The next moment, Brody and the other five men returned, dividing the weight of the coffin between them as they carried it and slowly made their way to the nearby cemetery.
Irena fell into step directly behind them.
It was as if someone had thrown a switch.
The weather grew colder as they stood gathered around the deep, rectangular hole in the ground and the casket that rested beside it. The minister had selected a short reading from the Bible, the passage that mentioned the body’s return to ashes. She really wasn’t listening that closely. The sobs coming from several of the women made it difficult to hear.
It was the kind of send-off she knew that Ryan would have appreciated. He always liked being the center of attention, and he particularly liked being the center of attention where women were involved.
She was probably the only one here mourning his lost potential. She and Brody, Irena silently amended, glancing to her left. His profile was rigid, as if he was holding himself in check.
Brody was alone now, and even though he and Ryan could have never been mistaken for two of the musketeers, she knew Brody had to be feeling a sudden emptiness, a deep sense of bereavement.
As the minister finished his reading and closed the Bible he was holding, she slipped her hand into Brody’s and gave it a quick squeeze. She continued holding his hand as the casket was secured, then slowly lowered into the ground.
Brody stoically watched the entire process, his expression remaining immobile. Then, when the casket was in the ground and the winches were removed, he picked up a shovel and began to fill the hole.
Silently, one by one, Matthew, Ike and the other pall-bearers joined in the effort. It was over with quickly.
Setting his shovel back on the ground, Ike turned to face Brody. “You’re coming to the Salty Dog.” It wasn’t an invitation but a mandate.
Brody shook his head, staring at the fresh mound of dirt. “I don’t much feel like celebrating his life, Ike,” he told him honestly.
Ike clamped an arm around Brody’s shoulders in a bracing gesture. It was obvious that Ike was not about to take no for an answer.
“Then celebrate your own,” he suggested. “Lily’s catering the food. She’s spent all morning preparing different dishes, and believe me, you don’t want to say ‘No, thank you, I’ll pass,’ to the woman. Not if you value your head being where it is.”
“Amen to that,” Alison chimed in with feeling. “My sister gets very testy when it comes to having her food rejected.” She turned toward her brother-in-law. “Right, Max?”
The sheriff laughed dryly. “’Fraid so. Better just come peaceably, Brody,” he counseled. “If not for yourself, then do it for the town.” He punctuated his recommendation with a wink.
Brody didn’t answer immediately. He’d wanted to be alone. Alone with his feelings, alone with his memories and, just possibly, alone with Irena for what could be the last time. She still hadn’t said anything about staying past tomorrow.
But it looked as if he wasn’t about to get the chance to do any of that, especially the latter. Inclining his head, he acquiesced to Max’s entreaty, murmuring, “I guess I can’t buck the whole town.”
Max kept a straight face as he nodded. “No point in even trying.”
Hooking her arm through Brody’s, Irena flashed a comforting smile at him and started to follow Ike who was leading the way back.
“It’ll do you good,” she told Brody, lowering her voice because she knew how very private he could be at times.
“Maybe,” Brody agreed, trying to sound as if he actually believed what he was saying. Still, he appreciated what everyone was trying to do, appreciated the fact that, as Irena had said, they were all there for him.
Behind him Brody heard more than one woman begin to sob again. The volume seemed to increase. He looked back over his shoulder. Standing over the grave site, Tessa and two other women had dissolved in tears for what seemed like the third time.
Brody stopped walking.
“What’s the matter?” Irena asked.
He nodded toward the women. “Someone should go comfort Tessa, Grace and Jill.”
The moment he said that, Ike’s wife, Marta, Shayne’s wife, Sydney, and Jimmy’s wife, April, all three of whom were right behind him, fell back.
“Already taken care of,” Marta replied, gesturing for him to continue on to the saloon. Turning, she and the other two women made their way over to the last of Ryan Hayes’s women.
Irena watched the six women interact for a moment and smiled to herself. She’d forgotten how well coordinated everyone could be in this tiny after-thought of a town. While it was true that, for the most part, the people who lived here were far from sophisticated, their decency and basic set of values elevated them above a lot of the people she encountered in her incredibly fast-paced day to day life in Seattle.
The wind might have ushered in a chill, she thought, turning back to Brody, but there was an undeniable warmth generated here that no amount of wind could dissipate.
The celebration after Ryan Hayes’s funeral went on through the late afternoon and continued long after the sun had gone down, threading into the evening. Because Ike and Jean Luc made a point of running a family oriented saloon, no one had to leave the premises because they had a family waiting for them at home.
Instead, all the family members, from the youngest child to the oldest spouse or grandparent, were right there with them. And, as Ike had pointed out to Brody, the gathering was far more a celebration of life than a mourning of the passing of someone whose life had not touched as many as it should have.
Brody found himself surrounded by friends who were more family to him than his late brother and father had ever been. It made him grateful that he lived where he did.
Still, he thought, he’d give it all up in a heartbeat to be with Irena.
If she asked him to.
He pushed the thought from his mind. No point in entertaining fantasies. He’s shared two incredible nights with her, and he would have to be satisfied with that.
It was more than he’d had before.
The din grew louder as more and more people crowded into the saloon and competed with one another, raising their voices in order to be heard.
Irena observed the people around her rather than talked. And, because he was first and foremost a beloved friend, she took it upon herself to make sure that Brody was never left alone for more than a couple of minutes at a time. She sincerely believed that he needed to be kept occupied so that his thoughts, which had to be painful right now, didn’t run away with him.
Eventually, the party wound down and the crowd thinned out again. Most of the people who had come from the reservation had said their goodbyes to Brody much earlier. Their exodus was eventually followed by the others.
It was getting late. Time for them to leave, Irena thought. She looked around for Brody. She’d seen him with Max a few minutes ago, but Max had just walked past her and Brody wasn’t with him.
She curbed the urge to ask the sheriff if he knew where Brody was. That would make her sound like a mother hen, and she didn’t want people getting the wrong idea.
Was it the wrong idea? A small voice in her head asked.
Shutting the voice out, she wandered through the saloon, weaving in and out between people, looking for Brody and trying not to be obvious.
She finally saw him over by the buffet tables that Ike and Jean Luc had set up to hold Lily’s food.
As expected, there was nothing left on the plates. Every last morsel was gone. Lily prided herself on the fact that she didn’t make the kind of food people stored for another day. Even stuffed to the gills, if there was a bite left, they would consume it. It was what made her restaurant so popular.
Walking up behind Brody, she saw that he wasn’t scavenging for food. Instead he was neatly stacking the plates.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Cleaning up,” Brody answered simply, depo
siting one stack of plates on a tray. He intended to bring them into the small kitchen in the back and wash them.
“No, you’re not,” Irena insisted, removing his hands from the dishes. She placed herself between him and the tables. “You’re emotionally wrung out, Brody. You’re not supposed to do anything except sit around and talk if you feel up to it.”
“I’ve been doing that for—” Brody paused to check his watch “—the last ten hours,” he pointed out. He reached for another plate and found his hand deftly blocked by her body. “My jaw hurts, Irena. I need to do something physical.”
“Okay,” she agreed, taking him by the hand and drawing him away from the tables. “You can come outside and go for a walk with me.”
He found himself being led to the front door. “But Lily—”
“Can take care of her own plates,” Lily announced, walking past Brody and to the buffet tables. She smiled at him as she did so. “That’s why God invented husbands,” she assured Brody, beckoning for hers to come over. “To help pick up the slack.”
“And for a few other things,” Max said with a wicked grin as he joined her.
“And for a few other things,” Lily echoed. She paused for a moment to lean into Max, her body language testifying just how very compatible they were. “Now go,” Lily ordered Brody, turning her attention back to him. “Leave all this to me. To us,” she amended, her eyes meeting Max’s.
“Everything was great,” Brody told her. He’d nearly forgotten to thank her.
The smile on Lily’s face was one of self-satisfaction.
“Yes, I know.”
Standing behind her, Max wrapped his arms around her waist. “Gotta do something about that overwhelming modesty of yours, Lil.”
Very gently, Lily removed his arms and went back to stacking dishes. “I put a lot of effort into being as good as I possibly can,” she reminded her husband.
Max lowered his voice and whispered, “I’ll remember that tonight.”
Max obviously thought his voice was low enough, but Irena had heard him. She couldn’t help envying Lily, she thought, slipping on her parka. Banking down her thoughts, she turned toward Brody.
“C’mon, let’s get you out into the fresh air,” she said cheerfully.
He could see through her, Brody thought. She was deliberately trying to be cheerful in order to cover up what she was going through. All this domestic harmony and wordplay had probably made her miss Ryan even more.
Irena would always be Ryan’s girl, he thought, resigning himself to the fact. He was just fooling himself if he believed anything else.
He gestured toward the door. “After you,” he said, profoundly wishing that he didn’t ache for her so.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you going to be all right?” she asked Brody as he pulled his car up in front of Yuri’s house later that night.
After leaving the saloon, they had both lost track of time as they’d walked and talked. It had been more than an hour later that they’d finally gotten into his car and driven over to her grandfather’s house.
There was a single light shining on the porch, a beacon to guide her home. Now that she was here, she realized that she didn’t want to go home. She wanted to remain with Brody.
Was that selfish of her?
Maybe.
She looked at him with concern now, ready to jump at any excuse to stay with him.
He turned off the ignition, then shifted to look at her. The light from the porch helped illuminate the inside of the cab. Her face was bathed in partial shadows. His fingertips itched to lightly trace them.
“Funny,” he said, “I was just going to ask you the same question.”
Irena shrugged.
“I’m fine, but I was—am—” she corrected herself “—worried about you.”
She didn’t want him to be alone, he thought. And she didn’t realize that he’d been alone long before Ryan had terminated his life.
“Don’t be,” he assured her. “Except for when I was cleaning up his messes, Ryan and I didn’t interact all that much.” Brody laughed dryly. “He thought I was wasting my life. I thought he was wasting his.” But he’d loved his brother, warts and all. He just hadn’t liked him very much. “There wasn’t much common ground.”
“Wasting your life?” she echoed incredulously. Without consciously realizing it, she wrapped her arms around herself as the chill sliced through the closed car. “By helping others?”
He thought of his brother’s vocation: to make love with every breathing, desirable woman he came across. Ryan very nearly succeeded with all the single ones. And more than a couple of the married ones, as well. His brother had had a gift for making women feel special, feel pretty. Until he was tired of them. “Ryan had his own definition of helping others.”
“Yes, and very strict requirements regarding who he’d help.” Again she upbraided herself. She considered herself a fairly intelligent woman. How could she have been so very blind all those years? Or was it just that, subconsciously, she didn’t want to know? “They had to be female, young and nubile.”
Brody’s quiet laugh had no humor in it. “That about sums it up.”
Her hand on the car’s door handle, she made a move to get out, then stopped. Irena glanced at him. “I don’t have to go in if you want to hang out for a little while longer.”
Her words, uttered so innocently, tempted him. More than anything, he wanted to take her home with him. Wanted to lose himself in her, not to forget anything, but to remember. Remember the touch, the taste, the scent and feel of her. Because, in the back of his mind, he knew it was going to have to last him a lifetime.
He’d been born pragmatic if nothing else. He couldn’t allow his needs to derail her life. “Don’t you have a flight to get ready for?” he reminded her.
“Oh, that’s right,” she recalled suddenly, “I didn’t tell you.”
Brody’s heart, along with his breathing, stopped. He could feel a shaft of light shining through the overwhelming darkness. He did his best to sound normal. “Tell me what?”
Her smile was almost shy, he thought. “That I called Eli today.”
The name meant nothing to him. The smile meant everything. “Eli?”
“My boss,” she told him, then elaborated further. “Eli Farley is the senior-senior partner. I told him I needed to stay a few extra days in order to get this foundation and the scholarship established. He didn’t sound very happy,” she admitted, remembering how the man’s voice had boomed in her ear as he demanded to know if her extended stay was “absolutely necessary?” “But at bottom,” she continued, “he is a generous, decent man.” The smile on her lips had filtered into her eyes and was now warming him as he looked at them, mesmerized. “And I reminded him that I do have a ton of days I haven’t taken yet. So he finally agreed to give me the extra time off.” Her grin grew wider. There was more, he thought. “I also got him to make a contribution.”
This time, his laugh was gentle and heartfelt. “You are incredible.”
Her eyes crinkled with pleasure. “I like the sound of that.”
And he liked the fact that he had her for a little while longer. “So how long are you staying—wait,” he said abruptly, changing his mind. “Don’t tell me. I’d rather not put a finite point to your visit.”
“Not knowing doesn’t change anything,” she pointed out.
“No,” he agreed. It didn’t change anything, but it could let him go on pretending. “But humor me.”
“Done.” Her eyes teased his. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
That I’ve been given a reprieve and can have you in my life a little longer.
Brody was fairly certain that wasn’t what she meant, so he said, “Enlighten me.”
“It means I can go with you to the reservation on Monday and help put up the next house.”
“What about filing the papers?” he reminded her.
She shook her head. “Monday is never a goo
d day to file papers.” Experience had taught her that. “Too many people are always competing with one another for court time.”
“An extra set of hands is always welcome.” He was still struggling not to sound overly enthusiastic or let the burst of happiness get the better of him.
The cold found its way into every corner of the car. They couldn’t just sit here like this. Much as he could go on talking to her all night, she should go inside.
“Can I kiss you good-night?” he asked her.
No doubt about it, the man made her pulse race. “I have a better idea.”
The gleam in her eyes was seductive. “Oh?”
Slowly, Irena nodded her head. “Take me to your place.”
Nothing would have made him happier, but he looked at Yuri’s small house with its vigilante porch light. “Won’t your grandfather mind you not coming home at a decent hour?”
“It’s already too late for that,” she pointed out, holding up the wrist with the watch on it. They were swiftly approaching one in the morning. “And as for his ‘minding,’ my grandfather will probably take out an ad in the newspaper, announcing that you and I have been ‘spending time together.’ Grandpa thinks you’re the best thing to come along since sliced bread.” She smiled to herself, thinking how her grandfather would actually react to the idiom. Undoubtedly he would begin asking questions about the bread. “Or he would if he knew what that meant.” Brody wasn’t restarting the car. Instead, the key was still idly sitting in the ignition. “Something wrong?” she asked. “Why aren’t you driving away?”
“If you’re doing this for me,” he began, then started again. “If the reason you want to come over is that you think that I shouldn’t be alone tonight—”
She cut him off. “Maybe I’m the one who shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
He found that highly suspect. “You said you were fine.”
She was. And she wasn’t. Irena took in a deep breath. “Don’t overthink things, Brody. Just let them be.”
She was right. Here he was, fending off exactly what he wanted. What was wrong with him? Brody turned the key in the ignition. The engine came to life. “Words to live by,” he agreed.
Loving the Right Brother Page 13