“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?

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.”