Walt pushed his way in. “Who says I need looking out for?”
“Hey, man! How you doing, sir? You watching over your grandbaby?”
“By the time you get home, I’ll have him standing at attention!”
Matt laughed, clearly enjoying the small reunion. “Tommy around?” Matt asked.
“I’m afraid he’s late, Matt. I can’t imagine why—he’s been looking forward to this. There’s someone else here,” Walt said, pulling Paul into the frame.
“Haggerty! What the hell? What are you doing there?” Matt asked.
“I’m finishing up Jack’s new house for him. He’s got a kid and another one on the way….”
“
Jack’s
got a kid?”
“Yeah, can you think of anything crazier? He needed some help. How’s it going over there, bud?”
“Aw, it sucks. Big surprise, huh?”
“You making any progress?”
“Slow, miserable progress. You going to be around there a while?”
“Couple of months maybe, on and off. But I’m never very far away, you know that. When you get back here, I’ll just come—”
“Hey, Paul… Buddy… Listen, if anything happens…”
“We don’t talk that way, come on.”
“Paul, if anything goes wrong, you look after Vanni, huh? I think she always liked you best anyway.” Then he laughed. “We’re going to kick some ass here, don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried. Hey, we don’t want to steal this time from your wife. We’re going to step out, leave the two of you alone, okay?”
“Thanks, buddy. Paul? Buddy? Hey, you know I love you, man.”
“Hoo-rah,” Paul said. “You hang in there. Give ’em hell! Vanni—get back here,” Paul said.
And like an exodus, everyone left the great room for the kitchen so that Vanessa and Matt could have what was left of the air time alone. From the kitchen they could hear the voices in the background. Walt quietly passed out drinks while they whispered. “He looks good,” Jack said.
“For a jarhead,” the general joked. “Tommy was supposed
to be here. Late again.” Then to Mel he said, “That was perfect, what you did. Getting the ultrasound before this video conference.”
“They didn’t have anything like this when I served,” Preacher said. “This is good, this Internet conference. Too bad they can’t talk every day or every week.” He draped an arm around Paige’s shoulders, pulling her near. Clearly he wouldn’t be able to bear being away from her, separated like Matt and Vanessa.
After a few minutes had passed, there were no more voices coming from the other room. Paul had seemed to be on alert and it was he who first poked his head around the corner. The screen was dark and Vanessa sat in front of it with her head lowered to her folded arms, crying.
Paul approached her. “Vanni, come on, Vanni,” he said, down on one knee, his arms enfolding her. She turned in his arms and with her head on his shoulder, she just wept. “Oh, honey, that was hard, wasn’t it? But he’s okay—you saw that! He’s tough, Vanni. He’s going to be fine. He’ll be home before you know it.”
She lifted her head and met Paul’s eyes. “At least I held it together while he was online,” she said.
“Yeah, you did good. Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s get your face washed. I don’t want you all upset. We don’t want to get the little critter upset. Come on,” he said, arm around her shoulders, leading her away from the computer, down the hall toward the bathroom.
Walt was the next one out of the kitchen. “It’s probably going to take her a few minutes,” he said. “I knew the whole thing would be good and bad all at the same time. But with all of you here, she’ll come around quicker, enjoy herself, have some good feelings just from seeing him again, seeing he’s okay.”
The front door crashed open and Tommy rushed in. “Did I make it?” he asked, eyeing the gathering.
“You missed it, son. Where’ve you been?”
“Aw, man, I’m sorry, Dad. I tried to get back….”
Walt walked toward his son, frowning. The boy was as tall as his dad, though leaner. He had a split lip and some dirt on his clothes. “What’s this? You’ve been fighting?”
“Not really,” Tommy said. “Maybe a little bit. Dad, I’m sorry I missed him. I’ll explain later, but I promise, I’m not going to let you down again. I promise.”
“Just tell me one thing—did this have anything to do with Jordan Whitley?”
Tommy grinned. “Yeah. And he looks worse than me. I’m through with him, Dad. Honest.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess.”
Paul was spending a few nights at the general’s house following the video conference while Walt was in Bodega Bay, and he decided to do little big-brothering. He found Tommy in the stable, mucking the stalls. “Hey, pal,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Okay. What’s up?”
“I’m staying out of the kitchen. Believe me, Vanessa doesn’t want my attempts at food preparation. I was wondering something…”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to pry, so you tell me if it’s none of my business. You having any trouble at school?”
“Like…?”
“Like the kind that gets you into fights?”
“Oh, that. What did my dad tell you?”
Paul shrugged. “He said you were hanging with a guy he didn’t like. That’s all I know.”
“The second he saw him, it was instant hate, and I don’t have that one figured out yet. I don’t know how you can take one look at a guy and know he’s an asshole.”
“Well, the general has looked at a lot of young guys over the years. Did he turn out to be right?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said with a grin, then touched his split lip in sudden pain. “Don’t tell him I said that. He already thinks he knows everything.”
Paul returned the grin. “Your secret’s safe with me, pal. How’d you get hooked up with him?”
“New-kid syndrome,” Tommy said, leaning his shovel against the wall of the stall. “I got here too late in the summer for football and didn’t have anything better to do. I thought he was a little weird, but you know—he always managed to have a couple of beers or a place lined up for a party.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.”
“I guess,” Paul said, though his senior year had been pretty tame. “So what kind of an asshole did he turn out to be?”
“The usual kind. He’s a liar. Likes to brag about the girls he’s nailed.”
“Lot of that going around the locker room.”
“I always learned a real man doesn’t brag about it. Plus, I don’t have anything to brag about.”
“No shame in that, Tommy. This is a good time to be real careful, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean, Paul,” he said, smiling more cautiously. “Don’t worry. My dad has had this talk with me a hundred or so times. But Jordan really pissed me off good—he was talking about a girl I’ve been dating. I’ve only been out with her a few times, and there’s school and homework at her house, and she’s a nice girl. A good girl, you know? She moves real, real slow. The way that asshole talked,
it was like he was saying he’d done her. There’s no way he’d even get to hold her hand. I had to slug him. You know?”
“Whew,” Paul said. “You finished with him now?”
“Oh, yeah. Every time I see his face, I just want to mess it up.”
“How’s it going with the girl?”
“It’s good. You should see her—she’s beautiful. And you would never believe how smart she is. I think she kind of likes me.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Surprises the hell out of me,” Tom said, glancing away.
Paul laughed at his modesty. He was already six feet tall with some good-sized shoulders and arms on him from playing sports and taking care of a stable and four horses every day. Tossing around heavy bales of hay was better than lifting weights. “Hey, you have any time on your hands? Any need to make money?”
“I could always use a little money.”
“Yeah, if you’re gonna date beautiful girls, you need money.” Paul laughed again. “There’s work out at the job site, if you’re interested. It’s dirty and it’s hard—clean up around the site. But Jack’s paying overtime. I could give you a few hours after school or on weekends.”
“I’ll take it,” Tom said, smiling.
B
rie’s routine in Sacramento lacked challenge, but she still had no desire to go back to the prosecutor’s office. All she did was exercise every morning, clean up her dad’s house and cook dinner for the two of them. She read when she was relaxed and could focus—not law text or nonfiction, but escapist novels. Finally there were a few places around town she was comfortable going to—if only in the light of day. She felt safe at the grocery store and the women’s gym, but not the library; those narrow aisles of tightly packed books gave her claustrophobia. So she bought her books online and had them delivered. There was still enough anxiety in her that she even varied the time of morning she went to the gym for her workout, conscious that criminals who watched their victims studied their habits to use against them.
She went to her sisters’ homes and sometimes the girls would come to Sam’s. Sunday dinners with the whole family at Sam’s were pretty typical. Everyone had noticed that even if Brie’s routine hadn’t changed much, her mood had. She was lighter of spirit; she smiled and laughed more easily.
“I think Virgin River gets you right,” her oldest sister, Donna, observed. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gone there after a crisis and come home better.”
“It’s not the town,” she admitted. “And it’s not Jack.” When she’d gone to Virgin River after the trial and David’s birth, she’d been empty inside. Hollow. A brand-new divorcée having just lost the biggest trial of her career, she’d felt as if she was nothing. A zero, a nonperson; a woman who couldn’t hold her man, a lawyer who couldn’t win her case. But a picnic, a little wedding dancing, some flirting, and she’d begun to feel female again. Then the rape had set her back a year; she was broken in a million pieces. But some phone calls and lunches, some strong arms around her and lips on hers, and she’d started to feel like a woman. In fact, that was the only place she felt like a woman and not a victim—in his arms.
Since being back in Sacramento Brie had seen Mike only twice in several weeks—Santa Rosa lunches, holding hands across the table. There were long, deep, wonderful kisses at parting. She talked to him almost every evening, taking the call in her room, and for about an hour they would share the events of the day. He caught her up on all the news, from the video conference at the general’s to who’d been at Jack’s for dinner. She was amazed by how hungry she was for every tiny piece of information about that little town.
Then as the conversation would draw near its end, their voices would grow lower and softer and their words more intense. “I miss you,
mija,
” he would say, his voice husky. “I can’t wait until you threaten me with a broken heart again. I think you’re all talk and you’ve lost interest in my heart.”
And she would say, “Not at all—breaking your heart is still a huge priority with me. I’ll be back.”
“Not soon enough.”
“I miss your kisses,” she told him.
And he said,
“Te tengo en mis brazos.” I will hold you in my arms. “Te querido más te de lo tu hubieras.” I have wanted you for longer than you know.
“I will kiss you as much as you allow,” he translated incorrectly. It sent shivers through her.
November arrived, bringing crisp days and cold nights to the Sacramento valley, and she heard on the news that snow had fallen in the mountains. The pass from Red Bluff through the Trinity Alps to Virgin River could be closed now and any trip made to that part of the country would have to go from Sacramento to Ukiah and up the Mendocino valley. Just as well—highway 36 was treacherous and slow even in the best weather, but it was spectacular. Brie spent a lot of time thinking about which route she would take when she eventually decided it was time to return to Virgin River.
She told her sisters about him, but only one at a time, and sometimes in hushed tones that she knew became a little breathless. “He speaks to me in Spanish, in low, sexy Spanish, and then he lies about what he’s said, thinking I don’t know.”
“What does he say?” Jeannie asked her.
“He’ll say something like, ‘I want to hold you and make love to you,’ and pretends he has said he would like to kiss me.”
“Do you think you can have this in your life again? Intimacy of that kind? Are you ready for that?”
“I’m very nervous, but I long for it,” she said. “I want him.”
“You trust him enough?”
“When I’m with him, I feel completely safe. Nurtured. Protected. He doesn’t hurry me—he’s very kind. Very cautious. He’s the only kind of man I could deal with right now, and he
knows that.” She shivered and said in a low breath, “But there’s a fire in him. I can feel it.” She took a deep breath.
She’d been home from Virgin River for a month and was beginning to think in terms of going back after the holidays. But then Brad came to see her with an agenda that turned her world upside down again. It was afternoon and Brie had been thinking about what to prepare for dinner when she heard her father go to the door. It always gave her a little tremor when the doorbell rang, even in broad daylight, afraid of who it would be standing there, and that Sam would forget to check through the peephole.
Sam came into the kitchen and said, somberly, “It’s Brad.”
She dried her hands on a dish towel. “Here?”
Sam nodded. “I’ll go to my office.”
When she went into the family room, he was standing there, still wearing his leather jacket, the one she had given him two Christmases ago. His hands were in his pockets, his head down. He was as tall as Jack; as broad shouldered with a wide, hard chest. Looking at his back, she realized it could almost be Jack, and for a split second she wondered if she had married him because he resembled her brother in so many ways. That sandy-brown hair, square jaw, long legs, powerful physique.
Mike wasn’t anything like the Sheridan men—he was six feet, quite tall to her five foot three, but not towering like her brother and father, like Brad. His shoulders and arms were strong, but he was lean. There was that soft, coal-black hair, high cheekbones, black eyes, tan skin, his teeth so white they were almost startling. His hands were soft and his fingers long and graceful. She hadn’t seen him without a shirt, but she knew his chest and belly were muscled and hard, almost hairless. She found herself imagining that below his waist was
more of that black hair, swirling downward. His legs were the strong, sculpted legs of a runner—she remembered the feel of his thighs as she lay across his lap to be kissed.
She had to shake herself, focus on the moment.
“Brad, what are you doing here?”
He lifted his head and turned, smiling when he saw her. He reached for her as an old friend might, his arms open. She allowed these brief hugs, but then extricated herself quickly. “I have to talk to you, Brie. Is this a good time?”
“It’s fine. Here, sit,” she said, indicating the couch. When he had taken a seat, she chose the love seat, not beside him but facing him at an angle.
“This is hard,” he said, dropping his chin, looking down. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this for months.” He stared at the floor for a moment.
“What is it, Brad?” she asked impatiently.
He took a breath. “Me and Christine,” he said. “We’re not together anymore. We split up. A few months ago. Not long after your… The incident.”
It took her a second to absorb that. Then she gave a short huff of laughter and said, “I don’t know what you expect me to say. I’m sorry?”
He reached for her hands, but managed to snag only one. “Brie, I was a fool. I made a terrible mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m a screwup. But I still love you. I never stopped loving you.”
She pulled her hand away, and the look on her face was one of incredulity. “You’re not serious.”
He reached again, but she pulled back. “I know—it’s crazy. We split up months ago, but for months before that, we weren’t getting along at all. We tried to keep it together, if for no other reason than we’d put our spouses, our families
through so much. Brie, it was never the answer, but I didn’t see it for a while. God, I’m so sorry.”
Her face held the shock of what he’d just said—more than he even realized he’d said.
Put our spouses through so much…?
“She wasn’t divorced when it started,” Brie said softly. “She wasn’t, was she?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Not really, no. You know they were having trouble anyway. They weren’t going to make it. Glenn didn’t know about us,” he said with a shrug. “There wasn’t much to know. Really, there was all that other stuff.”
“Christine and Glenn split up because of
you!
” she said. She stood up and backed away from him. “It was
more
than a year,” she said. “God, you took your best friend’s
wife!
And he doesn’t even know?” She turned sharply, presenting her back.
He approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. “No, it wasn’t exactly like that,” he said. “There were feelings, maybe. Temptations, I guess. A kiss or two. But I told you the truth about when we got involved. Physically…sexually… I just didn’t go all the way back to the beginning because honest to God, I didn’t know where the beginning was, or where it was going. Jesus, Brie—”
She turned around and faced him. “You left me a year ago. You were sleeping with her for a year before that. But you were fooling around with her for even longer, lying to me with every kiss good-night, every touch….”
“There was something physical…I can’t describe it…. It was like I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Something physical?” She laughed. “Oh, God! You were sleeping with both of us! At least she threw Glenn out, but not you! You had two women! Two women who loved you,
wanted you!” She laughed at him, a cynical and mean laugh. “You must have been in
heaven!
You think that’s something I’m going to get
over?
”
“I’m sorry. There’s no good explanation. I was an idiot.”
“I’ve been paying you alimony. Even while I’ve been
unemployed.
”
“I have it all. It’s not spent.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I never thought this could get worse.”
He took another step toward her. “If you’ll give me a chance, I’d just like a chance to show you that I— I’m sorry, Brie. Can’t we—? Can’t we try again? See each other? See if we can rekindle some of what we had? I know it’ll take time…. If we can’t, I have no one to blame but myself, but can we just—”
She gave a huff of laughter. “Poor Brad,” she said. “You went from two women who couldn’t get enough of you to no one. You’re not getting laid, are you? You’re pathetic!”
“I know you’re angry—you should be. I’ll make it up to you somehow. Just give me time, give us time—”
“No!” she yelled at him. “No!” And then she started to laugh again. “God, you don’t know how long I waited to hear you say that! Even while I was hating you, I might have taken you back!” She shook her head in disbelief. “Jesus! Thank God you didn’t pull this sooner.”
“Brie—”
“For God’s sake, do I want anything to do with a man who can cheat on his wife because there’s some kind of physical
thing?
Something you can’t even explain? Forgive me, but I thought we had something physical!”
“We did. We will again.”
“No. No. Go. Get out of here. You left me for my best
friend and now you’d like to see if we can rekindle something? Oh, you are such a fool. What did I ever see in you? Why didn’t I know this about you? Go!”
“No, Brie, there’s more.”
“I can’t take any more,” she said.
“They found him.”
She was stunned for a second. She couldn’t breathe. “What?” she asked. “What did you say?”
He took a deep breath. “They found him—Jerome Powell. He’s in Florida. They have him in custody there. They’re working on the extradition. I think you’ll get a call tomorrow from the D.A. I heard it at work.”
She took a step toward him. “Why didn’t you tell me this first?” she asked in a furious whisper.
“Because I wanted you to know that I love you. I’d like to be with you through this. With you when they bring him back. I want to take care of you.”
“Oh, my God,” she said in a breath. “You thought I’d take you back out of
fear?
Helplessness? You’re an idiot, that’s what you are! A big, stupid, goddamn
idiot!
”
He hung his head. “Don’t you think I feel pretty terrible about what happened? Haven’t I been around since it happened? Don’t you think it’s killing me? Hell, Brie—that’s probably what broke me and Christine apart.”
She started to laugh again, but tears smarted in her eyes at the same time. “It’s all about you, isn’t it, Brad?” There was a sweet voice in her head.
There will be no taking,
mija.
Only giving.
“I want a chance to try to make it right,” he said.
“Well, you can’t. No one can make it right, especially you. You made your choice, Brad. You’re stuck with it.” Then she ran out of the room. She went to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Brad was about to follow her when he came face-to-face with Sam, who blocked the hallway. “I think you’d better go, son,” he said patiently, but firmly.
“You heard?”
“Every ludicrous word. Goodbye, Brad,” he said.
Brad turned to leave and Sam followed him, locking the front door behind him.
In her bedroom, Brie was already folding clothes into neat little piles on the bed. She was thinking of Brad’s lame suggestion that he take care of her through this. He didn’t know the meaning of taking care of his woman.
There was a light tapping at the door. “Dad?” she asked.
“Yes, Brie.”
“Come in, Daddy,” she said. When he opened the door, she filled his arms. “Oh, Daddy.”
“It’s okay, Brie. We’ll get through this.”
“Daddy, I’m going to Virgin River.” She looked up at him. “I’m going to Mike. I want to be there. I’m going right now.”
“Do you want me to take you?” he asked, smiling down at her. “I wouldn’t have to stay around, but I could take you, so you wouldn’t be alone on the drive.”
She shook her head, but smiled back. “No, I’m okay in the car. But if I don’t go right away, I might lose my nerve. Dad, tell me the truth—do you think I’m making a fool of myself? Going to him? Trusting him?”