“I think you should be quiet now,” he said. “Save whatever brain cells you have left. We have a forty-minute drive to Valley Hospital, west of Grace Valley. Rest. Silently.”
“Sure,” she said. “Fine.”
What did his brothers think of his decision? They thought he was nuts. He’d been totally committed to the navy; he loved the navy. But the military gave with one hand and took away with the other.
When Aiden had been a brand-new M.D., compliments of a navy scholarship, his first assignment was as a GMO—general medical officer—aboard ship. It was a two-year assignment that dry-docked every six months for a few months. They put into port regularly, during which time he could see the world and feel earth beneath his feet, but his life was spent aboard ship. The medical officer was under a great deal of pressure 24/7—being the only doctor in charge of a complete medical staff and the only officer aboard who could relieve the ship’s captain of duty. He knew the pressure was extreme when he found himself taking his duty phone into the shower with him—that was over-the-top. They had also spent their share of time in the Persian Gulf, which meant giving emergency medical treatment to civilians in trouble—mostly fishermen or ship’s crewmen who didn’t speak English.
His reward for that duty was his residency in OB-GYN, which obligated him to more commitment to the navy. But it had been worth it—he took care of the female military personnel and wives of active-duty and retired sailors and marines. It was a good life. He had stayed in one place for a long time—San Diego.
Then he was due a promotion, and the navy felt it was time for him to go to sea again. It would have meant general medical officer once more—not in his specialty. There wasn’t a lot of call for an OB-GYN aboard an aircraft carrier. Aiden didn’t mind being out to sea so much, but he was thirty-six. It wasn’t something he talked about, but he felt there were things missing from his life. A wife and family for one thing, and he wasn’t likely to meet a woman who could fill that bill on a big gray boat. He needed to be on land.
Sometimes he asked himself why that even mattered—it wasn’t as though being on dry land had worked so far. Right after his stint as a GMO, at the age of twenty-eight, he’d met and quickly married Annalee, who had turned out to be a total nutcase. They were married for three whole months, during which she demolished every breakable object they owned. She had been volatile, jealous and crazed—her moods shifted faster than the sands of time.
That experience left him gun-shy and slowed him down a little, but a couple of years later he was ready to get back in the game, feeling older and wiser. Still, he couldn’t seem to meet any women who were contenders for the exalted position as his wife and the mother of his children.
But one thing was for certain—it wasn’t going to happen at sea.
Truth was, he just plain wasn’t ready to commit any more time to the navy. His brothers thought fourteen years, only six from his twenty and retirement benefits, made him nuts to get out. But in his mind, these were his best years. He was still young enough to be an involved husband and father if he ever met the right woman. At the retirement age of forty-two, starting a family would be pushing it.
He glanced at Erin. Her eyes were closed and she held his ice packs on her forehead and the back of her head. He’d like a woman who looked like that—but she’d have to be sweet and far less arrogant. He was looking for someone soft and nurturing. You don’t go looking for a hard-ass to be the mother of your children, and this one was a hard-ass. Of course, what was he to expect? She was a lawyer.
He chuckled to himself. She was probably a medical-malpractice attorney.
Feeling at least partially responsible for Erin’s bump on the head, Aiden hung out at the hospital for a while. Not anywhere near her, of course. He got her checked in to the E.R., made sure she had what she needed, explained her injury and loss of consciousness to the E.R. doctor and left her car keys with him so Erin could get herself home once she was cleared to drive. Then he went outside so his less-than-pristine musk would not offend anyone. And there he sat for close to an hour.
He was just about to swing by the E.R. before calling his brother for a ride home when who should happen to walk out of the hospital but Pastor Noah Kincaid.
“Hey, Aiden,” Noah said, sticking out his hand. “What are you doing here? You didn’t have an accident, did you?”
Aiden shook his hand. “No—I think I caused one. Are you heading back to Virgin River?”
“That’s my plan. What’s going on?”
Aiden quickly explained that he’d brought Erin to the E.R. in her car and was going to call for a ride home. “But before I leave, I want to check and see what the doctor has to say. I’m hoping he’ll tell me if there’s a clean CT. Then I’m clearing out of here before she sees me.”
“Fortuitous for the lady that if she had to have an accident, it was while there was a doctor around.”
“Well,” Aiden said, rubbing the back of his neck, “she doesn’t exactly know I’m a doctor.”
“Why didn’t you just tell her?”
“Truthfully? Because she has attitude. She called me a homeless, homicidal maniac who looked like Charles Manson—and she inferred that I didn’t smell great.”
Noah broke into a wide grin. “Flirting with you, was she?”
“If I had the slightest inclination to do harm, she’d be in a lot of little pieces right now. Very irritating woman. But I’d like to know she isn’t brain damaged before I leave the hospital. Can you wait ten minutes? Then give me a lift?”
“Sure,” Noah said. “I’ll walk in with you. Did you explain to the E.R. staff who you are?”
“More or less. I described the accident, her symptoms and response to the injury, and the nurse asked me if I had medical training. And then I told her the lady had decided I was a bum, without asking me who I was, and as far as I was concerned, she didn’t need to be enlightened.”
“Ah,” Noah said. “So she can feel really stupid when she finds out.”
“Noah, I swear, you really don’t understand…”
The two of them sauntered into the emergency room and up to the nurses’ station. “How’s the woman with the head injury?” Aiden asked. “I’m getting a ride home with the pastor, but before I leave, I wanted to check on her.”
“She’s going to be just fine,” the nurse said. “The doctor wants to admit her for the night for observation, however. Better safe than sorry.”
“Probably a good idea,” Aiden agreed. “Did her CT come back?”
“All clear,” the nurse said. “But she might have a slight concussion.”
“Did I hear you tell that vagrant my house will be empty tonight?” came a loud, demanding voice from behind a curtain.
Noah immediately started to laugh. Aiden just looked at the nurse. “A good bop on the head didn’t hurt her hearing, did it?” he said as loudly as he dared. “I’m getting out of here, but when she settles down a little, tell her I’m going to use her tub and roll around in her satin sheets.”
The nurse laughed at him. “I’m not getting into that, Dr. Riordan,” she whispered. “This is between you and the lady.”
He shushed her with a finger to his lips. “Believe me, there isn’t anything between us. And there isn’t going to be. Let’s go, Noah.”
When they were under way in Noah’s old blue truck, Aiden asked, “Are you in a big hurry?”
“I don’t have all day, but there’s no rush. Need to make a stop?”
“If I can find that cabin, can we swing by? I left all my stuff there. The stuff I hike with.”
“My pleasure,” Noah said. “How’s the hiking going?”
“Pure indulgence,” he said. “I’ve logged a lot of miles, seen a lot of the area, but I’ve never had time like this before. Sometimes I just hike around the mountains, the general Virgin River area. Sometimes I drive over to the coast or down Grace Valley way for a change of scenery. I’ve never felt better.”
“Good f
or you! Sounds perfect. You’ll have to go back to work eventually, I assume.”
“I spend a lot of time e-mailing friends and contacts, looking around at the possibilities, trying to avoid any offer that hinges on me starting right away. But I won’t hang out here any longer than midsummer.”
Aiden didn’t have any trouble directing Noah back to the cabin, and it wasn’t hard to locate the things he’d dropped when he’d played rescue squad to the dish with the attitude. The machete and staff were lying in the yard between the house and trees. When he picked them up he noticed someone had outlined a good-size square by digging a border, but the inside of the square was still grass, dirt and rocks. Hopes of a garden?
He grabbed the backpack, and in doing so, he noticed it looked as if she’d been attempting to plant a strip of garden along the back edge of the deck. Maybe the square in the yard was just too ambitious for her and she’d opted for a smaller, more manageable plot. The dirt was pretty packed and tough up on this mountain. It looked as though she had some semi-comatose tomato-plant starters, a few marigolds that had dried into confetti and a couple of other plants with very uncertain futures.
Still balanced on the railing was a plastic watering can and on the ground, a couple of garden tools that looked to be about the right size for tending houseplants. Also, for no reason he could fathom, there was a big iron skillet on the deck.
Aiden took his things to Noah’s truck and tossed them in the back. “Gimme a second, Noah.”
“What’s doing?” Noah asked.
“I think she was in the process of trying to revive the poorest attempt at a garden I’ve ever seen. I’m going to give her dying plants a drink. It’ll only take a minute. Do you mind?”
“I’m good,” Noah said. “I don’t see a garden.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s the problem. Be right back.”
Aiden grabbed the watering can off the deck railing. He put the tools on the deck and sprinkled some water on the plants. Then he took the watering can around to the back of the house to refill it from the faucet and saw a nearly empty box of Miracle-Gro sitting there. It was going to take a miracle, he thought wryly. He filled the can and watered again, drenching her little garden. Then he left the empty can on the deck and jumped into the truck with Noah.
This was all very mysterious.
“How did this happen again?” Noah asked with a slight frown.
“I was hiking through the forest when I saw her. I was just going to say hello, but when I came through the trees, she screamed and jumped up and whacked her head. I dropped all my stuff to take care of her—my machete, bow and arrows, backpack, staff.”
Noah glanced at him, wide-eyed. “You came through the trees with a machete? And you’re insulted that she had some attitude?”
“I see your point….”
Noah laughed. “You might want to cut her some slack there, Aiden.” And then he laughed some more.
Two
While Aiden was staying in Virgin River, he rented one of Luke’s cabins. He actually paid the going rate, though Luke had a real hard time taking his money. But Aiden not only wanted his own space, he also didn’t want to impose too much on Shelby and Luke because he intended to stay all summer. And though the little vacation rental was about as lean as he’d lived since he’d been aboard ship, he liked it. Luke had graduated to satellite hookup for TV and Internet, but the cabins didn’t have phones yet. That didn’t bother Aiden; he’d e-mailed Luke’s home phone number to his contacts, revised the message including Luke’s phone number on his cell phone and could still pick up messages and texts in certain parts of the area out of the mountains. Besides, most of the people he was in touch with preferred the Internet. Every morning and evening he checked his e-mail.
When Noah dropped him off, he found a note taped to his cabin door. Come to the house right away. L.
Right away, Aiden decided, could afford him the time to take a shower. If Shelby had a problem with her pregnancy, they wouldn’t be waiting around for Aiden to finish what could be an endless hike.
When he got down to Luke’s house a mere fifteen minutes later, he gave a couple of short taps and walked in.
Shelby was sitting on the sectional with her feet up on the ottoman, a book balanced on her big belly. Luke was kneeling on the opposite side of that ottoman beside a large open box. He seemed to be looking through a few items spread out in front of him. He looked up at Aiden and said, “We got trouble.”
“Trouble? What’s up?”
Luke stood and handed Aiden a small stack of pictures, pages and envelopes. Aiden leafed through—second- and third-grade pictures, report cards, handmade Mother’s Day cards, memorabilia from his childhood. “So?” Aiden asked. “The problem?”
“Mom sent this—a whole box of it. Even that book I wrote in fourth grade—the one about the meaning of life for me? Which at the time was finding a way to kill all my brothers and make it look like an accident.”
Aiden chuckled. He remembered that. They still joked about it when they were all together. Ten-year-old Luke felt he had more than his share of responsibility and aggravation with four younger brothers, the youngest of whom was in diapers and followed him around relentlessly. “I guess we should all thank the Virgin you didn’t find a way. What’s the matter?”
“You got one, too. Colin got his box yesterday, but Colin just figured he’d been written out of the will because he doesn’t call or visit enough and that was Mom’s way of letting him know. I haven’t checked with Patrick. Or with Franci to see if a box was sent to her for Sean. Mom’s unloading her house.”
Before commenting further, Aiden ripped open his box. He pulled out an almost identical batch of pictures, papers, folders, and underneath it all was a shoe box. He opened it to find Christmas ornaments—the ones that he had made for the family tree when he was a child, as well as the purchased ones that were his favorites. He held up an old Rudolph ornament. “I loved this one,” Aiden said. “How does she remember the exact ones I loved?”
Shelby sighed and ran a hand over her belly. “I hope I’m that good a mother,” she said.
“Something bad is going on,” Luke said. “Either she’s dying or selling her condo and moving into a nursing home.”
Aiden chuckled. “Or moving into an RV with a retired Presbyterian minister. She’s been kicking that idea around since last Christmas.”
“She didn’t mean it, Aiden,” Luke said. “Not her. She was pulling my chain—revenge for all the years I wouldn’t get serious. This is Saint Maureen! If she’s doing that, she’s getting married, and she doesn’t know George well enough to marry him. Since they started talking last Christmas, he’s lived in Seattle and she’s been in Phoenix. She can’t marry him. Call her.”
“Why do I have to call her?”
“Because, Aiden—you’re the only one who can really talk to her.” Luke took a step toward his brother. “If she ends up marrying George, she might just get stuck with some old guy to nurse through Alzheimer’s or something. Call her.”
Shelby put down her book with an irritated moan. “Luke thought his mother was sitting up on lonely Saturday nights, looking through his grade-school pictures and report cards. Maybe she’s just sick of being a storage shed for your stuff—ever think of that?”
Something caught Aiden’s eye and he bent to pull out a small gold object: a little trophy with a swimmer on it. When he was in school, swimming was the geek sport. And he was a geek. “Aw, my only first place ever.”
Luke reached into his box and pulled out all his ribbons and tilted his head toward the box; the bottom was filled with trophies and plaques. Luke had been an athlete and won at everything he tried. “If I remember right, you got all the honor-roll stuff. I got sports.”
“Luke, Mom said she was going to do this,” Aiden reminded him. “She asked everyone if anyone wanted the dining room set, the old quilts, the china…”
“I’m getting dishes,” Shelby said with a smile. ??
?I’m scared to death of them—they’re very old. I told her I would probably pack them away and guard them with my life because they’re so precious. She’s also sending some crystal—I’m not sure what it is. Franci is taking on Great-grandma Riordan’s silver. No one else wanted anything, I guess,” she said with a shrug.
“I thought this was just a test,” Luke said. “I didn’t think she was really serious about giving away all her stuff.”
Aiden tapped the box. “Not her stuff, Luke. Our stuff. And stuff that belonged to the great-grandmothers. Stuff she doesn’t feel like taking care of anymore. Come on, lighten up here.”
“Call her,” he insisted. “Maybe she’s losing her mind or something.”
Aiden gave a sigh and went to Luke’s phone. Picking up the cordless, he punched in the numbers to his mother’s condo and while it rang, helped himself to a beer from Luke’s refrigerator. Before he had popped the top, however, he got the recording. “This line has been disconnected…” He tried not to let the surprise show on his face while he listened to the whole recording. Then he clicked off and said, “No answer. I’ll try the cell….” And he punched in some new numbers. It didn’t take long for Maureen to say hello. “Well, hello yourself,” he said with amusement ringing in his voice. “You running from the law or something?”
“Oh, Aiden,” she said. “I was going to call you, but I’ve been so busy.”
“Yes, packing up and shipping all our childhood treasures back to us. Luke thinks you’re dying….”
“Luke probably wishes I was dying,” she said wryly. “Hardly. No one wants my old-lady furniture, so I packed up all the heirlooms spoken for, along with all the stuff I’ve saved since you boys were little, and put the rest in storage. Since I have that cell phone you got me, I thought it was okay to shut down the computer and disconnect the landline. One of my friends has a recently widowed sister who needs a place to rent while she looks around for something to buy. I’m going to let her move in here. We have a six-month agreement.”