A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(26)

It might’ve been nice if he’d awakened her to say, “I’m getting na**d to wash now, so if you don’t want to be embarrassed, close your eyes.” But then, no—Ian wouldn’t do that. It was his cabin. And he was a man. It had always intrigued her the way men could stalk around naked, proud as lions, completely unconcerned about being seen, judged.

They ate at the table together in the evening, talked a little bit, but not so much. When dinner was over he’d say, “I usually turn in right after dinner; the day starts real early for me.”

And although she’d have slept away most of the day, she found that, after a while of lying on the couch in the warm, dark cabin, she’d nod off again and not wake until he was gone the next morning.

Their dinner conversations were a wonderful diversion for her, and sometimes she could get him to talk about things she’d been wondering about for too long, but there was always a line she didn’t dare cross. When she started to tell him about Bobby’s large and devoted family, he pinched his eyes closed briefly, just enough of a message to say that he couldn’t go there. The whole Fallujah event that left Bobby physically disabled and Ian emotionally crippled was off-limits.

“I visited your father,” she bravely told him over dinner. Ian’s brown eyes lifted and the amber in them sparkled. “He’s very sick,” Marcie said.

Ian just looked down at his plate and shoveled more hamburger gravy and boiled potatoes into his mouth.

“He’s not particularly friendly,” she courageously pointed out.

Ian chuckled and it was an unmistakably sardonic tone. “He isn’t now, is he?”

“I assumed it’s because of age, illness—”

“Don’t assume. He’s never been easy.”

“I thought maybe because he’s unwell—”

Ian’s eyes snapped up, angry. “My father and I have never been close. Mostly because of that unfriendly nature.”

She took a couple of bites that were hard to swallow. “I thought you’d want to know.”

He took a breath and she could tell it took effort to keep his voice even. “Listen, he’s not worried about me, all right? It’s not keeping him up nights wondering where I am. What I’m doing with myself.”

“But if he’s just not well—”

“Marcie. My mom died when I was twenty. I checked in regularly to see if the old man was all right, but the fact is, he didn’t write or call for seven years. Seven.”

She swallowed hard. “But you called him?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking back to his plate, scooping up some food. “Yeah.”

“That must have hurt.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Maybe when I was younger,” was all he said.

“What an old fool,” she muttered, digging back into her own plate, angrily. “The idiot.” She took a couple more bites, small ones. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

After a moment, Ian said, “You didn’t know.”

“Well, all I can say is, his loss. That’s all.”

Again, there was quiet. Ian scraped the last of his food off his plate. Then he rose and began to rinse the dishes in the sink. Finally the words came that ended the talk for the evening. “Time for bed.”

Marcie was on her fourth day at Ian’s. Her cough was still hanging on but she was feeling very much better—enough so that the boredom was getting to her. She rose after Ian was gone, ate bread and honey, walked out back to the facilities, drank the lukewarm coffee Ian had left sitting on the woodstove, and tried reading some of his library book. She had no idea what time it was when she walked out back again.

The air was clear and crisp, the sky blue, the ground covered with a couple of inches of packed snow. She hadn’t even bothered to pull on her jeans, though she had put on her jacket. Her legs were bare between her calf-high boots and thigh-long flannel shirt. She might have wandered around a bit, but the woods were so dense beyond his lot, she was a little afraid of getting lost. A trip to the john was about all she dared.

She was near the outhouse door when she heard a noise and the hair on the back of her neck crinkled up. She turned to see an animal standing right between two big trees at the tree line. As she stared, wide-eyed, the animal crouched and hissed, baring its fangs. It was some sort of big cat. It looked like a small jungle cat—a tawny and unspotted animal. She’d never seen anything like it except in a zoo; it was as big as a good-sized golden retriever. She glanced at the cabin, at the outhouse. And then the cat darted across the yard.

In two long strides Marcie dashed into the outhouse, slamming the door. She sat down on the seat just to get her wits. There was a bang on the door as if the beast had hurled himself at it, then came a scratching and a snarling. Oh shit, she thought—he’s out there, after me! Waiting for me!

Well, it was cold, but it was probably better to freeze to death than to be mauled by some mysterious wild cat. So she stood up, lowered the seat—which was just an old Home Depot toilet seat, and tried to get comfortable, though the cold seeped through that flannel shirt pretty quickly, freezing her buns. Stupid not to even put her jeans on for this trek, but then she hadn’t been expecting company. She glanced at her wrist—of course she hadn’t even been wearing her watch.