Virgin River (Virgin River #1)(23)

Mel got her sister Joey on the phone.

“Oh, Jesus, Mel! You scared me to death! Where have you been? Why didn’t you call sooner?”

“I’ve been in Virgin River where I have no phone and my cell doesn’t work. And I’ve been pretty busy.”

“I was about to call out the National Guard!”

“Yeah? Well, don’t bother. They’d never be able to find the place.”

“You’re all right?”

“Well… This will probably make you perversely happy,” Mel told her. “You were right. I shouldn’t have done this. I was nuts. As usual.”

“Is it terrible?”

“Well, it definitely started out terrible—the free housing turned out to be a falling-down hovel and the doctor is a mean old coot who doesn’t want any help in his practice. I was on my way out of town when—you’ll never believe this—someone left an abandoned newborn on the doctor’s porch. But things have improved, if slightly. I’m staying for at least a few more days to help with the baby. The old doc wouldn’t wake up to those middle-of-the-night hunger cries. Oh, Joey, my first impression of him is that he was the poorest excuse for a town doctor I’d ever met. Mean as a snake, rude as sour milk. Fortunately, working with those L.A. medical residents, especially those dicky surgeons, prepared me nicely.”

“Okay, that was your first impression. How has it changed?”

“He proves tractable. Since my housing was uninhabitable, I’m staying in the guest room in his house. It’s actually set up to be the only hospital room in town. This house is fine—clean and functional. There could be a slight inconvenience at any moment—a young woman who asked me to deliver her first baby will be having it here—in my bedroom, which I share with the abandoned baby. Picture this—a post-partum patient and a full nursery.”

“And you will sleep where?”

“I’ll probably hang myself up in a corner and sleep standing up. But that’s only if she delivers within the next week, while I’m still here. Surely a family will turn up to foster this baby soon. Although, I wouldn’t mind a birth. A sweet, happy birth to loving, excited, healthy parents…”

“You don’t have to stay for that,” Joey said firmly. “It’s not as though they don’t have a doctor.”

“I know—but she’s so young. And she was so happy, thinking there was a woman doctor here who could deliver her rather than this ornery old man.”

“Mel, I want you to get in your car and drive. Come to us. Where we can look after you for a while.”

“I don’t need looking after,” she said with a laugh. “Work helps. I need to work. Whole hours go by without thinking about Mark.”

“How are you doing with that?”

She sighed deeply. “That’s another thing. No one here knows, so no one looks at me with those sad, pitying eyes. And since they don’t look at me that way, I don’t crumble so often. At least, not where anyone can see.”

“Oh, Mel, I wish I could comfort you somehow…”

“But Joey, I have to grieve this, it’s the only way. And I have to live with the fact that I might never be over it.”

“I hope that’s not true, Mel. I know widows. I know widows who have remarried and are happy.”

“We’re not going there,” she said. Then Mel told Joey about what she knew of the town, about all the people who’d been drifting into Doc’s house just to get a look at her, about Jack and Preacher. And about how many more stars there were out here. The mountains; the air, so clean and sharp it almost took you by surprise. About the people who came to the doctor bringing things, like tons of food, a lot of which went right across the street to the bar where Preacher used it in his creations; about how Jack refused to take a dime from either Doc or Mel for food or drink. Anyone who cared for the town had a free meal ticket over there.

“But it’s very rural. Doc put in a call to the county social services agency, but I gather we’re on a waiting list—they may not figure out foster care for who knows how long. Frankly, I don’t know how the old doc made it without any help all these years.”

“People nice?” Joey asked. “Other than the doctor?”

“The ones I’ve met—very. But the main reason I called, besides letting you know that I’m safe, is to tell you I’m on the old doc’s phone—the cell just isn’t going to work out here. I’ll give you the number.”

“Well,” Joey said. “At least you sound okay. In fact, you sound better than you have in a long time.”

“Like I said, there are patients. Challenges. I’m a little keyed up. The very first day, I was left alone here with the baby and the key to the drug cabinet and told to see any patients who wandered in. No training, nothing. About thirty people came—just to say hello and visit. That’s what you hear in my voice. Adrenaline.”

“Adrenaline again. I thought you swore off.”

Mel laughed. “It’s a completely different brand.”

“So—when you wrap it up there, you’ll come to Colorado Springs?”

“I don’t have any better ideas,” Mel said.

“When?”