was one that was used by Shayne to fly medical supplies into Hades and patients to Anchorage Memorial when they needed serious surgery.
“Maybe,” Kevin said.
Sydney detoured, guiding the plane around a cloud formation. He found himself admiring her form. “Are you still the only pilot in and out of Hades? Besides your husband,” he qualified. Shayne, he recalled, had been the one to originally teach Sydney how to fly. Although grudgingly done, that had turned out to be a good thing for him, since she’d been the one who had to fly Shayne into Anchorage when he’d had appendicitis.
She’d gotten so used to the addition it took her a second to grasp the question. Her world had become small enough that it was easy to forget that everyone wasn’t privy to what went on in Hades.
“No, Mr. Kellogg’s son decided that he was going to expand his produce flights and operate out of Hades. That brings our total of planes up to two, but we certainly need more,” Sydney confided. “We’ve been doing a lot of growing since you were here last.”
He looked out the window. The plane was approaching Hades. It certainly didn’t appear as if the town, with its population of barely five hundred, was growing at all. From here, it still looked like a small, colorful dot on the ground. Hardly big enough to occupy even a tiny corner of a city like Seattle.
Sitting next to him, June looked at him knowingly. She could all but read the thoughts forming in his head. “Not exactly a thriving metropolis yet,” she agreed. “But we’re getting there. Slowly.”
He shifted back into his seat. “You still run the only mechanic shop in town?”
“No.” Despite her excuse to her brother, she had to admit that there were times she missed the shop. Missed puzzling over what was wrong with an engine, or how to resurrect a car that seemed to be on its last legs. Missed the triumphant feeling when it all finally came together. “Walter runs it now.”
“Walter?” He tried to recall if any of his siblings had mentioned a Walter. He made the natural leap. “Is that your husband?”
Kevin glanced at her hand. It was barren of jewelry, just as it had been two years ago. But then, she didn’t strike him as the type to have any use for a ring as a symbol of her commitment.
Thinking of the tall, gawky man who had, until recently, tried to convince her that they were meant to be together, June nearly choked. “Hardly. I sold him the shop a few months ago.”
Kevin recalled his surprise when he’d learned that she owned a shop like that in the first place. But she had seemed very capable at the kind of work she did and as knowledgeable as any of the mechanics he’d employed at the taxi service over the years. More. He’d had the impression, the last time he’d been here, that she was going to work on cars forever.
“Why did you sell it? I thought you liked fixing cars.”
“I did.” June shrugged. She had never liked explaining herself. She liked explaining her feelings even less. “Felt like it. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
The exact words he’d used to explain the situation to Lily. And to himself, Kevin thought. The coincidence made him smile. Maybe he had more in common with this fledgling woman than he thought.
“Me, too.”
One corner of June’s mouth rose in a half smile. “Yeah, I know. You sold your taxi service.”
She saw that he looked surprised that she knew. Obviously, the man had no inkling of what life was like in a small town. Even a small town that was spread out like Hades was. Any kind of news spread faster than Biblical locusts let loose over Egypt.
June inclined her head toward him so that he could hear her over the roar of the engine.
“I was there when Lily found out.” She still got a kick out of it. “You could have knocked all of them over with a feather.” In a way, she figured it gave them something in common. “Kind of like when I told Max I’d sold the shop to Walter.” She sat back again. “I guess people have an image of you and they don’t feel comfortable changing it.”
Kevin looked at her. She was talking as if she was settled in her ways, on her way to middle age. There was only one of them like that in the plane.
“You’re too young to sustain an image yet,” he told her. “Me, I’m a different story.”
There was that grin again. This time, the lightning came a little closer, singeing a little skin. He wondered if the altitude was getting to him.
“Right.” June nodded her head sagely, a deadpan expression on her lips. “Because you’re an old man. Just a little younger than the hills, right?”
Maybe he’d said too much already. Kevin began to back away. “Well, when you put it that way—”
June cocked her head, studying him. She knew he was Lily’s older brother, but there were no signs of age. He looked no different than Max or Jimmy to her. If she had to make a judgment, she would have said he wasn’t even as old as Sydney’s husband, although she vaguely recalled hearing that he was.
“Just how old do you feel?” she asked.
Her eyes were boring into him, and he blinked to keep from being drawn into the deep light blue pools. “Too old,” was all he’d volunteer.
He wasn’t vain about his age. It was a matter of public record and June could have asked any of his siblings to find out that he was thirty-seven. Thirty-seven when he didn’t even remember ever being twenty-five. How had that happened?
“We’re going to have to do something about that,” June decided. “Hades has a way of equalizing things, making everyone feel more or less the same. The young seem older than their years, the old seem younger. My grandmother and I are the same age, really.” Everyone knew that Ursula Hatcher, the town’s postmistress, was a hellion, given to kicking up her heels and certainly not above taking a lover when the mood hit her. She’d already buried several husbands and had her cap currently set for a man named Yuri, a former miner.
June smiled at him. It was a soft, easy expression that made her seem somehow softer. “That definitely puts us at the same age, old man.”
He laughed, but that was the way he felt at times, like an old man. Old without ever having had the luxury of being young. He didn’t even remember going through the years. They had just gone of their own volition, while he’d been busy working.
He missed that, he thought, missed being young. Thinking young.
But there was something about June’s eyes that made him feel younger.
Feel young.
Watch it, Quintano, that’s one of the first signs of being an old man, having a young woman make you feel like a teenager again.
He shook off the mood before he said something he regretted. “So, what other changes have there been besides you selling the shop and becoming a woman of leisure?”
June was quick to set him straight. “I’m hardly that. I’m working the family farm, now.”
Something else that was news, he thought. “I didn’t
