Second Chance Pass (Virgin River #5)(45)

“What if I’m involved with him?”

“This isn’t Matt we’re talking about,” Paul said. “I’m not going to bow out quietly. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll fight for you.”

“And if we made love all weekend? Me and Cameron?”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but that you have to know the truth. I’m in love with you. I’ve always been in love with you—and being in love with my best friend’s wife was torture.”

“What if I asked you to walk away from that situation in Grants Pass if you want a chance with me? What if I said I couldn’t deal with that?”

He hung his head. “Vanessa, you know I can’t. I’d never abandon a child like that. If there’s a price to pay, I’ll pay it—but not an innocent child.”

“This isn’t happening,” she said, shaking her head.

“Here’s what’s happening,” Paul said. “I love you. I think you must have feelings for me or you wouldn’t be so angry. There’s at least one child between us, maybe two. What we have to do is—”

“Vanni!”

They jumped apart at the sound of Walt’s voice yelling from the deck. Just the tone of her father’s shout sent a chill up her spine. She pushed Paul out of her way, thinking something might’ve happened to the baby. She ran across the yard and up the small hill to the deck, Paul close on her heels. But Walt stayed on the deck and if anything had been wrong with the baby, he’d have been inside. When Vanessa got up to her father he said, “It’s Aunt Midge. She passed. We have to go. You’ll have to pack up the baby again. Tom’s getting his things together then he can help you.”

And with that, Walt turned and went back into the house.

Vanni was frozen for a moment. She shot a look at Paul and he reached for her hand.

“Vanni, I’m sorry,” he said. “What can I do?”

She just shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do, Paul, except go quickly so we can get on the road…”

“Vanni, tell me you understand what I told you. I can’t leave anything in doubt now.”

She looked down for a moment. Then she raised her eyes and locked into his. “Paul, listen to me. There’s a woman in Grants Pass who’s having your baby. I want you to go home. Go home to her. Try, Paul. If there was something about her that appealed to you enough to make a baby with her, maybe you can make a life with her.…”

“No, Vanni, that’s not—”

“Try, Paul. Try to fall in love with your child’s mother. If you don’t at least try, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“You don’t understand. You didn’t hear what I said…”

“My aunt just died and I have to go,” she said. “Do what you have to do, Paul.”

Seven

W alt was sixty-two, but his only sibling, his sister Midge, was all of forty-four. She’d gotten pregnant at eighteen, had a six-month marriage to the father of her child and then lived her entire adult life as a single mother with her daughter. Shelby had just barely turned twenty-five. When Shelby was still in high school Midge had been diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. It had been Shelby and Midge all along, so it was no surprise that Shelby ended up as a caregiver when the disease progressed.

For the first couple of years of Midge’s illness, Shelby was able to either go to school or work part-time in addition to helping her mother, but it wasn’t long before Midge was a full-time job. The disease had been in its final stages for a couple of years, and while Midge had been ready to go, Shelby hung on. She’d told her uncle Walt many times she couldn’t say goodbye to her mother unless she believed she’d done everything she could to make every day count.

The tragedy or blessing of Lou Gehrig’s is that the body withers and fails while the mind remains alert and functional—Shelby and Midge chose to see this as a great blessing, for their time together had rich, sentimental moments. Midge had gone into a wheelchair four years ago, finally into a hospital bed two years ago, and soon after she was completely paralyzed. Shelby got a little help from her uncle who visited almost every week once he had retired. There was a home-nursing service, and then hospice.

They were in Bodega Bay and Walt had been prepared to move there after his retirement from the Army, but it was Midge who urged him to look further. She knew she wouldn’t last long and she didn’t want her brother to establish a retirement home based on her location. In fact, Walt had retired less than a year before her death and even that had been longer than any of them had predicted for Midge.

The drive from Virgin River to Bodega Bay was about four hours. Tom was dozing in the backseat of the SUV with the baby while Vanni sat up front with Walt. They’d made many such visits—most often Walt went alone, sometimes with Tom, sometimes with a pregnant Vanni—but now they were all going to say a final goodbye. Mike Valenzuela had offered to take care of the horses for them while they were gone.

Vanni said nothing as they drove, but stared out the window.

“I never even had a chance to ask you how your getaway with the doctor went,” Walt said. “With Paul waiting so apprehensively for the same reason, and all…”

“It was fine,” she said. “I was just thinking, I never got down there with the baby to see her—and I should have made that trip the first one. Before Carol and Lance. Midge was on borrowed time.…”