Shelter Mountain (Virgin River #2)(85)

He was quiet for a minute. Finally he said, “Is there something special I should do?”

“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “If you sense a chronic problem, behavior you can’t understand or explain, think about support counseling. Maybe none of this will happen with Paige. I’m only telling you because it can. It might. You should be in the know. I think you do the things that come naturally—be loving. Forgiving. Patient. Understanding. That night with Jack? I held him in my arms and told him it was all right.”

Again he was quiet for a minute. “That woman, your friend. Those times her husband did something…Did she stop loving him? Even for a little while?”

“No. Never had anything to do with love. Plus, he saved her life, loving her in a pure way like that. It had to do with being hurt real bad once. A little time, a reality check on her part, a solid partner…She could always manage to get back on track. Kind of like Jack. Lucky to have good people around. Lucky to be safe.”

He smiled a small smile.

“If you ever sense something is wrong, don’t be too private about it. Let me help you with it. I know a couple of things about this.” She glanced at her watch. “I have a patient due. I have to go. I just wanted to talk to you about that. You take it easy,” she said. She jumped off the stool.

Fifteen

Wes Lassiter didn’t have to go to court. A plea agreement was reached by the prosecutor and the attorney for the defense, and it did not give Paige any peace of mind. The judge was disappointed in Lassiter for breaching the conditions of his bail by phoning Paige and trying to leverage her, but in the end he sentenced the man to forty-five days in jail, five years of probation, and two thousand hours of community service. Also required, a meeting at Addicts Anonymous every day, the order of protection was enforced and the custody agreement upheld. And he immediately went to jail.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re winning,” Brie told Paige over the phone. “He’s been compromised—he’s not getting away with anything. Even though the jail sentence is short, it might be enough to modify his behavior. Jail is ugly. Mean and dangerous. And the scuttlebutt is that he has to liquidate to pay his lawyer, which means you’ll be getting your divorce settlement.”

“I don’t care about that. I don’t care about money. I just want to be safe from him.”

“I know,” Brie said. “But in the grand scheme of things, forty-five days with the threat of the judge going bonkers and sentencing him to ten years if he screws up is better than three to five. Really.”

“Why doesn’t it feel that way?” Paige asked.

“Because you’re scared,” Brie said. “I would be, too. But this is good. No one’s letting him off. And the chance of him calling or approaching you in that five years of probation and getting hammered for it—that’s a strong deterrent. During that five years, he could actually move on. I don’t hold much hope of him becoming a different kind of human being, but, God help me, he might find a new target. Oh, God really help me.”

“I don’t know if that’s encouraging, or the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know,” Brie said. “So it goes in our business.”

Paige was notified that the house was listed for sale, and that her signature was required. Her lawyer sent her papers regarding the liquidation of 401Ks and retirement accounts. The closed checking and money-market accounts were accounted for, as well as the charge accounts and mortgage balances.

In a quiet moment, Preacher asked her, “Are you worried about money?”

“No, I’m worried about never being free of him. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“I don’t know what I can do about that, besides promising to do everything I can to keep you safe. But, it looks like you’re going to get a few bucks here—maybe something you can put away for emergencies. The being afraid part, we’ll have to take it as we go. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“I know you will, John. I’m sorry you’re stuck with this basket case who’s afraid of her own shadow.”

“I’m not stuck,” he said, smiling. “I’ve never felt stuck. I live a real simple life, Paige. I’ve never really worried too much about money. Maybe we should talk about that a little bit. Money.”

“Could we not?” she asked. “Money and things—it was so important to Wes. It drove him mad, trying to be rich, to have a lot, to look like he was successful. It leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that if a check comes in the mail, I might not even be able to cash it!”

“Understandable,” he said. “But I don’t want you to think that if you and Chris are my family, you’d have to worry about your future. His future.”

“When I look at the difference between my life then and now, I feel richer now. I have everything I need. Chris and I—we’re so much better off.”

Preacher decided to let the matter rest, at least for the time being. He’d never talked to anyone about money. He and his mom had been pretty much lower middle class, maybe poor. They lived in a two-bedroom cinder-block house with a cyclone fence around the yard and roof that wasn’t dependable. There weren’t any sidewalks or streetlights on their block. She kept it real nice, but he couldn’t remember a stick of new furniture in his lifetime. When she died, there was a policy paying off the little house plus a life insurance benefit and a small pension through the church. It was a small piece of suburban Cincinnati real estate in a declining neighborhood plus a modest amount of cash. He was only seventeen and didn’t care about what a sale might bring—he wanted his mom, their home together.