style="font-size:15px;"> “I’ve been helping Mel with the kids while she works, sometimes helping her with patients. I ride, babysit Vanni and Paul’s little one, keep an eye on Uncle Walt…Hardly anything, really. I should come over and help you haul trash.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s miserable work. Way too dirty for you.”
“I could just watch,” she said, and smiled so prettily that his heart almost fell out of his chest.
“If you do that, Shelby, I won’t get anything done. You’re a distraction.”
She looked completely surprised. “How nice of you to say that,” she said. She briefly covered his hand atop the bar with hers, and a sizzle shot through him at her merest touch. Damn, he thought, I’m in serious trouble. He wasn’t sure what he feared most: never having more of her or repercussions from the general if he ever did. “Isn’t this the greatest place?” she asked him.
“Virgin River?”
“Sure, that. But Jack’s. This little piece of town. I love dropping in here and always seeing a friendly face.”
“I’ve been here a few times over the past couple of weeks and haven’t seen your friendly face,” he said, then silently cursed himself. Don’t push this, he warned himself.
“Oh,” she said, laughing. “My cousin Tom was home on leave. We came in a couple of times, but mostly it was all about family. Quite a crowd at my uncle’s, with all of us and then Tom and his girlfriend. He’s gone to West Point now, so I imagine I’ll be around more often.”
“And you like Jack’s,” he observed.
“I grew up in a small town on the coast—way bigger than this, but still cozy. There was this old dive called the Sea Shack—nets and shells on the walls, lots of locals, but also bikers and tourists. You could always count on some of the same people being there. You never had to worry that you’d be alone.”
“Where?” he asked her.
“Bodega Bay, south of here. While this is all redwoods, deer and bear, Bodega Bay is ocean, fishing boats, some rocky cliffs above the sea, whales and dolphins.”
He leaned his head on his hand, being hypnotized slowly. Thoroughly. He imagined her on the beach; the bathing suit would be very, very small. “It sounds great,” he said. “Is that home for you?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “My mother passed away last spring, left me the house and I sold it.”
He was momentarily surprised. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Thank you. So, I won’t be staying in Virgin River—I’m going to college, finally. This is just a vacation. While I’m hanging out here, I’m also applying to schools.”
“How long is this vacation?” he asked in spite of himself.
“A few months, probably. After the first of the year, I plan to take a couple trips—I’m surfing the Net, looking at package deals. Then decide on the college and go find an apartment, get a part-time job, take some classes to get back into the rhythm. But I’m hanging around to see Tom again. He’ll have leave over the holidays.”
Walt interrupted them by getting Luke’s attention. “What’s this Jack says? You have a brother in Black Hawks, too? Is the whole family crazy?”
Luke turned toward the general and hoped it didn’t show in his eyes that he was over the edge in lust. “Lighten up, sir,” he said. “At least it’s not tanks.”
“Boy, I happen to like tanks.”
When Luke left the bar, he drove straight to Garberville, when what he really wanted was sleep. His body was bone tired, but his brain was working overtime. And there was one part of his anatomy that was a little too alert for its own good. He hadn’t had a reaction like this in a long, long time and coincidentally, the last time had also been from a general’s daughter. It was years ago, and he’d been unusually smart—he walked away and never looked back. She had been a prison sentence waiting to happen.
He was trying to drive the thoughts of that sweet young thing from his mind; he’d like to stop the hot little darts from shooting through his body.
He had no trouble finding the local bar—a little hole in the wall that actually made him feel overdressed and totally military with his close-cropped hair and pressed shirt. There were a lot of men in plaid or chambray shirts, long hair, ponytails, mustaches and beards. It looked packed; plenty of cars and big trucks parked around outside.
The place was full at nine o’clock. He made his way inside, finding a stool at a very crowded bar in a noisy room. He ordered a shot of whiskey and a beer. Time to settle everything down and stop thinking about the girl. By the time he’d left Jack’s he had started having visions of putting his hands on her and being shot by her uncle.
He threw back the shot and nursed the beer. Good move, Riordan, he lectured himself. Move to a new little town where the same dozen or so people meet at the same little watering hole a couple of nights a week and within twenty-four hours get the instant hots for the one woman to be avoided at all costs. But lust was a beast in him and he was impossibly attracted to her.
He understood very well that touching her wasn’t the problem. They were all grown-ups, not teenagers. He could seduce Shelby, get her in his bed, enjoy her and be enjoyed by her, and there wouldn’t be too much trouble. He got the impression the general and Paul actually liked him. What would come after would create trouble—he would fail to get serious, move on, make her cry. He’d get into her without falling in love when she was a young woman clearly designed for true love, for permanence. And that would have a bad ending—with him it wasn’t just a premonition, it was destiny. He hadn’t been able to feel anything like what Walt Booth would want for his niece in over a dozen years.
After about twenty minutes passed, another beer was put in front of him and he looked up at the bartender. “The ladies across the bar,” he said.
Luke hadn’t even noticed anyone else. His mind had been on exactly one sweet thing. He glanced up and felt his lips lift in a slight smile. “Thank them,” he said.
“They’d like to know if you want to join them for a drink.”
“Ah, I’m going to have to leave pretty soon,” he said. But he was thinking, that’s more my speed. Some good old-fashioned, all-American, slutty girls, hanging out in the bar and buying drinks for strange men.
“I’d think that over,” the bartender said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Yeah?” He grinned. “Why not,” he said. He put some money on the bar to pay for his drinks and, lifting the beer, walked to the other side.
There were three of them. One in each flavor—a redhead, blonde and brunette. They seemed to be in their late twenties and headed for sloshed. “Ladies,” he said. “Thanks for the beer. Having girls’ night out?”
Giggles all around. “Well, not anymore,” one of them said. They parted seats so he could have the middle stool.
“You ladies from town?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re from
