“Tell me about it,” she said.
He didn’t know about the others, but there was no sweeter soul, nobody less trouble and more eager to please than Art. But he said, “I’ll take care of this and get back to you. You don’t have to say anything.” He raised his eyebrows. “We don’t want him in trouble.”
“Right,” she said. “Wanna come in? Have some coffee or…something?”
“Thanks, but I’m running behind. I’ll come back though—how’s that?”
Luke left Shirl and took a big truckload of supplies for the cabins back to Virgin River. He decided he wasn’t going to take any chances—he’d get help from Mike and Brie. He’d wait till after Christmas, give the Valenzuelas some time with their new baby and all the visiting family, then pay a visit, explain in detail about the group home and job Art had come from and ask what he had to do to clear things up so Art could stay with him. And if it wasn’t possible for Art to stay with Luke, his next residence would be safer—Luke would see to that. Between Mike and Brie, given their legal and law enforcement experience, they could at least help him figure out how he should proceed. And he’d like to get Stan and Shirl investigated—they were a couple of punk kids in charge of a lot of disabled adults. It smelled like they were working the system for profit.
Luke decided it would be necessary to go to Phoenix for a couple of days over Christmas. If he didn’t, there was no telling how many Riordans might show up in Virgin River, and he didn’t have the patience for that. Going to Phoenix would appease his mother and mollify his brothers.
With all that was going on over the holidays around his cabins, he needed to be sure everything was well organized, planned out. First of all, he had to be sure Jack and Mike Valenzuela could manage everything their families needed while Luke was away because Art certainly couldn’t handle guests’ needs.
As for Art—he’d be fine on his own for a couple of days, but Luke didn’t feel right leaving him alone. Luke appealed to Shelby and the general. Art should have a holiday dinner, a few presents that Luke would provide before leaving town and some sense of family. He knew before even asking they’d be more than happy to welcome Art and see that he had a memorable Christmas.
And then there was Shelby. He racked his brain for a gift idea. He wanted her to know she was very important to him, but he was nervous about what to buy her. She was the kind of woman he felt like buying something flashy and sparkly for, but he just wasn’t ready for something like that. Women saw things like jewelry as stepping stones to marriage, but things like sweaters sent the message you didn’t care at all. So Luke went all out in the only way he knew how. It was more than he’d spent on a woman in over a dozen years, including his mother—he bought Shelby very special, six-hundred-dollar ostrich boots, handcrafted and stitched. He considered buying her a saddle, but the boots were more personal. They had their Christmas-gift exchange right before he left town, and when she opened her gift and saw the boots, she wept. No one had ever given her a gift like that in her life and he enjoyed success when she kissed all over him.
He took her into his arms, laughing sentimentally. “I’ve never seen you cry,” he said, holding her close, rocking her back and forth gently.
“Oh, you’d have seen way too much of that a year ago…”
“But these are happy tears. That’s different. That means I did good.”
“You did very good,” she said. “They’re just amazing. Exactly what I would have had made for myself. Like my own skin. I could sleep in them.”
“But someone could get hurt,” he reminded her with a laugh.
She gave him a new leather jacket that was almost as expensive as the boots and just as personal. “It’s okay if you don’t wear it a lot. I know you love that flying jacket of yours and you’re so sexy in it—but this is for when you’re not on the bike. For those rare times you dress up a little bit.”
He asked her about all those things she’d talked about doing before Doc had died and she’d become so busy helping Mel—the applications to college, for example. She told him she’d applied to several major California universities: Stanford, USC, UC Davis, San Francisco State. It was only Christmas—September was a long way off. “I also sent an application to Humboldt State University, right down the road, in case I decide to stay right where I am. They have a fabulous program for bachelor of science nursing.”