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