A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)

A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)
Robyn Carr


Prologue

Marcie stood beside her lime-green Volkswagen, shivering in the November chill, the morning sun barely over the horizon. She was packed and ready, as excited as she was scared about this undertaking. In the backseat she had a small cooler with snacks and sodas. There was a case of bottled water in the trunk and a thermos of coffee on the passenger seat. She’d brought a sleeping bag just in case the motel bedding wasn’t to her standards; the clothes she’d packed in her duffel were mostly jeans, sweatshirts, heavy socks and boots, all appropriate for tramping around small mountain towns. She was itching to hit the road, but her younger brother, Drew, and her older sister, Erin, were stretching out the goodbyes.

“You have the phone cards I gave you? In case you don’t have good cell reception?” Erin asked.

“Got ’em.”

“Sure you have enough money?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Thanksgiving is in less than two weeks.”

“It shouldn’t take that long,” Marcie said, because if she said anything else, there would be yet another showdown. “I figure I’m going to find Ian pretty quick. I think I have his location narrowed down.”

“Rethink this, Marcie,” Erin said, giving it one last try. “I know some of the best private detectives in the business—the law firm employs them all the time. We could locate Ian and have the things you want to give him delivered.”

“We’ve been over this,” Marcie said. “I want to see him, talk to him.”

“We could find him first and then you could—”

“Tell her, Drew,” Marcie implored.

Drew took a breath. “She’s going to find him, talk to him, find out what’s going on with him, spend some time with him, give him the baseball cards, show him the letter, and then she’ll come home.”

“But we could—”

Marcie put a hand on her older sister’s arm and looked at her with determined green eyes. “Stop. I can’t move on until I do this, and do it my way, not your way. We’re done talking about it. I know you think it’s dumb, but it’s what I’m going to do.” She leaned toward Erin and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Erin, so sleek, beautiful, accomplished and sophisticated—so nothing like Marcie—had been like a mother to her since she was a little girl. She had a hard time leaving off the mothering. “Don’t worry—there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be careful. I won’t be gone long.”

Then she kissed Drew’s cheek and said, “Can’t you get her some Xanax or something?” Drew was in med school and, no, he couldn’t write prescriptions.

He laughed and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight for a moment. “Just hurry up and get this over with. Erin’s going to drive me nuts.”

Marcie narrowed her eyes at Erin. “Go easy on him,” she said. “This was my idea. I’ll be back before you know it.”

And then she got in the car, leaving them standing on the curb in front of the house as she pulled away. She made it all the way to the highway before she felt her eyes sting with tears. She knew she was worrying her siblings, but she had no choice.

Marcie’s husband, Bobby, had died almost a year ago, just before Christmas, at the age of twenty-six. That came after more than three years in hospitals and then in a nursing home—hopelessly disabled and brain damaged, with injuries incurred as a marine serving in Iraq. Ian Buchanan was his sergeant and best friend, a marine Bobby said would do twenty. But Ian exited the Marine Corps shortly after Bobby was wounded and had been out of touch ever since.

Since she knew that Bobby would never recover, since she had grieved his loss for a long time before he actually died, Marcie would have expected to feel a sense of relief in his passing—at least for him. She thought she’d be more than ready to step into a new life, one that had been put on hold for years. At the tender age of twenty-seven, already a widow, there was still plenty of time for things like education, dating, travel—so many possibilities. But it had been just shy of a year, and she was stuck. Unable to move forward. Wondering, always wondering, why the man Bobby had loved like a brother had dropped out of sight and had never called or written. He’d estranged himself from his marine brothers and his father. Estranged himself from her, his best friend’s wife.

So there were these baseball cards. If she stretched her imagination to the limit she couldn’t come up with anything her lawyer sister would find more ridiculous than wanting to be sure Ian had Bobby’s baseball cards. But since she’d met Bobby at the age of fourteen, she knew how obsessed he was with his collection. There wasn’t a player or stat he didn’t have memorized. It turned out that Ian was also a baseball nut and had his own collection; she knew from Bobby’s letters that they had talked about trading.

In the deserts and towns of Iraq, while they hunted insurgents and worried about suicide bombers and sniper fire, Bobby and Ian had talked about trading baseball cards. It was surreal.

Then there was this letter that Bobby wrote to her from Iraq before he was wounded. It was all about Ian and how proud it would make him to be like Ian. He was a marine’s marine—the guy who got into the mess with his men, led them with strength and courage, never let them down, hung with them through everything—whether they were up to their necks in a fight or crying over a dear-John letter. He was a funny guy, who made them all laugh, but he was a tough sergeant who also made them work hard, learn and follow every rule to the letter so they’d be safe. It was in that letter that Bobby had told her he hoped she’d support him if he decided to make it a career. Like Ian Buchanan had. If he could be half the man Ian was, he’d be damn proud; all the men saw him as a hero, someone on his way to being a legend. Marcie wasn’t sure she could part with the letter, even though it was all about Ian. But he should know. Ian should know how Bobby felt about him.