Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(26)

“I wouldn’t blame you at all if you decided this really wasn’t worth your time,” she said.

He was still positioned over her. He smiled into her eyes. Then he went for that delicious mouth again, teased her, demanded of her, forced her lips open and then waited for her tongue to start the play before he went deeper, harder. He kissed her with his whole body, and she felt it, pushing back against him. When she was breathing hard, gasping a little, he pulled back a bit. “No such luck, honey. You’re not going to ask yourself why you bothered this time. Trust me.”

“Kiss me some more,” she demanded. “This is pretty good. At least when you apply yourself.”

Oh, this is going to be good, Courtney thought when she walked into the counselor’s waiting room. The button-down collar of the guy’s plaid, short-sleeved shirt couldn’t have been tighter on his long, skinny neck. He looked a little like a heron.

“Courtney, hello!” he said cheerily. “I’m Jerry.”

“Hi,” she said, deadpan.

“Come in the office.” He stepped aside and let her enter ahead of him. She took the chair facing the desk, and he went behind the desk. “Something in your manner tells me you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Ya think?” she asked, lifting a thin, black eyebrow.

“Assuming that’s the case, what do you think we should talk about?”

She leaned back in the chair. “I guess you probably want to talk about the fact that my mother is dead.”

He didn’t register even the slightest shock. He tilted his head and said, “I would’ve started with how you like it around here. Must be quite a change for you.”

“Quite,” she echoed. She knew she had several choices—she could make this a challenge, make it easy, make it interesting or make it horrible. “It’s a little more rural than I’m used to.” She decided on interesting.

“Are you getting to know people yet? Making friends?” he asked.

“I have one friend, but she’s sort of someone who needs me to help her with homework, so once she gets it she might not be my friend anymore.”

“There’s a troubling thought,” he said. “Don’t you suppose she could have found someone she liked to help her rather than someone she would just use?”

She considered shifting to horrible. Except that he seemed to speak her language, oddly enough. “I think she probably likes me. In her way.”

“And do you like her?” he asked. “In your way?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“Let’s start there. What do you like about her?”

Courtney narrowed her eyes. “Her lameness does not totally offend me.”

Jerry smiled indulgently. “What else?”

She decided to take pity on him since he was truly an inferior nerd. “I kind of like hanging around her house, her farm. Her family is kind of nice. Her dad is funny. Old and pretty broken down, but silly. When I stay for dinner I get good, fatty, greasy stuff instead of all that health-food shit my dad makes.”

“Right there is a massive recommendation,” Jerry said. “I’m afraid I’m falling down in the health-food-shit department.”

“No kidding? And she has a little nephew in a wheelchair. Her older brother’s kid.”

“Oh?”

“Muscular dystrophy. He’s eight. He might have some times he’s less sick than others, but he’s not going to get better. He’s going to get worse until he dies. Not very many people make it to adulthood if they get it as a kid.”

“Did your friend explain all this to you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I looked it up on the internet. Because of what she said, I pinned him down to DMD—Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She said there was no cure and he wasn’t getting better and he’s already in a wheelchair. He’s really kind of cute with his glasses sliding off his nose—looks like that little kid in Jerry Maguire. And he’s scary smart—he’s eight and doing seventh grade spelling and math. And he’s funny. His parents let him zone out on video games to keep his reflexes exercised, but there’s nothing they can do about the muscles in his back or legs.”

“You like him. You like the whole family,” Jerry observed.

She gave something like a nod. But then she said, “Makes you wonder if there’s any God, seeing a kid like that get something like that.”

Jerry leaned forward. “Courtney, you joined the geniuses of the centuries in wondering that very thing. Unfairness and injustice are two things that really threaten blind faith.”

“Why are you talking to me like I’m an adult?” She made a face.

He looked surprised. “Did I say something you didn’t understand?”

“No,” she relented. “Yeah, I like the family. I like the animals, even if there aren’t that many. My dad grew up on a potato farm and we used to go there. We haven’t been there in a while.”

“What animals?” Jerry asked.

“There’s a golden retriever mix who’s about to have puppies and you can feel them move around inside her—I bet there’s gonna be nine. I mean, it’s a real bet—I even put a dollar in the jar. There are chickens, goats, one cow and two horses. A million cats, like at my dad’s Idaho farm. They keep the mice down.”