“Dreading it? Because you knew how pissed I’d be?”

She gave a huff of laughter. Sometimes he was so dense. “No, Sean,” she said patiently. “I don’t care if you get mad at me. I was afraid you’d hurt Rosie. Reject her. Ignore her. Break her heart.”

Sean got that stunned look on his face again because he hadn’t even gotten that far yet with processing all that had happened. In his mind he’d just found out Franci was pregnant, and it really ticked him off that he hadn’t been told. But life had hit fast-forward; she was almost four years old and asking questions about her father. He had absolutely no idea what a father did with a four-year-old. He had even less idea what a single father did!

“I won’t,” he said, though he was afraid, through ignorance, he just might. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Thank you,” Franci said. “If you don’t want to see much of her, I can find ways to get around that so she isn’t hurt, and if you—”

“Franci,” he nearly barked at her, stopping her. “Gimme a minute, huh?” He took a breath. “I just found out you were pregnant!” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “You haven’t told her yet?”

Franci shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Okay, first you have to let me digest this—I think I’m in shock. Then we’ll talk about how we’ll manage things. When we’ve had a little time to work things out, then we’ll tell her. But first—” He took another deep breath. “You’ve had a few years to get used to this idea. I’ve had a few minutes.” He lifted one brow and peered at her. “And I haven’t had much sleep.”

In spite of herself, she flushed.

“Now, I’m going to get dressed. I’m going to leave. I need a little time to think. I need some fresh air and you made promises to your ‘wide Iwish rose.’ I’m going to call you tonight.” He tilted his head. “Are you going to give me a phone number now?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Don’t tell her until I’m ready, Franci.”

“Do you want to help tell her?” she asked, frankly surprised.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I just don’t want you to tell her until I have some time to think. I want to work things out in my head, then we’ll get to…” He gave a half smile. “Rose? Why’d you name her Rose.”

“That hair,” she said, smiling. “She came with a head full of that hair. I thought I was going to name her Taylor, till I saw the hair.”

He couldn’t quite smile back. Then he pushed back from the breakfast bar and went into the bedroom to gather up his clothes. As he limped out of the kitchen, she saw the scratch marks she’d left on his back and winced. “Oh, God,” she whispered, mortified. When he came back into the kitchen he was fully dressed, though he couldn’t button his shirt. She said, “Please, whatever you decide, let Rosie be your first consideration. Her feelings, her little heart.”

“Whatever I decide?” Sean asked. “You mean there’s some kind of choice? She’s mine, right? Nothing I decide will change that, right?”

“She’s yours. I wouldn’t be able to hide that.”

“Then you don’t have to worry about her heart,” he said. He buttoned his leather jacket over his destroyed shirt. “Write down your number for me. When does she go to bed?”

Franci scribbled down the number on a notepad. “Eight or so.”

“I’ll call you after that so we can talk,” he said, grabbing the paper. And without touching, hugging, kissing or the smallest display of affection, he left her house.

Six

It wasn’t even eight on Sunday morning when Sean left Franci’s, so he drove around Eureka and Arcata for a couple of hours, hoping to spy an open bar. Of course the kind of classy bar where Sean preferred to spend his time wasn’t open on Sunday morning, or any early morning for that matter, but he was willing to settle for a dive if he could only find one.

Pregnant, he kept thinking. Then he would remind himself, not pregnant anymore. There was a child, a little girl. How could Franci do something like that to him? Man, he could use a stiff drink.

Right away the many things he’d have to do assaulted him. He’d have to step up, offer to marry Franci and somehow become a father. He’d have to act like a father to a little girl who hadn’t had one since birth. Even though he had plenty of friends with young children, he hadn’t been paying attention; he wasn’t sure how that was done. Nor was it something he felt like doing! Next he’d have to tell his family and they were all going to go crazy, his mother, Maureen, at the head of the pack.

He’d have to get over being angry long enough to convince Francine to move to Beale AFB as his wife, living with him full-time, and he had only five weeks of leave to do it in. Joint checking account, sharing a dirty clothes hamper, knowing each other’s whereabouts at all times, working out child-care issues. Maybe he could convince her to be a housewife and take care of everything.

Sean began to feel claustrophobic.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and then let out a little ping. He pulled it out and looked at it—a text message from Cindy. A long text message; he didn’t try to read it while he drove. In fact, he might not read it at all. Ever.

Cindy had been a very brief girlfriend. He should have broken off their relationship, which wasn’t much of one to start with, when he took leave to go to Luke’s. Instead, Sean, being Sean, had kept the thread alive just enough to think about it a while longer because Cindy liked him a lot, and that meant regular sex. She was a civilian who worked on base, twenty-five years old, kind of cute. They had met at the officers’ club one Friday night. The girl went from zero to naked in twenty seconds—they were in her bed that very night. Though he knew better, he took her out a couple of times after that. He knew it wasn’t going anywhere, but she didn’t. She started calling him, having expectations, getting serious. He tried to slow her down, but she was very hot to trot and not easily discouraged. Sean was a gentleman most of the time and returned her calls or texts when she asked him to, and that was probably another mistake. So he told her he was going to his brother’s place, would be gone a couple of months, and this would be a good time to cool it. He wasn’t interested in having a steady girl.

She was interested. She left voice-mail and text messages on his phone at least once a day, sometimes the cheery how are you variety and sometimes the desperate why don’t you call me I miss you so much type.

What he wanted was a message from Franci that said, “Come back here, I can explain.” But he wasn’t likely to get that. She didn’t want him if he was merely taking responsibility. She wanted him in all the way, wanting her and a baby. Was it some kind of felony to be a guy who didn’t feel like having kids? He knew a lot of guys who didn’t feel like breeding up big families! It didn’t make him a bad guy.

Sean found himself driving back toward Luke’s in Virgin River. And he was thinking that he really liked the guy he’d been with Franci, before all this. And he liked the plan he’d had. He wanted to travel, do fantastically adventurous things with her: see the world, ski the Alps, snorkel in coral reefs, dive in clear, warm waters, parasail, balloon, four-wheel, do a motorcycle cross country, go mountain climbing. He hadn’t ruled anything out. And Franci seemed to be having a great time; they were good together. An air force pilot and a nurse pulled together a decent enough income to indulge in all the fun entertainment life had to offer.

She had no right to do what she’d done. Without even telling him. She was wrong to do that. Franci was the one who was wrong, not him. He’d been honest!

He pulled up to Jack’s Bar, the only game in town. The open sign was lit. Sean wandered in and found the place deserted. He went up to the bar and said hello to a smiling Jack.

“Morning,” Jack said. “Breakfast?”

“Shot of Chivas, if that’s okay.”

Jack lifted his eyebrows. “Fine by me,” he said, getting a glass and the bottle. “Rough night?”

Beautiful night, Sean thought. Maybe that’s what pissed him off the most, that he’d had that old, familiar, phenomenal, mind-blowing sex with Franci and had started thinking, I’m home, I’m home, I’m home with my woman! He’d begun formulating how they’d work things out; he’d convince her their life was good; he’d assure her she was secure with him. He loved her; he looked forward to a life with her. It was the trappings of marriage and children that made him nervous, made him feel like the confinement would suck all the fun out of him. But if that was the price of having her in his life he would compromise. He could do the marriage thing, but that whole family thing—he was maybe years away from that.

Think again, idiot, his conscience chided him. It’s here. Your Wide Iwish Rose.

“Sean?” Jack asked, putting the drink in front of him.

“Oh. Thanks. Just a lot on my mind.”

“Oh,” Jack replied. “Well, can’t say I haven’t resorted to Scotch before 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning to clear my head. A time or two.” Then he turned away like a good bartender and busied himself behind the bar.

Sean kept his jacket closed because there were no buttons on his shirt and he didn’t want his bare chest hanging out. He spent thirty minutes with a Scotch, convincing himself that all of this was the fault of Franci and he would do what he had to do, but she would have to beg his forgiveness for the deception. And that was just the beginning! She would have to explain why, after doing that, she hadn’t contacted him and told him about Rosie before she was three and a half and old enough to know he hadn’t been around! That was unforgivable!

He shook his head dismally and thought, Wait a minute—you don’t want children, and you’re angry that you didn’t know you had one? He was confused. So confused.

“Ah, Sean?” Jack asked. Sean looked up. “Can I freshen that for you?”

“Yeah,” he said, pushing the glass forward.

Jack poured a shot and said, “Listen, Preacher’s in the kitchen if you need anything. I’m going to wander next door for about an hour, then I’ll be back.”

“Next door?” Sean asked.

“Yeah. You met the new minister, right? The guy who married Luke and Shelby? Well, we’re not real churchy, but Noah’s good people and he gives a passable sermon. Preacher and me—we trade off Sundays. The wives like to go. We’re doing our best to support the church—I think we need to keep it going. Besides, he makes me laugh a lot more often than he makes me feel guilty. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Sure,” Sean said. “Enjoy yourself.”

“If you’re still here when I get back, maybe we can lay a little breakfast on top of that Chivas.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sean said.

Sean sat there a good bit longer, focused on how much this was not his fault, and finally he had bored himself to death. He figured he’d settle up with Jack later and decided to just slip out. He was inexplicably drawn to the church out of curiosity. He wondered, when Jack said they were doing the best they could to keep it going, what that meant. So he walked in the front doors of the church, which opened to the back of the sanctuary.

It was not nearly full. Maybe half. Most of the people were seated toward the front, but in the back pew on the left were a few grizzled old mountain boys with graying beards past their sternums and ponytails down their backs. Sean took the back pew on the opposite side of the aisle. He got a whiff of mountain living from their side.

He recognized a good many people he knew well—Luke, Shelby and Art for starters. Mel, Jack and the kids; Preacher’s wife, Paige, with theirs. Walt Booth sat up front beside Vanessa, Paul and the little ones. No sign of Walt’s lady friend, Muriel. She was probably out of town, which was often the case. There were others—people who’d been at Luke’s wedding. But Sean had entered quietly and no one turned to look his way.