A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(71)

“I know,” Jack said. “How’s your flashlight? You need batteries?”

“To tell the truth, I’m not sure.”

Jack pulled some extra batteries out of his duffel as well as a hand gun he tucked in his waist. He tossed Ian the batteries, then two bottled waters that Ian put in each pocket. They walked down the road, looking right and left, and hadn’t gone far when Jack said, “Okay, I’m going this way into that stand of trees.”

“I’ll head this way,” Ian said, and they separated.

Ian walked toward the river, eyes trained on the ground, on the landscape, and occasionally up into the branches just in case that big cat was having a little game of hide and seek. And he thought some about the kid remembering himself at sixteen; he’d been a hothead, devoted to a few things in his life, and his dog was one of them.

He’d also been pretty angry with his father in general. His dad was a passive-aggressively cruel person—he wouldn’t leave a tip, drove real slow in the passing lane, withheld affection. Every birthday card or holiday gift was signed “Mom & Dad” by Ian’s mother. Every word that came out of the old man’s pie hole was a criticism.

After Velvet, Ian had stopped pretending it didn’t matter; he was bigger and stronger than his father and got right up in his face, giving it back to him, something he soon realized was tearing his mother up. His mother begged him to lighten up, let it go, ignore being snubbed or criticized virtually every minute. “How do you stand it?” he had railed at his mother. “He should kiss your feet, and he acts like you’re his slave!”

And his sweet mother had said, “Ian, he’s faithful and he works hard to support us. He might not be romantic or doting, but he gave me you. If that’s all I ever get from him, it’ll always be the world to me.”

Not enough, Ian remembered thinking. Not enough. Joining the Marines seemed like a smart and safe way to go—got him the hell out of there and to a place where he could be in touch with his mother and not have to put up with his father.

Then came his mother’s death, then more active duty leading up to Iraq. His father was the only family Ian had left and he was woefully inadequate. After Iraq, after a few scrapes that even he knew had all to do with some PTSD, he feared he was turning into the old man. There were random fights with guys he had no real quarrel with. Things set him off and he just lost it. Even if the Corps could look the other way for a while, Ian couldn’t. He’d been a strong leader who’d turned into an ass**le who just couldn’t cope. That’s when he got out, hoping he could get back to the man who was admired. Followed.

And Ian’s father said, “You are no son to me if you quit. If you run away.”

Ian said, “I never was a son to you.”

Talk about a standoff.

He scanned the ground, looking for any sign of the boy—broken shrubs or tree limbs showing that someone had passed, marks on the ground including drops of blood, recent footprints in the snow.

He also thought about Marcie. When she’d infiltrated his life, his first thought hadn’t been that she was beautiful and sexy. In fact, his twentieth thought wasn’t even that—she was sick, pale, listless…frankly, homely as a duck. Vulnerable and anything but pretty. Still, it wasn’t the pretty that got to him when she started to get a little color on her face—it was the pure contrariness. The fight in her—he’d always appreciated anyone with that kind of gumption.

She was just about well in less than a week and her eyes had started to regain that little spark that said she’d have her way, speak her mind and damn the consequences. How more like him could she be? He was able to appreciate her and give her credit—though not out loud—without getting captured by her.

Then slowly, he began to like her. No matter she fully intended to get in his business and mess up his life, she had a kind of drive that he couldn’t help but admire. She wasn’t doing any of it just for herself, but for herself and everyone from her dead husband to his family to Ian…to his cranky, isolated father whom Ian had been absolutely determined not to be like…but was.

It was when she defied her classy big sister and came back to his dusty little cabin that he fell. Aw, damn, what determination she had to be with him, to see it through, whatever it was she felt she had to do. Even she didn’t seem entirely sure what she was doing there—but she wasn’t ready to give up on him. And she had this insane idea that everything could be all right! Somehow, she was going to pull him back into the man he’d been to her dead husband; the brave leader, the fearless and committed man. Not someone who just dropped out of sight and isolated himself out of a kind of self-hatred. Into the man his father had never had the sense to be proud of.

Oh, God, I can’t have turned into my father so soon!

He forced his mind back to Travis Goesel, scanning the ground, the shrubs, the lower branches of the trees. He looked at the old watch that still worked. He’d been trekking without a sound from Jack for two hours and it was approaching four o’clock. They only had two more hours of daylight at the most, so he called, “Travis! Travis! Make a sound! Move something!”

He walked a little faster, scanned the terrain with concentration, and it came to him that it was good to belong to something. Even though Jack was out of sight and the other men where on the west side of the farm, he felt as if he was a part of a unit of men who had a purpose again and, until Jack piled in the truck with him, he hadn’t felt that in a long time. He’d been so anxious to sever himself from the pain of war, he’d forgotten how much the pleasure of brotherhood filled his soul. This, he had to admit, had all occurred because this feisty little redhead had come into his life. She forced the issue. She pushed him out of his cocoon while he was still raw, growing new skin.