Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(50)

“You’ve always been too shy for your own good. You should be married and have a ton of kids. You’d make such a great dad.”

“Yeah, I should,” he agreed.

“I’ve missed you, Paul,” she said. “Will I be seeing more of you now? While I’m here?”

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah, I get down here sometimes.”

At about eight o’clock the crowd thinned out a little bit. Mel and Brie took the baby home, giving Jack strict orders to sleep in the RV on the pullout if he had too much to drink with his boys. Paige had already gone upstairs to bathe Christopher and get him into bed and the general took his daughter home, promising to drop in the next night for a beer and a debrief on the hunt. Rick went home to his grandma’s and promised to be back at 4:00 a.m. for the trek back into Trinity to hunt.

When it was down to Marines, the cards, money and cigars came out. Poker ensued. At about ten Paige swam through the smoke and tapped Preacher on the shoulder. He folded his hand, having nothing anyway, and said, “Be right back.”

“God, it’s weird, seeing Preach act like the little husband,” Stephens said.

“Little husband?”

“You know what I’m saying. All Paige has to do is lift her pinkie finger and he’s on his knees.”

“How are your eyes, man? She can lift that little finger my way and I’d get on my knees,” Joe said.

“The little husband might pound you into sand,” Jack said.

“I meant if she weren’t married. You old farts are starting to act real whipped.”

“That’s because we are,” Jack said. “And it’s good. It’s very, very good.”

Preacher came back, lifted his cigar and took a pull. “I’m not hunting tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to have to stay here.”

“Why?”

“It’s ovulation day,” he said with a straight face.

“It’s what?” three men asked in unison.

“It’s frickin’ ovulation day, jag-off. We’re trying to make a baby and if I miss ovulation day, who knows how long I’ll have to wait. I don’t feel like waiting. I’ve been waiting.”

His explanation was met with completely nonplussed silence—no one at the table knew about this quest, including Jack. And after a moment of stunned silence, laughter erupted that was so loud and wild, the men were nearly falling off their chairs.

When the group got a little under control, Preacher asked, “Is there something funny about ovulation day? Because I don’t think it’s funny.”

“Nah, it’s not funny, Preach,” Joe said. “It’s cute, that’s what it is.”

“But really, Preach, you should hunt and leave me home—I’d probably make a better-looking baby than you, anyway,” Zeke said.

“You’ve made enough frickin’ babies, jag-off,” Preacher said. “Your wife sent you up here to hunt so she can catch a break. Whose deal is it anyway?”

While they dealt a few more hands, Jack noticed that Paul didn’t seem to be laughing as much as the others, but he was drinking more. Paul folded his hand, left the game, poured himself a shot from the bottle on the bar and sat up on a stool. Jack had them deal him out and went behind the bar. Paul turned pinkened, watery eyes toward him. “Oh, boy,” Jack said. “You’re going to hate yourself.”

“Don’t I know it,” he agreed with a slight slur, drinking another shot nonetheless.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“About what?”

“I’m thinking it has something to do with Vanessa,” Jack said.

“Matt’s my best friend. That would be wrong.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. For me, anyway.” He put his empty glass on the bar.

Jack was sure Paul had already had too much, but he poured. “Okay, now I’m just taking advantage of you,” Jack said. “Because I’m curious. She said you and Matt were together the night you met.”

“Yeah. I should’ve stopped going out with him years ago. I spotted her first.”

Jack kind of lifted his brows. “How’d he get her, then?”

Paul threw back his drink. “I think the son of a bitch said dibs.” And then he put his head down on the bar and passed out.

So that’s how it went. Because if Matt was the first one to get to her, talk to her, and if she was impressed enough to go out with him, a Marine doesn’t mess with a brother’s woman. Not even Valenzuela would do that. That was a line even he had never crossed—not his Mexican brothers and not his Marine brothers. Because he liked living….

Whoa, damn, Jack thought. And now she’s married, pregnant and Paul is still miserably drawn to her. That bites.

“I’m going home,” he said to the boys. “Back here at four. Someone has to put Haggerty to bed.” He shrugged into his jacket. “Try not to burn the place down, huh?”

Eight

Mel had asked Brie to help with a pet project she’d been working on since David was born. While Brie was happy to help Mel in anything she asked, she was a bit surprised by how much she enjoyed this particular project.

While Mel had been at home with her newborn, she’d had time to go online on her laptop, plus she could make phone calls while he slept. The women in her town were mostly uninsured. They would pay whatever they could afford for medical care, often in goods and services. Some of the ranchers and farmers had insurance to cover catastrophic illness or accident, but that left nothing for the cost of well visits, like pap smears and mammograms. Mel had been able to step up the annual pap smears by offering to charge only for the lab costs, and by doing a little bit of hounding. But when it came to mammograms, which she believed her patients over the age of forty should have every year, most of her women were making do on breast self-exam. She had ninety-two women over the age of eighteen in town, and forty-eight of them were over forty. At least forty of those women were not getting annual mammograms.