Temptation Ridge

“Virgin River?”

“Sure, that. But Jack’s. This little piece of town. I love dropping in here and always seeing a friendly face.”

“I’ve been here a few times over the past couple of weeks and haven’t seen your friendly face,” he said, then silently cursed himself. Don’t push this, he warned himself.

“Oh,” she said, laughing. “My cousin Tom was home on leave. We came in a couple of times, but mostly it was all about family. Quite a crowd at my uncle’s, with all of us and then Tom and his girlfriend. He’s gone to West Point now, so I imagine I’ll be around more often.”

“And you like Jack’s,” he observed.

“I grew up in a small town on the coast—way bigger than this, but still cozy. There was this old dive called the Sea Shack—nets and shells on the walls, lots of locals, but also bikers and tourists. You could always count on some of the same people being there. You never had to worry that you’d be alone.”

“Where?” he asked her.

“Bodega Bay, south of here. While this is all redwoods, deer and bear, Bodega Bay is ocean, fishing boats, some rocky cliffs above the sea, whales and dolphins.”

He leaned his head on his hand, being hypnotized slowly. Thoroughly. He imagined her on the beach; the bathing suit would be very, very small. “It sounds great,” he said. “Is that home for you?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “My mother passed away last spring, left me the house and I sold it.”

He was momentarily surprised. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Thank you. So, I won’t be staying in Virgin River—I’m going to college, finally. This is just a vacation. While I’m hanging out here, I’m also applying to schools.”

“How long is this vacation?” he asked in spite of himself.

“A few months, probably. After the first of the year, I plan to take a couple trips—I’m surfing the Net, looking at package deals. Then decide on the college and go find an apartment, get a part-time job, take some classes to get back into the rhythm. But I’m hanging around to see Tom again. He’ll have leave over the holidays.”

Walt interrupted them by getting Luke’s attention. “What’s this Jack says? You have a brother in Black Hawks, too? Is the whole family crazy?”

Luke turned toward the general and hoped it didn’t show in his eyes that he was over the edge in lust. “Lighten up, sir,” he said. “At least it’s not tanks.”

“Boy, I happen to like tanks.”

When Luke left the bar, he drove straight to Garberville, when what he really wanted was sleep. His body was bone tired, but his brain was working overtime. And there was one part of his anatomy that was a little too alert for its own good. He hadn’t had a reaction like this in a long, long time and coincidentally, the last time had also been from a general’s daughter. It was years ago, and he’d been unusually smart—he walked away and never looked back. She had been a prison sentence waiting to happen.

He was trying to drive the thoughts of that sweet young thing from his mind; he’d like to stop the hot little darts from shooting through his body.

He had no trouble finding the local bar—a little hole in the wall that actually made him feel overdressed and totally military with his close-cropped hair and pressed shirt. There were a lot of men in plaid or chambray shirts, long hair, ponytails, mustaches and beards. It looked packed; plenty of cars and big trucks parked around outside.

The place was full at nine o’clock. He made his way inside, finding a stool at a very crowded bar in a noisy room. He ordered a shot of whiskey and a beer. Time to settle everything down and stop thinking about the girl. By the time he’d left Jack’s he had started having visions of putting his hands on her and being shot by her uncle.

He threw back the shot and nursed the beer. Good move, Riordan, he lectured himself. Move to a new little town where the same dozen or so people meet at the same little watering hole a couple of nights a week and within twenty-four hours get the instant hots for the one woman to be avoided at all costs. But lust was a beast in him and he was impossibly attracted to her.

He understood very well that touching her wasn’t the problem. They were all grown-ups, not teenagers. He could seduce Shelby, get her in his bed, enjoy her and be enjoyed by her, and there wouldn’t be too much trouble. He got the impression the general and Paul actually liked him. What would come after would create trouble—he would fail to get serious, move on, make her cry. He’d get into her without falling in love when she was a young woman clearly designed for true love, for permanence. And that would have a bad ending—with him it wasn’t just a premonition, it was destiny. He hadn’t been able to feel anything like what Walt Booth would want for his niece in over a dozen years.

After about twenty minutes passed, another beer was put in front of him and he looked up at the bartender. “The ladies across the bar,” he said.

Luke hadn’t even noticed anyone else. His mind had been on exactly one sweet thing. He glanced up and felt his lips lift in a slight smile. “Thank them,” he said.

“They’d like to know if you want to join them for a drink.”

“Ah, I’m going to have to leave pretty soon,” he said. But he was thinking, that’s more my speed. Some good old-fashioned, all-American, slutty girls, hanging out in the bar and buying drinks for strange men.

“I’d think that over,” the bartender said, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yeah?” He grinned. “Why not,” he said. He put some money on the bar to pay for his drinks and, lifting the beer, walked to the other side.

There were three of them. One in each flavor—a redhead, blonde and brunette. They seemed to be in their late twenties and headed for sloshed. “Ladies,” he said. “Thanks for the beer. Having girls’ night out?”

Giggles all around. “Well, not anymore,” one of them said. They parted seats so he could have the middle stool.

“You ladies from town?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re from Garberville,” one of them said. “How about you?”

“I’m just passing through,” he lied. “I have some property on the river. I thought about some hunting. Fishing.”

They were named Luanne, Tiffany and Susie. They were secretaries and had been in the bar since happy hour, and there didn’t seem to be a designated driver among them. Two were divorced and one, Luanne, claimed to have never married. They were wearing their out-to-be-seen bar clothes: short denim skirts to show off their long legs, heels, fitted tops that accentuated cleavages. They had high, perky boobs and fluffy hair. In spite of himself, he briefly considered how much sexier Shelby was in her jeans and boots, her white shirts with rolled-up sleeves and fresh face, leaving everything to the imagination.

He learned they’d all grown up in the area, so he asked about their favorite nightspots. He admitted to being recently discharged from the army after flying helicopters for a long time, but avoided the topic of any kind of combat. These girls weren’t that interested in international events and after he said he’d been last stationed in Texas, they didn’t push him for details. They wanted to know more expedient things: Was he married? Would he be here long?

Within ten minutes Luanne had her hand on his knee under the bar. He almost jumped in surprise. Then she slid it along the inside of his thigh and he grabbed her wrist. “I’d like to be able to stand up from the bar, Luanne,” he said. And she thought that was very funny.

That’s when he knew—if he wanted to unload some tension, it wouldn’t be hard to negotiate. Embarrassingly, it wasn’t exactly a rare move for him. He briefly considered this alternative, but very briefly. He just couldn’t get into the idea.

As if a pact had been arranged, the girlfriends, Tiffany and Susie, wandered off, ostensibly headed for the ladies’ room, except Luke noticed they were sidetracked at other tables in the bar and didn’t return. They were leaving Luke and Luanne alone to proceed. He tried carrying on a conversation with Luanne, who seemed only able to talk about her secretarial job, clothes and girlfriends. She had a very annoying hair-tossing habit. Every few seconds she flapped that fluffy mane over her shoulder.

He had to remove her hand from his thigh another time. He leaned toward her and whispered, “Listen, you don’t want to get me stirred up. All right?”

And, leaning far too close and brushing her cheek against his, she said, “What if I do?”

“It would be a mistake. I’m not exactly available.” Then he wondered why the hell he said that. He was worse than available, he was verging on desperate.

“I don’t exactly care,” she whispered.

He was not in the best shape for this kind of horseplay. He excused himself and said he’d be right back, leaving her at the bar. Whew, he thought, headed for the men’s room. There was no safe place, he realized. He wasn’t safe with Shelby, wasn’t safe away from her. This Luanne was more his type—she looked like lots of mindless sex with no attachments. One small problem—she just didn’t do it for him. And the more she came on to him, the less she appealed to him. The guilelessness of the general’s niece had already spoiled him for a nice, uncomplicated one-night stand. He decided that rather than go back to the bar, he’d slip out the back way.

He came out of the bathroom and found himself in an instant body slam against the wall in the narrow, dim hallway. Luanne had him pinned. “Whoa,” he said, hands up as though he was being arrested to keep from touching her.

She lifted her sultry, half-drunk eyes up to his face, smiled a lopsided smile and cleverly tucked something into the front pocket of his jeans. From his vantage point he was looking down at an impressive cleavage and two very healthy breasts pressed against him. It distracted him for a minute—he loved breasts. He often thought that if God had given him breasts, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off himself. He’d be seen walking around town with his palms pressed over his own chest.

She had her arms around him in the dark hallway that led to the restrooms, pressing him against the wall. A man walked past them, glanced at them, smiled slightly and moved on. Luanne stood on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Holy shit, he thought, his groin beginning to tighten. With her arms around him, she pulled him around and into the ladies’ room. He found himself pushed up against the sink while she flipped the lock on the door. She accomplished this with such deft skill, it was clear she’d done it before.

Again, embarrassingly, it wasn’t his first time for this, either. He couldn’t remember ever being appalled, though. Last he could remember, this was about the time he’d pull a condom out of his pocket and just go for it. It had been quite a while since he’d been with a woman; it wouldn’t take long. She was willing. She was past willing—she was obnoxious. He slipped his hand down to his pocket to see what she’d put in there. He pulled out something soft and lacy. A very tiny pair of panties. Red and black. And off. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he muttered, stuffing it back in his pocket.

“Does it look like I’m kidding?” she said sloppily.

He put a hand against her black hair. “Luanne, this isn’t going to happen. I’m not doing this here.”

“You want to go somewhere?”

“No, baby. We’re not going anywhere. I’m not tapping this tonight,” he said, giving her hip a little pat.

“I bet I can change your mind.”

He shook his head. “Nah. Not gonna happen. Want to let me out of the ladies’ room, please?”

“Why not? I don’t usually get turned down.”

Fantastic résumé, he thought. He felt a slight chuckle escape. “Twenty reasons, kid. You’re drunk, you’re out of control, you don’t know me and I don’t know where you’ve been. But I suspect—lots of places.” He put his hands on her upper arms and firmly but gently pushed her back. “You shouldn’t do this. You could get hurt.”

He moved past her and unlocked the door. When he opened it there was a matronly woman waiting to get inside. He nodded. “Ma’am,” he said. He brushed past.

Luke moved, not slowly, to his truck, hoping to clear the parking lot before he found himself assaulted by a pantyless Luanne in the dark of night. Despite his better judgment, if she followed him, he was afraid he’d have a momentary lapse and get under that short skirt. Hmm. He’d never been afraid of something like that before. When he was on the road, he opened his window and let a little piece of red-and-black lace fly.

Then he stopped at a store on his way home to buy a six-pack of beer. He was going to have to avoid Jack’s for a while. Until his brain disengaged from his nether parts.

Dinner with the Booths had gone so well while Walt’s son, Tom, was on leave, Muriel was invited back the next week. She had secret hopes it would be a regular event. It was lovely. Muriel pulled her truck up to her little bunkhouse after the next such dinner. She’d left a light on for the dogs and could hear them barking before she even had her truck door closed. This is the family I come home to, she thought. Buff, only a few months old, had to be kept in the kennel when she was away from the house; he was still full of all that destructive puppy stuff and for Labs it was almost an art form. Luce was safe on her own now at almost two, but she spent most of that time right up against the kennel, watching over Buff.

She released the puppy from his kennel in the corner and got down on the floor to scratch and cuddle and play.

She had the most wonderful time with Walt and the kids. They were energizing. So full of life and laughter, despite the fact that each one of them had been through some incredibly tough times. Obviously Walt treasured his family, that was without question. They were fantastic fun. But did he know how remarkable they were? she wondered.

They wanted to know how she got into movies. “It was a ridiculous accident,” she had told them. “I was about fourteen when I was chosen from my freshman class to appear in a public-service commercial. This agent appeared and talked my parents into letting me try out for a part in a movie. For a fourteen-year-old with virtually no experience or training, I lucked out and did well. Then there was a slightly larger part, then slightly larger, and I grew. By seventeen I was rushing through my senior year to finish all my classes ahead of time so I could be in another movie.”

“Didn’t your parents freak out?” Vanessa asked.

“I didn’t have those kind of parents. They were amazed it was happening for me. I was making money and making film-industry waves—Hollywood focus has always been on the new entrant, the incredibly young wannabe. But—at twenty-one I married my agent, who was thirty-six. That almost sent my father to the moon. But he was a tough country rancher; he came around. Life was different back in these hills in my younger years. With common country folk, when a fifteen-year-old girl was keeping company with a guy over thirty, the girl’s father got them married. Today—he’d have the guy arrested.”

“Were you married to him long?”

“Five years,” Muriel said. “He’s still my agent of record. And friend.”

“But why didn’t you stay married?” Shelby asked.

Muriel shrugged. “He didn’t really love me like I wanted to be loved. I wanted a home, a family, a life. Roots. He wanted an Oscar.”

“Forgive me for being completely uninformed,” Vanessa said, “but did you get the Oscar?”

“I was nominated three times,” she said. “I was robbed.”

And never got the family. Or the marriage that would have the kind of commitment and devotion that, even in the absence of children and Oscars, could have sustained her. After getting to know Walt’s family, she thought that even if she’d had the chance for a family, there was no way she could have produced such strong, independent, well-adjusted adults. Not in her line of work.

So she ruffled the ears and necks of her two Labs, cooing to them, kissing them, telling them she loved them.

And then she heard an engine. A truck engine. The vehicle stopped, the door slammed and booted feet landed on the porch. All these sounds were familiar. There was a knock. Wasn’t this unexpected…. “Come on in, Walt.”

He stood in the door frame in his suede jacket, jeans, hat. He looked at her on the floor with her pups and smiled. The dogs abandoned her to rush to him, weaving in and out of his long legs, Buff jumping on him. She’d have to break him of that before it got out of control, she thought.

“Any chance you brought more of that delicious dessert with you?” she asked, getting up.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t,” he said.

“Are you looking for coffee?” she asked.

“It would keep me up,” he said, tossing his hat in the chair and reaching out a hand to pull her to her feet. “Come here.” He pulled her against him. He ran a hand down her cheek and along her jaw. “Where do the dogs sleep?”

“On the bed with me.” She laughed, tilting her head up to him. She wondered if he knew how good-looking he was. And how solid; a man you could hold on to confidently. He didn’t waver, not literally, not figuratively. She liked that in a man.

“Think they’d be okay on the floor one night?”

“You making that move, Walt?” He kissed her in a way that should have sufficiently answered the question.

“Muriel, I’m sixty-two years old. I didn’t see this coming.”

“Aren’t you afraid of us becoming an item?”

“Girl, I’ve been dressed down by a president. You can’t scare me with a little gossip. What worries me is that you’ll find me old.”

She laughed at him. “You’re just a few years older than I am. And you’re almost irresistibly handsome.”

One black brow shot up. “You find me handsome?”

She nodded. “And sexy.”

“Well, now. That so? Muriel, I want to touch every part of you. And then I want us to watch the sunrise together.” The dogs were whirling around their legs, wagging, butting, trying to get someone to play. “You might have to do something about these animals.”

“They’ll settle down in a minute,” she promised. “But don’t you.”

Five

On what had lately become a fairly typical afternoon, Shelby, Mel and Doc were having a game of gin at the kitchen table in the clinic while the babies napped. Doc wasn’t doing much better against Shelby than he had over the last couple years playing Mel. These women were wiping him out. “I think I’ve gone through my retirement. You’re ruthless females.”

“I think I remember you winning a couple of hands last week,” Mel said.

“Bah,” he said, struggling to his feet. He grabbed his cane and hobbled out of the kitchen.

“Is there anything I can do around here that would help you two more than being a third hand in a card game?” Shelby asked. “Need someone to organize charts? Clean up a drug cabinet or treatment room? Inventory? Lab or supply run?”

“Tomorrow is appointment day and I have three prenatals and four Pap smears. Since you’re working here, you can assist. How does that sound?” Mel asked.

“Like a very slow day.”

“The thing about country medicine is that it runs hot and cold,” Mel said. “This town is so small that days, sometimes weeks, go by without anything exciting. Then everyone will pass around a virus and they’re all hacking up a lung, and while they’re doing that, everyone else is having an accident or going into labor. You have to be ready for everything, and nothing.”

Shelby never tired of Mel’s stories drawn from her nursing career, from the wild days of big-city emergency medicine, to the transition to small-town doctoring. For Shelby, working in a hectic urban E.R. sounded exciting, though she wondered if she’d really enjoy living in a big city. But being a nurse in a town as little as this didn’t seem to have enough jazz for her. More and more she thought she might end up in an emergency or operating room in a place like Santa Rosa—something between big and small. Or perhaps Eureka or Redding.

“Having come from a big-city hospital, there was one thing about small-town medicine that took me by surprise,” Mel said. “In no time at all, your patients are your friends. If there’s some intervention you can’t get to them in time, you feel not only that you’ve failed a patient, but let down a friend. For example, hardly any of the women in this town had been having regular mammograms, and when I finally got a nonprofit foundation to bring a portable X-ray unit to Virgin River to examine the women over forty, one of my best friends was diagnosed with aggressive, advanced breast cancer. She died—and I keep kicking myself for not getting the thing done sooner.”

“You must feel you can never do it all.”

“To the contrary,” Mel said. “I feel I have to think of everything, and I must do it all. To many of these uninsured rural women, Doc and I are all they have. These Pap smears—I’ve cajoled almost every one of them. I call them, I push them, I get them in here and charge only lab costs.”

“It’s an easy thing to let slide, I guess,” Shelby said.

“But you wouldn’t let it slide,” Mel said.

“Well, that hasn’t exactly been a priority the last few years,” Shelby said with a laugh. “But I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that….”

Mel’s back stiffened instantly. “How long might you have let that go?”

“I haven’t had one,” Shelby said.

“What?”

“I’m an extremely low risk,” she said. Then she lowered her eyes. “I haven’t had sex.”

Mel sat forward. “That’s kind of unusual. At your age.”

“I haven’t had a boyfriend. Oh, I dated a little in high school, but not seriously. I’m the product of an accidental pregnancy and my mom raised me alone. If we hadn’t been lucky enough to have Uncle Walt, life would have been a terrible struggle for us. My mom always felt so guilty about that, about taking all his help. I was scared to death of something like that happening to me. Mostly, I was afraid of disappointing my mom and my Uncle Walt.”

“You were very cautious….”

“Well, yes. And I was shy. And then I became nearly a recluse, taking care of my mom. The only men I came into contact with were married doctors, male nurses or hospice volunteers. And here I am, probably your first twenty-five-year-old virgin.” She made a face. “Please, I really don’t want the whole town to know I’m a helpless, recovering introvert who lived with her mother for twenty-five years.”

“Shelby, you know everything in this clinic is confidential—you took the oath when you decided to help out here. Besides, what you did for your mom gets nothing but admiration around here,” Mel said. “It was very selfless. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you seem quite sure of yourself.”

“Oh, I got over a lot of that shyness while I was taking care of her. I had to be assertive to be sure she was getting what she needed medically. Once you learn to stand up to a highfalutin neurologist, you can handle the bag boy at the grocery store just fine. I’m not crippled by shyness anymore, just a newcomer into the big, free world,” she said. “And I don’t want to be unprepared….”

“Honestly, I don’t want the first thing inside you to be a speculum, but you should be examined. There are other concerns—not just cervical cancer. There’s uterine cancer, ovarian cancer. And then you should be protected. Ready. When that time comes, you shouldn’t have too much to be worried about—I can’t imagine you still have a hymen with all that riding….”

Shelby sighed. “I wonder if it will ever happen.”

“It’ll happen.” Mel smiled. “Let me ask you something—how important is it to you that the first time be noticeably the first time?”

“That’s not a big issue with me.”

“I think I can get you through an exam without changing the whole landscape too much.” Mel took a breath. “Let’s do it.”

“Now?” she asked squeamishly.

Mel nodded. “Get naked. I’ll meet you in the exam room. You know where the gowns are.”

A few minutes later Mel let herself into the exam room to find Shelby seated on the table. “Take a deep breath,” Mel said, smiling. “It’s going to be fine.” She helped to ease Shelby into the position, keeping a hand on each thigh so she wouldn’t slide too far. “The good news is, I have really small hands.”