“I don’t know…”
“This is your one shot, Cheryl. I’ll take you, check you in. The county will pick up the tab, but you only get this one chance. If you say no right now, that’s it. That’s all I can do.”
“Who told you to do this?” she asked.
“No one told me. I thought you could use a little help, so I found it for you. All by myself. And no, I haven’t even mentioned it to Jack. You could try this. You know you can’t do it on your own.”
“You ask my mom?”
“I haven’t asked anyone. You’re over twenty-one, aren’t you? You want help? Go shower and pack a bag—you don’t need much. They have washers and dryers. Clean sheets and towels. Healthy food. And a lot of people just like you who are trying to sober up. It’s hard for everyone, but they’re the experts and if anyone can help you, they can.”
She looked at her feet, her dirty, unlaced boots. “I get the shakes real bad sometimes,” she said.
“Just about everyone does. They have medicine to get you through the first days.” Mel looked at her watch. “I’m not hanging around while you think about it.”
“Where is this place?” she asked.
“Eureka.”
Cheryl shuffled her feet a little bit. Finally she lifted her head. “Okay,” she said.
“Fine. Go shower and pack. I’ll be back for you in thirty minutes.”
She came back and picked up Cheryl, who carried her belongings in a brown grocery bag. She had cleaned up; her hair was washed but only towel dried. She probably didn’t own a blow-dryer. She smelled of soap and a touch of liquor—a little nip to help her get into the truck, Mel suspected.
“Did you tell your parents where you’re going?” Mel asked.
Cheryl shrugged. “My mom. I told my mom.”
“And is she glad you’re going?”
Cheryl shrugged. She looked away from Mel as she answered. “She said it’s probably a waste of time and money.”
Mel waited for Cheryl to look back at her. Then she said, “No. It’s not.” She took a breath. “Come on, let’s get going.”
They didn’t talk much on the long drive to Eureka, but Mel did learn that Cheryl had been at a cousin’s house in some other mountain town for the past year until her father brought her home. And Cheryl had had some delusional and grandiose aspirations—she’d wanted to join the Peace Corps, travel to foreign lands, be a nurse, a teacher, a veterinarian. Instead, she drank her dreams away. She didn’t have any friends in Virgin River anymore, just her mother and father.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t feel like talking about,” Mel began, “but I’m curious. I know you don’t go to Jack’s. How did you manage to get liquor?”
“Hmm,” Cheryl started. “There’s a liquor store in Garberville, but usually my dad would get me something to keep me from driving his truck.”
“Ah. I understand,” Mel said.
“I try to stop all the time,” Cheryl said. “But if I get shaky and crazy, my dad takes care of it. Just enough to get me straight.”
So Dad was the enabler, Mel thought.
The aftercare was going to be a huge problem, Mel realized. Because Cheryl had nowhere to go but back home to her parents, who seemed unable to support her in getting healthy. That would have to be her sponsor’s challenge—maybe they would find a place for her in Eureka where she could work, live, go to meetings, get a grip on sobriety before landing back in Virgin River, doomed.
It was late afternoon by the time Mel got back to town. She went into the clinic to give Doc his keys.
“Mission accomplished?” he asked.
“All taken care of.”
“Your husband’s been looking for you.”
“Swell. What did you tell him?”
“That you were on a mission. A medical mission.”
“I bet that thrilled him. I guess I’ll go tap-dance around Jack and grab the kids from Brie. I’m going to call it a day, Doc.”
“I’ll phone you if anything exciting pops up.” She turned to leave and he called her back. She turned to him. “That was a good thing you did. I don’t like her chances, but that was a real good thing.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“All my years here, all my years watching her go downhill, I never gave her that much hope. Glad someone did. Glad you did.”
She felt a small smile come to her lips.
Over the course of the previous three days, Luke had taken Sean over to the Booth house for a couple of morning rides. He hadn’t done it for Sean, certainly. But for Shelby, because it made her happy to have someone with whom to share the rides. And although it irked Luke, she found Sean amusing.
The rest of the time Luke and his brother worked together. They finished the floors in the house, then concentrated on cabin number one for Luke’s new tenant.
“We should have this ready for you in a couple of days, Art,” Luke told him. That put Art in a fever of excitement, that he was going to have his own little house. “Ever had your own house before?” Luke asked him.
“By myself?” Art asked. “Not by myself.”
“Think you’re ready for your own little house?”
“I am,” he said with a nod.
“So let me ask you, Art—at the group home, who did the laundry?”
He shrugged and said, “We had to sign up for it.”
Luke was perplexed. “Sign up? I don’t get it.”
“On the clipboard,” Art said impatiently. “You have to sign up on the clipboard when you want to use the washer and dryer.”
“No kidding? So you did your own?”
“We did our own.”
“And did you have other chores at the group home?” Sean asked him.
“Make the bed, put away the clothes, keep a neat room. Dishes. Vacuum. Bathroom cleaning.”
Luke lifted a brow. “I think you are ready for your own house. With some OJT on the washer…”
Art frowned. “OJT?”
Sean slapped him on the back. “On-the-job training, buddy. Come with me. I’m going to show you how to scrape the dead paint off the outside of this cabin so we can prime it.”
“OJT?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
When Art was settled into his chore outside, Sean went inside and asked Luke, “What are you going to do with him?”
“He just got here, Sean. He just needs to feel safe right now.”
“He’s going to get attached to you.”
“Maybe.” Luke shrugged. “Look, the guy had a job. And from what he says, he took care of himself. Sounds like all he needs is a little supervision. Since I’m not going anyplace, what’s it hurt if he just hangs out here?”
Art stuck his head in the door. “Sean? Can I have some more OJT?”
Luke looked at his brother. “He’s going to get attached to you.”
“I won’t be here long enough.”
Between the three of them, they managed to get a lot done. At the end of the day, Luke fixed Art a grilled cheese and some soup and then, at Luke’s insistence, he took Sean to Jack’s for dinner again. Shelby and her uncle, as well as Muriel, the Booths’ new neighbor, were there. Before leaving, he was briefly and wonderfully in possession of her lips. But Sean, unfortunately, had nothing to do with his lips but talk.
The next day Sean said, “Tonight we’re going over to the coast or at least Fortuna. I’m only here another day and I’m tired of entertaining your girlfriend for you.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, but I’m tired of you doing that, too.”
“I bet you’ve already got a girl someplace else—a girl with girlfriends. Do a brother a favor and make a call.”
“I’m not doing that, man. You go. Knock yourself out.”
“What is your deal, Luke?”
He took a deep breath. They had managed not to talk about this, though it was as obvious as a punch to the gut. “You know what my deal is, Sean. And I don’t need you to jam me up right now.”
“Come on, Luke. You can pick up your threads when I’m gone.”
“Not interested. I have things on my mind.”
“Yeah—Shelby things. Since we can’t share the girl, let’s go find some action. Besides, her uncle is watching her like a hawk.”
“I’m working that angle,” Luke said. “Brother, you have to get out of my way here. I have things to do with the girl.”
“You are heading for something not so good,” Sean said. “She’s young and innocent, anyone can see that. She’s sweet. And she’s got that look—like she’d bruise easily. You’d better think about this.”
“It’s under control,” he said. But it wasn’t. He felt about as far from control as he ever had. There was just no way in hell he could stop this now. He was like a runaway train where Shelby was concerned.
“She’s vulnerable. Maybe needy,” Sean stressed.
Luke knew this. Ordinarily twenty-five wasn’t too young, but Shelby, despite everything, seemed much more tender than the average twenty-five-year-old woman. Maybe it was the fact that she’d spent the years from nineteen to twenty-four held hostage, taking care of her mother, and had limited worldly experience. And he was more than a little aware of her vulnerability, that soft underside that a man like Luke, with his careless ways, could damage. And yet, even knowing all that, he wasn’t having any success at cooling himself down.
“I’m going to have to go pick up some supplies,” Luke said. “I’m going to get a hot-water heater and new sink for Art’s cabin. You do whatever you want and tonight I’ll take you out to a nice dinner, not at Jack’s,” Luke said, because he wasn’t in the mood for any more of Sean’s interaction with Shelby. “But I’m not interested in women. We’ll take two cars.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sean said. “A pathetic plan, but a plan…”
It was executed in exactly that way. They had a steak dinner at the Brookstone in Ferndale and while Sean retired to the bar, Luke headed home. Sean returned to Luke’s in the early morning. He was smiling privately and there was no question he was more relaxed than when Luke left the bar the night before. The Riordan men carried the tension of abstinence in their necks and shoulders.
Luke was surprised he could still turn his head.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, I’ve never seen you like this,” Sean said.
“Like what?”
Sean rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother. You’re going after the baby and you are so tight you’re going to grind your molars flat. Not only isn’t she good for you, you’re poison for her.”
It occurred to Luke to try to explain that he hadn’t been able to think of anything else for weeks, and he couldn’t remember when that had happened to him last. That when he got his arms around her, he was out of his head. But he’d been running with his brothers a long time and they were all the same with women—fast and loose. They didn’t get like this.
Sean put a hand on Luke’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He shook his head almost sadly. “Good luck with this, man.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh—it is what I think. You’re so into this woman, you’re done for. I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Eight
The last weekend in September, Jack’s bar had to be closed because Jack, Preacher, Paul, Mike and their wives were all going to Grants Pass, Oregon, for the wedding of one of their boys. Joe Benson, marine and architect who designed all their houses and had worked with Paul for years in Oregon, was getting married. It was no coincidence that Joe was marrying one of Vanni’s best friends from flying days—they had met in Virgin River when Nikki was visiting Vanessa. Their wedding brought together a few of the available marines, but was a small flight-attendant reunion as well.
