Moonlight Road (Virgin River #11)(81)

He laughed and wrestled himself to a sitting position, reaching for the mug. He took a sip. “My dad used to say if you put a bean in a jar for every time you have sex during the first year you’re together, then take a bean out for every time you have sex after that first year, you’ll never empty the jar.”

She sipped her coffee. “Hmm, I don’t know if that’s good news or bad….”

“Why are you up so early?”

“Aiden, it’s not that early. It’s eight o’clock. And I’m up because I have a lot on my mind. Like—Sean and Franci will be heading off to Alabama to his next assignment in just a couple of days. Can we have them to dinner here? Can you invite the whole family and help me cook? Is it okay for Luke and Shelby to come and bring the baby? Is he old enough?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Yes to all of that—except you can invite them yourself. Come back to Luke’s with me later this morning. Next?”

“I have to go back to Chico before Marcie’s baby comes. What will we do, where will you be?”

He took a thoughtful sip. “I suppose I’ll be wherever you want me to be….”

“Chico?”

He gave a shrug. “Would I be rushing you, crowding you, if I told my headhunter to look around Chico to see if they need a good OB?”

She let out a relieved breath. “Would you? Because my family is there. Except Drew—but he grew up there. He could come back after he finishes his residency.”

He put his cup on the beside table and reached for her. “Details, honey. Easy details, and we have plenty of time.”

“But what if you don’t like Chico?” she asked him, her brow furrowed.

“Will you be there? Because if that’s where you want to be, I’ll find plenty to like.”

“You say that now, but…”

He shook his head and pulled her coffee mug from her hand, put it beside his and said, “Erin, there won’t be that kind of standoff or dissent. I’ve been looking for the right woman for years and you’re the one. Do you hear me? You’re the one. You’ve lived in that town your whole life, built a career there. Do I look like the kind of fool who’d risk losing you over an impasse as silly as where we’re going to live?”

“But what if there’s no practice for you there?”

“God, you are dreaming up problems. If there isn’t there will be one near. If there isn’t one near, maybe I’ll build one.”

“Really?”

“Really…It’s going to be fine. We have a million reasons to make this work.”

“At least a jarful,” she replied with a smile.

“Let’s take a shower and have breakfast at Jack’s on the way back to Luke’s,” he suggested. “We can talk all the way there, all through breakfast, all day if you want to. But first, a shower.” He touched her nose. “No talking during the shower…”

“Are we going to put another bean in the jar…?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised….”

An hour and a half later they walked into Jack’s, holding hands. Rather than sitting up at the bar as usual, Aiden steered her toward a table because she had so much on her mind. She quizzed him about how he saw marriage, exactly. She wanted to discuss things like his religious commitments, because she’d fallen away from her church a long time ago. She wondered if he had strong feelings about how he wanted to be married. When she was young, she admitted, she’d had bride fantasies, but she had been a part of so many big weddings fraught with tension it no longer seemed important. And how about where he thought they’d live? Because she’d lived in her house all her life and wasn’t sure if she’d find it a relief to have something new and different or the kind of change too difficult to make. The only subject that didn’t come up was the most immediate one—Annalee. Erin, being a lawyer, knew that once you set the legal machine to work on an issue like that, there was little to do besides wait for it to work.

Through all of this they managed to order coffee and a couple of omelets, which Jack delivered on steaming plates in just minutes. “Here you go, you two. Say, Aiden—did you catch up with your cousin? Did you have a good visit?”

Aiden looked up in confusion. “Cousin?”

“Little blonde girl—Anna something…She said she’d barely arrived at Luke’s when everyone took off for the hospital.”

Jack shook his head. “Not that I know of. Something wrong?”

Aiden pushed back from the table. “Shit.” He shook his head. “Has she been around since?”

“Not my cousin, Jack. My ex-wife. She showed up unannounced, making waves, causing a few problems. It turns out our divorce papers from eight years ago weren’t filed or recorded properly, so we have to do it all again, and she’s not exactly cooperating. She even showed up out at Erin’s place when I wasn’t there. And I can’t figure out how—”

“Crap,” Jack said. “That was me. I bought into it. When she said she at least wanted to meet your girlfriend, I said Erin’s name. God, I’m sorry, Erin.”

But Erin had a very wide-eyed, startled look on her face. “I know how she found me. I was so rattled by her presence, by the things she said, I completely forgot. A woman called from the post office saying they had a delivery and needed directions.” She swallowed. “There was never a delivery.”