Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(11)

So Lief said, “This isn’t working, this city. You find too much trouble and I’m sick of the noise and traffic. We’re getting out of here. I’m going to find us something sane. I’d like if we could get back to at least being friends, like we used to be. And you could use a chance to start over. Maybe on the right side of the law?”

Now, Courtney had not wanted to move. Period. Even though she’d lost her old friends and didn’t like her new ones. There was something about boxing up her life and putting it on a truck, moving away from where she’d been with her mom that just freaked her out, even though she knew her mom wasn’t coming back.

She liked the idea of getting back to being friends with Lief, though she didn’t believe he meant that. She figured he meant getting back to her looking more like she used to. But the big problem was, this wasn’t going to work—rather than getting back to one hair color, she was thinking about many piercings and a few tattoos…. How long before he just gave up? How long before he just turned her in, told the cops she wasn’t his daughter anyway, go ahead and take her, find a place for her? Because she figured he was only doing this out of some promise he’d made to her mom. And she also figured that he’d get over it and have the locks changed or something. Every time he looked at her, he winced. He hated the multicolored hair, the jagged cut, the black clothes, and for some reason she couldn’t really understand herself, they couldn’t pass ten words without getting into it.

She looked in the mirror—her hair was wild and crazy, her eyes dark and scary. Perfect as far as she was concerned.

So. They’d had another argument. This one was about homework. She told him it was done; he said, “Let me see it.” She said, “No.” He said, “You’re getting a D in both math and English and you have a high IQ—I have to see the homework.” She told him he’d have to trust her and he’d laughed, said she’d have to earn that. She said she’d tear it up before she’d turn it over. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally, struggling with his temper, he decided to drive around for a while, maybe go to one of the coast towns and walk around, cool off, and when he got back in a couple of hours, she’d better be ready to share the homework.

Ha! Fat chance, she thought.

When he said a couple of hours, he meant three or four. She knew his drill—he’d give her plenty of time to actually do her homework and himself plenty of time to feel like he could tolerate her again. He left at five-thirty. She was good till nine.

She hadn’t made any real friends, but a couple of guys who looked a lot like her had picked up on her willingness to take a few chances, if only to have some company. Once Lief was gone, she picked up the phone and called B.A., which was short for either Bruce Arnold or Bad Ass. He was a junior who should be a senior, seventeen.

“Hey, my dad went out,” she said. She called him Lief to his face but around school he was “her dad,” just because she didn’t want to explain anything. “Wanna come over for a couple of hours?”

“What for?”

“Hang out?”

“I could…”

“Could you bring beer? Because he doesn’t keep any here.”

“I could bring a few. My old man would never miss it. How do I get there?”

She gave him some directions and it took him about twenty minutes. When he got to the house, he looked around at the rich interior, whistled and said, “Hot damn!”

Three

While Lief drove Kelly to the big Victorian in which her sister lived, Kelly was semi-passed out. But she mumbled and muttered the whole way.

He had certainly understood everything she said right up until she put her head down on the bar. Sounded like she’d had a fling with a guy she thought was available but who turned out to be very married. Oh, such an ordinary tale. Men told that story all the time. Why men stayed married to women they wanted to cheat on, Lief had no idea. Up until he’d met Lana, he’d never been in a serious relationship; he always had a woman around, was playing the field, having a little fun, but hadn’t been engaged or married. When he met her he had instantly known two things—she was the one, and he’d never want another one. In fact, here he was, widowed a little over two years, and he hadn’t been tempted even once. Of course, he had Courtney. Hard to think about anything but getting through another day.

But this lovely Kelly had gotten his attention the second she’d walked into the bar. He’d felt a little zing just looking at her. She was pretty, very fresh and lush. And nothing like Lana, which came as a relief. He wasn’t sure he could ever feel the slightest response to any woman after losing Lana. Lana had been small, dark-haired with dark eyes. Kelly was blonde, blue-eyed, had a round, full figure, and his first thought had been what it would feel like to get his hands on her, to hold her body up against his. That soft, rich, luxurious body. She didn’t have one of those Hollywood bodies—too thin with fake perky boobs. She had a real woman’s body—something to hold on to. And that mouth—full pink lips. The second he’d seen her lips, he had licked his.

Then he’d recovered his sanity and had just listened to her for a while. Sounded as if she’d gotten screwed, literally and figuratively.

The front light was on and there were two people standing on the porch waiting, no doubt in response to Jack’s call. That would be Colin and Jillian, the sister and her boyfriend. He got out of the truck, and Jillian was right there. Lief recognized her once he saw her. In fact, that’s when he realized he’d seen both the sisters at Jack’s last summer when he’d been checking on the progress of his house purchase.