Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(63)

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to pry, so you tell me if it’s none of my business. You having any trouble at school?”

“Like…?”

“Like the kind that gets you into fights?”

“Oh, that. What did my dad tell you?”

Paul shrugged. “He said you were hanging with a guy he didn’t like. That’s all I know.”

“The second he saw him, it was instant hate, and I don’t have that one figured out yet. I don’t know how you can take one look at a guy and know he’s an ass**le.”

“Well, the general has looked at a lot of young guys over the years. Did he turn out to be right?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said with a grin, then touched his split lip in sudden pain. “Don’t tell him I said that. He already thinks he knows everything.”

Paul returned the grin. “Your secret’s safe with me, pal. How’d you get hooked up with him?”

“New-kid syndrome,” Tommy said, leaning his shovel against the wall of the stall. “I got here too late in the summer for football and didn’t have anything better to do. I thought he was a little weird, but you know—he always managed to have a couple of beers or a place lined up for a party.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.”

“I guess,” Paul said, though his senior year had been pretty tame. “So what kind of an ass**le did he turn out to be?”

“The usual kind. He’s a liar. Likes to brag about the girls he’s nailed.”

“Lot of that going around the locker room.”

“I always learned a real man doesn’t brag about it. Plus, I don’t have anything to brag about.”

“No shame in that, Tommy. This is a good time to be real careful, if you know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean, Paul,” he said, smiling more cautiously. “Don’t worry. My dad has had this talk with me a hundred or so times. But Jordan really pissed me off good—he was talking about a girl I’ve been dating. I’ve only been out with her a few times, and there’s school and homework at her house, and she’s a nice girl. A good girl, you know? She moves real, real slow. The way that ass**le talked, it was like he was saying he’d done her. There’s no way he’d even get to hold her hand. I had to slug him. You know?”

“Whew,” Paul said. “You finished with him now?”

“Oh, yeah. Every time I see his face, I just want to mess it up.”

“How’s it going with the girl?”

“It’s good. You should see her—she’s beautiful. And you would never believe how smart she is. I think she kind of likes me.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Surprises the hell out of me,” Tom said, glancing away.

Paul laughed at his modesty. He was already six feet tall with some good-sized shoulders and arms on him from playing sports and taking care of a stable and four horses every day. Tossing around heavy bales of hay was better than lifting weights. “Hey, you have any time on your hands? Any need to make money?”

“I could always use a little money.”

“Yeah, if you’re gonna date beautiful girls, you need money.” Paul laughed again. “There’s work out at the job site, if you’re interested. It’s dirty and it’s hard—clean up around the site. But Jack’s paying overtime. I could give you a few hours after school or on weekends.”

“I’ll take it,” Tom said, smiling.

Ten

Brie’s routine in Sacramento lacked challenge, but she still had no desire to go back to the prosecutor’s office. All she did was exercise every morning, clean up her dad’s house and cook dinner for the two of them. She read when she was relaxed and could focus—not law text or nonfiction, but escapist novels. Finally there were a few places around town she was comfortable going to—if only in the light of day. She felt safe at the grocery store and the women’s gym, but not the library; those narrow aisles of tightly packed books gave her claustrophobia. So she bought her books online and had them delivered. There was still enough anxiety in her that she even varied the time of morning she went to the gym for her workout, conscious that criminals who watched their victims studied their habits to use against them.

She went to her sisters’ homes and sometimes the girls would come to Sam’s. Sunday dinners with the whole family at Sam’s were pretty typical. Everyone had noticed that even if Brie’s routine hadn’t changed much, her mood had. She was lighter of spirit; she smiled and laughed more easily.

“I think Virgin River gets you right,” her oldest sister, Donna, observed. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gone there after a crisis and come home better.”

“It’s not the town,” she admitted. “And it’s not Jack.” When she’d gone to Virgin River after the trial and David’s birth, she’d been empty inside. Hollow. A brand-new divorcée having just lost the biggest trial of her career, she’d felt as if she was nothing. A zero, a nonperson; a woman who couldn’t hold her man, a lawyer who couldn’t win her case. But a picnic, a little wedding dancing, some flirting, and she’d begun to feel female again. Then the rape had set her back a year; she was broken in a million pieces. But some phone calls and lunches, some strong arms around her and lips on hers, and she’d started to feel like a woman. In fact, that was the only place she felt like a woman and not a victim—in his arms.