Mel went to the bar, hopped up on a stool in front of Preacher and said, “What’s the matter with him?” Preacher shrugged and made a move to reach for his coffee mug, but before he could connect with it, Mel virtually lunged across the bar, grabbed the front of his shirt in her fist and said, hotly, “What’s the matter with him?!”

Preacher’s black brows shot up in surprise and he put up his hands as if being arrested. Mel slowly let go of his shirt and sat back on the stool. “He’s drunk,”

Preacher said.

“Well, no kidding. But there’s something wrong with him. He’s been different all week.”

Again the shrug. “Sometimes when the boys are here, it dredges things up. You know? I think he’s having some remembering of things not so good.”

“Marine things?” she asked. Preacher nodded. “Come on, Preacher. He’s the best friend I have in this town.”

“I don’t think he’d like me talking.”

“Whatever this is, he shouldn’t go through it alone.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Preacher said. “He’ll snap out of it. He always does.”

“Please,” she implored. “Can’t you guess how much he means to me? I want to help, if there’s any way I can.”

“I could tell you some things, but they’re very ugly things. Not for a lady to hear.”

She laughed a little. “You can’t imagine the things I’ve seen, much less heard. I worked in a trauma center for almost ten years. It could get pretty ugly at times.”

“Not like this.”

“Try me.”

Preacher took a deep breath. “Those boys that come up every year? They come to make sure he’s okay. He was their sergeant. My sergeant. Best sergeant in the marines. He’s been in five combat zones. The last one, Iraq. He was leading a platoon into interior Fallujah and one of the boys stepped on a truck mine. Blew him in half. Right away we were pinned down by sniper fire. Our boy who stepped on the mine, he didn’t die right away. Something about the heat of the explosion—it must’ve cauterized arteries and vessels and he didn’t bleed out. Didn’t have pain, either—it must have done something to his spine. But he was fully conscious.”

“My God.”

“Jack ordered everyone to take cover in the buildings, which we did. But he sat with his man. He wouldn’t leave him. Under sniper fire, leaning against a fat tire on an overturned truck, he held him and talked to him for a half hour before he died. Kid kept telling Jack to go, take cover, that it was okay. You know he didn’t go. He’d never leave one of his men behind.” He took a drink of coffee. “We saw a lot of stuff back there that will give you nightmares, but that’s the one that sometimes gets to him. I don’t know what hits him harder—the kid’s slow death or the visit he paid his parents to tell them all the things he said before he went.”

“And he gets drunk?”

“Fishes a lot. Maybe goes into the woods and camps awhile to get his stability back. Sometimes he’ll try to drink it away, but that’s pretty rare. First, it doesn’t work too well and second, he feels like crap afterward. But it’ll be okay, Mel. He always comes out of it.”

“Jesus,” she said. “I guess everyone has baggage. Gimme a beer.”

He poured one from the tap and put it before her. “So maybe the thing to do is just let him be awhile.”

“Is he going to wake up soon?”

“No. He’s tanked. I was just about to carry him to bed when you walked in. I’ll sleep in the chair in his room, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case he’s not just drunk. In case he gets sick or something. He carried me down a road in Iraq—about a mile. I’m not letting anything happen to him now.”

She drank some of her beer. “He’s carried me a little, too,” she said. “I don’t think he knows it, though.”

They sat in silence for a little while. She drank about half her beer. “I’m trying to get a picture of him carrying you,” she said. “Must’ve looked like the ant and the rubber tree.”

He surprised her with a chuckle.

“How’d he get you to come here? To this little town?”

“He didn’t have to talk me into it. I kept in touch with him when he got out, and when I got out, I came up. He said I could stay and help around the bar if I wanted to. I wanted to.”

A noise behind her made her turn. Jack fell off the chair and crashed to the floor, sprawling there.

“Nightie-night time,” Preacher said, coming around the bar.

“Preacher, if you’ll get him to his room, I’ll stay with him.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mel. Could be unpleasant. You know?”

“Not a problem,” she said. “I’ve held many a bucket, if it comes to that.”

“Sometimes he cries out.”

“Sometimes, so do I.”

“Is it what you want?”

“It is. I want to.”

“You really do care about him, then?” he asked.

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Well, okay. If you’re sure.”

Preacher crouched and pulled Jack upright. Hands under his armpits, he got him to a limp standing position, then putting a shoulder to his midsection, hoisted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Mel followed him to Jack’s bedroom. She’d never been in Jack’s quarters. It was set up like a little efficiency apartment with two means of entry—either through the kitchen behind the bar or the back door that led out to the yard. It was L-shaped, the bedroom being in the short end of the L

and the living area larger. There was a table with two chairs by the window and while there was no kitchen, there was a small refrigerator.

Preacher put Jack on the bed and unlaced and removed his boots. “Let’s get the jeans off,” she said. To Preacher’s dubious look, she said, “I assure you, I’ve seen it all.”

She undid the leather belt and unsnapped the jeans. Mel took the right pant leg, Preacher took the left and they pulled, leaving him in his boxers. Mel unbuttoned his shirt and rolling him from side to side, removed it. She took the clothes to his closet. Hanging on a peg just inside the door was a holster with a handgun in it and it made her gasp. She hung the pants and shirt over the gun.

Preacher was staring down at Jack, clad only in boxers. “He’s gonna kill me for this,”

Preacher said.

“Or thank you,” she supplied, giving him a small smile. “If my pager goes off, I’ll come for you.” She pulled the comforter over Jack.

“Or if you have any problems,” the big man said.

When Preacher had gone, Mel pulled off her boots and in stocking feet, she poked around a little. He had a roomy bathroom with cupboards and drawers. She opened one and found that he kept underwear and socks in there. Towels were stored there, as well, and remembering that first day in Virgin River, she sniffed one. Downy, like he had said.

The closet was a medium-sized walk-in. There was a small laundry room with cabinets in addition to the washer and dryer. The bathroom and laundry room had doors that closed, but the bedroom was in full view of the living room. Looking around, it was so obviously Jack. Very masculine; very functional. He had a leather couch and big leather chair. There was a television on the facing wall and beside it, a glass-and-wood gun case filled with rifles, the key dangling from the lock. There was a heavy wood coffee table and a side table between the sofa and chair with a lamp on it. The walls were of rough-hewn wood and there were only two framed pictures on the side table. A family photo showing all of them, Jack, four sisters, four brothers-in-law, eight nieces, one silver-haired father as large as Jack. Beside it, a rather older portrait of his mother and father.

She picked up the family photo. This was a family of strong good looks, the men all tall and handsome, the women trim and pretty, the girls adorable—the youngest just little, like three or four, the oldest a teen. She thought Jack the best looking of them all, and he stood in the middle of the group, an arm around a sister on each side. She took the throw off the couch, wrapped it around herself, and curled up in the large chair. Jack hadn’t moved a muscle. Eventually she, too, nodded off. Somewhere in the night, sounds came from Jack’s bed. He was fitful, rolling around, muttering in his sleep. Mel went to the bed, sat on the edge and touched his brow. He grumbled something unintelligible and curled toward her, grabbing her and pulling her into the bed. He rested his head against her. She took his head in the crook of her arm and lay down beside him. “It’s okay,” she said to him. And he quieted at once, draping an arm over her.

She pulled the comforter over them both and snuggled up to him. She sniffed the pillow—Downy. Who was this guy? she found herself asking. Looks like Paul Bunyan, runs a bar, has all these guns, and cleans and launders like Martha Stewart. In his sleep, he pulled her closer. His breath smelled of Scotch. Whew, she thought. She put her face against his hair, which smelled of his musk combined with the wind and trees. She inhaled deeply; she’d already begun to love his particular scent and the taste of his mouth. She had wondered what was under the shirt—a nice mat of brown hair on his chest and a couple of tattoos. On his upper left arm an eagle, globe and anchor, almost as big as her hand. On the upper right, over a ribbon, the words: SAEPE EXPERTUS,

SEMPER FIDELIS,

FRATRES AETERNI

She couldn’t resist, she rubbed her hands over the mat of hair on his chest and over his smooth shoulders. She pulled him close. Within minutes, she had fallen back to sleep, cradling Jack in her arms, his arm comfortably embracing her. In the dim light of early morning, Jack awakened with a pounding head. He turned his face to the side and the first thing he saw were Mel’s golden curls against the pillow next to him. She clutched the covers under her chin, sleeping soundly. He raised himself up on an elbow and looked down at her face. Her pink lips were parted in sleep; sooty lashes lay against her cheek. He lifted a soft curl off the pillow and held it to his face, inhaling. Then he leaned toward her and lowered his lips to gently touch hers.

Her eyes came open. “Morning,” she whispered sleepily.

“Did we do it?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

She smiled at him. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”

“When we do it, I want to remember it. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“I stopped by the bar for a beer just about the time Preacher was scraping you off the floor. Headache?”

“It went away the minute I saw you. I must have had one too many.”

“Did it work? Did you scare away all the demons?”

He shrugged. “It got you in my bed. If I’d known it was that easy, I’d have gotten plastered weeks ago.”

“Lift the covers, Jack,” she said.

He did so. There he was, boxer clad and sporting quite a healthy morning erection. And there she was, fully clothed.

“Don’t look down,” he said, dropping the comforter. “You have me at a huge disadvantage.” She laughed at him. “We could do it now,” he suggested. He felt the texture of her hair between his thumb and finger. “I’ll treat you real, real good.” He grinned.

“No, thank you,” she declined.

“Did I try anything?” he wanted to know.

“No.” She laughed. “Why?”

“I drank enough so that could have been really humiliating. Assault with a dead weapon.”

She ran her fingers over the tattoo. “I sort of expected this,” she said.

“Rite of passage. I bet every young marine wakes up with a splitting head and a little remembrance of the Corps.”