Home to Eden by Dallas Schulze Read Free Book Online Page B

attractive," she added, catching Brenda's disgusted look. "Philip and Sara were delighted to see him."
    "They've always been a close family. I was surprised when Nick moved away but then I figured that, with everything that had happened, maybe there were just too many memories here."
    "Maybe." Kate didn't ask for an explanation of what "everything" might have been. Obviously, Brenda assumed she already knew and the last thing she wanted was to prolong the discussion.
    "It was bad enough when Brian died."
    "Brian?" Despite her determination not to encourage Brenda, Kate glanced at her in question.
    "Nick's twin." Brenda looked shocked. "You must know about Brian."
    "Of course I do. I just drew a blank for a moment, that's all." Kate scowled at a bright red impatiens. She had known about Brian. He was the brother who'd been killed in a car wreck a decade or more ago, but she didn't remember Gareth saying anything about Brian and Nick being twins.
    "The accident happened the sununer after we graduated from high school," Brenda was saying. "It was such a terrible tragedy." She stopped and frowned. "Did you ever stop to think what a stupid phrase that is? Terrible tragedy. Like there's such a thing as a good tragedy? Where do you suppose phrases like that come from?"
    Kate was accustomed to Brenda's habit of going off on a conversational tangent and knew that an answer was neither expected nor required. Unfortunately, she rarely lost sight of the original topic.
    "Anyway, there was a car crash. Brian was killed and Nick almost died, too. I went to see him in the hospital a couple of weeks after the accident. He looked...I don't know." She absentmindedly pinched a faded pansy from its stem, her forehead creasing. "I remember thinking he looked kind of empty, like a part of him was missing." She dropped the flower and looked up suddenly. "You know how you hear that there's a special bond between twins?"
    Kate nodded reluctantly. She didn't want to hear this, didn't want to hear anything that made Nick more real to her, let alone something that roused her sympathy. She knew what it was to lose someone you loved.
    "Well, I don't know if that's true but I do know Nick was never really the same after the accident."
    "Losing someone you love changes you," Kate said slowly, speaking half to herself. "Losing a brother or sister is sometimes harder than losing a parent because it feels so unnatural. It's not the way life's supposed to go."
    "I thought you were an only child," Brenda said, her expression both surprised and curious. "You sound like you're speaking from experience."
    Kate gave her a startled smile, though her fingers suddenly ached from the force with which she gripped the water nozzle. "I read about it somewhere. Or maybe I heard some psychiatrist on a talk show. They're all the time delving into that kind of thing. Family dynamics is a hot topic these days."
    "Yeah." Brenda looked at her a moment longer, a trace of doubt lingering in her eyes. She shook her head abruptly. "You're probably right—about losing a sibling, I mean. It's hard to imagine what that would be like."
    "Hmm." Kate moved away a little, focusing her attention on watering every single flat thoroughly.
    "Nick was certainly never the same after Brian died," Brenda said, moving after her. "The whole family was devastated, of course."
    "Of course." Kate threw a quick, hopeful look over the nursery, hoping to see a pack of ravening gophers descending on the vegetable seedlings or maybe a customer being attacked by a man-eating delphinium—some crisis that would demand her immediate and complete attention and enable her to put an end to this conversation.
    "You know, it makes you think of that old question of why bad things happen to good people," Brenda continued thoughtfully. "I mean, you couldn't find a nicer family than the Blackthornes."
    Kate wasn't lucky enough to sight a major disaster but there was a customer browsing near the perennials. She was