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“My God, you’re that Lief Holbrook…. You won an Oscar and an Emmy.” He almost burst with excitement. “Yes, I can see how there’d be preconceived notions. Those were brilliant scripts. I have both of those movies.”
Lief looked down briefly. “Thank you,” he said.
Jerry leaned toward him. “And tell me, Lief. Your wife died and your stepdaughter is giving you fits. Besides frustration with her behavior and appearance, how are you getting along? How do you feel?”
Lief let his eyes bore right into that silly-looking counselor’s pale blue eyes. “Lonely. Sometimes pretty miserable. Like a complete failure where Courtney is concerned. And terrified of never getting her back.”
“I understand completely. Let’s set up your appointments now, then we’ll have another forty minutes or so to chat before you have to go.”
“Our appointments?”
“I’ll do what I can for Courtney, of course. It’s really my specialty even if it’s not yours. But brother—you could use a friend who understands right now, too. If it’s not too bold, I think you should give me a try. I actually studied this stuff.”
“You any good?” Lief asked.
“I am,” he said, smiling almost shyly.
Four
Courtney didn’t see Bad Ass Hopper until almost last period at school. She’d carried his backpack around all day long, anticipating the moment. She was prepared to lug it around for the next day or week or month if he didn’t show up at school.
By the look on his face when she cornered him at his locker, he actually thought about running. “Don’t bother,” she said. “Here’s your backpack. My dad took out the DVDs you were going to rip off from us. Never come around me or my house again.” She turned to go, then turned back. “You should be called S.A. instead of B.A. For Stupid Ass.” She looked him over contemptuously. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re lucky I could talk him out of calling the cops. Infant.”
She was halfway down the hall before he found his voice, his nervous voice. “Yeah? Well, better than a devil-worshiping elf!”
It only made her smile; he certainly lacked imagination.
Her last class of the day was psychology, of all things. She thought the teacher looked at her funny, like she was someone who could certainly use a little psych. It happened Courtney found the class interesting, but she never let on.
She took her seat at the rear left, as far away from others as possible. This time Amber Hawkins chose the seat next to her. Damn those classroom tables that sat two.
“Hi Courtney,” she said almost shyly.
“Hi.”
“I heard you give it to B.A.”
“Lucky you.”
Amber giggled. “You’re a real booger, aren’t you?”
“Booger?!”
Amber giggled again.
Courtney knew that Amber wasn’t one of the real popular girls, but she fit in here far better than Courtney did. She was a farm girl or something. She wasn’t a cheerleader or on a dance squad, dressed plain and kind of out of style, didn’t wear makeup, didn’t seem to lunge after the boys as the popular girls did.
“We’re in algebra together,” Amber informed her.
“We are?” Courtney knew they were, but she decided to play it as though she’d never noticed.
“I was wondering—do you get it? I mean, get it? Algebra? Because I’m lost. Worse than lost. I think I’m dead.”
Courtney sighed. “Really, it’s not that hard.”
“Are you getting good grades?” she asked.
“Well … No. But not because I don’t get it. I admit, I haven’t been keeping up with assignments. And if you tell my dad that, I’m going to suck all the blood out of your neck!”
Stupid Amber just giggled. “Well, okay, then, I’ll have to not tell him. So, do you think you could maybe help me sometime?”
“How am I gonna do that?”
“Um, you could ride the bus home with me. My dad would drive you home after we study.”
Courtney turned in her chair to look at Amber. “Listen, Amber, you live on a farm or something, right?”
Amber looked a little startled. “Are you allergic to animals? Because I could go to your house. Or we could stay here and use the library and my dad could pick me up and drive you home. He’d do that for me to have a fighting chance in math.”
“Why’s it so important to him?”
She shrugged. “We have a family business, the farm and vineyard. And construction and other things. I have older brothers, all wizz-guys. An engineer, an accountant, an MBA.”
“That must be one helluva farm.”
“It’s just a farm,” Amber said.
“Look, chick, I’d scare your parents to death—”
Amber giggled yet again.
“Stop that!” Courtney demanded harshly.
Amber stopped. In fact, she got a little pale. “Sorry,” she said softly.
“I meant stop laughing, I was being serious. I don’t think I’d fit in around your place. You know?”
She put her hand over her mouth this time to restrain herself. “It’s okay, Courtney. It’s just all that Hollywood stuff. They wouldn’t take it seriously. But whew, they’re sure taking my D in math seriously! I gotta do something!”
“Did you ask the teacher?”
Amber nodded gravely. “He doesn’t explain it any better in private than he does in class.”
Then Courtney laughed.
“Ladies?” the psych teacher asked. “Is there something you’d like the rest of the class to know?”
Courtney stood to her full four-foot-eleven height. “Yes, Mr. Culmer. You’re going to need to hire a consultant to help with the, ah, tie selection. I think Mrs. Culmer is slipping—she really blew it on that one.”
The class fell apart with laughter. They were hysterical; Mr. Culmer was getting redder by the minute. When the class finally quieted and Courtney was again in her seat, the teacher said, “And this coming from a fourteen-year-old with pink-and-purple hair. Thank you very much.”
“My pleasure,” she said, grinning largely.
Courtney had been on plenty of farms; Lief’s parents lived on a farm, the farm he grew up on, even if it wasn’t a working farm anymore. He also had uncles and cousins with farms—in Idaho it was mostly potatoes. She hadn’t thought too much about missing visits to those farms until she was bouncing along on a yellow bus with Amber to go home with her to do homework. She was excited. She didn’t let it show, of course.
She thought it was kind of funny that when they used to visit the Holbrook farms in Idaho, Courtney had never worried about whether she could fit in, but in Virgin River she stood out like a sore thumb. When her mom was alive, she didn’t have pink-and-purple hair, black fingernails and odd, black retro clothing, either.
Courtney and Amber had planned to do homework together when they got to Amber’s house, then Courtney would stay for dinner and they might either do some more homework or play video games or whatever until Lief came to pick up Courtney and take her home. Amber’s dad had offered to drive her home, but Lief had insisted. He wanted to meet Amber’s parents, probably to make sure they weren’t satanists or serial killers.
So—Amber’s parents were much older than Courtney had expected. They were grandparents. She should have anticipated this since Amber’s older, married brothers were all college graduates who worked in the “family business.” And for older people, they were very weird—they didn’t even flinch when they took in her appearance.
First was Amber’s mother, who greeted them in a warm, good-smelling kitchen. She was wearing loose jeans tucked into her rubber boots, and her gray hair was kind of all over the place. “How do you do?” Amber’s mother said. “I’m Sinette Hawkins. It’s so nice of you to help Amber with math. I guess Hawk and me, we’re just too far past all that new math. And her brothers are busy helping their own kids.”
“I don’t mind,” Courtney said.
“Now are you sure your father doesn’t want to join us for dinner?” Sinette asked. “Because there’s always more than we can eat. I do that on purpose—someone is bound to stop by and Hawk likes a hot lunch in the middle of the day, so I keep plenty of leftovers.”
Ah, that would explain Amber leaning toward the chubby side, Courtney thought. “No. He said he has something to do.”
And right then a kid in a wheelchair zoomed into the kitchen. Amber introduced him as her nephew, Rory. He was only eight, wore thick glasses, and maneuvered that chair around like it was a Corvette. “I’m ready for my spelling words,” Rory announced. “Amber, you wanna do my spelling words? “
“I can’t, Rory. I have to do my homework with Courtney. She came all the way out here to help me with my math.”
“How long does it take to do spelling words?” Courtney asked.
“Maybe fifteen minutes,” Amber answered with a shrug. “He’ll get ‘em all right.”
“Then let’s do ‘em,” Courtney said, barely recognizing herself. But he’s in a wheelchair, she thought. And even that doesn’t give you slack from homework?
During homework, Courtney found out that Rory had muscular dystrophy. When she asked if he’d get out of that wheelchair pretty soon, Amber said, “There’s no cure. Yet.” Courtney was afraid to ask any more questions. After homework, they went out to the barn where they kept one cow and two horses. There were also chickens and a couple of goats and a few dogs, one of whom seemed to move a little slow. “She’s pretty much ready to whelp,” Amber said. “The family’s got a bet going—want to get in on it? Her last litter she dropped seven pups.”
Courtney bet nine.
Hawk, Amber’s dad, was a skinny old farmer. They caught up with him while he was hosing off his tractor out by the family’s big vegetable garden. It was hard to tell if his name was the shortened version of his last name or due to his hawkish nose. He was a little hunched but strong, like maybe he’d been working real hard for a lot of years. Yet when he met Courtney, he turned out to be a little silly.
“I been looking forward to this,” he said, putting out his calloused hand to her. “Been dyin’ to see the hairdo!”
“Dad!” Amber scolded, clearly mortified.
“What? I been dyin’ to. Must take commitment, eh?”
Courtney laughed. “Sort of.”
“Courtney,” Amber said pleadingly. “He swore he wouldn’t make fun.”
“I didn’t make fun,” her father protested. “I can’t help wondering what it feels like. Can I touch it? “
“It’s just hair,” Courtney said, leaning her head toward him.
“So it is. I just have to ask—what did your dad have to say when he first laid eyes on it?”
“It totally freaked him out,” she said almost proudly.
And Hawk smiled knowingly. “Knew there had to be a good reason.”
When Lief saw that window of opportunity—Courtney making a homework date with a girlfriend from school—he was ready to get back to that Victorian on the premise of a tour and some free garden stock. It had only been a couple of days, but Courtney didn’t provide many such opportunities. He realized he’d never thought ahead enough to ask Kelly for a phone number.
The tour and veggies were an excuse, though he did find the property curious and interesting. But really, it was the brokenhearted blonde with the delicious mouth who drew him. And bless her little soul, Lief was almost glad she was overcoming lost love. That would buy him some time. Although he just couldn’t stop thinking about her, he had so many complications in his life to sort out. First of all, it wasn’t likely Courtney’s behavior was going to improve if Lief introduced a new woman into their already tenuous relationship. And any woman getting involved with them would probably be horrified by Courtney’s sass if not her style. Add to that, it had been years since he’d been attracted to a woman other than his wife and didn’t even know where to start. He used to be good with women; it never took much effort to hook up. He really hoped it was like riding a bike…
Yeah, it would probably involve years of therapy for himself and Courtney before he would even get up the courage to chance a kiss.
But when he thought of Kelly, he thought of someone whose beauty and warmth enveloped him, someone he longed to hold, to sink into, to possess. There was a softness and allure to her that made him feel as though he had no will of his own. The second she’d walked into Jack’s he’d felt it, and to his surprise, he’d kept feeling it long after she was out of sight.
But it surpassed sweet comfort—he also thought of sex. Urgent sex. She was the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long time. He had a feeling he could be completely reborn in her arms.
He drove out to the house, parked in the front and rang the bell. She came to the door looking as if she’d just had a wrestling match with the Pillsbury Doughboy—tendrils of her hair escaping a scarf that tied it back, something floury on her cheek, her apron stained pink here and there. She was drying her hands on a towel. “Lief!” she said. “You’re about the last person I expected to see!”
He nodded. “That’s because I said I would call. But—I got away without a number. If you’ll give me one, I’ll leave now, drive to the bar in town, call you and drive right back. So it doesn’t look like I’m imposing on—” He sniffed. “What is that wonderful smell?”
She smiled at him and he realized at once that it was really too easy to bewitch a chef—just smell her cooking and she was as good as captured.
“I’ve been baking. The rhubarb crop is in and apparently I’m the only person in a hundred square miles who can make a good rhubarb pie. And then there’s rhubarb jam.” She shrugged. “It was going to go bad if I didn’t.”
He almost swooned from the aromas. “Thank God you came to town,” he said.
“Come in,” she invited with a laugh. “I’m just cleaning up the kitchen. I’ll see if Jill has time to take you for a tour of the house and grounds. Then, if you’re very good, I’ll give you a slice of pie.”
“Are you sure? Because I really meant to call in advance and ask you to pick a time …”
“I’m picking a time,” she said, pulling on his hand. “Come in. I’m still busy in the kitchen and kind of desperate for my shower, but maybe Jill is free. Let’s see.”
He followed her into the house and noted there was no furniture until he got to the kitchen. There, as promised, was a mess. But resting on the kitchen table in the large breakfast nook were ten pies. And there were now other smells. His head tilted back and his nose began to work the room.
She noticed. “I’m roasting a leg of lamb for dinner. Can you stay?”
“Oh, I’m sure I’m imposing …”
“On a chef?” She laughed. “I’m more likely to be insulted if you decline.”
He grinned at her. Maybe that old saying about the fastest way to a man’s heart was through his stomach was true, because suddenly he wanted her even more. Wanted! He really thought he was far past that kind of fierce yearning. He had found himself amazed even to be intrigued. This desire was just awesome, and he relished it. “I’ll stay. My daughter is doing homework with a friend and having dinner there tonight.”
“That’s right,” she said. “There’s a daughter. I apologize. I’d forgotten. I’ll have both of you next time.”
He just laughed; they’d have to revisit that idea. “Courtney is actually my stepdaughter, though she uses my last name. It’s complicated. I’ll explain later. But what are you going to do with all those pies?”
“I don’t know. I could use a bigger freezer, but only the most essential equipment is in the house at the moment. I guess I’ll spread ‘em around. A few for Preacher, that’s for sure—he told me he’s been trying to make a decent rhubarb pie for years. I can’t believe how much stuff Jill has that’s running out of time—tomorrow I have to get a good start on blackberries. She’s had friends and neighbors out here picking for a good month and there’s still such a big crop left, someone has to do something with it. Blackberry preserves, jam, pie filling…. I came up here to surf the Net for a job, and I’m working my tail off. Let me go out to the garden and ask her if she has time to scoot you around in her garden mobile …”
“Garden mobile?”
