“And you? You care for him very much?”

“What’s the difference? You’re having a baby!”

“Yeah, it sort of looks that way. But I’m not having a wife. I’m not having a girlfriend or a lover.”

“This baby will be your priority.”

“Wouldn’t little Mattie? Because, Vanni, if you make a baby, whether you meant to or not, you raise a child. That’s how it is.”

“This woman, Paul. She must want you to marry her.”

“I’m not going to marry her, Vanessa—that would be cruel. She deserves a husband who loves her, not a man who’s in love with another woman.”

She frowned slightly. Her mouth stood open. He took a step toward her and she took a step back. The fence of the corral came up against her back. “What are you saying?”

“Here I’ve been treating you with these kid gloves,” he said. “Afraid you couldn’t be approached because of your grief, afraid I’d spoil my chances with you by moving too fast. And it turns out I wasn’t fast enough. But, Vanni, everything I saw told me you weren’t ready—being annoyed with Carol for her fix-up, crying at the grave…” He took another step toward her and she looked up, way up, into his warm brown eyes. He lowered his face closer to hers, gripping her chin in his thumb and forefinger, lifting her chin. When he spoke, she could feel his breath. “Vanessa, I’ve been in love with you forever.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” she asked in a shocked whisper.

“You weren’t supposed to know it.” His other hand was on her waist, his lips close to hers. “You were married to my best friend—you know I’d never hurt Matt like that. Never. It would have been a betrayal for you to even guess how I felt.”

“But—”

“That first night, I pointed you out to Matt. You were so beautiful, so full of life and energy, I couldn’t even get up the nerve to talk to you. I’ve never really loved a woman before. I haven’t since, and I tried. I tried. I wanted to be over you because I could never have you. I should have told you how I felt before I left right after the baby was born. But I was afraid you’d be…I don’t know. Shocked. Horrified. That you would think the worst of me, loving my best friend’s wife, that you’d never trust me again. I was afraid you’d hate me. And then the general would shoot me.”

A tear escaped and ran down her cheek. “And now you’re going to be a father,” she said in a breath.

“Yeah, that seems to be the case. And if I’m going to be a father, I’ll be the best one I know how to be.” He wiped the tear away. “I’d love to be a father to Mattie, too. You know I love him. Vanni, you have to believe me—I never wanted anything bad to happen to Matt. He was my brother.”

“Paul, there’s a woman in Grants Pass who’s counting on you! She needs you!”

“Look, I don’t know if you can understand this, but it was only sex. It wasn’t even my idea, the sex. It was just—God,” he said, backing away a little bit, hanging his head. “I’ll do everything I can for her, but we’re not going to be a couple. Send him away, Vanni. Send the doctor away.”

“What if I’m involved with him?”

“This isn’t Matt we’re talking about,” Paul said. “I’m not going to bow out quietly. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll fight for you.”

“And if we made love all weekend? Me and Cameron?”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but that you have to know the truth. I’m in love with you. I’ve always been in love with you—and being in love with my best friend’s wife was torture.”

“What if I asked you to walk away from that situation in Grants Pass if you want a chance with me? What if I said I couldn’t deal with that?”

He hung his head. “Vanessa, you know I can’t. I’d never abandon a child like that. If there’s a price to pay, I’ll pay it—but not an innocent child.”

“This isn’t happening,” she said, shaking her head.

“Here’s what’s happening,” Paul said. “I love you. I think you must have feelings for me or you wouldn’t be so angry. There’s at least one child between us, maybe two. What we have to do is—”

“Vanni!”

They jumped apart at the sound of Walt’s voice yelling from the deck. Just the tone of her father’s shout sent a chill up her spine. She pushed Paul out of her way, thinking something might’ve happened to the baby. She ran across the yard and up the small hill to the deck, Paul close on her heels. But Walt stayed on the deck and if anything had been wrong with the baby, he’d have been inside. When Vanessa got up to her father he said, “It’s Aunt Midge. She passed. We have to go. You’ll have to pack up the baby again. Tom’s getting his things together then he can help you.”

And with that, Walt turned and went back into the house.

Vanni was frozen for a moment. She shot a look at Paul and he reached for her hand.

“Vanni, I’m sorry,” he said. “What can I do?”

She just shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do, Paul, except go quickly so we can get on the road…”

“Vanni, tell me you understand what I told you. I can’t leave anything in doubt now.”

She looked down for a moment. Then she raised her eyes and locked into his. “Paul, listen to me. There’s a woman in Grants Pass who’s having your baby. I want you to go home. Go home to her. Try, Paul. If there was something about her that appealed to you enough to make a baby with her, maybe you can make a life with her.…”

“No, Vanni, that’s not—”

“Try, Paul. Try to fall in love with your child’s mother. If you don’t at least try, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“You don’t understand. You didn’t hear what I said…”

“My aunt just died and I have to go,” she said. “Do what you have to do, Paul.”

Seven

W alt was sixty-two, but his only sibling, his sister Midge, was all of forty-four. She’d gotten pregnant at eighteen, had a six-month marriage to the father of her child and then lived her entire adult life as a single mother with her daughter. Shelby had just barely turned twenty-five. When Shelby was still in high school Midge had been diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. It had been Shelby and Midge all along, so it was no surprise that Shelby ended up as a caregiver when the disease progressed.

For the first couple of years of Midge’s illness, Shelby was able to either go to school or work part-time in addition to helping her mother, but it wasn’t long before Midge was a full-time job. The disease had been in its final stages for a couple of years, and while Midge had been ready to go, Shelby hung on. She’d told her uncle Walt many times she couldn’t say goodbye to her mother unless she believed she’d done everything she could to make every day count.

The tragedy or blessing of Lou Gehrig’s is that the body withers and fails while the mind remains alert and functional—Shelby and Midge chose to see this as a great blessing, for their time together had rich, sentimental moments. Midge had gone into a wheelchair four years ago, finally into a hospital bed two years ago, and soon after she was completely paralyzed. Shelby got a little help from her uncle who visited almost every week once he had retired. There was a home-nursing service, and then hospice.

They were in Bodega Bay and Walt had been prepared to move there after his retirement from the Army, but it was Midge who urged him to look further. She knew she wouldn’t last long and she didn’t want her brother to establish a retirement home based on her location. In fact, Walt had retired less than a year before her death and even that had been longer than any of them had predicted for Midge.

The drive from Virgin River to Bodega Bay was about four hours. Tom was dozing in the backseat of the SUV with the baby while Vanni sat up front with Walt. They’d made many such visits—most often Walt went alone, sometimes with Tom, sometimes with a pregnant Vanni—but now they were all going to say a final goodbye. Mike Valenzuela had offered to take care of the horses for them while they were gone.

Vanni said nothing as they drove, but stared out the window.

“I never even had a chance to ask you how your getaway with the doctor went,” Walt said. “With Paul waiting so apprehensively for the same reason, and all…”

“It was fine,” she said. “I was just thinking, I never got down there with the baby to see her—and I should have made that trip the first one. Before Carol and Lance. Midge was on borrowed time.…”

“Don’t kick yourself about that,” Walt said. “The household of an invalid is complicated. We talked about it—it would’ve been hard on Midge and Mattie, not to mention Shelby. Midge understood, believe me. And Matt’s parents had a priority there. They lost their son—it was good that we went.”

“Instead of going to Mendocino, I should have gone to Bodega,” Vanni said.

“Vanni, Midge would rather you have had a nice weekend—she was at peace with her destiny. That’s the one thing that gives me comfort. She was ready. She wasn’t holding out for anything.”

“Shelby will need help now, won’t she?” Vanni asked.

“Shelby has her own ideas. We’ve been over this many times. She wants to sit tight for a while, continue with her ALS support group and get her bearings. Caregivers have huge adjustments after the end—she wants to figure things out before she makes a big change. I think that’s smart. After all, she was only a young girl when this all started, she hasn’t had an adult life at all, at least not the usual kind. The house is hers now, and she’ll either sell it or keep it, but it needs a lot of work and I’ll help with that. At twenty-five, it’s finally time for her to start her life.” Then he took a deep breath. “Midge wasn’t in pain. Emotional pain, yes—she felt she was a burden. My little Midge—she didn’t have it easy.”

“Daddy, are you okay?” Vanni asked.

“Honey, I’m relieved. She was leaving us so slowly. At last she has her reward. At last…she can walk and laugh again…”

Shelby had been born in the small house that had been her widowed grandmother’s and she had lived there all her life. Her father had never showed his face during her entire childhood and there were no support payments of any kind—but her uncle Walt had always been there for them. When her grandmother died, Walt refused any of the insurance benefit and took over the house payments. In addition to that, since Shelby had no male role model in her life, she spent summers with her uncle’s family where she learned to ride, shoot skeet, and had what passed for siblings with her cousins, even during Walt’s Army tours abroad. Shelby had lived summers in Germany and Denmark with the Booths. Because of the Booth family, Shelby’s childhood had been rich with family.

The life of a caregiver is a hard one, emotionally draining and physically exhausting. Shelby couldn’t have done otherwise—her mother was her best friend. So when the Lou Gehrig’s began to get bad, although Shelby was very young, her life went on hold to care for her. But hers was not a lonely life by any means—the support system for families with life-limited members was a strong one. They helped each other in every possible way and formed incredibly strong friendships. The evidence of this was obvious at Midge’s memorial—nearly a hundred people turned out for a woman who hadn’t left her bed in over two years. They were clearly there for Shelby.

Midge had been cremated. She had not wanted to take that wasted body into eternity. The house had become run-down during her illness and neither an open house nor a reception was possible; the living room had held the hospital bed and support equipment needed for her care, all of which had been quickly swept away within a day of her passing. Midge’s wishes had been spelled out very clearly—no fuss, just kind words and friendship—but Walt and Shelby had made arrangements with a funeral parlor months preceding her departure and secured a room that was bright and spacious, and refreshments were catered in. There were a few tasteful arrangements of flowers and one large, gorgeous spray sent by Paul Haggerty.