Loving the Right Brother

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.”