Bring Me Home for Christmas

Sixteen




Becca cursed those crutches that got in her way! She found she could manage in the kitchen pretty well, with countertops to lean on, but she couldn’t serve or bus tables. She longed to be on the move! Fortunately Denny was back at the bar by five and could help. He pulled out the heavy trays of meat loaf and lifted the hot potato casseroles onto the work station. Becca was able to handle the beans and warm the dinner rolls—she felt like a wimp.

A thick, swirling snow began to fall in earnest. There were only a few people in the bar at five o’clock and when she had some plates prepared, Denny delivered them. He also fed the fire, served drinks and cocoa and turned the lights on the Christmas tree, as much to brighten the street as to provide holiday decoration. He helped Paige make sure the little kids were all eating their dinner and cleared away dirty dishes.

Of course, it was dark by five and Becca began to worry about their other friends. Preacher and Jack were not back; Mel hadn’t reported in. Noah and Ellie Kincaid stopped by after their boxes were delivered. “The church will be unlocked,” he told Paige. “It always is, but if anyone needs refuge, it’s available. Ellie put out some blankets in the basement and there’s a full working kitchen.”

The wind picked up and really began to howl outside. Denny swore their young mother was in far better shape than they had found her, but Becca worried about Megan’s family.

It was seven by the time Mel returned to the bar and right behind her came Jack and Preacher. With the weather bearing down on them, no one else was out, but the noise in the bar rose with their presence. Although they were all frosty and rosy-cheeked, with snowflakes clinging to their caps and shoulders, Mel instantly cuddled two-year-old Emma, Jack tossed David in the air, making him screech, and Preacher ran his cold hands up Paige’s back, enjoying her protests.

“Set us up a couple of shots, Paige,” Jack said. “I don’t think even Jack Frost is going to drag us out again tonight!”

“Unless someone goes into labor,” Mel said.

“You’re going to need Santa and his eight reindeer for that one,” Preacher told her.

“Is everyone safe?” Becca asked. “All tucked in?”

“Everyone we know about, anyway,” Jack said.

“But what if there are others out there like Mrs. Crane?” she asked.

Jack no doubt saw her concern and draped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s a small town, honey. It isn’t often someone like that gets by us. It happens, but not often. People around here are real nosy.”

She leaned against him. “Man, I’m worn-out!”

“Worked hard, did you?”

“I’m worn-out from worrying about everyone! How about the Thicksons?”

“As soon as the roads are cleared tomorrow, Cameron is going to drive Lorraine and the little boys home from the hospital,” Mel said. “He’s doing rounds at the hospital as early as he can get there in the morning and the boys are in pretty good shape, despite some bronchitis and ugly throats.”

“But what about Mr. Thickson, at home with Megan and Jeremy?” she asked. “He was in a real mood.”

“More bluster than anything,” Jack said. “He loves his kids. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll call and check on him.”

She looked at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Please?”

“Sure,” he said, heading for the kitchen.

Denny quickly filled the empty space Jack had left, putting his arm around her. “Come on, honey. I think you should sit down, put your feet up and take a breather.”

“I can’t!” she said. “I made meat loaf for forty!”

The place fell suddenly quiet. Finally Preacher said, “Forty?”

“That’s what your recipe said.”

“Hmm. What’s Jack gonna eat?”

Becca just groaned and allowed herself to drop into a chair, while everyone around her seemed amused, chuckling.

“Everyone is fine out at the Thicksons,” Jack said as he returned to the bar from the kitchen. “Megan is bouncing back and Jeremy’s fever is gone. Something sure smells good in that kitchen. Whatcha got going in there, Paige?”

“Not me,” she said, getting down the bottles requested by Jack and Preacher. “Becca made meat loaf. I was busy all day!”

“Thank you, Becca,” Jack said. “I didn’t know you could cook!”

“You haven’t tasted it yet,” she warned wearily.

“It could taste like a cow patty and I wouldn’t know,” Preacher said, tossing back a shot to warm his bones. “I’m half frozen and half dead.”

Denny went behind the bar and poured Becca a short snifter of brandy, pressing it into her hand. Then he sat real close while everyone in the bar talked about their adventures. Jack and Preacher had shoveled, plowed, chopped, stacked, carried logs, rounded up animals, carried old women and old men, emptied portable indoor latrines, cleaned the snow off roofs, pulled a car out of a ditch, jump-started a battery…

“Preacher damn near stuck to the seat in an outhouse,” Jack reported, bringing laughter out of the entire group.

“Jack had to be rescued off the top of a porch when he let the ladder get away,” Preacher said. “Crossed my mind to leave him up there. He was a pain in my ass all day long.”

“Mel, you have a hard day?” Paige asked.

“Nah,” she said. “Two bronchitis, one strep, one false labor—or at least, false so far—and a little home health nursing.” She looked at Becca and smiled. “The woman and children you found are doing well, Becca. The baby is perfectly healthy. They’re all fixed up with what they need, they’re warm and safe, and I’ll check on them in a couple of days. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything. I mean, I just went with Denny to deliver the box.”

“She asked me to tell you she’s very grateful,” Mel added.

“It was nothing,” she said in a small attack of shyness. Then she sighed. “Oh, God, I’m so relieved!”

“Time to hunker down with some of that meat loaf!” Preacher nearly roared.

And with that, people started heading for the kitchen to serve their own plates. Denny followed the band. Becca just let out a breath and stayed where she was, sipping a little brandy. She was exhausted. In short order Paige brought out a tray of cookies and milk for the kids, while the adults returned to the bar with their plates laden with food. Denny brought two—one for her and one for him.

As they dug in, they praised her work, pronouncing the meal to be delicious. There was lots of “oohing” and “aahing” and lip smacking.

Becca leaned against Denny’s shoulder and said, “I get it.”

“Huh?”

“I get it,” she repeated softly. “How you feel. How it’s like being part of the team. How you know you’re really necessary. Needed. I get it.” She smiled at him. “I like it.”



Becca kind of hated to see the evening end. The Sheridans and Middletons were going to be having a pajama party. They had put the kids to bed at Preacher’s house and were all enjoying the warm fire in the bar, talking about the town, their friends, the people who weren’t friends… It wasn’t yet nine, but Denny said, “If we’re going back down the street, we’d better get going.”

“Don’t walk,” Jack said. “Take the truck.”

“I’m afraid I’ll end up parking it in the middle of the street.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said with a shrug. “The Virgin River snowplows won’t be out until I call Paul. But go. I’m tired and the snow could get wilder. If you’re going, go now. I’m not pulling my boots back on to dig you out.”

“All right, old man,” Denny said. He pulled Jack’s keys out of his pocket.

“Wait,” Paige said. “There’s no telling what we’ll find in the morning. I’m going to fix you a little care package in case you don’t feel like coming down here for breakfast. Think you can manage on venison salami, cheese, crackers and biscuits?”

“Throw some peanut butter in, will you?”

Paige gave a nod and dashed off to the kitchen. In what seemed like seconds, she was back with a big bag for them to take home.

After helping Becca into her jacket and taking her crutches from her, he crouched so she could climb on his back.

Once in the truck, she said, “I can’t see anything.”

“Awful, isn’t it? I can barely see, either,” he said. He turned into what he believed was the driveway and pulled slowly forward into the flurries. He stopped with a thunk. “There. See that? That was the Nissan.”

“Oh, God, I hope you didn’t hurt Jack’s truck!”

“Becca, I didn’t hurt Jack’s truck. I hurt the Nissan!”

“Oh,” she said, laughing. “How are we going to get up the stairs?”

“Slowly. Very, very slowly.”

He came around for her, carried her up the stairs, deposited her on one leg in the apartment and went back for the crutches. Momentarily he was back, crutches in hand. He leaned them against the wall, pushed back his hood and eyed her with glittering eyes.

“Denny?” she asked, tilting her head.

One side of his mouth lifted. Then he charged her, tackling her around the waist. She squealed and found herself pinned beneath him on the bed. He held her hands over her head and covered her mouth in a searing kiss. His intentions were already obvious, straining against the zipper of his jeans, pushing against her. He released her lips, but barely. “I have some ideas about how to spend the snowstorm.”

“Oh?” she asked.

“For starters, naked. Then after I do all your favorite things, I think we should do all my favorite things. Then new things. Then things we never thought of but can dream up. Then if I’m not dead, we can start over. How about we start with me tasting every inch of your naked body…”

“Aren’t you tired?” she asked him.

“I’m hard,” he pointed out to her with a little hip movement. “And hungry. For your body…”

Yes, this was what she wanted, she thought. Her man back; the one who couldn’t get enough of her. The one who always put her first.

“I have another idea,” he said. “Let’s not reserve this for blizzards. Let’s plan on nights like this regularly, for the rest of our lives. How’s that?”

“That’s going to work,” she said, pulling his lips down to hers.



The snow continued through most of Tuesday, dumping another two feet. Paul plowed again, leaving five-and six-foot berms along the streets. Denny joined Jack and Preacher when they helped people dig out, get their cars and trucks started, delivered supplies. Becca spent most of the day helping Paige in the kitchen; they baked bread and pies and prepared a hearty stew for dinner.

The Sheridans spent another night in town because more snow was predicted for Wednesday morning, but it was supposed to be clear on Thursday.

“If we leave early on Thursday, we can be in San Diego by the evening,” Denny said to Becca. “In time for Christmas Eve on Friday.”

“All I have to do is close my suitcase,” Becca said. “What can I do to help you get ready?”

“I’m as good as ready,” he said.

When they weren’t holed up in their little room above the garage they were at Jack’s, where, despite the weather, there were always a few people. It was the gathering place for the town and the best spot to get the latest information.

On Wednesday night, Becca and Denny were having yet another farewell dinner. By her calculation, this was their third. She was sitting up at the bar, talking to Jack, while Denny was out gassing up Jack’s truck.

“Tomorrow it will be clear,” Becca said to Jack. “You’ll have your life back.”

He gave a nod. “Not quite. My family is due tomorrow. And we’ll also run around checking on people. We’ve been lucky—no power loss. I’m assuming we’ll find that everyone is fine. We could still get more snow before spring—an outrageous amount this winter. You know what that means? When the snowpack melts in the spring, we could have floods.”

“Here? In town?”

“Virgin River doesn’t usually have a real bad time, being at this elevation. But there are areas around that will have issues. But down the mountain could be a challenge. A few years ago, our friends in Grace Valley were just about wiped out. We helped where we could.”

“You always help where you can,” she said. “I can see why Denny has become so attached to this place.”

Jack grew suddenly serious. “Becca, I hope you know I support Denny in his decision to leave, to go to a place he can have a life and family with you.”

“I know,” she said. “I appreciate that. Where will you go tomorrow? To check on people?”

He thought for a moment. “Mel will go out to the Thicksons and check on the kids. She’ll check on the young mother. Noah will see about some of his elderly congregation. Me and Preacher, we’re kind of in charge of the outlying areas. There are folks out on the ridge and up the mountain a ways that need help digging out. Thank God no one got out on a trail and lost!”

“Has that happened?” she asked, sitting straighter.

“It’s happened in good weather! This is no place to wander if you don’t know where you’re going. Becca, you haven’t seen the half of Virgin River.”

She laughed. “I’m going to miss this place.”

“And this place will miss you. You were a huge, one-legged help.” She just laughed at him. “Seriously,” he said. “Terrific meat loaf and potatoes. And there will be terrific meat-loaf sandwiches for a long time!”

“Thanks. Although I don’t have a future in a bar and grill kitchen, I’m finding it kind of hard to leave….”

“Is that so?”

She shrugged. “A couple of weeks ago I was feeling like I’d been real lucky to meet such nice people. By now I feel like you people are the closest friends I’ve had in a while.”

He laughed. “That kind of happens here. We get bonded real easy when we pull together for a cause. A big snowstorm is a cause.”

“I was scared to death,” she said, but her smile was huge. “I had fun.”

Jack stilled. “Let me get this right…”

“Yeah, scared to death and fun. It’s kind of a pattern. I’ve always been like that. My mom always said I just didn’t like things easy. She’s the mother of the century, you know—managed the perfect home. Everything was always stable, secure, perfect. I mean, she wasn’t the kind of mother people write bad mother novels about—she really is awesome. So what did I always need? I needed to jump out of airplanes or surf the biggest waves or barrel race on horseback. Anything with a rush.”

He grinned largely. “My wife’s the same,” he said. “Mel’s a longtime adrenaline junkie. She spent ten years in an inner-city E.R. If it wasn’t scary and risky, she was unenthused.”

“I get that.” Becca laughed. “Yet Denny is the one who went to war. Twice.”

“Totally different,” Jack said. “He’s a trained Marine. He’s not looking for war, he’s responding. You and my wife? You like the edge.”

She laughed happily. She felt so understood. “Mel doesn’t seem like that now,” she said.

“She’ll be like that forever. She holds the health of this town in her hands—a very big job. They depend on her completely. We have a good doctor, but Mel is still delivering a lot of the babies, sometimes under adverse conditions, getting financial assistance, writing grants, you name it. Before we were married, she let a pot grower take her out to a grow site to deliver a woman in big medical trouble. I found out later that he took her at gunpoint. I almost lost my f*cking mind… Sorry.

“It’s okay,” she said. “She did? She did that?”

He grew serious. “That was not smart—adrenaline junkie or not.”

“Of course,” she said. “Not smart.”

He relaxed. “Thing is, life around here seems balanced against two extremes. Calm and challenging. That’s why we stick together. When you get down to it, that’s the only option. Fortunately, it’s calm and beautiful most of the time. It’s also a frontier.”

“Denny’s right about one thing—it would be a good place to raise a family. Too bad I don’t have a job here.”

“That job thing? I could make that happen,” he said.

She leaned an elbow on the bar. “And how are you going to do that? I don’t think you need another cook or waitress.”

“A school. We’ve been wanting a school. At least, for the little kids.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said.

He turned away from her briefly, just long enough to pour her a glass of the white wine she seemed to enjoy. He put it in front of her. “Would tempting you work?”

“Ha ha. You don’t happen to have a school.”

“I could have one in a matter of weeks. Remember my friend Paul? He could throw up a prefab modular building in no time at all. The construction would insult him—he’s very proud of his work and never cuts corners. But the price and speed would fit right into this town’s needs.”

“Where would you put it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Probably down the street—there’s a lot of available land between the most populated part of town and Noah’s house. For that matter, I think the church basement is mostly available. But the town should have an elementary school.”

“How many teachers do you plan on luring here?” she asked, sipping her wine.

“I was thinking one. One teacher. And probably teacher’s helpers. It would be good if, for starters, the little kids didn’t have to ride that bus into the valley. When you add up all the kindergarten, first, second and third graders, there aren’t all that many…”

“Oh, stop,” she said, putting down her wine and covering her ears.

He pulled a hand off her ear. “It could happen.”

She stared into his eyes. Hard. “My family is in San Diego!”

“You’ve been away from them for a month, I know,” Jack said. “You’ve probably never been separated that long before.”

But of course she had. “College,” she said. “But it was in L.A. and I went home almost every weekend.” At least, when she could see Denny. When Denny was in Iraq, she went home once a month, if that.

“You must be missing them a lot right about now. After a whole month.”

Oh, and what a month! A beautiful month of reunion with the love of her life. Better than she had dared dream. “I have a nice, furnished, two-bedroom apartment in San Diego,” she said. “Denny has one room over a garage.”

“Easy-peasy,” he said.

“Don’t!” she warned.

“Rick Sutter’s house is on this block. Two bedrooms. Small and cute. Empty. He might get back here in a couple of years. I hope so, anyway—he grew up here. He’s in college in Oregon and has his grandma in a nursing home up there so he can visit her often. But he hasn’t talked about selling the house so I think he’s hoping to come back. He might end up working with Paul.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “The kids would love it. Having you for a teacher. Right now, the people who can afford it are carpooling their kids all the way into the valley for private preschool. We ought to have one of those, too. Even if there aren’t more than a dozen preschoolers. Mel says the kids who miss that have a disadvantage.”

“I think you’re the sneakiest man I’ve ever known in my life,” she said.

“Yeah, so I’ve been told a time or two. But you have your plans. It was just a thought. I know better,” he said. “Too bad you have to miss the pageant, though, after all the time you put in helping.”

Ha! The pageant was just one thing! There were other, far more exciting things to her. Spending her days with children who were just learning to learn. Helping them construct art projects that showed their imaginations. Having learning games that were fun and funny. And field trips—she loved field trips! The parents of her kids were always running for their lives and hiding under beds to avoid being chaperones, and Becca loved field trips.

“You couldn’t do it,” she said to Jack. “You have to have it certified—the whole school. That’s the only way you get funding. You’d need a school board. You’d have to form a PTA.”

“Hey, if we can pull a bunch of church deacons out of this run-down, sinful town, we can manage a school board and PTA.” He grinned.

A bunch of guys came into the bar, all rosy-cheeked and laughing. Jack excused himself and set them up a few drinks, absorbed the latest news and left Becca alone to think. She had a good ten minutes before he was back. He wiped off the bar in front of her.

He studied her for a moment. Then he said, “If I screwed up your last night in town by tossing out crazy ideas, I’ll have to apologize.”

She turned those crystal-blue eyes up at him. “I kind of miss my mom,” she said. “She wasn’t exactly supportive of me coming up here.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t as last minute as I said. I was sort of plotting it….”

He turned a fake shocked expression on her. “No way.”

She smirked. “I really had no idea what I was walking into. It was quite a gamble. After all, Denny could have been committed.” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “It’s not as though that’s the kind of thing he’d be likely to tell Rich.”

“It worked out for you, Becca. And I’m glad.”

“Thanks. He’s a really special guy.”

“You’re a special young woman.” He leaned on the bar. “Tell me something. Aside from Denny, who is now your slave till the end of time, what do you really want? What’s your big dream?”

She shrugged again. “It’s totally crazy,” she said, staring into her wineglass.

“Come on,” he urged. “Lay it on me.”

She looked up. She took a steadying breath. “When I was a little girl, I had a couple of teachers who were so awesome, I sometimes liked to pretend they were my big sister or aunt or even my mother. We had one of them to dinner once—Miss Tindle. She was young and sweet and made me love school. Then there was Mrs. Dallas—she helped me love school again after an awful teacher just traumatized me. I had a teacher in junior high, Mr. Hutchins… I loved that man. I had such a hard time in his math class and he still managed to make me feel smart. He was so funny, so patient, so there for every one of his kids.” She blinked. “That’s what I want. I want to be that teacher to some kids. I want some twenty-five-year-olds or forty-year-olds to say, ‘I’ll never forget Miss Timm—without her, I’d probably be nowhere.’”

He covered her hand with his big paw. “I have a feeling about you, Becca. I have a feeling you already are that teacher.”

She smiled. Then she said, “Are you serious about that prefab modular school?”

He gave a nod. “As a heart attack.”

“I think you might’ve just totally screwed up my plans for Christmas….”