“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…”

“During school hours,” Kelly added with a laugh. “I never actually had an affair with Luca, but I sure feel like I’m having one with Lief.”

“So how is he in…you know…bed?”

Kelly leaned close as if imparting a secret. She looked right and left before she whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Crap,” Jill said, disappointed. “Well, why are you sneaking around?”

“I’m not. He is. I thought he should just tell his daughter we’re dating and include her sometimes and he said I didn’t know what I was suggesting. He said Courtney can complain about a million dollars. But he also said she seems to be having some happier days—she has a friend that Lief feels pretty good about, a counselor she doesn’t seem to mind talking to and he’s trying to convince her to go to a local stable where she can get some riding lessons. She’s thinking about it. She might, if only to have more in common with her new friend, who has a couple of horses. I have no idea what all that means.”

“Do you know anything about teenagers?” Jill asked.

“I was one once.” Kelly said. “That’s it.”

What Kelly liked to do to relax, to think, was cook and bake. She had squash, blackberries and apples coming out her ears. There was also a healthy amount of late tomatoes, heirloom peppers and beans. It wasn’t really enough in the tomato department to keep her too busy, but she reminded herself that California was the tomato world and she could go to the farmers’ market. She got online and found out when it was held and made a note to herself.

She borrowed Jill’s truck and made a run to Eureka to buy some larger pots and cases of canning jars. One nice thing about these small, country towns—they carried those quaint, old-fashioned country canning jars that would be hard to find in San Francisco.

Over just one weekend she produced jars of applesauce, sliced apples for pie filling, more blackberry preserves and pie filling, freezer bags full of her grandmother’s Italian sauce and acorn squash bisque. And what she had was enough product to open a booth at the farmers’ market.

“I’m going to have to spread this around,” she told Jillian. “Seems like a waste of money, doesn’t it?”

Jill shook her head. “Didn’t cost anything but the jars. I was growing just to see what I could grow, giving most of it away. I only got my commercial licenses a couple of months ago. I have no idea what kind of licenses and permits you need to sell processed food.”

“I do. It’s a lot of inspections and paperwork. Some of the certificates I already had to have to work as a chef in this state, but your kitchen isn’t approved, although it can be.”

“Well, we can put up some shelves in the cellar…”

“You should really have Paul Haggerty get someone out here to put a wine cellar down there—it’s perfect. I’m trying to fill up the pantry. You’ll have plenty of stuff after I leave.”

“Spread your goods around town, Kelly. Take a bunch of it to Preacher. He’ll serve some and put some up in the bar. Take a couple of cases to Connie at the Corner Store—she’ll either sell it or hand it out. I mean, it’s safe, right?”

“I’m a chef!”

“And Nana didn’t kill us with her stuff,” Jill added. “Wow, look at this kitchen and pantry. How did you do all this?”

“Well—while Lief’s daughter is off school on weekends, he’s busy hovering over her so I couldn’t see him. I just kept going.” She smiled as she looked around at the many jars. “It was really fun. I can get into a one-woman kitchen.”

When Monday, a school day, rolled around, Lief wanted to spend time with her. But Kelly had things to do. She had boxed up many of her prepared canned and deli items, labeled them and put a calculated shelf life on them. The canned applesauce, apple pie filling, blackberries and Italian sauce were good for a year, but the tomato bisque and squash bisque contained butter and cream, which gave them a very short shelf life—five days if refrigerated.