Mike’s SUV came into the clearing and Mel smiled and gave him a wave. Then she walked into the cabin. “Brie, your ride is here,” she said more calmly than she felt.

Brie glared at her brother and plucked her purse off the counter.

“You have that new gun in your purse?” Jack asked sarcastically.

“No. It’s upstairs in my suitcase. If it had been handy, you might be bleeding through a hole in your stupid head by now.” And she whirled away from them, storming out the door.

Left alone in the kitchen, Mel stared Jack down for just a second before he turned away from her, presenting his back. He’d just been beaten to a pulp by his little sister; he wasn’t in the mood to go a round with his wife.

The baby fussed.

“Asshole,” Mel said, leaving the kitchen to see about David.

When Brie got into Mike’s SUV she was clearly flustered. “Whew,” Mike said. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No!” she snapped. Then, taking a deep breath, “We had…Words, we had words, me and Jack. About my new gun, which I do not have with me, so relax.”

He put the car in gear and smiled at her. “I will if you will.”

“I’ll need about five minutes,” she said. She took a couple of deep breaths. Then it slowly dawned on her—she’d fought! She wasn’t weak and sniveling, wasn’t scared, wasn’t sheepish—she’d gone right back after him! Sure, it was only Jack, not a homicidal predator, but still… She’d always looked for Jack’s approval, and this once she’d stood right up to him, the jerk. A slow smile spread across her lips. Maybe all was not lost. Maybe she could get her life back. She relaxed back onto the seat. “Ah,” she said. “I need a day off. A day away.” From my buttinsky brother, she thought.

Mel had decided to give Jack some time to cool off and get his head wrapped around the idea that Brie had gone away with Mike for the day, but in the end it was really she who needed the time. Her husband had made her furious. She was spitting tacks.

When David was down for his morning nap in the crib Mel kept at Doc’s, she left the Hummer at the clinic and took Doc’s old truck out to their homesite. If Doc had to leave, he would call Paige to babysit. When she got to their property, Jack was inside the house where she couldn’t see him, but she could hear the power saw as she pulled up. She drove right up to the front of the house, parked within a few feet and jumped out. She gripped a solid board to hoist herself up onto the foundation and stood there, facing his back. He didn’t turn around and her blood started to boil; he knew she was there. He always knew. When the saw stopped whirring she yelled, “Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know I’m here!”

He slowly turned around, and he had the audacity to still be wearing that stubborn frown. His eyes were narrowed to slits.

“Jack Sheridan! Knock it off!”

“She’s my sister. She’s been through a lot,” he said, his voice gravelly and impatient.

“That’s right—and she’s entitled to enjoy herself. Make her own choices. It’s important she make her own choices! If she wants to spend time with Mike, she doesn’t need your permission.”

Jack stepped toward her. “You don’t understand. I’ve seen him with women!”

“Yeah, I bet! At about the same time he was seeing you with women!”

“That’s different! That was over when I met you!”

“Maybe it’s over for him!”

“Hah! You don’t get it! That guy ran through women real quick, never even gave it a thought—”

“And this is different from you how?”

“He screwed up two marriages! Brie’s already been through a painful divorce, not to mention the other horrible crap she’s endured! I don’t want her hurt!”

“Then you better butt out before you’re the one who hurts her!”

“I would never hurt her! I want to keep her safe!”

Mel put her hands on her hips and lifted one finely arched brow. “The way you wanted to keep Preacher safe from Paige and almost cost the man the most joy he’s had in his lifetime?”

“I admit—I was wrong about that.”

“You’re wrong about this! No matter what the outcome is, you cannot get in the middle of the relationships that people choose.” She stepped toward him. “Jack, she’s lonely and hurt—let her be. Let her go. If she finds a little sliver of happiness, it’s not your job to take its temperature.”

“If he hurts her, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll kill him, that’s what I’ll do!”

“Then let’s tell her she has to leave. Let’s get her out of here before we have to watch her face hurt one more time. Forget giving her a chance to make herself happy, make herself well. Let’s tell her the truth—you can’t take it while she stumbles along and tries to figure out what’s right for her.” She took a breath; he looked down at his feet. “Like I did,” she said more softly. His head snapped up. “Just like me, Jack. I came into this town so blissfully stupid about the fact that you’d been with a hundred women and never committed to one of them. If I’d had a big brother handy to clue me in—I could have escaped all this happiness.” Tears ran down her cheeks.

“Mel,” he said, stepping toward her.

She waved him back, shaking her head. “I haven’t ever been raped,” she said, “but I’ve been emotionally bruised pretty bad.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she was shaking her head miserably. “It should never have worked with you. You of all people! Jesus, you had to have been as bad as Mike, probably worse! You had your women—quick and dirty and back on the road. No commitments. You never loved any of them. It should’ve been like that with me. A couple of months and then you’re bored, you’re moving on….”

“Mel,” he said. This time he wouldn’t be held back. He reached for her, took her into his arms. “God, baby. Where is this coming from?”

“But I got pregnant! You couldn’t get out of it, could you?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mel…”

She looked up at his face. “This is Mike,” she said in a whisper. “This is a man whose bed you sat by for ten long days, waiting for him to wake up, sit up, speak. He kept your squad safe from insurgents in Fallujah. He came to Virgin River to be near us to get well—do you really think he’s going to treat Brie with disrespect? Do anything bad to her? My God, he sees you as his brother! Where is your brain?”

He pulled her close, held her against him. “At this moment I have absolutely no idea.” He kissed the top of her head. “Tell me something. Do you think I’m going to get bored? Stray? Do you think we’re only together because of David? Tell me.”

She looked up at his face, tears wetting her cheeks, and shook her head. “But if I’d known about you what Mike knows about you—I’d have run for my life.”

“But I told you, Mel. I never lied to you. It all changed the second I saw you. Tell me you believe me. Tell me I showed you that.”

She reached up to lay a hand along his cheek. “I believe you. You’ve never given me any reason to doubt you.”

He let out sigh of relief and pulled her tighter. “God, don’t do that to me. Don’t throw my shitty past at me like that—you know I can’t talk my way out of it.”

“But I’m going to talk you off this ledge if it kills me. You can’t do this to your sister. This is up to her.”

“I understand. It’s hard, but I understand what you’re saying.”

She put her arms around his waist, laid her head against his chest and cried. He stroked her hair, kissed her head, held her and rocked with her as they stood inside the unfinished structure. He said things like, “It’s okay, baby. You know you’re everything to me. You and David.” But what he was thinking was that this was very unusual for his wife. She wouldn’t hesitate to go after him, but she didn’t become distraught. She cried from time to time, but over events that would bring the strongest woman to tears—the loss of a baby, the anniversary of a loved one’s death. And he thought, oh-oh. Something about this isn’t quite right.

At length she stopped. She looked up at him and he brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said. “You made me so frickin’ mad I thought I was going to kill you.”

“Yeah, join the party. Brie threatened my life.” He smiled down at her. “Thank you for not killing me,” he said. “You’re right—I have to stop smothering her, questioning her. She’s a grown woman. She’s smarter than me. I’ll try harder.”

“No trying,” she said. “Let go. When she comes to you, open your wonderful arms to her, but when she’s trying to get on with her life, toast her. Celebrate her. Let her go. And for God’s sake, please remember that you can trust Mike.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I learned my lesson. I’ll listen to you now.”

“It isn’t easy being the wise one in the marriage,” she said.

“I imagine the pressure is terrible,” he said with a smile.

She reached her fingertips up to the hair at his temples. “You’re showing a little gray here. Not much, but a little. I suppose I did that to you.”

“Probably. But I’m very tough—I can take it.”

“Oh, Jack,” she said, leaning against him again. “Please, I don’t want to ever fight with you.”

He lifted her chin with a finger. “Don’t be a candy ass. You fought good. You won, as a matter of fact.”

“But it was awful. There have been times since this thing with Brie that you’ve been so far away. It just… It frightens me.”

“You should never be afraid. Not while you’re my wife. It’s my job to make sure you’re never afraid.”

“Then know this—all I want is to die in your arms. I can’t live a day without you. Do you get that?”

He nodded, but he said, “No dying allowed. We’re going to get old and very wrinkly together. I insist on it.”

Tommy knew he was pretty obvious—he called Brenda every night. When she walked into their physics class he couldn’t suppress a huge grin—he could feel it all the way to the soles of his feet. He scored a homework session with her at her house in Virgin River and it might as well have been a date at the Ritz, he was so pumped. When she walked him out to his truck, she held his hand for a few minutes.

The girl moved really slowly, and he liked that. One of these days he was going to get his arms around her, kiss her. She had to be about the prettiest girl at school. Maybe the world.

He’d like to be walking her to her classes, but the second physics was over she was surrounded by her girlfriends and whisked away, so he made do with those phone calls and after-school homework sessions. “We should go out,” he said. “You seem to be all over that bad flu.”

“There’s a dance coming up in a few weeks,” she said.

“You have a date,” he promised. “But I hate to wait that long. Maybe there’s something we can do before that. As a warm-up date?”

She laughed at him. “You’re too funny. Stop looking at me and look at your physics homework.”

Brenda’s mother stayed awfully close while he was at her house, so there was no potential for getting snugly. But he was completely okay with this, because when Brenda walked him out to his little truck there was a moment on the front porch that she let him get close. He slipped an arm around her waist. And she kind of leaned against him, so he let his lips brush softly against her cheek. “That’s nice,” he said. “Do you know your hair smells like vanilla?”