"Didn't you read your pamphlet? My kitchen has a five-star rating." Brian slid a mug of coffee under Nathan's nose. "Drink, then grovel."
Nathan sipped, closed his eyes in grateful pleasure. "I've been drinking sand for the last two days and that may be influencing me, but I'd say this is the best cup of coffee ever brewed in the civilized world."
"Damn right it is. Why haven't you come up before this?"
"I've been getting my bearings, being lazy." Getting acquainted with ghosts, Nathan thought. "Now that I've sampled this, I'll be a regular."
Brian tossed his chopped vegetables into a skillet to sauteed, then began grating cheese. "Wait till you get a load of my omelette. So what are you, independently wealthy that you can take six months off to sit on the beach?"
"I brought work with me. I'm an architect. As long as I have my computer and my drawing board, I can work anywhere."
"An architect." Whisking eggs, Brian leaned against the counter.
"You any good?"
"I'd put my buildings against your coffee any day."
"Well, then." Chuckling, Brian turned back to the stove. With the ease of experience he poured the egg mixture, set bacon to drain, checked the biscuits he had browning in the oven. "So what's Kyle up to? He ever get rich and famous like he wanted?"
It was a stab, hard and fast in the center of the heart. Nathan put the mug down and waited for his hands and voice to steady.
"He was working on it. He's dead, Brian. He died a couple of months ago."
"Jesus, Nathan." Shocked, Brian swung around. "Jesus, I'm sorry."
"He was in Europe. He'd been more or less living there the last couple of years. He was on a yacht, some party. Kyle liked to party,"
Nathan murmured, rubbing his temple. "They were tooling around the Med. The verdict was he must have had too much to drink and fallen overboard. Maybe he hit his head. But he was gone."
"That's rough. I'm sorry." Brian turned back to his skillet. "Losing family takes a chunk out of you."
"Yeah, it does." Nathan drew a deep breath, braced himself. "It happened just a few weeks after my parents were killed. Train wreck in South America. Dad was on assignment, and ever since Kyle and I hit college age, Mom traveled with him. she used to say it made them feel like newlyweds all the time."
"Christ, Nate, I don't know what to say."
"Nothing." Nathan lifted his shoulders. "You get through. I figure Mom would have been lost without Dad, and I don't know how either one of them would have handled losing Kyle. You've got to figure everything happens for a reason, and you get through."
"Sometimes the reason stinks," Brian said quietly.
"A whole hell of a lot of the time the reason stinks. Doesn't change anything. It's good to be back here. It's good to see you."
"We had some fine times that summer."
"Some of the best of my life." Nathan worked up a smile. "Are you going to give me that omelette, or are you going to make me beg for it? "
the food on a plate. "Genuflecting afterward is encouraged."
Nathan picked up a fork and dug in. "So, fill me in on the last two decades of the adventures of Brian Hathaway."
"Not much of an adventure. Running the inn takes a lot of time. We get guests year-round now. Seems the more crowded and busy life in the outside world gets, the more people want to get the hell away from it. For weekends, anyhow. And when they do, we house them, feed them, entertain them."
"It sounds like a twenty-four/seven proposition."
"Would be, on the outside. Life still moves slower around here."
"Wife, kids?"
"Nope. You?"
"I had a wife," Nathan said dryly. "We gave each other up. No kids. You know, your sister checked me in. Jo Ellen."
"Did she?" Brian brought the pot over to top off Nathan's cup. "she just got here herself about a week ago. Lex is here, too. We're one big happy family."
As Brian turned away, Nathan lifted his eyebrows at the tone. "Your dad?"
"You couldn't dynamite him off Desire. He doesn't even go over to the mainland for supplies anymore. You'll see him wandering around." He glanced over as Lexy swung through the door.
"We've got a couple of early birds panting for coffee," she began. Then, spotting Nathan, she paused. Automatically she flipped back her hair, angled her head, and aimed a flirtatious smile. "Well, kitchen company." she strolled closer to pose against the counter and give him a whiff of the Eternity she'd rubbed on her throat from a magazine sample that morning. "You must be special if Brian's let you into his domain."