Authors: Robyn Carr
“This cooking competition has Preacher all wound up,” Jack told them. “I’ve never seen him more excited. He told me to try to keep you busy for another twenty minutes.”
“Jack,” Kelly said in a whisper. “Are you capable of sneaking me a sampler of his rib dinner?”
Jack leaned close and whispered back, “No. No way he’d let me do that. He told me not to let you have anything to spoil your taste buds before dinner. He even asked for this particular wine for you. I think he’s been researching again. Eat his duck then ask him for a sample. He’ll let you taste the ribs after you’ve had his dinner.”
She smiled. “That’s exactly what I would have done! God, I love the way he runs this place.” To Jack’s flummoxed expression she amended, “I meant the two of you, of course.”
Jillian laughed. “Don’t let her kid you, Jack. Chefs always think they’re running the whole store. They allow that the owners and managers might contribute something, but not anything of particular importance.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of how it sounds around here.”
While Kelly and Jillian made small talk with Jack as they waited for Preacher to be ready, Kelly happened to see a man on the far side of the room, seated in the corner. He was alone as far as she could tell and there was something about him—something either familiar or engaging. She liked his looks, that much she knew. He appeared to be a big guy; his hair was a reddish-blond and he had a bit of stubble on his face. She realized she was strangely attracted to him, even though she didn’t consider herself available for attraction. He was the guy on the Brawny paper towel package. And though she was staring at him,
he wasn’t looking her way. He was watching a young girl at the jukebox and he wasn’t smiling.
Just then the girl left the jukebox and came to the bar, boldly inserting herself between Kelly and Jillian. “Got any cool tunes?” she asked with a curl of the lip.
Jack leaned on the bar and looked over at her. “Well, let’s see, Courtney. This is a bar. That means the over-twenty-one crowd. That means what’s in the juke
is
cool. I guess you’re outta luck.”
She glared at him briefly and then muttered, “Lame.” Then she turned and stomped out the door.
The Brawny man came over to the bar, but he didn’t rudely interrupt anyone’s conversation. Rather, he stood at the end of the bar and waited for Jack. He pulled out a couple of twenties and Jack moved down to get them.
“Let me get you some change, Lief,” Jack said.
“Forget it, Jack. Thanks for dinner. Exceptional. Tell the cook those are the best ribs I’ve ever had.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Jack said.
When the man left, Kelly turned to Jack. “Was it my imagination or was that young girl a real
B.I.T.C.H?
”
Jack was scowling. “You don’t need any imagination to come up with that.”
All the way back to the house after dinner, Kelly raved about Preacher’s duck, wild rice, creamed onions and asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. She’d also tried his ribs, beans and corn bread. Being a seasoned taster, she hadn’t stuffed herself. “He’s one of those natural cooks,” she told Jillian. “He trained himself and knows exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it. He has an expert palate. I’m impressed. And his stuff isn’t real fancy, but it’s exactly right for that bar.
Exactly.
”
“I may never walk again,” Jillian said with a deep moan. She was not an expert taster and had overeaten.
“When we get home, I’m going to get all my stuff together and loaded into the car. I’m heading back to the city early. I want to get my driving done by afternoon.”
“I understand. But it was such a good week. I’m fifteen pounds heavier, but really…” She sighed deeply. “I’ll help you get packed up tonight. Moving around will be good for me.”
They folded Kelly’s clothes together in her bedroom. “Tell me how you met this guy you’ve been seeing,” Jillian asked.
Kelly didn’t have to think. “It was a charity event, a huge thousand-dollar-a-plate event that was held at my restaurant and our chef de cuisine, Durant, was a participant. Luca is not only well-known in the area, but also part owner of the restaurant and he was one of the star chefs. I had already met him, but we became better acquainted, started talking food and menus and voilà—friends. That was almost six months ago and we’ve been in touch since—sometimes we cook together.”
“Chefs,” Jillian said. “Weird. I don’t get together with gardeners and talk vegetables….”
“Yet,” Kelly said with a laugh.
There was a chiming sound from down the hall. It was Jillian’s cell phone. She looked at her watch—it was after nine. “I wonder who’d be calling me.”
She ran down the hall and grabbed up her phone. “Colin?” she said. “Have you learned the iPhone?”
“I have things to tell you!”
“I can barely hear you! Wait, just stand by a minute. Let me see if I can get better reception.” She ran out of her room and up the stairs to the widow’s walk. Getting
out the trapdoor created a racket, but she emerged into the star-filled night. “Can you hear me?” she asked him.
“I know where you are,” he said with a laugh. “You’re on the roof.”
“Oh, that’s so much better. Where are you?”
“In my car, headed back to Virgin River.”
“Already? At night?”
“I never went farther than Sedona, Jilly,” he said. “I went to Shiloh Tahoma’s gallery. He calls it a shop or a store, but his oils and prints are on display in the front and it’s every bit a gallery—they’re awesome. Of course, he’s been serious for a long time, since he was just a kid. First thing he said to me was, ‘Let’s go slap some paint around.’ I thought it was a test of some kind, but I think he really wanted to paint for a while. Then he looked at three of my paintings and said, ‘Nice.’ Then he took me to his house and I had dinner with his family—a wife and three daughters. It was just a simple house, but the art in it was unbelievable—the man is a master. And he collects masters. I wish you could have seen it all.”
“When was this? Today?” she asked him.
“Yesterday. Last night. He offered me a bed for the night but I just didn’t want to impose any more than I had. So he told me to come back first thing in the morning and I was at his shop at eight. He had a lot of questions for me—like what did I know about lithographs and prints, that sort of thing. Stuff I remember from art in school and stuff I read about over the years, but barely understood and haven’t worked at. He suggested that when I have more work and can offer prints, he had a guy who could set up a website for me, if I felt like doing that. He sells numbered prints on his site, but never sells his originals that way. To make a long story short, he told me I should talk to dealers, maybe agents, look at some other shops,
but he offered to hang my work. And get this, Jilly—I asked him if I was good enough for my work to hang in his gallery and he said, ‘Not quite. But in five or ten years you’re going to be outstanding.’ He said he thought my work would sell, though, and there was an advantage in being first, and he knew it was nothing but luck, me having run into his cousin in Virgin River.”
“And what then? What did you do?”
“I left him all my work and signed a simple three-paragraph contract that said he’d give the work six months and take fifty percent. He said if I checked around I would learn that fifty percent is high, but that I am also unknown and he has bills to pay. He’s so practical, so logical. And he asked me—if I did any painting in Africa, would I send him photos. Then we had lunch, shook hands and I started driving. I’ve been driving for eight hours and I’m still so wired I wonder if I’ll ever sleep. I’ve been driving, doing reruns of this in my head for eight hours, wondering what happened.”
“Colin, are you sure he’ll be fair with your work? What if there’s no money? Or what if he doesn’t give it back?”
“If that happens, Jilly, it will be the most remarkable lesson of my life, and the lesson will be that I don’t know anything about a man who strikes me as the most down-to-earth, honest, ethical man I’ve ever met. It would mean I know nothing about human beings and better never trust another one again.”
“Oh, Colin, you sound so excited!”
“He said it would take him a few days to hang the work—it has to be just right. But he said he’d email me a picture of the shop so I could see where he put them.” He laughed. “Then he showed me how to take pictures with the phone and email them or text them from the phone. The only joke he made—he said it was hard to believe I
flew a complicated helicopter in combat and couldn’t use an iPhone.”
She laughed. “Colin, I don’t think it was a joke!”
“It was an experience, all right. Makes me want to paint even more. It doesn’t make me want to fly less, but paint more.” Then his voice quieted some. “Are you all right, Jilly? Is your sister still there?”
“Kelly is leaving early in the morning. Shouldn’t you be stopping for the night?”
“That ship has sailed,” he said. “I’m somewhere between Las Vegas and Reno, out in the middle of the desert. I pass another vehicle about once every ten minutes. There’s nothing on the road and I’m headed home. Talk me home, Jilly.”
Home.
She tried not to take that particular word too seriously. She was sure he had only meant
back.
“I don’t think my battery will last that long, and I don’t think my news is as exciting as yours, but I’ll tell you what’s going on around here.” So she told him about the meals they’d had and what she was saving for him. She explained that Denny was going to be a little scarce—he was taking Jack’s place at the bar over a long weekend so Jack, Mel and the family could drive up to Oregon and check on Rick and his grandmother. She gave him the farm report—what was blooming, what had buds, what was coming in. Then she talked a little bit about the stars—from the rooftop they were incredible.
And she told him she’d made a bid on the house. “If it works, I think I’m settling down,” she said.
“Farming for a living,” he said.
“If I can. I believe I can.”
“I believe you can,” he said.
He described the black desert south of Reno and every now and then he’d remember another thing he’d learned
from the Navajo artist. “I plunked down six hundred dollars on my charge card for one of his new paintings—not one of the traditional paintings but one of his Native abstracts. I’m not sure what he could have sold it for, but I bet thousands. He insisted six hundred was enough—and I know I barely paid for the canvas and paint. Will you hang it in your house for me?”
They had talked for a long time before Jillian’s phone started to beep. “Colin, I’m running out of phone juice,” she said. “Are you all right to drive without me talking you home?”
He laughed a little. “You know what? I can’t remember doing this before. Talking to a woman for over an hour on the phone.”
“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that,” she said. “I know you’ve had a million women!”
“Not like you, Jilly. I was always looking for women who would take me to bed. It never occurred to me to look for a woman who would take me to heart.”
Colin had been back in Virgin River for three days when Jillian got the call from Jack.
“I hope you were serious,” he said. “There’s no counteroffer. It’s yours.”
She beamed. “Oh, I was serious,” she said. “Thank you so much, Jack. I hope you are as happy as I am.”
D
enny Cutler had become a family man in a manner of speaking. He’d been “adopted” by the Sheridan family. He had dinner with the family at the Sheridan home about once a week. He’d play with the little kids, pushing them on their swings, chasing them around, helping them to get washed up for dinner and in their pajamas. From time to time he helped out at the bar, serving, bussing, hauling crates of glasses, cleaning out the ice chest. On weekends he would go out to the river with Jack for a little guy time. It wasn’t his first experience with an older male role model—there had been his mom’s onetime boyfriend, Dan Duke, also a very nice guy who seemed to genuinely care about Denny. Jack, however, was special to him. There was that blood bond.
While Jack was away checking on Rick and his grandmother, Denny worked double time. He stayed at the Sheridan house at night, minding the dog. Then he checked in with Jillian early in the day and got any particularly heavy work done around her gardens and greenhouses, but he was at the bar by noon so he could tend bar, serve and bus, making sure Preacher was covered. Jack had made sure supplies were in stock before he left, so in the afternoon
when things were quiet at the bar, Denny took a run out to Jack’s house to let the dog out, did any chores that needed doing like hauling trash to the Dumpster in town. Then he was back at the bar before the dinner hour.
Mike Valenzuela helped him serve drinks and dinner and kept him company, but Denny was managing very well. His days were long and productive and he was proud of what he could do. In fact, when he thought back on his life, he thought maybe he’d reached a real high point. He was very attached to Jack and Mel, liked the town and the folks who dropped in, and he was into Jillian’s farm in a big way. The only things really missing for him were a place of his own that was a bit larger than the room above the Fitch’s garage. And a female; he’d like to have a serious girl in his life. Jack might’ve avoided commitment till he was forty but Denny didn’t necessarily want that life. He’d like a steady girl, plans for a family, the whole drill. There was nothing like that on the horizon, but Denny kept his eyes peeled.
Jack was back in the bar late Monday. “Well, stranger, welcome home,” Denny said. “You just get back?”
“At about five,” Jack said. “I got Mel and the kids settled and came to town to see how everyone was holding up.”
“I don’t think we’re ready for you to retire, but we got along all right,” Denny said.
“The dog’s alive and the house and yard have been kept real nice. Thanks, Denny. I really didn’t expect all that.”
Denny laughed. “You didn’t expect me to keep the dog alive?”
“I noticed you did a little trimming and cutting in the yard. You didn’t have to do
that.
”
“It’s the least I can do, Jack. Besides, I was glad to help out, and you know that.”
“You always do just a little more than you’re asked. You—”
“Jack, it’s the least I can do!” Denny said. “You know what I prepared myself for? For you to say, ‘Kid? I don’t want a kid, for sure not now!’ But you didn’t say that.” He smiled. “You’ve been awesome about this. And no kidding, I know I sneaked up on you with the news you’re my father.”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s a fact.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask—you about ready to do that blood test?” Denny asked.
Jack lifted a brow. “Want a little confirmation?”
“I’m good. But I thought it might give you some peace of mind. Since you were the one who mentioned it.”
“That came from Mel, and since it came from Mel, I’ll ask her where she thinks we should go. How’s that?”
“Anytime you want,” he said. “This life? It’s pretty close to perfect. Not much missing,” Denny said.
“What’s missing, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I could make do with a girlfriend,” he said with a handsome grin.
“You’re probably in the right place. They drop like flies around here.”
Denny laughed and said, “How’s Rick getting by?”
Jack shook his head in some bemusement. “Better than I expected. Lydie’s living with them in that little apartment and it’s working. They put her in the bedroom and Liz and Rick are on the pullout sofa. Lydie’s on some medication that’s slowing her down a little, but helping with those spells of delirium and anxiety. They have a facility lined up for her and should get her in within a couple of months—hopefully before the next semester of college starts for him. They’ve taken her to see it several times, trying to get her familiar with the place and, even
though a lot of the patients are way worse off than she is, she seems to accept the idea. Lydie has always been brave about things like that. She’s always said she doesn’t want to be a burden.”
“But is she happy at all?”
“Well, there’s an upside for her. They have activities going on at the facility and not only is she closer to Rick and Liz, but once she’s a resident there, they’ll be able to visit her a lot more often than when she was in Virgin River. Lydie likes to stay busy—she likes playing cards and bingo and stuff. And Rick can swing by and spend a little time with her most days on his way home from school or work. He was going to go to school all summer, but he’s taken it off to see about Lydie. They’re doing real well with a batch of big adjustments—that’s the best anyone can ask.”
“Sounds like it’s gonna work out the best it can,” Denny said.
“Yeah. Sad time for Rick, but it’s not like it’s unexpected. With what Lydie’s gone through healthwise, we’re all real lucky she’s had what she considers to be a good, long life. That’s all anyone wants.”
Denny’s chin dropped briefly. He couldn’t help but think about his mom; she had always seemed strong and healthy, yet was taken from him way too soon. “Yeah.”
“Listen,” Jack said, pulling something out of his shirt pocket. “Here’s a little something for your work….” He slid a check, folded in half, across the bar toward Denny.
“Don’t even think about it,” Denny said with a laugh. “It’s a favor for a friend. You’d do the same for me.”
“Not exactly,” Jack said, trying to push it toward him again. “I’ll help out where I can, son, but if you get the flu or something, don’t expect to see me out at Jillian’s spreading chicken shit on her fancy plants.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her that,” Denny said, pushing the check back. “Get rid of it, Jack. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“I always paid Rick….”
“I don’t work for you, Jack. I just help out sometimes. Friend to friend.”
Jack was touched and it robbed him of words for a moment, something that didn’t often happen with Jack. “You know what, kid? The day you showed up here? That was one of my luckiest days. Thanks.”
June passed in a warm rush and by the first of July, Jillian was pulling and picking some of her earliest vegetables. The Roma tomatoes were healthy, deep red and delicious. Her miniature beets were in, as were carrots, scallions, leeks and some of her small eggplant. Together with Denny, they lifted one end of the fence and rerouted the pumpkin and melon vines so they wouldn’t overtake the garden; they could grow their large fruit outside the fence. Deer and bunnies wouldn’t bother with hard-shelled fruit.
“What does a person do with this?” Denny asked her, holding up a box of eggplant.
She smiled and said, “Kelly can make you fall in love with it. When I was little, we survived off Nana’s garden and didn’t know for years how truly rare and valuable some of the things she grew were. But this, sliced and with red gravy and cheese? Heaven. If I cooked, I’d show you. But… Tell you what—let’s put together a nice big box for Preacher and see what he can do with it.”
“How’d you survive on it? The plants are only fresh in July and August—with some September crop—that’s only two or three months of the year.”
“She canned. She reused the same jars year after year
and she bought new seals for just pennies, and through the winter we ate what she’d grown in the summer. She had recipes for relishes, salsa, sauces, vegetables and so on and Kelly is the proud owner of all those recipes now. My nana’s canned carrots were to die for. Pickled asparagus—the end of the earth. Onions and peppers—astonishing. That’s exactly why I’m sending some of this stuff to Kelly—she’ll know better than anyone if I’m on the right track here.”
“The Russian Rose isn’t in…”
“It’s green and it’s heavy, almost too heavy for the stalk, as is the Purple Calabash. Give ’em three more weeks and I bet we hit the jackpot.”
“But, Jillian,” Denny said, “I don’t think we’re making it with the asparagus….”
She laughed. “It takes a good three years to get an asparagus bed, but once you achieve it, you’ve got asparagus forever. Cover it, deprive it of sunlight, and it’s white. It’s a natural companion plant for tomatoes—it repels the tomato beetles.” She smiled at him. “Check out those brussels sprouts. By the end of September—by pumpkin time—I’m going to have a lot of them.”
“But…” She eyed him and noticed he was frowning slightly. “Is it
working?
” he asked.
“Yes!” she said emphatically. “Yes, Denny! It’s working! Oh, I think I missed the boat on a few plants, but most of this stuff is coming in strong. And there are lots of things I haven’t tried yet.”
“But… But can you make money?”
She laughed at him. “The most important part of the equation isn’t how much money you can make right away. We already know if it’s done right there’s money in it. Right now the important thing is, can we develop the product! That takes commitment. It takes patience and
determination. When I went to work for BSS we had investment seed money, some support staff and some software engineers. We had a business plan and a product in production—accounting and money management programs. Five years later we had one of the biggest IPO’s in the industry.”
“IPO?”
“We were selling our software products at a profit and took the company public—Initial Public Offering. We’d been in business long enough to turn a consistent profit and did that with a skeleton crew and inventors. Now, for this garden, look at it this way—we need to know what we can grow, whether it’s desirable and delicious, who wants it, how much it brings the company, and then we concentrate on the most profitable crop. You know why we can afford to do that? Because it’s me and you and we’re concentrating on a good balance between generic and the rare, exotic stuff. And because we understand that this takes time and dedication.”
“Right…” he said.
“Ultimately, this farm will have to expand. But that’s something to worry about when we’ve perfected the product.”
“Expand to where?”
She tilted her head. “First we’ll clear the back meadow, then the land to the east, then we might terrace down the hill to the west. One thing at a time. Come on—let’s cut open some Sugar Baby watermelons and see where we stand.”
“Sure,” he said, going outside the fence to pluck one. “Largest or smallest?”
“Hmm. Grab one right in the middle. We’re going to collect a couple from each plant type for tasting—then we’ll put together a large box for Preacher to work on.
Maybe for the Fourth of July picnic in town. Damn, I wish I was a baker like Kelly—the rhubarb is coming up and my great-grandmother’s rhubarb pie was to die for.”
Denny chuckled. “Well, I think I’m glad you’re the farmer. It never once crossed my mind to do something like this and now I keep hoping those other jobs I applied for don’t come through anytime soon. At least not while we still have harvesting to do.”
“We’ll be harvesting straight into October, young man. And in September it’s time to plan the winter garden. We’re going to see what we can produce in greenhouses. These small, portable eight-by-twelves are functional and cheap, and if they serve our purposes, I can invest in large custom shelters like you would see in an established commercial farm. But, one thing at a time.”
One of the first things Jack had added to his bar when the building was complete was a large brick barbecue. It allowed Preacher to turn steaks and hamburgers outside and host summer gatherings in the big yard behind the bar. He and Preacher had initiated the annual Fourth of July barbecue just a couple of years ago. They had added some picnic tables and had plenty of space, especially with the bar, porch and churchyard next door. They filled a couple of big plastic trash cans with ice and added canned sodas, beer and bottled water. There were several vintners in the area and some would bring wine, uncork the red and let it breathe on picnic tables; uncork the white and chill it in the ice. If they moved a few tables from inside the bar and set up a buffet outside, people filled them with pot-luck items. As for Jack and Preacher, their job was to turn burgers and dogs on the grill. All day long.
Even though they had the picnic tables, people tended to bring their lawn chairs and blankets—there would never
be enough seating. And it didn’t take any time at all for events like this and like Buck Anderson’s end-of-summer picnic to become traditions. “I could use your help around the grill, if you’re not too busy,” Jack told Denny. “Especially since Rick isn’t going to be here this year.”
“I bet you really get to missing him,” Denny said.
“I sometimes miss his company, but he’s in a good place in his life. It’s a lot easier on me than getting a phone call from Iraq that he’s in a hospital in Germany and might not make it. Right now he’s healthy and happy, even with Lydie declining. I can live with that easy.”
So Denny was posted at the grill with Preacher and Jack, sometimes running back and forth to the kitchen for more buns and meat to grill. And Jack was grateful to have him there, helping out. Jack figured he’d been damn lucky with the people in his life. He had good, solid extended family in his dad and sisters, he had his Marine brothers, he had Mel and the little ones, he’d discovered Rick when the boy was only thirteen and now—Denny.
Jack kept an eye on the gathering crowd—even Aiden and Erin Riordan had decided to make the drive up from Chico for a mini reunion. It made him grin to see Colin and Jillian arrive holding hands—that guy must be down for the count. All the usual suspects were present—Paul Haggarty and his family; the town minister and his family; his sister Brie and her husband and daughter; Cameron and Abby Michaels with their twins….