Saturday started with a summons to Brie’s house. His landlord, Luke Riordan, the owner of the cabins, knocked on Conner’s door and said, “I have a message for you to call Brie when you’re up.”
“I’m up,” he said. “Is your phone available?”
Brie wanted him to come to brunch. He honestly didn’t know if that was code for something else, he just accepted the invitation. It turned out to be code for something else.
“I’ll give you breakfast,” Brie said. “But you’re going to call Max from my office phone. I spoke to him an hour ago. He just wants to update you.”
Regis Mathis, out on bail and his case in the capable hands of one of the best defense attorneys in the West, seemed to be keeping a very low-profile. When he was seen in public, he had lots of men around him. Bodyguards, perhaps.
“How is it he’s out of jail? I saw him kill a man and then he threatened to kill me. And we know he burned down the store!”
“Unfortunately, we don’t know as much about that as you might think. It’s not his voice on your answering machine, which should come as no surprise.”
“No, the surprise is why he would dirty his own hands in the killing when obviously he didn’t need to. He was locked up when the store burned down, so we know he knows people who could do his killing for him.”
“I have some theories about that,” Max said. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it any further—we’re still investigating. Confidentially, we’re looking into some connections between Mathis and Randolph. But it’s early….”
“When can we get this circus over with?” Conner asked.
“Looks like a trial date of May twenty-fifth if there aren’t any more defense delay tactics, but I think you can count on the defense doing everything they can to slow the process. They’ve already been hammering us with motions.”
“Great,” Conner said.
“Listen, they’re caught and they know it. The blood in the car belonged to the victim, it was a good warrant, there’s an impartial eyewitness, there might have been trouble between the two men—therefore motive… There’s no way out of this for him, Conner. But he’s not going to go down quickly or quietly. You have to prepare yourself for that.”
“How long could it take?” Conner asked.
“I’d hate to speculate. The judge is a hanging judge and won’t tolerate a lot of paper delays, that’s in our favor. Just sit tight and let’s hope for the best. Our biggest problem is going to be jury selection.”
“Why?” Conner wanted to know.
“Because aside from a little legal gambling, this guy is squeaky clean.”
“I thought there were tax issues….”
“Because he’s rich. And he’s been exonerated. But we’re on it—we have top-notch jury consultants.”
Brie was more forthcoming over scrambled eggs. “The reality is, there have been high-profile cases that have taken years to get to trial. This guy of yours, he’s not a big Mafia boss or anything. He must have some interesting underworld connections to get your store burned down and threaten you, but still, he’s a fairly ordinary citizen. Well-known, but not well-known as a criminal. I wouldn’t expect it to be that protracted.”
“What about your defendant?” Conner asked. “The rapist?”
“Hah. Went straight to trial, no bail. He started out with a public defender, then scored a decent pro bono attorney, but he was nailed before they even got started. Even so, the defense had important evidence thrown out or rendered inadmissible, like the fact that I was the A.D.A. who prosecuted him and failed to convict, making him not only a random serial rapist but acting out revenge on an officer of the court. But in the end, they slipped up and that information got in. What I think, Conner, is that it might not get started before June, but I bet your testimony will be done and you’ll be reunited with your family and ready to start over by the end of summer, at the latest.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “And then where are we going to go?”
“Is going home out of the question? Because once this is over—”
“When it’s over, he’ll forget I testified against him? You stayed here after your trial,” he pointed out.
She let a small huff of laughter escape. “The rapist is a pervert and animal. He wasn’t connected. And this town? My brother, Jack, and the guys around here? Mike, Paul, the Riordans, to name a few? If he even poked his head out from behind a tree, he’d be so dead, so fast. This is a place that takes care of their own, Conner. And it’s not just a place of great loyalty, but of incredible strength and prowess. I think every last one of them is military-trained and at least a marksman if not a decorated sniper. I’m afraid your guy is a little more complicated than that. But still, this is probably one of the safest places I know, just based on the skills of the local population.”
“Hmm,” he said, thinking. “I have an army marksman ribbon…”
“You know what’s wrong with that idea. Right?” Brie asked. When he didn’t answer immediately, she did. “If some stranger wanders into town and looks at you funny, you could get spooked. You could run into him after dark and shoot him just because you’re spooked. I’d rather you rely on us—Mike and I. Please, anyone suspicious turns up, call Mike.”
“I wish I were the one protecting Katie,” he said.
“And the problem with that is that you protecting Katie brings her and the little boys into specific relief, making all four of you stand out. Conner, just build kitchens and bathrooms for a couple of months. Huh? You and Katie and the kids will be together again soon. Right now, having you here and Katie on the other side of the country just makes sense.”
After breakfast Conner drove to Ferndale, a beautiful little Victorian town full of bed-and-breakfasts and shops. He sat on a bench on the main street and had a conversation with Katie, who was at the YMCA with the boys in a town very far away. Conner resisted the urge to tell her about his conversations with the D.A. and Brie. All that was important to him was hearing the happiness in her voice. She liked her job, she had friends, she thought maybe she had a crush on her boss who had taken her to dinner, and the boys were having so much fun at their new school. Andy was a little too shy and Mitch a little too not.
“Sounds like you’re getting along fine,” he said.
“Are you so disappointed that I’m not sobbing myself to sleep every night?” she asked him. “I do miss you, Danny.”
“Names,” he reminded her.
“I’m sure we’re fine. I do miss you. The boys miss you and love talking to you. I’d put them on right now, but they’re tumbling. They were on the trampoline and now they’re on the mats. Are you getting along all right? Having fun, like you promised you’d try to?”
“Well…there is this girl….”
She choked. “Girl?”
“Woman,” he corrected. “Woman. I met her at work and she’s nice. Pretty. Funny.”
“Well, my God, a girl,” Katie said and burst into hysterical laughter.
“And this is so goddamn funny?” he asked indignantly.
“Because it’s just what you need and I never thought you’d have the guts. Oh, go for it!”
“She doesn’t like me that much yet,” he said. “Which is probably just as well. I’d end up just leaving her high and dry with no explanation,” he returned almost angrily.
“Now, calm down, that isn’t what’s going to happen at all. Not only will there be an explanation when you finally do your thing, there will probably be newspaper accounts and TV coverage. By the time all this is resolved, you’ll be able to tell her everything and bring her along with the happy party that includes me and two tumbling-soccer-T-ball players! Even if it makes more sense for her to let you go, it’s still a very good idea to enjoy yourself a little right now. You have no idea how happy that makes me.”
“Because if I could just hook up, you wouldn’t have to be stuck with me?” he asked her.
“Oh, my God, you can be such a drama mama. I have never been stuck with you—it’s been quite the opposite and you know it. Nothing would make me happier than to hear you’d given it up to some pretty, funny small-town woman. I’m on board with that. I just wish it would go as well with the dentist.”
“Are you getting involved?” Conner asked.
“Oh, no. It’s very professional,” she assured him. “I wasn’t the only employee he took to dinner. He also invited the office manager and his sister. It’s just friendly. But I think he’s the kind of guy I like. Stable and reliable. He loves children.”
“Don’t leave him alone with the boys!”
She chuckled again. God, how he missed her laugh. “Ah, I don’t think I’m going to be asking my boss to babysit.”
When they hung up he spent two minutes feeling ridiculous and twenty minutes remembering how level she had always made his life. And then he saw a shop owner putting out flats of flowers across the street. It had been a very long time since he’d taken a girl flowers.
Leslie had bought a flat of peonies and a bunch of starters of Hearts and Flowers ground cover, which were sitting on her front porch. She had just begun to till the ground in front of the porch when one of her neighbors stopped by to say hello. Mrs. Hutchkins had lived in the neighborhood for thirty years and had been widowed for only two. She was a spry seventy-six who reminded Leslie of her mother, and she walked a little white Shih Tzu named Puff.
While Leslie leaned on the hoe and visited, the last thing she expected was Conner, pulling in front of her house in his big truck. He jumped out. Smiling again. Funny, when she’d first met him, one of the things that had had an impact on her was how serious he usually was. He’d seemed almost brooding. Either that or he was smiling inappropriately, like when she said she felt like crap. Now every time she saw him he was grinning like a fool.
“I know I wasn’t invited to the planting,” he said as he came around to the rear of his truck. He wore a cap over his short, thick, unruly brown hair, and he touched the bill with a nod to Mrs. Hutchkins. “Ma’am,” he said politely.
“Young man,” Mrs. Hutchkins returned. “I’ll talk with you later, Leslie. Come along, Puff,” she said, moving down the street toward her house.
Leslie went to the back of Conner’s truck just as he lowered the hatch. The bed of the truck was filled with flats of flowers. “God above,” she said. “What have you done?”
He pulled off his hat and scratched his head. “I might’ve gotten a little carried away.”
She rolled her eyes. The truck was full of blossoming blue, yellow, red, purple, lavender, white.
“Daisies, wildflowers, peonies, lavender, garlic, bachelor buttons, poppies, lantana in three colors,” he said. “I didn’t get any roses or tomatoes. Roses and tomatoes are trouble.”
“Are you some kind of landscape expert or something?”
He let a huff of laughter loose. “Not before this morning.”
“I’m not mad at you anymore,” she reassured him. “I’m over it. I was a little insulted, but then I started to think—I have my reasons for being offended that you would think I was fooling around with a married man and maybe you have your reasons for springing to that conclusion.”
“Something like that,” he said.
“Who’s going to plant all this stuff?”
“I figured you and I would do it. And I was hoping it would take most of the day.”
She put a hand on her hip. “You’re getting a little obvious. Are you flirting with me?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I’m not a good flirt. I brought my own gear. Shovel, spade, aerator. I also brought mulch and fertilizer. I assumed you weren’t prepared for me to show up with, ah, stock.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at him. “What makes you think I want to spend the whole day with you?”
“I thought if I brought enough pretty flora, I’d grow on you.”
“Conner…” She shook her head.
“Leslie…” He just smiled at her.
“All right, you can do the hard part. Make the ground ready.”
“See, I haven’t lost my touch after all.” And he hefted a big flat of daisies out of his truck and followed her.
Several hours later Conner found himself making Leslie smile a lot, making her laugh, making her think he was a regular prince with his hard work on the yard and his flowers. It was just like riding a bike. They broke for lunch and Leslie fed him a sandwich, though she barely nibbled. When he saw the difference in their lunch plates he asked, “Are you getting enough to eat?”
“I’m a little thinner than is usual for me,” she said. “Divorce diet. I’ve been working on keeping it off. Eating right, yoga and all that.”
“You can take on quite a bit more weight before you’re too fat,” he said.
She frowned. “I don’t know whether to say thank-you or ask you to leave.”
“Are you worrying about your hips? Because a little something to grab on to looks good on a woman.”
“Let me guess—you missed the class on flattery,” she said.
“Seriously, Les. You don’t want to be too thin. Eat. I’ll keep bringing flowers for you to plant even if you grow a butt.”
“Stop being such a guy, Conner,” she said.
“Well, I could try, if that’s what you want….”
But that wasn’t what she wanted at all. Watching him flex his shoulders and arms while digging, watching him crouch so that his hard thighs were emphasized, it was all so much fun. And when he caught her looking, more fun. Leslie loved having him underfoot.
It took a long time to place all those flowers. By the time the afternoon sun was sinking in the west, most of Leslie’s yard was flush with color. Flowers lined her front and back porches, her walk, her fence in the backyard, bobbed in a ring around the trees in the yard and the mailbox. And the two of them were filthy.
“Wow,” she said. “You’re a lot more ambitious than I am.”
“Like I said, I might’ve gotten a little carried away. Been a long time since I brought a woman flowers.”
“They sell those in the grocery store, you know. Five bucks, you put ’em in a vase, the woman thinks you’re a real catch.”
The smile again, dimple and all. “I didn’t want to leave any doubt.”
She thought about that briefly. “Listen, we can have this discussion later, about how my mission here has nothing to do with getting involved with a man. But for now I want you to put away all the garden stuff and wash your hands. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get us takeout at Jack’s. I’m too exhausted to even make us sandwiches and too dirty to eat at the bar.”
She took off her shoes, brushed her jeans free of dirt and went inside to wash her hands and grab her purse.
She returned just ten minutes later with a brown paper bag and two bottles of beer. “I have a half bottle of Merlot on the counter, but I’ve never seen you drink wine.” She lifted the bottles. “Will this do it for you?”
“You are a goddess.”
She looked down at herself. Dirty, disheveled, exhausted. “You must be more desperate than you look.”
Leslie served up the dinner while Conner scrubbed his hands. While they sat at her little table with Preacher’s slow-cooked ribs, potato salad and beans, they talked about safe things—being Catholic, having a sibling or being an only child, missing parents versus being close to parents. She was distracted by the deep blue of his eyes and the fact that he’d arrived in the morning with his cheeks clean-shaven and now his beard was growing in. They toasted the yard, clinking wineglass to beer bottle. They talked about work; they gossiped about some of the crew and laughed over Dan’s proclivity for shedding his prosthetic leg to work and balancing with an empty pant leg flapping in the wind.
“I didn’t know he was an amputee,” Leslie said.
“Neither did I, until I came to work and saw a leg lying on the floor. He’s better on one leg than most of us are on two.” He drained his second beer. “I’ll help you wash up and store the leftovers.”
“No, you won’t. I think you’ve put in a long enough day. I’ll walk you to the door.” And once there, she turned toward him and said, “Thank you, Conner. It’s beautiful and it turned into a fun day.”
He slipped his hands to her waist and pulled her in for a hug. “I had a good time,” he said. She patted his upper arms, and when she tried to pull back, he held on. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled deeply, letting out a small, low moan.
“I’m all sweaty from yard work,” she whispered.
“Hmm. How do you do that? Sweat, soap and flowers?” He opened his lips slightly, taking a little taste of her flesh. “Wow,” he said softly.
But she didn’t resist. In fact she tilted her head slightly. “Okay, this is flirting,” she said in a throaty voice.
“I don’t flirt,” he said, giving her neck a lick, followed by a little kiss. “I just go after what I want, that’s all.” And he gave her several small kisses that ran right up to her earlobe. And then he pulled back and smiled into her wide eyes.
“Look, I’m only going to explain this once. It should be obvious to you. Since I’m trying to recover from a divorce—”
“And an ex-husband who’s a nutcase,” he added for her.
“And that. I am not getting involved romantically.”
He gave a nod. “Perfectly understandable.”
“Period.”
“Got it,” he said. “But really, how do you do that? Did you sneak a shower at Jack’s? Because you look like you should taste like sweat, dirt and compost, but you’re sweet.”
“Did you hear me?” she asked him.
“Absolutely. I have some of the same issues. Would you like to go see a movie tomorrow?”
“No!”
“That’s too bad. I think I’ll go anyway. I haven’t been to a movie in a long time,” he said.
“So maybe you think this could work out for you as a non-relationship, but I don’t do non-relationships, either. Am I clear?”
“Les, I didn’t propose anything. I licked your neck, which by the way was delicious. I’ll see you at work Monday. Don’t forget to water.” He put a light kiss on her forehead and gave her butt a pat. And he was out the door, down the walk and in the truck without looking back.
She shivered. “Whew,” she said aloud.
Conner’s workweek was busier than usual, starting with loading the trailer that served as Paul’s construction office so it could be transported across the mountain to another site. Just getting it ready for the tow took hours, the entire morning. As it got on its way, Paul and Dan talked about another project in town—the erection of a prefab building that would serve as a school. When Conner heard that it was a volunteer project, that some local men and some of Paul’s construction crews were doing it without pay, he said, “Sign me up. My dance card isn’t full.”
“It’s a project for the town,” Paul made sure to clarify. “When we do something for the town, we don’t take pay. It’s like plowing in winter, towing a motorist or searching for someone who’s lost—strictly neighbor to neighbor. We completely understand if you want to put your hours in on the clock. I’m sure you need the money.”
Conner gave a shrug. “I’m sure you do, too. I’ll be glad to work on it. The more people who pitch in, the faster it goes, right?”
“That’s a fact,” Dan said, giving him a slap on the shoulder.
And that’s when it got more interesting. Conner saw a lot of familiar faces; the bar had been closed so Jack, Preacher and Denny could help put up the school. Mike Valenzuela was there as well as many of the ranchers and farmers he’d met at the bar. He learned there had been a trust left to the town that would pay the teacher, Becca, the pretty young lady engaged to Denny. The land on which the building would sit was loaned, the building itself was paid for out of the trust managed by Jack, which made him like the unofficial mayor of Virgin River.
At some point during the afternoon of construction, nearly everyone showed up to watch. When Brie came around, Conner snuck a quiet moment. “I wish I could tell Katie about this, about how the town rallies like this.”
“Better not to,” she said, shaking her head. “Rule of thumb—before we get to trial, don’t mention anything that can be looked up on Google.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “She’d really get a kick out of this. This is the kind of thing Katie loves.”
For the first three days of the week he was busy working for Paul in the mornings, helping finish the construction on the school in the afternoons. Then he went with Dan to start tearing out kitchen cabinets in Redway, ready to start installing a new kitchen on Monday morning.
He didn’t see Leslie all week. He spent considerable time in town, working on the school and having dinner at Jack’s, and he also drove by her house a couple of times to see if she might be out watering her plants. The temptation to knock on her door was powerful, but he resisted. If he didn’t leave her alone to think about things, this whole proposition would backfire.
By Saturday, he’d had enough of his exile. He helped work on the school much of the day and in the afternoon he drove to Fortuna, but he wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t park right in front of that silly turquoise coffee shop. Instead he parked across the street at the tattoo parlor. Then he went inside and ordered a coffee, a tea and two slices of pie.
Just as before, at around the dinner hour, the place was deserted but for one young man who appeared to be a student busy on his laptop. Conner settled right into their girlie little sitting area.
Leslie felt she had always had a confidence problem. For a while as a wife, a good wife, she’d felt sure of herself, and then Greg had answered her loaded question and said, “Yes, honey, there has been someone else. And I just can’t live without her, it’s that simple.”
It didn’t stay simple. Even though she’d been betrayed, Leslie had tried to convince Greg to try to work it out with her, to go to counseling or something. If he would just give up Allison and try…. But he’d been packing as he talked. And Leslie had reached one of her all-time lowest moments—she’d clung to him and begged him not to leave their marriage. She had literally fallen to her knees and grabbed his legs. Just the thought that she’d ever risk revisiting such a place in her life was more than she could bear. She would never be brought that low again—it was humiliating. So she had come to Virgin River with a very firm resolve—she’d do without a man, and if there ever was one, he would be a man she didn’t care much about.
And yet, like one of those songs you can’t get out of your head, she kept feeling Conner’s bristly, closely trimmed whiskers on her neck. She missed him. She wanted his seduction, his power and his tenderness. She wanted laughter. She wanted to risk herself again, though it terrified her. She had fantasized about those arms around her for a week, and in each one she was wearing less. And less. And less…
She went to yoga to stretch out and then to her favorite coffee shop for her tea. He was the first thing she saw in the shop. He grinned at her, and her hand automatically touched her neck where she had felt his whiskers all week. He was seated at that little coffee table with coffee in front of him and tea in that place that would be hers. Her first thought was to wonder if it would be bad form to throw herself on him and taste his mustache.
“Well, look who’s here,” he said. “What a surprise.”
