Return to Homecoming Ranch (Pine River) (10 page)

She probably would have if she’d thought about it. It occurred to Libby that Sam seemed to know an awful lot about her, but she really didn’t know much about him. He suddenly seemed mysterious to her—there was a life standing behind that badge and the warnings to obey the rules, and she knew only bits and pieces of it.

“Yeah, this is going to have to come out,” Tony said.

“What?” Libby asked, alarmed. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of money. As in none. I can’t afford parts.”

“Parts!” He scoffed. “I don’t do parts. I rebuild.” He wiped his hands on his pants, and Libby thought that the man definitely needed a clean pair. “It’s going to take some time. Maybe a couple of days.”

“A couple of
days
?”

He looked down at her car. “Well, if you want to rely on it, it needs to run. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said care
fully. “But I don’t have the money to pay you for that kind of work.”

“Don’t get all bent out of shape—we’ll work something out,” he said.

Libby didn’t know how they were going to work anything out, but he was already under the hood with his wrench, turning something.

At half-past six, he was still working, and she was a little frantic.

Libby was in the kitchen, baking banana nut bread she’d made from the fruit Luke had bought and then not eaten. She had gone down to the garage twice to offer Tony something to eat, and both times he’d informed her matter-of-factly that he only ate one meal a day, and never while he was working. She wanted to go down there again and beg him to stop, that there was no way she could ever pay him.

Libby saw the swerve of headlights turn onto the road as she checked the loaf, and recognized Sam’s truck. The shoulder from the local meat market had arrived, and Libby decided to stay inside, because she didn’t care to feel the icy blast from him again. She heard the truck stop, heard the low hum of the engine idle and a door slam. Apparently, he was in as much of a hurry to get out of here tonight as he had been earlier today.

Moments later, she heard voices, truck doors shutting, and then the unmistakable sound of Sam’s boots on the porch stairs.

He knocked on the door.

The dogs, sprawled in every doorway between her and the front door, lifted their heads, their ears rotating toward the door. Roscoe began to growl. Libby put her hands on her hips, debating.

He knocked again.

“Okay,” she said to the dogs. “I’m going to answer, see what he wants, and not engage. Got that?”

Roscoe responded with a thump of his tail.

Libby walked to the front door, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand before opening the door.

Sam was standing with his hands in his pockets. He’d shaved, and his hair was combed. And he was dressed in a suit and tie. “Evening,” he said.

It took Libby a moment to respond, because she wasn’t used to seeing him without a badge or a gun. Or looking so
hot.
He didn’t look official or intimidating, he just looked . . .
hot.
Jesus, had he always been this handsome?

One of his brows arched above the other as she let her gaze slide down his body and up again. “Is there something wrong?”

“Yes! I’ve never seen you in a suit.”

“Well now you have,” he said. “If you’ve got a minute, there is something I need to speak to you about.”

“Why? I haven’t been to town.”

Sam could not suppress a small smile. “Believe it or not, for once, this is not about you. It’s about your car.”

“Oh, great,” she said, steeling herself. “Go ahead, give me the bad news.”

“Tony thinks he has a way for you to pay him. Do you want me to freeze to death out here, or will you let me in a minute?”

She glanced down at the dogs, all of them standing between her and the door. “Where’s Tony?”

“He’s in the truck, wolfing down a burger I brought him. This will only take a minute,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m running late as it is.”

Libby leaned over the dogs and pushed the screen door open. All four of them quickly darted out and around Sam, running down the steps as if someone had called them.

Sam stepped in and stood just inside the door.

“You know . . . you look
nice
,” Libby said, nodding approvingly. He looked more than nice, he looked completely delectable.

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“Going somewhere fun?” she asked, peering closely at him. “Dinner and a movie, maybe? Or, wait, a concert? Are there any concerts in Pine River tonight?”

“I don’t know—maybe you should Google it. So listen, Tony took a look at your car. And the Buick, for that matter. He says they both need some major work, nothing he can do in a day. It might take him a few days to get both up and running smoothly.”

“I
knew
this would happen,” Libby groaned. “I’m low on cash, Sam.” As in completely tapped out, save the bottom-of-the-barrel living expenses.

“That’s okay. Because what Tony wants is a place to stay for a few nights and food. That’s all.”

“How could he not want to be paid?” Libby asked, surprised.

“Sometimes, there are things more valuable than money. I was thinking that maybe he could bunk with Ernest.”

Sam was referring to the ranch hand who had been at Homecoming Ranch for more than twenty years. Ernest Delgado had lived in the bunkhouse forever, never marrying, never leaving except once a month, to see his mother in Albuquerque.

As for the bunkhouse, there wasn’t much bunking to it—from what Libby had understood from Luke, Ernest had been the only one to ever have bunked there.

“I can’t drive Tony back and forth every day,” Sam said, sensing her hesitation. “And apparently, neither can you. All he wants is to get out of that run-down house for a while.”

“Here?” she asked, and rose up on her toes to peek over Sam’s shoulder at Tony.

Sam leaned closer to her so that he could shut the door behind him, presumably so that Libby wouldn’t stare at Tony. “Here, while he works. It’s a bunkhouse, Libby. I don’t think Ernest would mind the company for a couple of days. Is that a problem?”

What was that she smelled, cologne? It was
nice
cologne, too. He
did
have a date!

He glanced at his watch again.

“Are you going on a date?”

Sam slowly lifted his gaze from his watch. “Was there an answer to my question in there somewhere?”

“No, I changed the subject. It’s not a problem, there’s your answer. So why don’t you want me to know you’re going on a date?”

He cocked his head to one side and looked curiously at her. “Why are you so interested?”

“Who says I’m interested?”

“Oh, I don’t know, because of the way you keep staring at me and firing questions.”

“I’m not
staring
,” Libby retorted. “I’m making conversation. You told me to be nice. I’m being nice.”

“You’re not being nice,” he said, his gaze dipping to her mouth. “You’re being nosy. There is a fundamental difference between nice and nosy.”

Libby gasped with indignation. “Pot and kettle!” she said, poking him in the chest. “You’re
always
nosy, asking me where I’ve been and if I have a golf club in my car, et cetera and so forth.”

“That’s because I am a law enforcement officer, and you are a law violator. I have the right to do that.”

“I don’t get the big deal,” she said. “If you have a date, why don’t you just say so?”

Sam sighed. He folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, I have a date. Satisfied?”

“
No
!
” she cried with disbelief. “You said you didn’t have a girlfriend!”

“I didn’t say anything,” he corrected her, and rubbed his thumb across her cheek.

Libby swayed backward. “What?” she demanded, touching her fingers to tingling skin. “What was that?”

He tucked his thumb in his mouth. “Cake, I think.”

She tried to rub away the shiver his touch had put in her cheek. “So I guess I know why you totally ignored me today,” she said pertly.

He smiled a little. “Did I ignore you?”

“Totally
ignored
me.”

“Why would a date make me ignore you? That makes no sense.”

“Then why
did
you ignore me?” she demanded, propping her hands on her waist.

“I didn’t. But I realized I don’t have anything more to say to you. I’ve warned you, I’ve tried to counsel you, but you are clearly determined to do things your way. So, enough said. Life goes on.
I
go on. I’ve done my job.”

Libby was rendered temporarily speechless. There was something about him stepping back and away from her that made her feel unsteady. It made her feel awful, really—she had never meant to push him away. “Just because I don’t agree with everything you say doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be friends.”

“Friends,” he repeated, as if he found the suggestion ridiculous.

She suddenly reached around him for the door. “But go ahead, go on your date.” She opened the door a little too hastily, and it hit Sam in the back.

His gaze darkened, and he caught her wrist. “I swear to God, you are the most stubborn, intractable, infuriating woman I have ever known. One day you want me to leave you alone, and the next you are upset because you think I ignored you.”

“I am
not
upset—”

“Don’t lie to
me,
Libby Tyler. You’ve got irate female written all over you.” He pushed back against the door and in doing so, yanked her closer to him. She was suddenly staring into his eyes, which were silently, and effectively, daring her to deny it.

Libby couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t certain she could even speak, because suddenly, everything in her felt crooked. She was in that small space of teetering between righting herself and falling, her thoughts flailing about, looking for balance. Her gaze slipped to Sam’s mouth. His very
lush
mouth. A mouth she had never noticed until this very moment. “So?” she said. “It’s a free country.”

He pressed his magnificent lips together, pulled her even closer, and lowered his head, dipping down so that he was eye level with her. In a voice dangerously low, he said, “If I hear that free country shit from you one more time . . .”

Her pulse notched up. “You’ll
what
?”

He responded by kissing her so abruptly that Libby didn’t have time to even draw a breath.

His chest was hard, but his mouth, oh, God, his mouth was
not.
It was soft and wet, and his tongue was in her mouth, swirling around, stirring up all sorts of feelings and emotions and flames. He put his hand on her face, cupping her chin, holding her firmly in place while he kissed her so thoroughly her knees began to give way. It was a bolt of lightning shocking through every vein, every muscle, every tissue. Sparks were swirling around scattered thoughts that she shouldn’t be doing this, but she liked it, all of it mixing into one hot, wet mess. She could feel herself sinking beneath the haze of arousal, curving into him, pressing against his chest and legs, wanting
in.

Libby grabbed his tie and held on, mildly disturbed that she had not even a whimper of protest in her, and worse, the fleeting thought that she would like to take off her clothes, right now, at the front door. All her female senses and desires were uniting in solidarity, making her willingly pliable so that his mouth and his tongue could do whatever they wanted to do to her. She hadn’t felt a physical response like this in so long that it seemed almost magical to her. She was reminded that she was still a living, breathing, red-blooded woman, a sexual being who missed sex.

His hand slipped around her back and down. He grabbed her hip, kneading it, and pressing it against his erection, which was possibly the most tantalizing thing she’d ever felt. She forgot everything else but the feel of Sam Winters. She forgot dogs, and Tony, and the last five months. She forgot that she had found her lowest point in a sterile room in a place called Mountain View Behavioral Health Center. She forgot that she was broke and had no idea what a business plan was, what she should do, or where she even fit any longer.

She forgot Ryan.

She forgot everything but how amazing it felt with Sam’s arms around her, with his body pressing against hers, his lips sliding across hers.

And just as abruptly as he’d started, Sam lifted his head. He did not let her go. He still held her face in one hand. His lips were wet, and his eyes, good Lord, his eyes had turned deep water–green. “
Libby
,” he said roughly, his gaze sliding down to her mouth, to her chest, “something is burning.”

She was burning all right, burning to a crisp—

“The banana bread!” she cried.

He dropped his arms from hers, grabbed the door and opened it. “Try not to burn the place down,” he said, and opened the door. “By the way, I don’t have a date. I’m giving a speech at a graduation ceremony.” He smiled, stepped out through the screen door and let it slam behind him, stepping over a sea of dogs and down the steps of the porch while Libby stood there trying to catch her breath, her body still on fire.

She stood there after the taillights of his truck had disappeared, and kept standing until she began to smell a little smoke with that burnt banana bread.

TEN

Here’s the good thing about the Methodists: if they come up with a good idea, they’re like dogs after dropped barbeque. But here’s the bad thing about Methodists: they don’t get good ideas that often.

Which is where I, Leo Kendrick, certified genius, come in. I am the oar in their little boat, guiding them down the stream.

Okay, so like I mentioned, I seriously need a new van. The van we have is possibly the uncoolest van in the history of all vans. It was a bread delivery truck before it was ours, and you can still see the outline of the words
fresh baked
on the side. I don’t think I have to tell you that those words are not conducive to the life and moves of a chick magnet, which I happen to be.

So yesterday, the Methodists came to see me like they do every Wednesday. Deb Trimble always comes, and her friend Barbara Perkins does, too. You won’t believe it, but this time, they brought Gwen Spangler! Gwen is a
Methodist,
can you believe it?
I know Gwen, we were in school together, and I tried to kiss her under the bleachers once. She wasn’t having it, probably because she was intimidated by my masculine physique, because I mean, look at the pictures, I was a
stud.
Gwen was cool, though, and I haven’t seen her since she came back and shook up the Libby-Ryan apple tree. So I was
super
happy to see her, because I figured by now she was regretting her reluctance under the bleachers and I knew she was going to help me.

I asked Marisol if she could get some tea or something for the ladies, and Marisol said she wasn’t the hired help, which technically, she is, but I guess she meant she wasn’t the kind of hired help that got tea for anyone but me, and she hauled her enormously pregnant body off the couch and stomped off.

It was Dad who came back with the tea, and by that I mean he showed up with the Rubbermaid pitcher in one hand, and some stacked plastic cups in the other hand. Maybe it’s just me, but is it too much to ask that we show some decent hosting skills from time to time?

Anyway, I was right in the middle of telling the Methodists that I really need a new van, because my
bread delivery truck
breaks down a lot and I can’t rely on it to get me to my
important doctor appointments
when Dad came in and he was like, “
Whaaaat?
What are you talking about Leo, you’ve never missed a doctor’s appointment because of that van.” And I said, “Dad, don’t help me,” but he was on a roll, and he said, “That van has two hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, and she’ll go another fifty, sixty thousand before we run into any big repairs. Hell, you can take that van down to Old Mexico and they’ll get another fifty thousand miles after
that.
They don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

And then he sort of chuckled, like
try and top that one,
like he was super proud of the van for having that kind of mileage, and I ask you, in what other instance would a man be proud his old girl had that many miles on her? Which I pointed out to him not too long ago, along with the suggestion he sell the van for parts, and of course Dad got offended. “She’s managed to cart
your
tush around, hasn’t she?”

I’ll tell you right now, I don’t care if he gets all new insides for that van, I am not arriving at Mile High Stadium in
that.
I need wheels, and I need them bad, and I swear if I could use my hands, I would have given Dad the Vulcan death grip then and there.

Of course after his speech, no one said anything. Debbie and Barbara looked at each other like they were trying to figure out what to do, but then Gwen said, “That’s a lot of miles, Mr. Kendrick. Maybe if Leo got a new van, you could keep that one around for backup.”

I didn’t know if she meant that she was worried another one of us might get MND, or if she thought a new van would break down a lot, but I didn’t care. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her
before
she said anything, but then when she said that, I wanted to kiss her times ten.

“That’s what
I
was thinking,” I said, which is not what I was thinking at all, I was thinking about sex, and I said, “Do you have any
ideas
how to get one?”

Sometimes, you have to lead the horse to water.

Gwen got this little wrinkle between her brows like she was thinking super hard, and she looked really cute, and I could see why Ryan would want her back, although Libby is no slouch in the looks department, but you know how it is, one man’s gorgeous is another man’s
meh
. Gwen said, “Well, I think a fundraiser. Because those vans are expensive . . . aren’t they?”

You don’t want to know how expensive they are. The problem is the kind of van I need isn’t your average minivan. It’s got to have a lift, so me and my chair can slide right into the back like a rodeo bull into a chute, and then there has to be a way to secure the chair.

I said, “Yeah, they’re a little more than you’d think,” because I didn’t want to shock them, but maybe I should have said something a little more informative, because Deb said, “We could have a bake sale!”

We’re talking at
least
fifty grand, and that is going to require a
lot
of muffins. But Gwen got it, because she said, “or maybe a series of bake sales and some other fundraisers.”

“What about a fall festival event?” I asked them, because the wheels were already turning. “We could do one of those dunk tanks.” I laughed at this.

But Barbara gasped like she was going to have a heart attack. “
Leo!
We can’t put you in a
dunk tank
!”

I think it would be totally awesome to be able to sit on that little metal seat and then fall into the water, especially since I haven’t actually been in a bath or a pool in like, forever. But I know none of the Dudley Do-Rights in this room are going to let me, probably because I couldn’t bring myself back to the surface and there would be a lot of concern about liability and drowning, and
blah blah blah
. “No, I agree,” I said. “But we can put Dad in the dunk tank.”

They all laughed, but I was totally serious.

Anyway, we hammered out some
great
ideas, most of them mine, because that’s what I do: I think. And when the Methodists left, we’d agreed to form a fundraising committee, and I was feeling pretty good, even if we didn’t know who would be on the committee.

But when Marisol was hosing me down later, she said, “You use these Methodists, Leonard. They want to do good, and you use them.”

First, my name is Leo, not Leonard, but Marisol refuses to acknowledge that when she’s mad. Second, of
course
I am using them. It’s not like I can go out and get a job and buy my own van, is it? People, I have to rely on my superior cunning and exceptional good looks to get through my own little hell on earth, and that’s what I told Marisol.

So anyway, I am lying in bed with my legs stretched out as far as they’ll go so they don’t freeze in a crooked position, and I hear Luke come in. Even though I was watching
Shark Tank
and was totally into this one guy’s innovative sippy cups (I have some similar ideas that will probably require a patent)
,
I couldn’t help noticing the voices in the living room. Sounded to me like Luke, Dad, and Marisol were having a “conversation” which is
never
a good sign.

Sure enough, Luke popped his head into my room, but I was ready for him.

He said, “What are you watching?”

Like it wasn’t totally obvious. “
Shark Tank
.”

“Oh, is it Shark Week already?” he asked, because Luke can be totally clueless sometimes. I mean, really, how can one person be so ignorant of important pop culture trends?

“Different shows, different networks,” I told him, and honest to God, I tried not to sound condescending about it. “Let’s just jump to the finish line here. What do you want?”

Luke looked kind of taken aback, and he said, “Geez, Leo, I just want to talk.”

And he proceeds to talk about how I don’t really need wheels, and that if I want to embark on some big fundraiser, what I
really
need is a new chair, especially if I am going to talk the Fed Ex guy into helping me out on the sidewalk like I did the other day so I could zip down to the ice stand at the end of Poplar Street and sweet-talk my way into a snow cone. Cherry limeade, my favorite. I even got the cute teenage girl to hold it up for me so I could eat it until Marisol came bouncing down the street like a beach ball and cussing at me in Spanish because I didn’t “tell her” that I was “going out.”

Anyway, Luke reminded me that the
bread delivery van
gets me to Montrose and the doctors, and he said it like that’s high on my list, like he doesn’t know they’re total downers in Montrose, always talking about new seizure meds and feeding tubes and heart monitors and breathing machines.

I just let Luke do his big-brother, I-am-here-to-fix-everything talk, and then I said, “Luke, it’s like this. The Methodists figured out how to get me
into
the Broncos game, which is super cool, but they can’t figure out how to get me
to
the game. I
have
to go to the game, Luke. If I don’t have that game to think about, I end up thinking about other less fun things, you know? Do you know how hard I’ve had to work to make it happen? And I did it. I did it from a goddamn chair. But I can’t roll up at Mile High Stadium in a
bread delivery van.
That’s not cool, Luke,
so
not cool. I have to have wheels!
The Broncos are playing the
Patriots!
If I miss that game, go ahead and yank the tubes out of me, because I’m done.”

At first Luke looked freaked out, like he thought I was really going to yank the tubes, which, you know, to get my point across, I would consider. Hell, I
have
considered it. But then Luke figured out I was more interested in seeing the Broncos play than offing myself, which, at this point in time, would be an accurate assessment, and he said, “But that’s a lot of money for the folks of Pine River to come up with.”

And I said, “Well yeah, but I will figure it out.”

Luke looked at me like he’d never heard that before, but finally he reached over and he rubbed my gnarly, twisted foot, and he said, “Yeah, I remember. If anyone can figure it out, it’s you.”

Like,
hello
. Everyone knows that.

“Maybe you can put that ginormous brain of yours to the ranch,” he said, because he was trying to change the subject. “We’ve only got one wedding lined up. If we don’t get some business in the next couple of months, we’re going to have to rethink things.”

After all that mess with Dad practically giving away the ranch to Grant Tyler, who then up and died and left it to his three daughters, who didn’t know each other, and Luke quitting his job in Denver to come home and figure it all out, and deciding okay, maybe the ranch should be this event thing, and now he tells me they have one little wedding on the books?

I told him that I couldn’t solve all of his problems, and he said, no one asked me to solve
his
problems, and I said, get your hand off my foot, dude, or I will take it off for you, and some other stuff that brothers will say to each other when they’re annoyed, and I was annoyed.

But I got over it. Which is why I told Dad to fire up the grill, we’re going to have a party for family and close friends and chat about how they need to be on my new committee and raise enough money to get me that goddamn van. And while I’m at it, I’ll talk to the Libster about Homecoming Ranch.

I ask you, what are these clowns going to do without me when I’m gone? I’m going to have to write a manual or something because I don’t trust them to step up when I’m not around to tell them what to do. If I could hold a pointer, I’d give them a presentation they would never forget, and assign all the tasks. But I can’t hold a pointer, which you probably already knew, so I’ll just have to talk my way through it, and thankfully for them and for you, I am a brilliant speaker. It’s one of my best talents.