A Virgin River Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

wasting her time; he had no interest in finding his only son. “He left without a word and never got in touch. That’s enough message for me.”
    Through perseverance, Marcie learned that the elder Buchanan had not experienced good health in the past few years. He’d had a mild stroke, was being treated for high blood pressure, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s and, she suspected, a tish of dementia.
    “Don’t you miss him?” she asked. “Wonder what’s become of him?”
    “Not on your life,” he said. “He’s the one burned his bridges and run off.”
    But when he said that, there was wet in the folds under his old eyes and she thought: He can’t give much more than this, but he would love to see his son once more, or at least know he was all right. Wouldn’t he?
    Ian’s former fiancée, Shelly, was still angry about the way she’d been abandoned, even though she’d married someone else three years ago and was pregnant now with her first baby. She had not a kind or sympathetic word for the man who’d run through sniper fire, taken injuries to save a comrade, won both a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. She pretty much hated Ian for the way he’d dumped her and bolted. A thought came to Marcie—if Shelly was happy with her life now, why would Ian’s obvious troubles cause her such prolonged hate? Couldn’t she see how war would shift his thinking, cause his emotional confusion? After having a life-limited husband for so long—a hopeless invalid who couldn’t even smile at her—giving a little patience and understanding to a man who’d been through a lot of trauma seemed a small thing.
    But, Marcie had reminded herself, I don’t know the weight of anyone else’s burdens—only my own. She didn’t judge. She didn’t feel smart or strong enough to judge.
    It was beyond important to Marcie to look at Ian’s face and ask him how he could save her beautiful young husband’s life and then never respond to her letters.
    Maybe Ian couldn’t give her answers that would make everything feel settled for her, and to that end, she thought it made sense for them to talk about it. Talk it through. They called it “closure” in the shrink club.
    As she pulled up to a small, roughly hewn house, she caught sight of a man coming around the corner, his arms laden with firewood. He was clean shaven but stooped, his legs bowed with age, his head bald. He stopped walking when he saw her. She got out of her car, then went toward him. “Afternoon, sir,” she said.
    He put down the logs and the scowl on his face said he was suspicious of her.
    “I wonder if you might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone.” She pulled the photo out again. “This was taken about seven years ago, so he’s obviously aged and I hear he’s got a beard now, but the rumor is, he’s living somewhere out in these hills. I’m trying to find him. Thirty-five years old, big man—I think he’s over six feet.”
    The man took the photo in his bent, arthritic fingers. “You family?” he asked.
    “More or less,” she said. “He and my husband were good friends in the Marines. I should tell him, my husband passed.”
    “Ain’t seen him. Ain’t seen no one looks like that, anyway.”
    “But what if he was kind of gone to seed?” she said. “I mean, older, maybe heavier, bearded, maybe bald, maybe has a pot belly or is way too thin—who knows?”
    “He grow weed?” the man asked, handing her back the picture.
    “I don’t know,” she answered.
    “Only folks I know around here about that age grow pot. And even if he’s family, you might wanna cut him a wide berth. There’s trouble around the growers sometimes.”
    “I heard that, yeah. Still—you know anybody like that I should just have a look at? Just to rule them out? I’ll be real careful.”
    “There’s a guy up on the ridge, kind of hard to find. Could be twenty, could be fifty, but he’s got a beard and he’s good-sized. You’d have to go back where you came,