Loving the Right Brother

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?”