LITMIR.BIZ

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the big guy plastered the little guy, knocked him out.”

      “I am not little,” Sean mumbled through a swollen jaw, though no one was listening to him.

      “I didn’t ask you to protect me!” Franci shouted. “I told you to leave him alone!”

      Yeah, Sean thought. Because I’m harmless. Just how I always wanted her to see me. Harmless. And that was Sean Riordan’s last coherent thought.

      The next time he was conscious, a paramedic was waving some disgusting-smelling ammonia under his nose and holding an ice pack to his cheek. The ammonia made him gag and the ice pack hurt like hell. And what was worse, they were all in handcuffs. “Damn,” he groaned. “Damn, damn, damn.”

      Three hours later, Sean was being held in a windowless room with a locked door down at the Eureka police station. The paramedics had recommended that he go to the hospital to have his head examined, to which Sean replied, “Well, no kidding.”

      But while he was in the cell with his buddy the lumberjack, the big man apologized. Sean apologized right back. And what Sean learned was, Dennis Avery was not a lumberjack but a big rig driver who was on his way home, picking up some groceries for the little woman, when he got snared into that whole domestic between Franci and Sean.

      So, as Sean was known to do, he told Dennis his life story. Or at least the part that had to do with breaking up with Franci.

      “Man,” Dennis said, running a hand over his head. “Are you an idiot or what?”

      “Watch it,” Sean warned, though what he was going to do about it remained a mystery.

      “Buddy, I’m six-five in my sockies. I been loading crates into a semitrailer for almost twenty years. And you swing at me?” He laughed. “You got this little gal who throws herself on Goliath to defend you, because you pitched her out without thinking about it twice? No wonder she’s pissed.”

      “I told you,” Sean said irritably. “She gave me an ultimatum. We get married or she’s gone.”

      Dennis stood to his full height. “And you had to think about that?”

      Then, mercifully, the police sergeant was at the door. “All righty, boys. You’re out of here. Somebody loves you and you got cited with misdemeanor public disturbance—a pure gift. Be smart and make sure I don’t see your faces again for a very long time. Like ever. In fact, a smart guy would get his groceries elsewhere, if you get my drift.”

      Sean didn’t know why he should be so blessed, but he was taking the break without back talk. The last thing he wanted to do was call Luke and ask for bail money. After collecting his wallet, keys, cell phone, et cetera, he put on his jacket and made tracks, wondering how far it was back to the grocery-store parking lot to find his car. Meanwhile, Dennis Avery was calling his wife for a ride. Sean’s head was pounding and his left eye was almost closed as he left the small cop shop, disappearing into the early evening night.

      And there, leaning against her car, was Francine. She had a very disgusted look on her face. “Come on, get in,” she said. “I’m taking you home. You can get Luke to bring you back for your car tomorrow, if you don’t die in your sleep.”

      “You said that in a way that suggested you hoped I would die in my sleep,” he said.

      “Don’t be silly. I’d like you to die much more violently than that. Now get in—I don’t have all night.”

      “That’s right,” he said meanly. “You’re in a hurry. How could I forget that?”

      Once they were both in the car, she said, “You’ll have to give me directions. I’m not sure where I’m going.”

      “Just take me to my car,” he said. “It’s at the grocery store.”

      “No, I’m taking you to Luke’s,” she said. “You can’t drive after a possible head injury. You’ve been enough trouble without weighing on my conscience anymore. Where am I going?”

      Sean sighed audibly. He really didn’t feel up to fighting with her. “South till you get to Highway 36, then east on 36 for about twenty minutes. I’ll tell you where to turn off—Virgin River is about ten miles off 36, kind of hidden away in the mountains.”

      “I’ve been out on 36. Cute, how they call it a highway—it’s only a two-lane,” she said. “It’s harrowing.”

      “Yeah, all these mountain roads take some getting used to. This is very nice of you, Francine. Or is it revenge? You’re going to push me out on a sharp turn?”

      She ignored him. “Here’s what I’m going to do for you, Sean. I’m going to give you my cell-phone number and you can call me. When I can spare some time—like a half hour—I will meet you for coffee. We can have this conversation you’re set on. Maybe we’ll straighten a couple of things out. After that, you are going to stop hounding me. Got that? Because I’m in no mood for this bullshit. You’ve had plenty of time to make up your mind about me and you were very clear. No commitment. No family. Now, I’ve gotten on with my life, and if you haven’t, it’s time to do so. Understand?”

      What Sean understood was he now had thirty more minutes than he’d had before. He’d have to figure out a way to make good use of the time. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Franci,” he said softly. He hoped he said it tenderly.

      “And yet it is,” she informed him.

      After dropping Sean off at Luke’s house, Franci headed back down 36, the darkest highway she’d ever driven. She had plenty of time to think and admit that she had received his voice mails—all two of them. The first one came while she was in labor, six months after they’d parted ways, and he had said, “Hey, Fran! How you doing, babe? Give me a call. We should stay in touch, huh?” The second one came when she was at home at her mother’s with a ten-day-old baby, alternately nursing, walking the floor, sleeping and crying. That one was no better than the first. “So, Franci—you gonna call me back? Come on, babe—no reason we can’t talk, is there? I wanna tell you all about the U-2. Gimme a call.” That might explain her blind rage when the big guy in the grocery store casually referred to her as babe.

      Back then Franci realized she was listening to those two calls over and over, alternately planning his death and praying he would come for her. She knew she was in trouble. After several weeks there hadn’t been any more contact from him so, to save herself, she had the cell shut off and got herself a new number. She changed her e-mail address. Then she started looking for a new job and a path out of Santa Rosa.

      She had always known, from the time she’d said goodbye to Sean four years ago, that she would have to deal with him eventually. She wasn’t sure exactly when or how, but she’d thought she would have a little more time.

      Her daughter, Rosie, three and a half and as precocious as an only child can be, had just recently asked, “Where is our daddy?” Funny she would say our daddy, but then the whole concept was new to her as she had just noticed that they didn’t have one. Preschool had its share of separated families, but almost all the other kids seemed to know where both their parents were. Most were being picked up alternately by their moms and their dads.

      And Rosie hadn’t asked who is our daddy, but where.

      “He’s flying a very fast, very high jet in the air force,” Franci answered. “It goes all over the world and he’s busy doing a very important job.”

      Rosie had said, “Oh.” She probably didn’t understand much beyond the important fact that Franci knew where Rosie’s daddy was. But what Franci knew was that in a few months, maybe a year, maybe two, as her world became larger, Rosie would ask things like, “What’s his name?” “Why doesn’t he come to see us?” And eventually, “Why aren’t you married?” These would be increasingly difficult questions to answer. And those questions formed the primary reason Franci had not wanted to face this—she couldn’t imagine how she would tell Rosie that her daddy just

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