Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(82)

“Don’t,” he said. “Not yet. We’ll figure it out…”

She shook her head. “We’re the grown-ups who know how to handle tough stuff. Let’s act like the grown-ups.”

“I think we’re just about done with this whole counseling thing,” Courtney told Jerry. “We’ve been at it for months and there’s nothing left to talk about.”

“Well,” he began with his usual patience. “We might talk about why you’re not very happy these days.”

“What? I’m happy! Perfectly happy!”

He leaned back in his chair. “Convincing,” he said drily.

“Thing is, Jerry, I’m too busy for this. I have a lot of responsibility. I promised Dad I’d keep my grades up, I have to keep an eye on Spike all the time, I help around the house and even cook—he loves it when I cook—and now that the snow’s melting, I’m riding more.”

Jerry glanced outside. It was overcast and drizzling. “Not missing any riding today, are you?”

“Duh,” she said.

“This one hour a week might seem like a waste of time to you now, but you might look back on it and find it was productive.”

“Seriously, I’m pretty busy…”

“I realize that, Courtney. I have noticed some changes since we started our discussions.”

“Yeah, my hair is all one color. I bet you’re taking credit.”

He disregarded that. “When we started meeting, you called Stu your dad and your stepdad was Lief. Always Lief. Now he’s Dad and Stu is Stu.”

“Well, after what Stu did to me over Christmas, he’s lucky I even call him Stu!”

“Point very well taken. What do you hear from him?”

“You’re kidding me, right? We don’t hear from him. That doesn’t mean we don’t know what’s going on down there. Dad found out that Stu and Sherry are getting divorced. He found out from the lawyer who’s handling our custody thing.”

“How’s that going, the custody thing?” Jerry asked.

“Stu’s signing off on me. And I guess in his divorce, the loser gets custody of those boys.” She smiled wickedly.

“Does that give you some peace of mind, Courtney? That you can now safely assume you’re permanently settled with Lief? I mean, your dad?”

“Sure,” she said. “I guess.”

“That’s what you want, right?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. Yeah.”

Jerry leaned toward her. “What’s wrong, Courtney?”

She shrugged. She looked down. “It might not be making him that happy…”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s sad,” she said. “He’s been sad since we got home at Christmas. Sad almost like he was after my mom died. Not that bad, but still…”

“Have you talked to him about that?”

“Like, what am I supposed to say?”

“How about something like, ‘You seem sad. Why are you sad?’”

She shook her head. She really didn’t want to do that. She was afraid of the answer.

“Want to have a family session? I could ask him with you present and that would give you an opportunity to listen in a safe place. You wouldn’t have to do the asking.”

She shook her head again. Safe place or not, she didn’t want the answer.

“Oh, boy,” Jerry said. “You have a very big cork holding back something important. If you’ll get it out where we can look at it, maybe we can work through it.”

“You say that a lot,” she said, an angry edge to her voice. “Get it out where we can look at it! I don’t have to look at it! He’s sad, that’s all.”

“Are you afraid he’s sad because he now has permanent custody?”

“No!” she shot back angrily. “I know why he’s sad! Because I told him he can’t marry Kelly!”

Silence hung in the air for a moment. Finally Jerry said, “Was he planning to marry Kelly?”

She shook her head and swallowed thickly. “He said he wasn’t planning to.”

“Okay,” Jerry said. “So, you’re both in the same canoe on that subject. Then why is he sad and you’re sad that he’s sad?”

She took a breath. “He wants me to give her a chance because he said she’s a good person. And I said I want it to be just us. Me and him.”

“I see. You must have had a very good reason…”

“You know,” she said. “The way things go.”

“Maybe you could explain that to me in your own words and we could go from there.”

She smirked at him. “You know, you’re such a sneak sometimes. This is more of that Get it out there where we can look at it!”

“Guilty as charged. Got an A-plus in Sneaky 101. So?”

“Things just don’t work out the best sometimes, you know? Me and my mom were real happy, then Dad came along. We were all real happy. Then my mom died and Dad sent me to Stu. He said he had to and didn’t want to, but that didn’t make it easy. Then Stu sent me back. Then Stu tricked me at Christmas and almost gave me a f**king nervous breakdown… Sorry. About the swearing.”