Paradise Valley (Virgin River #7)(69)

Rick’s mouth hung open. He stared at him in total astonishment. When he did finally shut his mouth, he opened it again to say, “You’re f**king kidding me!”

Jerry smiled. “God’s truth.”

“You’re a nutcase? And you think you’re going to help me?”

“I’m a survivor of a traumatic experience. It took a lot of counseling and I was already a counselor. As for us, you and me, there’s client privilege, which means I never talk about your issues. In fact, I don’t tell anyone who my clients are. What you say about our sessions is up to you—but I won’t mention I’ve met you under these circumstances. I don’t even take notes, in case they’re ever subpoenaed, but you don’t have to think about that—your session with me isn’t court ordered. So. Maybe you’d like to jump in, take a chance. Hear about the spaceship for dessert?”

Rick shook his head. Unbelievable. It was surreal. The guy who was going to help put his head back together thought he’d been abducted by aliens? “Holy Jesus,” he muttered. Jerry just lifted his pale brown eyebrows, waiting.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Rick said. “Bad stuff happens to me and the people who care about me. Started when I was two and my parents died in a car wreck. I bet if we could check back further, my mother probably almost died in childbirth….”

“That a fact? Like you’re bad luck or something?”

“Not like I am. You get mixed up with me, care about me, you’re in for it.”

“And you believe that?”

“I can’t help but believe it. There’s a long history of it.” And Rick explained the details, his voice cold and flat.

A half hour later, Jerry asked, “Tell me about your girl.”

“She’s not my girl anymore. I broke up with her, for her own good.”

“But you still know about her. Tell me some things so I know who you broke up with and how you’re feeling about it.”

He took a breath. Now, this was where the tissues might actually come in handy, if he broke down. “She’s amazing,” he said softly. “We had some of that accidental teenage sex when I was sixteen and she was fourteen. Happened so fast, we didn’t even see it coming. One time. I got her knocked up. She was scared to death, and she was just a kid. But she wanted to have the baby, and she wanted me. Her mother and aunt Connie wanted her to give the baby away, but in the end it was me who couldn’t live with that.”

“How’d you feel about the pregnancy?”

“Are you kidding? I wanted to disappear. Run for my life.”

“Did you?”

“I couldn’t do that to her. I stuck with her. I knew even way back then I loved that girl. It was totally nuts to love someone at that age, but I did. And we were going to find a way to keep that baby. My grandma and Jack, they were on board to help if they could. I was willing to do anything. Anything. Work ten jobs, whatever I had to do. I should have known I was no good for her when she got knocked up after one time. But then, just to drive the point home, her baby was born dead.”

Jerry cleared his throat. “I don’t think I missed anything there, Rick. It was also your baby. Correct?”

“I did it to her, though. I put it there, she loved him and took good care of him, and he was born dead.” His voice cracked on the last word.

“Very tough for the two of you,” Jerry said. “Very, very painful. You must have had a great deal of grief.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice filled with both anguish and self-loathing. “And my way of dealing with it was to abandon her. I told her I had to get my head together. I enlisted in the Corps.” He lifted his head, shook off the threat of tears. “She was scared to death of me doing that, plus I was going to be gone a long time, and she needed me. There was a war going on—I knew I’d end up going. And this girl, still just a girl in high school, she said if that’s what I needed to do, she’d stick it out. She’d wait. She’d be faithful, write me every day, and wait. How many fifteen-year-old girls do you know who could get through that? Get knocked up, bury their baby, send their boyfriend off to the Marines, then to war, and wait? I told her I wouldn’t hold her to that, but it was her decision.”

Jerry was silent. And so was Rick, for a little while.

“She missed every high-school thing that came along. While I’m off turning myself into a big man, she’s sitting home alone. She’s so beautiful, you just can’t imagine. And sweet. But she’s not a little girl anymore—she’s gotten so strong.” He let go a laugh. “Because of me. Because I put her through so much, probably. She’d stay home from things like prom and homecoming because she didn’t want any guys who would ask her out to think she was available. She’d stay home and write me letters instead. When I got blown up, she came to Germany, where I was in the hospital. She’d never been on a plane before in her life, and she flew halfway around the frickin’ world to see me, make sure I was alive. And I treated her like crap. Told her she shouldn’t have come.”

Quiet reigned a moment. “Sounds like a wonderful girl,” Jerry finally said. “Devoted. You must have been in a bad place, emotionally, while you were in the hospital. Would that be correct?”

“She just didn’t deserve all that. You know?”