Forbidden Falls (Virgin River #9)(15)

“Résumé,” he corrected, then damned himself for being so uppity. Why couldn’t he just accept her the way she was?

“Résumé,” she agreed. “I got some great tips from the girls who had more experience than me. Clean is good. Fast and clean makes more money.”

He laughed with genuine pleasure. “You’ve been in the trenches,” he said with appreciation. Admiration. “Come on—let me buy you a sandwich. If you’re not real hungry, Preacher will make you half, but it’s your first day working for me. My treat—come on.”

Three

For someone who had stuffed herself on pizza the night before, Ellie seemed to have no trouble packing away a very large chicken-salad sandwich and some of Preacher’s potato salad. Noah doubted the pizza story. He picked up their plates and carried them to the bar, and when he returned he said, “Jack’s bringing chocolate cake.”

Her hands were on her flat belly. “Oh, man, I couldn’t…”

“Just a bite or two,” he said. “So—you said you were raised on hymns. Tell me about that. I mean, if you want to.”

“Sure, I’ll tell you. I grew up with my gramma. What a peach—you’d have liked her. My mother wasn’t…isn’t…very stable. When I was born, she was clueless, so my gramma took over and my mother left and I stayed. When I was seven, Gram started teaching me to play the piano. It was a real old piano and about the only thing worth a dime in the house, but we had a neighbor guy who kept it tuned. Gramma hummed gospel tunes all day long and she loved it if I could figure out one of those old-time hymns. ‘The Old Rugged Cross,’ ‘Amazing Grace,’ ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness…’ ’Course, I would have rather played Elton John, John Lennon or Billy Joel, but for her I tried.”

“Where was your mother?” he asked just as the cake arrived.

“Jumping from man to man,” she said, lifting her fork.

“Were there more children?”

“No.” She laughed. “She figured out that much. When I got pregnant in high school, my gramma must have been scared to death that I was just following in her footsteps. I wasn’t really, but it must have looked like I was.”

“Well,” he said patiently, “what were you doing?”

She sighed. She shook her head. “Trying,” she finally said. “Trying my hardest. I got pregnant at sixteen. I was three months pregnant with Danielle and trying to throw together a fast, cheap wedding to my nineteen-year-old boyfriend when he was killed. It wasn’t his fault, either. His family sued the driver of the car that killed him, and they won. They were supposed to set something aside for Danielle, but I guess it slipped their minds.” That last was delivered with a dubious look on her face. “By the time she was three, I’d gotten my GED and had finally stopped feeling sorry for myself long enough to meet someone I liked—a guy who made nighttime bread deliveries to the convenience store when I worked there. Like some kind of curse, I was three months pregnant when he pulled that stupid robbery stunt.”

Noah chewed on the cake and this history for a second. He had a million questions, but the one that popped out was, “You didn’t have any intuition about him, that he was capable of a felony?”

“Ha, he wasn’t. He was an idiot. He was out with his friends, drinking. Twenty-two, drunk, and he thought he was funny—putting his lighter that looked exactly like a revolver—into the hardware-store owner’s chest and saying, ‘Hand over the money.’ The store owner was going to drop off his deposit for the night when my dipshit boyfriend decided to be cute. Didn’t quite work out for him, though. I guess the judge had no sense of humor. He was convicted. Did time.”

“Did?”

“He’s either out by now or due to get out.”

“Can’t he help you with his son? With the kids?” Noah asked.

“Oh, please. No, he can’t. And besides, I’m not going back that way. In fact, I’m not going back. Period.”

He smiled at her. “Have you always been this stubborn? This strong willed?”

“Uh-huh. For all the good it’s done me.”

“So—where did the husband come in? If that’s not too personal?”

“Nothing personal about it, Rev. I was a working mom with two little kids and two jobs. He was new in the area and came into the real estate office, looking for something to rent or buy. I was the office manager. Our agents didn’t find him anything, but he kept coming back, was real nice, real friendly. I thought he was a stand-up guy. Trevor was only two, my gramma had died a year before, and I was having a real hard time holding everything together. I didn’t rush into anything—I made him act nice for six months. I didn’t have much time to date, but I never had a single date alone with him—if he asked me out for dinner, I told him the kids went where I went, and that wasn’t a problem for him. He did a lot of talking about wanting to be a family man and just hadn’t found the right woman yet. I took that as a good sign.” For a moment she looked away and couldn’t connect eyes with Noah. “I knew I didn’t love him, but I was so tired,” she said softly. “So scared I wouldn’t be able to take care of my kids with my gramma gone. My kids saw more of the babysitter than they saw of me.”