She found him behind the bar with his coffee mug, Christopher sitting up on a stool, a bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice pushed slightly to one side as he colored on a page of his coloring book. His box of crayons was flipped open, at the ready.

Mel jumped up on a stool beside him and said, “Morning, buddy. How are you?”

“Mmm, good,” Christopher said, paying attention only to the page.

Jack poured her a mug of coffee. “Christopher, tell Mel what you told me this morning.”

“What?”

“You know. About how big you’re getting.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m getting big.”

“You are,” Mel agreed.

“And…?” Jack prompted.

“And John says I should have my own bed. My own room. Because I’m getting so big.”

“Well,” Mel said. “I suppose you should.”

Paige popped into the bar from the kitchen. “Hi, Mel,” she said brightly. Her cheeks were chafed pink, her eyes twinkling behind sleepy lids, and her smile was a tish secretive. Her lips were ruby, maybe a little swollen from kissing all night long. She seemed to flow into the room, serene. Mel thought, How amazing that you can always tell when someone’s had sex. Lotsa sex. “How are you doing on that cereal, kiddo?” Paige asked Christopher.

“Hmm,” he answered, coloring.

“I think he’s done,” Jack said. “He hasn’t touched it since the last time you checked on him.”

“Okay,” she said, picking up the bowl. “But please drink your juice,” Paige said, taking the bowl back to the kitchen.

Mel looked up at her husband. Jack lifted one eyebrow and gave her a half smile. Mel leaned across the bar and grabbed a fistful of Jack’s shirt, drawing him to her. She whispered, “What’s going on here?”

“That should be pretty obvious.”

“I want you to take me home this minute and…”

“I can’t,” Jack whispered back.

“Why not?”

“Because we have company. And you’re a screamer.”

“God, this is ridiculous. I’m so jealous I could spit.”

“It isn’t fun, that’s for sure. Well,” he said, throwing a look over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “Some of us are having fun. Finally.”

Within a few minutes, Mike made his entrance. He said good morning to everyone, ruffled Christopher’s head of floppy hair and accepted a mug of steaming coffee from Jack. “How’s everyone doing this morning?” he asked.

“Beautiful morning,” Jack said, sipping from his cup.

“Sure is. I had a pretty decent night last night.” He leaned his cane up against the bar and went to the kitchen. He poked his head in and found Paige and Preacher in a serious lip-lock. Feeling somewhat the author of this hot embrace, he watched for a minute. Paige had her arms around Preacher’s neck while he had both his big hands on her bottom, holding her close against him. They were completely oblivious to being watched and he couldn’t resist. He cleared his throat.

Paige jumped and withdrew her arms, but Preacher refused to release Paige, not moving his hands. He looked over the top of her head with narrowed eyes.

“Beautiful morning,” Mike said. “Whenever you get a second, could I have breakfast? I’m starving.” He grinned and left them.

When he got back to the bar, he hoisted himself carefully up onto the stool and picked up his mug. “Things are working out pretty well around here,” he said. “I don’t think I’m the only one who had a good night last night.”

“That a fact?” Jack asked.

“I just hope I get breakfast before noon.”

Preacher had taken apart his weight bench and put it in the storage shed behind the bar, keeping back barbells and a couple of weights. There was a small tree there instead, as well as one in the bar. He had taken Christopher out into the woods to chop them down and they decorated them together. Beneath the one in the apartment, ready for Christmas morning, were gifts thoughtfully chosen by Preacher and Paige, some bought together, some individually.

Mel and Jack left for Sacramento for a big Sheridan family gathering a few days before Christmas and Mike could not be convinced to join them. Neither was he interested in going home to L.A.—not yet. He’d only been in Virgin River a few weeks and promised he would be fine at the cabin, so Mike would be with Preacher and his new family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Preacher was still in a state of shock and euphoria at the turn his life had taken. It had been more than three months since Paige had happened into his life and a matter of days that they’d been intimate. Nothing could have prepared him for the joy he felt. Working by her side through the day, he found in her a partner in full. They shared everything from the managing of the bar and cooking to the parenting of Christopher with complete compatibility. She was ever at his hand, looking for ways to help him just as he was always near, taking care of her every need.

And at night, when the little one was asleep, Preacher found he had become a master lover, something that had never in his wildest dreams seemed possible. He had never even considered it. And especially not with a woman like this—a young woman of what he considered stunning beauty with the disposition of an angel.

In no time at all he had learned every way to draw a sigh from her, to make her cry out. Preacher, so easily embarrassed and quiet, had become bold and daring with Paige. Experimental. He had begun to trust his hands, his instincts, much to her satisfaction. And this idea of paying attention to details, memorizing touches and sounds, asking her what she wanted, what she liked—well, this was pure genius. If he didn’t find this amazing thing he had with Paige to be so private, he might even thank Jack for the advice.

As he held her against him, flesh on flesh, he asked her, “Will you tell me if it’s too much? If I’m too demanding?”

“Yes, John,” she said, breathless. “Will you tell me?” she asked.

He answered with a lusty laugh. “Yeah. Sure. But you’ll have to dig me up to ask me.”

“Then do that thing you do…Again,” she said.

“And again and again and again?” he asked, teasing her.

“Ooh, John…”

This business of the female orgasm Preacher found to be the best discovery of his lifetime. It had to be better than a man’s; better for a man than his own. The one thing he didn’t even know he was capable of, he’d quickly become an expert at. He was quite sure it wasn’t even as much fun for her as it was for him. He had a dozen methods, but one of his favorites was to torture her delightfully by kissing her whole body, from her eyelids to her toes, spending a little extra time right in the center of her body. He liked to start with soft kisses, end with a strong tongue, and when he sensed, knew that she was ready to explode yet again, he’d get right inside her so that he could enjoy it. There was nothing in this world like it—that hot, gripping spasm that sometimes caused her to cry out his name and grab hold of him as if she was afraid he might float away. When he rocked with her through that miraculous release, more than once he said, “I think I could do this forever. I could do this for a living….”

He liked to catch her as she fell back to earth, gasping, breathless, weak from an electrifying orgasm. It was so pleasurable for him that he’d hold himself back, delay his own release so that he could bring it to her again. He’d let her have a moment to recover and then begin on her once more, slowly at first, sweetly, gently. Her responses would let him know that it was time for him to be more aggressive, put a little more muscle into it. It was she who determined the pressure and pace—and it made him laugh to think he was so worried that he might break her. She was like finely tempered steel—and she surprised him with her strength. Her power.

It wasn’t unusual for her to wrap her legs around his waist and refuse to let him go, or push him onto his back and climb on him, treating him to a bit of his own medicine, taking the choice to wait any longer away from him. Giving back what she’d gotten.

He had no idea his life could be so satisfying. So utterly fulfilling. Nor had he ever considered that it could be so much fun. Their sex was hot, then afterward they could laugh, banter a little, bring the lightness to their life that balanced everything.

“How can I love you this much?” he asked her.

“Or this often?” she countered, laughing.

“Paige, I want you to know something. I know it’s too soon for you to think about a whole lifetime, but I’m not fooling around here. I don’t have any expectations, I swear. I just want you to know that. I’m in all the way. Committed. I don’t want you to ever worry that I’m just passing the time.”

She ran her fingertips through the short hair at his temple. “Aren’t you a little afraid you could get tired of me, John?”

He shook his head. “I’m not that kind of guy. I take it slow—too slow, sometimes. I give things a lot of time—being sure is a good thing. But I don’t change my mind. I know in some things that can be bad. I like things to stay the same.”

“I won’t hold you to anything,” she said. “I’m just so happy to be here, like this, right now….”

“There’s something else I want to say about that, about us. I’m not the kind of guy who doesn’t want you to talk back or have your opinions or expects you to never have a bad day when you’re all cranky and annoyed. I want all of that—I want you to speak up, make demands, insist on the most exceptional treatment and get pissed off if you don’t get it. I want you to feel safe to yell at me just because you’re in a mood. If I’m not what you want for the long haul, I can live with that. What I could never live with is you being afraid of how I’ll act when you’re just being yourself.”

It was impossible to keep tears from gathering in her eyes. “John…No one’s ever loved me like that….”

“Well, baby, I do. In fact, that’s the only way I love you. Every part of you—strong and bossy, scared and needy—it doesn’t matter. If I’m gonna have you, it has to be all of you, not some little part that feels safe.”

She kissed him, quick, on the lips. He brushed a tear off her cheek.

“I know that baby you lost wasn’t planned, and it still hurt you pretty bad that it didn’t make it. Maybe someday, when you’re ready, you’ll talk to me about adding to our family. Giving Chris a little brother or sister.”

“You’d like children?” she asked.

“I never thought I would. But with you, it comes to mind.” He laughed. “It comes to mind pretty hard. It’ll keep, Paige. It’s just an idea….”

She gently touched his face. “You do understand that if there’s a baby between us, you might have to cut back a little?”

“How much?” he asked, that frown that she had come to adore drawing his brows together. And she laughed at him.

“You’re teasing me,” he said. “Okay, you asked for it,” he said, starting on her eyelids.

She grabbed his face in her hands and stopped him. “John,” she said. “I want it, too. Everything. All of you. I’ve never been this happy.”

He smiled. “More where that came from,” he said. “Forever, if you want.”

Mel was so excited about Christmas in Sacramento, she could barely contain herself. All of Jack’s sisters and their families would be around both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but the bonus was that Mel’s sister, Joey, husband Bill and the three kids were flying in. There was plenty of room at Sam Sheridan’s house for them—Jack’s sisters all having their own homes in town. Mel and Joey, being the only family they had, had been generously and affectionately drawn into the Sheridan clan. This was only Mel’s third visit to Jack’s family, and she already felt as though she was going home.