“All taken care of.”
“Your husband’s been looking for you.”
“Swell. What did you tell him?”
“That you were on a mission. A medical mission.”
“I bet that thrilled him. I guess I’ll go tap-dance around Jack and grab the kids from Brie. I’m going to call it a day, Doc.”
“I’ll phone you if anything exciting pops up.” She turned to leave and he called her back. She turned to him. “That was a good thing you did. I don’t like her chances, but that was a real good thing.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“All my years here, all my years watching her go downhill, I never gave her that much hope. Glad someone did. Glad you did.”
She felt a small smile come to her lips.
Over the course of the previous three days, Luke had taken Sean over to the Booth house for a couple of morning rides. He hadn’t done it for Sean, certainly. But for Shelby, because it made her happy to have someone with whom to share the rides. And although it irked Luke, she found Sean amusing.
The rest of the time Luke and his brother worked together. They finished the floors in the house, then concentrated on cabin number one for Luke’s new tenant.
“We should have this ready for you in a couple of days, Art,” Luke told him. That put Art in a fever of excitement, that he was going to have his own little house. “Ever had your own house before?” Luke asked him.
“By myself?” Art asked. “Not by myself.”
“Think you’re ready for your own little house?”
“I am,” he said with a nod.
“So let me ask you, Art—at the group home, who did the laundry?”
He shrugged and said, “We had to sign up for it.”
Luke was perplexed. “Sign up? I don’t get it.”
“On the clipboard,” Art said impatiently. “You have to sign up on the clipboard when you want to use the washer and dryer.”
“No kidding? So you did your own?”
“We did our own.”
“And did you have other chores at the group home?” Sean asked him.
“Make the bed, put away the clothes, keep a neat room. Dishes. Vacuum. Bathroom cleaning.”
Luke lifted a brow. “I think you are ready for your own house. With some OJT on the washer…”
Art frowned. “OJT?”
Sean slapped him on the back. “On-the-job training, buddy. Come with me. I’m going to show you how to scrape the dead paint off the outside of this cabin so we can prime it.”
“OJT?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
When Art was settled into his chore outside, Sean went inside and asked Luke, “What are you going to do with him?”
“He just got here, Sean. He just needs to feel safe right now.”
“He’s going to get attached to you.”
“Maybe.” Luke shrugged. “Look, the guy had a job. And from what he says, he took care of himself. Sounds like all he needs is a little supervision. Since I’m not going anyplace, what’s it hurt if he just hangs out here?”
Art stuck his head in the door. “Sean? Can I have some more OJT?”
Luke looked at his brother. “He’s going to get attached to
you.
”
“I won’t be here long enough.”
Between the three of them, they managed to get a lot done. At the end of the day, Luke fixed Art a grilled cheese and some soup and then, at Luke’s insistence, he took Sean to Jack’s for dinner again. Shelby and her uncle, as well as Muriel, the Booths’ new neighbor, were there. Before leaving, he was briefly and wonderfully in possession of her lips. But Sean, unfortunately, had nothing to do with his lips but talk.
The next day Sean said, “Tonight we’re going over to the coast or at least Fortuna. I’m only here another day and I’m tired of entertaining your girlfriend for you.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, but I’m tired of you doing that, too.”
“I bet you’ve already got a girl someplace else—a girl with girlfriends. Do a brother a favor and make a call.”
“I’m not doing that, man. You go. Knock yourself out.”
“What is your deal, Luke?”
He took a deep breath. They had managed not to talk about this, though it was as obvious as a punch to the gut. “You know what my deal is, Sean. And I don’t need you to jam me up right now.”
“Come on, Luke. You can pick up your threads when I’m gone.”
“Not interested. I have things on my mind.”
“Yeah—Shelby things. Since we can’t share the girl, let’s go find some action. Besides, her uncle is watching her like a hawk.”
“I’m working that angle,” Luke said. “Brother, you have to get out of my way here. I have things to do with the girl.”
“You are heading for something not so good,” Sean said. “She’s young and innocent, anyone can see that. She’s sweet. And she’s got that look—like she’d bruise easily. You’d better think about this.”
“It’s under control,” he said. But it wasn’t. He felt about as far from control as he ever had. There was just no way in hell he could stop this now. He was like a runaway train where Shelby was concerned.
“She’s vulnerable. Maybe needy,” Sean stressed.
Luke knew this. Ordinarily twenty-five wasn’t too young, but Shelby, despite everything, seemed much more tender than the average twenty-five-year-old woman. Maybe it was the fact that she’d spent the years from nineteen to twenty-four held hostage, taking care of her mother, and had limited worldly experience. And he was more than a little aware of her vulnerability, that soft underside that a man like Luke, with his careless ways, could damage. And yet, even knowing all that, he wasn’t having any success at cooling himself down.
“I’m going to have to go pick up some supplies,” Luke said. “I’m going to get a hot-water heater and new sink for Art’s cabin. You do whatever you want and tonight I’ll take you out to a nice dinner, not at Jack’s,” Luke said, because he wasn’t in the mood for any more of Sean’s interaction with Shelby. “But I’m not interested in women. We’ll take two cars.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sean said. “A pathetic plan, but a plan…”
It was executed in exactly that way. They had a steak dinner at the Brookstone in Ferndale and while Sean retired to the bar, Luke headed home. Sean returned to Luke’s in the early morning. He was smiling privately and there was no question he was more relaxed than when
Luke left the bar the night before. The Riordan men carried the tension of abstinence in their necks and shoulders.
Luke was surprised he could still turn his head.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, I’ve never seen you like this,” Sean said.
“Like what?”
Sean rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother. You’re going after the baby and you are so tight you’re going to grind your molars flat. Not only isn’t she good for you, you’re poison for her.”
It occurred to Luke to try to explain that he hadn’t been able to think of anything else for weeks, and he couldn’t remember when that had happened to him last. That when he got his arms around her, he was out of his head. But he’d been running with his brothers a long time and they were all the same with women—fast and loose. They didn’t get like this.
Sean put a hand on Luke’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He shook his head almost sadly. “Good luck with this, man.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh—it is what I think. You’re so into this woman, you’re done for. I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
T
he last weekend in September, Jack’s bar had to be closed because Jack, Preacher, Paul, Mike and their wives were all going to Grants Pass, Oregon, for the wedding of one of their boys. Joe Benson, marine and architect who designed all their houses and had worked with Paul for years in Oregon, was getting married. It was no coincidence that Joe was marrying one of Vanni’s best friends from flying days—they had met in Virgin River when Nikki was visiting Vanessa. Their wedding brought together a few of the available marines, but was a small flight-attendant reunion as well.
For a wedding that was thrown together in just over a month, it was beautiful and classy. Unlike those casual, low-key Virgin River weddings, this one was held in a charming downtown chapel with a fancy reception dinner and dance in the city’s prestigious Davenport Hotel’s ballroom. It was loaded with tuxedos and limousines, not to mention some amazing floral arrangements and a dinner menu that impressed even Preacher. Nikki had been Vanessa’s maid of honor twice, and Vanni was happily returning the favor. Also with them were their other two best friends, Abby and Addison.
When the four women started flying together, Abby and Addison had shared an apartment in L.A., while Nikki and Vanni had been roommates in San Francisco. The four of them bid all their trips together so that for three or four days every week, they had layovers in the same cities, at the same hotels. They had shopped together, partied together, gotten each other through a bunch of rotten boyfriends, kept each other afloat through the rough times, laughed through the good times. Now, with Nikki’s marriage, all four would be wed.
But Vanessa asked Addison, “Is Abby a little too quiet?”
“She won’t talk about it, but her husband has been on the road with his band since right after they were married…which has to be about a year ago.”
“I could tell it was a bad situation,” Vanni said. “Does he go home at all? Does she go to him?”
Addison shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s like pulling teeth to get her to say anything at all about him. And of course, she’s here alone.”
Abby and her husband wed after a very short courtship and almost immediately Ross disappeared, along with Abby’s flush of romance and happiness. She grew evermore silent and distant.
“Abby, are you all right? Is everything okay with Ross?” Addison asked her in a whisper.
“Shh,” Abby said. “This is Nikki’s day. I don’t want to talk about that stuff now.”
Abby held it together pretty well, smiling for the pictures, raising her glass at the toast, but she disappeared from the reception at about the time the dancing started. Addison and Vanessa noticed at once. They talked about going after her, talking her through a bad patch. But in the end they decided to leave her be. She hadn’t wanted to talk
about whatever was going on with her marriage, especially not at one of her best friend’s wedding. Maybe she just needed a good, strong, cleansing cry without a bunch of girlfriends in her business.
The Steak House in the Davenport Hotel was one of the nicest restaurants in Grants Pass and a favorite of Dr. Cameron Michaels’. Once a month he had dinner with his partners and their spouses and quite often, they chose this restaurant. He shared a practice with one female and two male pediatricians, all excellent doctors, all married. As had become typical lately, Cam didn’t have a date. He could’ve found a woman to accompany him. Women liked going out with him, and his partners were always offering fix-ups. There were plenty of pretty nurses signed up to take on that duty.
But he was thirty-six and heartsore. He’d been looking for the right woman for a long time, though it appeared he wasn’t going to find her. He had even felt himself beginning to fall in love with the beautiful Vanessa a few months ago and it had stung pretty bad when she let him know she’d given her heart to another man. She not only loved someone else, she married him immediately. Last spring; not all that long ago.
He wasn’t carrying a torch, he even admired the man she married—Paul Haggerty. He was a good man, strong and decent. The problem Cam was having wasn’t a broken heart so much as a tired one. He was a good-looking guy—dark hair and heavy brows over blue eyes, dimples, a bright smile. He was successful, masculine but tenderhearted—women were drawn to him. By now he should have found a woman he was just as drawn to. He wanted to fall in love; he wanted to love someone deeply enough to make her his
wife. He was a family physician and pediatrician—having a wife and kids would mean a lot to him.
The women who fell for him were always the wrong ones. Plenty of the young mothers who brought him their children fixed big, vulnerable, doe eyes on him; young, pretty, married women. He was in the market for a wife, not an angry husband coming after him.
He’d had a couple of serious relationships that hadn’t lasted long. There had been a lot of women to fill the time—brief, superficial affairs. Frankly, he could have a woman whenever he wanted one, but he was so tired of that long string of meaningless relationships, weary of the nurses’ jokes about the playboy pediatrician and exhausted from looking.
So he remained the solitary seventh wheel, lately refusing his friends’ offers of blind dates and introductions. He had grown bored with it all and realized his failure to hook up had put him in a real mood. And sex without any feelings of involvement left him empty inside. He was better off alone.
When dinner with his partners was over, he watched them go off together, home to their marriage beds and children while he would go to his too-large, too-quiet house.
The prospect had him feeling gloomy enough to go to the hotel bar for a nightcap. It was late and the bar was nearly deserted; it seemed most of the hotel guests were caught up in a loud and annoyingly happy wedding reception in the ballroom. At the bar, he asked for a Chevis, neat. He didn’t feel like a drink so much as he didn’t want to go home yet, so he spent more time staring into it than sipping. Thirty minutes passed and he still had most of the drink in his glass when he started thinking about facing the loneliness of his house. He stood and pulled out his wallet to put
a bill on the bar when he noticed her. A woman sitting at a small table in a dark corner. Also staring into a drink, also alone.
Cam thought about talking to her, but reminded himself how these encounters usually played out. He didn’t feel like another empty connection or worse, finding someone he liked and being let down. But she was pretty and looked a little sad…
The bartender wandered over. “Anything else, Doc?” he asked Cam.
“No, thanks. She been here long?” he asked, tipping his head toward the table in the corner.
“Longer than you.”
“Alone?”
The bartender shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. I guess.”
Oh, what the hell… Cameron put down the bill and picked up his drink. He wandered over to her table. As he looked down at her, she lifted soft brown eyes to him. She had that classic, sophisticated look, her shiny ash-blond hair curled under on her shoulders. High cheekbones, oval face, arched brows the identical shade as her hair, and a sweet pink mouth. But she didn’t smile. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked her.
“I’m just having seltzer,” she said. “I don’t think I’d be very good company.”
“I’m no prize tonight either, which is why I was killing time in the bar. I bet we’ll be able to tell in five minutes if we’re just two miserable people.”
Her shoulders gave a little lift with a silent huff of laughter.
“May I sit down?” he asked.
“Really, I think I’d rather be alone…” she said.
He sat down across from her anyway and said, “You
sure I can’t get you something a little stronger? Something tells me you could use it.”
“No. You should really go.”
He chuckled lightly. “Man, I thought
I
was in a bad mood,” he said. “You’re working up a good funk. What’s wrong, kiddo? What happened?”
She sighed. “Could we please not do this? I’m not in the mood to be picked up or talk about my troubles, all right?”
“Okay,” he said. “I won’t pick you up or ask you about your troubles.” He finished the last swallow of his drink and got up. Cameron went to the bar and ordered another Chevis and a champagne cocktail, returning to her table. He put the cocktail in front of her and took his seat again.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Champagne cocktail. I figured you for something sweet and sexy.”
Her smile was mocking. “Great line,” she said facetiously.
“Thank you.” He smiled. “You obviously need a few lessons in how to feel sorry for yourself. You don’t do it with seltzer, for one thing.”
She lifted the glass and took a sip.
“There you go,” he said, smiling again. He reached across the small table and placed his hand over hers. “Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“I’m sure,” she said, removing her hand. “You want to talk? Let’s talk about you. You said you’re in a bad mood.”
“Fair enough. I was out to dinner with friends and when they left the restaurant, I decided I wasn’t ready to go home. See, I screwed up—I bought this house. Nice house, but way too big. Way too quiet and empty.”
“Buy furniture,” she said.
He grinned at her. “It’s full of furniture, ah…what’s your name?”
Abby thought for a second, trying to decide if it was a good idea to get that familiar. She glanced away from him, toward the bar, then back. Finally she said, “Brandy.”
“Nice to meet you, Brandy. I’m Cameron. Friends call me Cam. I have plenty of furniture. That’s not what’s missing.”
“I get it. You’re looking for a woman. There must be something in the Yellow Pages…”
That made him laugh. He picked up his drink and had a sip. “No, Brandy. In fact, that’s about the last thing I’m after tonight.” He leaned back in his chair. “Well, I take that back, maybe that’s what I am looking for. But it’s not what you think. I’m not looking for a date. I’ve had more than enough dates. I’m kind of amazed to find myself thirty-six and still single.”
“Never married?”
“Not even close,” he said.
She tilted her head to one side, looking at his face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Couldn’t tell you. I have a good job, good friends, nice big house, I brush and floss…”
“You’re not that bad-looking,” she said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble finding a woman who’d want to marry you, spend your money.” The corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
“Amazing. You don’t look like my mother, but you sure just sounded like her.”
“You’re an escaped convict? Serial killer or something?”
“In Grants Pass?” he asked, laughing. “You can hardly get away with unpaid parking tickets in this town. Nah, I’m boringly law abiding. I don’t even speed.”
Abby lifted her drink to her lips. “I think you were right about the seltzer,” she said. “Not a great pity drink.” She took another sip. “How long has it been since you were, you know, involved?”
He slipped over into the chair next to her instead of across. “Hmm. Long,” he said. “I was working up a pretty good crush a few months ago, but before I could close the deal, she married someone else. Real fast. He’d been on her mind the whole time I was staging my seduction.”
“Oh,” she said. “Broken heart.”
“No, not at all. We weren’t involved. I was hoping to get involved, but once it was over I could see that it never really got started. She wasn’t into it at all. How about you? How long?”
“God,” she said, lowering her eyes and shaking her head. “That’s pretty hard to say. I think maybe we have that in common—I was involved. He wasn’t.”
He touched her hand again and this time she allowed it. “Just break up?” he asked.
“No. It was over quite a while ago. He’s been with someone else for at least six months.”
“Yet you’re hurting?” Cameron asked her.
She took a deep breath. “I was just at a wedding. Weddings are awful places for women alone. It works great in the plot of chick flicks because it’s tragically funny.”
“You look like you might’ve just escaped from a wedding,” he observed.
“Just the thought of the bride throwing that bouquet and knowing I was qualified to line up with the single women to catch it sent me running for the bar.”
“To lick your wounds with a seltzer? Thank God I came along.” He turned around, caught the bartender’s eye and lifted a couple of fingers. “Tell me about the wedding,” he said.
“Oh, God,” she said, lowering her head to rest it wearily in her hand. “Don’t ask.”
“Why?”
“Because there was enough true love in that room to make a person throw up.”
He laughed. “That right? You represent the bride’s side or the nauseating groom’s side?”
“Bride’s,” she said, laughing in spite of herself.
The bartender brought them two more drinks.
“Trying to get me drunk?” she asked him.
“No, I’m trying to get you over the hump. You’re sad. And a woman as beautiful as you has no business being sad. Drink it. It’s going to make you feel better.” He grinned. “Or at least stupider.”
She laughed at him. “Yeah. Like that’s possible…”
“These bad nights, I’ve had a ton of them,” he said. “When it just feels like things work out for everyone else. But if I was trying to get you drunk, you’d be drinking the Chevis and I’d be drinking the champagne. That’s Kool-Aid. You’ll be fine. I, however, am slowly becoming pain free. Tell me about it. The wedding. Come on, make me laugh.”
She took another sip, getting to the bottom of her first drink and sliding the glass away from her. “Well, let’s see. They met five months ago when they had this passionate first date or something, then didn’t see each other for two months, then got back together. They’ve been a couple for two or three whole months. Both of them claim it was love at first sight. They can hardly keep their hands off each other. There was enough steam in that room to make my hair go straight.”
If that wasn’t disgusting enough, she told him, the whole reception was loaded with longtime girlfriends of hers who were madly in love with wonderful, loving, sexy men whom they’d found in the most unexpected places. She, however, had had lousy luck with the opposite sex. Since about the fourth grade.