Shelter Mountain (Virgin River #2)(79)

“I wish. They’d all secretly love that, and we’d be grounded for life.”

“Can’t any of us stand up to those women?”

“Nope,” said at least three men in unison.

“I just don’t get it,” Jack said, for the millionth time.

“Jack, have you asked yourself, what if you’d been married to someone else when Mel came along? What would you do?”

“We’ve all asked ourselves that,” Ryan said dismally.

Jack had asked himself, though it was an unfathomable idea. There had been lots of women, yet no one before Mel. He’d been really fond of a few, yet somehow managed to not marry anyone. “I’d like to think I’d do the right thing and just kill myself.” He looked at the boys. “She getting out of this okay? Like with the house and stuff?”

“Shit. Don’t ask that,” Dan said.

“Oh, don’t tell me…”

“She’s getting the house,” Bob said. “She’s buying him out. And paying him alimony.”

“No way!”

“You were told not to ask.”

“How does that happen?”

“She’s an attorney, he’s a cop. She’s making the most money.”

“See—we need to go over there, beat him up.”

Christmas Eve they had ham and potatoes au gratin while Christmas Day it would be stuffed turkey. The clan started to gather at about four and the house throbbed with noise and laughter. They ate, drank, gathered in the family room, stuffed themselves into the family room, and sang carols. The men sang too loudly and off key and the women, to the last one, had to drive home. Mel and Joey steered their husbands to their beds, where they flopped down and would surely live to regret having beer, drinks and then brandies and cigars. The only thing that annoyed Mel more than Jack drinking too much on Christmas Eve was that he couldn’t stand up long enough to shower off the smell of illegal Cubans.

The kids were tucked in and the men were asleep, to put it politely. Joey was in her pajamas and Mel was in a soft and roomy sweat suit. They met in the family room. Mel brought the quilt and pillows out from her bedroom and they huddled on the couch together, eating ice cream and talking.

“You’re feeling well, except for the heartburn?”

“I’m feeling pretty wonderful,” Mel said. “For someone who has an entire gymboree inside of her.”

“And things in Virgin River are great?”

“Oh, Joey, you should see Preacher and Paige—I’ve never seen a transformation like that in my life. They are so in love, there’s practically a halo around them both. When they look at each other, there’s steam.”

There was a sound that caused both women to lean forward on the couch and look toward the front door as it opened. Brie came in. She was wearing her coat, her purse slung over her shoulder, tear stains on her cheeks. She stood in front of them and said, “I don’t want to go home. Alone. On Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, baby,” Mel said, opening her arms.

Mel and Joey instinctively slid apart so that Brie could sit between them. Brie dropped her purse, shed her coat, kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the couch in that little space they provided. And cried.

“It’s not like I haven’t gotten people through divorces,” she said. “But you can’t imagine what it’s like when the man you love, a man who’s leaving you, asks you to be his friend.”

“God, what nerve!” Mel said.

“You know what’s worse? I hate him for what he’s done—and I still can’t stop wanting him back.”

“Oh, Brie…”

“If he came to me tonight and said, ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake,’I think I’d forgive him. Do you know he’s asked me for alimony? That he’s going to spend on her and her kids? She’s getting alimony and child support from her husband, and I’m paying them, too, and they both have good jobs. They’re going to make money on the deal.”

“The bastard…”

“And I can’t wait to start hating him for that. But I’m so afraid I’ll start hating him, which closes the door on letting him back. I want him back,” she wept. “I think I still love the son of a bitch.”

Mel and Joey put arms around her and held her as she cried.

“I’m so sorry,” Brie said. “It’s Christmas. And I bet this is the first really good Christmas you’ve had in a while, Mel.”

“We’re family,” she said. “We rejoice together. We share our pain. You’re staying right here with us. We’re sleeping on the couch tonight, anyway. I bet it pulls out.”

“Why are you sleeping on the couch?”

“Our drunk husbands stink,” Joey said.

Fourteen

Jack rolled over early Christmas morning with a loud moan and a splitting head, and some memory of learning the facts of pregnant women over far too much alcohol. Or was that the previous night? He wasn’t sure. There might have been inappropriate joking in the presence of the women, but he hoped they’d all been too drunk for that. His mouth tasted vaguely like a kitty litter box. He opened one bloodshot eye and saw that the bed beside him was empty. “Oh-oh,” he said. The sudden knowledge that the only man in the Sheridan family not in trouble would be Sam did not comfort him much.