answered. Did that sound as clichéd to him as it did to her? “And that makes me happy.”

  He tried to understand. “Defending criminals makes you happy?” His voice was heavy with skepticism.

  The lawyer in her rose to the surface. “They’re not criminals until they’ve been proven guilty,” she pointed out.

  Her firm represented people in the public eye accused of major crimes. He’d followed her career at length. All it took were a few well-placed questions put to Ursula. The gregarious woman was happy to supply all the details.

  “Semantics,” he responded.

  “No,” she countered, “the justice system.” She could see that he wasn’t convinced. It was important to her that he understand. Important for some reason that he approve.

  “Not everyone who’s arrested is automatically guilty,” she pointed out.

  Brody slowly nodded. “True enough.” And then he apologized. “I’ve got no right to question what you do with your life.”

  Since they were apologizing, she took her turn. “I didn’t mean to sound so defensive.”

  The moment hung between them. Brody glanced down at his clothes. He was wearing the oldest jeans he had and the shirt beneath his jacket was ripped in several places, thanks to an altercation he’d gotten into with a stack of planks before he’d gotten a chance to plane them.

  “I’d better go home to change,” he told her. And then, because he’d envisioned her countless times in the last ten years, he looked at Irena for a moment longer. Trying to absorb enough to see him through the next ten years. Or so. “I’ll see you later at the saloon.”

  “I guess so,” she agreed, “seeing as I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter.”

  He paused just before opening the door. His eyes met hers. “You always have a choice, Irena,” he told her solemnly.

  And then he walked out into the cold, leaving her to stare at the closed door, wondering if she’d made a mistake coming back.

  “How’re you doin’ darlin’?” Klondike LeBlanc, known to one and all as Ike, asked her warmly. The moment Irena had entered with Yuri and Ursula, Ike had rounded the bar and made his way over to her. He took both her hands in his as he brushed a quick kiss against her cheek.

  A feeling of homecoming swelled inside her before she had a chance to shut it down.

  This isn’t home anymore, she reminded herself.

  Nothing had changed. Not the saloon, not Ike, nor the people who filled the establishment, calling out greetings to her the moment she entered. Oh, some of the residents looked a little older, a little more worn, and there were a few new faces. But for the most part, it was almost as if she’d never left. As if Hades had somehow been frozen in time like some mythical township out of a fairy tale.

  “I’m fine, Ike,” she told him, “and you look just as handsome as ever.” He did, she thought. There was still that same twinkle in his eye every time he called a woman “darlin’.”

  “That’s because married life agrees with him,” a petite blonde informed her, slipping in next to Ike. She threaded one arm around Ike’s waist and turned her face up to his. “Doesn’t it, Ike?”

  “Absolutely.” He grinned broadly and that was when Irena saw it. Contentment. It radiated from every pore. “Didn’t know what I was missing until you came along, darlin’,” he told his wife.

  “Good answer,” Marta LeBlanc approved. Her generous mouth curved. And then, as if suddenly aware that they were far from alone in this crowded saloon, Marta extended her hand to Irena. “Hi, I’m Marta, Ike’s wife.”

  “I kind of figured that out,” Irena told her, shaking the woman’s hand. “Brody told me that you helped clean up my old home. Thank you.”

  Marta brushed aside the expression of gratitude. “No thanks necessary. Enjoyed doing it. What are neighbors for?” Her eyes were warm as she asked, “So tell us, how long are you planning to stay?”

  That made it sound as if she was going to be staying for more than a heartbeat. “I’m not,” Irena replied. “I’m leaving right after the funeral. Sunday,” she elaborated.

  “Oh, you can’t go that fast, darlin’,” Ike protested. “It hardly gives us a chance to catch up.”

  Marta exchanged looks with her husband. “That’s too bad. Brody will be disappointed.”

  Something stirred
inside Irena. Curiosity? Had Brody said something to Ike? “Why should he be disappointed?”

  Ike didn’t answer her question. Instead, he brought up another point. “You know, Marta only came up here for a couple weeks.” He looked down at his wife. “That was how long ago, darlin’?”

  “In another lifetime,” Marta responded. And then she looked back at Irena. “This place grows on you.”

  “Unless you’re born here,” Irena contradicted.

  “Ike was born here,” Marta pointed out. “He’s never wanted to leave. He just wants to build Hades up.”

  “What are we talking about?” April Quintano asked, wedging in between them.

  Irena recognized the voice, but was surprised when she looked at the woman who joined them. “April?”

  “The very same.” The other woman laughed and then she threw her arms around Irena. “June told me she flew you in this afternoon.” She drew back to get a good look at Yuri’s granddaughter. “God, the last time I saw you, you were all knees and elbows.”

  “And you were on your way out of Hades,” Irena recalled. “Never to darken its snowy doorway again.”

  “Not just out of Hades but out of Alaska,” April corrected.

  “And now you live here?” Irena questioned.

  April laughed. “The best laid plans of mice and men…”

  As she recalled, April had been very vocal about how much she hated Hades. She’d left the moment she was old enough to be on her own. The woman who left bore little resemblance to the contented woman standing before her. “What happened?”

  “My grandmother, the little sneak,” April said with affection, looking over toward Ursula, “supposedly had a heart attack so I came back to help take care of her. At the same time, Jimmy came up to visit his sister.” She shrugged. “One thing led to another and I wound up staying.” April held up her left hand, displaying the gold band that symbolized their union. “I’ve never been happier. Neither, he tells me, has Jimmy.” Her eyes crinkled as she smiled again. “Gotta be the air here,” she quipped.

  “Or they’re putting something in the water,” Irena speculated dryly.

  “Whatever it is, it seems to be working,” April responded expansively. “We’re growing by leaps and bounds these days. A lot fewer people are leaving and some are coming.”

  “Speaking of coming, there’s Brody,” Ike commented, pointing toward the doorway. He raised his arm, waving at the man who had just walked in through the door.

  At the mention of her childhood best friend, Irena turned to look in the direction of the front entrance. Because the saloon was so crowded, it took her a few seconds to locate him. When she did, she was struck again by how much Brody resembled his brother, especially at a distance.

  An eerie feeling swirled through her like a pint-sized lethal twister.

  Chapter Five

  As the minutes melted into hours, Irena realized she’d forgotten something else: How gregarious the people who lived in Hades were. And how they thought nothing of asking endless personal questions.

  They didn’t ask out of self-serving curiosity or to use an explosive tidbit against her—not like in her line of work. Hades inhabitants asked questions because they actually cared about the answers. Because they cared about her.

  And while Ursula, aided and abetted by her position as Hades’ postmistress, was definitely the undisputed queen of information gathering, the people Irena had once regarded as her neighbors weren’t far behind.

  If they wanted to know something, they found a way to find out—directly or indirectly.

  “Stop,” Lily Yearling cried after bearing witness to another flood of inquiries. “Let the poor girl just enjoy being back without being interrogated.”

  Looking at her across the table where a number of them had planted themselves, Lily, the owner and primary chef of Hades’ most popular eating establishment, gave her a sympathetic smile. “I know just what you’re going through,” the woman told Irena. “When this crowd had that first party in my ‘honor—’” she deliberately emphasized the word “—I thought my head would explode before the evening was half over. I’d never come up against so many questions in such a short period of time from such innocent-looking people in my life. I felt like I was being dissected and then put back together again.” Lily placed her hand on top of hers and leaned forward, as if to impart some newly uncovered secret. “Try to remember they mean well.”

  “Dissected,” Max echoed, shaking his head. “You’re exaggerating, Lily.”

  Lily regarded her husband and smiled, as if appreciating some secret pleasure. “No, I’m not. People don’t do that in Seattle,” she pointed out. She and her siblings were all natives of the Washington city.

  “That’s because they’re too busy scratching out a living, running people over who get in their way,” her sister, Alison, chimed in. “I should know.” She turned toward Irena. “I was going to nursing school and driving a taxi part time for Kevin back in Seattle when I met Jean Luc and he sweet-talked me into coming up here.”

  “Coming up here was your idea,” Jean Luc reminded his wife. “You said you wanted to do something to pay me back for saving you from that mugger.”

  Alison sniffed. “I was thinking more along the lines of giving you a free tour around Seattle, not coming back here to pose as your wife.”

  “What?” Completely confused, Irena looked from Jean Luc to Alison, waiting for enlightenment. She was only getting a tiny taste of the whole story, and she hated being left in the dark.

  “Long story,” Jean Luc told her. Then, because she appeared disappointed, he promised, “I’ll save it for the next time we’re completely snowed in and bored out of our minds.”

  “She won’t be here then,” Brody interjected.

  Irena looked at him, surprised by his comment. He sat next to her at the table, and for the most part, he’d been very quiet. He hadn’t said more than three sentences all evening. But, talkative or not, she hadn’t forgotten he was there, not even for a moment. For reasons she couldn’t quite understand, his presence seemed to permeate her.

  Jean Luc flashed her an apologetic smile. “Oh, yeah, I’m sorry.” Even so, this still wasn’t the time to drag out a story the others were well acquainted with. “Some other time, then, when Ike isn’t hanging around, ready to narrate or embellish everything I say.”

  Sitting at the far end of the table, Ike grinned at his more subdued cousin. “I just like adding a little color to your stories. It makes them more lively and, more importantly, keeps people from falling asleep.”

  Marta leaned forward, patting her husband’s hand. “Translation, he can’t keep quiet for more than two minutes at a time—and even that’s a stretch.”

  Irena had forgotten how well everyone in Hades seemed to get along. There were no cliques here, no elite hierarchy or strictly enforced chain of command that couldn’t be violated under pain of censure. Granted, there was a division of labor and everyone had their assigned place in Hades. Sometimes she’d found the slowed-down pace maddening, but if some kind of an emergency arose, they’d all quickly band together and tackle whatever it was that needed their attention.

  She didn’t realize she was smiling to herself until she heard, “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Brody leaned in so that only she could hear his question.

  She still wore the same fragrance, he realized. Some stirring mixture of vanilla and jasmine. Every time he walked in the field behind his house when the jasmine were in bloom, the scent always made him think of her.

  Lots of things made him think of her.

  “Gotta do better than that if you want to hear them.” Irena laughed, turning her head to look at him.

  “Oh? What would it take to hear your thoughts?” he asked.

  The laughter died in her throat, fading away. Her face was only inches from his. Maybe not even inches, maybe just an inch and a heartbeat away. As for her heart, it had sped up and now seemed to vibrate in al
l her pulse points.

  Everyone else in the overly crowded establishment swiftly faded into the outer perimeters, along with the din they created. A stillness came in their wake, a stillness that surrounded just the two of them and this isolated, overly warm second in time.

  “Is it just me,” she murmured, the words all but dribbling from her lips in slow motion, “or is it getting hot in here?”

  “It’s you,” Brody said. “Although maybe the fact that so many bodies are jammed into such a limited amount of space might have something to do with it.”

  Not all that long ago the entire population of Hades was able to fit into the saloon. That was back when Ike and Jean Luc only worked here, before they bought the Salty Dog, the first of their many business ventures. And despite the fact that under Ike and Jean Luc’s ownership, the saloon had expanded to more than twice its original size, there still never seemed to be enough room to accommodate everyone.

  That was why, for most gatherings, people took turns coming in while others spent time outside. The majority of gatherings were held in the summer months where the sun hung around for an obscene amount of time.

  Damn, but he wanted to kiss her. To frame her face with his hands and touch his lips to hers. To taste her the way he’d longed to all these years. But he’d only make a fool of himself. He was glad they were here and not anywhere private.

  Brody got a grip on himself. “You look tired,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  She’d arrived in Hades already tired. Her brief time at the office, followed by the long trip had exhausted her. Even so, she didn’t want to see the evening end. Other than attending the funeral, she wouldn’t see these people again. And a funeral wasn’t the place for visiting, for remembering times that had gone into making up her character as well as creating a warehouse of memories.

  Leaning over, she picked up her purse and placed it on the table in front of her. “Well, if I’m supposed to get an early start tomorrow, maybe I should go back to the house.”