“This is the only home I can even remember,” Lydie said to Ricky.

“That’s why we’re not selling it, Gram,” he said. “I have two more years of college, but we might get back this way.”

She shook her head. “I’ll never make it back here, Ricky,” she said.

“You’ve weathered so much in your life, you never know what’s coming. Let’s not give up yet.”

“I don’t want to be a burden, Ricky. I don’t want you to have to take care of me.”

He laughed and hugged her closely but gently. “Didn’t you raise me all by yourself? Haven’t we always taken care of each other? Stop being silly and have your friends over for tea before we leave.”

In the few days it took to get things in order in Virgin River, Rick stuck real close to his grandmother. Her periods of confusion were regular but fairly brief; she ran the bath and left it sitting without bathing; she boiled eggs and forgot about them until the sulfurlike smell of burned hard-boiled eggs filled the house; she put her slip on the outside of her dress and didn’t notice all through the morning; she wandered around the house in the night, waking Rick. It was very apparent that she needed caretaking.

Lydie had only Medicare and Social Security, so Liz had gotten her on a list for an in-patient facility, but a medical assessment by a geriatric specialist would be needed. An appointment was set up for her in Oregon and her placement would have a lot to do with the severity of her medical situation.

“I have a feeling she’s going to be able to score a pretty high ranking on that list,” Rick told Jack and Denny. “She’s slipping pretty fast. I didn’t really make much of her forgetfulness the last time I was here a couple of months back.”

“None of us did, son,” Jack said. “The only important thing is that she gets good care.”

“I’m going to be saying goodbye to her before too long,” he said. Then he shook his head. “And yet, with her problems, I’m surprised she’s made it this long.” He turned to Denny and said, “Thanks for helping out, man. You don’t even know us—that was cool of you.”

Denny shrugged and said, “I figured out pretty fast that that’s what people do around here. If they can, they step up.”

On the morning that Rick loaded Lydie and her belongings into his truck, there were quite a few people gathered around to wish her well. She was her amazing self—proud, her back straight, all primped and her disposition strong. She said her goodbyes with gentle hugs and little cheek presses, telling her friends and neighbors she hoped to see them again when in reality she knew that was highly unlikely.

Mel gave her a hug and said, “Jack and I will drive up within the month to see how you’re all doing, Lydie. We’ll be in touch by phone until then.”

“That’s so sweet, Mel. Of course, we appreciate that.”

“Ricky will take very good care of you.”

“He’s a good boy,” Lydie said.

“Well, you raised him, of course he’s good.”

Before getting into the truck Rick shook Denny’s hand. “Thanks, man. I’m really glad you and Jack found each other.”

Denny smiled. “We’ll see each other again, Rick. Drive safely. Study hard.”

Ten

In late April, Colin asked Jillian if she had anything she could wear to a wedding. “Why?” she asked. “Are you trying to marry me?”

“My brother is getting married in Chico in just two weeks. I have to be in the wedding—all the brothers have to be in the wedding. It’s a big country club ordeal. Gee, I bet he belongs to a country club now—I never asked. Anyway, I have to wear a tux and I’d like to take you with me. There will be a lot of Riordans at this event.”

“And they’ll be looking me over?” she asked.

“Oh, without a doubt,” he said. “They’ll also be looking me over to be sure I’m not popping Oxys or drinking too much champagne. Come with me, Jilly. Keep me safe from them.”

She tilted her head. “I did bring unnecessary clothes, but I don’t think I brought the right unnecessary clothes. I could shop online. You’re sure you really want to set them up to think you have a permanent girl?”

“I haven’t told any of them about Africa yet,” he admitted. “I’ve started getting my inoculations and I’ll let them know pretty soon….”

“Oh, Colin, why haven’t you taken care of that?”

“They all know I have that cabin till September, but not one of them has asked me what I’m going to do next. I’m pretty sure everyone assumes I’ll find something near one of the boys, but Africa is going to throw them. I doubt they think I’m tough enough for a trip like that.”

“Are you sure you are?” she asked, giving his arm a stroke.

“Strong enough and hoping Africa will show me what I’m made of, what I’ve still got. I’ll tell them, but not till after the wedding. There shouldn’t be arguing at a wedding. And Aiden has suggested a shave and a haircut.”

She stood on her toes to run her fingertips through his curling locks; his hair was almost shoulder length now when it was free from his ponytail. “Maybe a little trim, but not too much. I love this hair. I love the wild man look you have. If you get any trouble about it, refer them to me.”

“You’ll come with me?”

She nodded. “But it worries me that you’re misleading your brothers about your plans.”

“Not really, Jilly. I’m just keeping my own counsel,” he said with a smile. “I’ll bring it out of the closet right after the wedding.”

She grabbed his earlobe and gave it a tug. “Do not put me in the middle of that!”

He swung her around, laughing, kissing her. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Jilly!”

“And don’t think you can get away with working around the truth like that with me!”

He stopped moving. He looked down at her, his eyes dark and serious. “Jilly, if you ever get anything but the most profound truth from me, call me on it. I’ll kill myself on the spot.” He shook his head. “I have lots of reasons to keep things from my brothers—they’re known for being in everyone’s business all the time. But I’d never keep anything from you. I wanted to be completely honest with you from the start.”

She was deeply touched by that, but felt a twinge of guilt. She bit her lip as she looked up at him. “I haven’t exactly unburdened myself to you,” she said, and they both knew what she was holding back. He’d asked her more than once what the last man in her life had done to hurt her.

“It’s okay, honey,” he said, touching her nose. “When you’re ready. But I know you haven’t lied to me. I know that.”

Colin noticed things gradually changing in Jill’s garden. He learned that tomatoes needed eight hours of sun a day and that Humboldt County in the mountains wasn’t exactly known to be sunny and warm, even in spring and summer, but it was known for rich soil. Everyone in town talked about the great success that Hope McCrea had had with her garden and everyone was happy to know that Jill had brought it back to life.

Another change involved Colin—he began painting in the sunroom quite often—he preferred it to the artificial light in his cabin or the outdoors once the weather became hot in the sunny afternoon. He liked being able to look down on Jillian’s work in progress and watch as she tilled, sprayed, planted, moved plants from the greenhouse into the ground, scooting around the property in her garden-mobile. The UPS truck was a daily arrival; Jilly was constantly buying supplies. After painting for a couple of hours Colin would wander down to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, then out onto the porch to take a break. If Jill saw him, she stopped work and spent a little time with him. What he liked even better was when she came silently up the stairs and sat on the floor behind him, watching him paint. More and more of his work made the move to the Victorian and it remained there. He still went out with his camera, but a lot of Colin’s time was spent painting in that big room with all the windows, the two skylights and so much natural light. And many of his nights were spent in the bed he’d bought her.

There were paintings he still kept in his cabin, covered and turned toward the wall so that if he and Jillian spent a night there, she wouldn’t peek. He worked on them only when he was alone. One was of a gardener wearing calf-high rubber boots, gardening gloves and a wide-brimmed straw hat—and that was all. She was turned to the side; only the lower half of her face was visible, the strong line of her jaw and her beautiful, plump, pink lips in a secret smile. Also visible was a side view of her nude body—the soft curve of her breast, the round arc of her perfect butt, her long, elegant legs, graceful arms and delicious shoulder. It was Jilly as he pictured her.

That painting’s twin was the nude gardener crouched between rows of plants, small spade in hand, grooming. No one but Colin would know how perfectly each of those curves fit into his big hands, how soft that velvet skin felt against his rougher skin, how much pleasure those exquisite lips brought him.

She had become the answer to prayers he hadn’t known he whispered.

After an afternoon of perfect light, Colin cleaned up his brushes, put away his paints and washed up in the upstairs bathroom. He heard a scraping sound from the room right below him and was still drying his hands on a small towel when he walked into the maid’s quarters. He found Jillian had pushed the bed away from the wall and was measuring the size of the room.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

She turned toward him with her eyes glowing. “I’ve had an offer on my town house. I’m accepting it. I asked the Realtor to hire a moving crew to pack up all my things and deliver them to me here. It’s either store them here where I live and have plenty of space, or rent a storage facility. I don’t have that much—my town house is pretty small. So—we’re going to make a change—this bed will go upstairs and I’m going to put my desk, credenza and shelves in here. This will be my office. What do you think?”

Colin tilted his head and frowned slightly. “Don’t you want to go back there to close up your house? Pack up your own stuff? See your friends again? Because I could help manage the garden with Denny if you need to be away.”

“I’m not even going back to close on the sale. Until I got settled in here, I didn’t even realize how little that town house meant to me. It was no more than a crash pad. I spent all my time at work. If I end up going back there, I’m going to find something different.”

“You must have friends from work you miss,” he said.

She drew a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed. “I think maybe I’m ready to tell you about it. About him. About what happened to me.”

Colin sat down beside her. “Only if you want to.”

“I want to. It’s become kind of blurry and surreal in my mind—I still can’t believe it really happened.

“He was a man on a mission. And he was relentless….” Twenty minutes later Jillian had shared with Colin many of the details about her relationship with Kurt, telling the story with brutal honesty.

“You must have been at least flattered if you were going to break rules,” Colin said, pulling her closer to him.

She laughed. “Truthfully, I had promoted him because we lost a director in my department and Kurt had come with glowing letters of recommendation. I was watching him closely to see how he was holding up with his added responsibilities. He was watching me closely for other reasons. I began to get the attraction message from him and he was…”

“Tempting you…”

“I was very busy with work. I didn’t have a lot of time for socializing. But, I began to see him away from work and I knew these were not just a couple of colleagues talking business over dinner. I knew what his intentions were. I warned him that it was not a good idea, but after a few months, after he continually made the excuse that we both spent so much time at work, neither of us had anyone to date and next thing I knew, I was sleeping with him and worrying about keeping it a secret from the boss.” She laughed bitterly. “The boss, Harry, who was my best friend in the company. Six months after I met Kurt and one month after I first was intimate with him, he accused me of sexual harassment. He had a lawyer, witnesses, a complicated log of events that I couldn’t exactly refute, text messages and emails that could certainly be construed as exploitive if it weren’t for the simple fact that he’d approached me, worked very hard to seduce me and it was completely consensual. In fact, when you get down to it, he put the pressure on me! I was very reluctant! He had set me up from the beginning—he forced me out of my job and part of the settlement he asked for to keep us all out of court was to take over my position and he wanted me terminated.”

“Did you fight?”

She shook her head. “We talked about fighting it, me and Harry. We both knew it was all trumped up. But in the end Harry pulled my fat out of the fire. He told me to resign, but that he was going to replace me with a consultant and would consider my resignation a leave of absence. He gave Kurt vested stock options—probably worth a lot of money, but going to court might have cost more. But Harry got a confidentiality agreement, which both Kurt and I signed, and a waiver—that would be the end of the complaint. No further suit. This was critical—I wouldn’t have my reputation damaged by these phony accusations. I still have a good reputation in the industry.” She fell back on the bed and looked up at him. She shook her head. “I can’t believe I was so naive. So unprepared.”