“Understandable,” he said. “But I don’t want you to think that if you and Chris are my family, you’d have to worry about your future. His future.”

“When I look at the difference between my life then and now, I feel richer now. I have everything I need. Chris and I—we’re so much better off.”

Preacher decided to let the matter rest, at least for the time being. He’d never talked to anyone about money. He and his mom had been pretty much lower middle class, maybe poor. They lived in a two-bedroom cinder-block house with a cyclone fence around the yard and roof that wasn’t dependable. There weren’t any sidewalks or streetlights on their block. She kept it real nice, but he couldn’t remember a stick of new furniture in his lifetime. When she died, there was a policy paying off the little house plus a life insurance benefit and a small pension through the church. It was a small piece of suburban Cincinnati real estate in a declining neighborhood plus a modest amount of cash. He was only seventeen and didn’t care about what a sale might bring—he wanted his mom, their home together.

When he went into the Marines, he had to let it go, had to realize he’d never have that life back. It was a hundred and forty thousand dollars in total, a fortune for an eighteen-year-old kid with no family but the band of brothers he signed on with. He’d felt a little like Paige—like he couldn’t even cash the check. So he did the next best thing. He put it in a safe place—a CD. A few years later he put it somewhere else—a mutual fund. Since he had no attachment to it and it meant so little to him, it caused him no stress at all to move it around a little, here and there. He had his first computer by then—and he was looking things up, his favorite pastime next to fishing, shooting, reading military history. He learned a little about investing on the computer, then began doing some online. In fourteen years his investments had grown considerably—they approached nine hundred thousand dollars.

The only pleasure Preacher had ever gotten from his nest egg was watching the balance grow—he had no use for it. But now he had a boy who’d be going to college in fifteen or so years. With any luck there’d be more kids needing college. He could keep going—investing and reinvesting—but it occurred to him to stuff a couple hundred thousand in bonds, which were safe, so that by the time it was needed, it would be handy.

Later, when the time was right, he’d tell Paige that if she couldn’t cash that check from her divorce settlement, it couldn’t matter less. She really did have everything she needed. She just didn’t know it yet.

Mel’s mind might have been wandering a little—pregnant women were known for that sort of thing. She was in Clear River where she’d been gassing up the Hummer, and while stopped at the only light in town, it turned green and she didn’t move. By the time she looked up to see that it had changed, there was a loud bang and a jolt; the Hummer was pushed into the intersection. When she got out of the vehicle, a hand pressed to her back and her stomach protruding like Mount Kilimanjaro, the man in the pickup truck who’d rear-ended her went completely pale. She recognized that man—he wore the shady brady on his head, and he had all but kidnapped her to deliver a baby in an illegal grow in a trailer a few months ago.

Mel looked at the bumper of the Hummer. One side was smashed in pretty good.

“Shit,” she said.

“You okay?” he asked, a panicked look skittering across his face.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Oh, Jesus, I really don’t want to have to deal with your husband on this,” he said.

“Me, neither.”

“I have insurance. I have a license. I have whatever you need. Just say you’re all right.”

“Sit tight,” she said. “Try not to go nuts on me. Don’t flee the scene or anything really stupid.”

“Yeah,” he said nervously. “Right.”

There were no local police in Clear River, so Mel walked back to the gas station and called the California Highway Patrol. She called Jack, assured him she was just fine, knowing that wouldn’t cut any grass with him and he’d be flying across the mountain.

About thirty minutes later CHP responded, pulling into the intersection, the car lit up to keep the traffic away from the accident. When the patrolman stepped out of his car, he found Mel sitting in the passenger seat of the Hummer, door open and feet in the street, listening to her belly with a fetoscope. He frowned down on Mel’s big belly. “Oh, boy,” he said. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing a hand over her belly. “I’m fine.”

“Um. You’re awful pregnant,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

“You a doctor?”

“Midwife.”

“Then I guess you know what you need,” he said.

Right at that moment, Jack’s truck came screeching into the intersection and he was out and striding toward them. Mel looked up at the officer. “Well, that’s probably going to be irrelevant.”

Jack took one look at his old friend in the shady brady and got himself all stirred up. The jaw pulse ticked, his complexion went dark and angry. She put a hand on his arm. “I know it’s technically his fault, but the light had changed and I didn’t go. So try to leave your personal feelings out of this and let the cop do his job.”

He glanced over at the cop collecting the man’s data and said, “It might be real hard for me to not get personal here.”

“Okay, then,” Mel said. “Let’s shoot for rational.”

Forty minutes later, she was lying on the exam table in Grace Valley, the ultrasound bleeping beside her. Jack was nearly distraught, but no one else was particularly worried. John said it wouldn’t hurt to check, make sure everything was all right. Clearly the baby was not traumatized; she was bouncing around like a gymnast. June Hudson and Susan Stone were peering over Mel’s big belly, looking at the baby on the monitor while John moved the wand around. Then John said, “Well, shit.”

“Oh, brother,” John’s wife said.

“That doesn’t happen very often,” June said.

“What?” Jack said. “What?”

“But I have all these pink things! From Christmas!” Mel shrieked.

“What?” Jack said. “What the hell is it? Is the baby all right?”

“Baby’s fine,” John said. “It isn’t Emma, that’s for sure. Look—femur, femur, penis. I blew it. And I’m so damn good, I can’t imagine how that happened.”

“It was probably just on the early side,” June said. “We should’ve done another one at twenty weeks to be sure.”

“Yeah, but I’m so damn good,” John insisted.

“Penis?” Jack asked.

Mel looked up into his eyes and said, “We’re going to have to come up with another name.”

Jack had a dumb look on his face. Mel didn’t recall having seen that look before. “Man,” he said in a breath. “I might not know what to do with a boy.”

“Well, we got that news just in time,” June said, leaving the exam room.

“Yeah, right before the shower,” Susan added, following her.

“I really thought I had it nailed,” John said. “I feel betrayed, in a way.”

Mel looked up into her husband’s eyes and watched as a slow, powerful grin appeared. “What are you thinking, Jack?” she asked him.

“That I can’t wait to call my brothers-in-law, the slackers.”

Mel was ready to leave Doc’s for the day, to walk across the street and have dinner with her husband, when Connie came in assisting Liz to the front door. Connie had a hand under Liz’s elbow while Liz was gripping her belly. A dark fluid stain ran down her jeans from between her legs and she was crying. “It hurts,” she wailed. “It hurts!”

“Okay, honey,” Mel said, coming forward and taking the other hand. “Let’s see what’s going on. When did you see Dr. Stone last?”

“A couple of weeks ago. Oohh.”

“Is she in labor?” Connie asked.

“Maybe. We’ll know in a minute. Come into the exam room and let me check you. Then we’ll see if you should go to the hospital.”

Mel and Connie helped Liz undress, peeling off the wet jeans and helping her into a gown so she could get onto the exam table. “I’ll take it from here,” Mel told Connie. “I want to see where we are.”

“Call Rick,” Liz cried. “Please, Aunt Connie! Please! I need him!”

“Sure, honey.” Connie left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. Mel applied her fetoscope to Liz’s belly, though Liz writhed. She waited for the contraction to pass, but it was a long, hard one. Finally her uterus relaxed, not that it gave Liz much relief.

Liz’s cries became quieter and Mel worked hard at listening, moving the fetoscope all around. Then she hung it around her neck and pulled out the Doptone, a fetal heartbeat monitor. She moved it over Liz’s belly as calmly as possible, despite Liz’s squirming and groaning.

“Is the heartbeat okay?” Liz asked.

“It’s hard to hear with the contractions right now. I’ll listen again after I check your cervix.” Next, she put on gloves. “All right, Liz, let me examine you. Feet in the stirrups, slide down for me. I’ll be as gentle as possible. There you go. Take some slow, deep breaths.” She carefully slipped her hand into the birth canal. Six centimeters. No, seven. Bloody fluid.

“Liz,” she said, “it’s time. You’re going to deliver soon.” Mel tried with the Doptone again, her heart plummeting. Liz was a little early; she hadn’t even started the weekly visits she would pay to John Stone during her last month. She probably hadn’t had an internal exam since the one Mel gave her when she returned to Virgin River.

She got a blood pressure and listened to her heart. Normal, under the circumstances. She applied the Doptone again. “Have you been having contractions long?” she asked Liz.

“I don’t know. All day, I guess. But I didn’t know what it was. It just kept getting worse and worse. It wasn’t like those Braxton things. It was like a knife!”

“Okay, honey. It’s okay. Have you been feeling the baby move a lot?”

“No. Just my back hurting and lots of…And a stomachache on and off. Gas, I think. Was it gas?”

“I don’t know, honey. When did you last feel the baby move?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Liz cried. “Is he all right?”

“Try breathing like this,” she said, demonstrating a deep inhale, slow exhale. But Liz was too far into this. Mel showed her panting, short puffs of air, which seemed to work a little better. “There you go. I’m going to go make sure your aunt Connie called Rick. Okay?”

“Okay. But don’t leave me.”

“I’ll only be a minute. Try the breathing.”

Mel left the room, pulling the door closed. “Connie, did you find Rick?”

“Jack sent him over to Garberville to pick up some beef for the bar. He should be back pretty soon.”

“How soon?” Mel asked. It was her gut instinct to tell Liz immediately—there was no heartbeat, no movement. But she was so young, vulnerable, so dependent on Rick.

“Minutes, Jack said,” Connie answered.

“Okay, good. Liz is in labor and she’s dilated. Will you please go stay with her for a couple of minutes? I should call Dr. Stone. It won’t take me long.”

Doc Mullins caught her in the hallway. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Mel leaned close and whispered. “I have no fetal heartbeat, no movement, seven centimeters and she can’t remember when she last felt the baby move.”