“Ya think?” she asked, lifting a thin, black eyebrow.

“Assuming that’s the case, what do you think we should talk about?”

She leaned back in the chair. “I guess you probably want to talk about the fact that my mother is dead.”

He didn’t register even the slightest shock. He tilted his head and said, “I would’ve started with how you like it around here. Must be quite a change for you.”

“Quite,” she echoed. She knew she had several choices—she could make this a challenge, make it easy, make it interesting or make it horrible. “It’s a little more rural than I’m used to.” She decided on interesting.

“Are you getting to know people yet? Making friends?” he asked.

“I have one friend, but she’s sort of someone who needs me to help her with homework, so once she gets it she might not be my friend anymore.”

“There’s a troubling thought,” he said. “Don’t you suppose she could have found someone she liked to help her rather than someone she would just use?”

She considered shifting to horrible. Except that he seemed to speak her language, oddly enough. “I think she probably likes me. In her way.”

“And do you like her?” he asked. “In your way?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“Let’s start there. What do you like about her?”

Courtney narrowed her eyes. “Her lameness does not totally offend me.”

Jerry smiled indulgently. “What else?”

She decided to take pity on him since he was truly an inferior nerd. “I kind of like hanging around her house, her farm. Her family is kind of nice. Her dad is funny. Old and pretty broken down, but silly. When I stay for dinner I get good, fatty, greasy stuff instead of all that health-food shit my dad makes.”

“Right there is a massive recommendation,” Jerry said. “I’m afraid I’m falling down in the health-food-shit department.”

“No kidding? And she has a little nephew in a wheelchair. Her older brother’s kid.”

“Oh?”

“Muscular dystrophy. He’s eight. He might have some times he’s less sick than others, but he’s not going to get better. He’s going to get worse until he dies. Not very many people make it to adulthood if they get it as a kid.”

“Did your friend explain all this to you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I looked it up on the internet. Because of what she said, I pinned him down to DMD—Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She said there was no cure and he wasn’t getting better and he’s already in a wheelchair. He’s really kind of cute with his glasses sliding off his nose—looks like that little kid in Jerry Maguire. And he’s scary smart—he’s eight and doing seventh grade spelling and math. And he’s funny. His parents let him zone out on video games to keep his reflexes exercised, but there’s nothing they can do about the muscles in his back or legs.”

“You like him. You like the whole family,” Jerry observed.

She gave something like a nod. But then she said, “Makes you wonder if there’s any God, seeing a kid like that get something like that.”

Jerry leaned forward. “Courtney, you joined the geniuses of the centuries in wondering that very thing. Unfairness and injustice are two things that really threaten blind faith.”

“Why are you talking to me like I’m an adult?” She made a face.

He looked surprised. “Did I say something you didn’t understand?”

“No,” she relented. “Yeah, I like the family. I like the animals, even if there aren’t that many. My dad grew up on a potato farm and we used to go there. We haven’t been there in a while.”

“What animals?” Jerry asked.

“There’s a golden retriever mix who’s about to have puppies and you can feel them move around inside her—I bet there’s gonna be nine. I mean, it’s a real bet—I even put a dollar in the jar. There are chickens, goats, one cow and two horses. A million cats, like at my dad’s Idaho farm. They keep the mice down.”

Jerry smiled at her. “If you like hanging out at farms, you’re going to make plenty of friends around here. Lots of farm kids around here.”

“Yeah, well. I have exactly one friend so far.”

“But do you trust her? Like her? Is she a good person?” Jerry asked.

“She is good. Kind of lame and dorky, but she wouldn’t know how to be a bad person.”

“I’m going to tell you something that might be a little hard for you to buy into right now, but a couple of good, trustworthy, loyal friends—it’s a lot. In junior high and high school, kids collect friends in such big numbers it sometimes seems ridiculous to think you could get by on just a couple of good ones. But really, one good friend rather than a dozen you’re not too sure of—no contest.”

She was quiet for a minute. “I had a lot of friends before my mom died.”

Jerry was respectfully quiet for a minute also. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Courtney. The death of a close loved one can often change the landscape of everything else in your life.”

“Is this where we segue into talking about my dead mother?”

He smiled at her, but it was a comforting smile. “Segue. Movie talk. You’ll probably have to explain that term around here. I thought we’d keep this short today, our first day together, and sneak up on the more difficult subjects over time. You okay with that?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I’m already tired. I don’t know why—it’s not like I had to walk here.”

“It’s okay. I think we’re off to a decent start. You didn’t even make fun of my wardrobe or haircut. I don’t always get off that easy.”

“I decided not to hurt your feelings, in case you’re—you know—sensitive.”

“Thank you. Very sporting of you. Want to come back after school on Monday?”

She straightened. “How long do I have to do this?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I assume we’ll both know when we’ve had enough.”

She scooted to the edge of her chair. “Do we have to do this until my hair is all one color, my fingernails painted pink and my clothes pastel?”

He grinned hugely. “Courtney, look at me. What are the odds I’m going to take pokes at anyone’s style?”

“Do you have any good friends?”

“Yes. A few quality friends, actually.”

She snorted. “That’s promising! I’ll come Monday, but let’s not go overboard.”

“Deal. Now, I want to give you some ground rules. Mine, not yours. I’m also talking to your dad now and then, but I’m not talking to him about you. Oh—he can talk about you if he wants to, but I’m not going to be asking him about you. And you can talk about him, but I’m not going to ask you about him—not unless there’s some compelling reason to ask something. Like if you tell me he beat you up, I’d probably ask about that. But—and here’s the most important thing—I’m never going to tell you what he said or tell him what you said. We have a confidentiality agreement. You don’t have to worry. You can safely air all your complaints or concerns here.”

“So you expect me to believe that if I call him a low-life, blood-sucking, parasite son of a bitch, you won’t rat me out?”

He smiled at her. “Exactly.”

One of the things that Lief had discussed with Jerry in counseling was where Lief had found reassurance, confidence and self-esteem as a kid. It didn’t matter where or how you grew up, these were things all kids needed. Lief told Jerry it had come to him in two places—his writing and his animals. On the farm he’d had a horse and a dog he called his own.

Since Courtney had never showed any interest in writing, Lief found himself at the Jensen Veterinary Clinic and Stable. Before he even got around to looking for someone to talk to, he saw a man in the round pen, working out a colt. He leaned on the rail and just watched for a while.

A young Native American man in the pen moved slowly around a young Arabian—a very spirited young Arabian. The horse pulled on the lead, reared, pawed at the dirt and the man remained focused on the colt’s eyes, his lips moving as he talked softly to the horse. At length the colt calmed and allowed himself to be led in a circle inside the pen. Eventually he lowered his head slightly and allowed the trainer to stroke his neck. The trainer spoke to the colt, and it appeared as if the colt nodded, though that was crazy.

It wasn’t until the trainer was leading the horse out of the pen that he noticed Lief. He lifted a hand and said, “Hello. I’ll meet you in the barn.”

By the time Lief went inside, the horse was secured for grooming and the man was approaching him, hand outstretched. “How do you do, I’m Clay Tahoma.”

“Lief Holbrook,” he said, taking the hand. “I watched you with the colt for quite a while.”

Clay just shook his head. “When I’m working with a horse, I don’t seem to notice anyone or anything else.”

“I have a fourteen-year-old daughter. If you can gentle her the way you did the colt, I’ll put you in my will.”

Clay laughed. “I know a lot more about horses than young girls, my friend. Does she ride?”

“I tried to put her on a horse a couple of times, but she shied. When I offered her riding lessons back in L.A., she wasn’t interested. I thought we might try again. Can you recommend someone? I’ll be honest with you—sometimes she’s a handful.”

“My wife and Annie Jensen teach some riding,” Clay said. “They’re very good instructors. And, my wife, Lilly, tells tales of her teenage years that make me go very pale. Add to that, we’d be grateful for a daughter one day—are we insane? But there you have it—if anyone can understand and handle a difficult teenage girl, it would probably be Lilly. Would you like to bring your daughter around sometime? Let her meet the horses and talk to the instructors?”

“Is it convenient after school one day? Provided she’s interested. I learned not to force her into anything. It isn’t worth the struggle. She can be so angry sometimes.”

Clay smiled. “There is an old Navajo saying—I heard it all the time growing up. ‘You cannot wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.’ She could be using anger to cover more vulnerable needs.”

“Any other old Navajo sayings around the house you grew up in?”

“Yes,” he said, with a grin. “Do as I say, or else. And many variations on that.”

Six

Kelly’s small shipment of household goods from her San Francisco flat arrived at the end of her second week in Virgin River. Together, she and Jill sorted through the boxes—the personal items went up to the third floor, the kitchen items stayed in the kitchen. It took less than an afternoon to set up Kelly’s bedroom and arrange the loft into a sitting room complete with desk, sofa and chair, table and TV.

“This looks very comfortable,” Jill said. “Colin and I will be sure to knock on the wall if either of us is coming upstairs for any reason. The open staircase doesn’t give you too much privacy, but at least the door to your bedroom closes.”

“This is too comfortable,” Kelly said. “If you put me in the cellar, it might motivate me to look for work.”

Jill flopped down on Kelly’s couch. “I’d be happy if you never left.”

“No offense, cupcake, but I don’t want to live with my little sister forever.”

“I can understand that. Really, I can. But I felt a lot of pressure to make some kind of decision about what I was going to do next when I got up here, and to keep my hands busy while I was thinking, I ended up plowing the back forty and growing everything I could imagine. Now it’s what I’m going to do next. Can’t you justify a few months, at least?”

“But I’m not even thinking about what I want to do next, Jill,” Kelly said. “All I can think about is what I don’t want to do next. I could be emailing people I know in the business to let them know I’m available, but every time one comes to mind I remember working with them was a real challenge. I should post my resume on several different chef’s employment websites, but I’m afraid all that will turn up is one more crazy, stressful kitchen. I need something different. And I have no idea what that might be.”

Jillian just smiled at her.

“What?” Kelly said.

“Some new kitchen appliances are arriving in a couple of days. When I closed on the house, Paul ordered me some custom appliances to fit the kitchen because the stuff that’s in there now is all temporary. I’m getting a double Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezer, six-burner Wolf range, two dishwashers, trash compactor. It’s going to be so beautiful…”

Kelly sat up straight. “Seriously?”

“It had nothing to do with you coming,” she said, shaking her head. “Even though I didn’t think I’d use most of that stuff, I thought the kitchen should be properly finished. Next year, if planting goes well, I’m going to furnish the living room, dining room and sitting room and have a decorator come out to talk about window coverings and area rugs.”

“You little seductress,” Kelly said.

“So just relax awhile. Do whatever it is you do to unwind. Enjoy the attentions of that man who keeps coming around…”