Lately, whenever she’d talked to Walt, Muriel had been hearing something distant in his voice. Maybe it was just his loneliness with her being away. Or maybe he was unwilling to compete with her career. Maybe, regardless of what he said, he’d expected her to say no to a fantastic acting opportunity to stay home with him, proving her love. Given the number of men she’d been through in her life and her independence, she could just say
Phhhhttt
—get over it. Everyone gets a life, bub, not just the boys.
And that’s what she would say, if she became convinced he was just another difficult man who had to be sure he was always on top, that he was first ahead of her work, her sense of self, her need to be productive. She just hadn’t seen that in him. There was something different about Walt, and she’d known it since the first moment she’d met him. He had all the ingredients of the superior male beast—big, tough, heroic, masterful, dominant. But then she’d see him with his daughter or grandchild and realize that he was more than that. He had a tenderness so deep, a loyalty so strong, and a reliability so constant she wanted to embrace it and never let go.
So she was taking her brief ten-day hiatus in Virgin River to find out if Walt was just another man, or maybe a little lonely, in need of reassurance. She’d earned the break. And Walt, she thought, had earned the benefit of the doubt.
The pilot of her plane had asked around and found her a ride. Once home, she called Walt’s house, but there was no answer. Jeez. Hollywood might be all superficial fluff, but at least they could exist on cell phones!
She rustled up her extra set of keys and took her truck into town. Ah, there he was—his Tahoe was parked in front of Jack’s with quite a few other vehicles. A glance at her watch told her it was probably dinnertime. She walked into the quiet hum of conversation; Jack’s was rarely real noisy. She pulled off her hat, ruffled her hair with her fingers and scanned the room. Then she saw his broad back. He sat up at the bar talking with his niece, Shelby, while Luke stood behind Shelby with a hand on her shoulder. On Walt’s other side was Paul, lifting a beer.
“Hey, now,” she heard Jack say, causing them all to turn.
Muriel had taught herself to read people a long time ago. It was necessary in her line of work to get a message from the body language and the eyes. Walt smiled a little bit, but his posture opened to her and his eyes grew instantly warm. Yet it was Shelby who jumped off her stool. “Muriel! What are you doing here?”
She gave Shelby a hug. “Taking a little break from filming while I can. How are you?”
“Perfect! But what about you? Is it incredibly exciting?”
Muriel chuckled. “No, sweetheart. It’s mundane. It just happens to fill up about sixteen hours a day and is usually exhausting.” She walked toward the men, arm in arm with Shelby. “Walt, I tried to call. You weren’t home so I came here.”
“Good bet,” he said, leaning toward her. He slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Ah, there it was. She could feel the vibration under his skin. He was glad to see her. Maybe relieved. She didn’t want to make a scene by throwing herself into his arms, so she turned to Luke. “How are you? I see he didn’t shoot you.”
Luke laughed and shook his head. “Not yet. But I’m still listening for that rifle cock.”
“Hell,
I’m
still listening for that,” Paul said, sipping his beer.
Jack chuckled and said, “What’s your pleasure, Muriel?”
“How about a beer? Whatever you think I’ll like.”
“Done,” he said, slapping a napkin on the bar.
“How’s the family, Jack?”
“Exceptional. Mel’s exceptionally gorgeous and demanding, Emma’s exceptionally beautiful and David is an exceptionally bad terrible two. We may not survive him.”
“Oh, weaker men than you have made it through that stage,” she said. She picked up her beer and raised it. “I hope you have some good gossip. I’ve missed the hell out of this place.”
“I think we can keep you entertained for a little while,” Shelby said. And for the next half hour or so, she laughed and hummed at the local tales, both funny and serious. Shelby had decided to make Luke’s life and marry him, date to be announced, the local pediatrician was living with Vanni’s pregnant girlfriend, Jack was having trouble getting Rick to open up on the phone about how he was doing in rehab, but within a couple of weeks he could go down to Naval Medical Center in San Diego to pick him up, bring him home. And little David had a big, round, purple lump on his forehead from throwing himself on the floor in a temper and banging his head.
Walt didn’t let it go on very long. Jack handed him a sack of some of Preacher’s takeout and he stood from the bar. “You must be starving,” he said to Muriel. He lifted one dark brow and tilted his head toward the door.
Now, Muriel was too aware that if anyone else in this bar had pulled that trick, the laughter and jeering would have been relentless. No one got by with anything around here, and certainly nothing that obvious. But this was the general and even Shelby, who had him wrapped around her little finger, was cautious. Respectful.
“Starving,” she said with a smile. Then she turned to Jack. “I’ll be around for ten days. I’ll see plenty of everyone. Tell Mel I said hello and I’ll catch up with her.”
“You bet.”
Outside, on the bar’s porch, Walt slipped an arm around her waist. He put his rough cheek against hers and said, “Your horses are fed. Come to my place. The usual suspects now know better than to step foot near it.”
A few minutes later she was laughing hysterically as her Labs assaulted her while Walt tried to pin her against the wall just inside the door. And, oh God, had she needed to come home!
“Ten days?” he asked, his voice coarse.
“Ten.”
“What do you want to do while you’re here?”
“I want to ride, run the dogs and sit on my porch with you and a glass of wine, watching the sun go down. Then I’d like to sit on my porch with you in the morning with coffee and watch it come up. And this,” she said, running her hands over his shoulders and down his arms. “I want to stay real close to the feeling of your arms around me.”
“Sounds doable,” he said. “How about we start with a nice, slow, relaxing orgasm? Then we can make plans while we have dinner.”
“I can do that,” she said, kissing him.
He was still learning the ropes. A below-the-knee amputation was a piece of cake compared to his—he had to learn to balance and operate a mechanical knee. Frankly, he preferred the wheelchair or crutches. The wheelchair had to be weighted on the front side bars so he wouldn’t tip over backward because he no longer had the counterweight that his leg would have provided, but he still would rather that than a walker. And crutches were a little unstable, not that it mattered to him. But they insisted on the walker, which made him feel like an old man. Plus, he was still hurting. His foot where there was no foot itched till he wanted to lose his mind.
The pain was so much more manageable, but leaning his weight on the prosthesis was tough and the phantom pain still drove him crazy, especially at night. That, he was told, wasn’t exactly easily remedied. It was a process of retraining the nerves, a tedious, frustrating exercise. He was walking now, inside the parallel bars and with the walker.
In rehab he’d been focusing on straightening the leg to prevent contractures—the shortening of the muscles in the thigh of his amputated leg. He’d been forced to lie on his belly, something they called proning, and lift that stump to extend his hip. Then he’d stand at the bars while a therapist pulled back on it. And he was instructed to repeat these exercises while on his own, but he didn’t. Getting better didn’t interest him enough, and he knew that. He also knew he’d probably be sorry, but motivation was hard to embrace.
Then there was group. Group was almost unbearable. Let’s all get together and talk about what it feels like to lose your limbs or not be able to move your body from the waist down, what
fun!
Let’s have a little chat about how scrambled your brain is after you’ve been shot/blown up/crushed. Or, how about we have a good cry followed by a group hug? And then, the frosting on the cake, accept praise from the group moderator—who, by the way, has arms and legs and doesn’t have to get around in a chair—because you let it all out and cried in front of the boys.
Rick wasn’t sure he could stand much more of this. The only thought worse was going home like this, with a brain like so much spaghetti and one leg even worse than Captain Ahab’s.
He had to admit to himself, being in the barracks as opposed to the ward was better, especially the freedom of movement. All the men had some form of disability, and they traveled back and forth to the hospital physical therapy department, but also to the exchange to buy anything from snacks to paperbacks, to the base movie theater, or on outings with friends or family members. His roommates were more relaxed, more honest. He was actually forming some relationships. They were like members of a squad, almost. The gimp squad. But at least they could bitch about the physical terrorists, the counselors, their families or girlfriends or buddies back home who just didn’t seem to get it, and they didn’t have to bare their souls or cry to be doing it right.
He couldn’t complain about the food or the weather. He couldn’t remember the Marine Corps or navy ever feeding him decent food before this. And San Diego in April was like a piece of heaven. The sun was bright and warm, the breeze was clean and smelt vaguely of the sea, at night the sky was usually clear or the storms gathered off the coast and put on a light show over the ocean. He spent as much time outside as he could, finding a bench or chair in either the courtyard or in front of the barracks and just parked there, soaking up the sun. The southern California sun was so much sweeter than that mean, harsh desert sun in Iraq.
There hadn’t ever been this much sun in Virgin River; if the height of the trees didn’t block it, then the clouds did. In Virgin River you wore your sealskin eleven months of the year; mountain life was chilly to cold almost year-round.
His cell phone chimed in his pocket and he pulled it out to see who was calling. Unknown. That was a trick only Liz tried, hoping he’d pick up. Jack never bothered with that because Jack wasn’t a crafty teenage girl. He let it go to voice mail. Liz had been sending him things at least twice a week. Stupid things. Cookies she made that weren’t all that good, magazines that looked used, cheap cologne, as if he’d be going out on some date or something, Soap-On-A-Rope and razors, like the Naval Medical Center wouldn’t keep him clean. A Saint Christopher medal. For what? To keep him safe from now on? Stupid, stupid things. Things that made his eyes water at her sweet caring, her simple but beautiful attempts to bring him any level of pleasure. He treated her like such shit she should just cut him loose and spend all those efforts on someone else, someone who deserved it.
A car pulled up in front of the barracks, a woman jumped out of the driver’s side and ran around to the passenger door. Her skirt was short and flouncy, her knit top snug, legs long and shapely. And man, what an ass—round and tight and pretty. Aaron’s woman. Aaron was one of his roommates, about a week ahead of him in this rehab program.
She held out her hand to Aaron and helped him stay steady while he stepped out on his prosthetic leg, the preparatory kind. And once he had himself balanced in the open car door, he pulled his woman against him and she molded there, planting her lips on his, her firm breasts pressed up against him, his arms around her waist with one hand slipping down to that fabulous butt to pull her even closer.
Aaron was about thirty and this was his fiancée. He was one happy-go-lucky son of a bitch, like nothing much was wrong. He had also been wounded in Iraq, but he hadn’t been blown up. He took a bullet and it shattered his knee so catastrophically they had to amputate, yet to listen to him, talk to him, you’d think this was some minor fucking inconvenience. Rick vacillated between admiring him and hating him.
While Aaron kissed his girl, Rick’s voice-mail message alert bleeped. But Rick watched Aaron. He wondered what it would feel like to believe he had the right to do that to a woman, with a woman.
Aaron had said he was going to run some wedding-planning errands with his girl and if he was real lucky, he’d be able to talk her into some afternoon delight at a hotel that was handicap friendly, haw haw haw. He looked pretty delighted, pretty relaxed. Apparently that had worked out for him.
“Want me to walk you in, baby?” the fiancée asked.
He grabbed for his cane out of the front seat. “Nah, sweetheart, I got it. I’ll talk to you tonight.” Then he grinned. “Glad we got everything taken care of.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said, giving him another quick kiss. “Practice up now so you can come home.”
“You bet I will,” he said, smiling.
Aw, Jesus, Rick thought. Can we get any sweeter? You’re a goddamn cripple! Have you noticed, crip, you haven’t got a real leg there? And the one they gave you—it’s not working that good.
She held his hand, backing away from him so slowly like they couldn’t bear to be apart. Rick felt it squeeze his chest. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, it reminded him of the way he’d pulled away from Liz when he said goodbye to her before leaving for Iraq.
He squashed the memory.
Aaron walked slowly toward Rick, who sat on the bench outside the front door of the barracks, his walker beside him.
“How you doing, Rick?” Aaron asked.
“Great,” Rick said, because he knew how the game was played. You stay up! You stay positive! You act like getting this fake piece-of-shit leg was your fucking dream come true! “How was your afternoon? Or do I even need to ask?”
“Good,” Aaron said, not taking the bait. “We got some things done. Sandy has this whole wedding business nailed. All I do is say, looks good to me.” He smiled a bit wistfully. “She’s so great.”
“Maybe you had a little afternoon delight, too,” Rick suggested.
“Any time I get to spend with Sandy is perfect,” he said.
“Just out of curiosity, isn’t it kind of difficult?”
Aaron stood right in front of him, forcing him to look up. “What, exactly?”
“You know what.”
“Sex?”
Rick was speechless for a second. He’d rather speak in code, but Aaron was pretty upfront. Especially with these issues. “Uh, yeah. That.”
Aaron laughed. “It was a lot harder to learn how to take a shower.”
“Where’s the leg go?” Rick heard himself ask.
“Right up against the wall, pal. It’s not real soft and cuddly. But I get some very fine traction without it.” Then he chuckled. “You worried about that, my brother?”
“Just curious.”
“Then let me make this easy for you. I take it off. That seems to be the popular solution for most men. And I’m going to get this thing broken in as quick as I can. I want to walk Sandy down the aisle and dance with her at the reception. It might not be Fred Astaire style, but if I don’t fall on my ass, I’ll be damn happy.”
Rick grinned, but he thought, you simple fool. You screw with a stump and limp around the dance floor like an idiot and you’re damn happy? Fool. “Good for you,” Rick said, because that’s what he was expected to say.
“You have a girl, don’t you, Rick?”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “No girl.”
“I thought I heard there was a girl back home.”
“Nah. I dated some, that’s all. No girl.”
“Well, then,” Aaron said, grinning. “You have something to look forward to. I didn’t find my Sandy till I was twenty-six.”
And didn’t you have a couple of legs then?
Rick wanted to ask. But he said, “Sure. Yeah.”
When Aaron had gone inside, Rick checked his message.
“Hi, Rick, it’s me. You never pick up and I guess I stopped expecting you to call back, but I just wanted to call you anyway, tell you I think about you every second. I’m graduating in less than two months, can you believe that? This girl you had to beg to stay in school? And guess what? I have all As. But I think I told you that already. Maybe a hundred times. That is, if you listen to the messages. I don’t know—maybe you just delete them. But anyway, I know you’re going to be out of there before too much longer, and it would just be so…awesome…if you came to graduation. I’d be so proud to have you come. I guess I won’t know anything about that until you call me back. Hey!”
she said, changing her tone.
“I sent you a little something. I hope you like it.”
Rick clicked off the phone. Then he turned it back on and replayed the message. Then replayed it again. Then listened to an older one, her voice making his eyes sting and then cloud. He missed her so much. But he couldn’t…couldn’t…couldn’t…
Yeah, sure. Like I’m going to watch you graduate, your boyfriend, with a peg leg in a pair of dorky running shoes. Get real, he thought. Then he turned off the phone and put it in his pocket.