Return to Virgin River (Virgin River #19)(16)

She should give herself and her best friend names.

Sometimes she felt like her mother was still alive. Sometimes she thought of her alive and well, robust and funny and cynical and pouring a cup of coffee or glass of wine in her house in Newport. Countless times she felt her hand reaching for the phone to give her a quick call. “I’ll go get us Mediterranean and we’ll eat on the patio,” Kaylee would say. “Do you have good wine?” And before she finished the thought she would remember Meredith wasn’t there.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of barking dogs and she went to the porch cautiously. Landry was in the fenced yard behind his house with a couple of dogs. She didn’t know what kind they were. Two were blond and hairy, one was sleek and black. Landry was throwing ball after ball for them to chase. He stopped, put three balls in his pocket and called the dogs with a shrill whistle, and all three trotted over to him, wagging their tails fiercely. They sat. Then he lowered a hand to one, then another, then threw a ball to the third. Only that dog ran to fetch. Then that dog sat and was told to stay while the second dog was invited to fetch. Then the third. Remarkable. They took turns and politely waited.

“Cool,” she muttered to herself. But she had no desire to be anywhere near them. She sat on the porch swing and listened to the barking, the whistling, the quiet, rinse and repeat.

She put her kitten in the carrier to keep her out of mischief while she was gone, packed up her computer and drove to town.

Given it was midafternoon, there were only a few people in Jack’s Bar. He called out her name, greeting her, and even though it had only been a couple of days it had much the feel of Cheers—friendly and familiar. She went to the bar for a Diet Coke, found a table in the corner away from the door and bar, and opened up her computer.

She forced herself to write one page of her novel. She was desperate to make some progress and the best way she could think of was to toss a dead body in there. To make it interesting, the body had several bullet wounds and was discovered by one of her favorite recurring characters—a seventy-eight-year-old woman, a busybody with a fierce interest in forensics.

Then she flipped over to the other document.

The last thing she had any interest in was a man or a romantic encounter. She noticed that Landon spent a lot of time outdoors with his horses and his garden. She couldn’t help but see him. A lot of him. The way his jeans fit seemed to be particularly appealing, not that she was checking him out. She told herself she wouldn’t have noticed the jeans if it hadn’t been for his lovely personality. He was so comfortable around her, so accommodating and affable. His eyes were so shockingly blue and his smile both frequent and engaging. When he smiled at her she felt her pulse pick up a little. She couldn’t help but watch him when he was in sight.

She wondered if they might become friends while she lived in his guesthouse. And she hoped to become better friends with the bartender and his wife—they were so kind and generous, not to mention fun.

“Hey, it’s the fire girl,” someone said. She looked up to see Mike, the guy who had been behind the bar the first night she was in town. She had since learned that he was Jack’s brother-in-law and lived next door to Mel and Jack. Today he was wearing a badge on his belt. “The writer.”

“We’re going to have to go with names and not reputation,” she said, sticking out her hand. “Kaylee Sloan.”

“Mike Valenzuela, how you doing?”

“Great,” she said. “I didn’t know you were the police.”

“Constable for this town. How’s the new place?”

“It’s very nice,” she said. “Just what I was looking for since the Templeton house is off the market. I’m lucky—it was just a lucky break.”

“Have you heard from the Templetons?”

“Not since I talked to him right after the fire. Gerald said he’d give me a call once he learned more about the cause. He thinks he’ll have to come up here and plan some repairs. He or one of his sons.”

The door opened and a tall man came in and walked toward Mike and Kaylee. “Hey there,” he said. “I think I saw you at the fire. I’m Paul Haggerty.”

She recognized him as one of the many men gathered around the dregs of the fire. “Kaylee Sloan.”

“Did I hear you say the Templetons were friends of yours?”

“That’s right. I was going to use their house for a few months.”

Paul pulled a card out of his pocket. “Next time you talk to Gerald, tell him I’m hoping for a chance to bid on the remodel. I have a construction company in town. He knows me, but I don’t know if he’ll remember I’m a builder. I do a lot of remodels and upgrades around here.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that on.”

“Thank you. Are you doing okay?”

“She’s renting that extra house out at Landry’s,” Mike said.

“It’s nice out there. I helped Landry tear out a wall in the big house and he works with me from time to time.”

“Oh, this is the girl from the fire,” someone else said.

Over the next hour she chatted with Connie, the owner of the Corner Store; Noah, the minister; Colin and Luke Riordan, names she’d heard before, and then of all people to drop by, Landry came in, greeting her as if they were old friends. There was a lot of hand shaking and howdies, a couple of beers, a couple of sodas, a black coffee. Mel came in to take her afternoon break with her husband. Kaylee met the cook, Preacher, and his wife. Before she realized what had happened, she’d been in the bar for two hours and the place was beginning to fill up with construction workers or farmers or people from businesses around town.