Praise for the novels of

ROBYN CARR

“The Virgin River books are so compelling— I connected instantly with the characters and just wanted more and more and more.” —New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Virgin River is sexy, tense, emotional and satisfying. I can’t wait for more!” —New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers

“A thrilling debut of a series that promises

much to come.”

—New York Times bestselling author Clive Cussler

“Jennifer is a beautifully drawn character whose

interior journey is wonderful to behold.”

—RT Book Reviews on Runaway Mistress

“This is one author who proves a Carr can fly.”

—Book Reviewer on Blue Skies

“Robyn Carr provides readers [with] a powerful,

thought-provoking work of contemporary fiction.”

—Midwest Book Review on Deep in the Valley

“A remarkable storyteller.”

—Library Journal

“A warm, wonderful book about women’s

friendships, love and family. I adored it!”

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips on The House on Olive Street

“A delightfully funny novel.” —Midwest Book Review on The Wedding Party

WHISPERING

ROCK

ROBYN CARR

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Michelle Mazzanti and Kristy Price,

an author’s best friends.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Pamela SF Glenn, CNM, MS—without whose expertise in midwifery this story would not have been possible. My deepest gratitude for poring over manuscript after manuscript with sharp eyes and a ruthless pen, keeping me straight. And to Sharon Lampert, RN, WHNP, for sharing her expertise as a women’s health nurse practitioner, but mostly for picking up your phone no matter where you were and answering delicate questions about female anatomy and function with directness and honesty. I’m sure there are people out there still talking about what they overheard in the grocery store, beauty parlour and Department of Motor Vehicles. The passion and devotion with which you two professionals serve your women patients is inspiring, and was an enormous help in shaping the character of a dedicated nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife.

Thanks to Paul Wojcik for sharing your experiences in the United States Marine Corps, and to Richard Gustavson, RN with twenty-three years in the Navy Reserves. I thank each of you for reading the manuscripts and for offering your invaluable technical input.

Kris Kitna, Chief of Police, Fortuna, California, thanks for valuable information on local law enforcement, not to mention help with details about hunting, fishing and firearms.

Kate Bandy, the best assistant a writer can possibly have, my dear friend of many years, thanks not only for reading copy and offering suggestions, but especially for accompanying me on an exciting research trip to Humboldt County. Without you there I would have floundered … or slipped off a mountain. Denise and Jeff Nicholl—thanks for reading first drafts, taking exhaustive notes and answering a million questions. Your friendship and support during the whole process means the world to me. Many thanks to Nellie Valdez-Hathorn for her help with my Spanish.

Other early readers whose input was critical included Jamie Carr, Laurie Fait, Karen Garris, Martha Gould, Pat Hagee, Goldiene Jones and Lori Stoveken—I’m deeply in debt to you for your comments and suggestions.

Huge thanks to Clive Cussler, Debbie Macomber and Carla Neggers for reading and commenting on the Virgin River series in the first place. For you to take the time, with your busy schedules, is a monumental compliment.

Huge thanks to Valerie Gray, my editor, and Liza Dawson, my agent, for your commitment to helping me craft the best series possible. Your hard work and dedication made all the difference—I’m so grateful.

To Trudy Casey, Tom Fay, Michelle Mazzanti, Kristy Price and the entire staff of Henderson Public Libraries, thank you for the monumental support and encouragement. I’ve never known a more hardworking and motivated group of public servants.

And finally, thanks to Jim Carr for your loving support. And, my God, thank you for cooking! I wish I’d known years ago that you could!

One

Mike Valenzuela was up and had his Jeep SUV packed long before sunrise. He had a long drive to Los Angeles and meant to get an early start. Depending on traffic around the Bay Area, the drive would be eight to ten hours from Virgin River. He locked up his RV, which was his home. It sat on the property at Jack’s bar and grill; Jack and Preacher would keep an eye on it for him, not that Mike expected any kind of trouble. That was one of several reasons he’d chosen to live here—it was quiet. Small, peaceful, beautiful and nothing to disturb one’s peace of mind. Mike had had enough of that in his former life.

Before coming to Virgin River permanently, Mike had made many trips to this Humboldt County mountain town for hunting and fishing, for gathering with an old Marine squad that was still close. His full-time job had been with LAPD, a sergeant in the gangs division. That had all ended when he was shot on the job—he’d taken three bullets and had a lot of hard work getting his body back. He’d needed Preacher’s robust food and Jack’s wife Mel’s assistance with physicaltherapy on his shoulder. After six months, Mike was as close to completely recovered as he’d get.

Since moving to Virgin River he’d been home only once to visit his parents, siblings and their families. He planned to take a week—one day driving each way and five days with that crowd of laughing, dancing Mexicans. Knowing the traditions of his family, it would be a nonstop celebration. His mother and sisters would cook from morning to night, his brothers would stock the refrigerator with cerveza, family friends and cop buddies from the department would drop by the house. It would be a good time—a great homecoming after his long recovery.

He was three hours into his drive when his cell phone rang. The noise startled him. There was no cell phone reception in Virgin River so the last thing he expected was a phone call.

“Hello?” he answered.

“I need a favor,” Jack said without preamble. His voice sounded gravelly, as though he was barely awake. He must not have remembered Mike was heading south.

Mike looked at the dash clock. It wasn’t yet 7:00 a.m. He laughed. “Well, sure, but I’m nearly in Santa Rosa, so it might be inconvenient to run over to Garberville and get you ice for the bar, but hey—”

“Mike, it’s Brie,” Jack said. Brie was Jack’s youngest sister, his pet, his favorite. And she was really special to Mike. “She’s in the hospital.”

Mike actually swerved on the highway. “Hold on,” he said. “Stay there.” He pulled off the road onto a safe-looking shoulder. Then he took a deep breath. “Go ahead,” he said.

“She was assaulted sometime last night,” Jack said. “Beaten. Raped.”

“No!” Mike said. “What?”

Jack didn’t repeat himself. “My father just called a little while ago. Mel and I are packing—we’ll get on the road as soon as we can. Listen, I need someone who knows law enforcement, criminology, to walk me through what’s happening with her. They don’t have the guy who did this—there’s got to be an investigation. Right?”

“How bad is she?” Mike asked.

“My dad didn’t have a lot of details, but she’s out of emergency and in a room, sedated and semiconscious, no surgery. Can you write down a couple of numbers? Can you keep your cell phone turned on so I can call you? With questions? That kind of thing?”

“Of course. Yes,” Mike said. “Gimme numbers.”

Jack recited phone numbers for the hospital, Jack’s father, Sam, and Mel’s old cell phone that they’d charge on their way to Sacramento and then carry with them.

“Do they have a suspect? Did she know the guy?”

“I don’t know anything except her condition. After we get on the road, get the phone charged and we’re out of the mountains and through the redwoods, I’ll call my dad and see what he can tell me. Right now I gotta go. I gotta get down there.”

“Right,” Mike said. “Okay. My phone will be in my pocket twenty-four-seven. I’ll call the hospital, see what I can find out.”

“Thanks. Appreciate it,” Jack said, hanging up.

Mike sat on the shoulder, staring at the phone for a long minute, helpless. Not Brie, he thought. Oh God, not Brie!

His mind flashed on times they’d been together. A couple of months ago she’d been in Virgin River to see her new nephew, Jack and Mel’s baby. Mike had taken her on a picnic at the river—to a special place where the river was wide, buttoo shallow for fishermen to bother. They’d had lunch against a big boulder, close enough to hear the water whisper by as it passed over the rocks. It was a place frequented by young lovers and teenagers, and that big old rock had seen some wonderful things on the riverbank; it protected many secrets. Some of his own, in fact. He’d held Brie’s hand for a long time that day, and she hadn’t pulled it away. It was the first time he’d realized he was taken with her. A crush. At thirty-seven, he felt it was an old man’s crush, but damned if it didn’t feel awfully like a sixteen-year-old’s.

When Mike met Brie for the first time a few years back, he’d gone to see her brother while Jack was on leave, visiting his family in Sacramento right before his last assignment in Iraq. Mike was oblivious to the fact that his reserve unit would be activated and he’d end up meeting Jack over there, serving under him a second time. Brie was there, of course, recently married to a Sacramento cop. Nice guy, so Mike had thought. She was a prosecutor for the county in Sacramento, the state capital. She was small, about five-three, with long, soft brown hair that flowed almost to her waist, making her look like a mere girl. But she was no girl. She put away hardened criminals for a living; she had a reputation as one of the toughest prosecutors in the county. Mike had immediately admired her brains, her grit, not to mention her beauty. In his past life, before the shooting, he’d never been particularly discouraged by the mere presence of a husband, but they were newlyweds, and Brie was in love. No other man existed for her.

When Mike saw her in Virgin River right after Jack’s son was born, she was trying to recover from a painful divorce—her husband had left her for her best friend, and Brie was shattered. Lonely. So hurt. Mike immediately wanted to take her into his arms and console her, for he was hurting, too. But Brie, crushed by her husband’s infidelity, was determined not to put her heart on the line again, and she wanted nothing of a man, especially another player who’d had more than his share of women. A further complication—this was Jack’s baby sister, of whom he was so protective it verged on ridiculous. And Mike was no longer a driven, devil-may-care Latino lover. He was a cripple. The body just didn’t work right anymore.

It had been only a couple of weeks since he’d last seen her. She had come back to Virgin River with the rest of her family to help erect the frame of Jack’s new house. Preacher and his bride, Paige, were married in that framed structure the very next day. For a man who could barely walk six months ago, Mike had given Brie a fairly decent twirl around the dance floor at the wedding. It was a fantastic party—full of that good old country food, barbecues flaming, the chairs pushed back and the band set up on the foundation of Jack’s unfinished house, the frame strung with floral garlands. He grabbed her, laughing, into his arms and whirled her around with abandon, and whenever the tempo allowed, pressed his cheek close against hers, whispering in conspiratorial amusement, “Your brother is frowning at us.”

“I wonder why that is.” She laughed.

“I don’t think he wants you near a man so like himself,” Mike speculated.

That seemed to amuse her a great deal. She tipped her head back and laughed a little wildly. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “It has nothing to do with your great success with women. You’re a man, near his baby sister. That’s enough.”

“You’re no baby,” he said, pulling her closer. “And I think you’re having too much fun with this, getting him riled up. Don’t you realize he has a dangerous temper?”

Unmistakably, she held him tighter. “Not toward me,” she whispered.

“There’s a devil in you,” he said, and looked death in the face by kissing her neck.

“There’s a fool in you,” she said, tilting her head just slightly to give him more of her neck.

In years gone by he would have found a way to get her alone, seduced her, made love to her in ways she’d dream about later. But three bullets had decided a few things. Even if he could spirit her away from her brother’s protective stare, he wouldn’t be able to perform. So he said, “You’re trying to get me shot again.”

“Oh, I doubt he’d actually shoot you. But I haven’t been to a good old-fashioned wedding brawl in ages.”

When they’d said goodbye he had hugged her briefly, her sweet scent like a cinch around his mind, feeling her cheek against his, his arms around her waist, pulling her close. A bit more than just a friendly gesture—a suggestive one, which she returned. He assumed she was having fun with the flirtation, stirring things up a little bit, but it meant far more than that to him. Brie held his thoughts in a disturbing way that suggested if he were capable of giving her love, she would capture his heart and mind in that powerful way that wipes all other women out of the past. He really didn’t have that to offer anymore. Although that didn’t keep him from thinking about her, wanting her.

He could not bear to think about all that mischief and sass lying broken and violated in a hospital. His heart was in pieces, aching for her. Dying to know that she was going to be all right.

He put the SUV into Drive, looked over his shoulder and got back on the freeway. He gunned the engine and veered across two lanes of fast-moving traffic to make the exit to Sacramento.

When Mike got to the county hospital a couple of hours later, he called Sam’s cell phone number and left a message to say he’d arrived and wanted to know where they were. A prosecutor, the victim of a crime, was not going to be with the general population—she would undoubtedly have security.

Sam came to the hospital entrance, extending his hand. “Mike. Good of you to come. I know Jack will appreciate it.”

“I was on my way south and was almost here anyway. Brie’s a special friend. I’ll do anything I can.”

Sam turned and headed for the elevators. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure what you can do. She’s going to be all right. Physically. I have no idea what a woman goes through after something like this….”

“Tell me what you know so far,” Mike said. “Did she know her attacker?”

“Oh, yes. Remember that terrible trial she had about the same time Jack’s son was born? The serial rapist? The media circus? It was him. She identified him for police.”

Mike stopped walking and frowned. “She’s sure?” he asked. That was such a sick, bold move for someone who’d just gotten a free pass. Brie had lost that trial and it was a hard loss, especially coming on the heels of her divorce. It was as if the sky was falling on her. Also, it wasn’t something men like that did. Typically, they bolted. Got away from anyone who had the balls to go after them, as Brie had.

“She’s sure,” Sam said.

Mike couldn’t help but wonder—was she hit in the head? Hallucinating? In and out of reality because of the trauma? “Her injuries?” he asked.

“Her face is battered, there are two broken ribs and the usual …” He paused. “The usual injuries incurred during a rape. You know.”

“I know,” he said. Tearing, bleeding, bruising. “Has she been seen by a rape specialist and police?”

“Yes, but she wants Mel. Understandably.”

“Of course,” Mike said. Jack’s wife, Mel, was the nurse practitioner and midwife in Virgin River and had had years of experience in a huge L.A. trauma center. She was an expert in battery and sexual assault and if she could be the medical eyes and ears, maybe Mike could cover the police angle. “I heard from them at seven this morning. They should be here in two or three hours, depending on how fast they got out of town.”

Mike noticed a uniformed Sac PD officer standing at the entrance to a room; undoubtedly that’s where Brie was. “Well, let me talk to some people, see if I can find out anything at all. But first, I’ll say hello to the family.” He moved to a large clot of people in the waiting area just down the hall. Jack’s three other sisters, their husbands, a few of his nieces. Mike was embraced and thanked. Then he got about the business of talking to nurses, got the number of the detective on the case from the officer guarding the room. All the detective could tell Mike at this time was that the suspect was still at large. The doctor would discuss her injuries, that was all. But it appeared that apart from being horribly assaulted, she would recover physically.

It was almost three hours later that Jack, Mel and baby David arrived. Jack embraced his father, then looked in surprise at Mike. “You’re here?”

“I was already close,” he said. “I thought I’d come over. If I can help, it’s better for me to be on-site.”

“Oh, man, I didn’t expect this,” Jack said.

“Hell, you’ve done more for me,” Mike said. “And you know I love Brie. Mel,” he said, reaching for baby David, “she said she wants to see you the minute you get here.”

“Of course,” Mel said, handing off the baby.

“I think she needs Mel’s opinion of how the rape evidence was collected,” Mike said to Jack. “Go hug your sisters. By that time you’ll be able to see her.”

“Have you seen her yet?” Jack asked.

“No. It’s family only. But I’ve talked to some people, trying to gather whatever facts they’ll share.”

“God,” Jack said, gripping Mike’s biceps hard. “Thanks. Mike, I didn’t expect this.”

“You should have.” He laughed, jostling little David a little. “That’s how it is with us. Right?”

Jack sat by his sister’s bedside at the county hospital for almost twelve straight hours. He had arrived at eleven in the morning and it was now 11:00 p.m. Outside her door, in the hallway, the family had gathered for most of the day, but as evening had descended they’d drifted home because she was out of danger and sedated. Mike had taken Mel and the baby back to Sam’s, but Jack hadn’t wanted to leave Brie. Brie was close to her entire family, but it was Jack with whom she had the deepest bond.

Jack was torn to pieces as he looked down on his little sister. Her face was horrific; the bruising and swelling was terrible. It looked much worse than it was, the doctor promised. There was no permanent damage; she would regain her former beauty. Every few minutes Jack would reach over, gently smooth back her light brown hair, touch her hand. She wrestled in her sleep now and then, despite the sedatives. If not for the ribs, he might have taken her into his strong arms during these struggles. Instead he would lean over her bed, touch her face where there was no swelling, drop a tender kiss on her forehead and whisper, “I’m here, Brie. You’re safe now, baby.”

At almost midnight he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look up into Mike’s black eyes.

“Go on home, Jack,” he said. “Get a little rest. I’ll sit with her.”

“I can’t leave her,” Jack said.

“I know you don’t want to. But I had a nap,” he lied. “Sam gave me a room at the house. I’ll sit right here in case she wakes up, which she probably won’t, and we’ve got the cop in the hall there. Go. Get a little rest so you can be here for her tomorrow.”

“If she wakes up and I’m not right here …”

“They’re putting heavy-duty bug juice right in the IV to get her through the night,” Mike said softly. “It’s okay.”

Jack laughed a little. “I sat by your bed through a week of nights when you were shot.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Payback time. Go home to your wife. See you first thing tomorrow.”

It surprised Mike that Jack actually left. He was the kind of man who went days past exhaustion to be there for someone he cared about. Mike took his place on a chair beside Brie’s bed and sat vigil. Her battered face didn’t shock him—he’d seen worse. But it hurt him inside. He couldn’t imagine the kind of monster who could do that.

The nurses came and went through the night, checking her IV, taking her blood pressure, sometimes bringing Mike coffee from their break room—and it tasted a whole lot better than what the machines dispensed. If he asked, a nurse would sit with Brie while he ran down the hall—a result of the coffee. But Brie didn’t move except for some occasional disturbances that caused her to stir fitfully.

Mike had carried fallen soldiers out of harm’s way; he’d sat by the side of dying men while sniper fire whizzed past his head. But nothing compared to what he felt while looking down at Brie, beaten like this. Thinking of her violation filled him with a kind of rage that had never been visited on him before. Although she was a beautiful woman and strong, his vision kept mixing her up with the vulnerable woman he’d taken on a picnic a couple of months ago. A pretty, young woman who’d just been left by her husband, and was crushed by the betrayal. And what fool would give her up? he thought. It was beyond him.

The rape trial had been one of the toughest of her career. It had taken her months to prepare a case against the suspect for serial rape. The forensic evidence had been strong, but in the end the only witness who hadn’t failed her was a prostitute with a bad record, and the guy walked. Brie had identified him to the police as her rapist when she’d regained consciousness.

In the early hours of the morning she turned her swollen face toward Mike and opened her eyes—or tried to. One was partially shut because of the swelling. He scooted closer. “Brie,” he whispered. “It’s me, Brie. I’m here.”

She put her hands over her face and cried out. “No! No!”

He took gentle hold of her wrists. “Brie! It’s me. It’s Mike. It’s okay.”

But he couldn’t pull her hands away from her face. “Please,” she whimpered pitifully. “I don’t want you to see this….”

“Honey, I saw you already,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here for hours. Let it go,” he said. “It’s okay.”

She let him slowly pull her hands away from her battered face. “Why? Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here!”

“Jack wanted me to help him understand what was happening with the investigation. But I wanted to be here. Brie, I wanted to be here for you.” He brushed her brow gently. “You’re going to be okay.”

“He … He got my gun….”

“The police know, honey. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He’s so dangerous. I tried to get him—that’s why he did this. I was going to put him away for life.”

Mike’s jaw pulsed, but he kept his voice soft. “It’s okay, Brie. It’s over now.”

“Did they find him?” she asked. “Did they pick him up?”

Oh, how he wished she wouldn’t ask that. “Not yet.”

“Do you know why he didn’t kill me?” she asked, a tear running out of her swollen eye and down over the bridge of her purple nose. He tenderly wiped it away. “He said he didn’t want me to die. He wanted me to try to get him again, and watch him walk again. He wore a condom.”

“Aw, honey …”

“I’m going to get him, Mike.”

“Please. Don’t think about that now. I’ll get the nurse. Get you another sedative.” He put the light on and the nurse came immediately. “Brie needs something to help her go back to sleep.”

“Sure,” the nurse said.

“I’m just going to wake up again,” she said. “And I’m just going to think the same things.”

“Try to rest,” he said, leaning over to kiss her brow. “I’ll be right here. And there’s an officer outside your door. You’re completely safe.”

“Mike,” she whispered. She held his hand for a long moment. “Did Jack ask you to come?”

“No,” he said, gently touching her brow. “But when I found out what happened, I had to come,” he whispered. “I had to.”

After having a sedative administered into the IV, she gently closed her eyes again. Her hand slipped out of his and he sat back in his chair. Then, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands, he silently wept.

Jack was back at the hospital before dawn, not looking particularly rested although he had showered and shaved. He had dark circles under eyes that were lit by a very scary inner brightness. Mike had sisters he cherished; he could imagine the rage that burned inside Jack.

Mike stepped into the hall outside Brie’s door to quietly talk with Jack, explaining the night had been quiet and he thought Brie had rested. While they stood there, the doctor making rounds went into the room, his nurse in tow. Mike used that opportunity to visit the men’s room. He stared in the mirror; he looked far worse than Jack. He needed a shower and shave, but he didn’t want to leave her. Family members would be returning soon, but Mike didn’t think they’d be keeping Brie in the hospital for long.

On his way back to Brie’s room, he saw Jack talking to a man outside her door. In fact, Jack was right up in his face. The officer providing security was stepping closer to them, making a gesture with his hands that they should separate. Then Mike realized it was Brie’s ex-husband, Brad, and that probably within seconds Jack was going to kill him just on principle.

Mike made fast tracks. “Whoa,” he said, separating them first with an arm between them, then with his entire body. “Whoa,” he said again. “None of this. Come on.”

From over Mike’s shoulder, Jack demanded of Brad, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Brad glared meanly. “Nice to see you, too, Jack,” he said.

“You don’t belong here,” Jack said too loudly. “You left her. You’re done with her.”

“Hey,” he said, bristling. “I never stopped caring about Brie. Never will. I’m going to see her.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “She’s in no shape to have to deal with you right now.”

“You’re not in charge of the guest list, Jack. That’s up to Brie.”

“Come on,” Mike said sternly. “Let’s not do this here.”

“Ask him if he wants to take it outside,” Jack snapped back.

“Yeah, I’ll—”

“Whoa,” Mike said yet again, widening the space between the two men. “This isn’t happening here!”

Brad moved closer, pushing up against Mike, but lowered his voice cautiously. “I know you’re angry, Jack. In general and at me. I don’t blame you. But if you get tough with me, it’s going to be worse for Brie. And this officer is just going to hook you up.”

Jack ground his teeth, pushing up against the other side of Mike. Mike was having some trouble holding them apart. “I really want to hit someone,” Jack said through clenched teeth. “Right now, you’d do as well as anyone. You walked out on your marriage. You left her while she was building a case against that son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what you did to her?”

Oh, boy, Mike thought. It was going to happen between these two any second, right in the hospital hallway. Mike was a good six feet and pretty strong, but Brad and Jack were both taller, broader, angrier and not a shoulder injury between them. Mike was going to get hammered when they lost it and started pummeling each other.

“Yeah,” Brad said. “Yeah, I do! And I want her to know that I still care about what happens to her. We’re divorced, but we have history. A lot of it good history. If I can do anything now …”

“Hey!” Mike said to the cop. “Hey! Come on!”

The police officer finally got in it, putting himself between Brad and Jack along with Mike. “All right, gentlemen,” the cop said. “I have my orders. No scuffling outside Ms. Sheridan’s door. If you want to talk this over calmly, I’d like you to move down the hall.”

Oh, that was not a good suggestion, Mike thought. If they moved down the hall, they wouldn’t be talking. Mike cautiously backed Jack up a few steps. “Take a breath,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to do this.”

Jack glowered at Mike. “You sure about that?”

“Back off,” Mike said with as much authority as he could muster.

Just then a nurse came out of Brie’s room and Brad snagged her too fast for Jack to intervene. “Ma’am, I’m Ms. Sheridan’s ex-husband. Brad. I’m also a police detective,” he said, badging her. “Off duty. Will you ask her if she’ll see me? Please?”

The nurse made a U-turn and went back into the room.

“What’s he doing here?” Brad asked, indicating Mike with his eyes and a jut of his chin.

Oh, mistake, Mike thought instantly, stiffening. Was Brad crazy? Pissing off the guy who was keeping Jack from killing him? He felt his own fists begin to open and close. The ex wants to know why another man is here? He dumps his wife for another woman, but no guy is supposed to pick up where he left off? Mike actually smiled, though coldly. Balls, he thought. I should just let Jack beat him up.

“He’s a cop,” Jack said, stretching the truth somewhat. “I asked him to come. To help.”

“He can go,” Brad said. “We don’t need his help.”

That did it. Mike took one fast step in Brad’s direction, but was stopped by a strong hand on the bad shoulder, pulling him back. That was all it took to get his attention; he wasn’t going to put Brie through this. But if they all ran into each other somewhere else, like the parking lot, he couldn’t make any promises. Right now he wanted a piece of Brad as much as Jack did.

The nurse returned from the room and spoke to Brad. “When the doctor is finished, you can go in.”

Brad had the good sense not to take on any superior airs. He didn’t avoid eye contact with the other men, however.

“Let me ask you one question,” Jack said to Brad, trying to keep his voice under control to avoid being ejected by the uniform. “Were you at work the night it happened?”

“No.”

Jack ground his teeth. “Then if you hadn’t walked out on her for another woman, you’d have been at the house that night. Maybe waiting up for her to get home. Maybe right inside where you could hear her scream. So much for your good history.”

“Hey,” Brad began, clearly wishing to argue the point. But Jack turned away from him and took several steps down the hall. Right then the doctor came breezing out of the room, looking down at the chart as he walked by all three men. Brad lifted his chin, glared briefly and entered Brie’s room.

Mike let out his breath. “That was gonna be so ugly,” he said. He went to the chair outside Brie’s door and sat. Jack paced, fidgeting. He took several steps down the hall, away from the door.

Mike rested his elbows on his knees. He scratched his itchy beard. He noticed the cop was standing beside him.

“This has got to be tough,” the cop said to Mike, indicating Jack just a few feet away, his jaw pulsing and his hands in fists at his sides.

Mike turned his head, looked up at the young officer. He glanced at his best friend; Jack was tortured, helpless. “Nothing can prepare you for something like this to happen to a woman you love,” he said softly. “Nothing.”

Brie was released from the hospital that afternoon and she went home to her father’s house. Sam and Jack drove her while Mike followed in his own car, watching with concern. He hadn’t been around very many sexual assault victims in his police career, but certainly he’d come into contact with some. He had never seen a woman so stoic, so removed. Once they all arrived at Sam’s, she went directly to the room that had been hers when she was younger. She called Jack to come, to cover the mirror.

Brie took her dinner on a tray in her room that night. Her sisters stopped by one at a time, visited with her in her room, but didn’t stay long. There were five Sheridan siblings, all married but Brie. Two of the sisters were older than Jack, one was a couple of years younger and then there was Brie, the caboose, eleven years younger than Jack. Her three older sisters had brought to the family eight daughters, and Jack and Mel had provided the only boy in little David. So when the family was all together, it was an almost unmanageable crowd. A teeming throng filled with noise and laughter—Mike had seen that for himself on earlier visits. It was not unlike the Valenzuela household. Not so now. The house was still, like a mausoleum.

Mike had a quiet dinner with Sam, Jack and Mel.

“You should probably head for L.A.,” Jack said to Mike when the table was cleared.

“Whatever.” He shrugged. “I can stay a day or so, see if anything develops.”

“I don’t want to hold you up,” Jack said. Then he walked out onto the patio and Mike followed. “I can call you if anything happens.”

Sam came outside holding a tray with three glasses. There was a short shot of amber liquid in each and he put the tray on the patio table. Without conversation, the men each took one, sipping in silence. The June air was sultry in the Sacramento valley, humid and almost oppressive. After a few minutes Sam got up and said good-night. Then Jack finished his drink and went into the house. One by one, the lights inside began to go out, leaving only the kitchen light for Mike. Exhausted as he was, he didn’t feel like sleep. He helped himself to another short shot and went back to the patio, lighting the candle on the table.

The whole family is in shock, he thought. They move around silently; they grieve Brie’s lost innocence. Everyone under this roof is in terrible pain; they feel each physical blow for which she bears the marks.

“You should probably go now.”

He lifted his head and saw Brie standing in the open patio doors, wearing the same clothes she had worn home from the hospital. “Brie,” he said, rising.

“I’ve talked to the detectives several times. Jerome Powell, the rapist, was tracked as far as New Mexico, then the trail was lost,” she said, very businesslike. “I can tell you from experience, the odds are at least ninety-five percent he’s gone—pulled a territorial. I’m going to start counseling and group therapy right away—and I’ve decided not to go back to work for a while. Jack and Mel insist on staying the rest of the week, but you should go. Visit your family.”

“Would you like to come and sit with me?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll talk to the D.A. every day, see if he turns up anything new. Of course I’m staying here. If I need any assistance in the police department, I have an ex-husband who’s feeling very guilty. And very helpful.” She took a breath. “I wanted to say goodbye. And to thank you for trying to help.”

“Brie,” he said, taking a step toward her, his arms open.

She held up a hand, and the look that came into her eyes stopped him where he was. She shook her head, kept her hand raised against him. “You understand,” she said, warning him not to get too close, not to touch her.

“Of course,” he said.

“Drive carefully,” she said, disappearing into the house.

Two

One week later Mel and Jack returned to Virgin River to resume their routine. Mel went into Doc’s every morning, the baby with her for the day. If something urgent came up, she could always take the baby over to Jack at the bar, or if Jack wasn’t there, Paige or Preacher or Mike were more than willing to babysit. For the most part, David could be counted on to remain content for the half hour or so Mel needed to see a patient as long as she had the bouncy seat with her and he was neither hungry nor dirty. He still took two long naps a day—one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Mel had been back from Sacramento less than two weeks when a teenage girl from Virgin River came to Doc’s and asked to see her. Carra Jean Winslow was fifteen and Mel had never seen her before. In fact, even though Mel had lived and worked in Virgin River for just over a year, she didn’t know the girl’s parents. Taking note of her age and obvious anxiety, Mel took her to an examining room before asking her what she needed. When a fifteen-year-old girl who didn’t cough or wheeze or bring her parents came in to see the nurse midwife, the possibilities seemed pretty limited and obvious.

“I heard there was a pill that could keep you from getting pregnant if, you know, you had sex,” she said. She said it very quietly, looking at her feet.

“Emergency birth control. But it’s only effective if the intercourse has been very recent.”

“Two nights ago,” she said weakly.

“That’s recent enough,” Mel said, trying to put her at ease with a smile. “Any problems? Pain? Bleeding? Anything?”

“Bleeding. There was some bleeding.”

“First time?” Mel asked, smiling kindly. The girl nodded. “Have you ever had an internal exam before?”

She shook her head and looked down again.

“I’d like to check you, make sure everything is okay. It’s not as terrible as you think,” Mel said, touching her arm gently. “How much bleeding?”

“Not too much. A little. Getting better.”

“How do you feel? There?”

She shrugged and said, “Still a little sore. Not bad.”

“That’s good. I assume, if you’re interested in emergency contraception, you didn’t use a condom….”

“No,” Carra answered.

“Okay, we can handle this. Can I get you to undress and put on a gown for me?”

“My mom. No one knows I’m here.”

“That’s all right, Carra. This is between you and me. I’m only interested in your health. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Everything off, just the gown.”

Poor thing, Mel thought. She ached for young girls who had just stumbled into this sort of thing without planning, without being sure. And that described almost all young girls. But at least she was here, avoiding yet another disaster. She gave Carra plenty of time to get undressed, but didn’t leave her waiting long enough to tangle up her nerves, then returned to the exam room.

“Let’s get a blood pressure and listen to your heart first,” she said briskly.

“I have to pay you myself,” Carra said. “I don’t want my parents to know about this.”

“Carra, confidentiality is important in this office—you can trust that,” she said. “This is all going to work out.” She applied the blood pressure cuff, noting there were a few small bruises on the girl’s upper arm. “You have a couple of bruises here,” she said.

“It’s nothing. It was … volleyball. It can get a little rough sometimes.”

“Looks like someone grabbed you,” Mel suggested.

The girl shrugged. “It happens.”

Mel got the blood pressure, which was normal. She listened to Carra’s heart, looked in her eyes, checked her pupils. Except for the nervous pounding of her heart, she seemed to be in good shape. She showed her the speculum, explained the procedure and eased her carefully into position for the pelvic. “Nice and slow, feet right here, slide down for me. That’s it. Try to relax, your knees apart, honey. Thank you. This isn’t going to be bad at all, so take some deep breaths and try to relax.”

“Okay,” she said, and began to softly cry.

“No crying now,” Mel said gently. “Everything is going to be all right, because you came to see me right away.” She gently parted the girl’s knees and was frozen. Her labia were bruised and swollen; there were bruises on the insides of her thighs that bore a striking resemblance to the bruises on the girl’s upper arm. An unmistakable thumbprint and fingers. Oh, God damn. Mel stood from her stool and looked over the drape at Carra’s face. “Carra, I can see that you’re very sore. Bruised and swollen and a little torn. I’d like to proceed, take a closer look to be sure everything is all right. But only if you’re up to it. Are you okay?”

She pinched her eyes closed, but nodded.

“I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Mel said. She put on her gloves but set the speculum aside. “I’m just going to check your vagina and uterus, Carra—I’m not going to use the speculum because you’re sore. I’d like you to take a deep breath for me, then let it out slowly. That’s it,” she said. “It’ll just take a minute. Don’t clench. Relax your muscles, Carra. There you go, very good. Tell me, does this pressure hurt?”

“Not so much,” she answered.

Why do these things always come in batches? Mel thought. I’m not over Brie! Carra’s vaginal wall was torn, ragged. Raw. Her hymen was ripped open and looked like so many little fingers. She completed her exam quickly, and while she didn’t have a rape kit handy, she did have a sterile swab with which she took a vaginal specimen, although it could be too late for any DNA recovery.

“Okay, Carra, let me help you sit up.” Mel snapped off her gloves and helped Carra get herself settled, legs dangling off the table. “I’m concerned about what happened to you, Carra. It looks like you’ve been hurt. Want to tell me about it?”

She shook her head and a couple of big tears spilled over. Carra was a plain girl with an oblong face, bushy, unshaped brows and a small problem with acne. And right now, a really bad case of regret and fear and nerves.

“It will be confidential,” Mel said tenderly. “It’s not just the bruises, Carra. Your vagina looks ragged. Torn. The damage isn’t serious. It’ll heal. But from everything I can see—”

“It was me. It was my fault.”

“Something like this is never a woman’s fault,” she said, and she used woman purposely, although this was a mere girl. “Why don’t you tell me what happened, and we’ll go from there.”

“But you’ll give me that pill?” she asked desperately.

“Of course. We’re not going to let you get pregnant. Or sick.”

She took a deep breath, but it brought the tears harder. “I just changed my mind when it was too late, that’s all. So it’s my fault.”

Mel touched her knee. “Go back to the beginning. Nice and easy.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Sure you can, honey. I’ll just listen.”

“We decided we were going to do it. He got all excited about that—he said he was sorry after. We’d already started…. He couldn’t stop.”

“He could,” she said. “I can see the bruises from his fingers, like he held you down, held your legs apart. I can see the marks, the tears. Let me help you.”

“I wanted to, though.”

“I know, Carra. Until you didn’t. And you told him no, didn’t you?”

She shook her head. “No. I wanted to.”

“If you said no at all, that’s rape, Carra. Date rape.”

Carra leaned forward, her position pleading. “But I’ve done things with him. Lots of things. And I wanted to.”

“Have you ever had intercourse before?” She shook her head. No. “You can say no right up to the last minute, Carra. That’s the law. And it doesn’t matter what you did with him before. Tell me—is this a boyfriend? Or someone you’ve only known a little while?”

“I’ve known him a long time from school, but he’s been my boyfriend a couple of weeks.”

But they’ve done a lot? Mel was asking herself. “Carra, he moved pretty fast. I want you to think about this. A couple of weeks. This is one determined guy. How old is he?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I’m not telling you any more. I’m not getting him in trouble. It wasn’t his fault. It was my mistake, but he’s sorry.”

“Okay, listen—don’t get yourself all upset. If you change your mind and want to talk about this, you just call me. Or come to see me. Doesn’t matter when. Let’s get you on a dependable birth control and—”

“No. I’m not doing it again,” she said, holding her mouth in a tight line while tears wet her cheeks.

Oh, she’d been raped. Sounded as if she didn’t even have much of a date, Mel thought. “Carra, if you continue to see this boy, this man, it’s going to happen again.”

“I’m not doing it again,” she said firmly. “I need that emergency pill. That’s all.”

“That’s all for right now,” Mel said. “I want you to come back in a week or two, so we can test for STDs and be sure you’re healing up. It’s too soon for anything to turn up today, this soon after exposure. But this is really important. Will you do that?”

In the end she agreed, but she wouldn’t accept birth control. In a very businesslike tone she asked Mel, “How much?”

“Forget it, Carra. This one’s on the house. Call me if you need me. Anytime. I mean it—anytime. Night or day. I’ll write down the number here and my number at home for you. Okay?”

“Thanks,” she said meekly.

After all that, the thing that really tore at Mel’s heart was seeing her patient ride away on her bicycle. The girl wasn’t even old enough to drive a car. And she pedaled while standing up—her tender bottom couldn’t handle the seat.

Mike Valenzuela called Brie. He couldn’t help himself. It had been two weeks since he’d heard her voice. Jack was more than happy to keep him up-to-date on her recovery, how she sounded, but Mike needed more. “How are you feeling?” he asked her.

“Pretty rugged. Kind of edgy and nervous,” she answered. “But then, it hasn’t been that long.”

“Physically?” he pressed.

“I … Ah … I guess the worst is over. The bruises are beginning to fade. But it’s amazing how long it takes a couple of ribs to heal.”

“Jack says you took an extended leave of absence from the prosecutor’s office,” Mike said.

“Did he tell you why?” she asked.

“No. And you don’t have to tell me. Don’t make yourself uncomfortable.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said coldly. “Because I can’t work like that—when I can prosecute a suspect for rape and he gets off.” She laughed bitterly. “On me!”

“Oh, Brie,” he said, sympathetic. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“If I get a chance, if they find him, I’m going to bury him. I’ll put him away for life. I swear to God.”

Mike took a deep breath. “You’re one of the bravest women I’ve ever known. I’m proud of you. If there’s anything I can do …”

“It’s nice of you to call,” she said more softly. “Not many people besides family are brave enough—I guess they’re afraid of what they might hear. Does Jack know you called?”

It wouldn’t be long before Jack found out, Mike thought. Sam had answered the phone, asked who was calling before putting her on. “I didn’t call you because you’re Jack’s sister, but because you’re my friend and I wanted to know how you are. I don’t really care if Jack’s okay with it, only if you are.”

“I’m okay with it. His protective nature usually just amuses me. Or annoys me. But not at the moment,” she said. “It feels kind of like a shield, just knowing how he is.”

“I’d be protective if you were my sister, too,” Mike said. “I’m feeling protective myself, though there’s not much I can do but call and talk. I think this is what happens to everyone around the crime, Brie. We all have our responses—from the victim to her friends and family. It’s all part of the healing process. I watched my friends and family go through that, too. It’s one of the reasons I came up here—it was becoming oppressive. Their need for me to heal so they could feel better.”

“I keep forgetting that,” she said. “That’s how self-absorbed I’ve become. You’re a crime victim, too.”

“You’re supposed to be self-absorbed right now. Self-protective. Focused.”

“And that’s how you were?” she asked him.

“Ohhhh.” He laughed. “I wish you could’ve seen my routine. I started out the day by crawling out of bed crippled, the pain terrible. I dosed up on the anti-inflammatory, iced down my shoulder and groin, drank Mel’s protein supplement drinks that would gag a maggot, and then started my exercises with one-pound weights—so light, so nothing. And it would make me almost cry. Then I’d have to lie down. It took me two months to do a sit-up—and Mel would help me with the physical therapy on my shoulder every day, but not until afternoon, not until I could drink a beer first to take the edge off. She’s little, you know, but you shouldn’t let that fool you—she can pull and push and grind on an injured muscle until you beg like a baby. My life was all about getting my body back.”

“I wish this was just about my body,” she said softly.

“There were also nightmares,” he said quietly, almost reluctantly. “I’d like you to know—I’m not having them anymore.” And he thought, you just don’t realize yet how much of this is going to end up being about your body. He had at least a passing knowledge of what rape and assault victims went through. It was going to be a long time before Brie would have a healthy sexual relationship.

Afterward, Mike was pretty astonished that Jack made no mention of his call to Brie. It could mean only one thing—neither Brie nor Sam had mentioned it, and he wasn’t sure why. He gave brief consideration to bringing it to Jack’s attention himself. He could explain his concern easily—he had a few things in common with her at the moment and might be able to offer support. But in the end, he said nothing. He didn’t feel like an odd three-way, checking in with Jack about his feelings for Brie. Nothing had changed in the way he felt toward her, except that at the moment they were both crippled.

The middle of July was steamy and wet, and Mike called her every couple of days, and still Jack said nothing. It seemed to Mike that she took his calls as if looking forward to them a little bit. They rarely talked about the crime and her recovery, but about mundane things. His fishing, what she was reading or watching on TV, weather, Sam and her sisters and nieces, letters that Ricky—a kid from town who had been Jack’s and Preacher’s young protégé and helper in the bar—was writing home from USMC basic training.

She told him about her new phobias—the dark, public places, noises in the night that she’d probably never even heard before. She put her house on the market—she had no intention of living there alone again. She thought she might eventually be strong enough to live on her own, but not there, where it happened.

“Are you getting out at all?” he asked her.

“Counseling, group sessions. The occasional trip to the store with Dad,” she said. “I don’t really want to leave the house. I’ll have to find a way to change that soon, but for now, I just want to feel safe. That’s a tall enough order.”

He could hear the growing strength in Brie’s voice despite her new fears; she laughed regularly, and the sound of her voice brought him great peace of mind. He teased her, told her jokes, even played his guitar for her over the phone so she could tell him he was improving.

Jack, however, was too quiet. Mike confronted him, asked him how he was doing. “I just want her back, man,” Jack said somberly. “Brie—she was always such a goddamn life force.”

Mike gripped Jack on the upper arm. “She’ll be back. She’s got the stuff.”

“Yeah, I hope you’re right.”

“I’m right,” Mike said. “You need me for anything tomorrow? I’m thinking of driving down the coast, having a look around.”

“Nah, enjoy yourself,” Jack said.

Ordinarily, Mike wouldn’t have given even a second thought to going to Sacramento without mentioning it to Jack, but these circumstances were different, and he wasn’t an idiot—Jack would want to know. Still, he said nothing and in fact had covered his tracks, acting as though he was out for a day of poking around. He rose before Jack began splitting logs behind the bar in the early morning—his ritual even in summer, when there was no need to lay a fire. He hit the road south through Ukiah in the predawn hours, arriving in the city by ten in the morning.

After he rang the doorbell, he saw a shadow cross the peephole, then the locks slid and the door opened. “Mike?” Sam asked. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I decided not to call ahead, sir,” he said. “I thought—”

Brie appeared from around the corner, standing behind her dad. “Mike?” she asked in equal surprise.

He smiled. “You look good,” he said, relieved. “Great. You look great. I was saying I didn’t call ahead because I thought if I just came here, maybe I could lure you out of the house for a while. If I’d called, you’d think of a million excuses.”

She actually took a step back. “I don’t know …”

“How about Folsom,” he said. “Enjoy the mountains, walk around the shops, have a little lunch, maybe stop at a vineyard or two. Just a few hours, just for some fresh air and maybe a little practice at facing the public. You have to get out in the world eventually.”

“Maybe not this soon …”

“It’s only soon because you haven’t done it. You’ll be safe, Brie.”

“Of course, but—”

“Brie,” Sam said. “You should take advantage of this. Mike is a trained observer, a cop with years of experience. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

Mike gave his head a slight bow in Sam’s direction, respectfully. “Thank you, sir. You’re welcome to join us.”

He laughed. “No, I think I’ll pass. But this is a good idea. Brie,” he said, taking her hand and rubbing it between his, as if warming it, “you should go out for at least an hour, maybe two. Mike’s come all this way….”

She looked at him pointedly. There might have been a glare in her eye. “You didn’t tell Jack you were doing this, did you.” It was not a question.

“Of course not. He would have tried to talk me out of it. If you needed someone to pry you out of the house, he’d want to be the one to do it.” He grinned. “I couldn’t risk that.”

She seemed to think about this momentarily. Finally she said, “I’d better change.”

“Nah, you’re fine. Folsom isn’t any fancier than your shorts. Let’s just do it. You won’t be out longer than you’re comfortable.”

“Dad.?”

“This is a good idea, Brie. Go out for a while. Have lunch, a glass of wine. I’ll be right here when you get home.”

Mike got her into the car and started to drive. Brie was predictably quiet, which was what he expected. “You might be stressed for a little while, but I think it’ll ease up,” he said. Another few minutes of quiet reigned in the car. “We internalize when we’ve had a trauma. Grow very quiet, very private with feelings.” Again, no conversation. She looked straight ahead, tensely, holding the shoulder strap with one hand, her other crossed protectively over her belly.

“I was the fourth of eight children and had three older brothers,” Mike said as they began to drive into the foothills of the Sierras. “By the time I went to kindergarten, I had three younger sisters as well, so my mother, she was very busy. A lot of old-world traditions and values in my house—my father had trouble keeping us all fed, yet he still thought he had the world by the balls with all those sons, and I’m sure he wanted more. But it was a loud and crazy house, and when I went to school for the first time, my English wasn’t so good—we spoke only Spanish and some very bad English in my home, in my neighborhood. And although my father is successful now, at that time we were considered poor.” He glanced over at her briefly. “I got beaten up by some bigger kids my first week in school. I had bruises on my face and other places, but I wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened.” He concentrated on the road. “Not even my brothers, who offered to add to the bruises if I didn’t tell them who had done it and why. I didn’t talk at all for a couple of months.”

She turned her head toward him, looking at him. He met her eyes. “From working with kids who were victims of abuse, I learned that’s not unusual. To go silent like that. I also learned it’s all right to get your bearings before you start talking.”

“What made you talk?” she asked.

He chuckled to himself. “I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but I think my mother sat me at the kitchen table, alone, and said, ‘We have to talk about what’s happened to you, Miguel. I can’t let you go back to that school until I know.’ Something like that. It was the not being allowed to go back, even though I was afraid of getting beaten up again, that made me more ashamed of those boys thinking I was a coward. Empty-headed machismo even then.” He laughed.

“Did your mother tell the authorities?” she asked.

“No.” He laughed again. “She told my brothers. She said, ‘If he comes home with one bruise, I will beat you and then your father will beat you.’”

“Well, that’s pretty horrible,” Brie said.

“Old World. Tradition.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, Brie. There were a lot more threats than there were beatings. I don’t remember beatings. My father whipped us across the bottom with his belt, but never injured anyone. For my mother, it was the wooden spoon. Not your pansy gringo wooden spoon, but a spoon as long as her arm. Christ, if the belt was unbuckled or the spoon plucked off the shelf, we ran like holy hell. The next generation of Valenzuelas has given up that form of child raising. By the way, it’s not Mexican by genesis—it’s that generation. It was not against the law to beat your child if he misbehaved.”

She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, “Did you marry Hispanic women?”

He looked at her curiously. “I did,” he said. “Both times. Well, mixed Mexican.”

“You’re drawn to that culture…. Very strongly drawn.”

“I love the traditions of my family, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the marriages. I dated a lot of women who weren’t Hispanic. My marriages were brief failures of my youth.”

“What happened?”

“Well, the first time I was too young, and so was she. I was in the Marines, and she worked for my father. I wrote to her, married her while home on leave, returned after my tour of duty to find she was interested in another young man. I could have been outraged, but the truth is—I wasn’t faithful either. I was married and divorced by the time I was twenty-one. My mother was completely ashamed of me.”

“And the second wife?”

“Just a few years later. An employee at LAPD. A dispatcher.” He chuckled. “Time-honored tradition—cops and dispatchers. It lasted six months. My mother has completely lost hope in me.”

“I guess you didn’t cling to all the traditions….”

“You know what I miss about my family’s traditions? My mother’s cooking, my father’s skills and ingenuity. My mother and father did most of their cooking for large tribes on the patio—on the grill and in huge pots over slow burners. Mole, the old family recipe, tamales wrapped in banana leaves, enchiladas, carne asada. My mother’s salsa and guacamole would make you pass out, it’s so good. She makes a fish with sliced olives that’s amazing. Her shrimp in tomatoes, avocado and Tapatío is astonishing.”

“Tapatío?”

“Hot sauce. Pretty hot hot sauce. And my father could do anything—he built a room on our house, a gazebo in the yard, poured concrete, put a wall around the yard, rewired the house, built a freestanding garage—and I’m sure he did all that without building permits, but I had the sense never to ask. And the landscaping was incredible. That was his business, landscaping. He started out trimming hedges and mowing lawns, but later he started his own little business. It’s now a pretty good sized business with a lot of corporate clients. He has a million relatives and sons—he never runs out of employees. My father was an immigrant, but he didn’t have to naturalize. My mother is a first-generation American, born in Los Angeles—marriage to her validated him. But interestingly, she is the one to uphold the old traditions in our family. He wanted to acclimate himself to the U.S. quickly, so he could get about the business of making that fortune poor, hungry Mexican boys dream about. And he did, though he worked damn hard to do it.” He pulled into the town of Folsom, found a place to park and went around to Brie’s side to open her door.

“Tell me about your growing up,” he said.

“Not nearly as interesting as yours,” she said.

“Let me be the judge,” he said, taking her elbow and walking her across the street toward a gift shop.

As he maneuvered her through shops, galleries, antique stores and bakeries, she told him about life with three much older sisters who babied her, and Jack who fussed over her till she was about six, then again when he was home on leave. Her household didn’t sound terribly different from his, except that her mother didn’t cook outside, use oversize cooking pots and implements, and her father was a whiz at numbers and investing, not building or landscaping. Otherwise, their childhoods were similar—large families filled with noise and laughter, loyalty and blistering sibling fights. “The girls fought like animals,” she said. “They never fought with me—I was the baby. And Jack was threatened with certain death if he ever struck a girl, so they went after him with a vengeance, knowing he was helpless.”

“Any chance there’s a video of that somewhere?” he asked, laughing.

“If there was, Jack would have it destroyed by now. They were terrible to him. It’s amazing he loves them now. Of course, he had his revenge in small ways. He played tricks on them constantly—but to his credit, he never fought them physically. Fought back, I should say. Until he returned from his first hitch in the Marines, I believe he wished them dead.”

Mike stopped walking outside a corner pub and looked at his watch. “I’ll bet you’re getting hungry.”

“There’s a Mexican place down the street,” she said.

“Nah, there’s not a Mexican restaurant in the world that can satisfy me now. I’m a mama’s boy. How about a hamburger?” he asked.

She smiled. “Sure. This has been easier than I expected.”

“We’re taking it nice and slow and you’ve been distracted by conversation,” he said.

“That sounds so professional,” she commented, entering the pub. “And here I thought you were having fun.”

He laughed at her. “Surely you can tell I’m completely miserable,” he said. “Of course I’m having fun. But I’m here on a mission—getting you out. If I happen to have a good time while I’m doing it, even better.”

He directed her to a corner booth, moved her into the seat from which she could see the whole restaurant so she wouldn’t feel vulnerable, and told her to order a beer or glass of wine. There were only a few people in the pub, so she could easily see everyone having lunch. Then they ordered hamburgers and continued the discussion into the teenage years—their grades, dates, trouble they’d been in. Here they were opposites—Brie was an exceptional student, had a couple of very polite boyfriends, never any trouble. Mike couldn’t concentrate until he was over twenty, dated anyone who would have him, got into plenty of trouble—even trouble with the police, who brought him home late at night more than once, waking his parents. By the time they were halfway through their hamburgers, there was a slight disturbance in the pub. A man shouted at the waiter, “It’s unacceptable!”

Brie’s eyes grew round and Mike looked over his shoulder. There were two couples across the room at a table; they looked to be middle-aged married couples. One of the men was irate, while the other tried to mollify him, placing a hand over his forearm and speaking quietly. Both women drew back, if not just embarrassed, then concerned. The waiter leaned down and said something to the angry man, and he reacted. He picked up his glass of beer and hurled it toward the bar, smashing the glass, beer splattering and shards of glass flying. If the pub had been more crowded, it could have been dangerous. “Not good enough!” he shouted.

Brie gasped and stiffened, terror in her eyes. Mike glanced at her, glanced over his shoulder again, back at Brie. Panic was showing on her face.

Then the owner or manager came rushing into the room and to the table, speaking quietly first to the waiter, then to the disgruntled customer. The angry diner talked back, though his words were impossible to make out. The other man at the table clearly tried to quiet him, but he stood abruptly and shoved the manager, causing him to take a few steps backward.

Mike looked at a terrified Brie and thought, this is all she needs. Bullshit like this her first time out in the real public. He put a hand over hers. “Stay right here and breathe deeply.” Then he got up and strode purposefully toward the table. Already kitchen staff were peeking out the window in the swinging door to the kitchen.

Mike placed himself between the waiter and manager, directly in front of the offender, and was grateful that he was taller than all of them, younger and more fit than the pissed-off man. He looked into the manager’s eyes and said calmly, “Call the police, please.”

“Thank you, sir. I believe we can handle the situation now.”

“Then if you’ll allow me the use of your phone, I’ll place the call.”

The angry customer tried to shove Mike out of the way and said, “I’m getting the hell out of this shit hole.”

Mike simply straightened, grabbed the wrist of the man’s hand to ward off his shove, blocked his passage and raised the palm of his other hand. He used an authoritative voice to say, “Please sit down, sir. I don’t believe you’ve paid for your meal and drinks.” He was firm but polite. Though Mike was only a couple of inches taller, he was younger and the expression on his face very determined. The man sat. Then Mike looked at the manager and said, “The police, if you please.”

“Here,” said the friend, standing, opening his wallet. “Let me just pay for it and—”

“I’m sorry, sir, but your angry friend is going to settle up with the police now. Throwing glassware, assaulting the management is against the law.” Then he looked over his shoulder, lifted his eyebrows to the manager and gave a nod.

“Call the police,” the manager instructed the waiter, and the young man fled.

Twenty minutes later the local police took the angry client away, still sputtering about his terrible meal. It turned out that his dissatisfaction with his lunch had been met with an offer of a replacement meal or discount from the waiter, but the man had wanted his entire foursome comped, despite protests from his wife and the other couple. It also turned out he was a little drunk and unmanageable. Handcuffs were not necessary, but the police decided it would be best if these visitors were escorted out of town and everyone exited calmly. The little pub returned to its quiet atmosphere.

The manager brought Mike a beer and Brie the wine she’d had with lunch. “With our compliments,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you very much,” Mike said. Then, turning to Brie, he placed a hand softly over hers and said, “God, I’m so sorry that happened, Brie. I hope you’re not too upset.”

Brie’s eyes were actually twinkling. She smiled. “Talk about baptism by fire,” she said.

“Of all the days for that clown to get tanked and cause trouble—”

But Brie answered him with a laugh. “God. For a minute I had all kinds of hysterical fears—and then it was over. The police were called, he was escorted away and it was over. Plus,” she said, lifting her glass, “free drinks.”

Mike’s brows drew together, concern that she’d become hysterical. “I’ll cover the drinks in the tip. I guess you’re not hopelessly traumatized?”

“No.” She laughed again. “I’m reminded. I’ve been up against some scary individuals, but ninety-nine percent of the time, they’re all bluster. They threaten, make a lot of noise, show off and then when they’re picked up by police, they cry.” She leaned across the table. Her voice sank to a whisper. “I’ve been reciting a mantra to myself for weeks—it’s been over ten years since an officer of the court was actually hurt by a defendant, and that ADA was not seriously injured. I’m not fixed, but I’m reminded—what happened to me was very unusual. What happened today was more typical.”

“You deal a lot in percentages, I guess,” he said.

“Ninety-three point five percent of the time,” she answered with a smile.

Every week, like clockwork, Jack received a letter from Ricky, the boy who’d been his shadow for a few wonderful years until joining the Marines immediately following his high school graduation. The letter was always addressed to Jack, opened with “Dear Jack, Preach, Mike and everyone.” It was the best part of his week.

When Jack first came to Virgin River, he bought the cabin because of its size and location, right in the middle of town. It had spacious rooms. He slept in one room while he worked on the other, then shifted his pallet. He was building the bar, not quite knowing if it would work in a town of only six hundred. He added the room upstairs and the apartment behind the kitchen, where he lived until Mel came into his life.

Ricky was a kid from down the street, a gregarious, freckle-faced youngster with a bright smile and the disposition of a friendly puppy. When Jack found out it was just Rick and his elderly grandma, he pulled him in, acting as something of a surrogate older brother or father. He had the privilege of a few years with the boy, watching him grow into a fine young man—strong, decent, brave. Jack taught him to fly-fish, to shoot and hunt. Together they’d gone through some fun times, some heartbreaking times. The day Rick left for the Marine Corps at the tender age of eighteen had been a day of both admiration and grief for Jack. There was a part of him that swelled in pride that Ricky would take on the Corps, and another part that worried, for no one knew better than Jack how challenging, how dangerous it could be.

When the letters came, he would share them with Preacher and Mike, then walk down to Lydie’s house—Rick’s grandmother. They would exchange news, for Rick wrote at least two letters a week during basic training—one to the bar where he had worked since he was fourteen, and one to his grandma. Lydie’s news was always censored, Rick keeping the rougher and tougher parts of his experience from her. But Jack read his letter aloud and Lydie laughed and gasped and shuddered, but loved hearing the unabridged version.

People started showing up at the bar when they heard there’d been a letter. Connie and Ron, the aunt and uncle of Ricky’s teenage girlfriend, always came around, hungry for news. Doc Mullins was as anxious as anyone, as were Mel and Paige. The Carpenters, Bristols, Hope McCrea. Everyone missed Ricky.

“They run us through the rain and mud with a thirty-pound ruck on our backs for miles and miles and miles, screaming and yelling about how we have to pay our dues, get tough—and it makes me want to laugh,” Rick wrote. “I keep thinking, brother, this is nothing. I paid my dues in Virgin River….”

Ricky and his young girlfriend, Liz, had had a baby together six months ago. A baby who hadn’t lived. They were too young, too fragile to be having a baby in the first place; too young and tender for such a tragedy. Being a father himself, Jack had no trouble imagining how the rigors of the Corps could seem like child’s play by comparison.

Jack missed the boy. Missed him as a father misses a son.

Mike stepped up his phone calls to Brie to almost every day and it reminded him of how he’d fallen in love when he was a boy. So much phone time. So many hours given to idle conversation about the day, the activities, the family. They’d occasionally drift into tenuous territory—religion and politics. At one point Mike asked her if she was driving yet and she said, a little bit. Over to her sisters’ houses, once in a while to the store, really quickly. “How are you doing in the car?”

“I don’t have a problem driving. It’s when I get where I’m going that I feel vulnerable. Unsafe. I have a new gun,” she informed him. “To replace the one I lost.”

He was silent a minute. “Uh, Brie. I wouldn’t want your confidence in the car to come from the fact that you plan to shoot the first Good Samaritan who pulls over to help you change a flat.”

“That isn’t exactly what I meant. But …”

“Never mind. I don’t want to know any more.”

She laughed at him. Her laugh seemed to come a little more easily these days, at least with him. “It makes me feel safer, even though it didn’t do me any good before.”

“I was wondering—do you want to have lunch again? Meet me this time? Provided you don’t have far to go and agree to leave the gun at home.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Maybe Santa Rosa,” he suggested. “I’d be happy to come to Sacramento, but it might be good, you driving somewhere that’s not just around the corner.”

“It’s a long way to go for lunch,” she said.

“Practice,” he said. “Expand your boundaries. Get out there.”

“But what’s in it for you?” she asked quietly.

“I thought that was clear,” he said. “There are a hundred reasons I want to help you in recovery, not the least of which is, I like you. And … I’ve been there.”

It worked. Lunch in Santa Rosa at a small Italian restaurant where they had pasta and iced tea and talked and the patrons behaved themselves. He held her hand across the table for a little while.

It was strange to Mike that he’d first become attracted to a feisty, tough character and now, even though most of the time she was soft-spoken and had trouble maintaining eye contact, his feelings toward her hadn’t changed all that much. He would welcome the old Brie back if she could fully recover—but he realized that even if she remained this vulnerable, he was feeling something strong. Something he wasn’t going to be able to let go of easily.

“Where did you tell your dad you were going?” he asked.

“Out to lunch with you,” she said, shrugging. “I made sure he knew which restaurant and when I’d be home. He was thrilled. Of course he wants me to get back into circulation. He has no idea how far I am from that. This is something. Well, it’s not getting back into the world, but it’s lunch with a friend. And that feels good.”

Two weeks later they met in Santa Rosa again, this time at a French restaurant in a vineyard, again small, where Brie could see every patron. And two weeks later, again Santa Rosa. When he first saw her, he wanted to rush to her, grab her up in his arms and hold her for a while, but he always put his hands in his pockets, smiled and nodded hello. By the sixth week and fourth lunch, she hugged him goodbye. “Thanks,” she said. “I think this helps.”

In between lunches, there were the phone calls. When they talked, he was constantly reminded of the spunky, smart-ass woman he’d fallen for. But he was faced with an uncertain woman; her confidence had been shattered. Yet in her core, this was the same woman—honest, humorous, brave.

Mike was faced with a first-time challenge. He was gentle with her, and kind—not difficult for him, because if anything he was a gentleman. But he had to work at making it seem he wasn’t worried about her; that he held no pity for her, when in fact there was nothing quite as hard as knowing a woman he admired so profoundly, cared for so deeply, had been brutalized in such a way. He couldn’t have her add his pain to her agenda—her recovery was difficult enough. It wasn’t easy to keep his concern from showing in his eyes, his smile. She needed strength now, not weakness. He would not be the weakness in her life.

Neither of them ever mentioned Jack in their conversations, except when Brie talked about the family, about growing up, how she’d missed him after he’d left for the Marines. So far Jack had not mentioned the phone calls or lunches.

Summer was growing old. Mel and Jack had been back from Sacramento since June and the summer had been fraught with tension for Mel. Her fifteen-year-old patient was very much on her mind, as she had not returned to the clinic to be tested for STDs. She had two pregnant women in her care, not to mention the other patients who wandered into Doc Mullins’s little clinic.

And her husband had not touched her in weeks.

Jack’s routine was to go to his business early, chop wood, look at the schedule for the day, confer with Preacher and do what work was needed at the bar—inventory, supply run, help serve at mealtime. Then, if he could get away, he would go out to their new homesite to work on the house in progress.

The latter seemed to occupy him more, because there he could be alone. And Jack suddenly seemed to need a great deal more time alone than he had before his sister’s assault. He didn’t talk about Brie’s rape; he was stonily silent.

Sometimes when there was nothing going on at Doc’s, Mel would drive out to her new homesite with the baby and watch Jack driving nails into the wood, planing, leveling, hefting huge boards on his broad shoulders. Ordinarily, he stopped work immediately upon seeing her, spent a little time with her. But these days, these weeks, silence consumed him.

Brie called almost every day, because if she didn’t call Jack would call her. She was improving both physically and emotionally, but Jack wasn’t. Mel was painfully aware that this was the reason he hadn’t made love to her in so long, and for them it might as well be an eternity. Their lovemaking had always been frequent and satisfying; sexually, they were a matched set. It was one of the driving forces in their marriage. Jack had strong urges, powerful urges, and Mel had learned to depend on the amazing fulfillment he brought her. Nothing could make her feel adored the way Jack did when he put his hands on her. She reciprocated, doing everything in her power to show him the depth of her love.

Knowing that it was the assault on Brie that was deeply troubling him, crippling his desire, she had exercised patience and understanding. But it was hard to lie beside him every night and not receive his usual advances. She understood his pain, his anger, but she also understood that she couldn’t let her man brood forever.

She had to have him back.

A usual custom of theirs was to spend an hour or two at the bar at the end of the work day, perhaps having dinner, perhaps just a beer or cup of coffee with some of the patrons before going home to their own dinner. On this particular day, Mel simply went home. She hadn’t even stopped by the bar to say goodbye. She fed the baby and put him down, showered, put on one of Jack’s shirts and sat on the couch with the cool evening breezes drifting through the screen door. She could smell his scent on his shirt—his special musk mixed with the wood and wind and river.

He called and asked where she was and she said, “I decided to just come home tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because there was no one to talk to at the bar,” she said.

“But I’m here.”

“Exactly,” she said. And then she said goodbye.

Of course it took him only about twenty minutes to make his excuses to Preacher and get home. Mel knew that to have confronted this any sooner might not have given Jack the time he needed to work through it. In fact, she worried that it might still be too soon, but she was hell-bent to try. It had been a long time. Too long. The health of her marriage was everything to her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, coming in the cabin door.

“I’m lonely,” she said.

He sat down on the sofa beside her and hung his head. It was that hangdog look along with his silence that was eating at her. “I’m sorry, Mel,” he said. “I know I should have snapped out of it by now. I would have expected it sooner myself. I’m not a weakling. But it’s Brie …”

“Jack, Brie needs you, and I want you to be there for her. I couldn’t be married to any other kind of man. I hope you have a little left over, that’s all. Because I love you so. I need you, too.”

“I know I’ve disappointed you. I’ll do better …”

She knelt on the couch beside him, facing him. “Kiss me,” she said. He leaned his lips toward her, pressing his mouth against hers. He even made a noble effort to move his mouth over hers, opening and admitting her tongue. But there was no passion in it, no desire. He didn’t put his hands on her, didn’t draw her near, didn’t moan with his usual hunger.

She was afraid she was losing him.

“Come with me,” she said, taking his hand and leading him to their bedroom. “Sit,” she said.

She knelt in front of him and worked at taking off his boots. Then, rising on her knees, she began to unbutton his shirt. “This may not turn out the way you expect,” he said.

“Shhh. We’ll see.” She opened his shirt, pushed it off his shoulders and began to rub her hands over the soft mat of hair that covered his chest. She kissed his chest, running a small tongue over his nipples, one at a time. She pushed him back on the bed and slowly opened his belt, the snap on his jeans, the zipper. She kissed his belly. She hooked her small hands into his jeans and tugged, bringing them down over his hips. Down off his long legs. It did not escape her that he was barely rising to the occasion, and for Jack this was astonishing. He was known to spring to life at the mere suggestion there might be sex coming his way. But she wasn’t discouraged. Down came the boxers and she caressed a little life into him, then put her mouth on him in exactly the way he loved.

And there was that moan that she had longed to hear. That deep groan. He couldn’t remain passive during this, one of his very favorite treats. There. He responded, perhaps in spite of himself, but she didn’t care. It was a start.

Jack had never in his life had a problem that kept him from wanting sex. In fact, during the worst stress of his life, he found sex to be a wonderful escape. But not this time—this time he’d been numb. He was barely aware it had been happening to him, and then his wife let him know when she came after him, demanding a response, and he suddenly realized that he hadn’t deprived only himself in some pattern of grief. He felt her small mouth take him in, and his body allowed him blissful separation from his mind. He closed his eyes in luxury. She climbed on him, hot and sweet, and he ran his hands around her bottom and under the shirt she wore, up to her full breasts, and heard her hum in pleasure, “Oh, Jack—I have so needed your hands on me.” It hit him, how much they depended on each other. They should be helping each other through the difficult times, not closing off.

He lifted the shirt over her head and brought her breasts down to his mouth, tasting their sweetness. Then he rolled with her, bringing her beneath him, filling her, listening to her pleased sighs and purrs. “Baby, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never meant to neglect you.” He moved and she bent her knees, lifted her hips to bring him deeper and deeper, her hands on his shoulders and arms, her mouth on his mouth.

This is what he loved about his woman, his wife—that she was as driven sexually as he. In this they had been beautifully paired and it had taken boldness on her part to bring him back to life. He’d never before suffered so long a dry spell, and it meant the world to him that she wouldn’t allow it, that she was desperate for him, that she was determined to have this back in their marriage. Thank God for her, he thought. Anyone else would have become moody, angry, taken offense or even ignored the drought. But not Mel; she was committed to him. Committed to this passion they shared. She would not give it up easily.

He grabbed her small, tight fanny and held her to him, making it good, making it right, the perfect friction that caused her to gasp and cry out his name. He chuckled, a deep raspy laugh, for he adored this about her—that she couldn’t be quiet, that when he did the things he knew she loved, she was swept away, helpless.

When she heard that lusty laugh, the sound he made when he was again in control, focused on nothing but bringing her pleasure, making her body soar, she wrapped her legs around him and blasted him with an orgasm so hot and strong, he trembled. As she weakened beneath him, she knew immediately he had held himself back. Saved himself. He was going to do it to her again before he let himself go.

She touched his beautiful, sculptured face with her hands, saw the smile on his lips and the dark smoldering fire in his eyes, and said, “Welcome home, darling. Welcome back.”

Brie had to forcibly pry herself off the couch. She’d rarely left her dad’s house since it had happened. Most of her outings were to her counselor or support group and a lunch once in a while with Mike. Lunches she looked forward to with anxiety and delight. Sam, so afraid of making things worse, rocking her already rocky boat, hadn’t said anything to her about it, but he knew. And she knew he knew.

Brad called almost every day, and while Brie wasn’t really interested in talking to him, she knew he’d tell her the truth about what was going on with the investigation. That was one of the things they’d had in common from the beginning—casework. Right now, if Brad could deliver the news that they had taken Powell into custody, it would make a huge difference in her life. But of course that had not yet happened.

Another person who called regularly was Christine, her former best friend and Brad’s new woman. Those were calls Brie refused to take, but even Sam’s advice that Christine stop calling had no impact. “She says that eventually you’ll talk to her, let her tell you how worried she’s been and how much she loves you,” Sam reported to Brie.

Brie gave a huff of laughter. “She just loves way too many people, doesn’t she?”

With every call, she’d revisit that drama in her mind, still amazed by the way the whole thing had unfolded. They’d been couple friends since before Brie and Brad married; Christine’s husband was also a Sacramento cop, Glenn. Glenn and Christine had danced at their wedding. Christine was a surgical nurse who worked for a private practice surgeon; she and Brie had become close. In fact, besides her sisters, Christine had been the closest woman in her life. They’d talked almost every day, seen each other at least a couple of times a week, with husbands or without.

Brie was aware that Christine and Glenn had some marital problems. They bickered over the usual things—sex, money and parenting. With two demanding jobs, two little kids and a too-big house, it seemed to Brie they were destined to have certain squabbles until the kids got older, until they could mellow out and get ahead of the bills. But Brie was wrong—a couple of years after Brie and Brad married, Christine and Glenn separated and divorced. They were almost more amicable than when they had been married. It wasn’t too tough to sit on the fence on that one—Brad saw Glenn at work and he’d drop by the house for a beer occasionally, and Brie and Christine remained friends. After the shock of Glenn’s moving out settled a little, it seemed to Brie that her best friend was in many ways calmer and happier on her own, managing her own money, getting a break from the kids a couple of days a week when Glenn took them.

There were signs that Brie had taken no notice of. Christine didn’t date or talk about men; a year after her divorce, their phone chats had become fewer—but Christine was very busy. It wasn’t easy being a single, working mom. And Brie’s job was demanding, her hours long, so she was usually the one unavailable for girlfriend time. If she were honest, she could admit Christine had always done most of the phoning, inviting. What was still impossible for Brie to grasp was that Brad’s behavior had never seemed to change. They talked on cell phones several times a day, were together every night Brad wasn’t on duty, making love as often as before. Up until the time he told her he was leaving, that he needed some space, she had no idea anything was wrong.

Brie didn’t know how it started between them, but Brad admitted it had been going on about a year. “I don’t know,” Brad said with a helpless shrug. “A couple of lonely people, I guess. Glenn was gone, you were always working and Christine and I were pretty close friends to start with.”

“Oh, you are so full of shit!” she railed at him. “You never once asked me to take time off! My hours were just what you needed to pull this off!”

“If that’s what you have to believe, Brie,” he had said.

It had knocked the wind out of her. The only thing worse than the pain was the shock and disbelief. Six months after the divorce was final, she’d thought she’d made some important headway in dealing with it, but it was as though the rape brought it all back; her depression over the divorce seemed suddenly brand-new. Robbed, again and again, she kept thinking.

Most of the time all she did was watch TV, snack, sleep, tidy up the house. Her concentration wasn’t good enough to read a novel—something she had craved when work had been so consuming. Working a crossword puzzle was out of the question—she couldn’t focus; she used to do the Sunday-morning crossword in ink before Brad even got out of bed. She couldn’t even go to the mall. But she made it to those lunches with Mike. She came to think of them as her secret lunches, almost the only thing that brought her away from herself, away from all the blows of the past year. Her father’s silence on the matter intrigued her; she hadn’t even whispered of these meetings to her sisters. It was as if that would take the magic away.

She didn’t even recognize the woman she’d become. She’d been so tough. Some people—mostly men—thought of her as hard. At the moment she was limp and frightened. She was paranoid and afraid it would never pass. She’d been dealing with the victims of crimes for years now, and a number of them had been rape victims. She had watched them wither, paralyzed, unable to act on their own behalf. As she cajoled and coached them for their testimonies, she would become frustrated and angry by the reduction of feeling that seemed to weigh them down, overwhelm them. The helplessness. The impotence. And now she was one of them.

I’m not giving in, she kept telling herself. Still, it had taken her weeks. Months. “I need some exercise,” she told Mike during one of their lunches. “I can’t seem to get out of bed or off the couch if I don’t have a specific appointment or lunch with you.”

“Have you asked anyone for an antidepressant?” he asked. “I thought it was pretty routine after a crime.”

“I don’t want to go that route if I can help it. Up to now, I’ve always had so much energy.”

“I went that route,” he admitted to her. “I didn’t think I needed to, but it became clear I was depressed—a combination of major surgery and being the victim of a violent crime. It helped.”

“I don’t think so …”

“Then you’re going to have to think of an alternative or this thing can swallow you up,” he said. “Brie, fight back. Fight back!”

“I am,” she said weakly. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I am.”

He touched her hand gently and said, softly but earnestly, “Fight harder! I can’t lose you to this!”

Well, she couldn’t jog anymore—she was afraid to be out there alone, even in broad daylight. It couldn’t be a gym or health club—she couldn’t have men looking at her right now. She remembered with some longing how she had loved being looked at. She had a small, compact, fit little body and lots of long, silky hair that she braided for court but let swing freely down her back the rest of the time. It made her heady with power to garner the stares of attractive men. Now if a man looked at her, it threw her into panic.

But she wasn’t going down without a fight—so she joined a women’s gym and started running on the treadmill and lifting weights. If she couldn’t have a full life, she was at least going to fake one.

The joke was on her—a couple of weeks of vigorous exercise and she was sleeping better and eating better. She felt it put her into the next stage of recovery, every day a tiny bit easier than the day before.

There were times she thought that if not for Mike’s attention right now, she’d be lost. Oh, her family was amazing—the way they managed to hold strong for her, encourage her and make themselves constantly available should she want to talk. But Mike, the very man she had vowed would never get near her when she recognized his flirting last spring, was the only thing in her life that allowed her to feel like a woman. For that she would be forever grateful.

Tommy Booth was the new kid in town, just checking in for his senior year at Valley High School. His father, Walt Booth, had just retired from the Army and had given Tommy his choice—a military academy, a nonmilitary private academy or Valley High. Tommy chose to live with his dad for a couple of reasons—he’d lost his mom in a car accident a few years ago and it had just been him and his dad since, a couple of bachelors who got along fairly well for father and son. And his older sister, married and pregnant and separated from her husband by the Marine Corps, was going to come to Virgin River to live with them until Matt, his brother-in-law, got back from the Middle East. She was going to have her baby there—and Tom was secretly a little excited about that. Plus, there were his horses, which he couldn’t take to a private school.

Tom’s father, a retired three-star general, had found this property a couple of years ago; the general had a younger sister and niece a few hours south in Bodega Bay and had looked all over California for the right spot, not too far away from them. Aunt Midge was sick; she had been sick several years, bedridden the past three. She was worse than sick—she was terminal, with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and her daughter, Shelby, was her full-time caregiver. Walt Booth had been ready to settle in Bodega Bay to be there for her even though he was more of a forest and mountains than beach kind of guy. But Midge had convinced him not to choose Bodega Bay because of her presence there—she wasn’t going to last more than a couple of years. She might be gone by the time Walt retired from the Army and if she was not, he could visit. Thus, Virgin River—close enough to see Midge and Shelby as often as he could, but the kind of place Walt wanted to put down his final roots. It had begun to look as if Aunt Midge was right—she couldn’t possibly have much longer. By the time Walt and Tommy got to Virgin River, Midge needed twenty-four-hour care, and Hospice was on the scene.

While Walt finished his last assignment at the Pentagon, he’d had the house renovated via long distance and the new stable and corral constructed. Tommy had seen it only once before actually moving in, but he loved the land—the enormous trees, the rivers, the coast, the mountainsides and valleys through which he could ride.

Classes started in late August. He wasn’t that jazzed about the high school. The kids sure weren’t as sophisticated as the D.C. kids. And Tom was a little bit on the shy side until he got to know someone. This being a small-town high school, all the cliques had been established ages ago, so fitting in was going to take a while. He was a big kid, athletic, but he’d been too late for football.

He met a kid in first period right off—Jordan Whitley, a funny guy. Kind of skinny and hyper, but really friendly. He hung out with him a couple of times after school. Jordan lived pretty close to the school, while Tom had to drive his little red truck all the way from Virgin River every day. Also, Jordan’s parents were divorced, he was an only child and his mom worked—which freed up Jordan’s house until about six. As long as Tom got home before dinner, in time to take care of the horses, it was no big deal to go over there for a little while after school.

Tom also learned that there were frequent keggers at an abandoned rest stop area right at the edge of Virgin River. Weekend parties that Jordan really wanted him to attend, but Tom always had an excuse. He didn’t know anyone but Jordan. And he was quiet about the fact that he had a house to himself for a few days every other week or so while Walt went to Bodega Bay. He wasn’t about to be overrun by Jordan and his tribe—if Walt ever found out, he’d be dead meat.

Jordan somehow managed to score beer at his house. After-school beer. Tom was very careful about that because if the general smelled it on his breath he was toast. But the other thing Jordan had going on was girls. He seemed to always have a different girl. So far Tommy hadn’t seen one that got him excited—Jordan didn’t seem to draw the really pretty ones. But it was kind of fun to go over to his house and get all the flirtatious attention bestowed on him, being the new kid and not that bad looking.

“Come on over to my buddy Brendan’s Friday night,” Jordan invited. “We’re gonna get lucky.”

“Yeah?” Tommy grinned. “Who you gonna get lucky with?”

“I’ve got this girl who wants me so bad she can’t hold herself back. And she’s on the pill.”

“So you want me to come over and watch you get lucky? I might have to pass on that,” he said with a laugh.

“She’s bringing a girlfriend,” Jordan said.

“I might come by for a beer,” Tommy said. “Let me think about it. I don’t know this Brendan guy.”

“He’s cool,” Jordan said. “He graduated a couple of years ago, and when his mom goes out of town, which she does a lot, the house is his. And if we get lucky, we can get lucky all night long, if you get my drift.”

“Oh, I get your drift,” he said. And he was thinking, you idiots. You don’t go banging the local girls who advertise they’re on the pill. He wasn’t stupid—that’s how you got stuff. Bad stuff. An image of telling his dad he had the drip sent shivers up his spine.

But he went. He popped the top on two beers, total, without finishing either one; he knew better than to drink anything out of a keg or punch bowl. There was a little pot floating around, though not everyone indulged. Tommy didn’t get near that shit. Too risky for a kid planning on West Point; too risky for a boy with a father like Walt, who would dismember him before killing him.

The girlfriend who was earmarked for Tom if he was interested was way too aggressive and ready for anything, and he just couldn’t see it. Plus, Jordan and Brendan were busy getting everyone as shit-faced as possible, as quickly as possible, and there was nothing quite as funny to watch—but inevitably boring. He finally slipped away about nine without anyone really noticing he was gone.

The next Monday morning at school Jordan excitedly asked, “Where’d you go, man?”

He shrugged. “I had to get home. My dad is pretty strict.”

“Yeah, but we had beer and girls!”

“I had a couple of beers,” he said. “And the girls. Well, I didn’t meet one I really liked.”

That made Jordan laugh almost hysterically. “Well, so what? You’re not …? You don’t still have your cherry, do you, man?”

In fact, he did. “‘Course not,” he said, because what do you say to something like that? Tom hadn’t made it with a girl, but not because he couldn’t. Because he was very careful and he and the last girlfriend back in D.C. had barely graduated to some petting before he moved away. He was in a desperate hurry to find a great girl, but she’d have to be a great girl, not just someone who’d put out. In fact, a girl who put out was kind of a put-off. And if he found a great girl, he was going to be a great guy to her, not someone out for himself.

“Come over after school,” Jordan said. “Maybe we can hook you up.”

“Listen, Jord, I know you’re just trying to be a good friend and get me laid, but how about you worry about you and I’ll take care of myself. Huh?”

“Aw, man, you don’t know what you’re missing!”

But Tom had seen the girls, the beer and pot, and he thought—actually, I think I do know what I’m missing. He hadn’t met anyone through Jordan who interested him. So far. “You take care of you—I’ll take care of me.”

Still, Jordan was one of the few friends he’d made. And Jordan loved coming out to the ranch and hanging around the horses sometimes. The general didn’t like him, but didn’t have a really good reason. Tom found himself a little torn—grateful to have a friend at all, but hopeful that someone a little more substantive would show up before too long.

A young man came into the bar and claimed a stool right in front of Jack. He was clearly under thirty. Jack eyed the polo shirt, khaki pants and loafers—not the mountain attire most commonly seen around here. This guy was not hunting, fishing or splitting logs. He gave the counter a wipe and said, “What can I get you?”

“How about a beer?”

“That’s our specialty,” Jack said, serving him up a cold draft. “Passing through?”

“No, as a matter of fact. At least I hope that’s a no—I just started teaching at Valley High School. I thought I’d get to know some of the folks around here.” He took a pull on his beer. “You have any high schoolers?”

“Brace yourself,” Jack said, lifting his coffee cup. “I have a new baby. By the time he gets to high school, I’ll have a walker.”

The young man laughed. He put out a hand. “Zach Hadley.”

“Jack Sheridan. Welcome aboard. How do you like it so far?”

“A little out of my experience, to tell you the truth. I’m used to a bigger school, city kids. But I wanted to give a rural community a try.” He grinned. “The kids find me real interesting—they laugh at my clothes.”

Jack grinned. “Lotta ranchers, farmers, vintners and that sort of thing around here. That, and hunting and fishing.” He nodded at the young man. “Not a lot of golf.”

“Is that what I look like? A golfer?” He chuckled. “Figures.”

Mel came into the bar, the baby on her hip. She passed the baby right across the bar to Jack. Jack hefted the baby and said, “Mr. Hadley, meet David, your future student.” David laughed, put a finger in his mouth and farted, bringing a big laugh out of Jack.

“Yeah, he’s just warming up. He’s going to be one of the fun ones, I can tell.”

Jack reached underneath the bar for the backpack. He very deftly slipped David into it and then the straps over his shoulders. “Mel,” he said, while getting David comfortable. “Meet Zach Hadley, new high school teacher in town.”

They shook hands and Zach explained he was renting a small place outside Clear River and was just getting around, meeting neighbors and parents of his kids. “Well, you’re here at the right time,” Mel said. “The locals will start turning out for a beer or cup of coffee.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Do you run this place with your husband?”

“No. I’m a nurse practitioner and midwife. I work across the street with Doc Mullins in his clinic.”

“Is that a fact?” he asked, intrigued.

“It’s a fact no one around here gives birth in daylight,” Jack said, serving his wife a short beer.

“My very able helper,” Mel said. “When I have a delivery at Doc’s, Jack usually sits up through the night in case I need him for anything.”

Mike came into the bar, took his place beside Mel. Jack introduced him as a former LAPD police officer who’d served with him in the Marine Corps. Next was Doc.

“You know, there’s a lot of interesting experience in this little bar. I bet it would be good for some of the kids to hear about your career choices. How about it?”

Mike said, “I’ve done that, actually.”

“You have? How’d it go?” Zach asked.

“Hmm,” he said, shaking his head. “They wanted to know two things—have I ever shot anyone and have I ever been shot. My answers were yes, and not yet. Shortly after that I was shot. I don’t think that’ll get the department any recruits.”

“I’d be happy to talk to the kids about birth control, sexually transmitted disease and sexual assault,” Mel said. “I’ve been looking for a way into the school—this is pretty conservative country.”

“Mel,” Jack said, “Zach was just saying he’s new and hopes he’s not just passing through.” Preacher came into the bar with a rack of clean glasses. “Preacher, meet Zach, new high school teacher in town. He’s looking for some volunteers to talk to his students about their career choices.”

“Hey, man,” Preacher said, shoving his rack under the bar, wiping a big meaty hand on his apron and sticking it out. “Nice to meet you.”

“You could talk about being a chef,” Jack said.

Preacher looked at Zach, smiled and said, “No way in hell. I barely talk to my own wife. Welcome to town.” Then he went straight back to the kitchen.

Zach leaned over the bar and looked past Mike and Mel to Doc. “Dr. Mullins?” he questioned hopefully.

Doc lifted his one whiskey of the day along with a bushy white eyebrow. He sipped, put the whiskey down and said, “In your dreams, young man.”

Zach picked up his beer and said, very good-naturedly, “That went well.”

“You know what you got yourself here, young man,” Jack said. “You got yourself an excellent place to have a beer.”

“How about you, Jack? You’d do it, right?”

“Sure, Zach. I’ll go tell the kids all the advantages of owning your very own bar. Right after that, Mel can teach them sexual responsibility. Kind of a little family business.”

“That’s it,” Zach said. “An excellent place to have a beer.”

Three

Sue and Doug Carpenter and Carrie and Fish Bristol—best couple friends—had been having an after-work beer at Jack’s a couple of times a week since he opened, so Mel knew them well. And Sue had called Mel to make an appointment for her sixteen-year-old daughter. On the phone she had said, “The girl is pregnant and we have to do something.” Well, this was Mel’s job—to give medical attention to pregnant women, whatever their age or marital status. And Sue was a bit put out that Mel insisted on seeing her patient alone first.

“What have we got, Brenda?” Mel asked, looking at the chart.

“I guess I’m pregnant,” she said. “Figures.”

Mel looked up from the chart. Brenda was a high school junior. From gossip between the Carpenters and Bristols at the bar, Mel had gathered that this girl was an honor student, cheerleader, student council officer—a leader. College bound; scholarship material. Nature certainly doesn’t discriminate, Mel thought. “Do you know how many periods you’ve missed?”

“Three. Can you get rid of it?”

Mel tilted her head, surprised by the caustic edge to the girl’s question. Brenda had always been soft-spoken, on the sweet side. The tragedy was usually that these young girls were ready to throw away their lives, their promising futures, based on some immature romance with a young boy. Didn’t sound as if Brenda was suffering from that syndrome. “You have lots of options, but first things first—how about I examine you to be sure that’s what’s going on.”

“Fine,” she said shortly. “Whatever.”

“Okay, let’s get you in this gown. Everything off. And I’ll be back. How’s that?”

Rather than answer, Brenda snatched the gown and didn’t even wait for Mel to leave before she began undressing.

Mel went to the kitchen, had a sip of her diet cola and ran this over in her mind. Maybe Brenda was just mad at her mother for finding out. Maybe the boy had taken off. Maybe a lot of things, she thought. She reminded herself to stick to the facts for now.

She gave Brenda a few minutes, knowing better than to stretch this out for too long. Brenda didn’t need to settle her nerves; she needed to get this over with.

“Have you had a pelvic before?” Mel asked her.

“No,” she said shortly. “Just do it.”

“Sure thing,” Mel said. “But let me get your blood pressure and listen to your heart first, if you don’t mind.”

“Whatever.”

“Brenda, excuse me, but are you angry with me?”

“I am angry in general,” she said.

Mel sat on her stool and looked up at the girl. “Because …?”

“Because this sucks.”

“Well, people make mistakes. You’re human …”

“Yeah? I could live with that if I knew I was making a mistake!”

“Okay, let’s back up a little. Want to tell me about it?”

“Why bother? Do it, okay? You’ll just think I’m as stupid as I already think I am.”

“Try me,” Mel said, crossing her legs, resting her arms on her knee.

“I went to a party. A kegger. I got drunk. I woke up sick. Puking sick. The guy I was with said he passed out and nothing happened. But obviously someone is lying if I’m pregnant.”

Mel couldn’t help herself—her mouth dropped open. “Brenda, you told your mother about this?”

“Not until two periods didn’t come, because how was I going to know? I did one of those home test things. I never thought it would be … positive …”

“Were you sore? In your vagina?”

“I was sore everywhere! Like I’d fallen down a flight of stairs! And so sick I wanted to die. My vagina was about the last thing on my mind!”

“When you woke up—you were dressed? Any evidence of rape?”

“Completely dressed. Right down to the vomit on my shirt. And in my hair,” she added with a shudder.

“And you were with friends? Anyone see anything?”

“I was with a couple of girlfriends and one useless guy. They were all as drunk as me. We’d never … It was like the first time for something like that. I’ve had maybe one or two beers, but I’ve never been to a kegger before. I’m obviously not much of a drinker.”

“Do you remember drinking a lot?” Mel asked.

“I don’t remember much of anything. A couple of the guys said I was totally shitty. Drunk out of my mind. And one of my girlfriends swears my date really did pass out right away.”

“Ever think there could have been a drug involved? Slipped into your beer?”

“What kind of drug?” she asked.

“What do you think happened?” Mel asked her.

“I think I got hammered and let some guy—Obviously I wasn’t in a position to make a good decision. Plus, these are my friends. Well, the girls I went with are my friends—they wouldn’t lie to me. I don’t hang out with the other ones who were there.”

“All of them were your friends?”

“Someone’s not—unless there was a guy there who also doesn’t remember.”

Mel leaned forward. It was in her mind to ask Brenda if she’d ever heard the term, whiskey dick. “An unfortunate reality for most males is that too much alcohol inhibits erection or ejaculation. Whoever did this remembers.”

“And is lying …”

“Well, somebody’s lying—and if you’re pregnant and can’t remember getting that way, it probably isn’t you. Brenda, you could have been raped.”

“Or—I could have been so stupid drunk I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Same thing, in my mind,” Mel said with a shrug. “Have you talked to the police?”

“Yeah.” She laughed bitterly. “Right.”

Mel reached out a hand to touch her knee and Brenda flinched. Mel’s mind immediately flashed on Carra and she cringed inwardly. “You have DNA in you, Brenda. The person responsible can be revealed.”

“Uh-huh. That should be interesting.” She laughed again. “Real interesting.”

“Listen, Brenda …”

“I don’t want to know. Whoever it is will just say I wanted it. Why wouldn’t he? And I would never be able to say otherwise, since I don’t fricking know. Meanwhile not only the whole school, but the whole town would know Brenda is a whore. Brenda’s knocked up, Brenda would like everyone to believe she was drugged.” She laughed at Mel. “Who are we kidding? Huh?”

“Is that likely? Let me tell you something—girls who aren’t sexually active don’t usually have one occasion of getting drunk and waking up pregnant because they wanted it.” Brenda looked away. “Have you been sexually active? Not that it matters in this case.”

Her eyes came back and the anger had seeped away. “I had a boyfriend last year who. I really liked him a lot. But we didn’t go all the way.” She looked down. “I wouldn’t give it up. I wanted to be sure, wanted it to be special. You know?” Now there were tears in her eyes, but they vanished as quickly as they had come.

Mel touched her hand. “It’ll still be special, honey,” Mel said, standing up. “When you’re ready, it’ll be special. Let’s do an exam, test you for sexually transmitted disease, get a blood workup for HIV.”

“H-I-Vee?” she asked, stricken. “Oh, fuck!”

“One thing at a time, Brenda. Are you up-to-date on the hepatitis B vaccine for school immunizations?”

“Hepatitis B?” she asked. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s also an STD,” Mel said.

“Oh, God,” Brenda said weakly.

“Take it easy, sweetheart. Feet here, in the stirrups, slide down for me, that’s it.” She put on her gloves. “Take a deep breath, let it out slowly and relax your muscles as much as possible. There you go.” Mel took a look and noted some inflammation, tenderness. She did her pap slide, then inserted a swab in the cervical area to test for chlamydia and gonorrhea. “I’m going to let that swab sit for a moment. Listen, do you remember the people who were at that party? And where it was?”

Brenda put the back of her hand on her forehead and her chin quivered. “All I want to do is get it out of me and get on with my life. School already started and everything….”

“I understand that, but I’m worried. This isn’t a situation we should ignore. What if some other young woman is attacked like this, made pregnant without even consenting to sex?”

“Or remembering that she consented?”

“Do you remember any bruising? On your arms, pelvis, hips? Buttocks?”

“My chest was really sore, and so was my throat. I thought it was from throwing up.”

“Where?” Mel asked. Brenda put her palm against her upper chest, on her sternum, right above her breasts. “On the outside? Like you’d been hit in the chest by a … by a basketball or something?”

“Yeah,” she said, apparently surprised by how well the analogy fit.

Mel finished her exam and helped Brenda sit up. “Would you be willing to talk to someone about this? Like maybe one of the nurses at the family planning clinic? Give whatever details you can remember?”

“What for?”

“For the future protection of some girl who doesn’t know what dangers lurk at a kegger?” Mel said.

Brenda looked down miserably. “I don’t know.”

“No one’s going to expose you. No one’s going to confront anyone without charges being filed. But for right now—you deserve better than to have no idea what happened to you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Okay. Get dressed. But first—will you tell me one thing? The party. Was it here? In Virgin River?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Right here.”

Mel had a long chat with a nurse in the family planning clinic in Eureka. She agreed that it was very important to interview this patient, but before that could even happen, Brenda miscarried. Less than a week later the test results came back positive for chlamydia.

Mel immediately got in touch with Carra Winslow. She was a little past caring if a parent answered the phone, but fortunately for Carra, it was she who picked up. Mel was straightforward—she told her there was a venereal disease making the rounds and it was imperative that Carra return to the clinic for testing.

She also tested positive for chlamydia. Mel fixed her up with antibiotics and made her promise to return to the clinic in a couple of months to follow up. Carra still refused birth control; she was no longer seeing the two-week boyfriend. And even though he had given her an infection, she still wouldn’t blame him or name him.

But this weighed on Mel’s mind mightily. She was afraid they might have a serious problem in her town.

September and October brought a time of year that Mel disliked, though it was good for the bar. Bear- and deerhunting season. Since there was no hunting inside the Virgin River town limits, the hunters they saw were those who passed through town en route to and from the lodges and camps in Shasta and the Trinity Alps where some of the best hunting was found. As a rule, these were a decent lot of men and even a few women, many of whom had been seen at Jack’s in previous years and made it a point to stop by to enjoy Preacher’s cooking. And Preacher went to a little extra trouble, knowing they’d bring their money and high expectations. They didn’t change the pricing of their food and drinks for the hunters—it was all sold on the cheap, catering first to the town. But Jack did lay in some of the finer liquors, like Johnnie Walker Blue, because this was a monied crowd who liked their drinks. And they always left a lot more money on the bar and tables than they were charged.

City girl that she was, Mel abhorred the sight of a beautiful buck tied to the roof of an SUV or tossed in the back of a truck. Having already been through one hunting season and being married to a man who happened to enjoy the hunt, she’d learned to say very little.

Jack and Preacher had always catered to the hunters and fishermen—it was one of the reasons Jack had built the place. During the season, the bar stayed open a little later if there were people around, and still opened at the crack of dawn. Jack usually stayed to help out until at least nine, sending Mel home to get David settled for the night.

At a time of day when Mel might already have been and gone from her dinner hour, she had a call to make with Doc, and brought the baby to Jack. Being over five months now, husky and strong, David was most often seen riding happily in Jack’s backpack as opposed to the front sling he had occupied in earlier months. As Mel slipped the straps over Jack’s shoulders, she said, “He’s fed and changed and I shouldn’t be too long.”

Mike was having his dinner at the bar when six hunters came in. Since Jack didn’t greet them as men he’d seen before, Mike assumed this might be their first time through town. These were young men, all in their twenties, and obviously having a good time. All six went up to the bar, made a few jokes about the bartender being part-time babysitter, which Jack took in good-natured stride. They eschewed dinner, opting for some drinks. Once Jack had set them up with beer and shots, they retired to a table, where they enjoyed rehashing every aspect of their hunt.

“Who do you think is the designated driver in that crowd?” Mike asked Jack.

Jack was watching, but said nothing. And Mike was watching Jack, because the latter had a good sense for things. Getting a little loud and rowdy was not frowned upon here, so long as you could keep your head. These boys were hanging in there, though they were ordering up more beer and shots; they wanted a pitcher and a bottle and were getting a little louder by the shot.

It wasn’t long before Paige came out of the kitchen. “Have you asked them about dinner?” she asked Jack.

“Last time I offered, they weren’t interested,” he said.

“Okay, let me just check before we close the kitchen.” She went to their table to ask them if they wanted anything to eat. “My husband has a great lasagna and garlic bread, but also some broiled, stuffed sturgeon fresh off the river and steamed vegetables, if you’re interested.”

“Husband?” one of them chortled. “Damn, my hunting sucks no matter where I go.”

She instinctively retreated a step and the man reached for her hand, pulling her back. “You can get rid of the husband, can’t you, sweetheart?” His buddies laughed at his brazenness and Mike thought, shit. This is not a good thing; you don’t want to mess with Preacher’s woman. He looked across the bar at Jack’s narrowed eyes. Oh, boy.

Paige simply pulled her hand back, smiled politely and didn’t grapple with them any longer over food. As she would have gone back to the kitchen, Jack stopped her and asked her to take David. He slid the backpack off his shoulders and into her hands and one of the hunters yelled over to Jack, “That the wife, buddy?” And Jack’s mouth curved in a slow smile as he shook his head—no, you don’t really want to meet her husband.

Now, what none of these idiots knew was that Jack hadn’t had a nice summer. His sister’s trauma was not that long past and he’d been in a real mood. There was a side of Jack that was all soft, crushed concern and a side that wanted to kill someone. This was not a great time to screw with him. Since Jack had shed the baby, a telling move, Mike thought it might be worth it to try to head this off. He stood up from his meal at the end of the bar and walked over to their table. He flipped around a chair from a neighboring table and, straddling the back, he said, “Hey, boys. You have a good hunt?”

They eyed him suspiciously. One of them said, “One buck—young. Not much to brag about. Who are you?”

“Name’s Mike—how you doing? Listen, I just thought I’d mention—you don’t want to overdo it. Especially if you’re driving out tonight.”

They started to laugh, meeting eyes with each other as though sharing some kind of private joke. “That a fact?” one asked. “And who put you in charge?”

“I’m not in charge of anything,” he said. “But gee—I’d hate to see anyone get hurt. These roads,” he said, shaking his head. “Sometimes pretty tight around the curves going down. And real, real dark. No lights. No guard rails.”

Right then, Mel came into the bar, hung her jacket on the peg inside the door and jumped up on a stool in front of her husband, elbows on the bar, leaning toward him for a kiss.

“Holy shit,” one of the men said. “Look at that one. Talk about a doe I’d like to bag.”

Jack straightened before meeting his wife’s lips. The look on his face wasn’t a pretty one.

“You know,” Mike said, laughing uncomfortably, “about our women. You boys don’t want to be giving the women around here any trouble. Trust me on this, okay?”

That set up a round of hilarious laughter at the table of hunters and one of them said, unfortunately too loudly, “Maybe the girl wants to get bagged. I think we should at least ask her!” But oops—glancing over his shoulder, Mike saw Jack had heard that. And probably so had Mel. And after what those two had been through earlier in the summer, comments like that were not taken lightly.

And that’s when Mike became convinced that these guys had been pretty well oiled before they hit Virgin River. They had absolutely no judgment. Hunting and drinking was a thing he disliked—frowned on by him and his brothers, both the Mexican brothers and Marines. Drinking after the hunt—that was another story. Especially if the shooting was done, the guns unloaded and stowed, and all you were going to do was walk out back to your camper.

He looked back over his shoulder in time to see Jack whisper something to Mel. Mel jumped off the stool, disappeared into the back and Mike thought, oh fuck. He stood. “Okay, boys. Settle up for your drinks and hit the road. While you can still see straight. Okay?”

“Relax, chico. We’re not quite done here.”

Chico? He hated it when people did that. You don’t want to call a Mexican man a little boy.

Out of the corner of his eye Mike saw him. He’d known he would. Preacher had come out of the kitchen and stood behind the bar next to Jack, arms crossed over his massive chest, those big, black eyebrows drawn together in a frown that only Preacher could effect with such a look of menace. The diamond stud in his ear seemed to twinkle. Jack had sent Mel for him. They were ready to mix it up with these guys, defend the place.

Mike absently worked his shoulder a little bit, loosening it up. He couldn’t remember hearing about a bar fight around here. Certainly not since Preacher had come on full-time. You’d have to be drunk and stupid to get into it with him.

These guys looked pretty fit. Lots younger by average than Jack, Preacher and Mike. But they’d been doing a lot of drinking, whereas that evening shot before closing had yet to be poured for the crew running the bar. The home team had been on coffee.

As Mike knew, Jack hated it when his bar got messed up. It was a sacrifice he’d make if threatened, but it made him very unhappy. Maybe he’d stay behind the bar and just let them wander off. Or maybe he’d enjoy a little fight, having had the kind of summer he’d had.

“Come on, boys. Get going. You really don’t want to mess this place up.” Mike said.

The hunters exchanged looks, then slowly stood. They began to move away from the table, having left no money to pay for their drinks, which was a sure clue trouble was coming. The one in the group closest to Mike whirled suddenly, landing a blow right to Mike’s face. It sent him skittering backward, his hand to his lip, ending up against the bar. He said, “Oh, you’re going to hate yourself.”

He wound up and hit back, left-handed, sending his assailant flying into his boys, knocking two of them off balance.

It started. Preacher and Jack were around the bar before Mike even delivered his first blow. Preacher knocked two heads together, Jack landed a blow to one gut, another jaw. Mike grabbed up his attacker, decked him again and then sent him into another guy, downing them both. Someone came at Jack with a ready fist, which Jack caught easily, twisted his assailant’s arm around his back and shoved him into his boys. In less than two minutes, six partially inebriated young hunters were on the bar floor, spread over some broken glasses and amidst toppled chairs and two tables. All of them were moaning. Besides that first blow to Mike’s face, they hadn’t even managed contact. The heartiest of the bunch got back on his feet and Preacher grabbed him by the front of his jacket, lifted him off the floor and said, “You really wanna be this stupid?” He instantly put up his hands and Preacher dropped him.

“Okay, okay, we’re out of here,” he said.

“It’s too late for that, guys,” Mike said. He yelled, “Paige!” She stuck her head into the bar. “Rope!”

“Aw, come on, man,” someone said.

“Just get ‘em the hell out of here,” Jack said, disgusted.

“Can’t,” Mike returned. Then to the hunters, “Hell, I tried to warn you. You don’t want to mess with the women. You don’t want to fight. Not around here. Jesus,” he said in disgust. “Shit for brains.”

Mike explained to Jack that not only were these boys too drunk to drive down the mountain, they might get down the road and claim they’d been jumped. Since they had all the bruises and the home team had only sore knuckles, it just wouldn’t be smart to take that kind of chance. Better to let the police handle things now. Fifteen minutes later each one of them was tied to a porch rail out front, and a half hour after that three sheriff’s deputies were standing around the front of the bar, assessing the damage.

“Merciful God,” Deputy Henry Depardeau said. “Every time I turn around, somebody’s getting beat up or shot around here!”

“Yeah, Henry, we’re awful sorry,” Jack said. “We hardly ever have any trouble.”

“And what was it this time?” he asked impatiently.

“That one,” Jack said, pointing. “He threw the first punch. That was so frickin’ rude, don’t you think? You can see, it was just out of line. You know?”

“You’re taking up way too much of my time!”

“I’ll buy you dinner one of these days, how about that? You and your boys just drop in anytime.”

“Yeah, yeah. All right, let’s load ‘em up. I sure hope you boys have yourselves licenses and your deer tag.” By the droop of one hunter’s head, it looked as if there were going to be more fines. It made Jack laugh. “Aw, man,” Henry said. “Poachers are usually quiet and polite so they can slip in and out of here unnoticed. I should book you for stupid.”

Hope McCrea, a feisty old widow, was almost a daily visitor at Jack’s. She liked to have a Jack Daniel’s and a cigarette at the end of the day. She’d often sit up at the bar next to Doc, but there were times Mike talked with her a while.

“You know I hired Mel to come up here, right?” Hope asked Mike one night.

“I heard that, yeah,” he said.

“I’d like you to come out to the house to talk about something. A proposition.”

“Well, Hope.” He grinned. “That sounds real interesting….”

“A job, you young fool,” she said, pushing her too-big glasses up on her nose. But she had a toothy smile for him just the same.

“I don’t want a job, Hope,” he said.

“We’ll see. Jack will tell you how to get there. Tomorrow. Four o’clock.” She stamped out her cigarette and left.

Mike drove out to Hope’s house the next day because Jack had said it might be at least worth listening to. Hope was seventy-seven and had been widowed for over twenty years. She had given Mel a contract for a year, paid her out of her own accounts plus the cabin she was living in, now with her husband and child. After that one-year contract was exhausted, Doc had pulled Mel into his practice and they’d managed a modest salary for her without help from Hope, which was exactly what Hope had intended. Mike had learned this from Jack.

Now, according to Jack, what she wanted was a town cop, and she hoped the same thing would happen—that she would pay him a salary from her savings for a year and the town would realize it was a positive addition and manage to pull together enough for his salary.

Hope lived about five miles out of town in a big old Victorian home that she and her husband had bought fifty years ago. They’d never had children and so had filled the place up with junk. “I’ve never been inside,” Jack had told Mike, “but the rumor is that Hope hasn’t thrown away a thing in seventy years.” After her husband died, Hope had sold off the acreage to her neighbors for farming and grazing land.

He pulled up to the remarkable old house and found her on the porch with her coffee and cigarettes and a folder full of papers. When he stepped up on the porch, she greeted him with a victorious smile and said, “I knew I would get you eventually.”

“I don’t know what you’d be getting, Hope. I have no idea how to be a small-town cop.”

“Who does? But you have lots of law enforcement experience, and clearly we can use it. Lately we seem to have had our share of problems.”

“Not from Virgin River people, however.”

“What’s the difference? If it happens in Virgin River, it becomes our problem.”

“What have you got there?” he asked, indicating the folder.

“Just paperwork. I had to get a little legal help from a county attorney. Here’s what I can do—I can hire you as a local security officer, a constable. Even though you’ve graduated from one of the toughest police academies in the country, you wouldn’t be recognized by the state as an official law enforcement officer, but that really doesn’t matter. If you run across a lawbreaker, you detain them and call the sheriff, just like you’ve been doing. You’re not prevented from investigating. Hell, any private investigator can do the same. You should visit the sheriff’s department, Fish and Game, California Department of Forestry, the Highway Patrol and some of our neighbor towns who have their own local police departments. Introduce yourself. Believe me, they’ll all appreciate any help, with all the territory they have to cover in these rural towns.”

“And what do you expect me to do?” he asked.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about speeding tickets.” She laughed. “You’ll figure it out. Assess the needs of the town. It’s a law-abiding place—there shouldn’t be too much stress. But, as has happened a couple of times too recently, if we get some real trouble, I want an experienced police officer around.” She lit another cigarette. “You don’t have to keep a jail. You shouldn’t need flashing lights or a bulletproof vest.”

“When would you expect me to be on duty?” he asked.

“I expect, if you’re around, you’re on duty. I understand everyone needs time off, needs to get out of Virgin River sometimes. If you’re around five or six days a week, that’s five or six more days a week than we’ve had. Let’s just hope our crime sprees fall on your work days.”

All that came to mind was a trip to Santa Rosa for lunch every couple of weeks. Something he hoped would become even more frequent. “Sounds like a paid vacation,” he said.

“With any luck,” she said. Then she opened the folder and showed him a one-year contract that displayed a pathetic salary.

“Not exactly a paid vacation,” he said. But then, he’d been looking for something to do, and it wasn’t necessary that he find work. He had his retirement and disability income, plus a little savings. “Why do you do this?” he asked. “First Mel, now me?”

“Hell, someone has to mind the needs of this town. This town is disorganized—I have to think what to do about that. And we’re growing, if only a little.” She took a drag. “I’m not going to last forever, though sometimes I’m afraid I might.”

She slid a badge across the table to him. It said Virgin River Constable. “I had that made five years ago. Nice, isn’t it?”

“You expect me to wear this?”

“You want to keep it in your pocket until you need it? You don’t have to wear a uniform or anything. You wouldn’t be the only guy in town carrying a sidearm or rifle. But I recommend you generate some forms so you can write up reports when you actually do something. There ought to be records. Want me to buy you a filing cabinet?”

He grinned at her. “Yeah. That would be nice. It doesn’t have to be big. And business cards, please. So I can be sure anyone who might need to call me knows my number.”

“Done.” She smiled back at him, holding out her pen. “For now, just drive around. Sit on the porch at the bar and talk to people. Fish a little and think. Think what your job is going to be—you’d know more about that than me.”

What a kick, he thought. The constable. Hah. For six hundred completely law-abiding citizens. “I feel like Andy of Mayberry,” he said.

“That’s a damn good place to start,” she said, pointing the pen toward him.

He didn’t take it. “Not just yet,” he said. “Let me get the lay of the land, then we’ll talk about this contract.”

“You planning to try to negotiate?” she asked suspiciously.

“Oh, I have a feeling that would be useless. But before I make a commitment to you, to the town, I’d like to find out how receptive my fellow cops are to having someone like me in the mix. Let me visit around a little. Lotta type A’s in law enforcement, Hope. Some wouldn’t take a rope from a guy like me if they were in quicksand. If that’s going to be the case, I should just save you the time and money.”

“I don’t really care what anyone else thinks about a guy like you.”

He stood up. “Well, you should. I could probably help out a little, but cops don’t work alone. You might not have local police, but you don’t want this new idea of yours to drive away the coverage you have. One thing at a time.”

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