Virgin River (19 page)

“Close by? It took us over a half hour of twisting, turning and inching past logging trucks, just to go one way! And I bet it’s not twenty miles!”

“I know,” June said. “It’s just over fifteen miles. Isn’t it great that we’re neighbors?”

Before they were done with lunch a man came into the café carrying a baby. He reminded Mel just slightly of Jack—equal in height, muscled, rugged-looking in his jeans and plaid shirt, fortyish, and handling a baby with ease. He bent, gave Dr. Hudson a kiss on the cheek and handed over the baby. “Meet Jim, my house husband. And our son, Jamie.”

All the way back to Virgin River Mel was thinking, I didn’t feel so out of place today. She loved June and John Stone. Even old Doc Hudson was a kick. After she dropped Sondra off at her farm and drove back into town, it seemed as though the town was cuter somehow. Not quite the falling-down little burg she’d first thought. It seemed oddly like home.

She pulled up in front of Doc’s house and noticed as she did so that the men were just getting back to Jack’s from fishing all day. She went into the house to find Doc in the kitchen assembling something at the kitchen table. It looked as though he’d gotten himself a new bag. “Doc Hudson sends his regards, as do June and John. What are you up to?”

He put a couple of things in the bag and pushed it toward her. “Time you had one of your own,” he said.

It was fun to watch the marines load up their gear and head for the river in the early morning. Mel waved to them from her spot on Doc’s front steps where she took her morning coffee, and though they’d been up half the night playing poker and drinking, they seemed full of energy and enthusiasm. They’d shout and wave, and whistle at her. Flirt. “Oh, baby, you are so beautiful in the morning,” Corny yelled across the street. His reward was a playful whap on the back of the head from Jack.

They were barely gone when a large, dark SUV pulled into town, driving slowly down the street. To Mel’s surprise, the driver stopped in front of Doc’s. The door opened, but the engine continued to run. A man got out and stood in the street next to the open door, half-hidden. He was a tall guy, broad-shouldered. He wore a black ball cap and his hair curled out beneath it. “This doctor make house calls?” he asked.

Mel stood up. “Someone’s sick?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Someone’s pregnant,” he answered.

She felt a smile reach her lips. “We can make house calls, if necessary. But it’s a lot more convenient to do prenatal checks here in the clinic. We see well patients on Wednesdays.”

“You Doc Mullins?” he asked, his eyes crinkling doubtfully.

“Mel Monroe,” she said with a chuckle. “Family nurse practitioner and midwife. Doc hasn’t been doing much women’s health since I got here. Where does your wife plan to have the baby?”

He shrugged. “That’s up in the air.”

“Well, where do you live?”

He tilted his head. “She’s on the other side of Clear River. Almost an hour from here.”

“We have a hospital room here. Is it a first baby?”

“I think so, yeah.”

She laughed. “You think so?”

“It’s the first one I’ve been around for,” he said. “She’s not my wife.”

“Sorry,” Mel said. “I made an assumption. Bring the lady in for a prenatal checkup,” Mel said. “I can show her our room and talk to her about her options.”

“How about if she has it at home?” he asked.

“Well, that’s an option, too,” Mel said. “But really, Mr….?” The man didn’t respond as he should, with his name. He just stood there, big in his denim jacket, tall in his boots. Serious. “Really, the person having the baby needs to be involved in the discussion. Want to make an appointment?”

“I’ll call,” he said. “Thanks.” And he got in the SUV and proceeded out of town.

She found herself chuckling; she’d never had a consultation go quite like that. She hoped the man would confer with the pregnant woman about where she’d like to give birth.

The marines left at the end of the week and the town quieted down, but after getting to know them, she was actually sorry to see them go. While the boys were in town, Preacher was a lot more animated, laughing easily, scowling so much less. And each one of them grabbed her and hugged her goodbye, like she was part of their family.

Mel found herself looking forward to having Jack to herself again, but it was not to be. Jack was oddly morose and somewhat distant. He didn’t lift her off the ground or pester her for kisses, and for someone who had resisted and complained of the inadvisability of same, she was disappointed. Bereft. When she questioned his strange mood, he said, “I’m sorry, Mel. I think the boys wore me out.”

When she went to the bar for lunch, Preacher reported that Jack was fishing. “Fishing?” she said. “Didn’t he get enough of that last week?” To which Preacher merely shrugged.

Preacher didn’t seem particularly worn out. He presided over the bar with the help of Ricky, polishing glasses, serving food, bussing tables and partaking of the occasional game of cribbage. “What’s the matter with Jack?” Mel asked.

“Marines. They take their toll,” he replied.

Four days later, a week ahead of schedule, Mel got the call from the Patterson farm that it was time. Given the fact that Sondra reported easy, quick births and had already been experiencing contractions through the night, Mel went immediately.

Babies are odd—they do as they please. Having a history of short labors didn’t necessarily mean they would all be that way. With the support of her mother, mother-in-law and husband, Sondra labored hard through the day. Finally in the early evening, the little boy arrived. He didn’t emerge with a lusty cry and Mel had to suction, stroke and cajole him into the world. Sondra bled a little too much and the baby wasn’t interested in nursing right away. Even Sondra quickly knew the difference between this and her previous two experiences.

Getting a slower than usual start in the world doesn’t necessarily mean trouble, and the baby’s heart, respirations, coloring and cry caught up right away. Still, Mel stayed a bit longer than she ordinarily might have. She rocked the baby for three hours past the time she felt everything was fine, playing it extra safe.

It was ten at night by the time Mel finally decided to give them back their lives, their family, that it was perfectly safe to leave them. “And I’m wearing my pager,” she said. “Don’t hesitate, if you think anything is amiss.”

Instead of going right back to her cabin, she went into town. If Jack’s was dark and closed up, she’d go home. But the light was on in the bar, though the Open sign was not lit.

When she pushed open the door, she was greeted by a most unexpected sight. Preacher was behind the bar, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, but Jack sat at a table with his head down on his arms. In front of him was a bottle of Scotch and a shot glass.

When Preacher saw her enter, he said, “Throw the latch on that door, Mel. I think this is enough company.”

She did so, but the look on her face was completely nonplussed. She walked over to Jack and put a hand on his back. “Jack?” she asked. His eyes briefly opened and then rolled back in their sockets and closed again. His head lolled and one arm fell off the table and dangled at his side.

Mel went to the bar, hopped up on a stool in front of Preacher and said, “What’s the matter with him?” Preacher shrugged and made a move to reach for his coffee mug, but before he could connect with it, Mel virtually lunged across the bar, grabbed the front of his shirt in her fist and said, hotly, “What’s the
matter
with him?!”

Preacher’s black brows shot up in surprise and he put up his hands as if being arrested. Mel slowly let go of his shirt and sat back on the stool. “He’s drunk,” Preacher said.

“Well, no kidding. But there’s something wrong with him. He’s been different all week.”

Again the shrug. “Sometimes when the boys are here, it dredges things up. You know? I think he’s having some remembering of things not so good.”

“Marine things?” she asked. Preacher nodded. “Come on, Preacher. He’s the best friend I have in this town.”

“I don’t think he’d like me talking.”

“Whatever this is, he shouldn’t go through it alone.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Preacher said. “He’ll snap out of it. He always does.”

“Please,” she implored. “Can’t you guess how much he means to me? I want to help, if there’s any way I can.”

“I could tell you some things, but they’re very ugly things. Not for a lady to hear.”

She laughed a little. “You can’t imagine the things I’ve seen, much less heard. I worked in a trauma center for almost ten years. It could get pretty ugly at times.”

“Not like this.”

“Try me.”

Preacher took a deep breath. “Those boys that come up every year? They come to make sure he’s okay. He was their sergeant. My sergeant. Best sergeant in the marines. He’s been in five combat zones. The last one, Iraq. He was leading a platoon into interior Fallujah and one of the boys stepped on a truck mine. Blew him in half. Right away we were pinned down by sniper fire.
Our boy who stepped on the mine, he didn’t die right away. Something about the heat of the explosion—it must’ve cauterized arteries and vessels and he didn’t bleed out. Didn’t have pain, either—it must have done something to his spine. But he was fully conscious.”

“My God.”

“Jack ordered everyone to take cover in the buildings, which we did. But he sat with his man. He wouldn’t leave him. Under sniper fire, leaning against a fat tire on an overturned truck, he held him and talked to him for a half hour before he died. Kid kept telling Jack to go, take cover, that it was okay. You know he didn’t go. He’d never leave one of his men behind.” He took a drink of coffee. “We saw a lot of stuff back there that will give you nightmares, but that’s the one that sometimes gets to him. I don’t know what hits him harder—the kid’s slow death or the visit he paid his parents to tell them all the things he said before he went.”

“And he gets drunk?”

“Fishes a lot. Maybe goes into the woods and camps awhile to get his stability back. Sometimes he’ll try to drink it away, but that’s pretty rare. First, it doesn’t work too well and second, he feels like crap afterward. But it’ll be okay, Mel. He always comes out of it.”

“Jesus,” she said. “I guess everyone has baggage. Gimme a beer.”

He poured one from the tap and put it before her. “So maybe the thing to do is just let him be awhile.”

“Is he going to wake up soon?”

“No. He’s tanked. I was just about to carry him to bed when you walked in. I’ll sleep in the chair in his room, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case he’s not just drunk. In case he gets sick or something. He carried me down a road in Iraq—about a mile. I’m not letting anything happen to him now.”

She drank some of her beer. “He’s carried me a little, too,” she said. “I don’t think he knows it, though.”

They sat in silence for a little while. She drank about half her beer. “I’m trying to get a picture of him carrying you,” she said. “Must’ve looked like the ant and the rubber tree.”

He surprised her with a chuckle.

“How’d he get you to come here? To this little town?”

“He didn’t have to talk me into it. I kept in touch with him when he got out, and when I got out, I came up. He said I could stay and help around the bar if I wanted to. I wanted to.”

A noise behind her made her turn. Jack fell off the chair and crashed to the floor, sprawling there.

“Nightie-night time,” Preacher said, coming around the bar.

“Preacher, if you’ll get him to his room, I’ll stay with him.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mel. Could be unpleasant. You know?”

“Not a problem,” she said. “I’ve held many a bucket, if it comes to that.”

“Sometimes he cries out.”

“Sometimes, so do I.”

“Is it what you want?”

“It is. I want to.”

“You really do care about him, then?” he asked.

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Well, okay. If you’re sure.”

Preacher crouched and pulled Jack upright. Hands under his armpits, he got him to a limp standing position, then putting a shoulder to his midsection, hoisted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Mel followed him to Jack’s bedroom.

She’d never been in Jack’s quarters. It was set up like a little efficiency apartment with two means of entry—either through the kitchen behind the bar or the back door that led out to the yard. It was L-shaped, the bedroom being in the short end of the L and the living area larger. There was a table with two chairs by the window and while there was no kitchen, there was a small refrigerator.

Preacher put Jack on the bed and unlaced and removed his boots. “Let’s get the jeans off,” she said. To Preacher’s dubious look, she said, “I assure you, I’ve seen it all.” She undid the leather belt and unsnapped the jeans. Mel took the right pant leg, Preacher took the left and they pulled, leaving him in his boxers. Mel unbuttoned his shirt and rolling him from side to side, removed it. She took the clothes to his closet. Hanging on a peg just inside the door was a holster with a handgun in it and it made her gasp. She hung the pants and shirt over the gun.

Preacher was staring down at Jack, clad only in boxers. “He’s gonna kill me for this,” Preacher said.

“Or thank you,” she supplied, giving him a small smile. “If my pager goes off, I’ll come for you.” She pulled the comforter over Jack.

“Or if you have any problems,” the big man said.

When Preacher had gone, Mel pulled off her boots and in stocking feet, she poked around a little. He had a roomy bathroom with cupboards and drawers. She
opened one and found that he kept underwear and socks in there. Towels were stored there, as well, and remembering that first day in Virgin River, she sniffed one. Downy, like he had said.

The closet was a medium-sized walk-in. There was a small laundry room with cabinets in addition to the washer and dryer. The bathroom and laundry room had doors that closed, but the bedroom was in full view of the living room.

Looking around, it was so obviously Jack. Very masculine; very functional. He had a leather couch and big leather chair. There was a television on the facing wall and beside it, a glass-and-wood gun case filled with rifles, the key dangling from the lock. There was a heavy wood coffee table and a side table between the sofa and chair with a lamp on it. The walls were of rough-hewn wood and there were only two framed pictures on the side table. A family photo showing all of them, Jack, four sisters, four brothers-in-law, eight nieces, one silver-haired father as large as Jack. Beside it, a rather older portrait of his mother and father.