A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(33)

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you sure that’s all you have to say?”

She leaned back and eyed him warily. “For now.”

The other corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “You’re one stubborn little broad, aren’t you?”

“Told you,” she said, lifting her chin. And she thought, It’s probably what got me through the worst of it.

“You don’t have to buy food or do chores. I just can’t figure out how a grumpy old guy like me helps you with anything.”

“Well,” she said, a little mollified and somewhat confused, “it’s because of the way—”

“Tomorrow I deliver wood. I’ll go early with a load, come back empty and reload. I can take you to town then. It’ll take me a couple hours to deliver that load, then I’ll pick you up in town. You’ll be okay in town for that long? Where will you go?”

“I’ll sit in Jack’s bar and drink coffee.”

“Take your medicine first. That cough gets scary.”

She smiled very happily. “Thank you, Ian.” And that’s when she knew. He might fight it, but he needed to go over the details of the past as much as she did. The more he acted out against it, the more obvious it became—he had a lot to get off his chest. They’d get to that in time. Then she’d show him Bobby’s letter, give him the silly baseball cards and go home feeling lighter. Better.

Seven

I an pulled into Virgin River and stopped in front of the tree. My God, what a tree, he thought. Decorated for the troops, obviously. And while it looked as if the trimming was complete, the cherry picker still stood behind it.

“Look for me in two and a half hours,” he said to Marcie. “I don’t want to have to try to find you.”

She glanced at her watch. “I’ll be waiting,” she said. “Thank you.”

He just nodded. But he watched her walk up the steps to the porch of the bar and then pulled slowly out of town.

It was very hard for him to admit it to himself, but having her around had brought him a strange comfort, and he had no idea why. Looking out for her made him feel better somehow. Making sure she was fed and protected against danger—that seemed to work for him, too. It was a lot of trouble, actually. If she hadn’t been around, he wouldn’t go to as much bother with meals. Three out of four nights he’d just open a can of something, but because she’d been sick and needed a hot meal he’d put his best foot forward. Plus, she needed to put on another few pounds. He had spent a lot of time wondering if searching for him, sleeping in her car and probably skipping meals had made her thin and weak.

Knowing she was going to be there when he got home, pestering and bothering him, made him hurry a little bit through his work, his chores. He couldn’t figure out why—he was damn sure not going to go over all that old business about the war, about Bobby. Just thinking about that stuff put a boulder in his gut and made his head ache. And yet, he had a ridiculous fear that this phone call to her sister would result in her saying, “I have to go home now.”

But there was no use worrying about it—she’s going to leave soon no matter what the sister says. It’s not as though she’d camp out in his cabin through the holidays—she had people at home. Never mind her grousing about her sister, at least she had a sister who loved her, cared about her. And what had she said when she asked for a ride to town? Just a little while longer…

It was the first relationship he’d had in about four years. Old Raleigh didn’t count—that had been pure servitude. If the man hadn’t left him part of a mountain, Ian would never have suspected Raleigh was even slightly grateful for the caretaking in the last months. Ian saw people regularly—he worked for the moving company when the weather was good, had his firewood route, went places like the library, had a meal out now and then. People were nice to him, and he was cordial in return. But he never got close; there had been no relationships. No one poked at him like she did, making him smile in spite of himself.

That business with the puma—her opening the outhouse door and yelling at him like that—he knew what that was about. She was afraid he’d get hurt by the cat and risked her own skin to warn him. Been a long damn time since he felt anyone really cared about him at all.

Maybe that was it, he thought. Marcie thinks she cares, and it’s because I was important to Bobby. If we’d just met somehow, it wouldn’t be like this.

But that didn’t matter to him right now. He liked the feeling, alien though it was. He’d be back for her in two and a half hours and while he was delivering a half a cord to some dentist in Fortuna he’d watch the time so he wouldn’t be late getting back to pick her up. And with every split log he stacked, he’d be hoping her family wouldn’t find a way to get her home right away.

It was just nine-thirty in the morning when Marcie walked into the bar, and there was no one around. She heard voices in the kitchen. She was going to have to go back there to use the phone anyway, but as she pushed the swinging door slowly open, she knocked on it a couple of times before she entered.

“Yeah, c’mon back,” someone said. That response was accompanied by a woman’s laughter.

There were four people gathered around the work island. Two couples. There was the cook, Preacher, and Paige, the woman who’d been helping to decorate the tree that first day. And then there was the local cop, Mike, and a very beautiful woman about thirty years old with light brown hair that went all the way to her waist. Mike was wearing an apron that was covered in red and green icing. “Hey,” he said, grinning at her. “Marcie. Did you find your marine?”