Moonlight Road (Virgin River #11)(57)

Within five minutes he heard a ping, alerting him of new mail. I’d love to, but that won’t work. Call me at once!!!

Despite Erin’s lack of sleep and her desire to spend the rest of her life in bed with Aiden, she was thrilled to see Marcie. Her sister looked absolutely beautiful—just as round as could be and happier than Erin had ever seen her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and her laugh quick. Ian was bursting with both pride and a very special soft attentiveness toward his wife. Those two, who had been through so much, had reached a place of peace and contentment in their lives, in their marriage, and it gave Erin great satisfaction to have helped them along.

She didn’t realize that she was looking a bit different to Marcie and Ian. She was calm and fulfilled, a lot more relaxed than was typical for her. It was something she could feel but didn’t know would show on her face, in her lithe movements, in her twinkling eyes and secret smile. After their initial hugs of greeting, she poured them all iced fruit drinks and suggested they sit out on the deck to watch the sunset. Ian and Marcie went first, Erin following with a big aluminum soup pot and a metal spoon, which she casually put beside her chaise.

“Uh, Erin—what’s that for?” Ian asked.

“Oh, I have that bear.”

Ian and Marcie exchanged looks, then looked back at Erin. “What bear?”

“I told you about the bear,” she said. “You know—the one in the house?”

“I think you might’ve forgotten to mention that….”

And then she tried to recall. Actually, she’d talked to them daily but had been leaving out anything in her summer at the cabin that had to do with Aiden, so she’d left out many things. But she was going to introduce him to her sister and brother-in-law, so she had better catch them up a bit. “Well, remember the vagrant who caused my concussion?” she began. By the end of her explanation and story, leaving out the more delicious details, they were both staring at her with wide eyes and open mouths. “What?” Erin asked.

“You fell in love,” Marcie said softly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erin returned with a flip of her hand. “I’m simply hiking and biking with someone and allowing him the privilege of chasing my bear out of the kitchen. By the way, I’m sorry about the cookies. I know how much you like them, but I was afraid to make more.”

“You fell in love with a vagrant who turned out to be a doctor and you’re like a completely different person,” Marcie said. “Erin, you’re all soft and cuddly.”

“Oh, pooh—you’re just very pregnant and sentimental.”

“When do we meet him?” Ian wanted to know.

“Well—I have you guys in town for the weekend and he has tons of family at his brother’s for the weekend and longer, but I guess we’ll all be at the Fourth of July picnic at Jack’s on Monday. Try not to embarrass me by making too much of this. All right?”

“All right,” Marcie said, grinning from ear to ear.

Aiden had had total peace in the eight years since his divorce. He hadn’t been able to find a woman to settle down with, but he’d been extremely pleased that he hadn’t had to deal with that whackjob Annalee. Well, apparently that was over—in true Annalee fashion. He should never have responded to her e-mail.

What followed were literally hundreds of e-mails. Call me immediately! I have to talk to you! You don’t understand how urgent this is—and I’m not telling you anything until I talk to you and hear your voice!

He knew she was cutting and pasting, or maybe she’d set up her computer to keep sending every five seconds, but that didn’t diminish the panic it threatened to fill him with. Just the thought of having her anywhere near his life at this time made him want to run as fast and as far as he could.

The only two people who could possibly understand his panic were his brothers Sean and Luke—the only two who had ever actually met her in the flesh. He had called them both—he’d said something like “I got in some trouble, got married to a nutcase a couple of months ago and now I’m working on a divorce, and I haven’t told Mom.” Luke, who had gone through his own horrific marriage/divorce crisis at roughly the same age, took some leave and flew to San Diego to make sure Aiden was all right. Aiden wasn’t too all right and Luke called in Sean.

Try as he might to get her to leave him alone, Annalee kept coming around. When Luke met her, he asked, “Holy shit, Aiden! Is she human?” He saw how beautiful and sneaky Annalee was and couldn’t believe she was real. Sean was the one who said, “Buy her off. You can make her go away with money.” They even offered to pool their funds to finance her departure, but Aiden hadn’t needed financial help. He’d been on a boat for two years; his money had been going in the bank.

Everyone in the family knew about her after it was all over, of course, just as they knew about how much trouble he’d been facing when he’d gotten mixed up with her. They also knew what it had cost him to get out of it. After all that had been resolved, his brief marriage to the little sex kitten had become a joke with his brothers—Aiden got off a big gray boat with a hard-on and the first willing woman he encountered was a sociopath with extraordinary skills in bed. Ha-ha.

Not so funny right now.

He turned off his computer. She might crash it with her e-mails. Tough. He’d just buy a new one. He knew from experience that even the slightest response could somehow set off the diabolical Annalee. In the past she had somehow managed to glean information about him and his family that he didn’t intend for her to have. He was sticking to his guns—he was done with her!