Leslie coughed and choked. Conner slapped her back until she recovered.

“I know. It’s a lot to swallow, no pun intended. I thought I had a great marriage, too. It worked for me. But my wife cheated, we had a confrontation and she said she was…” He paused. It was still hard to say. He cleared his throat. “She said she was a sex addict.”

Leslie’s eyes grew very large. “Is that so?” she asked cautiously.

He gave a nod. Then a shrug. “Maybe that’s correct, that’s what her problem was. My sister didn’t exactly forgive her, but she did kind of defend her, saying she was dealing with a compulsion. She went into a treatment program, though. I have no idea if it worked. She asked me to come to some kind of family week session so I could understand her and the disease, but I couldn’t. I was done. I said that I wasn’t family anymore and wouldn’t be. In the one year we were married, she was unfaithful more times than she could count. Or remember.”

“Oh, Conner, I’m really sorry.”

“So as you might expect, I have world-class trust issues. Not the way you think—I really don’t have a single problem trusting you. But I sure don’t trust me. I never thought I was the kind of guy who couldn’t see what was right in front of my face. I never suspected a thing. I never even had enough imagination to suspect something like what was going on right under my own nose.”

Leslie left her chopsticks standing in the Yum Woo Sen.

“Listen, I’ve been divorced almost two years and I’ve been completely checked and checked and rechecked,” he assured her. “There hasn’t been anyone since. I’m safe.” At least in that regard, he thought.

She was quiet for a moment. Finally she said, “It must have been awful.”

“I’m one of those guys like your old boss—I have strong feelings about that kind of commitment. My parents married for life. My sister married her husband for life, though his life was cut short way too early. I assumed any woman who made those promises meant them. I guess I can be naive. Put it another way—I had no idea how naive I could be.”

She smiled. “I know exactly how you feel.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Well, you don’t know exactly. You caught a text message. I came home early and found her banging the kid who delivered bottled water.”

Leslie gulped, trying to imagine.

“When I think back about it, it’s pretty ironic. I actually delivered bottled water part-time during my one semester in college.” He snorted. “No one ever met me at the door naked.”

She let herself give a short laugh. “I guess she hasn’t been in touch.”

“There have been letters, but I didn’t open them, just put them right in the shredder. I had made it pretty clear to her it was over for me, no grudges, nothing. It was a lie, of course—I was mad and I was carrying a grudge. But really, she needed to pick up the pieces somewhere else.”

“I’m shocked,” she said. “I can’t imagine a woman attached to you even having enough desire leftover for another guy. You’re pretty efficient.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Is this where I say thank you?”

“Not yet. Let me tell you a couple of things. You’re not the only one with a few revelations. Moving here a little over a month ago was the first time in my adult life I didn’t live in the same town with my parents and husband or my ex-husband and his perfect new little wife. And you know what happened? I immediately started learning a few things about myself. For years I had wondered if I deserved Greg, the fabulous future governor he thought he was, and now that I’ve had some distance from all that, it’s pretty clear I deserved much better. I give you a lot of credit for that, by the way, for really seeing me, and not just seeing me as a reflection of you. With my husband, I was always fading into the background, like an overexposed photo. Even though I was the one who did most of the work in our marriage, from the scut work around the house and yard to paying the bills to constantly supporting my wonderful spouse, I had a hard time thinking of myself as valuable. As competent. I didn’t even feel competent between the sheets!”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Les, you’re way past competent. Trust me.”

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve been liking myself a lot more. I like my little rented house, all the new flowers, my yoga classes, my job in the construction trailer. The crews respect me and do things my way, my boss already needs me. I have a kind-of boyfriend,” she said, pausing to grin at him, “who lets me call the shots. I’m getting to know myself, Conner. It’s okay that you don’t feel like marrying me because I don’t feel like marrying anyone. I feel so good being on my own. Take care of your issues, I’ll take care of mine and if we meet along the way and have a good time, more the better.

“Oh, and one more thing. I trust this isn’t going to be a problem, but while we’re having fun together, there will be only one man’s shoes under my bed and I expect to be the only pair of high heels—”

He held up his hand. “It goes without saying.”

“I assumed so. Now, are we squared away on the expectations? Because I’ll miss you if you go, but you shouldn’t worry you’re going to let me down.”

He took in her bright eyes, her confident smile, the flush of happiness which included him but wasn’t only about him. She was remarkable. “I’m not going to let you down,” he said. And he wasn’t sure how he’d manage that, but it had suddenly become the most important thing in the world.

“Of course, there is one little issue that’s getting in the way of my striking out with complete independence....”

“Oh?” he asked.

“I don’t want to mention it if it’s going to make you all clingy....”

“Throw it on out there, Les,” he said.

“I’m having trouble with the garbage disposal....”

He smiled broadly. “It will be my pleasure to have a look at your garbage disposal. Don’t get any ideas, though.”

“Part of learning real independence is knowing who to ask,” she informed him.

“Then, if you’ve had just about enough shrimp curry, why don’t you ask me back to bed.”

Leslie had always been close to her parents, both of them, and talked to one or both of them at least every couple of days. But they had been married for ten years before she’d come along and to say they were tight as a couple was the understatement of the century; they made good role models for a successful marriage. In fact, it would occasionally occur to her to worry what would happen if one of them passed. Surely they would fit into that classic model of the spouse who followed his or her partner to the other side rather quickly.

When Leslie married Greg she had wanted that kind of relationship. She’d always known she didn’t have it, but until it was over she hadn’t realized how far from that ideal they’d been. “In fact,” she had said to her mother during a recent phone conversation, “it’s only since I came here that I’ve really begun to see how much was missing from our marriage. Greg had the kind of marriage he needed and I helped him achieve it by going along with everything he said he needed. Isn’t that what a good wife tries to do? No wonder his defection was so hard on me. I couldn’t figure out what more I could’ve done for him!”

“Oh, Les, it sounds like you’re finally getting ready to really let go of him,” Candace Petruso said.

“Not just getting ready—I have!” She told her mother about Greg’s surprise visit and her fire-extinguisher attack on him, which sent Candace into a fit of laughter. “And,” Leslie confided, “I’m kind of seeing someone.”

“And who might that be?”

“Oh, one of the carpenters who works for Paul. Very nice man, very handsome. He’s helped me with a few things around the house—helped me with some landscaping and fixed my garbage disposal. We sometimes grab a movie or go to a restaurant or just hang out together. I’ve cooked for him a few times and recently he surprised me with a small backyard grill so he can cook for me. You’d like him.”

“I can’t wait to meet him,” her mother said.

Leslie’s conversations with her parents were usually dominated by all that sixtysomething Candace and Robert were doing to stay busy, which had saved Leslie from revealing too much about Conner or her deep fondness for him. Her parents were so busy that sometimes they joked they had to take a vacation to get a rest from retirement. The latest thing they’d taken up was learning Italian in preparation for a Mediterranean cruise in a few months. Some of their friends would also be going, and Leslie’s parents were in a fever of excitement.

Now, as Leslie mentioned Conner to her parents, she tried to cover the subject quickly. She couldn’t help sharing news, but wanted to keep him to herself for now. Her connection with Conner seemed strangely wrong yet miraculously right. Wrong because she shouldn’t have that kind of rapport with someone she’d barely met when she couldn’t find it with a spouse of eight years. And right because it just was.

Leslie thought the best of both worlds suited her magnificently—an independent life and a man who was free to spend two or three nights a week with her. Sometimes she’d sit on the back porch with Conner and just admire the setting sun and the flowers and the fragrant spring weather, talking. It was rather amazing how much beyond a couple of crappy marriages and divorces they had to talk about. In fact, once the facts of those had been shared, they found many more interesting things to discuss, from global warming (on which they did not agree) to American Idol (upon which they did).

Many of their conversations, whether over dinner, breakfast, on the back porch or cuddled up in bed, touched on values like honesty, loyalty, just plain knowing what was the right thing to do.

“How about being unfaithful in a marriage?” she asked him.

He grunted before he spoke. “Look, it’s too easy to say just plain never do that, even though that’s what I want to say. I know all marriages aren’t made in heaven. Sometimes there are circumstances that are hard to understand.”

“Like Greg falling in love for the first time after eight years of marriage?” she asked.

“I was thinking of my own shortcomings, to tell the truth. Giving your word on something usually requires a sacrifice, and it’s the measure of a man by how much he can live up to his word. I gave my word, Les, but I wasn’t able to keep it when it came to my ex-wife. A stronger man would’ve tried to understand and give her a chance to at least make amends, but I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And Greg stepping out on you like he did? Not only do I think he was wrong, I think he was a fool. But damn, did I end up getting the good end of that deal or what? Because now that I know you, I know you wouldn’t have looked at me twice if you were married.”

After a moment of thought, she said, “I think the best happened for me, too. You, naturally. But a lot of other useful lessons, as well.”

There was a lot going on around Virgin River as April neared May and the Virgin River School neared completion. The town had big plans for a grand opening. People around town were furiously scouting secondhand stores, closing schools with content to sell, eBay and other resources for items to stock the school with. Dan and Cheryl’s house was finished, thanks to the help of many friends, including Conner, and they were planning a party, immediately after which they were headed north for that fishing trip Dan had mentioned.

“I spent a lot of time in charity work,” Leslie told him while they were lazing around in her bed late on a Saturday morning. “It’s good but not quite as fulfilling as actually helping out a friend, you know? It’s fun helping Dan and Cheryl plan their party or helping Becca look for furnishings and supplies for the actual school in which she’ll teach.”