Jillian grinned. “I met her. She liked my costume.”

Kelly lifted a brow. “Did she ask you to black out a tooth for her?”

“Hey, I liked her.” Jill laughed. “She’s a smart aleck.”

“Well, clearly you’re no threat to her. She wasn’t all that nice to me.”

“Oh, that’ll probably pass. When she gets used to you.”

“Jill, yesterday was pivotal for me in some ways. While we were hosting the town I fell in love with Virgin River. A person just won’t grind their molars flat in a place like this—there are too many good souls around to shore you up, lend a hand, make you laugh, make you feel like an important part of something. And here’s a perfect man, too—gorgeous, sexy, sincere, strong and ready. But I’m not equipped to take on a teenage girl who lives to press the edges of the envelope. And no one takes on Lief without taking on the daughter. She wasn’t dressed up for Halloween, you realize. That’s her look!”

Jill laughed. “What about the dad?”

Kelly thought for a moment. “I adore him,” she said after a moment. “He’s everything a woman could want in a man. And for as much as I think his daughter is too much baggage for me, I admire him so much for refusing to make her less than a priority. He’s completely devoted to her. And not out of some weird obligation—he really understands what she might be going through since losing her mother.” And then she went back to stirring her pot again.

“He sounds pretty perfect.”

“Yeah. Everything that makes me love him also makes me keep him at arm’s length. I’m just not ready.”

“And you’re trying to cook your way out of it?” Jill asked.

Kelly shrugged. “That’s what I do. Cook my way through the problems.”

“And what are you going to do with this stuff?”

“While I’m waiting for permits and licenses, I’ll keep giving it away as free samples, see if I can get anyone interested. Then when I’m legal, I’ll know where to take my stock.”

“Excellent idea!” Jill agreed. “Have you thought about selling on the internet?”

“I have absolutely no idea what that involves!”

“Let’s look into it,” Jill suggested. “Might be a good idea. If not, we move on.”

“We?” Kelly asked.

Jill put her elbows on the work island and leaned toward Kelly. “I love that you’re living here. I love having you use this beautiful new kitchen. I love that you can use what I can grow. We’ll make a great team. The longer I can keep this little love fest going, the better I like it.”

Just a few days after that conversation, Colin came into the kitchen while Kelly was up to her elbows in Nana’s sweet relish. It hadn’t taken her long to have a thousand jars of canned gourmet specialties stacked up and out of the way in the unfurnished dining room.

“This is just amazing,” Colin said. “You’re like a factory.”

Kelly shrugged off the compliment. “I’m pretty efficient. And it doesn’t hurt to have a nice big six-burner gas stove. While the relish simmers, I chop and mix. While the relish cools, I simmer a new batch. I probably produce over a hundred jars a day.”

“Have you heard from the health department yet?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “With the economy struggling, restaurants closing and growing in the off-season, they’re not busy. I’m going to have an inspector any day now. And this kitchen is going to get an A-plus.”

“And you,” he said.

“I’d better. I already have my state food handler’s certificate.”

“I have something for you to look at.” He put his sketch pad on the work island. “If I’m overstepping or none of this appeals, you won’t offend me by just saying so. I was fooling around, that’s all.”

She flipped through the pictures with captions. “What is this?” she asked.

“Possible labels for your canned delicacies. I know—you didn’t ask me to do this and I got involved on my own. But Kelly, you could use something besides a Magic Marker. Seriously. And if you have a something in mind, just say so. I can have labels printed for you in no time.”

She glanced through the pictures, from baskets of vegetables to images of her face, logos, slogans—they were fantastic. There was one that really caught her eye. On the top it said “From Jilly Farms.” Right under that it said, “Spicy Peach & Tomato Chutney.” On the right side was a picture of Kelly, on the left a picture of Jillian. On the bottom—“All Natural, All Organic, All Delicious.”

“Where did you get the idea for this?” she asked.

“Well, Jilly trademarked Jilly Farms as well as the slogan, and the other night she said she wished she could just keep growing for your cooking—it’s so much more appealing to her than shipping her produce to restaurants and delis. It gave me this idea. You might be getting some of your fruits and vegetables from other stores and farms at the moment, but it occurred to me that this was possible…. I thought maybe Jilly could one day be your supplier. Have you been out to the greenhouses lately? Because she’s got a good winter crop going out there, thanks to irrigation, lights and warmers.”

She stared at the label, lifted her eyes to Colin’s, looked at the label again. “Colin, I love this,” she said in an almost reverent whisper. Then, looking at him again, she said, “You would never get rid of me this way.”

He grinned. “Pretty soon you’ll have to accept the fact that no one wants to get rid of you. And I’m not exactly suffering, having you here. Besides, she has Denny to run the farm and I’m almost ready for another trip. This time I’d like Jilly to come along.”

“You mean that?”

“Why not? Of course I mean it. And I can tell, you like it here.”

She grinned right back at him. “God knows I love this kitchen.”

By a week after Halloween, Courtney was astride a horse. Blue. She’d already learned to feed her, brush her, walk her around the pen and then the pasture. She wasn’t quite brave enough to clean out her hooves or groom her tail, but she was beginning to not only trust her, but love her. And she would never admit to anyone—not Lief or Lilly—but being in the saddle made her feel huge! She’d grown so tired of feeling puny and childlike.

Gabe Tahoma had only to say, “Good job, Courtney! You’re getting the hang of it!” to make her feel like Miss America.

Just a couple of weeks into November brought a slight change in her appearance. Lief had taken her to buy boots and jeans. She then needed shirts, down vests, gloves and a new jacket. He threw in a hat for good measure. Courtney gave up the black nail polish and total noir leggings, ankle boots, skirts and tight tops. She found she liked wearing jeans and boots to school. Not many of the girls dressed in that cowgirl way. They were a little less country and more into fashions they saw on internet fashion sites. Courtney found their more middle class–trendy couture far less intimidating than that Rodeo Drive stuff she’d been up against in L.A, which was a comfort.

And she was letting the color fade and grow out of her hair.

“Ach! I hate my hair!” she complained to Lief as he drove her to school one morning.

“Really?” he asked, apparently completely confused. “What in the world could you possibly hate about it?”

“It doesn’t know what color it is! Letting color grow out is worse than anything! It’s torture!”

“I see,” he said. “Anything I can do to help with that?”

“Yes! I need a haircut! Is there anyone within a thousand miles who could give me a decent haircut?”

“Undoubtedly,” he said tiredly. “I’ll ask around.”

Next thing she knew, she was sitting in Annie Jensen’s shop in Fortuna with Annie herself caving in to not only a cut but a color that might wend her back to where she started before the pitch-black and hot pink began. She blew Courtney’s hair dry into a nice, sleek, smooth and more grown-up style.

“I’m sure that’s not exactly what you’re after, Courtney,” Annie said. “But I’m willing to keep trying.”

“It’s kinda…nice,” Courtney said, running a hand over her hair.

“I hope it’s okay…”

A couple of days later when she was at her lesson, Gabe said, “Whoa, Courtney, that’s a new look for you. The hair. You’re getting almost hot.”

Her hand went to her hair and she blushed.

“Now, don’t flirt with me,” he said, laughing. “I have a girlfriend.”

“I know that,” she said. But of course she hadn’t known about the girlfriend. What she did know was that she had an impossible crush on him, and she absolutely knew he would never really notice her.

But he liked the way she looked. That made her feel beyond good.

There were a few things that, slowly but surely, she began to admit to Jerry Powell. Not because he was any good as a counselor or therapist, but because she was pretty sure he was even more capable of keeping her secrets than Amber was. So when he said, “Are you building some muscle there, Courtney? Or is it just the different clothes that make it look that way?” she didn’t snark back.

“I might be,” she said carefully. “I can’t really tell, except my muscles are all sore! All of them. Even my toe muscles are sore. And when I complained, Lilly said it was kind of amazing how many muscles you could use riding. Then she flexed her thigh and told me to punch it—it was like a rock! She said that right now I was likely building muscle, but one day I’d probably use riding to keep my weight down and my body toned.”

“Does it feel good?” Jerry asked.

“To build muscle? No—it hurts!”

“No,” he laughed. “Riding. Is riding fun?”

“Well…the riding part, sort of. A lot of it isn’t such fun…”

“Like?”

“Like it’s going to take me four more inches taller and twenty pounds heavier before I can get that saddle on by myself. But meanwhile, if Lilly is busy doing something else, sometimes Gabe helps. And watching Gabe put on a saddle…” She rolled her eyes heavenward.

“I take it Gabe is handsome?”

“They named handsome after Gabe!”

Jerry chuckled. “Are we thinking about naming boyfriend after him, as well?” he asked.

“I wish. He’s eighteen, in college and has a girlfriend. But,” she added, blushing slightly, “he said I was kind of cute.”

Jerry lifted a brow. “Is that a fact? Did that feel good to hear?”

“Now what do you think?” she asked him. “Of course, even though it doesn’t really mean anything…”

“It could mean he thinks you’re kind of cute…”

“Yeah, in a little girl way. We went on a short trail ride, a bunch of beginners. Lilly, Annie and Gabe took us, except all the other beginners were little girls like in fifth and sixth grade, and I’m in high school but look like I’m in sixth grade!”

“Well, what did your mom look like? Was she a small woman?”

“Sort of. Not too small, but she was thin. Not skinny—just thin. But she looked like a woman!”

“Are you worried about that?” he asked her. “About looking like a woman?”

“I’d settle for looking like a freshman!”

“You know that you’re not the only teenager who comes here for counseling, right?” Jerry asked her. “You know that’s my specialty, right?”

“Right,” she said.

“Well, I don’t think I’d be breaking any particular confidence if I told you that almost every teenager I know is unhappy with some aspect of their appearance, and also that between the ages of eleven and nineteen, sizes, shapes and other specifics vary widely. One year I had a sixth-grade client with five o’clock shadow and a sophomore client who could’ve been mistaken for a sixth grader. Almost to the last one, they lament that they just can’t ‘be like everyone else.’ And none of them is like everyone else. There doesn’t seem to be an everyone else.”

“Well, from where I’m sitting, there are lots of everyone elses! And why do you use words like lament with me?”

He smiled patiently. “Because you know what it means.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said. “Absolutely sure. Now, how are things going with your dad these days? The two of you getting along any better?”

She shrugged. “We do all right sometimes. I can tell he prays every day that I’ll disappear. We have to go have dinner at his girlfriend’s house tonight. He’s begging me to be nice to her.”

Jerry sat forward. “That statement, Courtney—he prays that you’ll disappear? What makes you say that?”

“Well, I’m not what he had in mind, you know.”

“Explain, please?”

She sighed heavily. “We did okay when my mom was alive. He loved my mom so much, but so did I, and she loved us both and so… Well, we had a good time together. Taking care of me without my mom around—it isn’t what he thought he’d have to do.”

“I’m sure,” Jerry said. “Just as you didn’t think you’d be living with him without your mom. But how does he make you feel he’d like you to disappear?”