“Oh, Rick,” she said in a breath.

“Take them off,” he said against her lips. “Take them off!”

“Ricky, in the car? Like this?”

“Not the first time, Liz. Off,” he commanded. “You have to. Come on!”

And he was tugging at her jeans, his thumbs hooked into the waistband. She put her hands over his and stopped him. She looked into his wild eyes for a moment and then slowly helped him draw down her jeans. She kicked off her shoes, lifted her legs and slid them off. She still had her panties on, but as panties go, they weren’t much—just a tiny thong that barely covered her and wouldn’t keep him out. And they didn’t—his hand was instantly inside her panties, then inside her. She sucked in a breath, trying not to dissolve against his touch, but it caused him to moan.

And then his hands were fumbling with his own pants, undoing the belt, unsnapping, struggling with the zipper while he was in a sitting position.

“Here,” she said gently. “Let me.” She drew the zipper down easily and set him free.

He grabbed her hips and pulled her over him and then he stopped. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Oh God, Liz…”

“It’s okay,” she whispered back, kissing him softly. “Okay, I know…”

And then he pulled aside that small, silk thong and lowered her down on him.

“Your leg—” she said.

“Nah, it’s okay. Like this, it’s okay. Ahhh,” he said. And then he started to pump his hips with rising ferocity. He grabbed the back of her head, pulled her mouth down to his, kissed her deep and hard and exploded inside her with a muted growl. He thought he’d never stop, he was caught in such a long, desperate orgasm. And she just held him, let him ride it out, kissing him. And finally he began to relax beneath her, though he was panting as if he’d run a mile.

“God,” he whispered. “No condom. Great.”

She smoothed her hand along the hair at his temple. “I’ve been on the pill for a couple of years, Rick. Since the baby…. We’ll be all right.”

“I think I just lost my mind.” He looked up into her eyes, saw her soft smile. “I didn’t even make you come.”

“You seemed in kind of a hurry.”

“Was I rough on you?”

“It’s okay,” she said, which was the same as yes. “You don’t know which end is up right now.”

“But did I hurt you?”

She shook her head.

He squeezed her bare behind in his hands. “See, this just can’t happen….”

She laughed softly. “It’s happened plenty of times. Not exactly like that. If that had been our first time, I might not have loved it. But it wasn’t our first time.”

His hand caressed her hair. “Liz, I’m no good for you, baby. You have to listen to me.”

She shook her head. “We’ll get through this.”

He sighed. He’d certainly screwed that up. Came with her to tell her she had to give up this idea of them and then ripped her clothes off. “Come on, let’s get you dressed. And home. I should get home myself, before I do any more crazy, stupid, painful things to you.”

“Rick…”

“Please, Liz,” he said, fastening his pants, helping her into her jeans. Then he held her face in his hands. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore. You have to hear this—what I need right now is a time-out from us…. Can’t you see, Liz? I can’t be part of a couple.”

“Give yourself time to—”

“No! I don’t want this anymore! It’s not going to work!”

For the first time since she showed up at his grandmother’s door, he saw tears collect in her crystal-blue eyes, but they didn’t spill over. “Worked pretty good for you a few minutes ago, Ricky.”

He was quiet a long moment. “Let’s get out of here, okay? I think I hurt my leg.”

A few minutes later, she pulled up in front of his grandmother’s house. She stared straight ahead and said, “You could let me be your friend. After all we’ve been to each other.”

He looked at her profile. “No. I can’t. I’d just use you and hurt you. I’m sorry, but that’s it.”

She turned toward him. “You’ve gone nuts. This isn’t you at all—and it’s not just the leg. You’d better get some help with it, Rick, before you throw away everything good in your life.” When he didn’t say anything for a moment, she said, “Get out then. You know how to get in touch with me.”

Rick wasn’t all the way up the porch stairs before Liz drove off, and not slowly. Angrily. She sped out of town. It was Friday night. Hadn’t she said she worked for her aunt every weekend in the store? Maybe he got that wrong…. Anyway, she was gone, and that was good. Two months of ignoring her didn’t send her packing, but this last deal would.

He got himself in the house and saw that the note he’d written his gram was still on the kitchen table. He dropped his jeans and unfastened the leg. He unlaced the running shoe and worked the prosthesis out of his jeans and leaned it against the sofa. He pulled up his jeans and sat down on the sofa. He grabbed the leg by the titanium pylon and threw it across the room. It clattered to the floor over by his gram’s old piano. Then he put his head in his hands and felt the sting of tears in his eyes.

What the hell had he done? He had planned to tell her, calmly and sanely, they couldn’t be a couple anymore. She should get on with her life, forget about him, find herself a guy who could take her the places in life she deserved to go. He even had a little speech about how she should go on with school, get herself real smart and snag an intelligent man who was going to earn a decent living and not bring mayhem into her life at every turn. And what had he done? Practically raped the girl! The fact that she hadn’t tried to stop him didn’t undo the fact that he’d been out-of-his-mind desperate, driven and rough. If she had told him to stop, could he have?

“Ricky?”

He lifted his head from his hands to see his gram standing under the living-room arch, clutching her old chenille robe together.

“I heard a loud noise….”

Thank God she couldn’t see well enough to catch the tears in his eyes, on his cheeks, the leg across the room. “Sorry, Gram. I took off the leg and dropped it. It’s really heavy. Sorry I woke you.”

“You sound like you’re getting a cold.”

“Maybe, yeah,” he said, sniffing. “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

“You need your walker?”

“I got it. It’s right at the end of the couch.”

“Can I get you anything, honey?”

“I’m fine, Gram. But thanks.”

I’m not fine, he thought. I’m a fucked-up mess. What the hell have I done to myself? To everyone else? Was I born under some kind of curse?

All in one day, he’d beat up two of the most important people in his life—Jack and Liz. All day long he’d been an asshole to Jack and now look what he’d done to Liz—had sudden forceful, rough sex with her, and then told her she had to go away and leave him alone. He felt lower than a worm. And yet he couldn’t for his life think of a better way to handle the situation. It was better for them if they didn’t care about him so much.

There were going to be more people to deal with. People he didn’t want pulling for him, being kind to him, befriending him when it could only come back on them in a bad way. Everything Ricky touched, as far as he was concerned, blew up. Just like that goddamn grenade in Iraq. There was also Preach. Mel. The boys from Jack’s squad. Connie and Ron. The whole frickin’ town.

Then he realized with a shock—he was ashamed of having been blown up. Now, that made absolutely no sense, but there it was. He should have come back from Iraq with some head troubles, but not this kind. He’d listened to guys in that stupid support group talk about shame at having been wounded, shame at having to put their families through dealing with a disabled vet, and he thought it was beyond ridiculous.

But here he sat, on his grandmother’s floral couch, knowing that everything in his head would be different if he had returned to Virgin River with two legs. And he didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. There was no changing things.

He didn’t sleep well, but when he got up, real early, the first thing he did was use his walker to get to his gram’s front porch and look across the street at Connie’s house, right next to the corner store. And there was Liz’s car. It had a dewy coat over it—it had been there a long time. Where had she gone after dropping him off? Obviously she hadn’t gone home to her mother’s in Eureka. His head began to pound. Had she gone out to the woods or river to cry?

Rick felt like a monster.

He hid out the whole day. He could have walked down to Jack’s and been friendly, but after ditching the welcome-home party, he thought he’d just play the wounded Marine for a while longer, let everyone think he wasn’t up to public appearances. So Jack came to him.

“Just checking to see how you’re doing today,” he said. “And brought you and your grandma something of Preacher’s for dinner.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the bag. “Is Preacher pissed?”

“Preacher hardly ever gets pissed,” Jack said. “But just for future reference, you don’t want to be around when he is. So—today’s better?”

“Yeah. I’m getting by. Trying to get a little rest.”

“Good. I want you down at the bar at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. We have PT in Eureka,” Jack said.

“We?”

“I’m taking you. PT Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The counselor Tuesday and Thursday. Also morning.”

“You don’t have to do that….”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “You going to call a cab? Or maybe you have another ride in mind so you don’t have to talk to me?”

Rick just looked down, frustrated with himself for wanting to hurt people so much. “Okay, thanks,” he said quietly. “I’m not real hot on that counselor idea. I told you that.”

“I know. I heard that. Just so you know, Mel is hot on it—and she found the counselor. Go ahead, tough guy—call her and talk her out of it.”

“What if I don’t call her and just refuse to go?”

“I’m taking you—I happen to think it might help. I guess you could be a stubborn fool and refuse to talk.” He shrugged. “If you decide to go that way, just listen. Maybe you’ll pick up something. By the way, what happened with you and Liz?”

His eyes popped open. “What makes you think something happened?”

“She said she saw you last night, and she doesn’t seem to be doing real well. I asked her. She said she can’t talk about it.”

Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t tell Jack he’d treated her the way he had. He just couldn’t handle the look he’d see in Jack’s eyes. If he’d learned anything, Jack’s opinion of how men should treat women was firm—they were to be handled with the greatest of respect and care. He could tell Jack he’d practically raped her, then told her to go away and leave him alone, and although Jack wouldn’t give up on him, he’d be completely ashamed of him. Rick decided it wasn’t worth it. He couldn’t bear the added guilt. “I can’t talk about it either,” he said.

Jack was silent for a moment. “Good thing we have that appointment with the counselor. You can tell him.”

Don’t count on it, Rick thought.

On Tuesday morning, Jack dropped Rick at a modest home in Grace Valley and said he’d wait out Rick’s counseling session at the café in town. Rick stood at the curb and stared at the house for a minute or so—but Jack just drove off. Finally, he went to the door of a remodeled garage that had a sign by it. Jerry Powell, followed by a bunch of letters, including PhD When he knocked, a man shouted, “Come on in.”