Paradise Valley (Virgin River #7)(86)

“You wanna try your story out on me?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t believe me? You think that whole thing’s a line? Like I’m using my prison record to get in your pants or something?” he asked.

“Stranger things have happened,” she said with a shrug.

“I highly doubt it,” he said. He stood up. “I got arrested right here in Eureka. Call the sheriff’s department and ask for Sergeant Delaney in Narcotics. Tell him you want to know how much of a liar I am before you ever talk to me again. You know where I live. I believe you have the number.”

He turned and walked out of the common, got in his truck and drove out of Eureka without ordering flooring for the house.

Dan had been through enough in the past few years that he didn’t ponder her reaction for too long. He knew from the start, from the second he got back from Iraq, that things weren’t going to be simple for him. And after he’d crossed a bunch of lines, made himself a felon, he had very few expectations of people snuggling up to him. He didn’t blame her one bit. He wasn’t going to bother her again. He’d call her to drop off rent money if he was going to be out her way, but other than that, she had no need to worry he’d stalk her.

Tuesday night, while he worked in the kitchen of the old house, the phone rang. He stared at it for a second—there were three possibilities. Wrong number, someone who didn’t know the Creightons weren’t there anymore or Cheryl. “Hello?” he said.

“Okay, on Sunday I’ll bring the sandwiches,” she said.

He laughed into the phone. “Sergeant Delaney must have given me a very bad report card or I wouldn’t be hearing from you.”

“If I had instincts, I’d follow them. I think we might be two screwed-up people who aren’t exactly good for each other. Maybe we should forget the whole idea.”

“Whatever you want,” he said.

“Argue with me a little, huh?”

“Nope,” he laughed. “I know what I’m up to. You have to make your own decision. Your problems, such as they are, don’t worry me much. Besides, they’re yours. I’ve been working on mine for years now. I’m feeling pretty good. Sandwiches in the park or no sandwiches in the park.” She was quiet. “Cheryl,” he said seriously, “I don’t have expectations. It’s just time for me to move toward people again. That’s all. There was no 12-step program for what I had to deal with. It’s been a long, dark night.”

She sighed deeply. “Okay. Three o’clock. Same bench.”

“I’ll be there.”

Thirteen

Walt paid way too much money for his airfare to Montana, but there were only two options—book his travel two weeks out at a cheaper rate or get the hell up to Montana, where Muriel waited for him, at any cost. He’d called; he left the message: “I’m coming. I need to be with you.” And after ignoring his calls for a week, she had called right back, “Oh God, I need you to be! Hurry!” So the Friday after the shower at his house, Walt was on his way.

Muriel gave him an address for the house she was staying in. He arrived in Missoula by three, rented a car and by four o’clock he was in a little town smack between Butte and Missoula. He bought groceries and arrived at her house by five. It looked to be a small two-story with a dormer in an old-fashioned neighborhood. Children were riding bikes up and down the street, an elderly woman was kneeling in her front-yard flower bed, digging away; an old man sat across the street on his porch and Walt automatically gave him a wave. He waved back as if they were old friends.

I’m a screwup, he thought. Muriel had told him the production had rented her a nice little house in an ordinary neighborhood, yet this was not at all what he expected. He shook his head. It was exactly as she had described, and yet he’d assumed it would be flashier. He’d wallowed in some weird self-pity because she’d gone off to make a movie, forgetting that he knew her. Knew every inch of her. He’d been disgracefully out of touch, not hearing her, not listening. When he complained he didn’t know anything about movie people, he had no idea how correct he was.

The key was under the mat, just as she’d said. There were a couple of rockers on the porch and he was tempted to just sit there a while and take in the neighborhood. It wasn’t unlike the little house he grew up in, except they hadn’t had a porch. Muriel would need a porch; she loved the outdoors. Did the neighbors bother her? he wondered. If she brought her glass of wine out here, did the neighbor women all converge on her to ask questions about that movie taking place just out of town in the shadow of glorious mountains?

He carried his groceries inside first and he almost laughed. A small dining room was just inside the door and a little farther ahead was the living room—just big enough for a fireplace, sofa and two overstuffed chairs, a couple of side tables. The upholstery was old, faded floral. It was clean but old-fashioned and worn.

The kitchen cabinets were painted a faded pink, of all things. The sink was even pink, the appliances old and white. When he opened the refrigerator to put away his groceries, he found her celery, carrot sticks, cheese, sliced turkey breast and hummus. He smiled to himself as he unloaded salad makings, Chilean sea bass, rice, baby green beans, French baguette and butter, white wine and a bottle of Pinch.

Then he went for his suitcase and found the bedroom she used. He left his suitcase at the foot of her double bed. That was okay, he thought. He didn’t intend to let much space get between them at night. He poured himself a drink and went out to the porch to wait. He’d been in the country a long time; he’d missed the sounds of a neighborhood in early evening. Children laughing and yelling, women talking over the fence, a lawn mower somewhere down the block, the slap of the newspaper on the front walk as the paperboy flew by on his bike.