“Well, I do feel sorry for him,” Leslie said. “He’s always had these grandiose ambitions and this truly inflated image of himself and yet…he’s so totally alone. He has no one to believe in him. Even when we were married, I did what he asked me to do—wrote letters for him, took messages, kept his calendar. But I did all that to keep the peace, make him happy and show support, not because I really believed he was going to be a big political hero. I didn’t believe in him, either.”
“But he has a shiny Caddy and a very nice wardrobe,” Candace said.
“The poor slob,” Robert said. “He’s so shallow. You must have been so lonely while you were married to him!”
And she smiled. “Nah. I had you, I had a really fun job with a bunch of great guys, sometimes girlfriends. I was actually pretty happy. And yet…” She thought for a second and remembered what Conner had said to his ex-wife. I’m happy now in a way I was never happy before and it has nothing to do with you.
“I’m going to skip sushi and just drive back to Virgin River,” she told her parents. “I want to spend some quality time on my flowers tomorrow so that when Conner comes back from visiting his sister, the yard looks perfect.”
Seventeen
It took Leslie almost four hours to drive back to Virgin River, and during that time she thought a lot about her years with Greg. He’d wanted so much more than she had since the day she met him. Then he’d traded her in for a prom queen, but boy did he get a tiger by the tail. Not only had Allison dumped him, Leslie had no doubt the word was out—he’d been cast aside. Chucked. Humiliated.
Greg would never be a mayor. He might not even be elected to City Council. But she wasn’t worried about him—he would land on his feet. He’d find another woman because he wasn’t good at being alone—he needed reinforcements, needed an audience. Now this whole business of wanting to be friends with her—it didn’t matter anymore. She could afford to be charitable. She wasn’t angry. In fact, she was grateful. If Greg and Allison hadn’t driven her out of Grants Pass, she might’ve never found Conner.
She asked herself if she should have doubts about whether Conner would turn out to be a bad choice, but she just couldn’t summon any. In fact, while she wasn’t a religious person, she found herself uttering a little prayer. Please, please keep him safe!
And her cell phone rang.
“Are you out to dinner with the fun couple?” he asked.
“I was just thinking about you! No, I’m driving home. I did what I went to Grants Pass to do, felt much better about everything and decided to go home. Tomorrow is my day off and I want to spend it in the yard. If there’s time, I might drive my neighbor, Nora, into Fortuna just for fun.”
“And what did you go to Grants Pass to do?” he asked.
“Well, it was a very interesting day, now that you ask.” And she told him all about her visit with Allison and the conclusions she had come to. At the end of her story she said, “I feel a kind of peace about my divorce that I just didn’t feel before.”
“I understand,” he said. “I totally understand.”
“If I could just have your trial over and you back here, there wouldn’t be a tight nerve in my whole body.”
He laughed deep in his throat. “I really enjoy the job of loosening up those tight nerves of yours.”
“You’re very good at it, too. What’s on the agenda for you tonight?”
“We’re taking the boys to a pizza joint that will be crazy with loud kids and games and life-size singing puppets. We’re having a party because I’m headed for Sacramento in the morning. If there’s a God, it won’t take too long and I can do what I have to do and come home.”
“Aw. You think of this place as home....”
“I think of you as home, baby. You.”
His words wrapped around her like his arms had, and she knew she was more in love than she’d ever been. Her feelings had been quite real when she’d met and married Greg, even though she’d been so young, but with Conner, love had taken on a new dimension. It was grown-up love, steady and deep. Leslie didn’t have to worry about holding on to