Moonlight Road

Chapter Four

Aiden had a few commitments scheduled for the next couple of weeks. First of all, his sister-in-law Franci had sold the house she and Rosie had lived in while Sean was in Iraq. All their household goods would be shipped to Alabama, Sean’s next assignment. Franci and Rosie were going to take up residence in one of Luke’s cabins, where Sean would join them shortly, before they headed east. But there was a great deal to do around Franci’s house before the move—minor repairs, a garage sale, a little painting and yard work, and once the movers had departed, some serious cleaning before the new owners took possession. Aiden had signed on for all of it. He wanted to spend time with Franci and Rosie and they needed the help.

His mother and George would also be showing up sometime in the next week and he wanted to be close by when they arrived.

And of course he wanted to be available if Shelby needed him for anything; Luke didn’t like leaving her side unless Aiden was going to be nearby. And Luke was itching to figure out the situation with Art before his son was born.

Aiden’s mission for the summer was simple—be a helpful visitor; enjoy the family. His current plans didn’t leave a lot of extra time and there was still one other thing he wanted to do. He wanted to check on the woman with the head injury. Erin.

He dressed for hiking one morning, loaded his backpack and took off in his SUV. He drove toward her cabin, parked on a wide space in the road below the ridge and walked up that dirt road again. When he got to the top, he saw that her car was missing. He walked around the house, checking it out. Nothing much had changed, except it was all closed up. He checked out the garden, or the poor excuse for a garden. Dry, and no improvement. He assumed she’d gone home, but he watered the plants just in case. Maybe it was on her mind to spend the occasional weekend at the cabin.

Then, completely unplanned and for no good reason, he did a little digging in that big square plot behind the house that had proved to be too much for her. He cleared the weeds and sod, dug out the big rocks and heaved them into the woods. The he tilled the dirt until it was loose, soft and ready for planting. He drove into Fortuna and bought a few bags of topsoil, a couple bags of fertilizer, some man-size gardening tools and a hose. Then he went back, hoed in the soil and fertilizer and wet the ground.

Before he left he sat on the deck and looked out at the view while he drank some water. He didn’t sit on her nice clean chaise lounges, but on the step of the deck. He happened to glance through the French doors—neat as a pin in there. No sign of life. No books or papers strewn around, no dishes on the table or pans on the stove, no sweater draped over a chair.

So, she was gone.

When he left he took the empty plastic bags that had held the dirt and fertilizer with him and leaned the tools against the back of the house.

The next day he took plants, vegetable-garden starters, flower borders, stakes and a slow sprinkler to hook up to the hose. Again he sat on the deck while he drank his water and again he glanced through the French doors. All tidy.

He wondered if she’d ever come back. Then wondered why he wondered. He didn’t like her—she was a pain in the butt.

The next day at around noon he swung by to water, telling himself that there was no place for a garden at Luke’s and he was enjoying this. It also crossed his mind that she would eventually come back to her cabin and she might just check on her dead plants against the house. It was fun to think of her spying a new garden back there and wondering who would do such a thing. And why.

He gave the garden a little extra water because the following day he was committed to go to Franci’s with Luke, Shelby and Art to help with a garage sale, some minor home repairs and yard work.

Art, who was absolutely never annoying, had become annoying. Filled with anxious impatience, he was continually asking questions about Netta. “Do you know where she lives now? Do you know where her house is?”

Luke kept saying, “Not yet, bud. I’m making phone calls to bakeries, asking if anyone with her name works there, and so far I haven’t found her. Try to relax.”

Telling a man with the scent of a woman up his nose to relax was turning out to be about as useful as throwing kerosine on a fire. Nothing could distract him for long. For once, even Rosie couldn’t seem to occupy Art. And the garage sale, which really should get his attention, didn’t. He kept questioning if there were any updates and Luke kept patiently saying, “Not since the last time you asked me ten minutes ago, Art.”

Shelby sat in a lawn chair right in the garage door, fanning herself, haggling with customers while Franci and her mother, Vivian, did any lifting or moving around of merchandise. Aiden did some recaulking in the bathrooms, repaired a gutter along the eave, pulled out and cleaned behind and under the refrigerator, washer and dryer. Rosie stuck to him like glue because he had promised her that when his chores were done she could dress up his beard with clips and bows. All this time Luke and Art were working together on the yard.

“Did you call her yet, Luke?”

“Have you seen me near a phone, Art?”

“Did you?”

“I’m cutting the damn grass, Art!”

“Then will you?”

Aiden didn’t mean to laugh at the two of them but he did anyway. He had his own shadow.

“After this job can I brush it? Your beard?”

“Yes, Rose. After this job.”

“And put a bwaid in it?”

“Yes, Rose. When I’m done here.”

When Aiden was finally finished he settled down in a lawn chair on the back patio with Rosie and her dog, Harry, and while Art and Luke were edging, trimming and raking up clippings, Rosie combed his beard and filled it full of ribbons and barrettes. He closed his eyes lazily, enjoying the fiddling and remembering to stay conscious. Sean had once fallen asleep in Rosie’s care and she had put makeup on him with Magic Markers.

“I know what to get you for Christmas,” Aiden said. “A doll with hair you can fix. Are you going to be a beautician when you grow up?”

“What’s a boo-tician?”

“Someone who fixes hair.”

“No, I’m gonna be a jet pilot. It’s bery important. What are you gonna be?” she asked him.

Aiden opened one eye and peered at her. “A farmer,” he said. “It’s bery important, too.”

“That’s bery good,” she said.

Mel Sheridan walked up the porch steps to lack’s bar at two in the afternoon on a weekday. It instantly brought to mind the vast number of times she’d done exactly this in the past. The bar was typically very quiet, often deserted, between lunch and dinner and if her husband wasn’t running errands or busy elsewhere, he’d be there. He was usually behind the bar, taking inventory, organizing, setting up for the dinner crowd. Preacher would be in the kitchen cooking, his wife, Paige, and their kids would be in their attached home, and while the kids napped, Paige would often be running receipts on the computer, paying the bills, keeping the books, assisting in the management of the bar.

When Mel came to town four years ago, the bar was where she first got to know her husband. At the time, it was a far-fetched notion that they would even be friends, but it hadn’t taken her long to fall in love with him. This was the place they’d had their most private conversations over the years, and when there was something she wanted to discuss with him, this time of day was usually the perfect opportunity.

She walked in and a single glance told her they were alone—Jack behind the bar, no customers. “Hey, baby,” he said, smiling.

Ah, four years and so many times she’d walked into his bar and still, every time, he acted as if he hadn’t seen her for days. His smile was warm and sexy, his brown eyes sparkling. Maybe four years wasn’t such a long time, she thought. Still, she felt completely confident that he would look at her that way in forty more. There was this thing about Jack—he didn’t take commitment lightly. He said to her once, “I’m all in.” Three little words that expressed a lifetime commitment. Jack didn’t say something like that unless he meant it, and he was a man with the strength to uphold that oath.

She jumped up on a stool and leaned over to kiss him. “Hi, sweetheart. Red-letter day today. Emma is doing it in the potty, full-time.”

He grinned. “But is David doing it full-time?” he asked.

“The biggest problem we have with number-one son is peeing in the yard, taught to him by number-one dad.”

Jack grabbed both her hands across the bar. “I don’t expect you to understand this, being a girl, but it’s a very important rite of passage, learning that the world is your urinal.” He shrugged. “My son took to the news.”

“I know that. He’d rather pee on a bush than in the toilet. There should be a balance—the bush when there is no toilet, and so on.”

“He’ll come around…”

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. I wanted to make sure both kids were potty trained before bringing it up—but one and three-quarters is good enough, I think.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I think I’d like to have one more baby. Before I get much older.”

The stunned look that came over his face was priceless and made her smile. She gave him a couple of seconds, and noted that he was struggling with the possibility that she’d completely lost her mind. Finally, slowly, he said, “You feel like trying to adopt?”

“Actually, no. I thought we’d have one of our own.”

“Mel,” he said gently, giving her hands a comforting squeeze. “Mel, between us we might be missing some parts for having our own…”

She laughed a little bit. “I know my uterus is gone, Jack. But I still have ovaries and you still have sperm. We could get a surrogate.”

“Huh?” he said, frowning.

“You know what that is, I know you do.”

“I do,” he said. “But…”

“In vitro—our baby in a surrogate.” Then she smiled brightly. “You do make such wonderful babies. And I think we can squeak in one more before we really run out of time. We were sort of thinking about that right before Emma was born anyway. And she’s two.”

“No, we weren’t. I’m forty-four. And you’re thirty-six.”

“Hardly Grandma Moses and the old man of the sea, Jack,” she said.

“Is this something you just started kicking around? This surrogate idea?” he wanted to know.

“I’ve been giving it some pretty serious thought for a while now. We’re not the youngest parents, but lots of couples nowadays start their families in their thirties and forties. We’re healthy and strong…There’s no reason to think we won’t be around to see them well into adulthood. Of course, one or both of us could fall off a mountain, but that’s not an age-sensitive calamity. When you think about it, with my history of infertility, had we decided to have a family it might well have taken us this long to get started anyway.”

He was quiet again. Then he said, “Mel, your history of infertility did not follow you to Virgin River. And we have two kids. Two smart, healthy, beautiful kids.”

“Will you at least think about it? Because it’s really a logical solution for us. We have everything but a uterus…”

He was shaking his head. “Baby, we don’t need a solution! We don’t have a problem!”

“Well, if we want one more child, we have a little problem. Jack, it’s just surrogacy—it’s not brain surgery. There are a number of women who, for whatever reason, are willing to carry a baby for a couple who can’t carry their own. They’re most often married women who already have children, don’t really need or want more, but deal with pregnancy and childbirth very well. Of course, they’re paid and their medical expenses covered, but it’s rarely a moneymaking proposition for them. It’s usually a service they’re willing to provide for couples who can’t carry and deliver their own baby.”

“You really believe that?” he asked. “That it’s not about the money?”

She shrugged. “I suppose sometimes money is a major factor, but there are always many screened surrogates to choose from and I wouldn’t be interested in one who desperately needs money. Her motivation might not be what we’re looking for.”

“Listen, I’ve seen news stories where the woman doesn’t want to give up the baby…”

“That usually happens when the woman provides half the biology,” Mel said. “When it’s her egg involved, sometimes her feelings change while she’s pregnant. Then it’s her baby she doesn’t want to part with. Our case wouldn’t be like that. In our case, all we need is a womb. A living, breathing petri dish. Problems and complications with screened surrogate applicants are rare.” And then she smiled broadly, as if the matter had all just been settled.

Jack picked up his towel and a glass from beneath the bar and began wiping out nonexistent water spots. Mel had learned long ago that that was a move Jack used when he didn’t know what to say or how to act. Sometimes he did that to look busy when his mind was spinning out of control, or to keep from throttling someone. “How does it work, exactly?” he asked.

“Well, you determine whether you’re good candidates—and I can tell you we are. You look over screened surrogates and interview some. You harvest some eggs from me, collect some sperm from you, have a qualified lab create embryos from our egg and sperm, freeze them, implant a couple in the surrogate and—”

“And get six or eight babies?” he asked, lifting a brow.

“No, Jack. Just one. Outside chance of two, but if you choose a surrogate with a proven uterus who conceives easily, the doctor will only implant one, or a maximum of two embryos. If it doesn’t take after a few tries, the doctor might chance three at the outside. Having all the embryos take on the third or fourth try? A miracle. No, Jack. It will be one baby. The chance of two would be the same odds as us having our own set of twins if I still had a uterus and we decided to have one more pregnancy.”

His towel-covered hand continued to rotate inside the glass and he was quiet. His face was a stone, void of expression.

“Jack?” she asked. “Not such a crazy idea, is it?”

He let out his breath. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that this sort of thing is your business—your area of expertise. I try, though.”

“And?”

“And it might help if you’d try to remember that it is not mine.”

“And that means?”

He put down the glass and towel. He leaned his elbows on the bar so his face was even with hers. He grabbed her hands again. His eyes and his voice were soft. “Mel, if we hadn’t had a baby and you wanted one really badly, I’d do almost anything I could to help that happen for you. If you asked me to think about opening our home up to one more kid, maybe a kid who otherwise might not have parents, I could give that some serious consideration. You know—room in the heart, room in the home. But this thing you’re asking…” He shook his head almost sadly. “I don’t know if I can watch our baby make another woman fat. I don’t know if I can watch our baby come out of another woman’s body.”

“You don’t have to watch,” she suggested.

“Getting you pregnant was about the biggest trip I ever had in my life,” he said. “Knowing you were knocked up, battling through your mood swings, watching your belly grow and move, then giving birth…it was sacred to me. A miracle. Mel, our two kids and all that went into getting them, hardly anything measures up to that. Something about my swimmers meeting up with your eggs in a dish in a lab, growing inside some woman I don’t know…”

“But it’s a last resort!”

“No, baby. A last resort is being thankful for the blessings we have. If things had been different and a third one came along, I could live with that. I could be happy about that. But we don’t have to have one more.” He made a face. “At least not that way.”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “It’s just very strange and alien to you.”

“You got that right,” he agreed.

“But it’s done all the time.”

“I don’t do it all the time,” he said.

“Before you make a final decision, will you at least talk to John Stone about it? The clinic he worked in before coming to Grace Valley had a very active fertility practice. I think Susan said she and John needed a little jump start to get their first child. Would you do that, please? Would you talk to John? Ask him some questions from the man’s point of view?”

He pursed his lips for a moment. “For you,” he said. “I’ll talk to John about it. I’ll ask some questions. But the way I feel right now, Mel? This isn’t something I want to do.”

“Talk to John,” she said. “Please?”

He leaned toward her and kissed her. “Okay.”

“Thank you, Jack. It would mean a lot to me if you could try to just keep an open mind.”

“I’ll try, babe. I’ll really try.”

Erin was bored out of her skull. When Ian and Marcie left her after spending one night, she just sat around for a couple of days. The longest days of her life. But, determined to get a handle on her life and forge a new direction, she pulled out some of the books she’d brought along—self-help books about relaxing, serenity, meditation, the psychology of inner joy, the power of positive thinking, the energy of intention, taking control of your emotional life, and her personal favorite—Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.

She’d read many self-help books, but her usual fodder was about focus and effectiveness, organization and efficiency. She liked those books; it fed her work habit. In the quiet internal books—she couldn’t even find anything to highlight. And Erin liked to highlight. It made her feel enterprising.

When she had satellite hookup, she tried TV. Out of three hundred channels, she couldn’t find anything to engage her brain. She put on a movie and realized that even her favorite chick flicks weren’t as much fun without Marcie giggling or sighing and Ian whining that he was being tortured.

So she e-mailed her office and told everyone even remotely related to her cases and clients that she was computer functional again and already feeling very rested and relaxed, so she had the time to consult if they needed her input. Since they were all at work, the responses came instantly. We’re doing fine—just enjoy yourself. Everything under control, boss, have a good time. No problems here, Erin—just make the most of your vacation!

She decided it was probably best to leave the cabin, so the next morning she jumped in her car and headed over to Eureka to do a bookstore prowl. Erin loved to read, but she read for a couple of hours in the evening and had no interest in wiling away an entire day with a book, even a great book. She was much better at staying busy. So, on this trip through the bookstore she bought books on crafts, from gardening to quilting. Before buying any actual craft supplies, she decided she’d graze through the books to see what caught her interest. Lord knew she had never had time for crafts before.

When she got home late in the day, she poured herself a glass of wine and paged through the books. Everything had the same effect on her—it was like watching paint dry. Then she got to the book on gourmet cooking that had slipped in there and her throat tightened up. Her eyes blurred and burned. Gourmet cooking? For one?

The next morning she headed out again—this time to Costco and Target. She bought a hammock to string between two trees and some large, fancy plants and big pots for the deck. When she got home and realized she’d forgotten to buy tools for hanging the hammock or potting soil for the plants, she left the whole business outside for when the spirit moved her. If it moved her.

The next day she just got in the car in the morning and drove; time to see the sights. Time to check out those little tucked-away antique stores she claimed she couldn’t wait to visit yet had no real interest in. While she drove, she thought—mostly about Marcie and Drew. She was so proud of them both; so honored to have been the one to help them get to this stage in their young lives.

Finally, finally, finally that time of life she’d worked so hard toward was here—they were truly adults who could manage full, productive, happy lives.

Suddenly she realized she’d driven south for hours and was almost to the turnoff to Clear Lake. She pulled off the road. She could take the turnoff and just go home to Chico and forget this whole summer-on-the-mountain thing. Marcie and Ian wouldn’t make fun of her, and Drew was in Los Angeles. The people at the office? They’d talk about workaholic Erin, but she was a partner—they’d talk quietly.

Then she remembered that day in the ladies’ room at the courthouse when she’d overheard a conversation about her while she was in a stall. “She goes out with men, but usually once, and it never works out,” one woman said. And the other had replied, “She is so uptight, the woman has no life!”

In all the years since she was old enough to date, she’d only dated four men more than twice and all four had had major complaints about her—she was not just uptight and self-protective, unable to let down her guard, but also overconfident, too serious, inflexible and, oh yes, bossy. She worked too hard and too much; she just couldn’t relax. She couldn’t count the number of times she had been told to just let go…

Three of those men had later hired her as their tax attorney and one came to her for his living trust and estate plan.

She made a wide U-turn and headed back to Virgin River.

After the garage sale was over, Aiden took what was left over to the Goodwill receiving depot as donation. When the cleaning, chores and yard work were finished, Aiden and Luke helped move Franci, Rosie and their suitcases into one of Luke’s cabins.

In a couple of days Franci and Rosie would go to San Francisco to pick up Sean and bring him back to Virgin River. He had time for some leave, but by mid-July they had to be on their way to Montgomery. They had to find housing before Sean started Air Command and Staff College in August, a one-year program for senior officers who had the potential to be leaders. As in, generals.