For the first time since he’d met the man, Shiloh smiled and his eyes were warm. “Splendid. Now we’ll have dinner at my home and talk.”
Kelly made gourmet pizza for Denny and he raved about it; he said it was heaven. Then while Denny helped Jack serve a dinner Preacher had made earlier in the day, Kelly fixed a special menu for Preacher, Paige and the two little ones. For the appetizer, she prepared the same tray she had originally made for Colin and Jillian—her sampler.
“I have to learn how to make these stuffed grape leaves. And the stuffed mushrooms,” Preacher said, inhaling the food. “Do you think anyone at Jack’s would eat them?”
“They’ll eat anything that’s good, John,” his wife said.
Their first course was cream of pumpkin soup, then salad, then chicken Parmesan with anchovies, black olives and asparagus tips. For dessert, her special lemon cake with coffee. He raved through the meal, then finally sat back in his chair and rubbed his belly. “Oh, my God,” he said most reverently. “I think I’m beginning to see the problem with full-time work in a diner. As the cook, I almost never sit down to a full meal. I taste all day. I’m never stuffed and never hungry. I just ate like a pig!”
“I can’t wait to see what you make for me tomorrow night,” Kelly said.
“Well, I’m torn between a Thanksgiving dinner or a Christmas dinner, my true specialties,” he said. “Thanksgiving is turkey with all the trimmings, Christmas is duck. I have a couple of ducks in the freezer from January. They’d be better fresh, but you’d get the idea.”
“Duck!” Kelly said. “How will you prepare it?”
Preacher straightened proudly. “I’ve made a few adjustments in a recipe I found—it’s awesome. Be surprised.”
“I can’t wait!”
“One of these visits, we’ll have to have a cook-off,” he said.
“We will do that one day, whether here or in San Francisco. Chefs in mutual admiration entertain each other that way.”
The next day Preacher made ribs, corn, beans, coleslaw and corn bread for the bar crowd’s dinner while he prepared his special duck dinner for Kelly and Jillian. He planned to feed them in the kitchen at his workstation. When Kelly and Jillian arrived at Jack’s, they sat at the bar to enjoy a glass of wine while Preacher put the finishing touches on his dinner.
“This cooking competition has Preacher all wound up,” Jack told them. “I’ve never seen him more excited. He told me to try to keep you busy for another twenty minutes.”
“Jack,” Kelly said in a whisper. “Are you capable of sneaking me a sampler of his rib dinner?”
Jack leaned close and whispered back, “No. No way he’d let me do that. He told me not to let you have anything to spoil your taste buds before dinner. He even asked for this particular wine for you. I think he’s been researching again. Eat his duck then ask him for a sample. He’ll let you taste the ribs after you’ve had his dinner.”
She smiled. “That’s exactly what I would have done! God, I love the way he runs this place.” To Jack’s flummoxed expression she amended, “I meant the two of you, of course.”
Jillian laughed. “Don’t let her kid you, Jack. Chefs always think they’re running the whole store. They allow that the owners and managers might contribute something, but not anything of particular importance.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of how it sounds around here.”
While Kelly and Jillian made small talk with Jack as they waited for Preacher to be ready, Kelly happened to see a man on the far side of the room, seated in the corner. He was alone as far as she could tell and there was something about him—something either familiar or engaging. She liked his looks, that much she knew. He appeared to be a big guy; his hair was a reddish-blond and he had a bit of stubble on his face. She realized she was strangely attracted to him, even though she didn’t consider herself available for attraction. He was the guy on the Brawny paper towel package. And though she was staring at him, he wasn’t looking her way. He was watching a young girl at the jukebox and he wasn’t smiling.
Just then the girl left the jukebox and came to the bar, boldly inserting herself between Kelly and Jillian. “Got any cool tunes?” she asked with a curl of the lip.
Jack leaned on the bar and looked over at her. “Well, let’s see, Courtney. This is a bar. That means the over-twenty-one crowd. That means what’s in the juke is cool. I guess you’re outta luck.”
She glared at him briefly and then muttered, “Lame.” Then she turned and stomped out the door.
The Brawny man came over to the bar, but he didn’t rudely interrupt anyone’s conversation. Rather, he stood at the end of the bar and waited for Jack. He pulled out a couple of twenties and Jack moved down to get them.
“Let me get you some change, Lief,” Jack said.
“Forget it, Jack. Thanks for dinner. Exceptional. Tell the cook those are the best ribs I’ve ever had.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Jack said.
When the man left, Kelly turned to Jack. “Was it my imagination or was that young girl a real B.I.T.C.H?”
Jack was scowling. “You don’t need any imagination to come up with that.”
All the way back to the house after dinner, Kelly raved about Preacher’s duck, wild rice, creamed onions and asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. She’d also tried his ribs, beans and corn bread. Being a seasoned taster, she hadn’t stuffed herself. “He’s one of those natural cooks,” she told Jillian. “He trained himself and knows exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it. He has an expert palate. I’m impressed. And his stuff isn’t real fancy, but it’s exactly right for that bar. Exactly.”
“I may never walk again,” Jillian said with a deep moan. She was not an expert taster and had overeaten.
“When we get home, I’m going to get all my stuff together and loaded into the car. I’m heading back to the city early. I want to get my driving done by afternoon.”
“I understand. But it was such a good week. I’m fifteen pounds heavier, but really…” She sighed deeply. “I’ll help you get packed up tonight. Moving around will be good for me.”
They folded Kelly’s clothes together in her bedroom. “Tell me how you met this guy you’ve been seeing,” Jillian asked.
Kelly didn’t have to think. “It was a charity event, a huge thousand-dollar-a-plate event that was held at my restaurant and our chef de cuisine, Durant, was a participant. Luca is not only well-known in the area, but also part owner of the restaurant and he was one of the star chefs. I had already met him, but we became better acquainted, started talking food and menus and voilà—friends. That was almost six months ago and we’ve been in touch since—sometimes we cook together.”
“Chefs,” Jillian said. “Weird. I don’t get together with gardeners and talk vegetables….”
“Yet,” Kelly said with a laugh.
There was a chiming sound from down the hall. It was Jillian’s cell phone. She looked at her watch—it was after nine. “I wonder who’d be calling me.”
She ran down the hall and grabbed up her phone. “Colin?” she said. “Have you learned the iPhone?”
“I have things to tell you!”
“I can barely hear you! Wait, just stand by a minute. Let me see if I can get better reception.” She ran out of her room and up the stairs to the widow’s walk. Getting out the trapdoor created a racket, but she emerged into the star-filled night. “Can you hear me?” she asked him.
“I know where you are,” he said with a laugh. “You’re on the roof.”
“Oh, that’s so much better. Where are you?”
“In my car, headed back to Virgin River.”
“Already? At night?”
“I never went farther than Sedona, Jilly,” he said. “I went to Shiloh Tahoma’s gallery. He calls it a shop or a store, but his oils and prints are on display in the front and it’s every bit a gallery—they’re awesome. Of course, he’s been serious for a long time, since he was just a kid. First thing
he said to me was, ‘Let’s go slap some paint around.’ I thought it was a test of some kind, but I think he really wanted to paint for a while. Then he looked at three of my paintings and said, ‘Nice.’ Then he took me to his house and I had dinner with his family—a wife and three daughters. It was just a simple house, but the art in it was unbelievable—the man is a master. And he collects masters. I wish you could have seen it all.”
“When was this? Today?” she asked him.
“Yesterday. Last night. He offered me a bed for the night but I just didn’t want to impose any more than I had. So he told me to come back first thing in the morning and I was at his shop at eight. He had a lot of questions for me—like what did I know about lithographs and prints, that sort of thing. Stuff I remember from art in school and stuff I read about over the years, but barely understood and haven’t worked at. He suggested that when I have more work and can offer prints, he had a guy who could set up a website for me, if I felt like doing that. He sells numbered prints on his site, but never sells his originals that way. To make a long story short, he told me I should talk to dealers, maybe agents, look at some other shops, but he offered to hang my work. And get this, Jilly—I asked him if I was good enough for my work to hang in his gallery and he said, ‘Not quite. But in five or ten years you’re going to be outstanding.’ He said he thought my work would sell, though, and there was an advantage in being first, and he knew it was nothing but luck, me having run into his cousin in Virgin River.”
“And what then? What did you do?”
“I left him all my work and signed a simple three-paragraph contract that said he’d give the work six months and take fifty percent. He said if I checked around I would learn that fifty percent is high, but that I am also unknown and he has bills to pay. He’s so practical, so logical. And he asked me—if I did any painting in Africa, would I send him photos. Then we had lunch, shook hands and I started driving. I’ve been driving for eight hours and I’m still so wired I wonder if I’ll ever sleep. I’ve been driving, doing reruns of this in my head for eight hours, wondering what happened.”
“Colin, are you sure he’ll be fair with your work? What if there’s no money? Or what if he doesn’t give it back?”
“If that happens, Jilly, it will be the most remarkable lesson of my life, and the lesson will be that I don’t know anything about a man who strikes me as the most down-to-earth, honest, ethical man I’ve ever met. It would mean I know nothing about human beings and better never trust another one again.”
“Oh, Colin, you sound so excited!”
“He said it would take him a few days to hang the work—it has to be just right. But he said he’d email me a picture of the shop so I could see where he put them.” He laughed. “Then he showed me how to take pictures with the phone and email them or text them from the phone. The only joke he made—he said it was hard to believe I flew a complicated helicopter in combat and couldn’t use an iPhone.”
She laughed. “Colin, I don’t think it was a joke!”
“It was an experience, all right. Makes me want to paint even more. It doesn’t make me want to fly less, but paint more.” Then his voice quieted some. “Are you all right, Jilly? Is your sister still there?”
“Kelly is leaving early in the morning. Shouldn’t you be stopping for the night?”
“That ship has sailed,” he said. “I’m somewhere between Las Vegas and Reno, out in the middle of the desert. I pass another vehicle about once every ten minutes. There’s nothing on the road and I’m headed home. Talk me home, Jilly.”
Home. She tried not to take that particular word too seriously. She was sure he had only meant back.
“I don’t think my battery will last that long, and I don’t think my news is as exciting as yours, but I’ll tell you what’s going on around here.” So she told him about the meals they’d had and what she was saving for him. She explained that Denny was going to be a little scarce—he was taking Jack’s place at the bar over a long weekend so Jack, Mel and the family could drive up to Oregon and check on Rick and his grandmother. She gave him the farm report—what was blooming, what had buds, what was coming in. Then she talked a little bit about the stars—from the rooftop they were incredible.
And she told him she’d made a bid on the house. “If it works, I think I’m settling down,” she said.
“Farming for a living,” he said.
“If I can. I believe I can.”
“I believe you can,” he said.
He described the black desert south of Reno and every now and then he’d remember another thing he’d learned from the Navajo artist. “I plunked down six hundred dollars on my charge card for one of his new paintings—not one of the traditional paintings but one of his Native abstracts. I’m not sure what he could have sold it for, but I bet thousands. He insisted six hundred was enough—and I know I barely paid for the canvas and paint. Will you hang it in your house for me?”
They had talked for a long time before Jillian’s phone started to beep. “Colin, I’m running out of phone juice,” she said. “Are you all right to drive without me talking you home?”
He laughed a little. “You know what? I can’t remember doing this before. Talking to a woman for over an hour on the phone.”
“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that,” she said. “I know you’ve had a million women!”
“Not like you, Jilly. I was always looking for women who would take me to bed. It never occurred to me to look for a woman who would take me to heart.”
Colin had been back in Virgin River for three days when Jillian got the call from Jack.
“I hope you were serious,” he said. “There’s no counteroffer. It’s yours.”
She beamed. “Oh, I was serious,” she said. “Thank you so much, Jack. I hope you are as happy as I am.”
Fifteen
Denny Cutler had become a family man in a manner of speaking. He’d been “adopted” by the Sheridan family. He had dinner with the family at the Sheridan home about once a week. He’d play with the little kids, pushing them on their swings, chasing them around, helping them to get washed up for dinner and in their pajamas. From time to time he helped out at the bar, serving, bussing, hauling crates of glasses, cleaning out the ice chest. On weekends he would go out to the river with Jack for a little guy time. It wasn’t his first experience with an older male role model—there had been his mom’s onetime boyfriend, Dan Duke, also a very nice guy who seemed to genuinely care about Denny. Jack, however, was special to him. There was that blood bond.
While Jack was away checking on Rick and his grandmother, Denny worked double time. He stayed at the Sheridan house at night, minding the dog. Then he checked in with Jillian early in the day and got any particularly heavy work done around her gardens and greenhouses, but he was at the bar by noon so he could tend bar, serve and bus, making sure Preacher was covered. Jack had made sure supplies were in stock before he left, so in the afternoon when things were quiet at the bar, Denny took a run out to Jack’s house to let the dog out, did any chores that needed doing like hauling trash to the Dumpster in town. Then he was back at the bar before the dinner hour.
Mike Valenzuela helped him serve drinks and dinner and kept him company, but Denny was managing very well. His days were long and productive and he was proud of what he could do. In fact, when he thought back on his life, he thought maybe he’d reached a real high point. He was very attached to Jack and Mel, liked the town and the folks who dropped in, and he was into Jillian’s farm in a big way. The only things really missing for him were a place of his own that was a bit larger than the room above the Fitch’s garage. And a female; he’d like to have a serious girl in his life. Jack might’ve avoided commitment till he was forty but Denny didn’t necessarily want that life. He’d like a steady girl, plans for a family, the whole drill. There was nothing like that on the horizon, but Denny kept his eyes peeled.
Jack was back in the bar late Monday. “Well, stranger,
welcome home,” Denny said. “You just get back?”
“At about five,” Jack said. “I got Mel and the kids settled and came to town to see how everyone was holding up.”
“I don’t think we’re ready for you to retire, but we got along all right,” Denny said.
“The dog’s alive and the house and yard have been kept real nice. Thanks, Denny. I really didn’t expect all that.”
Denny laughed. “You didn’t expect me to keep the dog alive?”
“I noticed you did a little trimming and cutting in the yard. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s the least I can do, Jack. Besides, I was glad to help out, and you know that.”
“You always do just a little more than you’re asked. You—”
“Jack, it’s the least I can do!” Denny said. “You know what I prepared myself for? For you to say, ‘Kid? I don’t want a kid, for sure not now!’ But you didn’t say that.” He smiled. “You’ve been awesome about this. And no kidding, I know I sneaked up on you with the news you’re my father.”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s a fact.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask—you about ready to do that blood test?” Denny asked.
Jack lifted a brow. “Want a little confirmation?”
“I’m good. But I thought it might give you some peace of mind. Since you were the one who mentioned it.”
“That came from Mel, and since it came from Mel, I’ll ask her where she thinks we should go. How’s that?”
“Anytime you want,” he said. “This life? It’s pretty close to perfect. Not much missing,” Denny said.
“What’s missing, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I could make do with a girlfriend,” he said with a handsome grin.
“You’re probably in the right place. They drop like flies around here.”
Denny laughed and said, “How’s Rick getting by?”