She shook her head. “This really isn’t for me,” she said. “I can handle stuff like this when it comes into the hospital, but I’m no country practitioner. It’s like the Peace Corps.”

“There are bright spots in my doctoring, too,” he said. “Just happens that isn’t one of them.”

She was completely down in the dumps when she went back to the grill to collect the baby. “Not pretty out there, is it?” Jack said.

“Horrid. Have you ever been out there?”

“I stumbled across them a couple years ago when I was hunting.”

“You didn’t want to tell anyone?” she asked. “Like the police?”

“It isn’t against the law to be a bum,” he said with a shrug. So, she thought—he didn’t know about the semi-trailer. Doc had said it showed up not long ago. “I can’t imagine living like that. Can I use your bathroom? I want to wash up before I touch the baby.”

“Right back off the kitchen,” he said.

When she got back she picked up Chloe and held her close, breathing in the clean, powdery scent.

“Fortunately, you don’t have to live like they do,” he said.

“Neither do they. Someone should do an intervention out there, get them some help. Food and clean water, anyway.”

He picked up the baby bed to carry it across the street for her. “I think they’ve killed too many brain cells for that to work,” he said. “Concentrate on the good you can do and don’t gnaw on the hopeless cases. It’ll just make you sad.”

By early evening, Mel was coming around. She took her dinner at the bar, laughed with Jack and even Preacher cracked the occasional smile. Finally, she put her small hand over Jack’s and said, “I apologize for earlier, Jack. I never even thanked you for watching the baby.”

“You were kind of upset,” he said.

“Yeah. I surprised myself. It’s not as though I haven’t seen plenty of bums and street people. They were frequent clientele at the hospital. I didn’t realize before today that in the city we’d clean ’em up, straighten ’em out and hand ’em off to some agency or another. In the back of my mind I probably always knew they’d be back picking out of trash cans before long, but I didn’t have to see it. This was very different. They’re not going anywhere and they’re not getting any help. It’s been down to Doc. Alone. Takes a lot of courage to do what Doc does.”

“He does more than a lot of people would do,” Jack said.

She smiled. “This is rough country.”

“It can be,” he said.

“Not a lot of resources out here.”

“We do pretty well with what we’ve got. But you have to remember, the old boys in that little camp don’t seem to want resources so much as to be left alone,” he said. “I know that’s hard to stomach, but most of this area is the opposite—thriving and healthy. Did that trip out into the woods make your desire to get out of here even more desperate?”

“It sure opened my eyes. I thought small-town medicine would be peaceful and sweet. I never thought it had that other side—as hopeless as some of our worst inner city problems.”

“Don’t know that it is,” he argued. “The sweet and peaceful will far outnumber the hopeless. I swear on it. You’re welcome to see for yourself and call me a liar. But you’d have to hang around.”

“I made a commitment to stay till the baby is placed,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t promise more.”

“No promises necessary. Just pointing out the options.”

“But thank you, for taking care of the baby for me.”

“She’s a good baby,” he said. “I didn’t mind at all.”

After she’d gone back to Doc’s, Jack said to Preacher, “You okay here? I’m thinking about a beer.”

Preacher’s bushy black brows shot up in surprise, but he didn’t say it. Didn’t say,

“Another beer? So soon?” He finally said, “I’m okay here.”

Jack knew that if he didn’t say anything at all to Charmaine for a few weeks, she wouldn’t know there was anything to be said. He also knew that despite the fact Mel had captured his thoughts, it didn’t mean anything would ever happen, didn’t mean she’d make it even another week in Virgin River. That wasn’t really the point. The issue was that it was wrong to go to Charmaine at all, ever, if he wasn’t into Charmaine. It was a point of honor with him. Even though he never thought in terms of commitment, he certainly didn’t think in terms of using someone. Then there was another matter. A fear that he’d be having sex with Charmaine and behind his closed eyes, see another face. That couldn’t happen. That would insult both women.

When she saw him walk into her tavern, her first reaction was one of pleased surprise and she smiled at him. Then she immediately realized how unprecedented this visit was and her smile vanished.

“Beer?” she asked him.

“Talk?” he answered. “Can Butch cover for you for ten minutes?”

She actually took a step back. She knew what was coming and sadness seeped into her brown eyes. Her face actually fell. “Is that all it’s going to take?” she asked. “Ten minutes?”

“I think so. There isn’t too much to say.”

“There’s someone else,” she said at once.

“No. There isn’t. Let’s take a table.” He looked over his shoulder. “That one over there. Ask Butch.”

She nodded and turned from him. While she spoke to Butch, Jack moved to the table. Butch took the bar and Charmaine joined Jack. He reached across and took her hands.

“You’ve been a wonderful friend to me, Charmaine. I never for one second took that for granted.”

“But…”

“My mind is on other things,” he said. “I won’t be coming to Clear River for a beer anymore.”

“There can only be one thing,” she said. “Because I know you. And you have needs.”

He’d thought about this long and hard on the way over, and it wasn’t in his mind to lie to her. But there wasn’t anyone else. Mel wasn’t someone else—and might never be. Just because she’d taken over his consciousness didn’t mean it would ever materialize into something more. She might stick to her word and leave Virgin River at the first opportunity, and even if she didn’t, you don’t show your hand this early in the game. His reason for breaking this off wasn’t just about having Mel, but about not misleading Charmaine. She was a good woman; she had been good to him. She didn’t deserve to be strung along while he waited to see what the other woman was going to do.

The cabin in Virgin River might be ready, but Mel sure wasn’t. The baby at Doc’s was keeping her in town for now, but it was impractical to think of her caring for Chloe out at the cabin—there was only the one plexiglass incubator, no car seat for traveling back and forth, no phone. Of course, it was no punishment to have her living right across the street. But he wanted her in the cabin he’d renovated, he wanted that real bad.

Charmaine was so right—he had needs. But somehow when he looked at this young Mel, he knew it would never be like this—an arrangement for sex every couple of weeks. Jack had absolutely no idea what it might become, but he already knew it was going to be more than that. He had a very long history of not getting hooked up, so this disturbed him. The chances were real good he was casting adrift in a sea of sheer loneliness. Because Mel had complications. He had no idea what they were, but that occasional sadness in her eyes came out of the past, something she was trying to get over.

But he wanted her. He wanted all of her; he wanted everything with her.

“That’s the thing,” he said. “I have needs. And right now I think what I need is completely different from what I’ve needed in the past. I could easily keep coming here, Charmaine. I sure don’t suffer, you’re awful good to me. But the past two years when I’ve been here, I’ve been here completely. It shouldn’t be any other way.”

“The last time was different,” she said. “I knew something was wrong.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s really the first time my head wasn’t connected to my body. You deserve better than that.”

She lifted her chin and gave her hair a toss. “What if I said I didn’t care?”

God, he felt so bad doing this. “I do,” was all he could say. She got teary. “Okay, then,” she said bravely. “Okay, then.”

When he left he knew it was going to be a while before he felt all right about what he’d just done. That business about playing it fast and loose, about having no ties or commitments, that wasn’t really how it was. All that no commitment bullshit meant was that you didn’t talk about it, you never took it to the next level. He had had a contract of sorts with Charmaine, even if it wasn’t a formal one, a legal one, even if it was pretty casual in the give-and-take department. She had stuck to the contract; he had just broken it. And let her down.

Chapter Five

I n the mornings, after the baby had that first really early feeding and was settled back to sleep, Mel liked to take her coffee out to Doc’s front porch and sit on the steps. She found she enjoyed watching this little town wake up. First the sun would create a kind of golden path through the tall pine trees onto the street, slowly lighting it. The sound of doors opening and closing could be heard. A Ford truck drove slowly from the east to the west down the street, tossing out papers—the Humboldt News. She liked getting the paper early—though it was hardly akin to the L.A. Times. Soon the kids started to emerge. The bus picked them up at the far west end of the main street. Those in town would walk or ride their bikes down the street and gather there, chaining their bikes to trees in someone’s front yard. That would never happen in the city—someone just allowing their yard to be used as a bike lot while the kids were in school. She saw Liz come out of Connie’s house right next to the store; Liz sashayed across the street, book bag slung over one shoulder, fanny swaying seductively. Boy howdy, Mel was thinking. That girl’s advertising like mad. Cars and trucks began to drop off the more rural kids. It was not yet seven—a long day for these country kids—driven to the bus stop, ride the bus for who knows how long since there was no school in Virgin River, then back to town, back to the farm or ranch. The kids who gathered there, probably thirty, ranged in age from five to seventeen and the mothers of the younger ones stood around chatting while they waited for the bus. Some of them held their coffee cups and laughed together like old, old friends.

Then it would come, the bus, driven by a big happy woman who got off, said hello to the parents, herding each one of the kids on board.

Jack came out of the bar, fishing rod in one hand, tackle box in the other. He put his gear in the back of his truck and lifted a hand to her. She waved back. Out to the river for some fishing. Not long after, Preacher was sweeping off the front porch. When he looked up, he lifted a hand, as well.

What had she said about this little town? That it didn’t resemble the pictures she’d seen? In the early morning the town was lovely. Rather than looking old and tired, the homes looked sweet and uncomplicated. They were unfussy clapboards in a variety of colors—blue, light green, beige with brown trim. Connie and Ron’s house, right next to the corner store, was the same yellow with white trim as their store. Only one house on the street had been painted recently, a white house with dark green shutters and trim. She saw Rick come out of that house, sprint across the porch, jump down to the street and into his little white truck. It was a safe-looking street. Friendly homes. No one walked out of their homes to see another person and fail to greet, wave, stop and talk.