Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(44)

He lifted her chin with a finger. “Don’t be a candy ass. You fought good. You won, as a matter of fact.”

“But it was awful. There have been times since this thing with Brie that you’ve been so far away. It just… It frightens me.”

“You should never be afraid. Not while you’re my wife. It’s my job to make sure you’re never afraid.”

“Then know this—all I want is to die in your arms. I can’t live a day without you. Do you get that?”

He nodded, but he said, “No dying allowed. We’re going to get old and very wrinkly together. I insist on it.”

Tommy knew he was pretty obvious—he called Brenda every night. When she walked into their physics class he couldn’t suppress a huge grin—he could feel it all the way to the soles of his feet. He scored a homework session with her at her house in Virgin River and it might as well have been a date at the Ritz, he was so pumped. When she walked him out to his truck, she held his hand for a few minutes.

The girl moved really slowly, and he liked that. One of these days he was going to get his arms around her, kiss her. She had to be about the prettiest girl at school. Maybe the world.

He’d like to be walking her to her classes, but the second physics was over she was surrounded by her girlfriends and whisked away, so he made do with those phone calls and after-school homework sessions. “We should go out,” he said. “You seem to be all over that bad flu.”

“There’s a dance coming up in a few weeks,” she said.

“You have a date,” he promised. “But I hate to wait that long. Maybe there’s something we can do before that. As a warm-up date?”

She laughed at him. “You’re too funny. Stop looking at me and look at your physics homework.”

Brenda’s mother stayed awfully close while he was at her house, so there was no potential for getting snugly. But he was completely okay with this, because when Brenda walked him out to his little truck there was a moment on the front porch that she let him get close. He slipped an arm around her waist. And she kind of leaned against him, so he let his lips brush softly against her cheek. “That’s nice,” he said. “Do you know your hair smells like vanilla?”

“Of course I know that,” she said.

“You sure do make homework a lot more fun than it used to be.”

“I’m glad to be of help,” she told him.

“Hey, you want to go to a party?”

“Where?”

“I heard there’s something going on out at this rest stop—”

She jumped away from him so fast, he was startled. The look on her face was one of sheer horror.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I don’t go to those parties,” she said.

“Okay. That’s fine. I just thought—”

“Do you go to those parties?” she asked angrily.

He shrugged. “I haven’t been to one yet. I just heard about it. Why? Are they bad?”

“A lot of beer. A lot of kids get drunk. Puking drunk.”

He made a face. “Ew. Sounds like loads of fun. Okay, how about a movie in Fortuna?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

“It’s just… Those parties out at the rest stop, they have a real bad reputation. I don’t want a reputation.”

He smiled at her. “As far as I can tell, you already have one, and it’s totally good. So—” he shrugged “—we’ll skip the rest-stop parties.”

“You drink beer?” she asked him.

“I’ve been known to have a beer,” he said. “But I don’t overdo it. You have to meet my father, Brenda.” He laughed. “Then you’d know right away that I don’t want to piss him off.”

She seemed to relax a little. “I might go to a movie with you. But we should have another couple along.”

“Like who?”

“Maybe one of my girlfriends and her date?”

“Whatever makes you happy. But I want to go out with you sometime—because all this homework is making me so smart I almost can’t stand myself.”

She smiled and said, “Okay, Tommy. Call me later.”

Seven

Brie couldn’t believe she had lived in California all her life without ever visiting the Mendocino coast. It charmed her at once—the breathtaking vistas, the Victorian villages, the art, the food. She recognized Cabot Cove, the filming site for Murder, She Wrote. They lunched in an adorable little restaurant with an ocean view, binoculars on the tables. Before they had finished lunch, they were sharing binoculars to view a fleet of whales, migrating south. The mammals were so far out to sea, the binoculars were necessary.

“In the spring, during the migration with their new calves, they come much closer to the shore. We’ll come back,” Mike said.

The excuse to come over here had been seeing the whales, but there was much more to the coast than that. They dropped into galleries, tasted wine in tasting rooms, walked along the ocean bluffs, down the trails to the tide pools and private beaches. They visited botanical gardens, climbed to the top of a lighthouse and sat under a tree in the park, eating popcorn. They laughed, played, held hands. Too soon, the day had aged.