A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(65)

“Nothing,” she confirmed. “There are three different Erin’s. If you really want to know, get comfortable.”

He chuckled at her. “I’m comfortable.”

“Well, while we were growing up and she was so much older, she was just a bossy big sister. I think that’s the natural order of things, but it’s magnified when a mother is lost—the oldest daughter sometimes assumes the role. A giant pain in the butt. But then we lost Dad and she tried so hard to take care of us. We were beyond being taken care of, you know. A thirteen-and fifteen-year-old—we coped in our own ways, had our own lives. I had Bobby, and Drew had sports and buddies. I feel really terrible about that—we weren’t there for Erin at all. And she was just beginning law school, which demanded so much of her. But we were stupid kids—we didn’t know anything.”

“You told her that, of course,” he said. “Once you realized it.”

“Of course,” she said. “I was next to mess up her tidy little life, but at least she was already a lawyer in a nice practice when I hit her with getting married. She tried to talk sense to me, but I had only one thing on my mind. There were fights and tears between us, but in the end Erin did what Dad would have done—she gave me a wedding…”

“She did?” he asked.

“Or Dad did, depends on how you look at it. When Dad died, there was a house, insurance, stuff like that. Erin guarded it for things like educations. I wasn’t interested in all that—I wanted to marry Bobby. Since there was no stopping me, she did the only thing that would make me happy. And although I knew she was miserable about it, she beamed the whole time. She wasn’t upset about it being Bobby—she loved him and his whole family—it was just our youth.

“Then Bobby came home to us as an invalid. My big sister, who I’d spent so many years resenting and resisting, was the best advocate I had. She worked her legal brain for months to get us the best benefits available from the military. You know how it is getting stuff out of the military—you have to be a bulldog—relentless. Some people just luck into things like larger base housing or CHAMPUS for off-base medical care—but most people have to wait till stuff is available and then better be first in line when it is. That takes constant energy. She made phone calls, wrote letters, and I think she even got our congressman involved. And she was the one who found the perfect care center. And my glamorous sister? She got right in there, got her hands dirty, helped to wash him, change linens, brush his teeth, put salve on his eyes…She held him and whispered to him like the rest of us. She came through in every way.”

Ian felt his throat tighten. He tried to imagine that uppity broad who came to take Marcie away getting down and dirty like that. He couldn’t even get a picture in his mind of her taking a hike out to the “loo,” as they were fond of calling it.

“That’s the three Erins?”

“No—that’s the first two. The bitchy big sister, the dominant mother figure. Then there’s the one you met—she’s a very successful attorney. Very well-put-together, makes a good living, makes her clients happy and the senior partners proud. Her main concern is still me and Drew, making sure we have whatever support we need. But she’s thirty-four and alone. There have been a few very short-term boyfriends, but we’ve all lived in the same house together since Dad died, except that little while I lived with just Bobby. Erin has no life but us. She’s given us everything. She comes off looking domineering and maybe cold and calculating, but really she’s sacrificed everything, even her personal life. She should be married or at least in love, but she spent every free second making sure we were taken care of—me with Bobby, Drew with college and then medical school—you have no idea how much energy and expense is involved in just getting into medical school. Drew couldn’t have done it without Erin, just as I wouldn’t have known what to do about Bobby without her. Really, I owe her so much. I fight her when she bosses me, but I owe her big-time.”

He lowered his lips and kissed her head. “It sounds like you do.”

“That’s why I promised to be home by Christmas,” she said. She turned her head and looked up at him. “I could stay here forever, but I promised. And it’s not just for Erin—Bobby’s family thinks of me as a daughter, a sister, after all we did together…”

“I know. You held up pretty good in this place—it’s hard living here.”

“It’s not too hard for me. It’s cold on the butt when nature calls. And now I carry that skillet with me everywhere I go. But I’d take my frostbitten butt to see you feed that deer out of your hand any day.”

“That deer-feeding trick would get old after a while.” He twirled a red curl around his finger. “When you decided to come up here, what did you think was going to happen?”

“Not this.” She laughed. “In fact, I’d have bet against it.”

“But what did you want?”

“Peace of mind,” she said. “For both of us. I wanted to tell you what had happened in your old world, and I wanted to know that you were all right so we could both move on with peace of mind.” She sat up and turned around, kneeling between his long legs and sitting back on her heels, facing him. “Ian, why did you do it? Why did you stay here so long without getting in touch with anyone?”