Loving the Right Brother

by Marie Ferrarella

  “That, darlin’, you’ve always had. It goes without saying,” Ike assured her with a wink. “Do you need this ‘friend’ for anything specific?”

  “Look after Brody,” she requested. “And if he needs any help with the foundation or the scholarship funding, could you just look over his shoulder and steer him in the right direction?”

  “Sure, I could do that. But you could do it a lot better than I could,” he reminded her, “seeing as how you set them both up, and you’re a lawyer and all.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “He didn’t ask me to.”

  Ike studied her for a long moment. “And that would be all it’d take?” he wanted to know. “You’d stay if he asked you to?”

  Red flags instantly went up in her head. Was that a gleam she saw in his eye? “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, Ike, don’t,” she cautioned him.

  He was the soul of innocence. “What makes you think I’m thinking of doing anything?”

  She wasn’t taken in for a minute. She didn’t need a six-foot cupid behind the scenes, orchestrating things. “I’m serious, Ike. No prodding, no hints, no nothing, do you understand? I do not want you saying anything to Brody.”

  The innocent look was tempered with amusement. “Not even hi?”

  She wasn’t in the mood to be teased. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.” He grew a little serious. “And it makes me glad that I’m not as young as you are anymore.”

  “Glad I serve a purpose,” she murmured just before she slid off the stool. “Well, take care of yourself, Ike.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “You sound as if you’re going now.”

  She’d made up her mind. Farley had been after her to return as soon as possible, and now she had no reason not to. “I am.”

  He seemed a little confused. “I thought you said you were leaving tomorrow.” And then, because they both knew he’d been too far away in order to eavesdrop on her conversation with Brody, he grinned and pointed to the mirror. “I saw your lips.”

  Irena raised her eyebrows. “You read lips?”

  “Helps in a noisy saloon,” he explained. “Beats saying ‘what?’ every two minutes.”

  She supposed he had a point. In any case, it had no effect on her decision. “I might as well go today,” she said. “I’ve done everything I came here to do.”

  Ike’s expression bore doubt. But it didn’t matter what he thought. She just wanted to go back to Seattle. And away from here.

  “At least let us throw you a party,” Ike urged.

  “You’ve already thrown me a party,” Irena reminded him.

  “A farewell party this time,” he clarified.

  She shook her head. “I’d rather just say my goodbyes quietly, but thanks anyway.”

  Ike folded the cloth he was using to wipe down the bar and put it down.

  “Sure, don’t mention it. Anytime I can not throw you a party, just let me know.” Coming around the bar, he gave her a long hug. “Take care of yourself, Irena Yovich. And try not to be such a stranger,” he instructed. “Come see us once in a while.” Releasing her, he took a step back. “It’ll do us all some good.”

  She could argue that point. But instead, she said nothing. She merely nodded her head, doing her best not to cry.

  Irena had never fully realized just how lonely a city Seattle could be until she returned to it.

  Loneliness seemed to come at her from every angle, covering her with a blanket of darkness.

  It was as if there was an abyss inside of her and no amount of noise, of interaction with her colleagues and acquaintances or even burning the midnight oil seemed to fill the gaping emptiness.

  She’d never felt this lonely before. This painfully adrift even as she was literally in the middle of chaos. Instead of being well handled the way she’d assumed, her caseload had piled up.

  She just had to work harder, Irene silently insisted. Even though she wasn’t sure if that was humanly possible, she was fairly certain Eli Farley shared this opinion with her. The senior partner had indicated more than once that he felt no one in his firm could ever work too hard.

  Well, she was already working at maximum capacity, she realized. Even so, she didn’t seem able to get back into the groove she’d vacated to go to Hades.

  How long was it going to take?

  It had been two weeks since she’d returned. Two weeks in which she’d secretly waited, hoped, prayed Brody would get in contact with her. To tell her simply that he missed her. Or to call on some pretext just so that he could hear the sound of her voice.

  God knows she’d entertained thoughts of doing that very same thing herself. Only the desire to salvage a tiny piece of her pride had restrained her. But rather than it getting easier as time passed, it was getting progressively harder.

  Or, at least it felt that way, she thought, filing into the tenth floor conference room with the other attorneys of Farley & Roberson.

  It was nine a.m. on Monday morning, which meant time for their weekly meeting. They were required to give progress reports, to go over the cases pending and to review and make decisions regarding new cases. The latter had to be examined, and then they would decide whether or not the new cases would be taken on.

  Eli Farley and Drew Roberson, the firm’s other senior partner, were the last word on every decision, with Farley’s opinion ultimately outweighing Roberson’s since the latter had a year less with the firm. But as it was, the two rarely disagreed.

  The new cases were handed out to the junior attorneys who had to summarize them and weigh the advantages of pursuing them. And whether they could be won. A loss at any level, by even the newest attorney, could reflect badly on them all.

  She was up second this morning. She had all her notes in order and spread out in front of her. It had taken her twice as long to compile her report, not because she couldn’t obtain the necessary information but because even armed with a slew of information, she just couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  Words would swim in front of her as if she waded through a sea of alphabet soup rather than try to read a detailed report. Over and over again she found her mind drifting, forcing her to refocus and start from the beginning.

  This couldn’t continue, she silently told herself. Get with the program, Irena. He doesn’t love you. Don’t sacrifice your career for another man who doesn’t love you.

  As George Donnelly, an attorney she’d worked with more than once, wrapped up his recommendation on a case involving a high-ranking CEO being sued by his mistress, Irena felt her cell phone vibrate in her jacket pocket. She’d forgotten to turn it off.

  Slipping the phone out to remedy that, she couldn’t help but glance down to see who was calling. The area code identified it as coming from Alaska.

  Whoever it was, she’d call them back after the meeting. Flipping open the phone to shut it off, she saw the text message. Words were moving across the tiny screen, approximating an old-fashioned ticker tape.

  As she read, her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

  “Earthquake hit in a.m. Cave-in at mine. Brody among missing.”

  The message started again, as if taunting her.

  “Something you’d like to share with the class, Irena?” Eli Farley asked sarcastically, his voice breaking through her thoughts.

  She looked up at him, stunned. She had to get out of here. She needed to go back. She couldn’t just stay here, listening to the junior attorneys drone on as if nothing was happening. Couldn’t sit here listening to Eli Farley prattle about prestige.

  The next second, to Farley’s surprise, she was on her feet. “Yes,” she answered with finality. “I have to leave.”

  She heard Farley calling after her, demanding to know where she was going and why, but she didn’t stop to answer. She didn’t have time. A dire sense of urgency filled her.

  All she could think of was that Brody was buried in a cave-in
and that he needed her. She refused to think beyond that or even attempt to follow the situation to a possible dark conclusion.

  Brody needed her and she was going. Nothing else mattered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  All the way to the airport, sitting on the edge of her seat in the back of the taxi like a spring that had been wound too tightly, Irena could only think of getting to Hades.

  Now.

  No way could she remain here, relying on information relayed to her by various news channels.

  What made it all even worse was that there was no longer any phone service, cellular or standard, in Hades. Over and over again she tried to reach someone—anyone—who could tell her what was going on.

  Every number she tried yielded the same results. Nothing. The quake had been centered fifty miles away from Hades, and while the perky woman on TV announced that there were reports of minimal damage so far, that was only because the center of the 6.4 quake had been in a desolate area.

  There was no telling what was happening in Hades.

  Irena could recall experiencing earthquakes while she lived there—some minor, some not so minor. Like the one that had taken her father from her. Morgan Yovich had been buried in a mine cave-in for more than a week before rescuers could finally dig him and the men buried with him out. There had been no survivors.

  What was Brody doing in the mines? she wondered for the thousandth time. He wasn’t a miner; he didn’t belong there. He spent his time on the reservation, rebuilding it. What could have drawn him away to go underground? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe June had gotten it wrong when she’d sent her the message.

  At least she could hope.

  It didn’t help.

  She couldn’t find a way to escape the uneasiness. Something was wrong. She could feel it, feel it knotting up the pit of her stomach, and she knew that she wouldn’t have any peace until she got to Hades. She needed to assess what was happening for herself.

  To do that, she needed to get a flight out. Immediately.

  Easier said than done.

  At first, the impeccably groomed woman at the ticket counter told her that the earliest flight she could get to Anchorage wasn’t until the next day, at noon. But the reservation clerk took pity on her after she’d pleaded with the woman, saying her fiancé was doing volunteer work at the epicenter of the quake and she hadn’t been able to get in contact with him. The woman finally managed to arrange a flight for her with a different airline located in the next terminal.

  Irena had fifteen minutes to pay for her ticket and get over there.

  She ran all the way, silently asking God to forgive her for the lie she’d just told. Brody wasn’t her fiancé, but the thick-headed idiot could have been, if he’d only asked her to marry him the way he was supposed to. Or at least asked her to stay in Hades with him. She was certain that things could have worked out for them eventually.

  Instead, she was down here in Seattle, going through the motions of having a life, pretending that she was getting over him. Knowing deep down that she wasn’t and probably wouldn’t for a very long time.

  She was the last one at the gate. The airline attendant was just about to close it off when Irena came racing past the ticket clerk, gasping for breath and waving her ticket so that the attendant would know why a breathless blonde was charging at him.

  “Almost missed your flight,” the attendant commented with an amused chuckle, standing to the side in order to let her pass.

  “Almost,” she gasped in agreement. Hopefully, she wouldn’t discover when she finally got to Hades that she had also missed something else.

  Let him be alive, she prayed.

  She still couldn’t get through.

  No matter how many different numbers she tried, her grandfather’s, Kevin and June’s, Brody’s, Ursula at the post office, Max, there was no answer. Hades was as cut off from the world now as it had been more than a hundred years ago.

  Progress could only be appreciated when it was suddenly absent. She snapped her cell phone closed.

  Picking up her small bag, she hurried off the plane and into the terminal. She didn’t stop moving until she reached the area where, less than two months ago, June had met her with the passenger plane.

  The area was conspicuously empty.

  Not a good sign, Irena thought, trying not to panic. There could be lots of reasons why none of Kevin and June’s planes were there. And she certainly hadn’t expected Shayne’s plane to be there. As one of Hades’s three doctors, Dr. Shayne Kerrigan and his wife, Sydney, had to have their hands full right now. Everyone at the clinic probably did.

  Irena looked around.

  So near and yet so far.

  She never truly appreciated the meaning of that old saying until just now. Banking down frustration, she went back into the terminal in search of some kind of transportation.

  It took her over an hour, but she finally located someone to take her to Hades. The pilot, retired Air Force Captain Seth Adams, had overheard her asking the clerk at the ticket counter if she knew of anyone willing to take her to Hades, and he had volunteered his services.

  “My plane goes where I want her to,” he told Irena. “Linda, my ex-wife, never did.”

  She did her best to look as if she was interested in his story. All she wanted to do was to get to Hades as quickly as possible.

  “I don’t have much cash on me,” she told him once he’d agreed to take her. “But I can write you a check.” The man didn’t know her from Adam. He might not trust her, she thought. “Or I can try to find an ATM machine if you’d rather have cash.”

  Seth waved away the offer. “I was going up anyway. Now I’ve got a direction.”

  Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

  She could have hugged him if she wasn’t afraid of scaring him away.

  They took off right after Seth filed his flight plan with the tower.

  From the air, everything seemed fine, Irena looked down at the town as they approached Kevin and June’s small airstrip.

  It was only as they got closer that she saw how the front of the church had fallen to rubble. Some of the other buildings around it had sustained damages as well while others were untouched. The ravages of the earthquake had been capricious.

  And then her attention was drawn to something else.

  The takeoff in Anchorage had been bumpy. The landing now was even bumpier, although Seth apparently expected more turbulence. He appeared incredibly pleased with himself as the two-seater stopped taxiing and came to a teeth-jarring halt at the end of the airstrip.

  “That was one of Eunice’s smoother landings,” he told her with pride. “Almost smooth as silk.”

  “Silk,” she echoed numbly. Her hand shook a little as she unbuckled herself. But Adams had gotten her here. If not for him and his wobbly Cessna, she would have still been in Anchorage, begging someone for a ride. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Anything I can do?” he asked her as she opened the cabin door.

  “If you’re good at praying, you might want to say a few for the miners,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  He nodded a shaggy grey head. “I can do that,” he agreed amiably. “But the big guy upstairs doesn’t always listen,” he warned.

  She raised a hand over her head and waved without a backward glance.

  Where was everyone?

  She wanted to find out if there was any news, and she fervently hoped she could get it from Kevin or June, but neither was in the terminal.

  Irena circled the small building, searching for signs of life. She finally found Kevin, who was just getting into his Jeep.

  When he saw her, he seemed stunned. “I thought you were in Seattle.”

  “I was. Five hours ago.” She took a breath, bracing herself. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s not good,” Kevin told her honestly. “I was just closing up so I could go join the rescue effort.”

  Thank God she’d gotten here now instead o
f later. “Mind if I hitch a ride with you?”

  “Sure.” He opened the passenger door for her. “Hopin.”

  She tossed in her bag and then sat down. “Aren’t they starting rescue efforts rather late?” she asked. “The last time Hades was hit hard with a quake, there was a rescue party organized within an hour after it hit. Any reason for the delay?” She tried to sound nonchalant even as she dreaded hearing what might be the answer.

  “There’s no delay,” he told her, starting his vehicle. “This is the second rescue effort.”

  “The second one? What happened to the first one?” She had a sinking feeling she already knew but she held out hope.

  “There was an aftershock, bigger than the original quake,” he said slowly, slanting a glance at her as he drove to the opposite end of the town. “The rescue party was trapped.”

  She had her answer to what Brody was doing in the mine. He was one of the rescuers. “How many men?”

  “In the rescue party? Over a dozen. That makes thirty-two who are still missing. A few managed to run out between cave-ins.”

  “Who?” she forced herself to ask, her breath evaporating in her throat.

  Kevin went down the list of miners, getting to the names of the rescuers last.

  Brody’s name echoed in her head before Kevin even said it. Her hands turned icy even as a shaft of heat shot through her.

  He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t.

  “How long have they been in there?” she finally forced herself to ask.

  “The cave-in happened seven hours ago. The aftershock hit a little more than an hour after that.” He spared her another, longer glance. “Don’t worry, Irena, we’ll find him. Want me to drop you off at your grandfather’s house?”

  “No.” As relieved as she was that her grandfather was all right, being at the house rather than at the mine was unthinkable. It was as useless as remaining in Seattle.

  “You could stay with June,” was Kevin’s next suggestion.

  She shook her head. Nothing was going to keep her away. “I’m coming with you. To the mine,” she added.