Mel got out while Jack pulled David out of his car seat. The second Paul saw them getting out of the truck, he came to them, opening his arms to Mel, hugging her close. “What do you think? Your man make you happy today?”

“I can’t believe it—this is wonderful of you!”

“Nah, I’m not wonderful—he’s paying through the nose. But it’s going to be beautiful, Mel. I guarantee it. You have work to do, too—you have to appliance and accessory shop right away. Some things take a long time to be delivered.”

“We’ll get right on it. Will you stay with us while you’re here?”

“I’ve had nothing but offers, and I’ve got my trailer. Which, believe it or not, I happen to like. I think when I’m not out here with the boys or back in Grants Pass, I’ll be spending some time at the general’s house.”

“Well, that’s perfect,” she said. “We’ll pick a night this week to have you, Vanessa and her family and all your guys for dinner at the bar. Right, Jack?”

“You got it. Anything you want.”

She grinned. “I like it when he says that. Did he happen to tell you the news?”

“What news?” Paul asked dumbly.

She gave him a playful whack on the arm. “Stop it—I know you know. It’s why you’re here.”

He put an arm around her shoulders. “If I know, it’s because you’re glowing. Again.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “I’m pea-green until about nine in the morning.”

“Right after which, she glows,” Jack agreed.

“Nothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman,” Paul said.

“Oh, brother,” she said.

“You do good work,” Paul said to Jack.

“Yeah… And if I ever find out who gave her those shoes…” Jack added with a laugh, which earned him a dirty look that amused both men beyond good sense.

The mammogram RV showed up in Virgin River on a Monday morning and was set up in Doc’s clinic. All the women Mel had contacted came in early in a big crowd, some dragging kids along and all bearing food and drink. They gathered in the waiting room and held an all-day party, leaving one at a time for their mammograms. It was a long, exhausting and fulfilling day for Mel, and for Doc, too—if you looked closely enough his grimace almost looked like a smile.

The next day the truck went to Grace Valley to June Hudson’s clinic, where mammograms were provided for those women over forty and younger women who were at a high risk for breast cancer.

The following day was appointment day and Mel had three prenatals—the third being Vanessa Rutledge.

Mel wasn’t surprised her first two patients favored home births even though a hospital and epidural were available to them—they came from rural families that had been having home births for generations. But the one who really surprised her was Vanessa, who was by all accounts a city girl. She planned to have her baby in her father’s house, naturally. “Just three months to go,” Mel told her. “And you’re in absolutely perfect health. Now, how about a little trip to Grace Valley for an ultrasound? We should be sure right now that we don’t have any obvious complications. Do you want to know the sex of the baby?”

“That would be great—then I can tell Matt. He feels so left out.”

“How about next week?”

“There isn’t anything on my schedule,” she said with a shrug.

“It must be hard, having him so far away when you’re pregnant.”

“It is, but this seems to be the history in the Booth family. My dad wasn’t around for either me or my brother’s births. The military can really screw up the best of plans.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said.

“Wasn’t Jack in the Marine Corps for twenty?” Vanessa asked.

“A little over twenty—but I didn’t find him until recently. I came up here from L.A. to work with Doc Mullins when I met and married Jack. He was already retired.”

“And you had a baby right away!”

“Boy, howdy,” Mel said. She touched her still-flat tummy. “And guess what? He got me again.” She shook her head. “I’m going to have to put him in that little guesthouse out back.”

Vanessa laughed at her. “Listen, there’s something pretty special going on at our house tomorrow night—and we’d like you and Jack, Preacher, Paige and Mike to all be there if possible. Of course, Paul will be there, too. My dad got us signed up for some kind of program called ‘Voices From Home.’ We’re going to get an Internet call from Matt—real time, video cam from Baghdad. We’ll make a party of it—and after we all get a chance to talk, we’ll have a big dinner. Can you come?”

“Vanessa,” she said, touching her hand, “don’t you want him all to yourself?”

“There’s a part of me that does, but I’m thinking of Matt—he’s all the way over there and right here are some of his favorite people. You have no idea how much he talked about Jack, Preacher and Mike. And it will be almost as big a deal for him to talk to Paul as to me. I’m going to walk across the street right after leaving here to ask the boys. Say you’ll come.”

“Are you absolutely sure, honey? Because it’s understandable if you—”

“I’m sure! I just wish I knew the sex of the baby for that video conference. That would really top it off.”

Mel smiled. “Well, girlfriend, I can hook you up. I have some connections. Can you drive over today or tomorrow morning?”

Her face lit up. “I can! Can you really make that happen?”

“You bet. It’s the least we can do for you.”

On the day of the video conference with Matt, Tommy was on his way to his truck in the high school parking lot when Jordan snagged his arm. “Hey, man, where you been?”

“I’ve been around,” he said, not very happily. He’d been avoiding Jordan. After what Brenda had said about those rest-stop parties, he’d been curious. So he’d dropped in on one when she had other plans with a girlfriend. It was, as she had said, pretty out of control. There weren’t too many kids and the weather was cold, but stuff had been going on that he didn’t like. Jordan and his buddy seemed to be taking kids away from the crowd briefly; he couldn’t see what was happening, but they weren’t gone long enough to smoke a joint and there was a little too much delight in their expressions when they returned. He suspected some kind of score. Ecstasy, he thought. Or something a little more high-powered, like meth.

Tommy had a beer, headed for home…and his dad had waited up for him, smelled his breath. And he was in trouble.

“I haven’t seen you. Wanna come by the house? We got beer, we got fun times.”

“Nah, I’m not into that.”

“Since when?”

“Since I took a run out to your little party at the rest stop and got into trouble with my old man. I gotta go—I got something going on.”

“What is your deal? You cut me off like that without saying anything? I know a girl I want you to meet.”

“I have a girl, Jordan. I have to go.”

“Wait a minute. What girl?”

“I’ve been seeing someone. A junior. Girl named Brenda. We’ve been out. And stuff.”

“Brenda? Carpenter?” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Yeah, I know Brenda.” He waved his hand in front of his face as if to cool a sudden fever. “I know Brenda real good. Real, real good.”

Tommy’s expression closed off. Dark. “No, you don’t.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Oh, yeah. She’s a hottie. A real hottie.”

Tom went instantly unconscious. Brain dead. Steam started to pour out of his ears. He moved on Jordan, getting in his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, man. It was a long time ago. No big deal. We partied together a little bit.”

Tommy grabbed him by the shirtfront. “No. You didn’t.”

“Okay.” He laughed again. “Whatever you say.”

Tommy drew back and landed a blow to his face, knocking him down. But Jordan sprang right back up and delivered his own blow, surprisingly hard for the skinny runt he was. And it was game on. They were hitting, rolling around, crunching, swearing—and then they were pulled apart by two teachers.

In the principal’s office Tommy admitted immediately what had set him off and Jordan confessed as fast that he’d just been mouthing off and it wasn’t true. That was one thing about the country as opposed to the city—they kind of expected you to handle something like that with a punch or two. The principal said to Jordan, “Sounds like you were just asking for it, son. If you’d said that to me about my girl, I’d have given you a lot worse than what you got. Now I want you boys to stay away from each other, because if this happens again, you’re both suspended.”

The problem was, it took a long time to get to that point and Tommy wanted to get home. He didn’t want to miss a chance to talk to Matt.

There was a definite air of excitement at the Booth household as the hour for the contact through the Internet approached. The general had moved the computer into the living room with a camera installed above the screen. For this special night he had purchased a larger, flat-screen monitor, as an image of Matt’s face would be projected onto the screen, just as the faces of the people who talked to him would be videoed to him for the conference. Vanessa was running around nervously, worrying about her hair and makeup, while Jack and Mike went immediately to the kitchen to help the general serve up drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Jack’s bar had been closed for this event and Paige and Mel spent all their time trying to reassure Vanessa that she’d never been more beautiful. Preacher held Christopher on his lap, keeping him under control at this gathering while David slept peacefully in the playpen in a bedroom down the hall.

As the time for the contact approached and the general got the computer online, tension rose about tenfold in the house. Long, stressful minutes passed as the time for the video conference came and went. And then, suddenly, a voice rang out in the room. “Hey! Anybody home?”

Vanessa rushed forward. She was momentarily speechless, staring at the face of her husband on the screen. Her hand reached out toward him.

“Hey!” he said again. “Vanni? You there?”

“Matt,” she said, too softly. Then, turning on the camera and pulling herself up internally, louder, “Matt! Darling!”

“Aw, Vanni—look at you! Let me see it—your belly.”

She turned sideways in front of the small camera.

“Whoa, Vanni! You’re getting big! You’re growing me a great big baby!”

“Matt, I have so many surprises for you. First of all, I just found out this morning, it’s a boy. A son, Matt!”

There was deafening quiet. “Aw, Vanni!” he said in an emotional breath. “I love you, baby. I love you so much.”

“I love you, Matt! Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

“Fine, Vanni, it’s all good. We’re working hard, but that’s what we came here for. It won’t be too much longer. You’re beautiful, baby.”

“Have you lost weight?” she asked him.

He laughed. “Baby, everyone loses weight over here. I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble putting it back on. I just can’t wait to hold you.”

“Me, too, Matt. By the time you get home, you can hold both of us. You should be thinking of a name, okay?”

“I will. How are you doing there? You feeling okay?”

“I feel great, darling. And I have more surprises for you. Guess who’s here. Jack, Preacher, Mike—come over here!”