Virgin River (Virgin River #1)(24)

“No, honey. Go to the back and start your homework. Your first day was good?”

“Okay, I guess.” She shrugged. “Nice to meet you,” she said, disappearing into the store’s back room.

“She’s beautiful,” Mel said.

Connie was frowning slightly. “She’s fourteen.”

Mel’s eyes grew wide as she mouthed the words silently. Fourteen? “Wow,” she whispered to Connie. The girl looked at least sixteen or even seventeen. She could pass for eighteen.

“Yeah. That’s why she’s here. Her mother, my sister, is at the end of her rope with the little hot bottom. She’s a wild one. But that was in Eureka. Not so many places to go wild around here.” She smiled. “If I could just get her to cover her na**d body, I would feel so much better.”

“I hear ya,” Mel laughed. “May the force be with you.” But I’d consider birth control, Mel thought.

When Mel had her meals at the bar, if there was no one around she knew, like Connie or her best friend Joy, or Ron or Hope, she would sit up at the bar and talk to Jack while she ate. Sometimes he ate with her. During these meals she learned more about the town, about summer visitors who came for hiking and camping, the hunters and fishermen who passed through during the season—the Virgin was great for fly fishing, a comment that made her giggle. And there was kayaking, which sounded like fun to her.

Ricky introduced her to his grandmother who made a rare dinner appearance. Lydie Sudder was over seventy and had that uncomfortable gait of one who suffered arthritis. “You have a very nice grandson,” Mel observed. “Is it just the two of you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I lost my son and daughter-in-law in an accident when he was just a little thing. I’d sure worry about him if it weren’t for Jack. He’s been looking out for Ricky since he came to town. He looks after a lot of people.”

“I can sense that about him,” Mel said.

The March sun had warmed the land and brought out the buds. Mel had a fleeting thought that seeing this place in full bloom would be glorious, but then reminded herself that she would miss it. The baby—little Chloe—was thriving and several different women from town had stopped by to offer babysitting services. She realized that she’d been here over a week—and it had passed like minutes. Of course, never getting more than four hours of sleep at a stretch tended to speed up time. She’d found living with Doc Mullins to be more bearable than she would’ve thought. He could be a cantankerous old goat, but she could give it back to him just as well, something he seemed to secretly enjoy.

One day, when the baby was asleep and there were no patients or calls, Doc got out a deck of cards. He shuffled them in his hand and said, “Come on. Let’s see what you got.” He sat down at the kitchen table and dealt the cards. “Gin,” he said.

“All I know about gin is that you mix it with tonic,” she told him.

“Good. We’ll play for money,” he said.

She sat down at the table. “You plan to take advantage of me,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” he confirmed. And then with a smile so rare, he began to tell her how to play. Pennies for points, he told her. And within an hour she was laughing, winning, and Doc’s expression was getting more sour by the minute, which only made her laugh harder. “Come on,” she said, dealing. “Let’s see what you got.”

The sound of someone coming through the front door temporarily stopped the game and Mel said, “Sit tight, I’ll see who it is.” She patted his hand. “Give you time to stack the deck.”

Standing just inside the front door was a skinny man with a long graying beard. His overalls were dirty and the bottoms frayed around filthy boots. The edge of his shirt sleeves and collar were also frayed, as though he’d been in these particular clothes a very long time. He didn’t come into the house, probably because of the mud he tracked, but stood just inside the door twisting a very worn felt hat.

“Can I help you?” she asked him.

“Doc here?”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Let me get him for you.”

She fetched Doc to the front door and while he was chatting with the man, she checked on Chloe. When Doc finally came back to the kitchen, he was wearing a very unpleasant expression. “We have to make a call. See if you can rustle up someone to keep an eye on the baby.”

“You need my assistance?” she asked, perhaps more hopefully than she wished.

“No,” he said, “but I think you should tag along. See what’s on the other side of the tree line.”

Chloe stirred in her bed and Mel picked her up. “Who was that man?”

“Clifford Paulis. Lives out in the woods with some people. His daughter and her man joined them a while back. They have regular problems. I’d rather you just see.”

“Okay,” she said, perplexed.

After a few phone calls had been placed with no success, the best they could do for the baby was take her across the street to Jack’s with a few diapers and a bottle. Mel carried her little bed while Doc managed the baby in one arm and his cane in the other hand, though Mel had offered to make two trips.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” she asked Jack. “You might have to change her and everything.”

“Nieces,” he said again. “I’m all checked out.”