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BRIAN
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“WE’RE COMING OVER, Brian. I’ve just heard something very interesting. We need to talk.”
I rubbed my neck. God, she wouldn’t give me a break.
And she knew I didn’t want anybody to call me Brian, not until I was ready to reclaim my past. She thought I was ready, and I didn’t have a say in it. That was my friend Rowena; stubborn and pushy.
“No, we don’t need to talk, Rowena. Not tonight. I’m tired,” I said, knowing I hadn’t discouraged her in the least.
“Are you in pain? Are you about to shift?”
“Not yet.” It always happened around midnight; it hadn’t changed. “Although, if I could, I’d turn now.”
“It’s that bad, huh?” she asked, her voice soft and filled with concern.
It was. I was in constant pain in my human form. It was a part of me, and I’d gotten so used to it that now I was able to stay in my painful form almost all day.
It was close to nine o’clock in the evening. Three long hours before I could transform into a blaidd—a wolf-man—and have a long run through the woods. My blaidd didn’t feel pain, only my dyn, my human entity, did. I still limped, true; my wolf leg was as damaged as its human counterpart was. My sense of smell was somewhat weakened, but my wolf vision had almost fully recovered, and my mind was less unhappy in my wolf body than it was in my human form.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “So where’s the fire this time?”
“Listen, Ahmed and I will be there in twenty minutes. Hal’s coming with us.”
Hal Mohegan was our mutual friend. Like me, he was presumed dead. “This sounds like a damn TV intervention,” I said. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s time to sort out this mess, Brian. I want to marry the father of my child, but I can’t because I’m still married to Hal. And you’re —”
“I know.” I didn’t need her to remind me that I was still married to Eve, who had married James Mohegan (Hal’s brother and my best friend), believing I was dead. After she recovered from the shock of my resurrection, I could only picture how thrilled she’d be to discover she was living in a polygamous marriage.
I heard Rowena exhale. “Okay, forget about that now. It’s about a business proposal. Is Azem there? We’ll need his legal expertise.”
I sighed. “Where else could he be?” Azem Nimmani was my lawyer, my personal assistant, and my friend. And one of the three people whose company I could tolerate for more than one hour. The other two were Harriet and Jason Killian, my temporary caretakers. All three of them were from Winston, a clan up in the Canadian North, where I had spent a quarter of a century trapped in my wolf form. And dead to the rest of the world. They had come with me to Copper Ridge to help me with the transition, as Harriet liked to say. From the wolf-man to the man. From dead to alive.
“I don’t know,” Rowena says. “He’s always running errands for you because you don’t want to move your lazy ass from the house. You know, for a person who calls his home the tinselhouse and always complains about how over-furnished and over-decorated it is, you spend an awful lot of time in it.”
“I neither furnished nor decorated it, so I have the right not to like it. As you remember, I didn’t buy it because of its looks, but because it’s isolated and big. And I’m going to get rid of its Rococo charm soon. I plan to renovate it, top to bottom.”
“You could’ve done it already.”
“I’ve started. I finished my study.”
“You removed the knick-knacks and extra furniture and stored them in the attic. Is that your idea of renovating?”
“And my bedroom. It’s new.”
“Only you don’t use it.”
I sighed, frustrated. “Doesn’t your baby need to sleep, Rowena? Isn’t it a bit late for a visit?”
“Ha-ha. Nice try. Aydan’s still awake, but a short ride to your house will help him fall asleep. See you in twenty.”
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AZEM JOINED ME IN THE library and I told him about Rowena’s phone call.
I had to admit I was curious about what kind of business proposal Rowena had in mind. It had to be something much bigger than her regular weekly attempts to fix my life or she wouldn’t have dragged Ahmed, the baby and Hal with her.
“How’s your leg tonight?” Azem asked as he poured us both a glass of scotch.
I took a good swig and closed my eyes in almost-pleasure. “No worse than usual. Let’s see what Rowena wants.”
“She always wants the same thing; she just changes her tactic each time. Once she runs out of ideas, she’ll simply order you to stop hiding. She’s the Copper Ridge einhamiress, therefore your alpha, so you have to obey her. But she wants you to quit all this self-pitying on your own and start living your life.”
I first thought I’d misheard him, but when I realized I hadn’t, rage swept over me.
“Damn it, Azem, I’m not ready to become Brian Canagan again. Look at me, I’m a cripple. I’m half the man I once was!”
“I didn’t know you before they brought you to Winston half-dead twenty-five years ago. But from all I’ve heard, you were nothing like this. What are you so afraid of? Don’t you want to be with your family and friends?”
“If I were Brian Canagan from twenty-five years ago, you’d never talk to me like this.”
Azem stood up and, bracing his arms on the desk, looked straight into my eyes. “If you were that Brian Canagan from twenty-five years ago, you wouldn’t feel sorry for yourself twenty-four hours a day.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” I jerked up from my seat, but a sharp pain slashed through my leg up to my spinal cord and nailed me back. I breathed in and out several times, fighting nausea.
Azem was right; that’s why I was so mad at him. “I feel miserable most of the time. I don’t need others to point out the obvious to me.” I exhaled, feeling old and tired. “A part of me died that day. I don’t know who I am anymore, Azem.”
“It’s time to figure it out,” Rowena said in her resonant voice as she entered the library, followed by Hal and Ahmed, who carried the sleeping Aydan in his car seat.
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“SO, AN URBAN DEVELOPER wants to buy an old city block in some small Pacific Northwest town, knock it down and build an apartment complex or something. What’s wrong with that?” Azem said.
“The developer is Urban Imprint, and they are infamous for their dubious business ethics and their cheap and ugly strip malls they like to build,” Rowena said. “They hope to get it for peanuts because the market is lower than ever. The block is old and beautiful. And there’s this little hotel. She turned her laptop to me. “Here. The Cosmopolitan. Built in the 1870s. Look how cute it is. Astrid says it’s the heart of the city. Urban Imprint would bulldoze it as well.”
“How do you know about all this?” I asked.
“From Lottie Fontaine, a friend of mine. Ahmed and Astrid know her well. Lottie’s the president of a group that is trying to gain public support to save the buildings from demolition and find investors who’ll restore them. They organized a protest today in front of City Hall.”
“Who’s the owner of the block?”
“The City. Except for the hotel, which is private property.”
I shifted in my seat and stretched my bad leg. Damn, it hurt. “That’s a big job far away from here, Rowena. I can’t travel; you know that.”
“With today’s technology, you can do most of the work from here. And that young architect that Lottie has hired can travel here if necessary.”
“What young architect?” I asked.
The baby started crying. Rowena lifted him from the car seat. “Lottie hired a restoration architect to do the cost estimate for the renovation ... I have to feed Aydan. We’re going to use your study, Brian, if that’s okay.”
I smiled. “Go ahead. Do you need anything else?”
“We’ll be fine. By the way, where are the Killians?”
“Visiting some friends.”
“Do you need me, Rowena?” Ahmed asked.
“No, love. Will you and Hal explain to Brian the logistics and financials?”
When she left, I turned to Ahmed. “How do you think I can buy a city block when I don’t have access to my money? Officially, I’m still dead. You had to lend me money to buy this house, remember?”
“I will lend you the money again,” Ahmed said. “It’s a loan, Brian, only interest-free.”
“We’re talking about big money here.”
“Do I need to remind you that you’re rich?”
“Hypothetically speaking.” My wife and my son had inherited my wealth. Later, Eve had given everything to Jack. She was a wealthy woman in her own right.
“I’m sure Jack will transfer all your assets back to you once he learns you’re alive.”
“It’ll take time.”
Ahmed shrugged. “I’m not in a hurry.”
He had solutions for everything. “You rebuilt half of Copper Ridge,” I said. “I’m surprised you have any money left.”
“I have much more money than I need. Once this block in Rosenthal is yours, you and I will invest in rebuilding it. I’m sure Millennium Properties would also like a part in it. I’ll talk to Astrid, Jack and James.”
“You’ll also need to talk to Hal and me,” I said. “We’re also partners. Or we will be again.”
Hal laughed. “The dead-silent partners for now. We have to change that.”
I took a deep breath. “So we will, Hal ... Ahmed, why don’t you do it yourself? You don’t need me. I can announce my return in a less dramatic way.”
“I’m a doctor, not a land developer. On the other hand, I’d like to do something for Rosenthal. I lived there for twelve years; I have a soft spot for it. Rosenthal’s always been a wealthy little town, but now they’re really struggling. This will be a nice boost to the local economy. This is Rowena and Hal’s idea, I’m financing it, Azem’s taking care of the legal aspect. And you, my friend, you’re going to roll up your sleeves and do the actual work.”
“It’s not an intervention. It’s a conspiracy,” I said, suppressing an involuntary smile.
“I think it’s a great plan. It’s time you and Hal resume your lives,” Azem said. “Your families and friends need you back.”
“Not to mention everyone loves somebody else’s wife,” Hal said with a chuckle.
“Except you,” Ahmed said, slapping Hal’s shoulder. “At least, Violet isn’t married.”
And me, Ahmed. I still love my own wife.
Hal turned to me. “We’re no more than ghosts now. Neither dead nor alive. I’m tired of it. I want to carry on with my life. Damn it, I have to hide every time I come here, and Violet must sneak out of Copper Ridge to spend a few days with me in Winston. Peyton’s already suspicious.”
Violet Kincaid was the love of Hal’s life, as well as Rowena’s best friend. Peyton was Violet Kincaid’s daughter and, as I’d heard, Astrid’s best friend. Peyton and her wizard husband had had a baby daughter. Violet, naturally, wanted to be close to them, and not to travel back and forth between Copper Ridge and Winston.
“There is an easy way to fix it,” Azem said. “Everything can be done in one day, but first I need you two legally alive.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “Not at all.”
Hal looked at me. “It doesn’t need to be complicated, either, Brian. Everything’s gonna be fine in the end; remember what Ellida Morgaine told us years ago? And this is the end, isn’t it?”