LITMIR.BIZ

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that sent him sliding back to the ground no matter how quickly he tried to scale them.

      He knew he should be proud of his siblings and the selflessness they’d exhibited to varying degrees. Alison had gone first, because Hades needed a nurse and she needed to get certified as a nurse-practitioner by putting time in a place like that.

      Only problem was, she’d put in her heart as well and so had remained.

      When Jimmy had gone to visit her, he’d lost his heart as well. Not to the region, but to April Yearling, the granddaughter of Hades’s postmistress. Hades and the surrounding region badly needed another doctor and Jimmy had found his true calling.

      Lily’s broken engagement had brought her to the same place to recover, Alaska being the only place that could withstand the heat of her anger without frying to a crisp. Intending to stay only two weeks, Lily found solace for her wounded pride and chipped heart with Hades sheriff, Max Yearling, who just happened to be April’s brother.

      It was as if the Fates were conspiring to bring his family to a place that spent six months of every year in a deep freeze, cut off from civilization except by air travel.

      Kevin had thought—hoped—that Alaska might be a passing phase with Lily. Lily had always been the mercurial one, the one who never invested her emotions for fear of being hurt. But this time, she apparently was sticking it out, and the last time he’d spoken to her, she’d said something about bringing real food to the residents of Hades and had her eye on opening a restaurant there. He knew the signs by now. Lily, like Alison and Jimmy before her, was settling in for good.

      Unable to watch the giant spiders destroy yet another campsite and assorted campers, Kevin flipped the channel. The afternoon news looked no less disconcerting. He dropped the remote on the table, giving up.

      The restlessness refused to abate.

      It was this restlessness that had made him so susceptible to Nathan and Joe’s suggestion about selling the cab service. He’d done it on a lark, put the business up for sale. His heart hadn’t really been in it. And then that offer had come in. The one he couldn’t refuse without submitting himself to a sanity hearing because it was so incredibly lucrative.

      So here he was, a man of leisure who knew absolutely nothing about taking it easy except what he’d learned lately, which was that he hated it. That he wasn’t cut out for it in any manner, shape or form.

      Which was why he’d been searching through the Seattle classifieds this Sunday morning, looking at the section that listed businesses for sale and trying to figure out what to do with himself other than making the electric company rich by pumping electricity through every room of the empty house. The house where he and his brother and sisters had grown up in.

      “What you need, boy, is a fine-looking woman to take your mind off everything.” That had been Nathan’s solution, delivered sagely over a mug of ale.

      Fine-looking women were Nathan’s solution to everything, up to and including global warming and the threat of an alien invasion. However, that wasn’t his solution, Kevin thought. Not even remotely.

      He got up and shut off the television set and picked up the classifieds again. Maybe there was something he’d missed the first time.

      Looks had never meant anything to him. Heart did. Heart and soul and patience. But all the women he’d known possessing those qualities had been taken long before now.

      Besides, there wasn’t much chance of a woman like that showing up at his door, and that would be the only way he’d run into one. He didn’t believe in any of the conventional ways of “hooking up” with members of the fairer sex. That had never been his way. And now that he no longer occasionally drove a cab, there was absolutely no chance of his meeting anyone.

      Kevin paused, trying to remember the last time he’d actually gone out on a date. Nothing came to him.

      But dating, or finding a lifelong partner wasn’t why he was looking to put his newfound fortune into another business. He just wanted to be doing something. Something productive.

      Anything productive.

      He’d been out of the taxicab business for exactly five days and was going stir-crazy.

      The phone rang and he grabbed the receiver like a drowning man grabbing at a twig floating by him in the river.

      If it was a telemarketer on the other end, he thought, this was their lucky day. He was buying, as long as buying meant he could hear the sound of another person’s voice responding to his own.

      “Hello?”

      “Kev?”

      Kevin could feel himself lighting up inside like a Christmas tree the instant he heard his sister’s voice on the other end of the line.

      “Lily, how are you?” He bit back the desire to ask the next question that loomed in his mind in twenty-four-foot neon letters: Are you coming home? He already knew the answer to that. Asking wasn’t going to change it.

      “I’m terrific, Kev. Better than terrific, I’m spectacular.”

      He didn’t have to see her to know that she was positively glowing. So much for her throwing in the towel and deciding to move back to Seattle.

      There was something else in her voice he recognized as well. “You’re getting married, aren’t you?”

      There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. “God, but you’re good. How did you—?”

      A small laugh escaped him. “I’ve had this conversation before. Twice,” he reminded her. “When Alison called to say she was marrying Luc and when Jimmy called to say he was staying on as a doctor in Hades and, oh, by the way, yes, he was getting married.”

      If Jimmy, a guy known to his friends as the eternal happy bachelor could succumb to the charms of a homegrown native, Kevin had known in his heart that Lily wasn’t far behind. Especially when she’d called before to give him a detailed description of Max Yearling right down to his worn, size-ten boots. It was only a matter of waiting for the shoe to finally drop, that’s all.

      Kevin knew he was happy for her, even as he was sad for himself. He did his best to sound cheerful. “So the sheriff makes you happy, does he?”

      Lily sighed, contentment of a caliber he didn’t ever recall hearing before in her voice. “The way you wouldn’t believe.”

      Kevin felt his mouth curving in a grin. “I don’t need details, Lily.”

      “And you’re not getting any,” she informed him with a laugh. “But I want you to come up here. For the wedding. It’s in three weeks and I wouldn’t feel as if it’s official unless you’re here to give me away.”

      He refrained from saying that no one had ever held on to her long enough to pretend that she was his to give away. Lily had been her own person from a very early age.

      Yes, he thought, he really was going to miss her.

      “I’d be proud to, Lily.”

      He heard her clear her throat. Lily hated to get sentimental. “Now I know how you feel about getting away from the business, but maybe Nathan or Joe could take over while—”

      He cut her off briskly. “Not a problem. I sold the business.” In response, he heard nothing but silence on the other end. Everything had happened so quickly he hadn’t even had time to tell any of them that he was thinking about selling, much less that he’d signed on the dotted line and made Quintano Cabs a thing of the past. “Lily, are you there?”

      He heard her take in a sharp breath. “Yes, I guess the connection just went weird for a second. I thought I heard you say—”

      He didn’t want to hear her say it. He couldn’t exactly explain why hearing one of his siblings give voice to what he’d done would make it that much more difficult to bear, but it did. “You did. I did.”

      “But,

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