Shelter Mountain (Virgin River 2)

“Parental kidnapping. But here’s the thing—if there’s evidence that he’s battered her in the past, if he has a record, she might have to return and face her kidnapping charges, but they’d probably be pleaded down or dismissed, given the situation. And she could probably gain at least temporary custody at that time, a divorce, a restraining order, what she needs to stay safe.”

“But she’d have to go back,” he said, a note of desperation in his voice.

“Preacher. She wouldn’t necessarily have to go back alone. Hey, how into this woman are you?”

“It’s not like that, man. I’m just trying to help out. That little kid—he’s a good little kid. If I could help with this, even a little, it would make me feel like I’d done something that mattered. For once.”

“Preach.” Mike laughed. “I was with you in Iraq! You mattered damn near every day, for God’s sake! Hey—where did you learn all this stuff about battery DV? Huh?”

“I got a computer,” Preacher answered. “Doesn’t everyone but Jack have a computer?”

“I guess.” Mike laughed.

“One thing I can’t get online—I wanna know who she is, how guilty he is, and what’s the best way to go here. All I know is her license plate.…California plate…”

“Aw, Preach. I’m not supposed to do that.”

“Couldn’t you be curious?” Preacher asked. “Because there could actually be a crime in here somewhere. All you have to do is look, Mike.”

“Hey, Preacher,” Mike said. “What if it’s not good news?”

“Would it be the truth?” Preacher asked. “Because I think that might be important here.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Might be.”

Preacher swallowed hard and hoped it would be okay. “Thanks,” he said. “Go ahead and hurry, huh?”

Paige had gone with Mel to Grace Valley where Dr. John Stone examined her and performed an ultrasound, showing her a small, beating heart in a little mass that didn’t look anything like a baby. But it gave her hope. She had gotten out in time. Barely in time.

The pregnancy was an accident, of course. Wes didn’t want children. He hadn’t wanted Christopher—it interfered with his focus, which was his job and his possessions, Paige being chief among them. Perhaps this new baby precipitated the beating; she’d only told him a couple of days before. In fact, she’d been terrified to tell him. But then, if he didn’t want it, why put her through so much? Why not just suggest termination?

The larger question was how could Paige be so relieved to learn the baby had survived when Wes’s merest touch repelled her? She was, that’s all. But then, she’d come to think of her son as the one good thing that could come out of the biggest mistake of her life. Have you been raped? Mel had asked. Oh, no—not rape. She wouldn’t dare tell Wes no…

When she got back to Virgin River, she found Chris making bread with John, kneading and punching the dough, laughing.

Such an uncomplicated scene, she thought. So many times when Wes was stressing out and getting himself all worked up about his job, the financial pressures of their lifestyle, she had told him that simplifying things would actually appeal to her. No, she didn’t want to be dirt poor and worked to death, but she could be so content in a smaller house with a happier husband. Not long before Chris had been born, Wes bought the big house in an exclusive, guarded, gated L.A. community—more house than they could ever need, and hanging on to it was killing him. Killing her.

So, here she was. The baby had made it. She had to get going, to that address in Spokane, to the first step in her underground escape. The dresser had not been pulled against the door since the first night and she thought she’d give herself another twenty-four hours to rest, then leave in the quiet of night. If there was no rain, the roads wouldn’t be so difficult and it would be easier to travel at night while Chris slept.

There was a soft tapping at the door. It was her instinct to ask who was there, but there was only one possibility. She pulled the door open and there stood John, looking nervous. Looking, in spite of his height and girth, like a teenager. He might’ve had a flush on his cheeks.

“I closed up the bar. I was thinking about a short drink before calling it a night. How about you? Wanna come down for a little while?”

“For a drink?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you want.” He peered past her. “He asleep?”

“Out like a light, despite an overdose of cookies.”

“Yeah, I probably gave him too many. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry—he loves making them. If he makes them, he has to eat them. It’s fun—sometimes that’s more important than nutrition.”

“I’ll do whatever you say,” Preacher said. “I could cut him back. He likes ’em though. He especially likes burning his mouth on them. He doesn’t wait so good.”

“I know,” she said, smiling. “You have anything like…tea?”

“Sure. Aside from sportsmen, I serve mostly little old ladies.” He took on a shocked look. “I didn’t mean…”

“A cup of tea would be nice. Good.”

“Great,” he said, turning and preceding her down the stairs, looking almost grateful to get away.

He got busy brewing tea in the kitchen, so Paige went into the bar and sat at the table where she saw his drink by the fire. When he finally brought her that cup of tea, he said, “You have a good time with Mel today?”

“Yes. Was Christopher a lot of trouble?”

He shook his head with a chuckle. “Nah, he’s a kick. He wants to know everything. Every detail. ‘Why is it a quarter teaspoon of that?’ ‘What does the Crisco on the tray do?’ And man, yeast blows him away. I think he has a little scientist in him.”

Paige thought, he couldn’t ask his father questions. Wes didn’t have the patience to answer them. “John, do you have family?”

“Not anymore. I was an only child. And my folks were older, anyway—they didn’t think they were going to have kids. Then I surprised ’em. Boy, did I surprise ’em. My dad died when I was about six—a construction accident. And then my mom when I was seventeen, right before my senior year.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks. It’s okay. I’ve had a good life.”

“What did you do when you lost your mother? Go live with aunts or something?”

“No aunts,” he said, shaking his head. “My football coach took me in. It was good—he had a nice wife, good bunch of little kids. Might as well have lived with him. He acted like he owned me during football, anyway,” he said with a laugh. “Nah, kidding aside, that was a good thing he did. Good guy. We used to write—now we e-mail.”

“What happened to your mom?”

“Heart attack.” After a moment of respectful silence, looking into his lap, he laughed softly. “You won’t believe this—she died at confession. That really tore me up at first. I thought maybe she had some deep, dark secret that threw her into a heart attack—but I was tight with the priest—I was his altar boy. And it was hard for him, but finally he leveled with me. See, my mom was the parish secretary and real…how should I say this? Kind of a church lady. Father Damien finally told me, my mom’s confessions were so boring, he used to nod off. He thought they’d both just fallen asleep, but she was dead.” He lifted his eyebrows. “My mom, good woman, not a lot of excitement going on there. She lived for that job, loved the clergy, loved the church. She’d have made a great nun. But you know what? She was happy. I don’t think she had any idea she was boring and straitlaced.”

“You must miss her so much,” Paige said, sipping her tea in front of the fire, trying to remember when she last had a conversation like this. Unhurried, nonthreatening, warm in front of a friendly fire.

“I do. This is going to sound stupid, especially since I’m no kid—sometimes I pretend she’s back there, in that little house we lived in, and that I’m just getting my stuff together to go see her.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid.…”

“There anybody you really miss?” he asked her.

The question caused her to suddenly go still, her cup frozen in midair. Not her dad, so scrappy and short-tempered. Not her mom who, without knowing or meaning to, had trained her to be a battered wife. Not Bud, her brother, a mean little bastard who had failed to help her in her darkest hour. “I had a couple of really close girlfriends. Roommates. We lost touch. I miss them sometimes.”

“You know where they are?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Both got married and moved,” she said. “I wrote a couple of times…. Then my letters came back.” They didn’t want to be in touch with her; they knew things were bad. They hated Wes; Wes hated them. They had tried to help, briefly, but he ran them off and she rejected their help out of pure shame. What were they supposed to do? “How’d you get so close to Jack?” she asked him.

“Marines,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you go into the military together?”

“Nah.” He laughed. “Jack’s older than me—by about eight years. I’ve always looked older than I was—even when I was twelve. And Jack—I bet he’s always looked younger. He was my first sergeant in combat, back in Desert Storm.” And for a split second he was back there. Changing a tire on a truck when the tire exploded and the rim knocked him back six feet and he couldn’t get up. He remembered it like it was yesterday—he had always been so huge, so rock hard, so strong, and he couldn’t move. He might’ve been unconscious for a little while because he saw his mother leaning over him, looking right into his eyes and saying, “John, get up. Get up, John.” Right there in that paisley, high-collared dress, graying hair pulled back.

But he couldn’t move, so he started to cry. And cry. Mom! he’d cried out.

Yeah, you have a lot of pain, buddy? Jack asked, leaning over him.

And Preacher said, It’s my mom. I want my mom. I miss my mom.

We’re gonna get you back to her, pal. Take a few deep breaths.

She’s dead, Preacher said. She died.

She’s been dead a couple years at least, one of his squad members told Jack.

I’m sorry, Sarge, I couldn’t help it. I’ve never done this before. Cried like this. We’re not supposed to cry…. I never did before, I swear. But he cried helplessly even as he said that.

We cry over people we lose, buddy. It’s okay.

Father Damien said, remember she’s with God and she’s happy and don’t soil her memory with crying about it.

Priests are usually smarter than that, Jack had said with a disapproving snort. You don’t cry over something like that and the tears turn into snakes that eat you from the inside out. The crying part—it’s required.

I’m sorry.…

You get it out, buddy, or you’ll be worse off. Call her, call out to your mom, get her attention, cry for her. It’s damn past time!

And he had. Sobbed like a baby, Jack’s arms under his shoulders, holding him up a little. Jack rocked him and said, Yeah, there you go. There you go.…

Jack sat with him for a while, talking to him about his mother, and Preacher told him that he made it through that last year of school, tough and silent. Then, with no idea where to go or what to do, he joined up. So he could have brothers, which he had now, but it wasn’t enough to take away the need for his mother. And that goddamn tire rim almost cut him in half and it was like the pain of losing her came pouring out. It was humiliating, to be six four and two-fifty, sobbing for your five-foot, three-inch mommy. Jack said, Nah, it’s just what you need. Get it out.