A Virgin River Christmas (Virgin River #4)(66)

“I told you, I was camping and—”

She shook her head. “There was more to it. I understand about how you stumbled on this place and ended up staying, but did something traumatic drive you away?”

He frowned slightly. “Do you think it had to be like that? Jack told me he came up here to get some space so he could think…”

“But he went into business. He has a lot of people in his life who depend on him. It doesn’t seem like the same kind of thing. Was it Shelly? Did that whole thing about the wedding—”

“Marcie,” he said, touching her cheek. “It was everything. Too much at once. It was Fallujah and Bobby. Then it was Shelly and my father…”

“Tell me about letting Shelly go,” she said.

He glanced away, then back. “Let me ask you something—did Shelly ever call you? Visit you and Bobby? Or were you the one to make contact with her?”

“I was looking for you…” she said.

Enough of an answer. “I had suggested to Shelly in letters, before the bomb in Fallujah, that she call you. You lived in the same town. Bobby was my friend,” he said.

“But, Ian—”

“I know. But what happened to me and Bobby was one of the biggest reasons I had to take a time-out to recover. Shelly knew what had happened. She knew Bobby was an invalid and you were taking care of him. She knew you’d been to Germany and D.C. and finally home—yet she never even wrote you a letter, never called you. A girl from your town, her fiancé’s best friend, my life in the balance getting him out…” He made a face. “Marcie, I didn’t know she was that kind of person. I thought she was more the kind of person who would—”

“Ian, once we were back in Chico, I didn’t contact her again either,” Marcie pointed out. “Not until I was looking for you.”

His expression changed. “Again?” he asked.

Caught. She looked down. “Before the bomb, I called her.” She looked up. “Because you and Bobby were good friends, I thought we could get together. She was very busy. She took my number and said if she ever had any free time, she’d get in touch.”

“And she never had any free time,” he said. “She never told me that, but somehow I knew.” He inhaled and let it out slowly. “You were busy taking care of Bobby, and Shelly had a wedding to plan. The difference in that scared me. It turns out Shelly had tunnel vision—she could only see one thing. I’m not sure I was even a part of what she saw.” He ran his finger along her cheek. “You aren’t kidding—I dodged a bullet there. I didn’t fully realize it, but I knew something wasn’t right.”

“Ah,” she said. “Ah. On top of everything else. And with your father? What did your father do?”

He looked away uncomfortably, but he knew he was going to be honest with her. “Nothing he hadn’t done my whole life.” He looked back. “My dad was always tough to please. He thought pushing me would make me a man, but I was never man enough. All I ever wanted from him was a word of praise, a proud smile.”

“What about your mother?”

He smiled tenderly. “God, she was incredible. She always loved him, no matter what. And I didn’t have to do anything to make her think I was a hero. If I fell flat on my face she’d just beam and say, ‘Did you see that great routine of Ian’s? What a genius!’ When I was in that musical, she thought I was the best thing to hit Chico, but my dad asked me if I was gay.” He chuckled. “My mom was the best-natured, kindest, most generous woman who ever lived. Always positive. And faithful?” He laughed, shaking his head. “My dad could be in one of his negative moods where nothing was right—the dinner sucked, the ball game wasn’t coming in clear on the TV, the battery on the car was giving out, he hated work, the neighbors were too loud…And my mom, instead of saying, ‘Why don’t you grow the fuck up, you old turd,’ she would just say, ‘John, I bet I have something that will turn your mood around—I made a German chocolate cake.’”

Marcie smiled. “She sounds wonderful.”

“She was. Wonderful. Even while she was fighting cancer, she was so strong, so awesome that I kept thinking it was going to be all right, that she’d make it. As for my dad, he was always impossible to please, impossible to impress. I really thought I’d grown through it, you know? I got to the point real early where I finally understood that that’s just the kind of guy he was. He never beat me, he hardly even yelled at me. He didn’t get drunk, break up the furniture, miss work or—”

“But what did he do, Ian?” she asked gently.

He blinked a couple of times. “Did you know I got medals for getting Bobby out of Fallujah?”

She nodded. “He got medals, too.”

“My old man was there when I was decorated. He stood nice and tall, polite, and told everyone he knew about the medals. But he never said jack to me. Then when I told him I was getting out of the Marine Corps, he told me I was a fuckup. That I didn’t know a good thing when I had it. And he said…” He paused for a second. “He said he’d never been so ashamed of me in his whole goddamn life and if I did that—got out—I wasn’t his son.”

Instead of crumbling into tears on his behalf, she leaned against him, stroked his cheek a little and smiled. “So—he was the same guy his whole stupid life.”