Angel's Peak. Робин Карр

wasn’t ready to get married,” Sean said. “I didn’t like getting pushed up against a wall and we both walked away mad. Six months later I was thinking, I might not be ready to get married, but I’m not ready for this to be over, either. I thought I could compromise if she could. So I called her cell phone. I left a couple of messages and she never called back. A few more months and I thought, all right—if it takes marriage to make her happy, I could probably work with the idea, as long as she gives me plenty of time to adjust. Maybe we could have a long engagement, just to make sure we’re doing the right thing. So I called again and the cell phone was shut off. Her e-mail bounced back—undeliverable. Her mother, who she’s very tight with, had moved. And if you think I was teed off before, the idea she’d just ignore me like that when I’m fucking trying—that really pissed me off.” And ripped my heart out. Just like I’d ripped her heart out by saying no way. What a couple of fools.

      “That’s a bad word,” Art said very quietly. Art wasn’t one to judge or harangue, but he also wasn’t one to miss anything.

      “Sorry, Art. I’m going to try harder,” Sean said.

      Luke said, “Well, you seemed to be doing just fine to me.”

      “Most days,” Sean said with a shrug. “I got into the plane, man. I was all caught up in the missions. I was away a lot. I got by. But every time I met a girl, all I did was compare her to Franci.” And saw Franci everywhere I looked, till I thought I was losing my mind.

      “Did you keep looking for her?” Luke asked.

      “No. I figured it would pass eventually. The second I saw her I realized it wasn’t going to pass. I think, in a way, this is my fault. Well, I thought for a few years it was her fault—that she was bossy and impatient and that no woman was going to tell me how the hog eats the cabbage. Now, I think there’s a good chance I was an idiot.”

      “Ya think?” Luke asked. When Sean glowered, he chuckled and said, “Listen, I’m not being a jerk—but I just walked this road, brother. I’m lucky Shelby is smarter than I am, that’s all.” Luke looked at Sean seriously. “The women are in charge, my brother. We don’t have to like it, but it’s the law. I just ask Shelby what I want and she never lets me down.”

      “I have to be careful here,” Sean said. “She said she doesn’t want to see me, talk to me. I can’t show up at her house like some stalker—she might call the cops. I’d call her if I had a number, but—”

      “Or…you can try to figure out where she’ll be. She’s a nurse, right? Working as a nurse, right? So call all the places she might be working as a nurse. Hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, you know. Ask to speak to her. They’ll either say they never heard of her, say it’s her day off or put her on the phone.”

      Sean was stunned. “Wow,” he said. “That’s brilliant.”

      “And amazing, because I’ve never hunted for a woman before,” Luke said. “Okay. Where do women go? Women like Franci? Shopping?”

      “We did everything together—camping, quadding, diving, skiing…We traveled anytime we could. Franci alone? Gyms,” Sean said. “Franci likes to work out. She loves to read—she spent a lot of time in bookstores. She loves movies, but she wouldn’t go alone—we used to rent ’em. Back then, between me, work, the gym and a little shopping, I can’t remember what she did with her time.” And Sean thought, there it is again. I wasn’t paying attention because it wasn’t about me. He almost wondered how she had endured him that long, but fought the thought that struggled to surface.

      “There’s always a list for groceries on the kitchen counter,” Luke said, nodding in the direction of today’s list. “Shelby usually calls to see what we need when she’s on her way home from school, but knock yourself out. Shop for groceries in her neighborhood.”

      “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that.” And drive around places I might bump into her, Sean thought. Just in case.

      Three

      Sean promised himself he’d just drive around Eureka, but his car was like a heat-seeking missile and he soon found himself in Franci’s neighborhood and then on her street. He had no intention of bothering her, just a fierce need to see how she was living without him. What was the harm in driving by her house?

      Franci’s house looked like something that should belong to her. It was cute, small, tidy, at least forty years old and very homey. It seemed the kind of comfy place a woman who wanted a family would choose—a safe, friendly neighborhood, large trees and spacious yards. She had a curving driveway lined with some kind of fluffy green ground cover, flower beds that were just going fallow in the fall weather, and right outside the front door was a scarecrow and some gourds in a horn of plenty. It was pampered. Loved. A family home.

      This was nothing like a house Sean would live in—he tended more toward flashy, modern, low-maintenance homes; he had a lot of toys and liked to spend his time at play, not mowing lawns and shoveling snow.

      His first panicked thought upon seeing the house was: Oh God! She has a man in her life! A man to settle down with! That’s why it looks so cozy and domesticated!

      He didn’t slow down too much as he passed by; he didn’t want to raise any suspicions. Having satisfied his curiosity about where she lived, Sean decided to check out the local recreational facilities.

      Finding a gym Franci might like was harder to peg. There were several in the general vicinity. One was the Y, which was small but inexpensive and functional. There was a relatively large fitness center on the edge of town near the freeway. There was a women’s gym, which would be obvious for any woman but Franci; she was ex air force and therefore used to working out with men. Fairly close to her house was a community center that appeared to contain a fitness facility, judging by the people wearing sweats and carrying gym bags who came out of the building.

      As he drove past the various gyms, Sean noticed there were a few used bookstores and one big bookstore in the Eureka Mall. God, how he hated malls. But this might be the price of finding his girl, so he checked out the bookstore and the mall. While he was there he bought a couple of pairs of jeans, two shirts and a down vest as the fall weather was getting very brisk in the evening. And he bought a bunch of books he knew he’d never read.

      Sean located the grocery stores nearby—there were plenty of those. He had a list of hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and such to call. So he got himself a coffee and used his cell phone to call from his car while he sat in a grocery-store parking lot. But after countless calls there was no Francine Duncan to be found.

      Over the next few days Sean developed a new routine. He’d leave Virgin River in the morning, drive to Eureka and make the rounds. He began to think of it as driving his circuit—hitting her neighborhood followed by a trip past the gyms, mall, bookstores and grocery stores. As he’d done on that first day, he’d park somewhere to make his phone calls to clinics and such, checking them off one by one. At least it was turning him into a slightly better houseguest as he would bring home groceries for a change, saving Shelby the trouble.

      He was only on his fourth day of hanging out in Eureka when he started wondering if the whole thing was a waste of time. He was beginning to think that even if he did get a number for her she would probably hang up on him, leaving him no option but to go over to her house, anyway. Would she call the cops if he did pay her a call? Was it a crime to knock on her door and ask if they could just talk? He wasn’t going to beg or threaten—just ask! Avon ladies and Jehovah’s Witnesses did it all the time, and Sean was far less annoying!

      But that fourth day turned out to be magic. Near the end of the day he hit the grocery store to pick up a few things. As he was choosing a head of romaine, he recognized the hand in the bin next to him. She was squeezing tomatoes. Now didn’t that say something? That he’d recognize her hand! He turned and looked at her. “Don’t make ’em go squirt,” he said.

      Franci jumped a mile. She dropped her tomato and clutched her jacket tight at the throat. “God, you scared