Virgin River (Virgin River #1)(55)

“Way,” Preacher agreed. “You got a handle on it now?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Now that it’s too late.”

“Welcome to the world.” Preacher drank half his draft.

Rick just looked into his. “It’s just that I’d die if anyone got hurt, you know. If I hurt her. If I let you and Jack down.”

Preacher put his big hands on the bar and leaned toward Rick. “Hey, Ricky, don’t worry about letting us down. Some things are just nature, you know? You’re a human being. You do the best you can. Try to think ahead next time, if you get my drift.”

“I do now.”

Jack came into the bar from the back. He noticed right away that Ricky and Preacher had beers and that Ricky wore a troubled expression. “Do I need to toast anything?”

He poured himself a glass of beer.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a no,” Ricky said.

“Ricky here, if I’m reading him right, has entered the world of men. And wishes a little bit he hadn’t.”

“Instead of giving me a handful of rubbers, you should’ve had me laminated,” he said to Jack.

“Oh, boy. You gonna be okay, buddy?” Jack asked. “She gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know. When am I gonna know? How am I gonna know?”

“A month,” Jack said. “Maybe less. Depends on her cycle. You’re going to have to ask her, Rick. If she got her period.”

“I’m gonna die,” Ricky said miserably.

“Okay then. Let’s toast to your continued good luck. Since you got, you know, lucky.”

“Right now I gotta wonder why they call it that,” Ricky said.

Chapter Nine

T he grass grew tall in the pastures, the ewes fat with lambing imminent. The cows were ready to calve and Sondra Patterson was almost to term. Sondra was expecting her third child, and the first two had come to her quickly and easily, so she and Doc claimed. She had decided to have this one at home, as she had the first two. This would be the first home birth for Mel, and she looked forward to it with nervous delight.

May aged bright and sunny—and brought with it a bunch of men in pickups and campers. There was a great deal of horn-honking at the bar in the afternoon and Mel looked out to see this gathering descend on Jack’s. She watched as he came out on his porch and greeted them with bear hugs and shouts and whistles.

“What’s going on?” she asked Doc Mullins.

“Hmm. I think it’s another Semper Fi reunion. Jack’s old buddies from the Marine Corps. They come up here to hunt, fish, play poker, drink and yell into the night.”

“Really? He never mentioned that.” And, she thought, is this my cue to be scarce?

Because that after-work beer, the occasional kiss, had become the best part of her day. She was further bewildered by the fact that he hadn’t tried anything more. And yet, if he had, she would have worried about the consequences. She shouldn’t be involved with anyone, even Jack. Not until she was sure she could handle it. Thing was, she just couldn’t bring herself to give up that little bit of kissing. She was sure that Mark would understand. If their situations had been reversed, she told herself, she would. But with the marines in town, there would be none of that. Doc seemed to have no inclination to stay away, and at the end of the day he took himself over to the bar. “Coming?” he asked her.

“I don’t know…I don’t want to distract anyone from their reunion…”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “The whole town looks forward to seeing these boys.”

She went with him and found that of course Doc was greeted by these visiting men as if they were old friends. Jack dropped a possessive arm around Mel’s shoulders and said, “Boys, meet Mel Monroe, new nurse midwife in town. She’s been working with Doc. Mel, meet Zeke, Mike Valenzuela, Cornhusker—Corny for short, Josh Phillips, Joe Benson, Tom Stephens and Paul Haggerty. There will be a test later—no name tags.”

“Doc, you are a fine and smart gentleman,” Zeke said, grinning, reaching for her hand, obviously under the impression Doc had hired her rather than resisted her.

“Miss Monroe, it’s an honor. An honor.”

“Call me Mel,” she said.

The noise with which they descended on her was invigorating. The next surprise for her, and perhaps it shouldn’t have been, was that Preacher was one of them. And of course they drew Rick in as though he were a younger brother. Mel learned that Preacher had served under Jack when he was just a kid of eighteen in the first conflict in Iraq—Desert Storm—it turned out he was much younger than he looked. During that same time a cop from L.A. by the name of Mike Valenzuela and a builder from Oregon by the name of Paul Haggerty also served with them, but the two latter marines, being reservists, were called up for the latest Iraq conflict, again with Preacher and Jack, who were still on active duty at that time. The others, all reservists, were called up for Iraq where they were united in Baghdad and Fallujah. Zeke was a fireman from Fresno; Josh Phillips, a paramedic, and Tom Stephens, a news helicopter pilot—were both from the Reno area. Joe Benson was an architect from the same Oregon town as Paul Haggerty—Paul often built Joe’s houses. And Corny, another firefighter, came the farthest, from Washington state, but he was born and raised in Nebraska, thus the nickname.