Shelter Mountain (Virgin River #2)(48)

“Can you make it out? Arms here, legs, head, butt. Penis,” John said.

Mel hadn’t been prepared for this—she watched a slow transformation come over Rick. His eyes grew wide; they began to mist. He gripped Liz’s hands tighter and his mouth fixed in a firm line as he struggled for control. It’s one thing to see a round tummy and know it’s yours, to feel movement there and understand it had life. But it was a whole lot more to see that baby, and know it’s your son.

“Oh, God,” Rick said. Then he lowered his head and his lips touched Liz’s brow while she held on to his hands. Then she started to cry and Rick began to whisper to her, “It’s okay, Liz. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He kissed her tears away and Mel thought she might cry with them.

Mel had known this boy for quite a while, since her first night in Virgin River. She was at once amazed by him and felt that she didn’t know him at all. When had he crossed over into this other life? What was he doing here, looking at his son on a monitor when he should be in his calculus class?

John finished with the ultrasound, printed them a picture to take with them, then, pulling Mel’s hand, led her out of the room, leaving the kids alone for a few moments.

“Whew,” Mel said. “I didn’t know he was going to be here. I know that boy pretty well, but I never knew him like that. A father. Growing up way too fast.”

“Young and dumb, and so in love they make me ache. You think it’s too soon for me to get Sydney into the convent?” John asked.

“At eight? Maybe just slightly.”

“She’s almost six months along. Fifteen years old. Holy shit, huh?”

“Shh, don’t let them hear you.”

“Mel, they’re not going to hear me. In fact, we’d better knock on the door or they’ll be doing it again. Right in the exam room.”

“They’re not doing it, John. Their hearts are breaking. How can there possibly be a happy ending here?”

On the drive home, Mel asked Liz, “Why didn’t you tell me Rick was going to meet us there?”

Liz shrugged. “Connie wouldn’t like it.”

“Why not? He’s the father.”

“Aunt Connie’s pretty mad about this. Mad at me and Rick. And my mom—jeez. She’s on the moon, she’s so pissed. She doesn’t want me to see Rick at all….”

“She sent you back to Virgin River, but doesn’t want you to see Rick?” Mel asked, wondering, How does this make any sense?

“I know,” Liz said. “Stupid, huh?” She rubbed her hands over her belly. “A boy,” she said quietly. Sadly.

Mel stole a glance and saw a tear running down the girl’s cheek.

If a woman is old enough to have a baby, Mel found herself thinking, then she’s old enough to love what’s inside her. Old enough to love the man who put it there.

Nine

While in Los Angeles, Preacher was able to leave Paige and Chris at the hotel for short periods of time while he went to the hospital. He was confident there was no danger to her. Although she still made phone calls to that treatment center regularly, even if Wes somehow slipped away, he had no way of knowing where they were. But whenever he returned, she would sigh audibly, her relief obvious, when he was back, shoring her up. He wasn’t quite sure if it was that terror from her marriage or something deeper. There were still some very large holes in his understanding of her. The largest of which was her family.

On the long drive to the city from Virgin River, hours and hours in the truck together while Chris slept on and off in the backseat, there had been lots of time to talk. Paige shared happy and animated stories about the soap-operaish beauty shop in which she had worked, good times in the old half a house she’d shared with her best friends, and she even talked about old boyfriends. She had opened up more about life with Wes, in hushed, careful tones so that Chris wouldn’t hear and possibly become upset. But when it came to her widowed mother and older, married brother, she seemed to clam up, grow tense and gloomy. There was deep ambivalence, but she didn’t explain. “I haven’t had much of a relationship with my family since I married,” she said. “And Bud and I were never close, not even as kids.”

“Maybe that will change now,” he replied. “Listen, you don’t want to miss an opportunity. I’d give anything for an hour with my mother. I joined the Marines to get brothers.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

“Hey, don’t let me talk you into anything. But if you’re right here…”

“You might not like my family, John,” she said.

“Hey, Paige, I don’t have to like ’em. They don’t have to like me. I’m just saying, you have a chance to visit now, if you want to.”

It was four days before she called her mother, another two before a meeting was arranged. She invited John to take her to her brother’s house for dinner with the family; her mother would be there.

Preacher suspected within three minutes what the problem was, but it took him about an hour to put it all together. Fifty-eight minutes too long. He wasn’t slow; he hadn’t been around too many people like this. A big, silent, loner type of guy like Preacher, when he got a whiff of something off, he gave it a wide berth.

Bud, Paige’s older brother, met them at the door of a small tract home in a dusty little suburb where there were only about four different styles of homes, very few trees, and where people worked on their cars in driveways. Bud’s house had an above-average front lawn, trim and green, right next door to a house with a cyclone fence around a grassless yard. Bud was wearing a T-shirt with his khaki pants, holding a beer. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, coming out onto the stoop and down the sidewalk toward them. “There’s my girl. How you been, baby?”