Virgin River (Virgin River #1)(31)

“You find a magazine, honey?”

Mel made a face and held up the Playboy.

“My, my,” Connie said.

“I’m not too interested in trucks, fish, guns or game,” she said. “Don’t you ever get any others in?”

“If you tell me what you want, I’ll have Ron pick ’em up on his next run. We only carry what we sell.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “I hope I haven’t just snatched up some poor guy’s Playboy that he’s looking forward to.”

“Don’t you worry about it,” Connie said. “Hey, there’s a little potluck at the bar tonight for Joy’s birthday. Why don’t you come on over?”

“Aw, I don’t have a present!”

“We don’t do presents, honey,” Joy said. “Just come and party.”

“Well, happy birthday anyway, Joy. I’ll check with Doc,” she said. “What time? If I can come, should I bring something for the potluck?”

“We’ll get over there about six, and no, don’t you worry about bringing anything. I don’t guess you do any cooking at Doc’s and we have the food covered. Nothing new on that baby, huh?”

“Not a peep.”

“Damnedest thing,” Joy said. “Bet whoever’s it is came from another one of the towns.”

“I’m starting to think that, too,” Mel said. She pulled some bills out of her pocket to pay for her stuff. “Maybe I’ll see you later, then.”

On her way back to Doc’s she passed the bar. Jack was sitting on the porch with his feet up on the rail. She wandered over. Sitting beside him was a fishing tackle box full of beautiful feathery flies. Small pliers, scissors and a razor blade were sticking out of the tackle box, as well as little plastic envelopes that contained colorful feathers, silver hooks and other paraphernalia.

“Break time?” he asked her.

“I’ve been on break all day, except for a little diaper changing and feeding. The baby’s asleep, there aren’t any patients and Doc is afraid to play gin with me. It turns out I can beat his socks off.”

Jack laughed. He leaned forward and peered at the book and magazine. He looked at her face and raised an eyebrow. “Little light reading?” he asked.

She lifted the magazine. “It was either this or guns, trucks, hunting or fishing. You want to borrow it when I’m through?”

“No, thanks,” he laughed.

“You don’t like naked women?”

“I love naked women—I just don’t feel like looking at pictures of them. It seems like you’d get enough of that in your line of work,” he said.

“Like I said, the choices were pretty limited. I haven’t seen one of these in years, but when I was in college my roommates and I used to laugh ourselves stupid at the advice column. And they used to have some interesting stories. Does Playboy still run fiction?”

“I have absolutely no idea, Melinda,” he said, grinning.

“You know what I’ve noticed about this town? Everyone has a satellite dish and at least one gun.”

“A couple of items that seem to be necessary. No cable TV out here. You shoot?” he asked.

“I hate guns,” she said with a shudder. “Try to imagine the number of gunshot deaths in a trauma center in L.A.” She shivered again. He has no idea, she thought.

“The guns around here aren’t the kind people use on each other. Hardly a handgun in the town, although I have a couple, just because I’ve had them for a long time. This is rifle and shotgun country—used for hunting, euthanizing a sick or wounded animal, protection from wildlife. I could teach you to shoot, so you’d be more comfortable with guns.”

“No way. I hate to even be around them. All these guns I see in the gun racks in the trucks—are they loaded?”

“You bet. You don’t take a minute to load your rifle if a bear is charging you. Bear fish in the same rivers we do.”

“Whew, fishing just took on a whole new meaning. Who shot all the animals on the walls in the bar?” she asked.

“Preacher got the buck. I caught the fish and shot the bear.”

She was shaking her head. “How can you get any satisfaction out of killing innocent animals?”

“The buck and fish were innocent,” he admitted. “But that bear wasn’t. I didn’t want to shoot her, but I was working on the bar and she was poking around right back there, maybe looking for trash. Bear are scavengers—they’ll eat anything. It was a real dry summer. Her cub wandered too close to me and riled her up. Pissed her off. She must have gotten the idea I was going to interfere with the cub. So…?”

“Aw. What happened to the cub?”

“I locked him in the bar until Fish and Game could come out for him. They relocated him.”

“That’s too bad. For her. She was just being a mother.”

“I didn’t want to shoot that bear,” he said. “I don’t even hunt bear. I carry repellent—sort of a pepper spray. That day the repellent was in the truck, but the rifle was handy. I wouldn’t have shot her, but it kind of got down to her or me.” He grinned at her. “City girl,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m just a city girl. With no dead animals on my walls. Think I’ll keep it that way.”