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СКАЧАТЬ something had happened and they weren’t coming. Maybe there’d been another cave-in at the mines and the whole town was involved in a rescue operation. It wouldn’t be the first time.

      He didn’t see why they couldn’t all just move back to Seattle.

      Feeling antsy, Kevin scanned the back walls to see if he could spy a car rental counter. It was the tail end of summer, and snow hadn’t come yet to cut off access to the small town his family had chosen to live in. If worse came to worst and no one showed up for him, he figured he could drive there—as long as someone handed him a map or at least pointed him in the right direction. He’d always prided himself on being able to find any place, given enough time.

      Kevin supposed that made up for the fact that when it came to interacting with people, he’d always found it better just to listen rather than talk. Alison had once said that gave him a wise aura. He thought of himself as shy.

      “Kevin?”

      He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice coming from behind him. Turning around, he didn’t recognize the woman, either. At least, not immediately.

      His eyes washed over a petite, trim woman wearing a work shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a pair of very worn blue jeans that had either originally belonged to someone else, or were a living testimony that she’d lost a goodly amount of weight. Kevin suspected it was the former. The young woman had hair the color of a radiant sunrise and eyes so blue they drew out the last drops of loneliness that were lingering within him. Her hair was pulled back into a single long braid, exposing a face that was kissed by the sun and was as close to heart-shaped as humanly possible.

      And then it came to him.

      Two years ago, when he’d last seen her, she’d been a child. Twenty years old and just finding her way into her features. Two years had obviously done a great deal to show her the right path.

      She was, without benefit of makeup and with absolutely no care whatsoever, one of the loveliest young women he’d ever seen.

      “June?”

      Her grin was quick, like lightning that came and went in a blink. While it was there, it transformed her face from remote to warmingly friendly. Kevin felt something within him quicken.

      He recalled hearing Jimmy tell him that if June Yearling liked you, you had a friend for life, someone to rely on no matter what. But by the same token, she selected the people she was close to very carefully, as if they were slivers of gold to be separated from the seductive but worthless fool’s gold.

      June slipped her hand into his, shaking it before he even realized that he’d offered it to her.

      “Hi, they sent me to get you.” She turned then, looking at the blond woman behind her. “Actually, they sent us,” she amended.

      June cocked her head to look at him, as if to decide whether or not he remembered them, or if reintroductions were in order.

      He recognized the other woman more quickly. Sydney Kerrigan. She was the doctor’s wife. The doctor who had convinced Jimmy to remain here. The one who’d originally enticed his sister to come before that.

      No, he amended, that wasn’t entirely right. Luc had been the one to convince Alison where her place was, and April had been the deciding factor in Jimmy’s life. It had been more for love than for work that they had each remained.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ