“You can’t smoke around the baby,” Mel informed her.

“I didn’t say I could help out for hours and hours,” she answered. “Keep that in mind.” And off she went, stopping at a couple of tables to pass the time on her way out.

“How late do you stay open?” Mel asked Jack.

“Why? You thinking about a nightcap?”

“Not tonight. I’m bushed. For future reference.”

“I usually close around nine—but if someone asks me to stay open, I will.”

“This is the most accommodating restaurant I’ve ever frequented,” she laughed. She looked at her watch. “I better spell Doc. I don’t know how patient he is with an infant. I’ll see you at breakfast, unless Doc’s out on a house call.”

“We’ll be here,” he offered.

Mel said goodbye and on her way to her coat, stopped at a couple of the tables to say good night to people she had just met. “Think she’ll stay on awhile?” Preacher quietly asked Jack.

Jack was frowning. “I think what she does to a pair of jeans ought to be against the law.” He looked at Preacher. “You okay here? I’m thinking of having a beer in Clear River.”

It was code. There was a woman in Clear River. “I’m okay here,” Preacher said. As Jack drove the half hour to Clear River, he wasn’t thinking about Charmaine, which gave him a twinge of guilt. Tonight he was thinking about another woman. A very beautiful young blond woman who could just about bring a man to his knees with what she looked like in boots and jeans.

Jack had gone to a tavern in Clear River for a beer a couple of years ago and struck up a conversation with the waitress there—Charmaine. She was the divorced mother of a couple of grown kids. A good woman; hardworking. Fun-loving and flirtatious. After several visits and as many beers, she took him home with her and he fell into her as if she were a feather bed. Then he told her what he always made sure women understood about him—that he was not the kind of man who could ever be tied down to a woman, and if she began to have those designs, he’d be gone.

“What makes you think all women want to be run by some man?” she had asked. “I just got rid of one. Not about to get myself hooked up to another one.” Then she smiled and said, “Just the same, everyone gets a little lonely sometimes.”

They started an affair that had sustained Jack for a couple of years now. Jack didn’t see her that often—every week, maybe couple of weeks. Sometimes a month would go by. He wasn’t sure what she did when he wasn’t around—maybe there were other men—though he’d never seen any evidence of that. He never caught her making time in the bar with anyone else; never saw any men’s things around her house. He kept a box of condoms in her bedside drawer that didn’t disappear on him, and he’d let it slip that he liked being the only man she entertained.

As for Jack—he had a personal ethic about one woman at a time. Sometimes that woman could last a year, sometimes a night—but he didn’t have a collection he roved between. Although he wasn’t exactly breaking that rule tonight, he wasn’t quite sticking to it, either.

He never spent the night in Clear River and Charmaine was not invited to Virgin River. She had only called him and asked him to come to her twice—and it seemed a small thing to ask. After all, he wasn’t the only one who needed to be with someone once in a while.

He liked that when he walked in the tavern and she saw him, it showed all over her that she was happy he’d come. He suspected she had stronger feelings for him than she let show. He owed her—she’d been a real sport about it—but he knew he’d have to leave the relationship before it got any more entangled. So sometimes, to demonstrate he had a few gentlemanly skills, he’d drop in for just a beer. Sometimes he’d bring her something, like a scarf or earrings.

He sat down at the bar and she brought him a beer. She fluffed her hair; she was a big blonde. Bleached blonde. At about five foot eight, she’d kept her figure, mostly. He didn’t know her exact age, but he suspected late forties, early fifties. She always wore very tight-fitting clothes and tops that accentuated her full breasts. At first sight you’d think—cheap. Not so much tawdry or low-class as simple. Unrefined. But once you got to know Charmaine and how kind and deep down earnest she was, those thoughts fled. Jack imagined that in younger years she was quite the looker with her ample chest and full lips. She hadn’t really lost those good looks, but she had a little extra weight around the hips and there were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

“Hiya, bub,” she said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“It’s only been a couple of weeks, I think.”

“More like four.”

“How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Busy. Working. Went over to Eureka to see my daughter last week. She’s having herself a lousy marriage—but what should we expect? I raised her in one.”

“She getting divorced?” he asked politely, though in truth he didn’t care that much. He didn’t know her kids.

“No. But she should. Let me get this table. I’ll be back.”

She left him to make sure the other customers were served. There were only a few and once Jack showed up the owner, Butch, knew that Charmaine would want to leave a little early. He saw her take a tray of glasses back behind the bar and talk quietly with her boss, who nodded. Then Charmaine was back.

“I just wanted to have a beer and say hello,” Jack said. “Then I have to get back. I have a big project going on.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“I’m fixing up a cabin for one of the women in town. I put on a new porch today and tomorrow I’m going to paint it and build back steps.”

“That so? Pretty woman?”

“I guess you could say she’s pretty. For seventy-six years old.”

She laughed loudly. Charmaine had a big laugh. It was a good laugh that came from deep inside her. “Well, then, I guess I won’t bother being jealous. But do you think you can spare the time to walk me home?”

“I can,” he said, draining his beer. “But I’m not coming in tonight.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll get my coat.”

When they were outside, she looped her arm through his and began to talk about her last couple of weeks, as she always did. He liked the sound of her voice, deep and a little raspy, what they called a whiskey voice though she wasn’t much of a drinker. She could go on and on about next to nothing but in a pleasant way, not an irritating way. She would talk about the bar, the people in the town, her kids, what she’d bought lately, what she’d read. News items fascinated her—she would spend the mornings before work watching CNN, and she liked to tell him her opinion of breaking stories. She always had some project going on in her little house—wallpaper or paint or new appliances. The house was paid for; an inheritance of some kind. So the money she made, she spent on herself and her kids.

When they got to the door he said, “I’ll shove off, Charmaine. But I’ll see you before long.”

“Okay, Jack,” she said. She tilted her head up for a kiss and he obliged. “That wasn’t much of a kiss,” she said.

“I don’t want to come in tonight,” he said.

“You must be awful tired,” she said. “Think you have enough energy to give me a kiss that I’ll remember for an hour or two?”

He tried again. This time he covered her mouth with his, allowed his tongue to do a little exploring, held her close against him. And she grabbed his butt. Damn! he thought. She ground against him a little bit, sucked on his tongue. Then she hooked her hand into the front of his jeans and pulled him forward, letting her fingers drift lower against his belly.

“Okay,” he said weakly, a little vulnerable, stirred up. “I’ll come in for a few minutes.”

“That’s my boy,” she said, smiling at him. She pushed open the door and he followed her inside. “Just think of it as a little sleeping pill.”

He dropped his jacket on the chair. Charmaine wasn’t even out of hers when he grabbed her around the waist, pulled her against him and devoured her with a kiss that was sudden, hot and needy. He pushed her jacket off her shoulders and walked her backwards toward the bedroom and dropped with her onto the bed. He pulled at her top and freed her breasts, filling his mouth with one and then the other. Then off came her pants, and down came his. He ran his hands over her lush body, down over her shoulders, hips, thighs. He reached over to the bedside table, retrieved one of the condoms kept there for him, and ripped the package open. He put it on and was inside her so quickly, it startled even him. He thrust and plunged and drove and she said,

“Oh! Oh! Oh, my God!”

He was ready to explode, but held himself back while her legs came around his waist and she bucked. Something happened to him—he went a little out of his mind. Didn’t know where he was or with whom. When she finally tightened around him, he let himself go with a loud groan. She panted beneath him, the sound that told him she was completely satisfied.

“My God,” she said when she finally caught her breath. “What’s got you so hot?”

“Huh?”

“Jack, you don’t even have your boots off!”

He was shocked for a moment, then rolled off of her. Jesus, he thought. You can’t treat a woman like that. He might not have been thinking, but at least he wasn’t thinking about anyone else, he consoled himself. He had no brain power involved in that at all—it was all visceral. His body, reaching out.

“I’m sorry, Charmaine. You okay?”

“I’m way more than okay. But please, take your boots off and hold me.”

It was on his mind to say he had to go, he wanted to go, but he couldn’t do that to her after this. He sat up and got rid of the boots and pants and shirt, everything hitting the floor. After a quick visit to the bathroom he was back, scooped her up in his arms and held her. Her heavy, soft body was cushiony against his.

He stroked her, kissed her and eventually made love to her again, as opposed to what he’d done before. This time sanely, but no less satisfactorily. At one in the morning he was searching around the floor for his pants.

“I thought you might be staying the night this time,” she said from the bed. He pulled on his pants and sat on the bed to put on his boots. He twisted around and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I can’t,” he said. “But you’ll be fine now.” He smiled at her. “Think of it as a little sleeping pill.”

As he drove back to Virgin River he thought, it’s over now. I have to end it. I can’t do that anymore, not with a clear conscience. Not when something else has my attention.

Chapter Four

J ack drove out to the cabin, the truck bed loaded with supplies. It was his third day in a row. When he pulled up, Cheryl came out of the house, onto the new porch. “Hey, Cheryl,” he called. “How’s it going? Almost done in there?”

She had a rag in her hands. “I need the rest of the day. It was a real pigsty. Will you be here tomorrow, too?”

He would. But he said, “Nah. I’m about done. I want to paint the porch this morning—can you get out the back door? I haven’t built steps yet.”

“I can jump down. Whatcha got?” She came down the porch steps.

“Just stuff for the cabin,” he said, unloading a big Adirondack chair for the porch, its twin in the truck bed.

“Wow. You really went all out,” she said.

“It has to be done.”

“She must be some nurse.”

“She says she’s not staying, but the place has to be fixed up anyway. I told Hope I’d make sure it was taken care of.”