Sunrise Point (Virgin River #19)(45)

Enough. He flipped over to his email. There was one from Ben Bailey, the guy who was supposed to meet him in Virgin River. He was up to his eyeballs in mess; his septic system had died, but it had gotten real sick first. He was trying to get everything taken care of so he could make at least a fast trip to the mountains, maybe at least aim at a deer if not shoot one. It was only a five-hour drive from his place in Oregon.

Coop shot back an email. Come when you can. I’ll be here awhile. I’m between jobs. Again. If you don’t get down here, I’ll come up. Never have seen this little business of yours.

“Ah, the infamous Coop,” a voice said.

He looked over the top of his laptop. The guy was a little taller than Luke, but the resemblance was unmistakable. He winced before he said, “Does it have to be infamous?”

“Your reputation, like my brother’s, precedes you.” He stuck out a hand. “Colin Riordan. Same DNA as Luke, and roughly same locale. We’re neighbors. How you doing?”

He slapped the laptop lid closed. “Doing a little relaxing. It just doesn’t get any better than this.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how he lucked into this,” Colin said, hands on his hips, looking around. “He and our brother Sean came up here hunting, found this compound all broken down with the elderly owner bedridden and dying. He stayed dying for years. But Sean and Luke put together a deal that would take care of the guy. Eventually Luke came up here and put on a restoration show—fixed everything up. I thought he’d flip it, sell, but he stayed on.”

“Shelby,” Coop said.

“Isn’t she something? I have definitely lucked out in the sister-in-law department. Have two more winners—Aiden and Sean both married up, as my mother says.”

“How many of you are there?” Coop said, standing to face Colin.

“Five Riordan sons. Luke says you flew for the Army.”

“For a few years. And if I have it straight, you flew Black Hawks, too.”

“I did,” Colin said. “Until a freak accident retired me. We were in an exercise at Ft. Hood and a civilian plane out of control took me down.” He shook his head. “All that damn war and then it was some poor bastard with a heart attack that damn near killed me. But, I ended up here for my recovery and found Jillian, a very interesting little farmer. We’re not married, but we’ve been together over a year. And there’s no end in sight.”

“Does this place just spew pretty girls?”

Colin laughed. “Wouldn’t you wonder?”

“Beer, Colin?” Coop asked.

“No, thanks—but I’d like to see your digs, if you don’t mind. Luke was telling me about this setup… You haul your gear and still have a house.”

“It’s a good little operation,” he said. “Come in, look around. Plenty big for me, plenty of storage and a moving garage.”

Colin stepped inside, looked right toward the kitchen and a set of stairs toward the master bedroom and bath and left into a spacious living room. “Push these chairs back against the window, fold the tabletop against the wall, raise that long sofa bed to the ceiling and the entire back wall opens—it lowers into a ramp so I can drive in the toys. The wave runner is on wheels—I push it up the ramp.”

Colin took it all in and laughed. “How’d I live this long without knowing about a contraption like this?”

“I originally bought it for camping, but when I took my last job in Corpus Christi, I just rented a space and lived in it. That wasn’t exactly a radical move for me—I lived on my boat for a few months, and it wasn’t a big boat… . But I do have a long history of not staying in one place for long.”

“Or with one job? Luke mentioned something about your difference of opinion with the way the suits run things.”

“Yeah, that,” Coop said with a laugh. “Luke thinks I turned into a tree hugger. I’m not, I don’t think. Just hate rape and pillage.”

Colin laughed. “Well, I think I am a tree hugger… I only shoot animals if they’re about to eat me. And Jilly? She won’t even use pesticides on her vegetables. I wanna see the rest of this place.” He pointed to the stairs. “What’s up there?”

“That’s the part of the trailer that sits over the truck bed,” Coop told him. “Bedroom and bath. Go ahead.”

Colin took the steps and looked into a large bathroom that contained a shower and then a bedroom with a queen-size bed and a long wall of drawers and closets. There was a nice flat screen on the wall opposite the bed. “I might have to get me one of these,” Colin said.

“Have a lot of toys, do you?”

“Not yet,” Colin said with a grin. “Let’s fire up that Rhino of yours and I’ll take you on a tour of the forest. We might even end up at Jilly’s farm—really something to see.”

* * *

After all the employees had left the orchard on Wednesday afternoon, once the equipment was secured and the gate closed, Tom headed for the house. As he neared, he saw a little girl sitting on the back step, a large picture book in her lap, carefully turning the pages. Even if he hadn’t known Nora and her children would be joining them for dinner, he would definitely know this was her daughter. She had the same peachy complexion that would eventually freckle. Her brown hair was a lighter shade, but when she looked up at him he recognized those big brown eyes with the golden flecks.