A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(31)

“Wait a minute,” Mel said. “He saved your husband’s life?”

“Uh-huh,” Marcie said. “Didn’t I tell Jack that?”

“I guess not. At least Jack never mentioned it.”

“Well, he did. He risked his life to save Bobby and was injured himself in the process. It’s not Ian’s fault Bobby lived with terrible disabilities. I appreciate that he did everything he could. I don’t know if you can understand this, but despite the fact that Bobby might have lived too long in a dysfunctional body, with no concept of what was happening around him, I got to—” Marcie glanced away, swallowed back tears and said, so softly, “I was with him a little longer. I’m very grateful for the time I had with him. Unfair as that might seem to Bobby.”

Mel took a deep breath. Jack was her second husband; she’d been widowed when she lost her first husband to a violent crime. She wasn’t even tempted to explain the details at the moment. Instead she put her hand on Marcie’s arm and said, “I understand completely.”

“There are other things. The way Bobby felt about Ian—how much he admired him, for one thing. Bobby thought Ian was the greatest man ever, he wanted to be like him. And this great man—he ran away from everything and everybody. It doesn’t add up. And then there’s something so silly—baseball cards. They both collected baseball cards ever since they were boys and while they were sitting in the desert on the lookout for bombs and snipers, they talked about those stupid baseball cards. There are things I want to know. You see?”

Mel smiled. “I see,” she said quietly.

“I tried to explain all this to Erin, but she doesn’t get it. I think it’s because I’m her first concern. All she thinks about is keeping me safe and from getting hurt any more than I’ve been over the last few years. I know Ian might never open up to me—I have to be prepared for that. He’s been very blunt—he doesn’t want to talk about any of it. Whatever happened left a very big hole in his heart.”

“Okay,” Mel said, leaning her elbows on the table. “I don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but I do have a little. I have myself a marine who’s been to war way too much and he has a shaky, vulnerable side. I don’t know all the triggers. I wouldn’t want you at risk when you finally decide to confront these things—”

“He’s not going to snap,” Marcie said. “In fact, I don’t think he even realizes it, but he is not a tortured man. Maybe he was a few years ago, and maybe those memories are still disturbing, but now he’s just a man who lives in the mountains…in a simplified life…and he lives alone. It’s less complicated than it seems. At least, that’s my opinion.”

“I know. He sings,” Mel said with a smile.

“It’s not just that. He talks to me about other things. About the old man who gave him the cabin, about the deer that comes visiting. He washed my hair for me. He heated water so I could take a bath. He goes to the library and he reads every day—he doesn’t read books about how to build bombs or make poisons—he has a big stack of biographies. He’s intelligent. Has a sense of humor he doesn’t really want me to see—I’m sure he thinks I’ll get the misguided impression he’s enjoying me.”

“Still—”

“No, he’s not on a hair-trigger,” Marcie said, shaking her head. “For some reason he thinks being alone is better for him…Eventually I’ll figure that out.”

“Marcie, I think your sister has run out of time on this. She suggested she should come up here and get you.”

Marcie stiffened. “Did you tell her not to?”

“I told her I saw you myself and that you were fine. But I lied when I said that, you weren’t fine. You had a fever, a cough, and—”

“And I was being taken care of! I’m fine! My legs are even shaved!” Mel straightened up with a questioning look on her face. “It was a joke—I wanted to shave my legs and he wondered why that would matter out here, in the woods. But they’re shaved, damn it!”

Mel smiled. “You’re comfortable?” she asked.

“Hell, there’s no refrigerator or indoor plumbing,” Marcie said. “Ian’s gone from before six in the morning till early afternoon and then he reloads his truck, so I don’t see him until dinnertime. He always cooks something and we talk during dinner, which is early, and then he likes it quiet so he can just read his book and go to sleep, like he’s always done. I’m lonesome and I want to watch Medium, and Men in Trees. I want my favorite CD’s and DVD’s—I used to watch Love Actually once a month. Comfortable? I’m getting by—better than when I was looking for him and sleeping in my car, but—”

“You were sleeping in your car?” Mel asked, aghast.

“Well, I was running low on money. And I hadn’t found him. We shouldn’t tell Erin about that…”

“That’s not exactly medical business,” Mel warned.

“I bet it is, somehow. I bet it helped get me sick!”

Mel just smiled. She reached down and picked up her bag. “Can I take your temperature, look in your throat, hear your chest?”

“Yeah, sure…I can’t seem to shake the cough, but I feel pretty good.”