Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(13)

He entered the kitchen from the garage. There was a bottle on the breakfast bar that separated the great room from the kitchen—Corona, half full. He looked into the great room and saw a tall teenage boy in ratty jeans loading DVDs from Lief’s entertainment center into his backpack. No Courtney. The kid was stuffing the disks into the backpack so frantically it almost looked like a smash-and-grab, but instinctively Lief knew better.

He walked into the large room, picked up the remote from a sofa table and killed the music. The kid jumped up, his lanky hair swinging back from his face. Right at that exact moment, Courtney appeared in the entrance from the hall leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms, holding her own Corona.

“Lief!” she said.

The boy bolted, headed for the front door.

“B.A.! Bruce!” she yelled after him.

Lief merely stood there, observing the panic, the flight, the beer, the backpack that was abandoned. The front door opening and slamming closed was the only sound. When it was completely quiet, Courtney was the first to speak.

“Well, I suppose I’m grounded again.”

“What’s the point, Court? I don’t think you’ve been off restriction for a day in the past year.” He walked to the backpack and crouched, opening it. “You can give this back to your friend tomorrow at school. If he even attends school.” He reached inside and began to pull out the movie DVDs, stacking them on the floor. “Without the movies, of course.”

“I didn’t know he was doing that,” she said. “I just went to the bathroom.”

“How well do you know him?” Lief asked. Christ, the kid had managed to get about thirty discs in his backpack.

“I just know him from school, that’s all. We were just going to listen to music.”

“And drink beer.” He left the backpack and stood to face her.

“I bet you drank beer when you were a kid,” she said with a lift of her chin.

“At fourteen? Not hardly.” He’d had farm chores; he’d played football, even though he’d been small for his age then and had gotten the stuffing beaten out of him. “Jesus, Courtney. How far are you going to push me?”

“I said I didn’t know he was doing that!”

“Maybe you should think about getting some more trustworthy friends,” he suggested.

“Don’t you get it?” she said, stepping toward him. “Nobody likes me!”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he took another couple of steps toward her. He reached out and took the beer. “Will they like you better if you let them steal from us?”

“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.