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Love, it seemed, made the world go around. Just not in his case.
But that boat had been one that had sailed a long time ago. Kevin knew that. He’d made his choice. It had come down to either Dorothy, or his siblings. But that had hardly been a contest. Dorothy had never stood a chance. Anyone who’d asked him to choose between them and his family wasn’t anyone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
It just got lonely sometimes, that’s all. Especially now with so much of life behind him.
The young woman in front of him, he thought, had the whole world before her.
He wondered why she hadn’t left the confines of her Alaskan “prison” the way so many of her age had, according to Jimmy. He was the one who’d told him about the penchant most Alaskan teenagers had for fleeing the area the moment they were old enough.
Jimmy’s own wife, April, June’s sister, had shot out of the region like a bat out of hell the moment she’d turned eighteen. Only her grandmother’s illness had brought her back. Temporarily, she’d thought. She was still here.
As for him, Kevin couldn’t help wondering what the allure was, what kind of magical pull the region exercised over people like April, Max and June. Why were they still here when there was so much more to be had in the lower forty-nine?
“Jimmy and Alison couldn’t get away,” June was explaining. “The vaccine they’d been waiting for came in. They needed to get inoculations underway immediately.”
At least, that was what Jimmy had told her. She still thought the excuse was a little fishy, but she’d needed a break anyway. If it wasn’t for the fact that she hated accepting defeat in any shape or size, she would have begun rethinking the wisdom of her change in occupation. Farming was not the closest thing to her heart, but making a go of the family farm had become a matter of honor to her.
Getting in front of Sydney, June reached for Kevin’s suitcase. “And Lily’s busy getting ready.”
The woman looked as solid as a spring breeze. He placed his hand over the handle, stopping her from picking up the luggage. “Ready for what, the wedding?”
“You,” Sydney told him over June’s head.
“Me?” That didn’t make any sense. Why would Lily be fussing over his arrival? “I’ve seen her first thing in the morning, stumbling down the stairs wearing an old pair of men’s pajamas and looking like hell on an off day. There’s no need to get ready for me.”
An enigmatic smile played on Sydney’s, his pilot’s, lips. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Sydney told him. “But I’m sworn to secrecy.” Playfully she held up a hand to stop any further exchange on the subject. “Sorry, you won’t get any more out of me.”
“Fair enough,” he allowed, then looked at his future sister-in-law. She made another attempt to take the case from him. “I can carry my own suitcase, June. I’m not that old yet.”
June raised her hand, visually surrendering her claim to the large piece of carry-on luggage. The man traveled light, she thought. An admirable quality. Of course, if this had been winter, it would have also been a foolish one, she silently added.
“You’re not old at all,” she countered. Shrugging, she slipped her capable hands into the front pockets of her jeans. “I’m just used to doing, that’s all.”
The single word hung out there like a forgotten T-shirt on a clothesline. “Doing?”
“Everything,” June said all inclusively. Accustomed to being challenged, she raised her chin. “Just because I’m a female doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own. Better than my own,” she amended.
Kevin exchanged glances with Sydney. The latter merely looked amused. He certainly hadn’t meant to give any offense.
“That was never under debate,” he told June. “But I like pulling my own weight, too.”
Sydney shook her head. This might not go as well as the others were hoping. As for herself, she believed in letting nature take its course. If something was meant to be, it would be. She was living proof of that, having come out to marry a man who had won her heart through his letters, and wound up marrying his brother instead.
“Well, when you’re both finished pulling on the same weight,” Sydney informed Kevin, “the plane’s over this way.”
Turning, she led the way out of the airport. Kevin gestured June on ahead of him. With a tolerant sigh, the latter turned on the heel of her boot and followed Sydney. Her long, shiny blond braid swung behind her and then marked time with her gait before it finally settled into place.
Kevin found himself watching, mesmerized for a brief moment. Coming to, he smiled and shook his head as he hurried to catch up to the two women. You would have thought he was an adolescent, he mused, mildly upbraiding himself.
Kevin stared out the small window. Below him the world had arranged itself in a carpet of green with ribbons of blue cutting through it here and there. In the distance, and getting taller, was a mountain range. The rattle of the plane didn’t detract from the experience. It just made it more intimate.
They hit an air pocket and the plane shuddered. Sydney glanced over her shoulder to see if her passenger was all right. When Alison’s brother had come out the last time, Shayne had been the one who’d piloted him back and forth.
She was pleased to see that Kevin was intent on studying the landscape instead of grasping onto the seat rests for dear life.
“You don’t turn green like a lot of other people flying in this little plane.” Her tone was approving.
Kevin leaned forward in his seat in order to hear Sydney better. “I trust the pilot. Besides, I like to fly. I’m licensed to fly a twin engine.”
She’d loved flying from the first time she’d had her hands on the throttle. “Maybe you’d like to take her up while you’re here.”
He’d like that, he thought. But he had a very healthy respect for other people’s property and this plane 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 know the family had a farm.”
“We did. We do. It belonged to my mother and father.” She didn’t want to launch into a long explanation. “But we left it when he left us.”
This story he was familiar with. Jimmy had told him. Wayne Yearling had had a wanderlust that was legendary. Somehow, it had allowed him to remain in Hades longer than anyone who knew him would have thought possible. But he’d finally succumbed to its call when June had been very young.
She’d grown up without a father. Kevin knew that Max wasn’t that much older than she was. Max hadn’t been able to step in for June the way he had with his own siblings, Kevin thought.
His heart went out to her. “I guess that gives us all something in common.”
She knew his story, too, because it was Lily’s, as well. “Your father didn’t leave you,” she pointed out. “He died.”
“Sometimes it amounted to the same thing.” The loneliness that was the end result was still the same. So was the day-to-day struggle for survival.
But she shook her head stubbornly. “Your father didn’t have a choice—mine did.”
That was where they disagreed. “Mine gave up the will to live when my mother died. He didn’t seem to realize that there were more people than just him affected by her death. Or that those same people would be affected by his if he died. He chose to die.”
His own words echoed back at him. Kevin stopped abruptly and looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t said that out loud to anyone. Ever. Even though it had lingered on his mind all these years. He’d been too busy making things right for the others to deal with his own feelings on the matter.
Well, he wasn’t too busy now. Obviously.
Embarrassed, Kevin laughed shortly. “I’ve never said that to anyone before.”
June pretended not to notice his discomfort. Her tone was glib. “Alaska has a way of drawing confessions out of people. Gives you that kind of intimate feeling when you’re around people. Makes you feel like you’re all friends.”
That was one explanation, he supposed. And now that he considered it, it was the most logical. In any event, it was the one he chose to accept.
“Coming in for a landing,” Sydney announced from the front seat, breaking into his thoughts.
Kevin looked at June and wondered if that was strictly true. It didn’t feel as if he was landing at all. It felt like he was still flying.
Chapter Three
“So, what do you think?”
Trying to contain her excitement, Lily gestured out toward the wide expanse of terrain where she had decided her restaurant would stand. Building would begin after she and Max returned from their honeymoon. Unable to wait to show it off to Kevin, she’d brought him here immediately after June had delivered him to the house. They’d only stopped long enough to swing by the medical clinic so that he could quickly say hello to Alison and Jimmy. They were just closing up after an extralong day. With Max in tow, Lily had whisked her brother here with all the unsuppressed enthusiasm of a child unwrapping a long-anticipated gift on Christmas morning.
She looked at Kevin, holding her breath.
Kevin was far more taken with Lily’s joy than he was with the future site of Hades’s first official restaurant. She was fairly dancing from foot to foot.
“What I think is that I’ve never seen you this excited before.”
“I don’t think I ever have been.” She grinned broadly as Max, standing behind her, threaded his arms around her waist.
They looked like a set, Kevin thought. As if they’d always been meant to be together.
“Maybe it’s the land, or the people.” Tilting her head, she cast a glance at the broad-shouldered sheriff at her back.
“Or maybe the fact that you don’t sleep properly,” Kevin said glibly. This giddiness was really unlike Lily. He glanced around. Daylight was permeating everything. Kevin looked at his watch. It was past seven. “When does it get dark around here?”
“It doesn’t.” It had taken her some getting used to. Now she didn’t think she could revert to conventional days and nights easily. “At least, not this time of year. Not so you’d really notice. Sun goes down at around ten, comes up at three.”
Kevin frowned. “And you find this appealing?”
“Hey, lots of daylight makes you happy,” Lily told him.
Max leaned his head down. “Lots of darkness makes you something else,” he whispered against her hair.
