Hidden Summit

  Way to go low-profile, Conner chided himself. “No, thanks. I can take him.”

  Dan just laughed. “Then close up when you’re done, will you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Leslie was nearly finished with the payroll books on the computer when she heard the door to the trailer open. She was used to crews coming and going, to Paul popping in now and then. But then she heard, “Leslie?”

  She dropped her head on the desk. God. No.

  “Leslie?”

  She took a deep breath, pushed back her chair and stood up. She moved to the doorway of her office and looked down the long hall. There he was. Shit! “Greg, what are you doing here?” she said more patiently than she felt.

  “Well, what do you think I’m doing here? You ran out on me with no forwarding address. You changed your cell number!”

  She walked down the hall toward him, shaking her head. “Greg, we’ve been divorced over a year. You’re remarried. Your new wife is pregnant. I didn’t run out on you—I moved. I no longer have a relationship with you.”

  “Now see, that’s just crazy! Of course we have a relationship, a very important one, just a different one than we had a couple of years ago.”

  It was exactly this kind of talk that had pushed her over the edge. And while it used to just break her heart, she’d had enough. “Are you insane?” she demanded. “Are you seriously nuts? Because it’s different all right—I don’t like you anymore, don’t you get that? I don’t want to be in touch with you. I don’t want us to be friends. You wanted a new life, a different life. Go home! Wallow in it.”

  Now he was doing the head-shaking. “Leslie, what’s happened to you? We’re going to have to work on that. We’re much too civilized to have hard feelings like this between us after all the good years we’ve had. We’re going to get past the misunderstandings and forge a new, stronger friendship. I care about you. You’re very important to me. Very important!”

  She stared at him in disbelief that had become common for her when faced with Greg. “This is why I moved. Because you need medication. Listen to me carefully,” she said, stepping toward him. “You cheated on me. You left me. You somehow conned me out of my half of our community property, you remarried and your new wife is pregnant with the baby you didn’t want to have with me. If everyone in my life cared about me that much I would be the most pathetic creature on the face of the earth.”

  “The way you look at things,” he muttered disparagingly.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I asked everyone we knew. Your parents wouldn’t tell me, your old boss wouldn’t tell me—”

  “And did they tell you why they wouldn’t tell you? I asked them not to. It’s because of conversations like this one that I moved! So, who told?”

  “One of the crew for Haggerty’s said he heard you went to work for Paul in Virgin River.”

  “And you drove down here?” she asked, astonished. “Why didn’t you just call the site?”

  “I want you to look me in the eye, Leslie, and tell me we can’t ever be on good terms. Because it kills me to think you hate me.”

  She took another step toward him. “We can be on good terms, Greg,” she said with more confidence than she’d had even a few weeks ago. “As long as I never have to talk to you or see your face again. Now go home and leave me alone.”

  “I want to make this right, because I—”

  “I know. Because you care about me. You’re too late to make it right. You made your choice and I made mine and I’m done.”

  “I wish there was some way I could make you understand. Everything changed in an instant. I became a different man with different needs, with different expectations. It was a transition, Leslie. It wasn’t something I thought about or planned. It was as if—”

  In a second he was going to say, I’d never been in love like this before. He’d said it to her before, and she could still feel the ache. “Go. Leave!”

  “Now, Leslie, listen to reason....”

  She marched over to the kitchen sink, pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall, freed the hose and aimed it at him.

  “Okay, now you’re acting unbalanced,” he said.

  “If you don’t get in your car and head for Grants Pass immediately, I’m going to mess up your pretty cashmere coat. And your perfect hair!”

  “Now look—”

  She fired at his shiny John Lobbs.

  “Hey!” he yelled, jumping back.

  “Seriously, on the count of three. One, two—”

  “You’ve lost it, Leslie,” he said, but he was backing toward the door. “You’ve never acted like this. I’m worried about you.”

  “Then give me a real wide berth,” she advised. “Three!”

  He nearly fell out the door.

  Conner watched as Paul Haggerty was just pulling up to the trailer. Greg Adams was standing behind his car, trunk open, cleaning his shoes with a rag he’d pulled off his golf clubs. Paul screeched to a stop and jumped out of the truck. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t find Leslie anywhere in Grants Pass, and I heard she came to work for you, so I drove down,” he said impatiently. He showed Paul his golf towel. “She shot at me with the fire extinguisher!”

  Paul rocked back on his heels and laughed. He tilted his head back and bellowed. Paul was much taller and stronger than Greg. And at the moment, much happier. “Did she now?”

  “What’s going on here? Why would she do that?”

  “Because, shit for brains, she’d like you to disappear and leave her alone. I’m sure she’d like to stuff you in a hole, but since that isn’t going to happen, second choice is you go home to your new wife and leave her the hell alone. You get that?”

  Greg slammed his trunk closed. “What is the matter with everyone? I’m trying to be a gentleman! Leslie was my wife for eight years! I want to be sure she’s taken care of!”

  “Best way to do that is to skip the cheating part,” Paul sagely advised.

  “I wish I could find a way to explain about that. My whole life changed in a second and it was like… Oh, never mind, what’s done is done. I’m tired of saying that I’m sorry as all hell and would change it if I could, but some things just happen. Right now all I care about is that Leslie and I can be on civil terms. That’s very important to me.”

  Paul got in his face, which meant he had to look down a little. “You better hear this, Adams. Pay attention. Go away and leave the girl alone. Copy? Now I’m going in my office and if she’s upset or crying I’m going to hunt you down and beat the shit outta you.”

  Greg stiffened indignantly. “Threats, Paul. People get in trouble for talk like that.”

  “If I have to drive all the way to Grants Pass,” Paul added. “Get outta here.”

  Then Paul went to the trailer, opened the door and stepped up. Before the door closed Conner heard him yell, “Don’t shoot!”

  Conner chuckled and went into the new construction to gather up his belongings and lock up.

  Yeah, there were things about this place to like.

  The showdown with the ex put Conner in a very social mood, and he went to Jack’s Bar. He happened to run into Paul Haggerty, which was just perfect. Since Paul had seen Conner standing in the doorway of the house in progress, Conner asked after Leslie. “I didn’t have any details,” Conner said. “But the idea of this guy I’d never seen before going into that trailer where Leslie was alone, well, I decided to stick around to be sure everything was all right.”

  “Thanks for that, Conner. Around here it just doesn’t occur to me we have to be watchful. I guess I forget there are people around we shouldn’t trust.” It didn’t take Paul long to spill the basics of Leslie’s story, not knowing Conner heard it. “Tha
t was her ex-husband and he’s one of the reasons she preferred working in Virgin River to staying in Grants Pass, which has always been her home. He just won’t go away quietly.”

  Jack put a beer on the bar for Paul. “Shot him but he just won’t die?” he asked.

  “Something like that. But I ran him off and checked on Les. She was a little pissed, but fine.” He grinned. “She turned the fire extinguisher on him.”

  “No kidding?” Jack asked with a laugh. “I knew I liked her.”

  During the course of the conversation, Paul mentioned that he’d rented Leslie a little house he’d fixed up and it was just a couple of blocks from the bar. And then, beer done, it was time for Paul to get home to dinner.

  Conner had his dinner at the bar, and when he was finished and it was time to go home, he just couldn’t shake off that social mood. He had an irresistible urge to check on Leslie himself; he just couldn’t talk himself out of it. He drove around town, and it didn’t take long to spot her yellow Volkswagen SUV in front of a small house. He parked on the street behind it and went to the door.

  She opened it and tilted her head at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was watching the trailer today, making sure the guy in the shiny Caddy wasn’t giving you any trouble.”

  “You were?”

  He nodded. “I was headed over to ask you something when he pulled up and went inside.”

  She hesitated for a second. “Come in, Conner,” she said.

  “I don’t want to impose,” he said. But he entered the little house quickly, before she could change her mind. He was quite impressed. It was a very homey, attractive place that seemed perfect for her, and it was completely settled, pictures hung, framed photos on the buffet, a dried flower arrangement and place mats on the dining table, a throw on the end of the sectional sofa. He followed her into the kitchen where he could see Dan’s handiwork in the granite countertops and darkly stained oak cupboards.

  She had been sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper spread out and a cup of tea beside it.

  “So,” she said. “That was him—the cheerful ex, wondering why we can’t be more chummy.”

  “He came out of the trailer with some white foam on his pretty shoes,” Conner said, and he couldn’t suppress a grin.

  “I lost it. His utter lack of remorse, the way he takes so little responsibility for what happened, like we should all be grown-ups and overlook it. ‘But Leslie,’” she mimicked. “‘I can’t help what I feel. It’s not as if I planned for my feelings to change.’” She snorted. “Is that accurate? That we can’t help what we feel?” she asked Conner, an imploring look on her face.

  “Probably,” he said. He hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. “But we can help what we do.”

  She took a breath. “Would you like some tea?”

  “No, thanks. But I’ll sit a minute if you feel like talking. If you want to get it off your chest.”

  She indicated the chair opposite hers, and she sat down. “I don’t know if this will make sense, but one of the reasons I took the job down here is so I could stop talking about it. Well, that’s not true at all—I was far from done talking about it, but my friends and family were done listening. Who can blame them after a year and a half? You know, I have friends who divorced, who have kids they have to co-parent with the ex, who have very manageable relationships with exes, and I admire them for it! What is wrong with me? Why am I not the least bit grateful that Greg wants us to be friends?”

  Conner shrugged before he said, “Maybe because he considers himself totally justified?”

  “You’re right. That whole business of how he just couldn’t help himself, he had no control—that’s what makes me feel like crap!”

  Conner smiled at her.

  “Should you smile at me when I say I feel like crap?”

  He shook his head, but the smile remained. “I was just thinking, I’m not making any excuses for him—he’s a dog—but that feeling? That you just can’t help yourself? That’s a feeling I like.”

  “Is that a fact?” She braced an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand.

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s good. I can still control my actions when I feel that way, however.”

  “And you do that, how?”

  He leaned toward her. “By being strong.” He leaned back. “There’s something I thought you’d want to know—I don’t think it’ll be a problem for you, but Paul told me and Jack that the guy who came to the trailer today was your ex and that you shot him with the fire extinguisher.”

  “Swell,” she said.

  “Jack was impressed. Paul didn’t give any more personal details and I didn’t let on that I knew anything. But jeez, Les, it really made me want to be a chick.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “How so?”

  “That was awesome. A guy couldn’t get away with that. I wish I could’ve hosed down my ex, but I had some serious training in how women had to be treated, even if they were very bad.”

  “I guess I’m going to have this reputation now....” she speculated.

  He gave his head a little shake. “I think you’re going to have admiration. Paul obviously feels very protective of you.”

  “The whole Haggerty family has been really good to me, especially through this. Paul’s dad, the founder of Haggerty Construction, is a tough old bear of a guy who adores his wife. They’re the most wonderful grandparents, and I take it they have very strong feelings about loyalty and commitment issues.”

  “I hope most people do,” Conner said.

  She reached across the table and touched his hand lightly. “Conner, I don’t think most people do,” she said. “I think maybe it’s a rare and admirable quality.”

  He felt a surge of heat at her soft touch, and he looked down at her hand. It was so perfect, her nails bleached white and filed short. Her skin was flawless. He wouldn’t mind feeling those perfect, soft hands all over him.

  “Here’s something you might get a kick out of,” Conner said. “Paul got right up in your ex’s grille and told him he was going in the trailer, and if you were upset he was going to hunt him down and beat the shit out of him, even if he had to go all the way to Grants Pass to do it.”

  Leslie smiled happily. “He did?”

  “He did. I haven’t known Paul very long, but I’ve never seen him look so scary. I thought it was a great idea.”

  Leslie laughed lightly. “And to think I almost opened fire on him!”

  “I heard him yell ‘Don’t shoot!’”

  “I wasn’t putting that fire extinguisher down until I heard Greg’s car drive away. I should have done that a long time ago. It was the first time I got so angry.”

  “If he comes back and bothers you again, he’s mentally challenged.”

  “You’d think so, huh?” she said. “Conner, I think Greg is a narcissist. He’s not a mean guy, at least not overtly. But everything is all about him, I see that now. He pays a lot of compliments, sucks up a lot, strokes a lot of people—influential and even not so influential—and it’s all so he gets what he wants.”

  “And what the hell could he possibly want with you?”

  “The perfect divorce. He has lots of image concerns. While we were married he wanted everyone to think we had the perfect marriage. He said he hoped to be a role model, to be admired, in business, in relationships and hopefully one day in a larger political arena than even the City Council. It’s very important to him to be respected. When I caught him cheating, he fessed up at once and all within the course of one hour explained how he’d fallen in love despite his intentions, he couldn’t help it, would be divorcing me and marrying her but that we would always be best friends because he would never stop loving me. He would just ha
ve to stop being married to me because his feelings had changed and he was going through a life transition. Oh—and as he put it—I wouldn’t want him to live a lie or be unhappy for the rest of his life, would I?”

  “Wow.” Conner thought he couldn’t be more surprised by things like this, especially after what he’d gone through with Samantha. “Do you mind if I ask you? If it’s none of my business, just say so. But how’d you catch him?”

  “Modern technology and celebrity gossip. I thought the whole idea that someone who was cheating on his wife would have a lot of incriminating texts on his cell phone was completely ludicrous. Especially famous someones. It actually made me laugh! How could anyone be that stupid? So just out of curiosity while Greg was in the shower, I read his texts. I didn’t expect to find anything. A lot were from me and his office and bingo, a lot of sexy snippets with someone named Allison. While he was blow-drying his hair, I texted her from his phone. I told her I wanted to lick her whole body, and she texted back that it was right where he left it, waiting and ready.”

  Conner couldn’t help it, the laughter rumbled out of him and made his eyes water. “You didn’t do that,” he said.

  “I did so. Greg was mortified.”

  “Wow,” Conner said again, wiping his eyes. “Yeah. Mortified. He must have wanted to be caught.”

  “I don’t know about that, but he was definitely ready to be caught. It turned out we had very few assets. And his new wife is an attorney.”

  Conner shook his head. “There must have been no sharp objects in the house....”

  “I was in shock for a while. I actually thought he’d come back to me. That didn’t last long.” She sipped her tea. “It was nice of you to check on me, Conner. But I’m fine. Totally fine.”

  “You’re not in shock anymore.”

  “Indeed not. So what did you want to ask me?”

  “Oh. That. I was wondering if you were headed to that yoga class tomorrow, since it’s Saturday. Because I could be headed to that coffee shop at about the same time. And maybe this time we could get off on a better foot, as in, you not furious with me.”