“I might be able to keep a lid on that. Maybe.”
“Thanks. So, I got them some serious arrests, but I knew all along I was eventually going to have to either run or do time. I actually tried to run at the last minute, but I waited too long. I wouldn’t have been good on the run—that was never what I wanted. What I wanted was a real life. I’d had an eye on a real life for years—since I was eighteen or so. I wanted to bring home a paycheck, meet my buddies for a beer some Friday nights, throw the ball out front with my kid, have someone soft and cuddly next to me in bed and maybe even bring her home flowers for no reason once in a while. I was going to be a better builder than my dad, but what’s more important, I was going to be a better husband and father. I mean, my old man thought it was real sharp to be strict and stern, but I got the idea early there might be a better way. I lost sight of that goal for a while. I was kind of screwed up and just practiced being a badass—way worse than anything my dad ever was.”
He crumpled up his sandwich wrapper.
Cheryl was quiet for a while. She ate a little more, then folded what was left of her sandwich very neatly inside its wrapper. “Good story,” she said. “I bet it took you months to make that up.”
“You wanna try your story out on me?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t believe me? You think that whole thing’s a line? Like I’m using my prison record to get in your pants or something?” he asked.
“Stranger things have happened,” she said with a shrug.
“I highly doubt it,” he said. He stood up. “I got arrested right here in Eureka. Call the sheriff’s department and ask for Sergeant Delaney in Narcotics. Tell him you want to know how much of a liar I am before you ever talk to me again. You know where I live. I believe you have the number.”
He turned and walked out of the common, got in his truck and drove out of Eureka without ordering flooring for the house.
Dan had been through enough in the past few years that he didn’t ponder her reaction for too long. He knew from the start, from the second he got back from Iraq, that things weren’t going to be simple for him. And after he’d crossed a bunch of lines, made himself a felon, he had very few expectations of people snuggling up to him. He didn’t blame her one bit. He wasn’t going to bother her again. He’d call her to drop off rent money if he was going to be out her way, but other than that, she had no need to worry he’d stalk her.
Tuesday night, while he worked in the kitchen of the old house, the phone rang. He stared at it for a second—there were three possibilities. Wrong number, someone who didn’t know the Creightons weren’t there anymore or Cheryl. “Hello?” he said.
“Okay, on Sunday I’ll bring the sandwiches,” she said.
He laughed into the phone. “Sergeant Delaney must have given me a very bad report card or I wouldn’t be hearing from you.”
“If I had instincts, I’d follow them. I think we might be two screwed-up people who aren’t exactly good for each other. Maybe we should forget the whole idea.”
“Whatever you want,” he said.
“Argue with me a little, huh?”
“Nope,” he laughed. “I know what I’m up to. You have to make your own decision. Your problems, such as they are, don’t worry me much. Besides, they’re yours. I’ve been working on mine for years now. I’m feeling pretty good. Sandwiches in the park or no sandwiches in the park.” She was quiet. “Cheryl,” he said seriously, “I don’t have expectations. It’s just time for me to move toward people again. That’s all. There was no 12-step program for what I had to deal with. It’s been a long, dark night.”
She sighed deeply. “Okay. Three o’clock. Same bench.”
“I’ll be there.”
Thirteen
Walt paid way too much money for his airfare to Montana, but there were only two options—book his travel two weeks out at a cheaper rate or get the hell up to Montana, where Muriel waited for him, at any cost. He’d called; he left the message: “I’m coming. I need to be with you.” And after ignoring his calls for a week, she had called right back, “Oh God, I need you to be! Hurry!” So the Friday after the shower at his house, Walt was on his way.
Muriel gave him an address for the house she was staying in. He arrived in Missoula by three, rented a car and by four o’clock he was in a little town smack between Butte and Missoula. He bought groceries and arrived at her house by five. It looked to be a small two-story with a dormer in an old-fashioned neighborhood. Children were riding bikes up and down the street, an elderly woman was kneeling in her front-yard flower bed, digging away; an old man sat across the street on his porch and Walt automatically gave him a wave. He waved back as if they were old friends.
I’m a screwup, he thought. Muriel had told him the production had rented her a nice little house in an ordinary neighborhood, yet this was not at all what he expected. He shook his head. It was exactly as she had described, and yet he’d assumed it would be flashier. He’d wallowed in some weird self-pity because she’d gone off to make a movie, forgetting that he knew her. Knew every inch of her. He’d been disgracefully out of touch, not hearing her, not listening. When he complained he didn’t know anything about movie people, he had no idea how correct he was.
The key was under the mat, just as she’d said. There were a couple of rockers on the porch and he was tempted to just sit there a while and take in the neighborhood. It wasn’t unlike the little house he grew up in, except they hadn’t had a porch. Muriel would need a porch; she loved the outdoors. Did the neighbors bother her? he wondered. If she brought her glass of wine out here, did the neighbor women all converge on her to ask questions about that movie taking place just out of town in the shadow of glorious mountains?
He carried his groceries inside first and he almost laughed. A small dining room was just inside the door and a little farther ahead was the living room—just big enough for a fireplace, sofa and two overstuffed chairs, a couple of side tables. The upholstery was old, faded floral. It was clean but old-fashioned and worn.
The kitchen cabinets were painted a faded pink, of all things. The sink was even pink, the appliances old and white. When he opened the refrigerator to put away his groceries, he found her celery, carrot sticks, cheese, sliced turkey breast and hummus. He smiled to himself as he unloaded salad makings, Chilean sea bass, rice, baby green beans, French baguette and butter, white wine and a bottle of Pinch.
Then he went for his suitcase and found the bedroom she used. He left his suitcase at the foot of her double bed. That was okay, he thought. He didn’t intend to let much space get between them at night. He poured himself a drink and went out to the porch to wait. He’d been in the country a long time; he’d missed the sounds of a neighborhood in early evening. Children laughing and yelling, women talking over the fence, a lawn mower somewhere down the block, the slap of the newspaper on the front walk as the paperboy flew by on his bike.
It wasn’t long before she drove up to the house, turning a rented truck into the driveway that led to a detached garage out back. He filled his eyes with her—she looked exactly as she did when he drove up to her house back in Virgin River. Jeans, T-shirt covered by a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, boots, a cowboy hat. She walked toward him, he came down the porch steps and immediately put his arms around her. He gave her a nice little kiss and said, “I shopped for our dinner. I’ll cook for you.”
“That would be so wonderful. I could have showered out at the set, but I was in a hurry to see you. It’s been long and sweaty and horsey. Let me shower off the grime, then I’ll join you for a drink.”
“Perfect. Try not to take all night.”
“I’ll be quick,” she promised.
She went into the house, Walt following. She hung her hat on the antique rack just inside the door, sat to pull off her boots and headed for her room. He heard a door close and momentarily, the banging of old pipes as the shower turned on. He’d already checked out the bathroom across the hall from her bedroom—nothing in this house was remodeled. It had a claw-foot tub with a shower curtain.
He sat at the same old hat rack and pulled off his boots, placing them next to hers. He studied the sight and liked it. Her boots should be by his all the time. He walked down the hall to her bedroom, pulled his shirt out of his pants and off, laying it over the only chair in the room. And then, despite the noise of the shower, he heard something odd. Soft sounds, as if maybe she was singing off-key in the bathroom.
He pulled off his socks and pants and decided to join her, whether she liked it or not. He gave a knock, then let himself into the bathroom. When he pulled back the shower curtain, she had the washcloth over her face. “Make room,” he said. “I’ll wash your back. Then I’ll wash anything else you have in mind.” And he stepped into the tub.
She turned away from him and he knew—something was wrong. He turned her back and pulled the cloth away from her face. It was hard to be certain with the water flowing over her, but he thought maybe she was crying. Muriel didn’t cry. Not unless the director said, “Cry!”
He wiped a big thumb under her eye. “What’s this?” he asked softly.
“Silly,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just tired.”
“Muriel, honey, I’ve seen you knee-walking tired after working on that house of yours. You saying movie work is even harder than that?”
She looked up at him. She put her hand against his cheek. “I didn’t think you’d come,” she said quietly.
“But we talked. You knew I was coming.”
“I mean ever,” she said. “I thought that if I didn’t come to you, if I didn’t live across the meadow, you’d let days and weeks and months separate us if I wanted to work. I thought I was a convenience. I didn’t think you’d meet me halfway.”
He smiled down at her, slipped his arms around her naked body and pulled her against him. He lifted her chin with a finger and kissed her tenderly. “I was foolish,” he said. “I don’t know what was the matter with me. I let that whole business of you being famous intimidate me. This won’t happen to us again, Muriel. The next time we’re in this situation, we’re going to plan our weekends and days off together. I’m just so damn happy I got a second chance. I knew you were pissed.” He gave a shrug. “Besides, you haven’t been the least bit convenient. You’re actually a lot of trouble.”
“I missed you,” she said. “I thought you wouldn’t make the effort. Just for me.”
“Just for you? For God’s sake, I’m in love with you!”
“That’s what I hoped. But then you grew so distant. I didn’t know if you were in some kind of pout, or you were letting go of me.”
“I’ll be honest—I didn’t want you to leave. It took you no time to spoil me, Muriel.” He kissed her and ran a hand over her breast, the other sliding over her bottom and bringing her close. “It’s a real spoiled man who just wants everything to stay the same.” He chuckled. “And if there are going to be any changes to the routine, the man gets to bring it on.”
“But you said I should fulfill all my ambitions, that you’d be rooting for me!”
“I knew that was the only decent thing to say, and I meant it. Until you left and I was missing you.”
“You understand, it had to be something important for me to give up the contentment I found with you.”
“I’m getting that, Muriel. By the way, this is the part where you tell me you’re in love with me, too.”
“I don’t want to jinx us,” she said. She gave a little hiccup of emotion. “Plus, I miss my animals.”
