LITMIR.BIZ

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“I’m all done doing things the hardest way I can.”

      Tonight, sitting on her sofa, listening to them murmur on the deck, the image of Ian running his big hands over Marcie’s round belly emblazoned on her mind, she thought, I will never have that. What I’m going to have from now on is what I have right now—myself. Just myself. Oh, there will be family—Marcie and Drew won’t forget me. We’ll talk and there will be visits. But I will never have what they have. I had better learn to find value and appreciation in this, because this is what I have…

       I am alone. And I’d better learn how to be that.

      Ian was washing up breakfast dishes the next morning when he said to Erin, “You get your phone and satellite feed today, right? So you’ll have TV, Internet, et cetera?”

      “Hopefully. It was supposed to be done before I moved up here, but they rescheduled a couple of times.”

      “The minute you get hooked up, give us a call. All right?”

      Erin smiled at him. “Sure, Dad.”

      “How’s the head?”

      She touched the Band-Aid at her hairline. “Funny looking.”

      “That’s nothing to when Marcie burned off her eyebrows. Now, that was funny looking. Doesn’t hurt anymore? Any headache?”

      “I’m fine. You can go. It’s all right.”

      “When you get the laptop online, are you going to e-mail your office and tell them so they can send you work?”

      “No. I brought the computer so I can research if I feel like exploring that book idea, but mainly I want to try my hand at total relaxation. I’ve never had the luxury before. This is my time and I’m going to—”

      “If you get bored or lonesome,” he said, cutting her off, “just come back to Chico. We’ll all take some long weekends up here, together. All your hard work on making this place nice won’t go to waste.”

      “I won’t get bored or lonesome,” she said emphatically. “I’ve been looking forward to this all year. But if I do, you’ll be the first person I call.”

      “You do that, Erin,” he said.

      Chapter Three

      After a long day of hiking along the ocean, Aiden went home, showered and walked down the path to Luke and Shelby’s house at around dinnertime. He found Shelby in the kitchen, getting some dinner ready. He ponied right up. “Can I help?”

      “You can set the table,” she said. “But first, there is a call for you on the machine from a guy named Jeff. I wrote the number down, but go ahead and listen to the message if you want.”

      “Nah, I’ll just call him.” He went to the cupboard to pull out the dishes.

      “Ah, Aiden, you might want to call him now. Set the table after.”

      “Why?” he asked. He’d kept in touch with Jeff since undergrad days; they’d both been in ROTC and on navy scholarships for med school. Jeff was one of the few people besides his brothers he was in constant touch with.

      “It’s something urgent,” she said, her back to him, stirring a pan on the stove. “Something to do with an Annalee Riordan.” She turned toward him. “I know you don’t have any sisters.”

      He was stunned speechless for a second. Then he recovered and smiled. “The ex,” he said. “You’re right, I’ll call.”

      When he got Jeff on the phone, he was informed that Annalee had been looking for him unsuccessfully. His mother’s Phoenix phone was disconnected, all the brothers had moved, Aiden had separated from the navy and was now a civilian. The only one she could round up was Aiden’s former frat brother/best friend/best man and currently lieutenant commander in the navy. “She says it’s urgent that she speak to you,” Jeff said.

      “We’ve been divorced for eight years after a three-month marriage,” Aiden said. “We don’t have urgent issues.”

      “Maybe you should respond,” Jeff said. “You can hang up on her after you decide she’s making excuses.”

      Aiden looked over his shoulder at Shelby. “I’m telling you, we don’t have business. We don’t have mutual friends or family, we don’t have property, support payments or children. It was a quick, clean break after a short, nasty marriage. But give me the number. If she calls you again, you tell her you gave me the number and you’re out of it. How’s that?”

      Aiden scribbled down a phone number, “Sorry for the trouble, man. You doing okay? Carol and the kids okay? Good, good. Yeah, I’m great—I’m kicking back, looking for the next opportunity, and you know what? This was a good idea, taking a little time off. Hey, Jeff, I’m sorry you had to put up with this. Annalee should be long gone. I haven’t heard a word from her since the day the divorce was final, and there is no reason to be hearing from her now unless she’s up to no good. You have my blessing to blow her off.”

      Aiden hung up the phone, crumpled the paper with the phone number on it, pitched it in the trash and continued to set the table.

      Maureen Riordan had several big boxes sitting in the middle of her small living room. They were packed with precious family heirlooms—her mother’s antique china for Shelby and a box of Great-grandma Riordan’s silver flatware that would go to Franci. She had also packed some crystal and silver pieces in Bubble Wrap and a couple of boxes of antique quilts and linens that she’d take as far as Virgin River, hoping to leave those boxes with Luke; the contents were too valuable to put in a storage facility and she intended to save them for future new daughters-in-law. A couple of years ago she wouldn’t have been so optimistic, but Luke had finally settled down at the age of thirty-eight, Sean right behind him, so it was still possible for Colin, Aiden and Patrick.

      Life was so funny, she found herself thinking. She’d spent a lifetime protecting some of these material things—china and crystal, old quilts lovingly fashioned by her ancestors’ hands, linens brought all the way from Ireland—and now the pleasure it gave her to be passing them on to the next generation was immeasurable.

      Another bunch of boxes held everyday items she planned to add to what George already had in the RV. They’d gone over the inventory on the phone and in e-mails so many times, she knew almost everything on the list by heart. Clothing, linens, kitchen items and bric-a-brac that she could live without she had already given away.

      She and George had seen each other exactly four times since Christmas. Once she flew to Seattle to visit him over a long weekend and three times he flew to Phoenix, also for long weekends, visits that went spectacularly well. Maureen wasn’t naive. She knew that when people lived in close quarters for more than a few days or weeks, adjustments were necessary. She might even realize she’d made a mistake, but she didn’t expect to. As inflexible as she could be, George was three times as flexible as any man she’d ever known. His good nature had taken an entire layer off her previous narrow-mindedness.

      George was now en route and she had talked to him several times a day since he left Seattle. He flew to Nevada, where he picked up the RV; it was only a year old, but had cost more than her condo. At long last her cell phone rang and he was an hour away; finally he was minutes away. “And promise me you’re not going to be standing in the parking lot!” he said emphatically. “I want to set her up for your first real viewing.” That meant he wanted to pop out the sides, extend the patio cover, turn on the lights and music. He wanted her to see her new home at its absolute finest.

      Finally she received a text message; George was fond of texting. Rather than answering, she bolted across her patio, the pool area and to the parking lot in front of the complex. There he stood in front of the most beautiful masterpiece of an RV she had ever seen.

      She stopped short and just forced herself to breathe deeply. This would be her home for at least six months and if the experiment was successful,

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