Sunrise Point (Virgin River #19)(24)

Her eyes filled again, but she seemed to will them to dry right away. “See? Very understanding of you.” She handed her half sandwich toward him.

“I think you took three bites. Small bites. Can you try a little harder? I really worked to build that thing.”

She laughed again, but she took a bite. And she thought, Oh, this is scary. Because if someone like Tom could actually like her, it would be unimaginably wonderful. If a genuinely good man who happened to live inside a very large, hard, sexy body felt the slightest attraction…

But she took another bite. “It’s very good, in fact.”

“What’s in the sandwich you bring every day?” he asked.

“What do you think? PB and J. Berry’s favorite. I make her have a banana or, these days, apple slices with it. Protein, carbs and fruit.”

He took a giant bite of his half. After he swallowed he said, “Teach her how to spread the peanut butter right on apple slices. Or, take some apple butter home today—peanut butter and apple butter make a mean sandwich. And let’s hook you up with some cider. It might be too much for the baby, but Berry can handle the cider—so full of vitamins, it’ll rock her world.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Could eliminate the nap—it seems to fill little kids with energy. But it’s good energy.”

“You are definitely the apple man,” she said.

“I love apples.” He grinned and nodded toward her. “One more bite. And can I have a slug of that water?”

“Of course.” She handed him the bottle. And she took yet another bite. “You have a gift here, as well,” she said, nodding toward the huge sandwich.

“Are you feeling a little better?” he asked.

She nodded. “I apologize. It hit me out of nowhere. The memories, then the crying, then the anger, then grief, then… I don’t know what happened. But thank you. I’m a lot better.” She held the sandwich toward him. He lifted both brows and she took one more bite. “That’s it,” she said. “Kill it. If I get hungry again a little later, I have my PB and J.”

He started on what was left of her half. “Why’d you name your daughter Berry?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I was alone, scared out of my mind and the only friends I had were the people in the drug-infested motel where I lived or the ones I met in the welfare or Medicaid lines and I just wanted a cheerful, happy name for the baby I had no idea how I would support or take care of. I liked it. The name.”

He frowned. “You were in a bad place.”

“Bad. Place.”

“And now?”

“Good place. The nicest job I’ve ever had, though I might not be saying that in a couple of months when the cold sets in. The kids are happy, healthy. I support them in a town that has welcomed us in spite of the fact that we really come from nothing. I’m very grateful. Life is actually good, despite the fact that I have some issues to work through.” She took a sip of water and handed it to him. “I need to get to work.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I think the best thing to do is for you to take the afternoon off—check in with Reverend Kincaid. Talk to him awhile…”

“I’d like to, but you pay better,” she said, smiling tolerantly.

He stood up and held out a hand to help her to her feet. “The investment will be worth it,” he said. “If Noah is helping you navigate this minefield, as you say, today’s meltdown might be worth the time away from apple picking.”

“You’re probably right,” she said. “That sandwich. That was nice. Even if you only did it when Maxie wouldn’t know.”

“Well, a guy has to be crafty when he has a grandmother like Maxie. She’s a little on the pushy side. Come on, we’ll swing by the house and grab some cider and apple butter and I’ll give you a ride back to Virgin River.”

* * *

A few days later, after talking to Noah and thinking things over, Nora phoned her father. “I remember now,” she said. “I sent you away.”

“You can’t take responsibility for that, Nora. You were only six. And I could see how difficult our situation had become. I thought you were terrified of my visits and rightly so—not only was Therese impossible at times, I was the one who punched a hole in the wall. Our relationship was out of control. I had to leave it—I was the kerosene on the fire.”

“How did you two end up together, anyway?” she asked.

“I asked myself that often enough,” he said. “We met at a college fair, a large presentation to potential freshmen by area colleges. I was one of many people working the UC Berkeley booth. I was walking around the area, looking at the other presentations, and bumped into her. Your mother was a very attractive woman. She made me laugh… .”

“She could be so funny,” Nora remembered. “There were times, between her white-hot rages, we could laugh together. She was at times so destructive that it’s hard to remember some of her good traits. But how did you end up married?”

He sighed into the phone. “We married too quickly. We had several dates, talked about the fact that here we were, older at thirty-nine and forty-four, both had wanted to marry and have a family and yet had never come close. A few months later had us running off to the courthouse to get married so we could try to get a start on that family before it was too late. And then it was living together as husband and wife that allowed me to see there was a lot more to Therese than met the eye.”