Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(17)

He touched her hand gently and said, softly but earnestly, “Fight harder! I can’t lose you to this!”

Well, she couldn’t jog anymore—she was afraid to be out there alone, even in broad daylight. It couldn’t be a gym or health club—she couldn’t have men looking at her right now. She remembered with some longing how she had loved being looked at. She had a small, compact, fit little body and lots of long, silky hair that she braided for court but let swing freely down her back the rest of the time. It made her heady with power to garner the stares of attractive men. Now if a man looked at her, it threw her into panic.

But she wasn’t going down without a fight—so she joined a women’s gym and started running on the treadmill and lifting weights. If she couldn’t have a full life, she was at least going to fake one.

The joke was on her—a couple of weeks of vigorous exercise and she was sleeping better and eating better. She felt it put her into the next stage of recovery, every day a tiny bit easier than the day before.

There were times she thought that if not for Mike’s attention right now, she’d be lost. Oh, her family was amazing—the way they managed to hold strong for her, encourage her and make themselves constantly available should she want to talk. But Mike, the very man she had vowed would never get near her when she recognized his flirting last spring, was the only thing in her life that allowed her to feel like a woman. For that she would be forever grateful.

Tommy Booth was the new kid in town, just checking in for his senior year at Valley High School. His father, Walt Booth, had just retired from the Army and had given Tommy his choice—a military academy, a nonmilitary private academy or Valley High. Tommy chose to live with his dad for a couple of reasons—he’d lost his mom in a car accident a few years ago and it had just been him and his dad since, a couple of bachelors who got along fairly well for father and son. And his older sister, married and pregnant and separated from her husband by the Marine Corps, was going to come to Virgin River to live with them until Matt, his brother-in-law, got back from the Middle East. She was going to have her baby there—and Tom was secretly a little excited about that. Plus, there were his horses, which he couldn’t take to a private school.

Tom’s father, a retired three-star general, had found this property a couple of years ago; the general had a younger sister and niece a few hours south in Bodega Bay and had looked all over California for the right spot, not too far away from them. Aunt Midge was sick; she had been sick several years, bedridden the past three. She was worse than sick—she was terminal, with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and her daughter, Shelby, was her full-time caregiver. Walt Booth had been ready to settle in Bodega Bay to be there for her even though he was more of a forest and mountains than beach kind of guy. But Midge had convinced him not to choose Bodega Bay because of her presence there—she wasn’t going to last more than a couple of years. She might be gone by the time Walt retired from the Army and if she was not, he could visit. Thus, Virgin River—close enough to see Midge and Shelby as often as he could, but the kind of place Walt wanted to put down his final roots. It had begun to look as if Aunt Midge was right—she couldn’t possibly have much longer. By the time Walt and Tommy got to Virgin River, Midge needed twenty-four-hour care, and Hospice was on the scene.

While Walt finished his last assignment at the Pentagon, he’d had the house renovated via long distance and the new stable and corral constructed. Tommy had seen it only once before actually moving in, but he loved the land—the enormous trees, the rivers, the coast, the mountainsides and valleys through which he could ride.

Classes started in late August. He wasn’t that jazzed about the high school. The kids sure weren’t as sophisticated as the D.C. kids. And Tom was a little bit on the shy side until he got to know someone. This being a small-town high school, all the cliques had been established ages ago, so fitting in was going to take a while. He was a big kid, athletic, but he’d been too late for football.

He met a kid in first period right off—Jordan Whitley, a funny guy. Kind of skinny and hyper, but really friendly. He hung out with him a couple of times after school. Jordan lived pretty close to the school, while Tom had to drive his little red truck all the way from Virgin River every day. Also, Jordan’s parents were divorced, he was an only child and his mom worked—which freed up Jordan’s house until about six. As long as Tom got home before dinner, in time to take care of the horses, it was no big deal to go over there for a little while after school.

Tom also learned that there were frequent keggers at an abandoned rest stop area right at the edge of Virgin River. Weekend parties that Jordan really wanted him to attend, but Tom always had an excuse. He didn’t know anyone but Jordan. And he was quiet about the fact that he had a house to himself for a few days every other week or so while Walt went to Bodega Bay. He wasn’t about to be overrun by Jordan and his tribe—if Walt ever found out, he’d be dead meat.

Jordan somehow managed to score beer at his house. After-school beer. Tom was very careful about that because if the general smelled it on his breath he was toast. But the other thing Jordan had going on was girls. He seemed to always have a different girl. So far Tommy hadn’t seen one that got him excited—Jordan didn’t seem to draw the really pretty ones. But it was kind of fun to go over to his house and get all the flirtatious attention bestowed on him, being the new kid and not that bad looking.