Katie jumped in surprise, sloshing her coffee a little bit. There was a woman standing in the kitchen archway, a purse slung over her shoulder and some brown take-out bags in her hands.

“Hi, I’m Leslie,” she said, smiling. She put the bags on the table.

“I didn’t hear you come in, honey,” Conner said, standing up to give her a kiss.

“There’s a car parked out front, a movie playing to a couple of sleeping little boys in the living room, so I was extra quiet.” She gave Katie a quick squeeze. “I know what you mean. I was in that exact place a year ago.”

The open road or up in the air, rain or shine, were two of Dylan Childress’s favorite places to think. In fact, that was how he met Walt, years ago. Walt had come through Payne, Montana, where Dylan and Lang operated their own small, fixed base operation and charter air service. They rode together for a day, Dylan introducing Walt to some of his favorite mountain trails and off-road routes with the best views. Dylan took Walt up in the Bonanza, a six-seater airplane for a different perspective on the views and Walt had loved that. And Walt, who had gone back to Sacramento to open a bunch of Harley franchises, had kept in touch, eager to return the favor someday.

The time had come. Living in Montana, there were only a few months of the year Dylan, Lang and the head of their maintenance operation, Stu, could enjoy their motorcycles. They took very few vacations or days off, so once a year in summer they treated themselves to a road trip. The Harleys were cheap to operate and they usually camped. Dylan had begun to worry this might be the last time the three of them might indulge their annual road trip because the business was struggling, so he got in touch with Walt and asked for some of his best California routes. Walt insisted on setting up a ride and joining them.

After arriving at the cabins Walt had reserved for them, all the riders wanted to do was warm up, dry off and have a stout meal. The first order of business was to check in, which amounted to meeting their landlord, shaking his hand and deciding who was staying with whom. There was a little grumbling about who would take the pull-out sofa beds because God knew, men couldn’t share a mattress!

As far as Dylan was concerned, Luke Riordan’s cabins by the river were a custom fit, and he was more than happy with the sofa. And not a little relieved that he wasn’t camping on the wet forest floor.

When Dylan and one of his other pilots took a charter flight out of Payne or picked up passengers in Butte, Helena or some other city, they were frequently put up in nice hotels or lodges. A little luxury was granted the pilots since the kind of customers who could hire a jet could well afford it. But Dylan was a simple guy who preferred to relax in a more rustic setting. And this was definitely it.

The four men used two cabins. Dylan doubled up with Walt which left Lang to listen to Stu grumble about not having had a good date lately. Walt, being about the size of Goliath, got the bed.

Walt had found the Riordan cabins, operated by Luke, an ex-army Black Hawk pilot who owned his own Harley and had lots of tips about local, scenic, challenging rides. There were several things about this venue that Dylan looked forward to—maybe a little fishing in that river that ran by the cabin compound to see how it compared to some Montana rivers, the local bar and grill with the atmosphere and food Walt raved about, the challenge of the mountain roads around here, the remote location and, hopefully, some time with Luke, talking flying. Dylan would love to log a few hours in a Black Hawk.

When the men told Luke they were going to dry off, clean up and get back on the bikes to head for Virgin River for dinner, Luke said, “In this weather? Walt, take my truck, we’re staying home tonight.”

“That’s awful neighborly, Luke,” Walt said. “I’ll treat her real nice.”

“I know you will. The last time you were here you tweaked the engine for me and it’s been purring like a kitten ever since. I appreciate it.”

It took about thirty minutes to unload their packs into rooms, shower and pile in the truck, headed for town—enough bikes for one day. Walt took the wheel and talked the whole way about the cook who didn’t provide a menu, cooked what he felt like, catered to the locals and visiting sportsmen and was real proud of his stuff. “I’m thinking on a wet day like today, a soup or stew—and it’ll be something special.”

Dylan and Lang had flown monied hunters to primo lodges all over the U.S. and Canada, but neither of them was prepared for Jack’s. It was simple, but classy—well constructed and beautifully maintained. The interior was all dark, glossy wood, the animal trophies advertised for local wildlife and the ambiance was upscale in its own unaffected way. Even though there were a dozen empty tables in the place, the four of them sat up at the bar and the bartender immediately stretched out a hand to Walt.

“Hey! I’ve been wondering when you’d be back. This your crew?”

“My boys,” Walt said. He indicated each one. “Dylan, Lang, Stu. We just got in about an hour ago, maybe less. Say hello, then tell me what’s doing in the kitchen.”

“I’m Jack,” he said with a chuckle, introducing himself to each one. “And to the man with the appetite, you won’t be disappointed. It might sound like just another day in Virgin River, but you’ll be happy in the end. It’s rainy—so it’s soup. But you gotta trust Preacher—it’s thick and creamy bean with ham soup, full of the best ham and onion and secret stuff. He likes to sprinkle a little cheddar on top—makes it stringy and rich. And he made the bread today—he’s keeping it warm. He bakes when it rains, as predictable as my grandmother. And the pie of the day is apple from preserves he’s had hanging around. For you tenderfoots who don’t eat apple pie, there’s a chocolate cake that will knock you out. Now, anyone want a beer or drink?”

“Bean soup?” Stu said under his breath.

“Didn’t you hear the man? You gotta trust Preacher,” Dylan said. Then he laughed. “My grandmother practically raised me on bean soup. Not the kind we’re getting here, she could barely open a can. All she could do was scramble eggs, make toast, warm up soup and…” He laughed and shook his head. “She used to fry hot dogs, but she always bought all-beef so I’d have protein.”

“You had a very strange childhood.”

“You have no idea,” he said.

When Dylan said his grandmother practically raised him on that soup, he wasn’t talking about his early childhood, but much later, when she brought him to Montana to take over parenting him. She must have had nerves of steel to do that; he was a screwed up, spoiled, arrogant, defiant fifteen-year-old boy. Not just a challenging teenager, but a star. How she pulled him through to normalcy was one of the great mysteries of the universe.

Sometimes he felt like a Charles Dickens novel—the best of times, the worst of times.... Being yanked out of his acting role and badass public life and carted off to some one-horse town in Montana, he thought he’d reached hell. On the other hand, someone finally cared about him. Focused on him. Worried about him. The first time Adele had given him bean soup, he spat it out, outraged. He’d been used to the very best; people had scrambled to keep him happy because if he was happy, they made money.

It had been years before he realized that Adele didn’t exactly have a passion for bean soup or fried hot dogs, either. She’d been a megastar all her adult life and knew all about as**ole child stars. And then he also realized she fed him bean soup every day until he finally thanked her for it.

“This is probably the best soup I’ve ever had,” Dylan told Jack.

“I know. When someone around here caps a pig, or any other livestock for that matter, a lot of it goes to the clinic where my wife, the town midwife, works. We have a doc over there, too, but Mel, my wife, she usually brings her share to Preacher, since she can’t cook worth crap and I feed my family here. It’s usually a patient fee or an advance on a future patient fee—we have an interesting insurance system around here. People who need the doc and Mel—they make sure to share the wealth regularly. So Preacher, the second he sees something come into the bar, he starts thinking about how he can stretch it, what he can do with it. He has a lot of people he wants to take care of. He doesn’t sleep at night until he has the best result imaginable. Mel might be the best thing that ever happened to me, but Preacher’s gotta run a close second. He’s the guy who makes this work.”

“Is this your hometown?” Dylan asked.

“Nah, I’m a city boy, more or less. I needed something quiet after twenty in the Marines.”

“You go to war?”

“Almost habitually,” Jack said. “A few of the men I served with decided to settle here. You from Sacramento?”

Dylan shook his head. “Little town up north—Payne, Montana.”

“How’d you hook up with Walt?” Jack wanted to know.

“Walt came through Montana and we met there. He was on some kind of solitary road trip, touring the U.S., and Montana is one of the most beautiful parts, so I took him into the mountains. We outran a moose once.”

“Don’t ever get the idea a moose is cute,” Walt said. “That sucker didn’t like me. Then Dylan took me into the air in his little plane,” Walt said. “I’ve been promising to show ’em my state ever since.”

“We were looking for someone to put together a road trip that would take us some interesting places we hadn’t seen, and by interesting I mean, off the grid. With some views.”

“Well, you got views, interesting and off the grid,” Jack confirmed. “So, what does a man do in Payne, Montana?”

That brought an automatic smile as he remembered Adele on the phone to a Realtor when she was hauling his messed up fifteen-year-old ass to Payne. She said, “Find me something with built-in chores.”

“Small charter flying business,” Dylan answered. “Little, bitty airport.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Is there a big call for that sort of thing in Payne?”

“Some, but business is down like the rest of the world. When business is good we not only shuttle to larger airports, we pick up passengers all over the place and take them just about anywhere they want to go. We do a lot of corporate retreats, group trips, act like a real small regional sometimes, you name it. We’ve been known to fly hunters, rock bands and basketball teams. We’re flexible.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“Among other things. Stu’s head of maintenance, and Lang also flies and runs the instruction arm of the business—we give flying lessons, instrument instruction, et cetera. There are a few others attached to the company. Seems like we all have other things to do besides be on the road all the time.”

“Sounds like it could be fun,” Jack said. “If it makes a living.”

“We live in Payne, Montana, man,” Dylan said. “Population fifteen hundred. If we can pay for fuel for the planes, hay for the horses and oil for the furnaces in our houses, we don’t need that much of a living.”

“How do the wives feel about that?”

“Lang is the only married one and not only does his wife stay involved in the company, she tries to double up his schedule, keep him out of town more. Five kids, and she isn’t interested in six.”

Lang leaned forward on the bar and grinned. “What can I say? It just doesn’t take much to keep me happy.”

Dylan gave a chuckle. Not many people knew how much Dylan envied Lang’s ability to do that, to make a happy home and have normal, civilized kids with a good, solid woman at his side. But, having come from a crazy, mismatched Hollywood family, he had long ago accepted that his genetic makeup probably prevented that possibility. Adele was the only sane and stable one. “Takes even less to make me happy,” Dylan said.

“I’d think a single guy like yourself would be inclined toward some bigger town where there are more possibilities,” Jack said.

“I get around. But I’ll always live in Payne. Alone.”

Jack gave the bar a wipe. “Yeah, I used to say that. Look out. Tougher men than you have eaten those words.”

“Like you, Jack?” Dylan asked. “You eat those words?”

“Boy howdy, as my wife would say.”

Katie realized very quickly that coming to Virgin River was one of her better ideas. It took a day and that was all. Here she thought she’d been giving up, running home to Conner, but she found so much more. When she met her future sister-in-law, Leslie, she had found true family. Conner and Leslie weren’t officially engaged, but the chemistry between them was obvious and they both admitted they’d been talking about marriage. Since both of them came from divorce experiences, they were taking it slow and easy.

While it continued to rain all through the evening, Katie and Leslie sat up late in the living room, wrapped in their robes, talking about anything and everything. The boys took the second bedroom and Katie would take the couch.

“Conner talks about how he missed so much time with the boys because he was working all the time. He wants to change that,” Leslie said. “We’re hoping you’re not in a big hurry. It’s been such a stressful spring for everyone—you both deserve a break.”

“My idea exactly,” Katie agreed. “I may have to get settled somewhere other than this little town for work and school for the boys, but I’m not going far. The boys need you and Conner in their lives. And I’ll stick around, but I don’t intend to live off you and Conner.”

“Just take it slow. Conner wants to teach the boys to fish, take them camping, goof around with them, just enjoy them for a change.”