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?”
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
