Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(28)

“You tell anyone else?”

“Yeah—I did. I called June Hudson in Grace Valley—she and her partner, John Stone, will be watching their patients for similar symptoms. And the family planning clinic in Eureka is aware of my concerns. But Mike—what sickens me most is that my second girl said this happened in Virgin River.”

“Either a teenager whose testosterone popped or a new kid in town. Worth looking at.”

“Thank you.”

“Obviously, if any more girls come into the clinic—”

“Of course. I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“I’ll start looking around, talking to people.”

“Thanks,” she said, leaning back in her chair, relieved.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something else, Mel. I’m ready to discontinue the antidepressant you prescribed after the shooting, during my recovery.”

She smiled at him. “Feeling pretty good?” she asked.

“Stronger, yes. I agree, it was a good idea at the time. But—”

“Sure, sure. We said a few months, right? Sounds good,” she said. “Let’s take you down slowly. I’ll write up a dosage schedule for you. We’ll have you off in a couple of weeks. How’s that?”

“Perfect.”

John—Preacher to his friends—was thirty-three years old and knew a lot about war and about cooking, about hunting and fishing. He’d served in the Marine Corps for twelve years and followed Jack to Virgin River, where he’d turned himself into one of the best cooks in the region, if little known. But his knowledge of women was recent.

When he met and married his wife, that was when his education began. He’d been a man who knew few women up to that point, and he’d never considered himself much of a lover. In fact, he’d been scared to death of Paige—she was so petite and feminine and he was six-four, muscled, with huge, strong hands and shoulders so broad he had to turn sideways to pass through some doorways. He had been terrified that he’d hurt her, leave a bruise on her.

But she had worked him through it, confident that he was the gentlest man she’d ever known. In her arms he had been transformed. Now he not only understood the female body, but worshipped it. Things he hadn’t known existed were now second nature to him, and his wife was his treasure, the most awesome gift he could ever have received. To make her feel wonderful was one of his greatest obsessions. He knew every erogenous spot to touch, to kiss, and the better he could make her feel, the more he enjoyed his own experience.

She was his partner by day in the bar, working beside him in the cooking and management, and his angel by night in his arms. Between them they parented her son, Christopher, now four years old, and Preacher had the kind of happiness he’d thought existed only for other men. There was one small problem—he and Paige wanted to have a baby together, and while they’d been married only a few months, she’d stopped taking her pills over six months ago and nothing had happened.

He might be disappointed, but she was beyond disappointment. She’d been pregnant when she stumbled into the bar a year ago, and, as a result of a horrific beating from her then husband, had miscarried. Paige was afraid that there might be some kind of damage to her reproductive organs that would prevent her from having a baby with John—and sometimes it caused her deep sadness.

At the end of every day he would clean his kitchen at the bar, turn off the Open sign and lock the door, read to Christopher after he’d had his bath, then retire to the little apartment he shared with his wife, and love her. Born again in her arms, night after night.

He found her in the bathroom, wearing one of his huge T-shirts, and he caught her softly crying. It had been a very long time since he’d seen her tears, and it knocked the wind out of him. He couldn’t bear it. “Here, here,” he said, pulling her into his strong embrace. “You’re crying.”

She wiped the tears off her cheeks and looked up at him. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I got my period again. I didn’t want it to come. I wanted to be pregnant.”

“You weren’t even late,” he said, for he knew everything about her, about her body. You could set a watch by her.

“Not even an hour late,” she said, and a big tear spilled over.

“Is it a hard one?” he asked tenderly.

“No, it’s nothing at all. Except, I thought maybe finally…”

“Okay, it’s time,” he said, wiping away the tear. “You should talk to Mel. Maybe to John Stone. See if we should check something out.”

“I get the impression that could be expensive.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” he said. “Never mind money—this is about us being happy. We want a baby. We should do what we have to do. Right?”

“John, I’m sorry—”

“Why are you sorry? You’re not in this alone. Everything is both of us. Right?”

“Month after month…”

“Well, now we’re going to face it and ask for advice. We’ll get some help. No more crying.”

But she dropped her head against his chest and wept anyway, and it tore his heart out. He couldn’t stand Paige to be in any kind of pain. He lived for her happiness; she was his world. His life.