Second Chance Pass (Virgin River #5)(101)

“I know. And, Jack? I just don’t want to leave anything important unsaid. I love you, man. You’re my best friend ever. You got me grown up. Nothing would’ve turned out without you.”

Jack swallowed. When he spoke, his voice wasn’t real strong. “There’s still lots of fishing to do, Rick. I’m counting on that.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I love you, too, son.” But he was thinking, If you don’t come back, who’s going to get me through it?

“I want to tell you something I did. I know I’m only nineteen, Liz only seventeen—both of us still too young. But I bought her a necklace with a diamond in it—a nice-size one, too. I told her it was my promise to her, but I also told her it didn’t hold her to anything.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Big step,” he said.

“Half a step, really,” Rick said. “Call it a first step. I love the girl, there’s no question about that. I’ve loved her since she was fourteen—it was my undoing. But there were so many complications for us, some real hurting times. If there’s a better guy for her, I won’t hold her back. But if there’s not a better guy…”

“Then what, Rick?”

“I’m driving her crazy, talking about school all the time. She’s gotta finish high school—that’s just one more year. And I’d really like her to get a little college—I asked her to at least try. When I’m done with this gig, I’m going to school. I’m not saying I’ll give up the Marine Corps—I don’t know about that yet—but I’m going to college. If it works out for us, if we get married, I want us to be smart, educated people. I want a family real bad—probably because of the one we lost, huh?”

“I guess that would set up a real strong desire, yeah,” Jack said.

“Well, if I get another chance at that, I’d like us to be smart enough to earn a decent living and have a couple of kids raised by educated parents.” He turned and grinned at Jack. “I think that kind of talk got her attention—she said she’d try to get good grades her senior year and she’d at least go to community college.” He sobered. “She said she’d do that so I’d be proud of her. Man, I’m already so proud of her—look how she holds up, huh? She buried her baby and said goodbye to me, and did she fall apart? She’s been solid. She’s been real brave, real strong.”

“You both have, Rick. A diamond, huh? How’d you save enough for a diamond?”

Ricky laughed. “I’m not doing that anymore, buying things like that with my per diem—I’ll save it for something a little more practical, like a down payment on a house or a car. But Liz deserved to have something beautiful that says I love her, that I couldn’t think more of her. Don’t you think?”

It made Jack smile. “You think she stood by you while you were gone?”

“Every day,” he said. “She gets real lonesome sometimes, and she misses all the stuff the girlfriends do—homecoming dance, prom, all that stuff. I told her to go—I could deal with that. But she said she couldn’t do that. It might lead someone on. She said if she’s still with me in the end, that stuff wouldn’t even be important. She writes me letters almost every day—longer ones when everyone but her is going to prom. Damn…There are a lot of times I wish I was more like you—totally free and not caring about any woman until I’ve had a chance to really live, see the world, experience the world—and then have Liz come along later, when I’m like thirty, or forty…”

Jack chuckled. “And there are a lot of times I wish I’d met Mel a long time before she’d hooked into that first husband, started our family when we were both a lot younger, before I started getting gray. I think if you’re lucky enough to find the right person at all, you don’t have a right to complain about when, how.” He put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and gave a squeeze. “I hope it works out for the two of you, son. You buried a baby together. It would be sweet if you could bring a couple of healthy and strong ones into your lives together. But I’ll say this—I think you’re smart to tell her to take her time on that commitment. Believe me, when you make those kinds of promises to a woman, you want her to be absolutely sure.”

“That’s what I think.”

A large fish jumped across the river and they were silent; he was huge. “King,” Rick finally said. “I haven’t seen one that size in a long time.”

“He must be lost,” Jack said, casting in that direction.

Rick took a few paces downstream, changed out his fly and threw a line. They played with him a while, then Rick hooked him and yelled, “Woo-hoo!”

“Lead him, let him take out line, tire him out before you—”

Rick laughed. “I know how to catch a fish.”

“Don’t screw around, get too anxious and lose him,” Jack said.

“You milking this cow?” Ricky asked him.

For the better part of an hour Rick played him, letting out line, letting him run, pulling him back, walking up and down in the shallow part of the river when the fish ran, and all the while he had Jack in his ear. “That son of a bitch is big. Let out more line. Don’t spoil him, he’s a fighter. He’s getting too far from your control, reel him back.” And on and on and on.