Harvest Moon

“I didn’t,” she said, and there was a slight hiccup in her voice. “I just went to the bathroom.”

“How much has your friend had to drink?” Lief asked.

“Why?”

“Because he’s driving. Because he took off out of here like a bat out of hell and while I’d really like to tan his hide, I don’t want him to get hurt.”

She shrugged. “He just got here a little while ago. He brought two beers, that’s all.”

“Okay,” he said. He went to the kitchen and poured out both beers. He went back to the great room. “I’m going to my room to read for a while before bed. I’m going to set the house alarm. I’m really not up to chasing you down in the middle of the night, Courtney. I’ll see you in the morning. Luckily, you shouldn’t have a hangover.”

To his back she said, “I’m not going to sneak out.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Good,” he said. Then he went to his room.

Sometimes Lief didn’t know if he was more pissed or hurt by Courtney. He gave her everything he had. Why couldn’t she throw him a bone now and then? Just some small gesture like please or thank-you or even homework. It didn’t have to be good homework, even though he knew she was extremely intelligent. Just finished.

How long could she nurture the pain on the inside that made her so vile on the outside?

The house fell quiet again. Lief reclined on his lonely king-size bed, book in his lap. The vision of Courtney, all of fourteen but looking more like twelve, sneering at him over her beer kept obscuring the pages. He was going to have to get with that counselor, see if there was help for them. He was not optimistic—if he couldn’t find good therapy in Los Angeles, what were the chances he’d find it here?

In the morning, the first thing he did was head down the hall toward Courtney’s bedroom to be sure she was there. Fortunately, he didn’t have to go all the way to her room; he heard the shower in her bathroom. As he passed through the great room, he noticed the DVDs were put away. Put away or maybe stuffed back into the backpack for the little felon in question. He turned off the house alarm, made the coffee, headed for his own shower. She should be ready for school on time today; it didn’t take her long to mess up her multicolored hair.

When he got back to the kitchen, her homework and a note were on the table.

I made a copy of my homework for you to look at, but I’m taking the bus today so I left. Will you pick me up after school? Please.

Bone.

* * *

The very first rays of sunlight streaming into the window stirred Kelly from sleep. She sat up in bed and took stock of her surroundings—Jillian’s guest room. And there beside her in the bed, sleeping facedown, Jillian.

“Hey,” Kelly said, giving her a jostle.

Jill turned her head and peered at her through tangled hair. “Ugh. You’re up.”

“Last thing I remember, I was chatting it up with some cute guy at the bar. Over a killer martini.”

Jill pushed her hair out of her eyes. “It didn’t kill you. But it tried to kill me.”

“Huh?”

Struggling to a sitting position, Jill faced Kelly. “Do you realize what you did? “

Kelly let her eyes briefly close. “Gave myself a very large headache?”

“I went through your purse. You were taking both blood pressure medicine and antidepressants or something like that. Both bottles say alcohol could intensify the effects.”

“I can see that now.”

“I had to count the pills left to make sure you hadn’t OD’d. But I sat up and watched over you until you started to snore at about three in the morning. And boy, can you snore! I don’t think I’ve slept for ten whole minutes.”

“Oh, man,” Kelly said, rubbing her temples. “Who knew?”

“You know, if you’d had a little glass of wine, you might’ve gotten kind of tipsy. But a martini? Overkill.”

“I needed a shot of courage before dropping in on you and spoiling your hot new romance with Colin. And about those pills—I started the blood pressure stuff as directed, but the antianxiety pills were as needed. But I was feeling pretty anxious on the way up here, so I popped one. And I was still feeling pretty anxious a few hours later, so I had another one for good measure.”

“You’ll be happy to know you weren’t at all anxious by the time you got here.”

“Whew. Kind of scary to think I’d drive like that!”

“You didn’t. Your car is at the bar. The cute guy you were talking to brought you out here. Colin had to carry you to bed.”

“Oh, please tell me you’re making that up!”

“Not making it up. Now, what has you so anxious?”

“A lot has been going on for the last week. Can we have coffee? And aspirin? And I’ll tell you all about it. I might’ve really screwed up my life.”

Lief made phone contact with the counselor Jack had recommended and had an appointment for himself, after which he could go to Valley High School and pick up Courtney. On the way to Grace Valley, he decided to swing by Jillian’s big house to check on Kelly. He didn’t have to look far; he found her sitting by herself on the back porch, her feet drawn up and a throw wrapped around her shoulders.

He was grinning as he got out of his truck and approached her. “Well, you look none the worse for wear.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “I guess it was too much to hope I’d never see you again.”

“Aw, I’m crushed,” he said. “I thought we bonded.”

“That’s one of the reasons I was hoping …”

“I’m glad you came through it. I wanted to check on you. You look fine.”

“Well, the bad news is, I don’t remember your name. The good news is, I do remember mine. That means I haven’t killed off too many brain cells.”

He chuckled and took the first step up the porch to lean against the post. “They grow back,” he said. “Takes a while, though. You could be dumb as shit for a couple of weeks.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “I can live up to that.”

“How do you feel?”

“Dumb as shit,” she said. “See, I had this prescription for stuff that was supposed to make me less ‘anxious.’ I didn’t think it was working fast enough, so I took a second. Then I took a martini….”

“Almost two martinis, actually.”

“And you are?”

“Lief Holbrook. And you’re Kelly. And I gather you have no experience with drugs like that.”

“I have been addicted to food and love,” she said dismally.

“Ah, yes, the mentor-slash-lover,” he remembered.

“Really, did I tell you all that?”

“Enough so that I can honestly say I don’t need any more details. Sounds like you got screwed by a guy who told you he was available when he wasn’t. Legally, anyway, per the wife.”

“Oh, my God, I did tell you everything!”

In a flash of deep sympathy, Lief said, “That must have hurt you so much, Kelly. I’m really sorry.”

He saw the liquid begin to gather in her large blue eyes. He found it interesting that one so fair could have such thick, long, black lashes. “Yes. Well. Stupid me,” she said. “You’d almost have to believe I killed those brain cells months ago.”

“It’ll pass. Really.”

She wiped impatiently at her eyes. “I know. So. Do you have experience with these drugs?” she asked boldly.

“I took antidepressants for a short time and had a similar experience. Had a couple of beers one night and slept like a dead person. I woke up terrified that the house could have burned down without me knowing. A little depression was probably safer.”

She remembered suddenly. “That’s right, you lost your wife.”

“A little over two years ago. And yes, I took something for a while, not knowing how much it was really affecting me because I felt pretty much the same—devastated and pathetic. I haven’t taken anything since.”

“You recovered?”

“From being devastated and pathetic? God, I hope so. From depression? Probably. From missing her? Not yet. But I’m told that comes with time and gets easier.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Thank you. You said that last night.”

“Must have come before my magnificent exit. Listen, can I offer you some tea?”

“Thanks, but I have an appointment to get to. But I’d really like to have a look at this place—the house, the grounds. Your sister said she’d give me a tour, treat me to the last of her crop …”

Kelly finally stood, pulling the wrap around her. “Jilly Farms, as she calls it. Organic fruits and vegetables. She’s out there now, working. Colin is upstairs in the sunroom, painting. He’s an artist, among other things. The house was renovated before she bought it—it’s enormous and very interesting. If you’d like to come back when you don’t have an appointment, she’d love to take you around the gardens and house and I …” She cleared her throat. “When my headache goes away, I’d be happy to cook for you. It’s what I do—cook.”

“That would be nice,” he said, smiling. “I’ll give you a few days, then call.”

“And I’ll tell Jill that I made us a date.”

As Lief was backing out of the drive, Kelly watched and ran a hand through her mussed hair. Must my life continue to be one big practical joke? If some hot guy was going to stop by to see if she was all right, why couldn’t she have at least pulled a comb through her wild hair? Or put on clothes?

Apparently she wasn’t too emotionally upset to notice his kind of thick, floppy, Robert Redford hair, square jaw and amused brown eyes that crinkled a little bit at the corners. He was one of those blond guys who tanned well. She’d noticed that, too. She especially liked his forearms. His long-sleeved denim shirt had been rolled up a bit, and the golden hair on his muscled forearms had glistened in the sunshine.

There was something else about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it. He was dressed like all the other Virgin River guys, but he had a way of making a pair of jeans and boots look classy. Maybe it was the way he spoke—well-educated and precise. He even sounded like a professor when he swore.

She smiled. Widowed, huh? she thought. Could be he was almost ready to get on with life. She shook her head and chuckled to herself. Maybe if they ran into each other a third time she could humiliate herself in some new way, just in case he needed convincing that she was a total flake.

But he was pretty hot.

The counselor’s simple Grace Valley house that Lief pulled up to didn’t exactly encourage him; he’d visited far flashier digs for therapists without getting a whole lot of help. Then there was the counselor himself—a very, very tall, skinny … no, make that boney, scarecrow with shaggy, almost white-blond hair and large ears. And the biggest feet Lief had ever seen. He hoped to God Courtney didn’t just flat out make fun of him. Right to his face.

“Mr. Holbrook, hello,” the man said cheerily, extending a hand in greeting. “I’m Jerry Powell. How are you today?”

“Fine,” he said, shaking the hand. “I mean, not fine. I’ve never figured out what you should say to a counselor on your first visit. That you’re fine or that you need help desperately?”

Jerry laughed. “Come on into the office, Mr. Holbrook, and tell me how I can help.”

When they were seated—Jerry behind the desk and Lief facing it—Lief just launched in. “Well, my wife died a couple of years ago and my stepdaughter’s not handling it well. Her biological father and stepmother didn’t embrace her, didn’t pull her into their family, and she’s depressed and—”

Jerry held up his hand, indicating he should stop. “Okay, hold on a sec, I apologize, I should have led this discussion. I realize you’re here on behalf of your stepdaughter and that the two of you have issues. Let me just tell you a couple of things before we get deeper into the issues.

“First of all, part of my function in this county is that I’m retained by the school district for court-ordered counseling of young adults. What that means is, I usually only know what they’ve done to warrant that penalty without getting many details about their personal lives, about what might’ve motivated them acting out. Sometimes I know there’s been abuse in the family, death or divorce, that sort of thing, but there’s no one to tell me how they’re feeling but them. And I have to let the adolescent try to explain what pushed them into the behavior that caused all the trouble. It’s amazing how well it seems to be working. So—to that end—give me the basic facts, address incidents or behaviors if you think it’s pertinent. And then tell me about you. About your feelings, not hers. You and I will talk. Then Courtney will give me her feelings.”

“I bet she won’t,” he said.

“I’m relentless,” he said, and then smiled. “Besides, adolescents really can’t identify too many feelings. They’re not being stubborn. It’s an acquired skill. They’re working on growing up. It’s one of those things they have to develop.”

“Okay, then. My wife died,” he said, starting over. “A little over two years ago. At first my stepdaughter … I think of her as a daughter. Courtney seemed to grieve painfully for a while, which was quickly followed by weird, antisocial behavior. She’s kind of Goth now with the kind of friends that lie and steal and lure her out after hours. I just caught her last night with an older guy in the house stealing my DVDs while she was in the bathroom. They were drinking beer. She’s fourteen but looks nine.”

“Nine?”

“Not nine, maybe, but so small. She’s so little to act so old. One of the first things you’re going to notice about Courtney is that she’s extremely bright. High IQ. She was always in accelerated programs at school, but now she’s close to failing. She’s intellectually advanced and emotionally …” Lief lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Immature? I don’t know … Wounded?”

“How does this make you feel, Mr. Holbrook?”

“Call me Lief, please. It makes me feel like an idiot. A failure. Like I’m going to lose her to some disaster like drugs or grand theft auto or suicide.”

“Do you think suicide is an issue? I’ll take that information from you gladly—I should know.”

“It’s hard to say,” he answered with a shrug. “I found some websites that she’d looked at that deal with suicide and I almost lost it—I asked her if she was thinking about suicide. She said, ‘Everyone thinks about it, but I’m not going to do it.’ How do you know if something like that’s curiosity or an imminent danger?”

“We watch,” he said. “I’ll be certain to direct our dialogue to give me more information.”

“The girl barely eats. I don’t think she’s anorexic—she eats enough, I think. But she’s gotten so thin and she’s never hungry. I’m a farm boy—that bothers me more than you can imagine. Some people think I know inside stuff about her age group, about troubled teens, because I wrote a couple of screenplays about young people in crisis, but I wasn’t writing about them—I was writing about me! And my crisis was a long, long time ago and had to do with a dead horse, not a dead mother.”

Jerry sat up straighter. “What movies?” he asked.

“Deerstalker. Moonwalker. A couple of other things …”

“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?