Whispering Rock (Virgin River #3)(73)

“Then that’s how it will be,” he said. He kissed her deeply, passionately. “Whatever you want.”

“I don’t want this to end.”

“There’s no end in sight, mi amor. Trust me.”

Jack hadn’t been watching the RV during the morning, even though it had been on his mind. It was a pure accident that he happened to see the door open and Brie step out. He glanced at his watch—eleven. Almost lunch. Right behind her was Mike. Probably he should have turned away, but he didn’t. His sister looked so small and girlish in her jeans, moccasins, suede jacket with fringe and all that light brown hair cascading down her back almost to her waist.

She stood in front of Mike and he lifted her chin, pressing an intimate kiss to her lips. Even from this distance it was easy to see they were not anxious to be parted. But in a moment Mike pulled himself away and went to his SUV to leave while Brie walked toward the back door of the bar.

Jack went behind the bar quickly so as not to get caught watching. He picked up a perfectly clean glass and began to wipe it with a towel. The door opened and Brie walked in, and he almost took a step back. He had never seen her look this way. She was radiant. There was an expression on her face, a glow in her eyes, a secret smile on her lips that said volumes. She didn’t hesitate—she walked behind the bar, right up to him, and put her arms around his waist. He got rid of that glass and towel and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close.

All Jack had wanted since June was to have his sister back, well and whole, restored. Happy and alive, without that fuzzy blotch of fear and uncertainty around the edges of her aura like a smudge. He wanted his Brie back, renewed and a force in the world once again. Jack hadn’t been able to give that to her—none of the family had been able to do it. And yet the young woman in his embrace nearly vibrated with joy. It wasn’t as though the old Brie was merely back, but this was a new Brie—a woman reborn. A woman experiencing love and life as if for the first time.

Sometimes it took him such a long time to accept the very things that he knew intimately for himself. The very things he had discovered in his wife’s arms. What Brie needed in her life, what everyone needed, was perfect love. He’d found that with Mel, Preacher had found it with Paige and now… He kissed the top of her head.

She lifted her head to look up at him. In a voice soft and sincere, she said, “You are never to doubt him again. Never.”

He put his hand along the hair at her temple and smiled tenderly into her eyes. He gave his head a very slight shake—never again, he was saying to her. Brie had chosen her mate. And for all Jack’s previous doubts, it appeared she had chosen well.

Jack had resisted when he should have trusted his sister to know what she needed in her life, and he should have trusted Mike, as much a best friend as Preacher, to treat her like the precious jewel she was. Whatever had happened between them had clearly surpassed a physical fulfillment.

My wife, Jack thought, is always right about everything.

For Mel, a nightmare had come to roost in the form of sixteen-year-old Sophie Landau. She thought something might have “happened to her.” Mel had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach even before more of the story came out. “Me and my girlfriend Becky went to a party that we weren’t supposed to—I said I was staying over at Becky’s and she said she was staying over at my house. Brendan Lancaster invited us. Brendan’s older—he graduated a couple of years ago,” she said with red lips that looked as if she’d been chewing on them.

“Okay,” Mel said, encouraging her.

Sophie sat on the exam table, still dressed, while Mel leaned against the cabinet, listening, dreading. Sophie was on the chubby side with straight brown hair that fell limply onto her shoulders. She had a little problem with acne, her teeth were crooked and she was clearly nervous in a general way—nails bitten down, a hair-twisting habit, an occasional twitch of her cheek.

“So you went to a party. Big party?” Mel asked.

“Small. Six or seven kids.”

“Brendan lives alone?”

“No, he lives with his mom, but she’s gone a lot. She was gone over the weekend. And he’s out of school now—you know—working over in Garberville, pouring concrete with his uncle. So there wasn’t anyone there but kids.”

“Okay…?”

“So there were a few kids and we drank beer, smoked a couple of joints. And got drunk and a little high. I passed out. Becky thinks she did, too.”

“Becky thinks she did?”

“She doesn’t know, because she got wasted and went to Brendan’s mother’s bedroom and lay down and woke up at about three in the morning. Me—I think I must have passed out, because I was just waking up in the morning, in Brendan’s room. There were only a couple of kids still there—Becky, Brendan, a couple others sleeping in the living room.”

“And…”

“And I felt really awful. Like I’d been hit in the head with a brick and my stomach was all upset. I couldn’t wait to get home and sleep it off. When I got home I told my mother I thought I’d got the flu while I was at Becky’s, and I went to get into bed, and undressed, you know? My underpants were inside out and backward.”

Ew, Mel thought. I have another one.

“So—I didn’t think anything about it—figured I did that to myself drunk.”