Leslie Petruso pulled up to the little bar in town, parked and went inside. She immediately felt a little better, a little safer. She liked the look of the place, as though it welcomed her to a simpler life. That’s all she wanted, really—something that was less complicated. She didn’t have to wait long at the bar before a big, good-looking bartender was there, grinning. “What can I get you, miss?”
“How about a glass of Merlot? I’m meeting someone, but I see he’s not here yet.”
She was instantly served the wine. “Anyone I know?” the bartender asked.
“Maybe. Paul Haggerty?”
He smiled. “One of my best friends. We served in Iraq together a long time ago. I’m Jack,” he said, putting out his hand.
“Leslie. How do you do?”
“Paul’s a friend of yours?”
“I hope so,” she said. “He was once my boss in Grants Pass. One of several bosses, I should say. I was the office manager for Haggerty Construction.”
“Pleasure to meet you!” Jack said. “Here for a visit?”
“Actually, if Paul hasn’t changed his mind, I’m here to work as his secretary. Office manager. Whatever he needs.”
“Well now,” Jack said. “’Bout time he did that! His company just keeps growing. He’s got himself a real fine reputation around here.”
“They’re the best, the Haggertys.”
“And speak of the devil,” Jack said, lifting his chin in the direction of the door.
She turned and smiled to see Paul. He was a sight for sore eyes. It had been a long time. His visits to Grants Pass for business had tapered off as his arm of the company in Virgin River grew larger and more demanding. He and his wife and kids still visited his family, but Leslie hadn’t been a part of that side of things.
He dragged off his hat in that boyish way of his and grinned at her. He put an arm around her shoulders, leaned down to give her a kiss on the temple and said, “God, it’s good to see you! How are you?”
And damn it all, her lips began to quiver slightly, and she had to press them together to keep from crying. Her eyes misted over.
“Aw, come on, honey,” he said, squeezing her a little harder. “Jack, how about a beer?”
“You got it,” Jack said, escaping.
“Take it easy now,” Paul said. “We’re going to have a drink, then I’ll take you to the rental to drop off your luggage and car and then I’m taking you home to dinner. Vanni made a roast—an event at our house, you know. I’ll drive you home after—to your new home.”
“You don’t have to go to all that trouble, Paul. I can drive.”
“Getting around these mountains after dark can be dicey when they’re new to you. You can start doing all that without any help from your friends tomorrow. Your furniture arrived, and since there wasn’t that much, Vanni just instructed the movers to unpack the boxes and put things away. There are clean sheets on the bed and clean towels in the bathroom. You can organize it your own way when you feel like it.”
“I wish she hadn’t gone to so much trouble,” Leslie said.
“Don’t worry about it. She’s so grateful you’re here. She’s been handling a lot of my paperwork, what I can’t keep up with, and she’s really too busy for even that right now.”
“She’s grateful? Oh, Paul, I’m not sure what I would have done if you hadn’t stepped up with a job when your dad asked you!”
“I hope you don’t regret it when you see my office. We’re going to have to move a few things around, but right now I’m in a construction trailer.”
“Thank you, Paul,” she said. She took a sip. Then in a tremulous voice she added, “I just had to get out of there.”
He gave her a moment before he asked, “That bad, huh?”
She gave a hollow little laugh and shook her head. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to hold my head high and let it all roll off. I tried pretending I didn’t care, but I’m just not as strong as I’d like to be.”
He put a finger under her chin and smiled into her sad eyes. “Leslie, you don’t give yourself enough credit. First of all, you’re not the one who looks bad—it’s Greg who looks like an idiot and jerk. And second, you’re an amazing woman who has the respect of the company and the whole community.”
“That’s nice of you to say,” she replied. “But our divorce and his remarriage really took its toll. I see them everywhere! Did you know that she’s now pregnant with the baby he told me he didn’t want to have? Have with me, I guess.”
Paul leaned his forehead against hers. “Les, I’m sorry.”
She pulled back and lifted her chin. “I have to find a way to rebuild my self-esteem. I sure couldn’t do it in Grants Pass where Greg seems to think we can remain friends.”
“We’ll work on that. You’ll feel better about yourself in no time. Leslie, this isn’t about your failure. It’s about his.”
“Intellectually I know that,” she said. “But you have to understand, I have a lot more to overcome than you realize. I mean, I wasn’t even asked to the prom.”
Paul had laughed at that comment about the prom, as if she was kidding. She had worked with the Haggerty men for ten years, and they all thought she had a great sense of humor. And she knew they were absolutely on her side. Paul’s dad, Stan, the founder and president of Haggerty Construction, had been determined never to work with Greg again, but his sons had all stood up to him and pointed out that refusing to do business with a successful developer was shortsighted in business. And also some sort of discrimination. “Yeah,” Stan had stormed. “I discriminate against stupid assholes!”
Leslie had adored him for that!
She had been twenty-three when she married Greg Adams. He was a young developer who was becoming successful and well-known, though he was only just thirty. He was in all the fraternal and networking groups from Rotary to the Chamber of Commerce; he’d been president of each at one time or another. He’d had aspirations to run for city council, maybe mayor eventually. He was also incredibly handsome and very sexy, and she had always had a hard time believing he chose her. And even though she’d worked full-time for Haggerty Construction, she’d also joined the Junior League, library volunteers—anything she thought might help Greg’s plans. Of course, Greg had encouraged her to do so.
Then, after eight years of marriage, she’d caught Greg in an affair with a twenty-seven year old attorney. He had been thirty-eight. He’d come clean immediately and confessed he was sorry she had been hurt, but he was moving on. His life had changed in ways he had never anticipated. He’d moved out of their lovely three-bedroom home the day after she’d confronted him, filing for divorce while she was still in shock.
She’d gotten the house and the mortgage, which she couldn’t carry alone. He’d gotten fifty percent of the equity. She’d gotten no alimony because it seemed this successful developer had no money.
“Hah!” Stan Haggerty had roared. “That’s bullshit! He has plenty of money, unless he’s hidden it!”
Apparently he had, because after the divorce and sale of the home and division of the proceeds, he’d managed to buy a very large custom home in a better neighborhood, a new car and take his new lady on a lavish vacation to Aruba. A year after the divorce, he’d had a flashy wedding and invited half the town, including Leslie and her parents. They’d passed, sending regrets. A year and four months after the divorce, the new Mrs. Adams was showing.
Through all of this, Greg had phoned or stopped by regularly; it was very important to him that she know he would always love her and respect her. He wanted them to remember the good years they had together and remain the best of friends. If she hadn’t been so broken down with humiliation, demoralization and envy she might’ve found the strength to gouge his eyes out with a dull spoon.
When he’d broken it to her that Allison was pregnant and that he hoped she would be happy for them, she’d found her bottom. She’d taken all she could take. That’s when she’d gone to Stan and said she was terribly sorry, but she was giving notice.
“Where will you go?” Stan had asked.
“I don’t know,” she had answered. “I just have to get away from here. I know people are on my side, that they think I was wronged, but that doesn’t keep them from looking at me with pity and wondering what role I played in driving my husband away. This is Greg’s town. And admit it, even on my side, they admire Greg for trying so hard to split on good terms. I see Greg and Allison everywhere. He kisses her neck and pats her little belly. I’ll give you a month’s notice, give my apartment manager a month’s notice, and I’ll start looking for a job in another city. Please say you’ll give me a decent recommendation.”
He’d done better than that. He’d asked Paul if he needed someone. “That’ll give you a lot more time to think, to recover, to get on your feet. You might even decide to come back to Grants Pass. And you’ll always have a job with Haggerty Construction. In fact, I don’t know how we’ll make it without you.”
Conner agreed with Jack about the stuffed trout. And while Conner ate, he watched the people in the bar. Jack had a running dialogue with a number of them; they joked around a lot and poked fun at each other like old friends. Jack was obviously all-purpose in his bar—he delivered dinner to a couple of little old ladies, to a family of four, to a couple of guys at the other end of the bar. He picked up empty plates. He served drinks. He leaned over a table and gave a tip on a cribbage move. He helped the same little old ladies out of the bar and down the steps.
All things considered, if he had to be someplace, maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad one. It had a lot of charm. The pace seemed slow and friendly. He was due some of that.
The couple down the bar were kind of intense, Conner decided. Their heads were close together as they talked, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the Sunday-school teacher was close to tears a couple of times. Were they a couple? His hands on her were friendly, affectionate. Maybe they hit a rocky patch or something. Whatever it was, the man was consoling her while they had a drink. After about twenty minutes of that, the man plunked some bills on the bar and, with his hand at the small of her back, escorted her out.
Conner felt that grinding ache of resentment. Because of his ex, because of witnessing a crime and being driven into hiding, he wasn’t going to experience that. He wasn’t going to feel the satisfaction of escorting a pretty Sunday-school teacher out the door and off to some quiet and private place.
His heart was as heavy as it was hungry.
“Anything else for you, buddy?” Jack asked him.
“No, thanks. You were right about the trout—outstanding. Let’s settle up.”
Jack slapped a ticket on the bar, Conner dug out some money and headed out.
Back on the road, Conner passed the turnoff to the cabins and drove down the mountain until he could see service bars on his new cell phone. Finally he saw the potential for a phone call. At the first opportunity, he pulled over and called the number he had already memorized. She answered sleepily. “Aw, Katie, I woke you….”
She laughed. Katie didn’t need an alias—she wasn’t the witness. “We’re not supposed to talk about time zones, weather, landmarks, names or anything.”
“You could be asleep at any time,” he said, though he knew that wasn’t true. She went to bed early. She snuggled in about the same time her little boys did to keep from being too lonely. “That other thing, names, I might have trouble with that.”
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
“I’m good. I’m ready to get this over with, get things back to normal.”
“Things might never be normal again, have you thought about that?”
“What else is there to think about? Things won’t be the way they were, maybe, but they could be normal. We’ll be somewhere new, maybe, but before the boys forget what I look like, we’ll be done with this and rebuilding. Tell me about you, Andy and Mitch. Everyone okay?”
“Names,” she reminded him with a laugh. “Better than I expected. I have a good job with a cute, single dentist. Who knows?” He could hear a smile in her voice. “Maybe things will work out and you’ll join me here.”
“Who knows,” he repeated with a laugh.
“Do you have a job yet?”
“Tomorrow. One is all lined up for me.”
“Will you let me know if you like it?”
“Of course. Yes. Listen, I don’t know how much I can say, but if I don’t answer when you call, it’s because of bad cell reception. I have…” He almost said internet connection and stopped himself. “But I’ll definitely be in touch. One way or another.”
“Okay, just let me know. Anyway, if I need help, you’re not the one I’m going to call. They gave me other, faster options. Please don’t worry. We’re being well taken care of.”
“I won’t worry….”
“Will you do me a favor? Will you try to make friends? You finally don’t have to work sixteen hours a day to keep me and the boys afloat, too, so just try to take advantage of that. Think of this as a vacation.”
“Sure,” he said. He wanted to argue—vacation? I’m hiding from a murderer connected to mobsters and hit men. I’ve been separated from my family and left with nothing but a big question about where we’re going to start over. Great vacation.
“I don’t know exactly where you are, but wherever you are there must be stuff local people do. Check it out. Go out for a couple of beers—you never do that sort of thing. And have a date….”
“Date? I don’t think so….”
“You deserve to grab a little bit of fun, if not downright happiness. I mean, come on—this is temporary.”
“Fun? We’ll see. No happiness,” he said. “The last time I felt happy, I was punished by the entire universe.”
She just laughed. “Have it your way. Be as miserable as possible.”
He sighed. “I’ll try to enjoy this little bit of time, okay? Because when it’s finally over, I’m going to rebuild. Honey, are you and the boys really okay? Happy? They aren’t scared, are they?”
“We miss you. They have a hard time understanding why we can’t be with you. But you know what? They have a nice school, and we haven’t been here long but they’ve already started soccer and had a couple of friends over for pizza and a movie. My boss is easygoing and flexible—I get the feeling I’m extra help and he’s getting me real cheap, maybe not actually paying my salary, if you know what I mean.” She yawned. “We’ll get through this with nobody hurt.”
He’d always been the one to be there for T-ball or swimming lessons or soccer. It killed him to be this unavailable. “You’re always the positive one,” he said. He rubbed the sting out of his eyes. If they got through this, which they would, they would all be entirely new characters in this big drama—new identities, new locations. But they would be together again. “I think I admire you more than anyone I know.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet. And I don’t deserve it.”
But she did. She’d had some real rough breaks, yet she didn’t treat all that as baggage. If she suffered, she suffered and got it over with and resumed her sunny outlook on life.
“Let’s not use up our minutes,” she said. “We’re fine, you’re fine. I want to talk to you again after you have a job…and remember—you promised you’re going to try to find something to enjoy.”
“I will,” he said. “I am.” And he found himself wondering if it was reasonable to hope he could meet a woman who’d settle for a no-strings thing just to take the edge off? And he further wondered how that made him very different from Samantha.
Paul told Leslie that he hadn’t planned to get into the landlord business, but with real estate in a mess and interest rates low, he’d picked up a couple of small foreclosures in town. He planned to sell them when there was a sufficient economic recovery to make money. In the meantime, he rented one of the spruced-up ones to Leslie. It was probably all of a thousand square feet and adorable. And she believed he kept the rent suspiciously low.
“I’ll send someone over in the next couple of weeks to clean up the yard, put down some sod on a couple of bare patches and plant some flowers along the walk,” Paul told her. “When it dries out a little bit, I’m planning to pour a new drive and put up a decent covered carport with some storage. This March rain will give way to sunshine before you know it. And when you see spring here, you’ll have trouble catching your breath, it’s that beautiful.”
The small two bedroom did have an inviting feel on this quiet and welcoming little street. The houses that lined each side were all simple, unpretentious little structures, some in better repair than others, but it had the feel of a neighborhood in need of one more good neighbor, and that was all she asked.
“Let me plant the flowers,” she said. “It’ll help me settle in. I’ve always wanted to keep a little garden, but between work and then apartment living…”
“You do anything you want, Les,” he said. “Treat it like it’s yours.”
“I’ll take you up on the sod and driveway, if you feel like it. That would be nice—a place other than the street to park.”
“Consider it done,” he said.
If Leslie had worried that Paul’s wife would pity her, running away from her job in Grants Pass to escape her humiliating divorce, she would’ve been wasting her time. The reason for her being in Virgin River never even came up over dinner. Rather, Vanni really was grateful that Paul was finally getting some full-time help from someone who had worked for him before and knew the business. And the fact that she was an old friend of the Haggerty family as well, made it even better.
When Leslie settled into bed in her little rented house that night, she felt more relaxed than she had in what seemed like years. And she knew exactly why—it was the distance between her and her past. Tomorrow, when she was out and about town, or when she reported to her new job, when she shopped for groceries or treated herself to a glass of wine at Jack’s, she would not run into Greg or Allison or any of their former friends. She might as well be on another continent.
In the morning when she woke, she went out onto her front porch in her robe, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands. The tops of the trees were still lost in the early-morning mist that blanketed the little town, but she could hear voices—neighbors shouting hello, cars just starting up, children laughing and yelling, probably on their way to school or to the bus stop. It was still very early. By the time she was showered and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt over a white collared blouse, the sun was struggling to break through.
Paul had told her not to dress up, that the trailer where he kept his office was pretty rugged. She’d usually worn business attire, either skirts or slacks, to the Haggerty Construction office. In the course of a typical day she’d run into salesmen, customers, decorators, investors and developers. Paul told her the only people she was likely to run into besides himself in that trailer were crew.
She took a cup of coffee along for the ride as she followed his directions. And there it was, the trailer, sitting on a large lot that held two houses in progress. It was actually a single-wide mobile home; she assumed the bedrooms would be offices and that there would be a kitchen and bathroom.
There was one truck parked at the trailer, and it wasn’t Paul’s. She glanced at her watch. Seven forty-five. In the construction world, that was late. Not for the office staff, of course, but the crew usually got started as soon as they had light. Here she’d been trying to impress him by being early, and there didn’t seem to be anyone here to impress.
Inside she found a man seated at what would pass for a kitchen table—a big slab of plywood balanced on sawhorses. He had a cup of coffee and appeared to be leafing through plans, but stood as she entered. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Dan Brady, one of Paul’s foremen. He went to meet a crew at another job and asked me to hang out until you got here. Make yourself at home. His office is down the hall,” he said, pointing. “He must be putting you in the room next to that because there’s a desk in there. It’s old and kind of dirty and you might have to clean it up and maybe put a shim under one leg of it, but it hasn’t been spoken for. Must be yours.” He put out his hand.
She felt herself smile. The whole place was a wreck, messy and mud-tracked. There was a thirty-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen counter, covered with fingerprints. That would explain the tracking of mud. “I’m Leslie Petruso. Let me guess, the guys grab a cup of coffee in here.” And then she took his hand in greeting.
“Especially when it’s cold. When it’s nice out, they’re more likely to take a break sitting on the back of their trucks or something. It looks a little worse than usual, what with the rain. I hope you’re not completely disgusted.”
She laughed. “I’ve been working for a construction company for ten years now, so every now and then I did have to visit a job site. Nice to meet you, Dan.”
He indicated her cup with a jut of his chin. “Can I warm that up for you?”
“Thanks,” she said, handing it to him. “So, did Paul say what he’d like me to do?”
Dan gave the cup back, refreshed. “He said you’d know what to do. He carries his laptop around in the truck with him, but there’s a paper schedule on his desk. I’m waiting for a crew to work on interiors on these two houses and Paul will get here when he gets here. Will you be all right if I get to work?”
“You bet. Don’t worry about me.”
He smiled at her. “Welcome aboard, Leslie. We’ll all be happy if Paul has a little help organizing the paperwork.”
“Gets a little behind on that, does he?” she asked on a laugh.
“He’s a builder,” Dan said with a grin. “It’s hard to keep him in the office. I’ll be in the house on the left, if you need me.”
“Not to worry. I’m going to poke around Paul’s desk and see if I can make sense of anything.”
“Go for it,” Dan said with a salute.
Leslie took her time looking around after Dan left. She didn’t concentrate on Paul’s desk or even on his office—there was plenty of time for that. She opened every cupboard and closet in the trailer before she attempted Paul’s desk. And it happened spontaneously—she wiped out the sink, which led to scrubbing the countertop, which led to first sweeping, then mopping the kitchen floor. She filled the sink with soapy water, and, with rag or mop in hand, she moved through the place with a vengeance.
By the time Paul showed up at around ten, the muddy tracks and finger smears had disappeared. Even the stainless-steel thirty-cup coffeemaker was shining. And the coffee in it was fresh. “Whoa,” he said.
She straightened her spine and blew a curl of hair off her forehead. “Prepare your crews for intensive training—they’re going to learn to keep things clean around here.”
“Oh, they know how,” he said. “When we turn over a house, you could eat off the floor….”
“Yeah? Really?” she asked. “Because if you ate off that bathroom floor, you’d be dead in ten seconds. I’m not cleaning it. It’s vile. The next man who comes in here with a need for it is getting the job. And then they’re going to keep it clean because I can’t even think about putting my—” she cleared her throat in lieu of a key word and added “—on it.”
The door opened and a man looked in with blue eyes that almost knocked her out. “Oh. Excuse me. I should’ve knocked….”
Paul laughed and kind of rocked back on his heels. “Not a problem, come on in. The new secretary was instructing me in keeping a clean shop.”
“New?” he asked.
Paul didn’t respond to the question but stuck out a hand. “Paul Haggerty. How can I help you?”
“Conner Danson,” he said, accepting the handshake. “A friend of mine said you might have some work….”
“Would that be Brie?” he asked.
“That’s her. Old friend of mine. My last boss shut down….”
“She said something about that. And you’re friends from college?”
Conner smiled. “I took a few classes after high school, but I’m not a college man. I quit, joined the army for a couple of years, then apprenticed with a carpenter. Custom kitchens and bathrooms.”
Paul gestured to an album Conner held under one arm. “I bet you have some sample photos I can look at.”
“You bet,” he said, handing over the album.
Paul opened it and began leafing through the photos, Leslie looking over his shoulder. She kept glancing up at Conner—short brown hair, tanned face, thick eyelashes, goatee…very handsome. She’d like another look at his eyes; the blue was almost shocking.
“Wow,” she said of the pictures. “Very nice work. And you say your boss shut down?”
“Not a great time for custom builders right now.”
“This work is so pretty,” she said. “Did you give any thought to going out on your own?”
“Lots of carpenters and refinishers out of work right now,” he said with a shrug. “I contacted everyone I knew and Brie said…” He didn’t finish but let it hang in the air.
“I have one good interiors man, my foreman. He’s a good leader and can usually handpick crew to work with him, but I bet he’d be happy to have some talent like this to partner up with.” Paul closed the album and handed it back. “I have enough contracts for custom buildings and remodels to employ you for as long as six months, but I can’t guarantee any more than that.”
“I’ll start with that,” Conner said.
“Thing is, this is the kind of stuff I like to do,” Paul said. “But if I spend too much time on the detail work the big picture gets shortchanged.”
“I’d be happy to watch your details,” Conner said. “Besides, I don’t know if I’ll take to this place for the long-term. I’m a city boy. More or less.”
“From?”
Conner answered according to his new bio. “Colorado Springs. If you don’t mind me asking, how is it you have enough work to take on one more hire in a little place like this?”
“A combination of things,” Paul said. “This place was a little light on general contractors when I first got here—not a lot of competition. And, because of the kind of place it is, beautiful and with a distinct shortage of industry, the only people who move here come because they can. Take my father-in-law, retired general—he found this place because it was perfect for hunting and keeping his horses. His lady friend is a semiretired actress—also loves hunting and has dogs and horses. Then there’s Jack of Jack’s Bar—not so rich and important, but a hardworking man, a retired marine who saved a couple of bucks and wanted to build his wife a nice house to raise their family…. You get the idea. People are here on purpose. And they tend to build or remodel the homes they’ll have forever, homes they’ll leave their children…. I love making homes for generations. My dad taught me that.”
“And you’re here because…?” Conner asked.
“That’s easy. My wife. Before she was my wife she was my best friend’s wife, and I gave my word if anything happened to him in Iraq I’d take care of her and their baby. The worst happened and I kept my word, but it was no sacrifice. I’ve always loved Vanni. She’s expecting our third now. We just found out.”
“Wow, congratulations,” Conner said, dropping his gaze to the floor. He couldn’t make eye contact with either of them. What he’d seen in the bar the night before sure didn’t pay a tribute to the wife Paul had “always loved.” He suspected his new boss was fooling around with the secretary. He’d seen them together at the bar.
“Now, I’m gonna need some information. Or—make that Leslie here is going to need some information so we can set up some benefits, take care of your payroll, the basics. And while you fill out her forms, I’m going to clean the bathroom.”
“I really didn’t mean you had to do it,” Leslie said rather sheepishly.
“Hey, the buck stops here,” Paul said. “I should’ve made sure it was kept clean. Vanni wouldn’t even come out here—she made me take the paperwork home. I’ll clean it and I’ll make sure it stays clean.” He grinned and put an arm around her shoulders. “The employment applications and forms are in the lower left drawer.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she said. And she smiled warmly at Paul, then Conner. And when she caught Conner’s eyes with hers, there was a zing. A spark.
