Shelter Mountain (14 page)

Except, no, they weren’t.

He pulled her into his arms. “Oh, Liz, baby,” he said. “I broke it off to keep you safe!”
To keep
me
safe!
“I didn’t want to lose control again and get you in trouble.”
Get
me
in trouble!
“You’re so young! Too young!” I’m
too young!
“Oh, God, Lizzie. You should have told me the truth.”

“I didn’t know,” she said again, crumbling into sobs against him.

“Okay, baby, don’t cry. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. Come on, don’t cry.”

But she was going to cry for a long time, it seemed.
First, because she’d been so scared of what he would say, and second, because she was so relieved. He held her for what seemed like forever, but it at least gave him time to think of what he might say next. When finally the tears abated, he said, “Can we go for a ride? Is that okay?”

She nodded.

He wiped the tears from her cheeks with the backs of his fingers. “Should you tell your aunt Connie?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “She knows I came to talk to you. To tell you.”

“Okay, then. We’ll go for a ride, settle down a little bit, and then we’ll face the music with Connie. Hmm?”

“Should you ask Jack?”

He put an arm around her shoulders and led her to his little truck. Jack had seen her belly, had seen Rick take her out of the bar. “Jack knows exactly what I’m doing right now.” The only thing I can do, he thought. What I should have done before this happened. Try to act like the grown-up. A little too late…

“Where are we going?”

“Let’s go out to the river. We’ll sit on a rock and talk about what’s coming. How about that?”

“You’re sticking by me?” she asked.

“Sure I am, Liz.”

“Do you love me, Rick?” she asked him.

He looked down at her round belly; he’d put that there. Holy shit, he thought. Love? That was a stretch. He wanted no part of this. So he forced himself to think about Preach and Jack, how they were around women. And he put a soft kiss on her temple. “Of course I do. I want you to stop being afraid now. Everything is going to be okay. Maybe not so easy, but okay.”

Ordinarily Jack would have left the bar as soon as possible after the dinner hour had passed. Preacher was
occupied with little Christopher and Paige, and he had a sense that Rick might come back. Rick would feel that he had to explain things. There wasn’t too much to explain—it had been pretty obvious by Lizzie’s presence. But still, Rick looked to Jack as if he were a father, and Jack had never been unhappy about that. Not even now.

Jack had talked to Mel briefly, before she went home for the night. “We have a situation, and I think you know all about it.”

“I can’t talk about it, darling,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I just want to help,” he said.

“I know, Jack. I still can’t talk about a patient.”

“Can’t you give me any advice?” he asked.

She leaned toward him, kissed him and said, “You don’t need any advice. You’ll know exactly what to do.” She looked down at his swollen hand, up at his black eye. “You’re a mess. Try not to get into a fight tonight.” She smiled her sweetest smile. “Follow your instincts with Rick. It’s not as though you haven’t been there yourself.”

There was that, he thought. He was certain their baby had been conceived the first time they’d been together. The only time he’d had unprotected sex in more years than he could remember.

It was about eight-thirty and he was close to giving up. Preacher had bathed Christopher and put him in the bed beside his mother and was back downstairs, pouring a short whiskey with Jack, when Rick came in. He was tall, already six feet. Hard work around the bar had honed his arms and shoulders, made him strong. He was seventeen now, and this was his last year of high school. With his high cheekbones, square jaw and thick, expressive brows, he was a handsome youth. But as he walked into the bar, head down and hands in his jacket pockets, he seemed to have new lines on his face. He might have aged about ten years in the past few hours.

The bar was empty but for Jack and Preacher, so Rick jumped up on a bar stool and faced them. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the two men who, if they hadn’t just about raised him since he was thirteen, sure had mentored him. “So, by now you’ve figured most of this out. Right?”

“Liz seems to be pregnant,” Jack said.

“Yeah. That little slip last spring—it hit solid ground. The baby is due in February, as near as she can figure out. As near as Mel can figure out. She’s
very
pregnant.”

“Jesus, Rick,” Preacher said, almost weak. “Aw, man…”

Rick shook his head. “Well, it’s mine. I did it.”

“It wasn’t just you, buddy,” Preacher said, remembering too well the little sexpot act Liz was putting on back then.

“She’s carrying the baby,” Rick said. “The least I can do is take the blame. Besides, she didn’t hold me down.” He took a breath. “Guys. I’m sorry. I let you down. I fucked up. Big.”

Jack felt a proud smile threaten his lips. Any other seventeen-year-old boy would be on his way out of town, but not Rick. He was stepping up the best he could, like a man. Accountable. Facing Jack and Preacher had to be as hard for him as facing this disaster. “You manage to work anything out?”

“No, not really. You can’t really do too much the second you find out. You know? But I told her I’m in this with her. And I want her to not be afraid anymore. Then I told Connie that I’ll pay for everything, no matter what I have to do.”

“How’d Connie and Ron hold up?” Preacher asked him.

“Oh, I think they pretty much want to kill me right now,” Rick said. “I did an awful lot of groveling. Apologizing. Begging. Promising to work till I drop dead seemed to ease the pain a little bit.”

“You probably won’t have to do that,” Jack said. “We
can always help you with extra hours. School’s important, Rick. No matter what else comes.”

“Thanks. The most important thing right now is that she not be scared. She’s so frickin’ scared, it kills me. I not only knocked her up, I terrified the shit outta her! Holy Jesus! Aw, guys. I know you expected better out of me than this.”

“Rick, you didn’t let anyone down,” Jack said. “Shit happens. You handled yourself real well. Better than most guys in your position would.”

“You see how scared she was? You know why? She told me everything was okay because I kept asking and asking, like that was all I cared about. And the second she let me off the hook, I dumped her!” He scrubbed a hand along the back of his sweaty neck. “I knew I screwed that up, I just didn’t know how bad. I thought I was keeping us out of trouble—instead I was keeping her from telling me sooner. If I’d known sooner, maybe we could’ve done something about—that baby,” he said softly, almost reverently. “That baby’s moving inside her. I felt it
move.
Holy God.”

Jack felt something in his chest stir. He was over forty and more than ready for a family, true, but he could relate to Rick’s shock and awe just the same.

As for Preacher, no one in the world knew how much he’d give for a mess like this one. Not even Jack.

“She’s just a kid,” Rick said. “I don’t know how I’m going to make this up to her.”

“For starters, you’re in this with her,” Preacher said. “You treat her good, sweet as you can, with respect. You treat her like the mother of your baby, no matter what’s coming for that baby.”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “She asked me if I loved her,” he said uncomfortably.

Silence hung in the air for a second. Then Jack got down a third glass and tipped the whiskey bottle over it,
a short shot. He pushed it toward Rick. He probably needed it right about now.

“What’d you say?” Preacher asked.

“She’s got my baby in her, Preach. She didn’t ask for it. What the hell was I gonna say, huh? Maybe I should’ve said, I sure thought I did last spring when we were doing it—that’d be a real stand-up guy.” He looked down into that short shot and shook his head. “I said, ‘Of course I do.’”

“Aw, Rick, that was the right thing,” Preacher said. “What else could you do?”

Jack clinked Rick’s glass; he was damn proud of the boy. No feeling sorry for himself, no whining about how he got screwed. No blaming. It took a lot to straighten your back like that, hold your head up, be the strength and not the victim. Took a lot to do that at any age—and at seventeen, it was admirable. “You’re going to be okay, buddy,” he said, hoping it was true.

“I feel like I have to do something, and I have no idea what,” Rick said.

“Right now, you do nothing,” Jack said. “You take some time to think. Don’t get crazy on me and run off and get married or something. You’re seventeen, she’s fifteen, and the only thing for sure is a baby’s coming. You just hang close to her, treat her right, and we’ll figure it all out.”

“Jack, Preach,” he said, his eyes getting a little wet. “Guys, I’m sorry. You tried to warn me about this and I—”

“Rick,” Jack said, stopping him. “You’re not the first guy to walk down this road, okay? Take it slow.” Jack lifted his glass and had a little sip. “We’re gonna get through this. Might be tough, but thank God—we’re tough.”

A
ll of Judge Forrest’s determination to get Wes Lassiter to trial quickly hit a predictable snag—Forrest was in Mendocino County and Lassiter was arrested in Humboldt County. His case would go before a different judge.

Lassiter had been found to be in possession of methamphetamine at the time he assaulted his wife, a condition that his lawyer argued contributed to his crazed behavior and lack of judgment. The prison sentence could be impressive, if he was convicted. But his lawyer pleaded for drug treatment and the judge allowed bail on the condition that Lassiter would stand trial for one misdemeanor and two felony counts after drug rehab, and that successful completion of treatment could be held in sentencing consideration. There were other conditions—if he checked himself out of treatment early, his bail would be revoked and he could sit in jail, awaiting trial. And while ordinarily treatment centers operated under a code of strict anonymity, in Lassiter’s case, the prosecutor’s office would be able to check in, make sure he was still under wraps and not a threat to his family.

Brie called Paige. “Don’t take this decision as bad news,” she said. “It’s entirely possible that sobriety will
make a huge difference in his perspective. My recommendation is that you proceed with the dissolution of the marriage and custody arrangements. He can stall you while he’s in treatment—but given the facts of the decision, my bet is that he’ll prove cooperative to keep his sorry ass out of prison.”

“How long will he be in treatment?” Paige asked.

“It’s hard to say. A month is a minimum, but meth is a pretty tough drug and I’ve heard of people staying as long as several months. In order for this agreement to work in his best interest, he can’t just quit. He has to be released by a supervisor.”

“I have no idea how bad his drug problem is,” Paige said. “I suspected drugs. I found something that looked like drugs once, but I was afraid to ask him about it. If it’s a matter of convincing a supervisor he’s cured—he’s very manipulative.”

“Yeah, they all are. Believe me, if there’s one place in the world the pros are on to the cons, it’s drug treatment.”

“I’ll be looking over my shoulder for months….”

“Paige, with what you’ve been through, as long as he’s
alive
you’ll be looking over your shoulder. Ask Preacher to teach you how to shoot.”

It took her a couple of days of thought before she broached the idea to John.

“That’s worth thinking about,” he said. “We could do that. In the meantime, I called my buddy Mike to be sure scum-bucket was where he belonged in L.A., but now that he’s gone to that treatment center in Minnesota, you should call the prosecutor’s office and check on him.”

“Oh,” she said, kind of squeamish. “Maybe I could have my lawyer do that?”

“Think about it, Paige,” Preacher said. “Take control. You know I’m glad to look out for you, but it’s important
you get your confidence back. That confidence I know you had before…all this.”

Yes, she thought. I did have confidence once. Not as much as some young women, maybe—but enough to carve a little space out of the world for herself. And although it seemed barely noticeable to her, it was coming back, piece by tiny piece. She was going to have to reclaim her former self-assurance, self-trust—she was going to be a single parent to Christopher.

She hadn’t thought she could ask for that restraining order or custody; fear had had her in its grip. But with John at her side, encouraging her, she had. It was ugly and terrifying, but she’d gotten through it and Wes had been taken away in handcuffs. He might be in a cushy treatment program right now, but it wasn’t over. He had a lot to atone for, and his atonement might come behind bars, freeing her and her son for years. Now that she was on this track—getting free, getting her life back—she was determined to stare it in the face. No matter how scared she was.

She paced back and forth in front of the kitchen phone, then picked it up and called. The next day she paced less, and when she got the A.D.A.’s secretary on the phone, she was told they hadn’t checked that day and might not have time—perhaps she could call back the next day. Suddenly, she was furious. “No!” she said. “Do you understand my life and my child’s life are in constant danger from this man? That he’s threatened to kill me, and if you take a look at my medical records, it’s obvious he
tried?
No. I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I’ll call back in an hour!” She hung up the phone, heart hammering, and stole a look at Preacher. She could feel the heat on her cheeks.

He lifted one eyebrow and smiled slightly. “There you go,” he said.

Her call was returned twenty minutes later by the as
sistant district attorney himself. He reassured her, then gave her the number of the treatment center and the name of a counselor with whom he’d been in contact, inviting her to call directly, as many times a day as it took.

Again she paced in front of the phone. “What’s wrong?” Preacher asked her.

“I don’t know. It’s like I’m afraid he’ll answer or something.”

“And what if he did?”

“I’d die!”

“No,” he said calmly. “You’d hang up, because you don’t have to talk to him ever again. Right?”

“I don’t,” she said, a little bit surprised by that reality. Her mind started spinning—what if he denied ever having touched her? What if he convinced them he was sorry? She picked up the phone immediately, punching in the numbers, though her brain twisted with possibilities. What if he wanted a message delivered to her? What if he asked to call her, to talk to Christopher? He never talked to Christopher, but she wouldn’t put it past him to act as though he cared about his son.

The phone was answered, the counselor she asked for was put on and she said, “This is Paige Lassiter. I’m just calling to be sure Wes Lassiter is still there.”

“All tucked in, ma’am,” he said, his voice calm and friendly. “Rest easy.”

“Thank you,” she said weakly.

“You try to have a nice day.”

She hung up the phone, trembling for a moment. Then she looked at John and found him smiling. “I know it’s hard,” he said, his voice soft. “But every day you take your life back a little more. That’s how it’s done, Paige.”

There was a road into Fallujah, Iraq, that held a strong reputation for mortal danger. American troops
had fallen there before. When Sergeant Major Jack Sheridan led his platoon in, one of his squads, led by Gunnery Sergeant Miguel—Mike to his friends—Valenzuela, was separated from the platoon by a suicide truck bomb. They were holed up in an abandoned building with injuries, pinned down by sniper fire. Joe Benson and Paul Haggerty were bleeding dangerously, along with others wounded by sniper fire. Gunny held off snipers with an M16 he fired repeatedly for hours until the rest of the platoon—Preacher among them—could subdue the insurgents and effect a rescue. When it was over, Mike could barely move his arm and his shoulder was frozen. He was decorated for his heroic performance.

Mike, an L.A. police sergeant, had been activated for an eighteen-month tour in Iraq. He was never injured. He had saved lives.

And now he lay in an L.A. hospital bed, comatose, with three bullet holes in him. The shots were fired by a fourteen-year-old gangbanger. The one place the kid hadn’t hit was square in Mike’s bulletproof vest. Another officer got off a fatal shot to the kid. Investigation suggested it might have been an initiation right of passage to get jumped into the gang—and bringing down the sergeant under which the gang unit served was a major feat.

Preacher had called on Mike about Paige, and Mike had done everything he could to help. Now Preacher had received the call.

It was early—the coffee barely brewed, Chris not yet racing downstairs in his pajamas, the loud crack of the ax in the backyard just begun. The shooting had occurred the night before and it took Ramon Valenzuela, Mike’s oldest brother, a few hours to get to someone in the old Marine squad. In the meantime, Mike had undergone emergency surgery and lay comatose in an intensive care unit.

Preacher went to the back door of the bar. “Jack!” he called. “Come in!”

Jack had an anxious look on his face when he came through the back kitchen door.

“Valenzuela was shot on the job,” Preacher said without preamble. “He’s critical. L.A. trauma center. I’ll call Zeke, have him pass the word, and close up the bar.”

“Jesus,” Jack said, rubbing his chin. “What chance they give him?”

“His brother Ramon said he thinks he’ll make it—but he’s in a coma. He said something about him never being the same.” He shook his head. “See if you can catch a flight. I’ll make the drive.”

Paige appeared at the bottom of the stairs and knew something serious was happening. She stood, waiting.

“What about Paige? Christopher?” Jack asked.

Preacher shrugged. “I’ll have to take them. I’m sure as hell not leaving them here without me.”

“Take me where?” she asked.

Both men turned to look at her. “L.A.,” Preacher said. “One of our boys was shot in the line of duty. He’s in intensive care and I have to go.”

“L.A.? John, I can’t go to L.A.”

“Yeah, you can. You have to. My friend Mike, the one who helped you so much, he’s in the hospital. Jack?” he said, looking at his best friend. “Go ahead. I’ll call Rick’s grandma and have her tell him to check on the bar every day.”

“Right,” Jack said, taking off at once.

Preacher turned back to Paige. “It’ll be all right. You’ll be safe. You can call that treatment center every day. If you want to, you can go get a few of your things while he’s in there. Maybe there’s someone you want to visit—you could do that safely. But I have to go.” She stared at him, unmoving. “I have to go right away, Paige. I need
you to do this with me, so I can go to my friend and be sure you and Chris are safe. Please.”

She shook herself. “I’ll get us ready,” she said, running back up the stairs.

She didn’t hear Preacher let out his breath in a long, relieved sigh.

Jack stood on Doc’s front porch with Mel, his packed duffel on the bed of his truck. “Reconsider,” Jack said. “Come with me. I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

She put a hand on his chest, looked up at him and said, “I won’t be alone. I have a whole town. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

“But Preacher won’t be here. He’s taking Paige and Christopher because he can’t leave them. I think he’s scared to death to leave them.”

“Of course. Jack, Doc needs me. I have things I have to do. And I’ll be fine. No one’s going to bother me. Here’s the name of a doctor to speak to,” she told him, tucking a piece of paper into his shirt pocket. “Just tell him you married his old nurse. He’ll give you any information he can about Mike.”

“You worked with him? When?”

“It’s been a while, but he won’t have forgotten me. He’s a trauma surgeon—he may have operated on Mike. Be sure to tell him the news—that we’re having a baby. That’ll make him so happy.”

“I’ll find him.” He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her deeply, one hand at the small of her back while the other ran over her expanding middle. “Leaving you is the hardest thing I’ve done in some time,” he said.

“You’d better go. You want to get there as quickly as you can.”

Jack drove like mad to Eureka, charging Mel’s old cell phone in the truck so that he could use it to call her
from the L.A. hospital. He picked up a flight that made only one stop in Redding, getting him to L.A. in less than three hours. Preacher, however, was making the whole drive, which would take eight, maybe closer to ten, hours.

When Jack got to L.A., he didn’t even stop at a hotel. Mike was still on the respirator with visitors limited to immediate family for just a few minutes every hour, but the crowd at the hospital was very much what Jack expected—impressive in numbers. Cops were known to gather for one of their fallen and there were dozens, in and around the hospital. They had parked an RV in the parking lot where Mike’s family could take occasional breaks from the stress of the hospital and they stood virtual guard around it. Mike had been married twice, but was at present single. There was no shortage of family—a big family of parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews. There was probably an ex-wife around somewhere, and an inevitable girlfriend or two. A couple of their boys from the squad were there, the ones who could get away on short notice—Zeke, a firefighter from Fresno, and Paul Haggerty, a builder from Grants Pass. Others might make an appearance if they could. “Where’s Preacher?” they asked.

“He should be here soon. He made the drive. How’s Mike doing?”

“We don’t know too much. Three hits—one each in the head, shoulder and groin. He lost a lot of blood and hasn’t regained consciousness. There was a long surgery.”

Jack pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket. “Anyone know the surgeon’s name?” he asked.

They looked at one another, shaking their heads.

“Okay, let me look for this guy,” Jack said. “An old friend of Mel’s. He’s a doctor here—might be able to tell us something. I’ll be back.”

Jack spent the better part of an hour going from nurses’
station to nurses’ station, looking for Dr. Sean Wilke, leaving messages for him to no avail. It wasn’t until two hours later that a man about forty years old wearing a white coat over scrubs was heading for the ICU and the name embroidered on his coat in blue thread read “Wilke.”

“Dr. Wilke,” Jack said, stepping forward and stopping him. Jack put out a hand. “Jack Sheridan, Doctor. I’m here for Mike Valenzuela.” The doctor seemed cool and distracted, accepting the handshake absently. After all, there were a ton of people here for Mike—the doctor couldn’t speak to all of them. “I’m married to Mel Monroe,” he blurted.

The man’s expression changed instantly and dramatically. “My God,” he said, grasping Jack’s hand enthusiastically in both of his. “Mel? How is she?”

“Great. She gave me your name. Said you might be able to get me some information about my friend.”

“Let me see my patient, then I’ll tell you whatever I can. That work for you?”

“You bet,” Jack said. “Thanks.”

About fifteen minutes later Jack realized he had hit the jackpot when he saw Wilke pausing outside the ICU to have a brief conversation with Mike’s mother, father and brother. So—he was the surgeon. After leaving the family so they could go back into ICU, Wilke walked toward Jack. “Come on,” he said to Jack. “I’ve got a little time.”