“Clumsy,” she said with a laugh. “Thanks for letting Denny give me a tour.”

“It’s a pleasure. He knows how much we love showing off the farm,” Jillian said. “After you’ve had a little twirl around the grounds, we’ll show you the house—it’s the most wonderful old house.”

“I can’t wait,” she said. And the next thing she knew, the gardenmobile jerked into motion and Denny was driving her past a huge garden, through the trees and to more gardens and greenhouses that were warmed by smudge pots.

Becca was fascinated by the farm, by all that Denny knew about these fancy crops and the business of growing and marketing them. She was intrigued by the proud light in his eyes as he described their products and even showed her pictures of their rare fruits and vegetables. He was so at home with his fingers in the soft, dark soil, pulling out a delicate seedling for her to see. After they’d toured the greenhouses and grounds, he brought her back to the house. He stopped short of the porch and said, “Wait till you see this place in spring and summer. That entire wall of shrubs that’s covered with snow—all flowers. There are a dozen apple trees along the front drive and a line of blackberry bushes dividing the front and back gardens. The bees around here get a little thick, but they’re friendly. We’re thinking of getting into honey—good money in honey!” Becca thought, Spring? Summer?

And then she thought, He’s so proud of this!

“Show me the house,” she said.

He parked and lifted her out of the gardenmobile. He carried her into the kitchen and found her a chair, then went back for her crutches.

Jillian came out of a room off the kitchen with a laptop in her hands. “I thought you might like to see pictures Colin took of the grounds during summer. He had shots of some of our crop that I used for brochures.” She put the laptop down in front of Becca and let her flip through the digital pictures.

“Gorgeous,” she said of staged photos of bushels of tomatillo, tiny beets, peppers, tomatoes and brussels sprouts. There was a cart piled high with pumpkins, pictures of the grounds alive with flowers, even pictures of jars of relishes and sauces with their Jilly Farms label on them.

“This is some operation,” she said.

“It’s a commercial farm and processed food line,” Jillian said proudly.

“Impressive,” she said.

“I wish you weren’t on crutches,” Jillian said. “Colin’s brother and wife and my sister and her husband are coming over later—we’re going to cut down our Christmas trees. We’ve already picked them out—we have enough fir and pine still on the property to thin out to make room for gardens.”

“She’s not missing out, Jillian—we took her with to find the town tree.”

“I’m sorry I missed that,” she said. “Are you going to take her around the rest of the house, Denny?”

“Yep,” he said. Denny leaned the crutches against the wall and urged Becca up so he could piggyback her around the house and up the stairs. It was three stories, a spacious eleven-room house with high ceilings, five bedrooms, a huge sun-room that Colin used for his studio on one end and their family room with a TV on the other end. The only part of the house that Denny didn’t think safe enough to carry her up to was the rooftop. “We can see all the gardens and greenhouses and over the treetops to neighboring farms and vineyards. When you’re healed, I’ll show you.”

There it was again—a comment that sounded like they had a future in Virgin River.

“This house is wonderful. I wonder what it must be like to live in a house like this.”

“One of the reasons I’ve been so long in Jo’s efficiency is because it’s practically free and I’ve been saving money for a house. A nice house. I have a little money from the sale of my mom’s home, plus what I’ve earned. Jillian keeps increasing my pay, I have full benefits from her and she gave me a bonus at the end of last summer. Then I’ve been working at Jack’s….”

“What are your hours at Jack’s?” she asked. “It’s kind of hard to tell.”

He laughed as he piggybacked her to the kitchen. He put her on one of the kitchen chairs and propped her foot. “It’s hard to tell because they’re real irregular. I started helping out and refused to take his money. He gave me free room and board for a long time right after I got here—I have a lot to pay off. But it rankled him—he’s proud. He’s also generous. The only freebies he likes are the ones he gives. So he opened a savings account and put money in it. I’d usually just step up if I was there for dinner and the place got real busy, but then he had to call me to help a few times and he told me he’d been paying me all along whether I liked it or not, so I quit arguing. Besides, I’ve been saving for that house.”

She thought of the way his arms felt around her, how it felt to have him say he loved her and she held her tongue. “What kind of a house do you think about, Denny?”

“There are lots of houses on big plots around here. But there’s also the houses Paul Haggerty builds. I’ll take you out to Jack and Mel’s one of these days—they have an awesome house on a few acres, and from his front porch you can see forever. He helped build it. That kept the cost down. I’d like to do that—help build my house.” He laughed. “I guess the answer is, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten serious about it yet. But you make me want to get serious.”

Twelve

The homework club grew to seven kids, about three of whom could have led the class. Danielle, Christopher and Juliet were all ahead of their age groups. But Megan, Maron, Mary and Zoe needed a little extra help. Coincidentally, Megan and Maron were both in the same third-grade class and had the very same issues—very little encouragement, a lot of negative reinforcement, low self-esteem and little confidence.

Becca looked forward to their club every day.

Ellie asked her to help out with organizing the nativity pageant with the children for Christmas Eve, and they met on the weekend afternoons—Mary and Joseph, three shepherds, three wise men and a slew of little angels. She couldn’t be sure she’d be available for more than one rehearsal, but she couldn’t resist. Besides, Megan was going to be Mary! That in itself had done so much for the girl’s confidence.

On Friday, the splint came off, the stitches came out and the splint was replaced with a soft, removable boot. “You can get the foot wet now,” the doctor said. “But I discourage showers. If you lose your balance and put weight on the foot, you could be back where you started. And that’s if you’re lucky!”

He told her to move her ankle, though. No weight on it, but she was instructed to pretend to write the alphabet with her pointed big toe. A. B. C. And so on.

“That hurts!” she said.

“It’s just stiff and sore. It’ll loosen up. Do it five or six times a day. It’ll save you a lot of heartache and physical therapy. Am I going to see you again or are you headed home to San Diego?”

She glanced at Denny. “I’m going to hang around. For a little while. Maybe another week, anyway. I’m helping with the Christmas pageant.”

She couldn’t miss the gleam in Denny’s beautiful brown eyes.

Becca was making her way down to the church for Saturday-afternoon pageant rehearsal when she spotted a familiar car parked in front of the bar. A late-model BMW. Standing beside it was Doug. His hands were plunged into the pockets of his black London Fog dress coat. She could see his shiny black shoes, all mucked up from the mud and melting snow in the street. He wore a red turtleneck and gray wool slacks—he looked so classy and professional.

She slowly made her way to him. “Should I be surprised to see you?” she asked him.

“Let me take you home, Becca. We can talk on the drive. I’ll stay in San Diego for a few days to give us time to sort things out.”

She shook her head. “I’m not ready to go home, Doug. And there’s nothing to sort out. I think what we have, if we want it, is a casual friendship.”

“I’m not interested in that,” he said. “We talked about marriage! We deserve another chance.”

“It was the talk about marriage that forced my hand, Doug. I felt that coming. I knew I wasn’t going to say yes. I had to figure out why.”

“And did you?”

She nodded solemnly.

He grimaced and looked away. He looked back at her. “Have you been drugged or something? Because there was never a hint of this!”

“I think maybe there were lots of hints, but you were a little too busy making plans to notice. I’m sorry you came so far for nothing. Really. Sorry for all the inconvenience. And for your messed-up plans.”

He shook his head. “You turned out to be so completely different than I thought you were.”

“I did, didn’t I? I’m not going to apologize for that.” She backed away a little bit. “Drive very carefully down the mountain. The roads can be slick.”

He stepped toward her and, in a purposely controlled and lowered voice, he said, “Becca, you can’t really choose this hick dump over Cape Cod! Before you know it, you’ll be wearing denim jackets, plaid skirts, combat boots and your hair in braids!”

She smiled tolerantly. “And you’d be embarrassed to take me with you to the Presidential Inauguration. I have to go, Doug. I’m on my way to the church to help them with the children’s Christmas pageant.”

With that, she began to move slowly toward the church. She heard him behind her as the car door opened and closed, the ignition turned and the car moved down the street.

She heard the thud of feet approach her and she looked over her shoulder to see Denny catching up to her. “That him?” he asked.

She nodded, then resumed walking.

“You sent him away?” he asked.

“Of course. That’s over. Completely and totally. It wasn’t that much to start with.”

“He drove all the way up here to try to convince you it was something.”

“He’s used to having things go according to plan.”

Denny was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “That’s a helluva car.”

“I know. But I’m pretty focused on who’s in the car.”

To Becca’s great surprise, Megan didn’t appear for homework club after school on Tuesday. Since Maron was in her class, she asked, “Was Megan sick today?”

“No,” the little girl said. “She had a accident and her dad had to come and get her.”

Becca gasped. “What kind of accident? Is she all right?”

“She just peed herself. But it made her cry a lot.”

“Oh, no! Poor Megan! I think that happens to just about everyone. I think it happened to me when I was a little girl. I hope she won’t be too upset.”

Maron shrugged. “She was in the girl’s line. But she kept wiggling, so Mrs. Anderson put her at the end of the line. Twice.”

Becca felt her cheeks grow warm, then hot. Surely there was more to the story, she thought. As a second-grade teacher she had encountered that particular problem plenty of times. They kept spare underwear in the nurse’s office for just such emergencies. Kids could lose all track of themselves or just get so caught up in their activities they waited too long. Just as often, someone would throw up with apparently no clue it was about to happen. It was the stuff of elementary school. And Megan was only eight.

Becca would never put a little girl who was waiting for the bathroom at the end of the line if she was wiggling! That’s just asking for it! “Can’t you excuse yourself to the bathroom whenever you need to?” Becca asked. “Raise your hand? Ask permission?”