Virgin River (Virgin River #1)(75)

Chapter Twelve

R ick called Liz every couple of days, although he wanted to call her seven times a day. His pulse always picked up when he dialed, then the sound of her voice made it race.

“Lizzie, how you doing?” he’d ask.

“I miss you,” she would always say. “You said you’d come over.”

“I’m going to. I’m trying. But with school and work…So, how are…things?”

“I just wish I was there, instead of here.” Then she’d laugh. “Funny, I hated my mother for making me go to Aunt Connie’s, and now I hate her for making me stay here.”

“Don’t hate your mom, Liz. Don’t.”

Then they’d talk for a while, about kids, about school, about Virgin River and Eureka, just mundane stuff. She never volunteered any information about the feared pregnancy.

Rick was dying a million deaths. He was terrified something had gone wrong and she was caught with a baby on that one and only night. But almost worse than that, he wasn’t sure what was happening to him, in his head, in his body. He dreamt about her, wanted to feel his arms around her, wanted to smell her hair and kiss her lips. He wanted her breast in one hand, but he also wanted to have her riding beside him in that little truck on the way to and from school, cracking jokes, laughing, holding hands. This phone call was no different than the others had been. Then she asked, “Why don’t you come to Eureka?”

He drew a heavy breath. “I’ll tell you the truth, Liz—I’m afraid to. You and me, we get pretty worked up.”

“But you have those rubbers…”

“I told you before, that’s not enough. You have to get something, too. Pills or something.”

“How’m I gonna do that? I don’t even drive. You think I should say to my mom,

‘Hey, I have to get some birth control—me and Ricky want to do it’?”

“If you were here, you could see Mel. Maybe you can talk your mom into a visit to Virgin River.” But even as he said that, he cringed. And flushed so hot he thought he might faint. Was he really suggesting to a fourteen-year-old that she get herself fixed up so they could have sex? In the cab of a truck?

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I think I would hate that. I don’t think I could tell someone who’s like, grown-up. Could you?”

He already had; Preacher and Jack both knew. But he said, “I could if it was this important.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

If you couldn’t stop dreaming about a girl, if you constantly thought about the way her hair felt against your cheek, if you couldn’t get the softness of her skin out of your mind, did that mean you loved her? If you felt a little better after every time you talked to her, heard her laugh, did that mean anything, or were you just this horny sixteen-year-old boy? He knew he was that—the thought of getting inside her again almost made steam come out of his ears. But there was other stuff. He could talk to Liz; he could listen to her. Wanted to listen to her. He could almost go into a trance when she told him about something as boring as algebra. If he had one drop of courage, he’d ask Jack—what is love and what is sex? When are they the same thing?

Finally he asked, “Any news about being pregnant, Lizzie?”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah, I mean that.” Silence answered him. She was going to make him say it, once again. Every time he asked, his gut clenched just from forming the words, words alien to a boy. “Did you get your period?” he asked, grateful she couldn’t see the color of his cheeks.

“That’s all you really care about.”

“No, but I care about it a lot. Liz, baby, if I got you in trouble, I’m gonna want to die, okay? I just want the scare over, that’s all. For both of us.”

“Not yet—but that’s okay. I told you—I’m not regular. And I feel fine. I don’t feel like anything’s different.”

“I guess that’s something,” he said.

“Ricky, I miss you. Do you miss me?”

“Ohhh, Liz,” he said in an exhausted breath. “I miss you so much it scares the hell out of me.”

Mel made a few phone calls the following week, then asked Jack if he could pry himself away from the bar for a full day to run some errands with her. She wanted to drive into Eureka, she said. And she didn’t want to go alone. Of course he said he could—he did anything she asked of him. He offered to drive, but she told him she’d like to take her car, put the top down and enjoy the sunny June weather. When they were underway, she said, “I hope this wasn’t too presumptuous of me, Jack. I made myself an appointment at the beauty shop and one for you at the clinic—

that testing you offered.”

“I was going to run over to the coast, to the Naval Air Station there, but this is just as convenient. I meant it when I offered. I want you to feel safe.”

“I’m not worried, really. It’s just a precaution. And if anything turns up, I’ll get screened. I wouldn’t put you at risk, you understand. But the last seven years, it was only…” She stopped.

“Your husband,” he finished for her. “You can say it. That was your life. That is your life. We have to be able to talk about it.”