Second Chance Pass (4 page)

It wasn’t fair to Terri; it wasn’t right, nor was it the easy way. But it was what it was. His testosterone kicked up when he was with Terri because she was seductive, pretty, available and he was alone. He was just a man; sometimes it was nice to have a woman in his life. Calling Terri after Matt’s death when the only woman in the world he wanted to be with was Vanni had been a critical mistake. But he’d been so desperate for understanding, for friendship.

“I think you’ll make someone a wonderful wife, when you find the right man,” he said. “I’m not the guy, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to be a part of this, Terri. I won’t run, I won’t hide. And God, Terri, I’m sorry. I sure didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Joe Benson had been designing houses for Haggerty Construction for about ten years, and he was a little worried about his friend Paul. He’d seen Paul on a couple of job sites and they talked about getting together for a beer, but Paul had been evasive, distracted, morose and probably depressed. Small wonder—Paul had been through a lot with Matt’s death. Joe suspected a pressure cooker. So he did what a good friend does—he pushed. It was time for Paul to let it out, so he could move on.

Joe went to a small, dark, quiet bar and waited for Paul to meet him. Joe had picked the place—somewhere a man could talk privately about the stuff that was eating his gut. He looked at his watch several times, wondering if Paul would be a no-show. Joe had a beer and was thinking about either trying the cell phone or just leaving when Paul finally lumbered in, head down, looking like he’d looked for too long now. The man was hurting all over.

“Beer,” he said to the bartender before he even said hello. “Heineken.”

“So,” Joe said, picking up his almost empty beer. “You’re in lousy shape.”

Paul was quiet for a moment, waiting for his beer. When it came he took a long drink before he said, “Lousy.”

“Listen, I thought maybe if we had a beer together, talked about it…”

“Believe me, you don’t want to talk about this, Joe.”

“Business okay?” Joe asked, nibbling around the edges of this situation. Paul’s family business was a good little company that did quality construction. While Matt might’ve been Paul’s best friend since they were kids, Joe had been closest to him since Desert Storm when they joined the same Marine reserve unit. They’d worked together since then and had gone back to Iraq together.

“Business is fine,” Paul said. “That’s not the problem.”

Joe clamped a strong hand on Paul’s shoulder. “You’re not yourself lately, bud. You’re having trouble moving on after Matt… He wouldn’t want this, you know.”

“I know…”

“Maybe it’s more than Matt,” Joe said. “I get the feeling something’s really eating you.”

“Yeah?” he asked with a somber laugh. “Jesus, you’re psychic.” He took another long drink of his beer.

“Any chance you could just go ahead and get it out
where we can look at it? Because if you’re gonna drink that fast, you’ll leave me in your dust pretty quick.”

Paul shook his head. “I fucked things up pretty bad, Joe. I got myself in a mess I’m not gonna get out of.”

Joe stared at him a long moment. Then he banged his glass on the bar and when the bartender came over he said, “Gimme another one of these, huh?” While he was waiting for a new brew, he turned to Paul and asked, “You have any idea how confusing you are right now?”

“Yeah. You should find more stable people to drink with.”

“Well, until I do…”

It was a moment before Paul finally said, “I got someone pregnant…”

“No,” Joe said, stunned. “No, you’re too smart for that…”

Paul laughed. “I guess I’m not. Maybe I should sue Trojan, huh?”

“Oh, Jesus,” Joe said. “Oh God. Someone special? I hope?”

“Nice girl,” Paul said with a shrug. “But it wasn’t… Aw, man. It was… We aren’t… Shit. It was just one of those things. You know? I’ve known her about a year, but I’ve only been out with her a few times. We really didn’t have anything going on except…”

“Oh, Jesus,” Joe said again.

Paul turned toward Joe. “While I was in Virgin River last fall I didn’t talk to her once during that time—that’s how casual. I came back here all the time to check on the company, my dad and brothers, but I never even called her. And she didn’t call me. But…”

“But…?”

“But I came home with my gut in a knot after everything that had happened in Virgin River and I called her. On instinct, probably. And guess what happened?”

“Oh damn,” Joe said. “What are you gonna do?”

“What are my choices?” Paul asked, hanging his head. “I’ll take care of her, of my kid. What else do you do?” He shook his head sadly. “I want it,” he said. “I know—it’s stupid. I should probably try something, like buying her off or something. Get her to make it go away—but if I have a kid coming, I want a part of that. I’m nuts, right?”

Joe smiled patiently. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re not nuts about that—but what about the mother? Is she someone you’re going to be able to work with on that?”

“No telling,” he said. “She wants to get married. I can’t do that. I’m only planning to do this marrying thing once, and then it’s going to be to a girl I love so much I can’t stop myself. If I married this woman, it would really fuck her up, worse than she already is. I can’t fake it—not something like this. I’d be the worst husband. You don’t marry someone that fast.”

“It’s a big, permanent step,” Joe said. “Only you know if you can make something like that work. If you can’t, you do the next best thing,” Joe said. “Man up. Take care of her.”

“It’s just that I slept with her when I love someone else. Why the hell did I do that? What kind of sorry bastard does that? What was I thinking?”

At this point in the conversation Joe was completely lost. Paul loved someone? It wasn’t as though men got together and talked about women they had crushes on—they just didn’t. They rarely said how they felt, period. He’d known Paul a long time and there’d been very few women. He was the quiet one; he kept back. Even when they were abroad together, at war, with a lot of tension to unload, Paul never hustled the women.

The bartender delivered Paul another beer, from which he took a deep drink.

“Love someone else?” Joe repeated.

“I’m such a screwup…”

“You love someone?”

“It’s wrong, that’s all. I had no business…”

“Paul. You
love
someone?”

“Yeah. I was a real horseshit best friend for years. Vanni. I just couldn’t help it. I didn’t want it to be that way, but—”

Joe drank a big gulp. He was prepared to help Paul through just about anything, but he never saw this coming. And why hadn’t he? Probably because he’d have done for Paul what Paul did for Matt—stay with the widow through everything. “Whoa,” he finally said. “Oh, shit.”

“Oh, shit,” Paul echoed.

“Vanni?”

Paul nodded grimly. “You wanna try to imagine how guilty I feel about that? I tried like hell to talk myself out of it. Sometimes I got damn close. I stayed away from them, you know? Because I could talk to Matt just fine, but if I saw Vanni, my heart wanted to explode…Aw God.” He put his head in his hand. “And now I’ve got someone else pregnant. Think I could’ve messed things up any worse?”

Joe shook his head, but he was thinking—yeah. You could’ve been the dead guy. “You sure this baby is yours?” Joe asked. “Maybe it’s not yours.”

“I thought about that,” he said. “Then I decided that was probably wishful thinking on my part. She said there hadn’t been a guy in a long time, which is why she got lazy on the pills. And what did I have? Some poor old condom in the wallet that thought it was never gonna get out of that package. I probably wore a damn hole in it just getting in and out of the truck. Nah, it’s mine.”

“But you’re gonna find out for sure before you set up the college fund, right?”

“Yeah. Sure. Right now, though, I don’t want to push on her too hard. She’s a wreck—a crying, miserable wreck. If she gets the idea I’m not going to step up—who knows what she might do. I don’t want her to get an abortion just out of fear that I won’t be responsible. I’m just going with the assumption it’s mine, since it most likely is. We’ll sort out the details later.”

“What are you gonna do about Vanni?”

“Hell, what can I do? Vanni’s in a lot of pain right now. You think I could help that pain go away by telling her I’ve loved her since the first second I saw her, but I went ahead and got some other woman I barely know knocked up?”

Joe smiled in spite of himself. “We might have to work on your delivery a little bit there, bud. Paul, keep your head here—it’s not like you cheated on Vanni. Huh?”

“Why do I feel like I did?”

“You’ve got your feelings all mixed up in guilt and regret, that’s all. You have to let yourself off the hook about Matt, for one thing. The way you feel about Vanni—it never messed with their marriage or your friendship.”

He slowly turned his eyes toward Joe. “Even though I don’t stand a chance with Vanni, I have to come clean about how I feel. It’s still too soon after Matt. You gotta believe me, I never wanted anything bad to happen to Matt.”

Joe gripped Paul’s biceps. “Of course you didn’t. But this business with Vanni? You owe it to yourself to know where you stand before you borrow all this trouble.”

“Yeah,” he said, hanging his head. “I’m sure she’ll just try to let me down as easy as she can…”

“Then again, you never know,” Joe said with a shrug. “Maybe it’ll go your way for once. In which case, right after she says, ‘I love you, too,’ you’re gonna have to say, ‘I’m going to be a father pretty soon.’ Whew.” Joe gave a
short, unhappy laugh. “That’s gonna bite. I think, my friend, your ass is grass. Either way.”

Paul leveled his gaze at Joe. Then he said, “We’re gonna need a lot more beer.”

M
ike Valenzuela was the Virgin River town constable and, as such, he spent a great deal of time driving the back mountain roads surrounding the town, taking in the lay of the land. It was important to know the people, the structures, the vehicles. There was no better way to identify something unusual. He got out of his Jeep and walked among trees and shrubs for a while, staying mostly out of sight. He came upon a half-buried semitrailer and metal storage unit that he’d seen before and had been keeping an eye on. There was a generator between the building and the trailer and camouflage netting stretched over the tops, strung between the trees, which identified it as a cannabis operation, but he’d never seen any activity around it. Mike kept his distance—they were sometimes booby trapped.

This time he happened to see a vehicle departing, and he recognized it—a Ford truck, dark, tinted windows. The driver was known around these parts as an illegal grower.

This guy had been seen around here a few times in the past couple of years. The bills in his pocket were large and carried the stink of freshly cut marijuana. When Mel had barely arrived in Virgin River, he had hijacked her out to
a trailer, to an illegal grow like this one, to deliver a woman in childbirth, in trouble. Not so long after, Jack’s cook Preacher’s wife, Paige, had been abducted by her abusive ex-husband, and this guy had stepped in, whopped him over the head and facilitated Paige’s rescue. But most significant, Mike had seen him just a few months ago meeting a Sheriff’s Department detective in an isolated location. It had been a sheer accident that Mike had seen them. But the two men had probably handpicked the place—Virgin River had a reputation as dope free—there weren’t any illegal growers nearby that Mike or anyone else knew about. It was a good place for a secret meeting.

Mike decided to check out the trailer. The guy had a relationship of some kind with a cop and Mike wanted to see what he had going on in there. From twenty feet away he could see that the padlock on the semi’s door was left unhitched. Sloppy, was his very first thought. He stepped slowly, carefully, listening for a click, a trip wire. One rule of thumb—growers want to protect their crop from other growers, but really do not want to hurt or kill anyone from law enforcement, not even lowly, nonofficially recognized town constables like Mike. It brings a barrage of cops down on the area, busting up everything that might have otherwise been missed or ignored.

But Mike saw nothing; no trip wires, so he slipped off the padlock and slowly opened the door. The place was almost empty. There were a few medium-size plants right inside the door, so few he could grow that number legally with a prescription and permit. But, all the equipment was there for a large grow—pots, irrigation tubing, lights, fertilizer. The guy obviously bought what a grower would need for a large operation, but there was no real crop. So, he looked like a grower, but he wasn’t growing.

Jesus, Mike thought. The guy was a narc. He was either
undercover police or a confidential informant. He’d set up something to look like an illegal grow, but it was a ruse. There was only one reason to establish oneself as a grower when you weren’t—to search for other growers.

It took a long time to form even a nodding acquaintance with other growers, and even when they got friendly, they kept a safe distance unless they were doing business together, and they never showed each other their hidden grows. They spotted each other at the hardware store, the nursery, buying supplies, carrying around bags of chicken shit in the back of pickups. But they didn’t have dinner parties with each other at their grow-sites.

The other reality was that local law enforcement couldn’t keep up with the illegal crops; their resources and manpower were limited. They let a lot of cases slide when they were too small to make an impact, or to get a conviction. When a call came in about a hairdresser who was driving a Hummer and had a generator behind the house and a couple of windows blacked out, it was pretty obvious what she was doing, but the cops had bigger fish to fry—they were looking for over a thousand plants to press for a conviction or ten thousand plants to drive it into a federal crime, otherwise it was a waste of their precious time.

So—this guy, planting himself in the area, making himself known as an illegal grower… He must be looking for something. Mike slowly exited the trailer and once outside, looked around cautiously. Then he looked at the padlock. It had obviously been an oversight on the part of his buddy, the guy in the truck. If he didn’t think it would compromise his operation, he’d find him, tell him he understood what was going on and to be more careful. Instead he removed the lock and pocketed it. He’d think about all this for a while before taking any action.

Paul sat in a small Italian restaurant in Grants Pass, staring into a cup of coffee, waiting. He looked up to see Terri enter the restaurant and he frowned slightly; there was no reason not to be attracted to her. She was a beautiful, tenderhearted girl. She had a very attractive figure that would soon blossom with motherhood.

When they connected eyes, he smiled and began to rise. Yes, she was a lovely girl, but she just didn’t do to his blood pressure what Vanni did to him. The chemistry between them was nice, but it wasn’t explosive.

He held a chair out for her to sit down. “Everything all right, Paul?” she asked a bit nervously.

“Sure,” he said. “Fine. We haven’t talked since last week. I apologize for that—I meant to get in touch sooner.”

“That’s all right. What’s up?”

“I thought we should have a conversation. I think the shock and tears kept us from getting anything resolved the last time we saw each other.” He reached across the table and gave her hand a pat. “I don’t know how we could have avoided that.”

“Resolved?” she echoed.

“You haven’t really explained what you think I can do for you right now.”

“Well,” she said, “I just found out myself, so I haven’t given it much thought, either. I mean, the best-case scenario didn’t work out for me.”

He held his tongue, not willing to go there again, but he looked down uncomfortably. Even if things never worked out with Vanni, which was what he feared, he didn’t have the kind of passion for Terri that was required to take on marriage—it would rob them both. Yet, he was going to end up committing most of a lifetime to her because of the
child. “How about insurance benefits? Financial obligations?”

“I have a good job, Paul. My benefits will see me through the pregnancy, though I haven’t told my boss yet. I don’t think that’s the kind of help I’m going to need.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good,” she said. “Excellent.”

A waiter came to their table, offered menus, took drink orders, disappeared again.

“Go ahead,” Paul said. “Take a look, see what you feel like for lunch.”

“I’m, ah, not real hungry right now,” she said.

“Well, you have to eat, Terri. You’re supporting more than one body. One of them’s growing.” And then he smiled kindly. “I know—I’m a little nervous, too. I think we’re going to have to try to get past the jitters if we’re going to make this work.”

“Sure,” she said, looking into her menu. She lifted it up so he couldn’t see her face and he noticed a movement behind the menu that suggested she wiped her eyes before lowering it again. “I’ll just have a salad,” she said. And then the waiter was beside them with water and iced tea.

“I’ll have lasagna,” Paul said. “And bread. And bring the lady a minestrone soup with her salad.” When the waiter had gone he said, “Don’t worry, Terri. This will get easier.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Have you told your parents yet?”

She looked down. “I told my mom. She and my dad are divorced and I haven’t had that much contact with him.” She looked up shyly. “She’d like to meet you sometime.”

“Sure,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “When we’ve had some time to sort things out a little, huh?” And she nodded. This woman was a far cry from the little pistol
he’d met a year ago. She was subdued, self-conscious and submissive today. He didn’t know her well but, at the moment, it was as if he didn’t know her at all. As much as he wished this wasn’t happening, he couldn’t help but see it was harder for her than him. She’d been so good to him; he hated that he’d hurt her.

“Have you told your parents?”

He laughed a little. “No,” he said. “I think I might hold off on that a while.”

“Will they freak out?”

He chuckled again. “Oh, I think it’ll surprise them. In fact, maybe I should brush up on my CPR.”

“Ew,” she said, a hand going to her tummy.

Paul immediately reached for her other hand and held it supportively. “Terri, you don’t have to worry that they’d be a problem for you. My parents are real decent people. Even if they were thoroughly disappointed in me, they’d treat you and your child with kindness. Respect.”

“Our child,” she said softly after a moment of silence.

He was quiet, not responding to that. He might get there eventually, but he wasn’t there yet. He kept thinking of this as her baby or his baby but not
their
baby. “You’ve seen the doctor?”

“Just once, to confirm what I already knew. I’m not very far along, you know.”

He knew
exactly
how far along. Almost to the minute. “And you’re due…?”

“November. The twentieth.”

“Are you happy with the doctor?”

“She’s nice.” Terri shrugged. “She was recommended…”

To Paul’s great relief, the food arrived. He waited for Terri to take a couple of bites before he started on his; he found himself watching her to be sure she was eating. They sat in uncomfortable silence. After a few minutes,
he pulled a card out of his shirt pocket, turned it over to be sure it was the right one and slid it across the table. “My home, work and cell phone numbers,” he said. “I have your home phone, but I don’t know where you work. Secretary, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Legal secretary. I’m thinking about applying for a paralegal course.”

“Hey, that’s great,” he said.

“Well, I was thinking about that, before…”

He liked that she had goals for herself, something to look forward to, since he wasn’t giving her much in that department. And she would improve her earning potential, he thought. Because she was going to be a working mother. Or… Maybe she shouldn’t have to work. His head started to spin. “Listen, it’s hard to make long-term plans when you have a short-term complications, but if that’s something you really want to do, don’t give up on the idea. Not yet. Things always seem to work out the way they’re supposed to. You’d be surprised.”

“Right now it’s a little hard to figure things out. Things like that…”

“What other things have you concerned?” he asked.

“Well, I live in a one bedroom, upstairs apartment. It’s a nice apartment—you’ve been there. Single women like the upstairs—it’s safer. Fewer means of entry, for one thing. But single mothers probably have a hard time with things like that. Babies come with a lot of gear. You know?”

Stroller, diaper bag, car seat, swing, Port-a-Crib, etcetera. He’d spent years watching his brothers tromp into their parents’ house, hauling all the baby stuff. The stairs to her apartment were steep. She should live in a house, he thought. In a safe neighborhood. He thought he felt a migraine coming on. The first one of his life.

“I don’t have any savings,” she said. “I make a decent
living, not a great one. My office has paid leave for six weeks and optional time off without pay up to six months. I already feel like six weeks isn’t enough. Not for a new baby. And then—what about child care? I haven’t even felt this baby move—and I’m already worried about leaving him with some stranger. Or her. Him or her.”

Paul smiled kindly. “Try not to worry about things like that yet, Terri. You’re not going to have to make those decisions alone. Don’t let it keep you up nights. I’ll be pitching in.”

“Pitching in? How?”

“Well, financially and, hopefully, with child care.”

“Helping me pay for childcare? Is that it?”

“And with actual child care,” he said, smiling.

“You thinking of sticking your mother with a baby?”

“I’m pretty good with babies,” he said. “I was thinking of having my time with him. Or her.”

“Oh,” she said. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”

Nice of me, he thought shamefully. She was talking like she expected to go it alone if he wouldn’t marry her, and that almost made his cheeks flame. He had at least as much responsibility here as she did. She might’ve been lazy about those pills, but he’d used a condom he’d been carrying around for months, rubbing it thinner every time he slid into a chair. “I told you—you’re not in this all alone. Can you think of anything I can do to help right now?”

“To tell the truth, just having you show a little interest helps a lot. Moral support, you know.” And then for the first time since they sat down, she smiled.

“Ah,” he said. “There it is. I know you don’t think you have that much to smile about right now, especially where I’m concerned. I’ll do whatever I can. It’ll help if you tell me what you need.”

“Right now? I want my baby to have a father. A good father. I just need someone to care.”

“I care about what’s happening with you and the baby. I’m kind of clumsy with words, Terri. I might’ve been a little too shocked to give you the kind of comfort you needed when I first found out, I’m sorry about that. Here’s how I feel—I think it would be a mistake for us to try to make a marriage out of a very nice friendship, but if I’m having a child, I’m committed to the child. For life. I’ll do my part because I want to. You can rest easy about that.”

“How will your parents feel about that?” she asked.

“They’ll feel the same way,” he said. “Terri—I’m thirty-six. I’m past asking my parents for approval. What we’re going to have to do here is find a way to work together.” He swallowed. “We have to put the needs of the child first.”

She sighed. “God,” she said, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I never expected you to act like this. I thought you’d take off or deny it. But you’re a good man, Paul. A real good man…”