LITMIR.BIZ

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his lips again. Then with a frown on his face, he went behind the bar and glared down at his pretty young wife. “Paige is having a breakdown in there.…”

      “Oh? Does Preacher need help?”

      Jack shook his head. “He asked me to step out. I heard a couple of things, purely by accident.”

      “I saw…”

      “She has a car with stolen license plates?”

      Mel sat suddenly straight, eyes wide. “No kidding?” she asked. “I guess I better check mine, see if they’re still mine.” Then she smiled cutely.

      “And there’s a baby coming?”

      “Really?” she asked.

      “You’re not fooling me,” he said. “You know things.”

      Mel made a face at him, as if to say, Duh. Of course I know things. Patient things. She might have shared Paige’s bruises with him, so he could be prepared for anything and help protect her, but she wasn’t a bigmouth. She got off the bar stool and went to the swinging door to the kitchen. She peeked; Preacher was sitting on the floor, gently rocking Paige on his lap. Ah, that was probably exactly what she needed at the moment. Better than a sedative.

      Mel walked behind the bar and got up on her toes to kiss Jack. “I don’t think she wants to go shopping. Tell her I went ahead—I have to cover up the baby.”

      “You do that.”

      “Um, Jack? I don’t quite know how to explain this to you. You and I have such different life experiences with things like this….”

      “Starting with, I would never hit a woman.”

      “That’s lovely, Jack. That’s not what I mean. Hmm,” she said, looking skyward. “It might be easiest for you if you thought of Paige as a POW.”

      “A POW?” he asked, looking startled and confused at once.

      “That’s the closest thing I can think of that you can relate to. I’ll be back as soon as I have a bagful of elastic waistbands, okay?”

      “Sure. Okay.”

      A couple of hours later, with still plenty of time before the dinner hour, Jack was sitting on the porch, tying off flies for fishing. Paige came onto the porch holding a slice of fresh apple pie on a plate. He took it and said, “Oohh, still warm…”

      “I’m sorry about before, Jack. I’m a little embarrassed.”

      He looked up at her, saw a sweet, docile face—the face of a devoted young mother, a pregnant woman running to protect her unborn baby. And, as he had been instructed by Mel, he imagined an enforced barricade, deprivation, regular beatings, fear of death—for years. It was not only hard to imagine a young woman like Paige, so helpful and tender, going through something like that, it was impossible to imagine the kind of man who might subject her to it. “Don’t worry about that, okay? We all have our moments.”

      “No, we don’t. Only I—”

      He cut her off, laughing. “Oh, don’t go there. Don’t go the ‘only I have this baggage’ route. Ask Mel—not long before I married her, I had a fantastic meltdown. Come to think of it, so did she!” Then he frowned slightly. “On second thought—could you take my word for it?”

      Paige tilted her head. “She wouldn’t want to be asked about that?”

      “Nah, I don’t think she’d mind. It just pisses me off—the way she never tells me anything, and I just lay it all out there. I don’t know how she does it.”

      “That’s okay, Jack.” She laughed. “I won’t ask. I apologize, however.”

      “No need, Paige. I just hope you feel better.”

      John took the supply list, Chris and Paige to Eureka. They went to Target first so the groceries wouldn’t go bad in the truck while they shopped. She bought a few things—underwear, jeans, shirts. John held Chris’s hand outside the dressing room while she tried things on. They stopped at the bookstore. John spent some time in the history section, picking up a couple of books—the same type she’d seen on his bookshelf. Then when he came to the children’s section to see if they were ready to go, Paige put up the books they’d been looking at and said, “Okay.”

      “Maybe we should get a new book or two,” he said.

      “We have his favorites,” she said.

      “We could use two new ones,” he said. “Okay if I do this?” he asked.

      “Sure,” she said.

      Maybe the best part of the outing was the drive. She’d come into Virgin River at night, in the rain, and except for her quick trip to Grace Valley along the back mountain roads, hadn’t seen much of the countryside. John took them for a little drive along the high cliffs of the Pacific Coast—so different up here in the north than in L.A. He passed through a redwood grove, then up into the mountains toward Virgin River.

      She looked over at him as he drove; he was grinning. “Why are you smiling?” she asked him.

      He turned to look at her. “I’ve never been shopping with a woman before,” he said. “I didn’t hate it.”

       Five

      During her stay in Virgin River, Paige started out in the bedroom above the kitchen, reluctant to step outside. Next the kitchen, then the bar, then late evenings with John in front of the fire, talking. And then she’d begun working, getting to know the locals. Gradually her circle widened until she’d been to the corner store a few times, then she’d gone to the little library, open on Tuesdays, to get picture books for Chris and novels for herself.

      In only three weeks, she no longer felt like a guest. A newcomer, certainly, but for the first time in years, at ease with her surroundings. The days were long, the work wasn’t light. Her legs hurt again, and this time she was grateful for the opportunity to spend this kind of physical energy rather than being locked up and emotionally drained from the constant tension and uncertainty of her life. She fixed her own breakfast and lunch, ate dinner in the kitchen with Rick and John between hustling meals and doing dishes, and it felt good.

      After Chris was asleep, she read for a couple of hours, and actually fell into the story, something she hadn’t been able to do in years. She left her sleeping boy to go downstairs to get herself a glass of milk, smiling as she descended the stairs—there was always a night-light on in the kitchen, welcoming her. She noticed a glow from the bar and peeked in. John sat in the darkened bar at the table in front of the fire, his feet up on the open hearth. She walked into the room.

      “Isn’t this awful late for you?” she asked.

      He jumped in surprise, put his feet on the floor and sat up straight. “Paige! I didn’t hear you come down.”

      “Just prowling around, getting a glass of milk. What’s the matter? Can’t sleep?”

      “Having a little trouble, yeah. I’ll go in a minute.”

      “Want some company?” He had a strange look on his face. “Oh, I guess you want a little time to yourself.”

      “That’s okay…” he said.

      “No, I understand. You’ve been here alone all this time and now you have people underfoot. I’ll just see you in the—”

      “Sit down, Paige,” he said, somber. Unhappy.

      “Is everything all right?” she asked, pulling out a chair.

      He shook his head. “It’s not so good. I didn’t want to do this tonight. I wanted to save this for morning.”

      “Did I do something?” she asked, frowning. “Is there something I need to—”

      “You’re

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