“Ready,” she said with a smile.
“And how are you feeling?” Aiden asked Luke.
“Ready and so
not
ready,” he said.
Aiden chuckled and looked at Art. “And good morning, Art. How are you feeling this morning?”
Art took a drink of his diet soda and said, “I want to get married with Netta.”
Luke instantly lost all the color in his face and groaned. Shelby, however, just ran a hand over her big belly. “I don’t think so, Art,” she said. “You shouldn’t get married now. We need your help around here—especially with the baby coming. Besides, it’s hard to be married to someone who lives in Fortuna if you don’t drive a car.”
“Oh,” he said. Then he turned to Luke. “Should I drive a car?”
“No!” Luke said harshly, clearly in a panic.
“We’ll drive you wherever you need to go, Art,” Shelby said more calmly. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Okay,” he said. “You’ll drive me to Netta’s house?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. “I’d be happy to. In fact, I’ll call Ellen and ask if Netta can come to the Fourth of July picnic in town. Would you like that?”
He smiled. “That would be good.”
“Consider it done,” Shelby said. “It will be fun to get to know her.”
Aiden chuckled and sat down on the porch steps. “Art, why don’t you go see if the fish are biting.”
“I’m on my break,” he said. Art was very careful of rules and routine. He liked following instructions, especially Luke’s.
“It’s okay,” Luke said. “Go ahead if you feel like it.”
“I feel like it,” Art said with a smile. And he hefted himself up and lumbered off, stopping at the front of his cabin to grab his rod and reel.
When he was out of earshot, Aiden said, “Try not to worry so much, Luke. I think Art’s pretty happy to be talking to Netta again. Ellen suggested we all just keep an eye on them and see how the renewed relationship is shaping up, make sure they’re not headed for trouble or anything. But she also said there was no indication from Netta’s behavior that she had a real active libido. Maybe this is something Netta mentioned to Art—Art’s been talking to her on the phone, right?”
Luke nodded. “I have to punch in the numbers for him. They don’t seem to talk that much, but they like being on the phone.”
“Well, don’t worry. Maybe you should ask to drop in to Ellen’s support group a few times. Pick up some very important information—stuff that people just don’t know. Things I didn’t know, and I thought I was up on some of this stuff.”
“Like what?” Luke asked.
“Well—here’s something. I know I told you Netta’s on birth control as a precaution, but not because she might accidentally have sex with some boyfriend like Art. It helps with PMS, for one thing. And to protect her from pregnancy in a worst-case scenario. Like sexual abuse—rape. There are predators out there who look for vulnerable women like Netta and her roommates.”
“Oh,
God!
” Luke nearly roared, standing up fast as a shot. “You gotta be
kidding
me!”
“I had a similar reaction, but I managed not to stand up and shout about it. Made me think about things. It’s a very dark, very tragic reality. Netta, by all accounts, is very eager to please—what’s she going to do if a bunch of high school boys tell her to meet them after school? And—it’s illegal to sterilize a mentally challenged woman…To get her an abortion would be a legal nightmare and impossible without her consent, which someone like Netta wouldn’t be able to give. To let her give birth to a rapist’s baby could be an even worse trauma. Her caretakers are taking the only precautions they can to keep her safe in a dangerous world. I’m sure there are a million more things to understand.”
Luke’s face was actually red. “Aiden, if I ever came face-to-face with a man who would sexually molest a mentally challenged woman, I don’t know if I could keep from—”
Aiden stood, as well. “I understand completely. Listen, you’ve done a great job with Art and he’s content, anyone can see that,” Aiden said. “But I think you and Shelby would benefit from getting to know Ellen and Bo and maybe, down the road when there’s time, you should try out that support group.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Yeah…”
“Try not to worry too much, Luke. Art’s not going to marry Netta. And it’s good he has a friend.”
“I might have been a little tense lately—Mom being around, Art wanting to marry someone, Shelby ready to have a baby…”
“Ya think?” Shelby asked with a smile. “I’ll call Ellen and offer to pick up Netta for the picnic, if Netta wants to come. It’ll be fun.”
“I should do it, baby,” Luke said. “You’re too pregnant.”
“To drive a car?” Aiden and Shelby asked at the same time.
Aiden turned and went to his cabin, chuckling as he went. He flipped on his laptop, signed on to his e-mail account and found an e-mail from someone he didn’t recognize. He opened it and read, Aiden—I have to talk to you. It’s urgent. It’s more than urgent. It’s about our divorce. Call me at once. Here is my cell number. Annalee
He sat down and typed, No. Go away. Pretend I’m dead.
Within five minutes he heard a ping, alerting him of new mail. I’d love to, but that won’t work. Call me at once!!!
She didn’t realize that she was looking a bit different to Marcie and Ian. She was calm and fulfilled, a lot more relaxed than was typical for her. It was something she could feel but didn’t know would show on her face, in her lithe movements, in her twinkling eyes and secret smile. After their initial hugs of greeting, she poured them all iced fruit drinks and suggested they sit out on the deck to watch the sunset. Ian and Marcie went first, Erin following with a big aluminum soup pot and a metal spoon, which she casually put beside her chaise.
“Uh, Erin—what’s that for?” Ian asked.
“Oh, I have that bear.”
Ian and Marcie exchanged looks, then looked back at Erin. “What bear?”
“I told you about the bear,” she said. “You know—the one in the house?”
“I think you might’ve forgotten to mention that….”
And then she tried to recall. Actually, she’d talked to them daily but had been leaving out anything in her summer at the cabin that had to do with Aiden, so she’d left out many things. But she was going to introduce him to her sister and brother-in-law, so she had better catch them up a bit. “Well, remember the vagrant who caused my concussion?” she began. By the end of her explanation and story, leaving out the more delicious details, they were both staring at her with wide eyes and open mouths. “What?” Erin asked.
“You fell in love,” Marcie said softly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erin returned with a flip of her hand. “I’m simply hiking and biking with someone and allowing him the privilege of chasing my bear out of the kitchen. By the way, I’m sorry about the cookies. I know how much you like them, but I was afraid to make more.”
“You fell in love with a vagrant who turned out to be a doctor and you’re like a completely different person,” Marcie said. “Erin, you’re all soft and cuddly.”
“Oh, pooh—you’re just very pregnant and sentimental.”
“When do we meet him?” Ian wanted to know.
“Well—I have you guys in town for the weekend and he has tons of family at his brother’s for the weekend and longer, but I guess we’ll all be at the Fourth of July picnic at Jack’s on Monday. Try not to embarrass me by making too much of this. All right?”
“All right,” Marcie said, grinning from ear to ear.
What followed were literally
hundreds
of e-mails. Call me immediately! I have to talk to you! You don’t understand how urgent this is—and I’m not telling you anything until I talk to you and hear your voice!
He knew she was cutting and pasting, or maybe she’d set up her computer to keep sending every five seconds, but that didn’t diminish the panic it threatened to fill him with. Just the thought of having her anywhere near his life at this time made him want to run as fast and as far as he could.
The only two people who could possibly understand his panic were his brothers Sean and Luke—the only two who had ever actually met her in the flesh. He had called them both—he’d said something like “I got in some trouble, got married to a nutcase a couple of months ago and now I’m working on a divorce, and I haven’t told Mom.” Luke, who had gone through his own horrific marriage/divorce crisis at roughly the same age, took some leave and flew to San Diego to make sure Aiden was all right. Aiden wasn’t too all right and Luke called in Sean.
Try as he might to get her to leave him alone, Annalee kept coming around. When Luke met her, he asked, “Holy shit, Aiden! Is she human?” He saw how beautiful and sneaky Annalee was and couldn’t believe she was real. Sean was the one who said, “Buy her off. You can make her go away with money.” They even offered to pool their funds to finance her departure, but Aiden hadn’t needed financial help. He’d been on a boat for two years; his money had been going in the bank.
Everyone in the family knew about her after it was all over, of course, just as they knew about how much trouble he’d been facing when he’d gotten mixed up with her. They also knew what it had cost him to get out of it. After all that had been resolved, his brief marriage to the little sex kitten had become a joke with his brothers—Aiden got off a big gray boat with a hard-on and the first willing woman he encountered was a sociopath with extraordinary skills in bed. Ha-ha.
Not so funny right now.
He turned off his computer. She might crash it with her e-mails. Tough. He’d just buy a new one. He knew from experience that even the slightest response could somehow set off the diabolical Annalee. In the past she had somehow managed to glean information about him and his family that he didn’t intend for her to have. He was sticking to his guns—he was done with her!
On Saturday he went to Eureka, shopping. He couldn’t find what he was looking for in the couple of dress shops he visited, so he ended up at a clothing-consignment store where he bought an emerald-green strapless chiffon dress. It was used, of course, but he was out of options. He wasn’t entirely sure of Erin’s size, but he thought he was at least close. There was no question about the color of her eyes—like his—that Irish green. He also bought a pair of silver slip-on heels. He had a scheme and that made him smile and forget all about Annalee.
That night the Riordans had a big family meal at Luke’s and on Sunday everyone went to General Booth’s house to gather with Shelby’s side of the family. Everyone was there, including Tom Booth on leave after two years of West Point, with his newly engaged fiancée, Brenda, who was a college student in New York, not far from the academy Tom attended. They were only back in Virgin River for a couple of weeks of Tom’s leave; Tom was headed for some airborne training with the army. In the academy, you didn’t get summers off like civilian college. Active-duty military were always in training or on assignment.
And then came the Fourth, Monday. No one in Aiden’s family seemed to notice how anxious he was to get to the picnic, or that he was the first to head in that direction. By noon he was there, craning his neck for Erin. He had a beer and it seemed like forever before she appeared with Marcie and Ian. Though he tried to be cool, he couldn’t hide the light in his eyes. And to his satisfaction, the light in hers matched. He stood on the porch of the bar and looked way down the street to where they had parked and were walking toward him. He wanted to sprint toward her, pick her up, whirl her around and carry her off somewhere private. But that wasn’t going to happen. The knowing eye contact was going to have to be enough for now.
He did greet her before doing anything else, however. He walked toward her at a controlled pace, took her hands in his and bussed her cheek. He met her sister and brother-in-law, fussed over the nice round belly Marcie sported, shook Ian’s hand vigorously and congratulated him. And he conveyed, with his eyes, that he couldn’t wait to get Erin alone.
The day was filled with new introductions and reunions. No one in the Riordan family had any idea who Erin was, so that was more than a little exciting to Sean and Luke. Maureen snuck up beside Aiden and said, “Oh my, she’s lovely, Aiden. How amazing you met her here.” Aiden saw Marcie embrace Jack and Mel like old friends; he overheard Ian explain that he was in his last semester of college. He would student teach at his old high school in the fall and, if things went according to plan, he would teach music there. He would direct the high school musical; when he was in high school there, he’d been the star, Marcie bragged. At around four o’clock, Ian Buchanan sang the “Star Spangled Banner” a cappella and almost brought Aiden to his knees with the beauty of his voice.
At a point after hamburgers, Ian handed Aiden a beer and said, “So. You and Erin?”
“I hope so.”
“She’s amazing.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Aiden said.
“We owe her just about everything. She’s the reason everyone is okay—me, Marcie, Drew, absolutely everyone.”
“Tell me why,” Aiden said.
“She spent her whole life taking care of everything from the day her mother died a long time ago. I’m sure there was plenty she needed, but she worried about everyone else. There was a time I resented her for bossing Marcie and telling her what to do, but once I realized it was all out of love and total commitment, I got over it fast. I want Erin to have everything she ever wanted.”
Aiden smiled at the man. He smiled in a way that would comfort him because that’s what Aiden wanted, too. “Tell me about this baby that’s coming.”
Ian brightened at once. “His name will be Heath Bradley Buchanan and he’s coming on the twentieth of August. It’s scheduled. He’s breech now. If he doesn’t turn, he’ll come by C-section. We’re okay with that—as long as he’s okay. He’s right on target.”
“You’re so lucky,” Aiden said.
“You have kids, Doc?” he asked.
Aiden shook his head. It was in his mind to say he’d just barely found the right girl, but instead, he said, “Still single.”
“What a coincidence,” Ian said. “Erin’s single, too.”
“I know,” Aiden said with a laugh. “I love the way that worked out.”