Shelter Mountain. Robyn Carr

go in the oven.” He peered at Chris from underneath the heavy brows. “I bet you could do this part. If you were careful and went nice and slow.”

      “I could.”

      “You’d have to come around here, let me lift you up.”

      “’Kay,” he said, putting his bear on the counter, getting off his stool and coming to Preacher.

      Preacher lifted him up to sit on the edge of the counter. He helped him hold the fork and showed him how to press down. His first solo attempt was a little messy, so Preacher helped him again. Then he did it pretty well. Preacher let him finish the tray, then put it in the oven.

      “John?” the boy asked. “How many of them we gotta do?”

      Preacher smiled. “Tell you what, pardner. We’ll do as many as you want,” he said.

      Christopher smiled. “’Kay,” he said.

      Paige came slowly awake, her first realization being that she’d slept so hard, she’d drooled on the pillow. She sleepily wiped her mouth and turned her head to look at Christopher, only to find his side of the bed empty. She sat up with a sudden start that jolted her bruised and sore body. She got up and looked around the bedroom quickly, but he wasn’t there. She went down the stairs in her stocking feet. When she got to the bottom, she stopped suddenly.

      Chris was sitting up on the counter, John standing beside him. They were both rolling brown dough into small balls. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched. John had heard her come down and smiled at her. He gave Chris a nudge and inclined his head toward Paige, so Chris turned.

      “Mom,” he said. “We’re makin’ cookies.”

      “I see that,” she said.

      “John said Bear needs a leg—”

      “He’s been getting along fine—”

      “For looks,” Christopher said.

      Paige thought that Bear had been looking pretty awful for a long time now. But for the first time in too long, Christopher looked okay.

      When Rick came to work after school, it was just Preacher in the kitchen, working on dinner. Rick, now seventeen, had been Jack’s shadow since Jack first came to town. Preacher came not long after and it was a threesome. Rick lived with his widowed grandmother, his parents long dead, and the guys took him on, let him help in the bar, taught him to hunt and fish, helped him buy his first rifle. Sometimes he was a pain—talked too much. But he’d only been a kid in puberty then—zits trying to beat out freckles—and a little hyper. He’d grown taller in the years since, filled out, quieted down. After about a year of building, the bar opened and they put him to work there.

      “Rick. You need a briefing,” Preacher told him.

      “Yeah? What’s up?”

      “There’s a woman and kid upstairs in my old room. I’m looking out for them. Kid doesn’t feel so hot right now—he might be coming down with something. They’re staying awhile. Looks like maybe. Well,” Preacher said, struggling with the words. “She’s got a bruised face, a cut lip. I think she ran into some trouble and she’s on the move. So… We’re not going to say their names around, just in case someone’s looking for her. Her name’s Paige, the kid’s name is Christopher—but we’re not going to say names for a while. And they’re going to stay until they feel better. You know?”

      “Holy God, Preach,” Rick said. “What’re you doing?”

      “I told you. I’m looking out for them.”

      Preacher had no experience with children and wasn’t planning on having his own. He was thirty-two and hadn’t had a single serious relationship with a woman. He figured he and Jack would fish, run the bar, hunt a little, have regular reunions with the squad, but he couldn’t see life changing much. That Jack fell in love and got married hadn’t upset Preacher’s expectations because he thought Mel was the best. It just hadn’t changed his own life. One of the reasons he liked Virgin River—it was less obvious he’d always be alone.

      Then his life began to change in days. Really, in hours.

      Christopher would run down the stairs in his pajamas before his mother could grab him, stop him. He liked to eat his breakfast at the kitchen counter and watch while Preacher diced vegetables, shredded cheese and whipped eggs for omelets. Then there was sweeping to do, and Chris liked having his own broom. There was that bear skin and mounted buck’s head—which he needed to be lifted up to touch. They got some coloring books and crayons from Mel’s clinic so Chris had something to do while Preacher worked on lunch or dinner. And there were more cookies to bake than there were to eat—cookies were not exactly bar food. Then, amazingly, Paige helped with the washup in the kitchen—probably to be near Chris, who wanted to be with Preacher, and maybe a little to earn her keep. He found this not only helpful, but awful pleasant.

      Paige needed to rest, though at first she was reluctant to leave her child in John’s care. She seemed to get beyond that nervousness, probably because she was usually near and Chris seemed to be relaxed. And on the fourth day of her stay, at Mel’s convincing, she actually left Chris with Preacher while she went somewhere with Mel. Preacher made no speculation of where they were going—he was just flattered that she had come to trust him enough to babysit without supervision.

      But still, he used the time to his advantage.

      Preacher had been on the Internet, learning about domestic abuse and California law regarding the same. He had done this late at night because there were things he needed to understand about her situation, her terrible bruises, her flight. First of all, it didn’t matter if it were a husband or boyfriend, either were equally dangerous. Then there was lots of stuff about how she could be cited with parental kidnapping if she’d taken a man’s child away, even after what had been done to her, and how whoever beat her up could be let off with misdemeanors the first couple of times, but the third time was a felony, which carried a prison sentence.

      He also read about the psychology of this syndrome, how you could be sucked in, manipulated, terrified—and suddenly find yourself in a life-threatening situation. Battered women who were threatened with death if they told, if they fled, if they fought back—were often killed. It chilled Preacher to the bones.

      So, while Chris was napping and Paige was off somewhere with Mel, Preacher called one of his best friends from the Corps, one of the guys who came up to Virgin River regularly when they gathered for fishing, hunting and poker. Mike Valenzuela was LAPD—a sergeant in the gangs division. Too bad he couldn’t be in the domestic violence division. Preacher called him, told him about Paige.

      “She doesn’t know I happened to see,” Preacher said. “It was just a little crack in the door and I saw her in the mirror, and Jesus… She was so beat up, it’s amazing she’s not dead. She’s running for her life, man. She ran to get her three-year-old kid out of there. So how is it he can file kidnapping charges against her and get her back?”

      “Parental kidnapping. But here’s the thing—if there’s evidence that he’s battered her in the past, if he has a record, she might have to return and face her kidnapping charges, but they’d probably be pleaded down or dismissed, given the situation. And she could probably gain at least temporary custody at that time, a divorce, a restraining order, what she needs to stay safe.”

      “But she’d have to go back,” he said, a note of desperation in his voice.

      “Preacher. She wouldn’t necessarily have to go back alone. Hey, how into this woman are you?”

      “It’s not like that, man. I’m just trying to help out. That little kid—he’s a good little kid. If I could help with this, even a little, it would make me feel like I’d done something that mattered. For once.”

      “Preach.” Mike laughed. “I was with you in Iraq! You mattered damn near every day, for God’s sake! Hey—where did you learn all this stuff about battery DV? Huh?”

      “I