One at a time they put their faces in the line of the camera. “Hoo-rah,” Jack said, grinning. He was joined quickly by the other two men. Preacher scowled into the camera and said, “What’s up, Marine?” Mike smiled and said, “Buy you a beer when you get back, buddy.”
“Oh, man!” Matt said, laughing, slapping his forehead in surprise. “Damn me, you boys look good! You must not have to work for a living, you look so good! God, I’m glad Vanni’s there—I told her she’d love it there! How’s the general doing? You looking out for him?”
Walt pushed his way in. “Who says I need looking out for?”
“Hey, man! How you doing, sir? You watching over your grandbaby?”
“By the time you get home, I’ll have him standing at attention!”
Matt laughed, clearly enjoying the small reunion. “Tommy around?” Matt asked.
“I’m afraid he’s late, Matt. I can’t imagine why—he’s been looking forward to this. There’s someone else here,” Walt said, pulling Paul into the frame.
“Haggerty! What the hell? What are you doing there?” Matt asked.
“I’m finishing up Jack’s new house for him. He’s got a kid and another one on the way….”
“Jack’s got a kid?”
“Yeah, can you think of anything crazier? He needed some help. How’s it going over there, bud?”
“Aw, it sucks. Big surprise, huh?”
“You making any progress?”
“Slow, miserable progress. You going to be around there a while?”
“Couple of months maybe, on and off. But I’m never very far away, you know that. When you get back here, I’ll just come—”
“Hey, Paul… Buddy… Listen, if anything happens…”
“We don’t talk that way, come on.”
“Paul, if anything goes wrong, you look after Vanni, huh? I think she always liked you best anyway.” Then he laughed. “We’re going to kick some ass here, don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried. Hey, we don’t want to steal this time from your wife. We’re going to step out, leave the two of you alone, okay?”
“Thanks, buddy. Paul? Buddy? Hey, you know I love you, man.”
“Hoo-rah,” Paul said. “You hang in there. Give ’em hell! Vanni—get back here,” Paul said.
And like an exodus, everyone left the great room for the kitchen so that Vanessa and Matt could have what was left of the air time alone. From the kitchen they could hear the voices in the background. Walt quietly passed out drinks while they whispered. “He looks good,” Jack said.
“For a jarhead,” the general joked. “Tommy was supposed to be here. Late again.” Then to Mel he said, “That was perfect, what you did. Getting the ultrasound before this video conference.”
“They didn’t have anything like this when I served,” Preacher said. “This is good, this Internet conference. Too bad they can’t talk every day or every week.” He draped an arm around Paige’s shoulders, pulling her near. Clearly he wouldn’t be able to bear being away from her, separated like Matt and Vanessa.
After a few minutes had passed, there were no more voices coming from the other room. Paul had seemed to be on alert and it was he who first poked his head around the corner. The screen was dark and Vanessa sat in front of it with her head lowered to her folded arms, crying.
Paul approached her. “Vanni, come on, Vanni,” he said, down on one knee, his arms enfolding her. She turned in his arms and with her head on his shoulder, she just wept. “Oh, honey, that was hard, wasn’t it? But he’s okay—you saw that! He’s tough, Vanni. He’s going to be fine. He’ll be home before you know it.”
She lifted her head and met Paul’s eyes. “At least I held it together while he was online,” she said.
“Yeah, you did good. Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s get your face washed. I don’t want you all upset. We don’t want to get the little critter upset. Come on,” he said, arm around her shoulders, leading her away from the computer, down the hall toward the bathroom.
Walt was the next one out of the kitchen. “It’s probably going to take her a few minutes,” he said. “I knew the whole thing would be good and bad all at the same time. But with all of you here, she’ll come around quicker, enjoy herself, have some good feelings just from seeing him again, seeing he’s okay.”
The front door crashed open and Tommy rushed in. “Did I make it?” he asked, eyeing the gathering.
“You missed it, son. Where’ve you been?”
“Aw, man, I’m sorry, Dad. I tried to get back….”
Walt walked toward his son, frowning. The boy was as tall as his dad, though leaner. He had a split lip and some dirt on his clothes. “What’s this? You’ve been fighting?”
“Not really,” Tommy said. “Maybe a little bit. Dad, I’m sorry I missed him. I’ll explain later, but I promise, I’m not going to let you down again. I promise.”
“Just tell me one thing—did this have anything to do with Jordan Whitley?”
Tommy grinned. “Yeah. And he looks worse than me. I’m through with him, Dad. Honest.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess.”
Paul was spending a few nights at the general’s house following the video conference while Walt was in Bodega Bay, and he decided to do little big-brothering. He found Tommy in the stable, mucking the stalls. “Hey, pal,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Okay. What’s up?”
“I’m staying out of the kitchen. Believe me, Vanessa doesn’t want my attempts at food preparation. I was wondering something…”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to pry, so you tell me if it’s none of my business. You having any trouble at school?”
“Like…?”
“Like the kind that gets you into fights?”
“Oh, that. What did my dad tell you?”
Paul shrugged. “He said you were hanging with a guy he didn’t like. That’s all I know.”
“The second he saw him, it was instant hate, and I don’t have that one figured out yet. I don’t know how you can take one look at a guy and know he’s an asshole.”
“Well, the general has looked at a lot of young guys over the years. Did he turn out to be right?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said with a grin, then touched his split lip in sudden pain. “Don’t tell him I said that. He already thinks he knows everything.”
Paul returned the grin. “Your secret’s safe with me, pal. How’d you get hooked up with him?”
“New-kid syndrome,” Tommy said, leaning his shovel against the wall of the stall. “I got here too late in the summer for football and didn’t have anything better to do. I thought he was a little weird, but you know—he always managed to have a couple of beers or a place lined up for a party.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.”
“I guess,” Paul said, though his senior year had been pretty tame. “So what kind of an asshole did he turn out to be?”
“The usual kind. He’s a liar. Likes to brag about the girls he’s nailed.”
“Lot of that going around the locker room.”
“I always learned a real man doesn’t brag about it. Plus, I don’t have anything to brag about.”
“No shame in that, Tommy. This is a good time to be real careful, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean, Paul,” he said, smiling more cautiously. “Don’t worry. My dad has had this talk with me a hundred or so times. But Jordan really pissed me off good—he was talking about a girl I’ve been dating. I’ve only been out with her a few times, and there’s school and homework at her house, and she’s a nice girl. A good girl, you know? She moves real, real slow. The way that asshole talked, it was like he was saying he’d done her. There’s no way he’d even get to hold her hand. I had to slug him. You know?”
“Whew,” Paul said. “You finished with him now?”
“Oh, yeah. Every time I see his face, I just want to mess it up.”
“How’s it going with the girl?”
“It’s good. You should see her—she’s beautiful. And you would never believe how smart she is. I think she kind of likes me.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Surprises the hell out of me,” Tom said, glancing away.
Paul laughed at his modesty. He was already six feet tall with some good-sized shoulders and arms on him from playing sports and taking care of a stable and four horses every day. Tossing around heavy bales of hay was better than lifting weights. “Hey, you have any time on your hands? Any need to make money?”
“I could always use a little money.”
“Yeah, if you’re gonna date beautiful girls, you need money.” Paul laughed again. “There’s work out at the job site, if you’re interested. It’s dirty and it’s hard—clean up around the site. But Jack’s paying overtime. I could give you a few hours after school or on weekends.”
“I’ll take it,” Tom said, smiling.
Ten
Brie’s routine in Sacramento lacked challenge, but she still had no desire to go back to the prosecutor’s office. All she did was exercise every morning, clean up her dad’s house and cook dinner for the two of them. She read when she was relaxed and could focus—not law text or nonfiction, but escapist novels. Finally there were a few places around town she was comfortable going to—if only in the light of day. She felt safe at the grocery store and the women’s gym, but not the library; those narrow aisles of tightly packed books gave her claustrophobia. So she bought her books online and had them delivered. There was still enough anxiety in her that she even varied the time of morning she went to the gym for her workout, conscious that criminals who watched their victims studied their habits to use against them.
She went to her sisters’ homes and sometimes the girls would come to Sam’s. Sunday dinners with the whole family at Sam’s were pretty typical. Everyone had noticed that even if Brie’s routine hadn’t changed much, her mood had. She was lighter of spirit; she smiled and laughed more easily.
“I think Virgin River gets you right,” her oldest sister, Donna, observed. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gone there after a crisis and come home better.”
“It’s not the town,” she admitted. “And it’s not Jack.” When she’d gone to Virgin River after the trial and David’s birth, she’d been empty inside. Hollow. A brand-new divorcée having just lost the biggest trial of her career, she’d felt as if she was nothing. A zero, a nonperson; a woman who couldn’t hold her man, a lawyer who couldn’t win her case. But a picnic, a little wedding dancing, some flirting, and she’d begun to feel female again. Then the rape had set her back a year; she was broken in a million pieces. But some phone calls and lunches, some strong arms around her and lips on hers, and she’d started to feel like a woman. In fact, that was the only place she felt like a woman and not a victim—in his arms.
Since being back in Sacramento Brie had seen Mike only twice in several weeks—Santa Rosa lunches, holding hands across the table. There were long, deep, wonderful kisses at parting. She talked to him almost every evening, taking the call in her room, and for about an hour they would share the events of the day. He caught her up on all the news, from the video conference at the general’s to who’d been at Jack’s for dinner. She was amazed by how hungry she was for every tiny piece of information about that little town.
