“I’m not worried, Ellie. That room hasn’t been let in a year or more. It’s nice to have someone use it again. And I happen to like children.”
“It’s a wonderful room,” she said. “If I’d had a room like that growing up, I would’ve felt like a princess. I love it.”
“I decorated it myself,” Jo Ellen said.
“Have you lived around here all your life?”
“Since I got married,” she said. “I met Nick when he was in the air force, stationed in Florida, and fell madly in love, married him, and when he got out of the service we moved here. He’s from these parts.”
“Oh, gee—is your family back in Florida?”
“Just a sister, her husband and my nieces. We don’t see too much of each other. But I have friends here now. Women friends. This is a good little town.” She laughed. “Real little.”
“I like it,” Ellie said. “The only thing that would make it better for me is if I had my kids with me.”
“And where are you from?”
“Eureka. I grew up and went to high school there.”
“And is your family nearby?”
“There’s no one except the kids,” she said. “My grandmother raised me alone and she died a couple of years ago. That’s it. No brothers or sisters.”
“Are your parents dead?” Jo asked cautiously.
“No, no. My mother is kind of a whack job…. Okay, not kind of—she’s pretty nuts. She had me when she was real young, never would say who my father was, and just left me with my gramma. She’s all over the place, traveling, constantly moving. She visited now and then when I was growing up, sends postcards sometimes, but when my gramma died, I couldn’t even find her. I haven’t heard from her in a long time and, really, that’s okay. The last time she visited, my daughter was totally confused about who she was. They knew my gramma as gramma and my mother was horrified to think she was a grandmother! She pretty much ran for her life.”
“Oh, what a shame. I’d love to have a daughter with children.”
“Well, like I said, she’s pretty nuts. But I’m not, I swear. Well, I have been known to marry stupidly, but I’m working on that.”
“It’s amazing how much we actually have in common,” Jo said. Ellie went alert, wondering if Jo was about to tell her how she’d married stupidly. But she said, “Two women, transplanted to this little town, with no real family.”
Ellie almost said, But you have Mr. Fitch! But then, she’d met Mr. Fitch, so she didn’t say it. Instead she said, “Tell me about Virgin River, Jo. I hardly know anything about it, but I really like it.”
An hour later, after talking and laughing and asking each other questions, Ellie headed for a long soak in the tub and Jo finished raking up her flower beds. Ellie wanted to get to her room before crossing paths with Nick; she thought it best to give that man a wide berth. And if she wasn’t totally mistaken, Jo felt the same way.
But before they parted, they made a date to have lunch together next week. Jo offered to make them sandwiches to eat on the back patio when Ellie took her break from the church. Ellie felt a rush of unexpected warmth coming from the woman, a feeling she welcomed.
Noah met with Paul Haggerty for a couple of hours, discussing what Haggerty Construction could do to help out with the renovation in the church. Noah had a lot of ideas about how he could save money by doing some of the work himself, like installing the basement flooring, refinishing the sanctuary floor, putting new glass in the windows, painting the offices, texturing and painting the basement walls.
“The first thing you have to do is paint the outside, Noah,” Paul said.
“I thought maybe I could put that off, concentrate on the interior first.”
“Nope,” Paul said. “No one will see the inside if you don’t spruce up the outside. You can’t expect to draw a crowd if it looks like the same old broken-down church. In renovation, even do-it-yourself renovation, you want to start with what people see first.”
“I never thought of that. I guess you’re right.”
“I’m right. Here’s what I’m going to do for you, Noah,” Paul said. “I’m going to get some measurements and get an itemized bid ready for you—one that shows the cost of a complete remodel, from ceiling to floor, including the outside. The big issue is going to be time—if you’re in this project, we can’t get started until you’re done sanding in the sanctuary and replacing window glass. We can’t have sawdust in the paint, or scratch it up during window replacement. If you look at the numbers and decide you still want your own hand in it, I’ll be happy to loan you a sander and other equipment, no charge. But, if you want us to do the whole remodel, we’ll get in and out of here pretty quickly. While we’re at it, we’ll check all the plumbing and wiring and roof, at no extra cost to you. And I’ll give you my best church price. And my best church scheduling.”
“That would be great,” he said. “That’ll give me some good choices.”
“I can deliver the bid by next week. Now, I have to measure.”
So while Paul got about the business of measuring, Noah went to his office and began returning the phone calls he hadn’t gotten around to earlier.
He spoke first to Shelby MacIntyre and set up a time to visit with her and her fiancé, Luke, to get the details regarding her upcoming marriage. He had a couple of other calls. One woman wondered when he’d be set up for a baptism or should she take her new grandchild to Harry in Grace Valley, and another wondered if he’d have a position for a choir director when the church was functional. And, last of all, he phoned Gloria Tuttle at the hospital. She had left all her numbers: work phone, home phone and cell phone.
“How are you, Reverend Kincaid?” she asked cheerily.
“Very well, thanks. So, I understand you’re a nurse at Valley Hospital?”
“That’s right. I saw you on one of your visits and a volunteer told me you stop by now and then. Your church is in Virgin River?”
“It is, but we’re still in development. It’s an old church and needs a lot of work. I’m trying to get it back in shape while I get to know the town. Meanwhile, I try to make a few calls at the hospital and nursing home.”
“Aw, that’s so thoughtful. Would it help if I could point you toward patients who don’t have visitors? Or who seem particularly lonely?”
“You don’t have many long-term-care patients at Valley, do you, Gloria?”
“Well, we’re small, and critical-care patients are sent to larger facilities, but there’s almost always someone who could use cheering up. Why don’t we meet for coffee at the hospital the next time you’re over this way.”
“That would be helpful, thank you,” Noah said. “I won’t be back over there until at least next week. I have commitments here in town and a lot of work to do on the church. When will you be working?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I live close to the hospital and can dash over for coffee whenever it’s convenient for you. Do you have my cell number and home number?”
He repeated the numbers for her.
“Then I’ll look forward to hearing from you next week,” she said.
They chatted for about fifteen minutes, but Noah had known within thirty seconds that Ellie was absolutely right. Gloria was interested in him. Well, at least in checking him out. He’d seen a number of nurses at the hospital, of course, but he had no idea who she was.
He supposed it was too much to hope that Gloria would ring all his chimes.
Noah liked women, rather more than he probably should. He’d never considered himself indiscriminate; however, it had never taken all that much to get him interested. And dating was a good idea, he knew that. But he had a real healthy libido. He happened to think sex was one of the best things in life. That hadn’t gotten in his way when he was throwing fish and studying, but since entering the seminary, women who were attracted to him had their eye on an entirely different thing. They were setting themselves up to be Mrs. Minister, and he had entered a whole new territory. Every word or gesture, every affectionate move was translated into how it would contribute to their future together. He could hardly take a woman out on a first date without her imagining he wanted to get married. He had to use caution. And caution just didn’t appeal to him. He’d talked with his best friend and mentor, George, about this.
George was now seventy. He was divorced from a first wife, a second had passed on, and he wasn’t exactly indulging in lengthy or lonely grief. George had lady friends. Quite a few, in fact. “Even if you have no interest in another marriage, you should be seeing women, at least casually,” George frequently told him.
“What for?” Noah asked.
“Because it rounds you out as a human being,” George always answered. “You’re a single man, not a hermit. You should have friends of both genders.”
“What for?” Noah asked again. “I’m not into long, platonic courtships. It’s painful.”
George had sighed enviously. “God, how I wish I was young again.”
So he would have coffee with Gloria at the hospital. They would talk and he would be friendly and kind. And she would offer to cook him dinner, poor lonely bachelor that he was, and he would wiggle out of it to keep from leading her on.
And then, although there were other things he could be doing, he fired up the laptop and got online. He had a satellite dish on the RV, but the wireless connection he was using came from the bar. Jack invited him to make use anytime; since he installed the satellite for the TV and Preacher’s computer, most of the town jumped off their connection.
Noah searched for Arnold Gunterson on Google. The only thing he came up with was his position as director of Brightway Private Elementary School. The school had a small Web site where the bios of the board of directors were posted, but the staff was only listed by name. A further search didn’t turn up any Arnold Gunterson in Northern California. A statewide search turned up one other man by that name in La Jolla, and he was eighty-nine years old.
Arnie no doubt had degrees that qualified him, prior experience that proved him capable of his position, a résumé that he could give to parents of prospective students. But, he wasn’t likely to give that information to Noah, not after what had passed between them.
Noah decided he’d have to find a moment to quiz Ellie on what she knew about her former husband. And then he’d figure out a way to learn about this guy’s past. Because if he knew anything, just based on Arnie’s behavior, he knew Arnie had a past.
When Ellie rented her small room over Jo’s garage, the last thing she expected was to make a new friend. Her plan had been to be an invisible tenant—she knew Jo was nervous about her being on the property and she thought she knew why. Nick Fitch could be a problem for his wife; he had a reputation. And Ellie did not want to be part of the problem.
However, Jo invited her to lunch, then invited her again and again, and Nick was never around for these lunches that were dedicated to women-talk. In a little over a week of lunches, Ellie felt closer to Jo than she had to a woman friend since her grandmother’s passing. But when Jo pressed her for details about how this ex-husband, this stepfather, could gain temporary custody, Ellie fibbed. “I don’t have much,” she said. “I just don’t have the means Arnie has. I rented a small place in a so-so neighborhood while Arnie has a house in a nice neighborhood. Plus, I worked nights in a bar while Arnie’s trump card was being principal of an elementary school. I sure wish I knew how he managed that job—he’s not patient with kids at all.” She so hoped Jo wouldn’t hate her when she learned the truth, which she inevitably would. Ellie just wasn’t ready to reveal it yet, though she already felt great affection and trust for Jo.
“The bastard,” Jo said. “Where you work has nothing to do with the kind of mother you are.”
“Well, it worked for Arnie,” Ellie said with a nod. “But I think we’re doing all right at the moment, the kids and me. He’s letting them talk to me on the phone every night and I haven’t had another problem on the Saturday visits. He always gets in my face a little bit, but I never let him see me sweat. I did tell him a small lie, though. I wanted him to think he was being watched, so I said that I’d told the court where I was working and that I’d have letters from real upstanding, proper people saying I’m a good person and decent mother.”
“Oh, my darling,” Jo said, running her fingers across Ellie’s hand. “And you will! We’ll all write letters for you, if that’s what it takes.”
Ellie laughed. “Jo, I don’t know many people. I’ve been scrubbing, painting, hauling trash and answering the phone.”
“Is working with Noah going well?”
“It’s okay. Sometimes he’s a pain in the butt, but he’s fair and even funny. It’s busy every minute, especially when he’s away from the church, which is a lot of the time lately. I run from cleaning or painting to the office to grab the phone, back and forth. There have been a lot of hang-ups, by the way. I don’t know what to make of that.”
“Your ex, possibly?” she asked. “Checking to see if you really work at the church?”
Ellie shrugged. “I suppose it could be. But wouldn’t one call do it? Maybe it’s that nurse from Valley Hospital who’s chasing my boss.”
“Oh?” Jo said. “Do tell?”
They talked for a while about the nurse, about the fact that Noah was a pretty good-looking guy, and then moved on to discuss about everything from the price of gas to the fact that soon the leaves would be changing color as August aged and September loomed on the horizon.