Virgin River (Virgin River #1)(60)

Preacher’s black brows shot up in surprise and he put up his hands as if being arrested. Mel slowly let go of his shirt and sat back on the stool. “He’s drunk,” Preacher said.

“Well, no kidding. But there’s something wrong with him. He’s been different all week.”

Again the shrug. “Sometimes when the boys are here, it dredges things up. You know? I think he’s having some remembering of things not so good.”

“Marine things?” she asked. Preacher nodded. “Come on, Preacher. He’s the best friend I have in this town.”

“I don’t think he’d like me talking.”

“Whatever this is, he shouldn’t go through it alone.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Preacher said. “He’ll snap out of it. He always does.”

“Please,” she implored. “Can’t you guess how much he means to me? I want to help, if there’s any way I can.”

“I could tell you some things, but they’re very ugly things. Not for a lady to hear.”

She laughed a little. “You can’t imagine the things I’ve seen, much less heard. I worked in a trauma center for almost ten years. It could get pretty ugly at times.”

“Not like this.”

“Try me.”

Preacher took a deep breath. “Those boys that come up every year? They come to make sure he’s okay. He was their sergeant. My sergeant. Best sergeant in the marines. He’s been in five combat zones. The last one, Iraq. He was leading a platoon into interior Fallujah and one of the boys stepped on a truck mine. Blew him in half. Right away we were pinned down by sniper fire. Our boy who stepped on the mine, he didn’t die right away. Something about the heat of the explosion—it must’ve cauterized arteries and vessels and he didn’t bleed out. Didn’t have pain, either—it must have done something to his spine. But he was fully conscious.”

“My God.”

“Jack ordered everyone to take cover in the buildings, which we did. But he sat with his man. He wouldn’t leave him. Under sniper fire, leaning against a fat tire on an overturned truck, he held him and talked to him for a half hour before he died. Kid kept telling Jack to go, take cover, that it was okay. You know he didn’t go. He’d never leave one of his men behind.” He took a drink of coffee. “We saw a lot of stuff back there that will give you nightmares, but that’s the one that sometimes gets to him. I don’t know what hits him harder—the kid’s slow death or the visit he paid his parents to tell them all the things he said before he went.”

“And he gets drunk?”

“Fishes a lot. Maybe goes into the woods and camps awhile to get his stability back. Sometimes he’ll try to drink it away, but that’s pretty rare. First, it doesn’t work too well and second, he feels like crap afterward. But it’ll be okay, Mel. He always comes out of it.”

“Jesus,” she said. “I guess everyone has baggage. Gimme a beer.”

He poured one from the tap and put it before her. “So maybe the thing to do is just let him be awhile.”

“Is he going to wake up soon?”

“No. He’s tanked. I was just about to carry him to bed when you walked in. I’ll sleep in the chair in his room, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case he’s not just drunk. In case he gets sick or something. He carried me down a road in Iraq—about a mile. I’m not letting anything happen to him now.”

She drank some of her beer. “He’s carried me a little, too,” she said. “I don’t think he knows it, though.”

They sat in silence for a little while. She drank about half her beer. “I’m trying to get a picture of him carrying you,” she said. “Must’ve looked like the ant and the rubber tree.”

He surprised her with a chuckle.

“How’d he get you to come here? To this little town?”

“He didn’t have to talk me into it. I kept in touch with him when he got out, and when I got out, I came up. He said I could stay and help around the bar if I wanted to. I wanted to.”

A noise behind her made her turn. Jack fell off the chair and crashed to the floor, sprawling there.

“Nightie-night time,” Preacher said, coming around the bar.

“Preacher, if you’ll get him to his room, I’ll stay with him.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mel. Could be unpleasant. You know?”

“Not a problem,” she said. “I’ve held many a bucket, if it comes to that.”

“Sometimes he cries out.”

“Sometimes, so do I.”

“Is it what you want?”

“It is. I want to.”

“You really do care about him, then?” he asked.

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Well, okay. If you’re sure.”

Preacher crouched and pulled Jack upright. Hands under his armpits, he got him to a limp standing position, then putting a shoulder to his midsection, hoisted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Mel followed him to Jack’s bedroom.

She’d never been in Jack’s quarters. It was set up like a little efficiency apartment with two means of entry—either through the kitchen behind the bar or the back door that led out to the yard. It was L-shaped, the bedroom being in the short end of the L and the living area larger. There was a table with two chairs by the window and while there was no kitchen, there was a small refrigerator.