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foist off on his unsuspecting brother.
    Brigham swore, stormed over to the teakwood liquor cabinet he'd had sent up from San Francisco a few months earlier, and poured himself a brandy. “Competition,” he spat. “The company store has everything a man could want. What will you sell, Devon? Tell me that.”
    â€œMaybe some things a woman could want,” Devon replied, still unruffled, gesturing toward the mountain where Brigham's crews were even then cutting timber. “The Northwest is a lonely place, Brig. Those workers of yours need wives. Women will be arriving from the East—there's a shortage of marriageable men back there because of the war, you know—and from San Francisco, too. They'll want dress goods and flower seeds and paint for picket fences.”
    Brigham sighed. He couldn't deny his brother's reasoning, much as he would have liked to do just that. The Puget Sound country was changing, day by day, and the few hearty men who were willing to work in the mountains yearned for the comforts of female companionship. Devon himself had spent the winter pacing and drinking, restless as a tomcat closed up in a hatbox, and now there was a woman upstairs, a bargain bride.
    This Polly-person was of no consequence to Brig, though; such things were private matters, and if Devon wanted to give a stranger his name, that was his business. The other woman, however, the one Devon had so thoughtfully brought home for him, like a souvenir from some exotic attraction, was most definitely his concern.
    Isabel, his first wife and the mother of his daughters, had permanently cured him of all misconceptions about wedded bliss. Her death from pneumonia, nine years before, had been a tragic one, and even though he and Isabel had never loved each other, he'd grieved for her. Even after all that time, however, he still felt anger whenever he thought of Isabel, because he knew she'd willed her passing. She'd given up, thrown off her life like a garment no longer needed, forsaken her children and husband without even attempting to survive.
    He shook off a swarm of troubling memories and took another sip of his brandy. “The other one—Lydia, I think you called her—will have to go back. That is, unless you're planning to start a harem.”
    Devon rose from the edge of the desk, at last, and went to pour a drink for himself. His motions were pointed, meant to highlight Brigham's rudeness in failing to offer him a brandy when he got his own. “Lydia is beautiful enough to spawn such thoughts in a man's mind,” he conceded. Holding a snifter in his right hand, he turned to face Brig, his blue gaze slightly narrowed. “Open your eyes and look at your life, Brig. You're in dire need of a wife, and your children want for a mother.”
    Brigham had returned to his desk. He set aside his snifter with a thump and reached for a stack of papers. “Aunt Persephone provides all the female guidance and companionship Charlotte and Millie require.”
    Devon swirled his glass, gazing down at the eddy of amber liquid in its bottom as though it could explain some personal mystery that troubled him greatly. “That still leaves the other. And don't say the whores in Seattle are enough, because that's a load of horse shit and we both know it. Lydia is a beautiful and very feminine woman,” he said slowly, after a long interval of further consideration.
    â€œIf she's such a paragon,” Brigham growled, bracing himself against the inner side of the desk with both hands, “why the hell didn't you marry her?”
    His brother was thoughtful, unmoved, as usual, by Brigham's quiet rage. “She's very strong, both mentally and physically. To tell you the truth, I wanted someone who would lean on me just a little. I think Lydia's been taking care of herself for most of her life.”
    Giving another sigh, Brigham gathered up some documents and slapped the shiny surface of the desk with