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The suspicion didn’t abate. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing about Hades that would lure a person to come visit it. Hades wasn’t known for anything, had no natural wonders to offer in exchange for the hardship of seeking it out, and it was as far off the usual route as was humanly possible without falling off the edge of the earth.
Yes, the coal mines were still productive, and nicely so, but if the man’s hands were any indication, the only kind of physical work he had probably ever engaged in was ridding women of their outer clothing. And quickly, too, no doubt.
April raised her chin, tucking her hand behind her back. “What’s a doctor doing in Hades?”
“Visiting,” he answered succinctly. Why was she so skittish? Jimmy wondered. It was just her wrist he was offering to examine, not the rest of her. Although that would undoubtedly be richly rewarding. “I won’t charge you.”
A glint of anger highlighted the suspicious light in her eyes. “For what?”
Had she lost the thread of the conversation? She didn’t strike him as the simple type, but looks were deceiving, even mouthwatering ones such as hers. “For looking at your wrist.”
She snorted, retreating behind the huge, scarred oak desk that had belonged to Gran’s father. Mail was still scattered along its surface. She had work to tend to and this was wasting time.
“Good, and I won’t charge you for looking at yours,” she retorted.
Although, all things considered, April secretly allowed, the stranger’s wrist would have been the very last thing she would think to look at. The rest of him was a good deal more interesting and arresting than his wrist. Apart from a handful of men, her brother included, the male population of Hades would not have stopped any hearts. This man certainly would.
Stop hearts and set pulses racing, and she had a feeling he knew it, too. He was about a foot taller than she was, with dark black hair and eyes the color of the waters off the cape in the spring. The way he held himself, with an easy, comfortable grace, reminded her of one of the Native Americans who’d come into the post office when she was a little girl. Gran had told her he’d once been a chief of a tribe that had since died out. To her, the man had seemed larger than life.
That was undoubtedly what this man was, too, larger than life. Except in his case, that description would involve his own view of himself.
Well, she had better things to do than to stroke his ego. Deliberately, she looked down at the mail on the desk.
As he watched the woman in front of him, Jimmy’s grin widened a little more. She had spirit, no question about it. He liked that. There was nothing duller than a woman who just fell into his arms. Ever since he could remember, he’d always enjoyed a challenge. It kept him on his toes and made him feel alive.
He leaned an elbow on the desk, as comfortable as if he’d been coming here for years. “You know, you’re the first unfriendly person I’ve met in Hades.”
If he was trying to embarrass her, he was going to have to do a lot better than that, April thought. “Good,” she sniffed, turning her back on him. “I never liked being part of the crowd.”
That had been his first impression of her, Jimmy thought. Someone not part of a crowd. He leaned forward, watching the way her bottom strained against her jeans as she bent over the mail bag. He had a keen knack for being able to cleanly divorce himself from his professional side outside the hospital. And this lady certainly deserved his undivided attention.
“Oh, you might be in a crowd, but you’d never be taken for being part of it. You’d stand out no matter where you were.”
April looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing. “Is that supposed to impress me?”
“No, that’s not supposed to do anything,” he told her with such unabashed honesty, she could almost believe him. “It’s just an observation. So far, we’ve ascertained that you stand out in a crowd, you’re unfriendly—” his eyes flickered to her wrist “—and you wrap bandages worse than a first year medical student.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that he and his observations were free to leave the post office at any time, preferably now. But the words never had a chance to emerge as the man took charge of the moment as well as her wrist by taking the end of the bandage and deftly unwrapping it.
April caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep the startled yelp of pain from escaping her lips.
Pulling her hand out of his grasp would prove to be hurtful, so she left it where it was. Instead she glared at him. “Just what do you—”
The wound appeared to be first degree and didn’t look infected. Still, he bet it smarted more than a little. “That’s rather angry-looking.”
That wasn’t the only thing, she thought indignantly. Just who the hell did he think he was? “You want to see angry-looking, just raise your eyes a little, mister. Just what do you think—”
The door swung open behind them. “Jimmy, what’s taking you so—” The woman entering the post office stopped abruptly as the sight registered. “Oh, I should have known.” A dimple melded into her expression. “Can’t let you out of my sight, can I?”
Startled, April looked up to see Alison LeBlanc crossing to them. The dark-haired woman she’d met briefly when she’d gone to see Dr. Kerrigan about her grandmother flashed a rueful smile at her.
Seeing them side by side, April was struck by the similarities between the two people in her grandmother’s post office. Although Alison was a good deal shorter, their coloring and the way they held themselves was almost startlingly identical.
April looked from one to the other. “Are you two related?”
Her would-be healer laughed. “Only by the cruel whimsy of fate.” With one hand still firmly holding April’s, he wrapped his arm around Alison’s slender shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “This is my baby sister.” There was teasing affection in his eyes as he regarded Alison for a moment. “She’s turned out rather nicely, all things considered.”
Alison shot him a withering look that somehow still managed to give the impression of affection. “If you mean considering that you were my brother, you’re dead-on. I turned out nicely thank-you-very-much despite you, not because of you.”
A faint pang drifted through April. This, she thought, she was familiar with. Or at least she had been before she’d moved away. It was the kind of relationship she’d had with her own two siblings, especially with Max. There were times when she truly missed it, though she would admit that to no one because to do so would mean she was vulnerable. If there was one thing she refused to be in any manner conceivable, it was vulnerable. She knew what vulnerability did to a woman.
Alison looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, I hope Jimmy hasn’t been bothering you. I just sent him out to get the office mail. I should have realized that once he got a good look at you, he’d forget what he came for and try to charm you the way he does every other woman he encounters.”
Just as she thought. The man was all flash, no substance. April congratulated herself on her perception.
Rather than look annoyed at having his game plan revealed, the way April would have expected, Jimmy merely laughed.
“I wasn’t trying to charm her, I was doing a consultation.” To prove it, Jimmy raised the now bandageless wrist he was holding. “The lady seems to have injured herself.”
Alison quickly examined the wound. “I’ve got some ointment for that at the clinic.”
“Gran’s got some in her medicine cabinet,” April countered, indicating the upper floor with her eyes.
“Make sure you put it on,” Alison advised. “What happened?”
“Nothing to merit all this fuss.” Thoroughly embarrassed now, April tucked her wrist behind her back again. She changed the subject before Alison felt compelled to pursue the matter. “So I take it he’s really your brother?”
“Until I can find someone to take him off my hands, yes. He’s here visiting me.”
Jimmy nodded to confirm his sister’s statement, his eyes still on the tempting postmistress who wouldn’t give him a tumble. “I wanted to see firsthand just what it is that keeps her here, other than Jean-Luc and that stubborn streak of hers that never lets her admit she’s wrong even when she is.”
Alison pursed her lips in a mock frown. “It’s a family trait.”
Jimmy was quick to agree. “Right, our sister Lily has it, too.”
Beneath that devil-may-care attitude there wasn’t a more stubborn member of the family than Jimmy, Alison thought. It was Jimmy who made a point of volunteering his time at homeless shelters, telling none of them. She would have never known if she hadn’t accidentally seen him at a shelter herself. The only notoriety he wanted was that of a playboy, but he was far deeper than that. He had a heart that cared and which was every bit as important as his skilled surgeon’s hands. But that was the part of him he wanted no one to know.
“Like you don’t,” Alison replied.
He made his appeal to April, not his sister. “I am the soul of reasonableness.”
Alison merely sighed, shaking her head. She turned to April. “If you give me Shayne’s mail, we’ll be out of your hair,” she promised.
It struck April as odd to have the doctor referred to so familiarly, but then she’d forgotten the townspeople’s penchant. Everyone in Hades was on a first-name basis with everyone else.
“Right here.” Reaching over the counter to the tallest stack, she pushed it toward Alison. “There might be more.” April glanced at semifull sack on the floor. “I haven’t finished sorting today’s pouch yet.”
“Because of the hand,” Alison concluded.
April spared Alison’s brother a look that said it all. “Because I was interrupted.”
If there was a mild accusation in that statement, Alison seemed to ignore it. She merely smiled easily and glanced affectionately at her brother. There was no mistaking the pride in her eyes. “You’ll find that Jimmy does that a lot.”
That sounded ominously like a promise to her. Or at the very least, a premonition of things to come. “Why, is he staying on?”
The next question that came to her lips, if the response to the first was affirmative, was “Why?” but she told herself that it was none of her business. If Alison’s brother actually was a doctor, having him here would certainly be a welcome relief to Shayne. If her visit to the clinic had been any indication of the way things normally went there, Hades’s only physician was completely overworked.
“Just until my ship sails,” Jimmy informed her blithely. “Cruise ship,” he interjected when the quizzical look on April’s face remained. “I’m just here for two weeks.” It occurred to him that he hadn’t even given her his name—or gotten hers. “James Quintano.” Leaning over the counter, he put his hand out toward her.
April paused a moment before finally placing her hand in his. With Alison watching, she couldn’t very well remain aloof, although it might do the man some good to see that there were women who didn’t fall into his lap just because he was good-looking.
“April Yearling.”
Jimmy withdrew his hand. She had a firm handshake. He got the feeling April wanted him to know that she wasn’t some frail little thing despite her diminutive size. His eyes held hers for a moment.
Message received.
“Well, now that we’re introduced, you’ll have to come to my party.”
“Party?” April looked at Alison questioningly.
“Luc thought it might be a good way to take care of the introduction en masse if we just invited everyone to the Salty,” Alison explained, referring to the saloon that both her husband and his cousin, Ike, owned. The saloon, which Ike initially operated and eventually coaxed Luc to become partners in, had been the first venture of many. Now they owned the general store, Hades’s only movie theater and the hotel, as well. The benevolent entrepreneurs were determined to build Hades up to entice the younger generation to remain once they reached eighteen. “It’s tonight.”
It wouldn’t have mattered what day it was. April shook her head, reaching for another stack of mail inside the sack. “I’m not sure I can get away.”
Jimmy squatted until his face was level with hers. “I’ll take it as a personal insult if you don’t show up.”
Her eyes narrowed. He’d just made up her mind for her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
There was a storm brewing here. Alison could read the signs well. Wrapping one hand around her older brother’s arm, she began to lead him out of the building.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Alison told her, giving Jimmy a hard tug.
Jimmy let himself be dragged off. “Until tonight,” he called over his shoulder.
“Until hell freezes over,” April muttered under her breath as she got back to her sorting.
“Of course you’ll go,” Ursula told her firmly when she’d mentioned the party later that day and her intentions of not attending. Kindly hazel eyes pinned April where she stood in the crowded living room. “And you’ll have a good time, too.”
Oh, no, she wouldn’t, especially not if the so-called guest of honor was there. April began to move around the room, straightening things in a hopeless battle for order amid chaos.
“Gran, I came back to help out in the post office and to talk you into going to the hospital in Anchorage. I did not come back to attend any feeble little gatherings at the Salty Dog Saloon for some pompous, would-be playboy doctor.”
She worried her, this one, Ursula thought. She’d been so hurt by first her father’s abandonment and then her mother’s withdrawal. There was no question in her mind that April had always been tough on the outside, but it was the inside that truly concerned her. Inside, Ursula was certain, was a hurt, frightened little girl who needed to be coaxed out and loved.
“No, that’s just a bonus, I’m sure,” Ursula told her cheerfully.
April set two Hummel figurines, a shepherd and his lady, equidistantly apart on a small shelf. “I’m not.”
“April.”
Her grandmother’s suddenly weakened voice had April turning around to look at her. Ursula’s hand slipped dramatically over her chest, her fingers spreading over her heart.
Ursula sighed deeply. “I’m an old woman, my heart can’t take all this arguing and dissent.”
April knew an act when she saw one and, happily, this was one. She moved closer to her grandmother. “You’re a semiold woman who likes to manipulate.”
Ursula let her hand drop, shaking her head in despair. “I should have raised you to be more respectful of your elders.”
“You raised me fine.” Bending, April brushed a quick kiss to the silky, weather-lined cheek. “You raised me to see through charades and con artists and golden-tongued men.”
That hadn’t been her doing. That had been in response to her father’s actions. Ursula’s heart ached, but for a reason that had nothing to do with medical conditions and terminology written in doctors’ journals.
“Not every man is out to break your heart, April. What happened to your mother—”
Instantly, April’s chin shot up. A warrior on constant guard. “Is never going to happen to me.”
Ursula reached for her granddaughter’s hand and held it in hers. “I’m glad, child, but that shouldn’t have the price tag you’re attaching to it.” Her eyes searched April’s face, looking for a sign, a chink that would let her break through. The girl was so adamant about not being hurt that she wasn’t allowing anyone into her life. “It shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying yourself. The years go very fast, April. Faster than any of us can imagine. I don’t want you standing at the end of your life, whispering, ‘If only I’d done things differently.’ April, honey, I don’t want you to have regrets.”
Then they were agreed, April thought. “Neither do I.”
But Ursula shook her head. “I meant about not living life.”
Gently, April disengaged her hand from her grandmother’s. The next moment she was straightening things again, unable to remain still. Unwilling to allow her choices to be examined this way. “I am living life, Gran. I’m out there every day, living.”
But Ursula knew better. For all her sophistication, all her potential and promise, April was fleeing life. “You’re out there every day, snapping pictures, capturing other people living. You can’t do it by proxy. You’ve got to do it yourself. Sometimes you’ve got to put up with pinched toes to break in the best pair of shoes you’ll ever own.”
She might have jumped from a plane to photograph a sky-diving couple getting married, but there were some risks April refused to take. The one her grandmother was talking about was one of them.
“What if those shoes never break in right?”
Ursula could only smile, remembering her own short-lived first marriage. Jake hadn’t left by choice. A fishing accident had taken him from her. But the heartache had been the same. “Wearing them for a little while’s still better than never wearing them at all and going barefoot.”
April put down the tiny glass figurines she’d started to line up in a row and turned to look at her grandmother. It was not in her to say no to the woman for long. “You’re not going to give up until I go, are you?”
Knowing the victory was hers, Ursula smiled. “When have I ever given up?”
April laughed, sitting on the edge of the sofa, beside Ursula’s throw-covered feet. “You have a point.”
“I always do.” Ursula threw off the cover and swung her legs to the floor.
April rose to her feet, staring. “What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m going, too,” Ursula declared. “I’ve always enjoyed having a good time—and I always have a good time at the Salty.”
April thought of the saloon. The men there could get pretty rowdy. And there’d be dancing, she would be willing to bet. She looked at her grandmother suspiciously. Could this whole thing have been a ruse? “What about that heart of yours not being able to take it?”
“That’s only when it comes to arguing and dissent. It can take a good time just fine.” Ursula winked. “I hear Yuri Bostovik’s going to be there.” April could have sworn she saw stars in her grandmother’s eyes. “He’s always been partial to me.”
April’s mouth dropped open. She’d never thought of her grandmother as having a life outside the post office. “Gran, you’re sixty-nine—”
Ursula nodded as she shuffled off toward her bedroom. “And not getting any younger. My point exactly.”
April paused, debating. Her immediate reaction was to bully her grandmother into staying in bed, but happiness counted for something in the scheme of things, especially when it came to well-being.
Wavering, she gave in. She supposed it wouldn’t do all that much harm. “All right, we’ll go for a little while and then I’ll bring you home.”
That wasn’t the way it was going to be if she had anything to say about it, Ursula thought. She fixed her oldest grandchild with a look meant to establish the order of things between them. She still made the rules.
“I’ll go for a little while and then Max’ll bring me home. You’re going to stay at the Salty.”
“And do what?” April wanted to know. “I don’t really like beer.”
“So?” Ursula’s small shoulders rose and fell. “Don’t have beer. There’re other things to drink at the Salty besides beer. And I’m sure you’ll find something to occupy yourself with.” Her knowing smile widened. “If you’re lucky.”
Because it was Gran, April surrendered. For the time being. “You’re positively wicked, Gran.”
“Only if Yuri gets lucky tonight, dear, only if Yuri gets lucky. Now go,” she coaxed. “Get prettier.”
April shook her head, watching her grandmother hurry off to do the same.
Chapter Three
Unlike the near-stagnant air, the ocean of noise within the Salty Dog Saloon that evening ebbed and flowed around April, allowing her to pick out a word here and there as she slowly made her way through the teeming crowd of eighty percent wall-to-wall men. She’d elected to come essentially wearing what she’d had on earlier: changing to a blouse, but staying in her worn jeans. She saw no reason to dress up. It wasn’t that kind of a party. People in Hades held comfort in high regard.
April looked around. It wouldn’t have really mattered what she’d worn. The odds were definitely in her favor, had she been inclined to play that sort of a game. But she wasn’t. Looking over the crop of available men was the furthest thing from her mind, except in a remote, analytical sort of way.
She took stock of the scene, seeing it through the eyes of a photographer rather than as a former native who’d made good her escape.
It had been a long time since she’d actually seen so many men in one place at one time. A fragment of a memory nudged at her, blooming in her mind until she’d captured all of it. The last time she’d seen a gathering the likes of this had been here, right after her graduation from high school. She was the first in her family to finish the twelfth grade. Gran had insisted on throwing a party to celebrate the occasion and since the small living area above the post office barely housed the four of them, much less anyone else, Gran had prevailed on the owner of the Salty to hold it here. It hadn’t belonged to Ike and Jean-Luc at the time, though they had worked here.
All April really remembered about the party was that she’d been consumed with the thought of finally being able to leave. Not the Salty or Hades, but the area. Alaska. All of it. It had been the only thing on her mind for years. Ever since that morning she’d woken up to find her father gone, she’d wanted to leave herself, to spread her wings and soar.
And she had soared. For six years. Flown to all the major cities in the country, to all the places she’d once dreamed of, sitting up late at night in her tiny alcove of a room, poring over the atlas her father had left behind. The out-of-date atlas with its worn, earmarked pages and its places that continued to exist even though they were no longer referred to by the names that were written down between the covers.
Looking at the people around her now, almost all of whom she recognized, April expected to feel like an outsider, like someone who had outgrown the place she was visiting. If nothing else, she’d seen more of the world and of life than most of the people here.
Even so, the feeling wasn’t quite there. These people she’d been so quick to erase from her life didn’t treat her as if she didn’t belong. Instead, they behaved as if she had only momentarily stepped out, but was back now. It was an absurd thought because she wasn’t back. She was just here temporarily and would be gone again very soon. The sooner, the better.
She saw Yuri Bostovik over in the corner, his gray hair comically parted in the middle and slicked back. The moment he saw her grandmother, he made a beeline for her. Even in this light, she could see Gran blushing—as if she hadn’t spent the past hour planning on just how to greet the man. Gran had buried three husbands and still acted as if love was just around the corner for her. The woman was incredible.
April continued sidestepping people and nodding greetings, trying to reach the bar. What surprised her was that along with her detached, analytical feeling was a tiny prick of something she had trouble identifying.
Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to identify it. Nostalgia had no place here, in Hades. Not for her. The very idea was ridiculous. Nostalgia came when you remembered something fondly. There was nothing to feel nostalgic about when it came to her past. She’d never liked it in Hades, had always found it lacking. Other than an attachment to Gran, Max and June, there was no reason for her to feel anything at all about this piece of tundra.
So what was this odd feeling that persisted in rambling around inside of her?
“Is this a private smug moment, or can anyone horn their way in?”
The question, whispered against her ear, nearly made her jump. The warm breath that had accompanied it lingered on her skin, throwing her concentration completely off.