He really admired Libby for what she was doing—taking giant, leaping strides. She’d had a really bad summer, but somehow, she had turned it around and had become the town’s little twinkling star with this race and the new plans for the ranch. That was what he called the turn of the page.
But that wasn’t what had brought Sam to this track for the last two weeks. He had thought of little else than what she’d said that day in his shed. Libby was right—he was a coward. He had turned a blind eye to how he was walling himself off from the world, a little more every day. He had thought that as long as he was dragging other drunks to AA, he was doing what he needed to do. But somewhere along the line, he’d stopped living. The only time in the last two years he’d felt alive, like he was a fully functioning man again, was with Libby. And he’d pushed her out the moment it got a little messy.
He’d felt the void of her in his chest, in his bed, in his life. He didn’t know what he was doing, running around behind her on the track, but he wanted her back, and this time, he wasn’t going to let fear of falling stop him.
The following Monday, a week before Thanksgiving, he was sitting in the bleachers when she appeared. A front had come through, and it was freezing. He blew on his fingers as she slowly jogged by, warming up. She looked up at him, and from where he sat, he heard her muttering to herself.
Sam watched her do one full turn around the track. When she passed the second time, he walked down on the track and started running after her. Halfway around the track, Libby stopped and whirled around. “Why are you doing this? Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“Why do you think?”
“Whatever,” she snapped, and turned, started running.
So did Sam.
A quarter around the track, she stopped again and turned around. “You’re wasting your time, Sam. Don’t you have birdhouses to build? Old ladies to feed?”
He deserved that. “I’m not wasting my time. I love you, Libby. I should have run after you the day you called me a coward.”
Libby stood there uncertainly, as if she didn’t know what to do with him, as if she didn’t believe him. “You what?” she shouted.
“I said, I love you!” he shouted back at her.
He didn’t know what he expected, but he didn’t expect her to run. That she did, suddenly sprinting away, across the interior field. She was fleeing.
Sam intercepted her midfield.
But Libby pushed him, and tried to escape. So Sam tackled her, bringing them both to the hard ground, landing on his back with her on top, and then quickly rolling over, trapping her beneath him.
“Get off me,” she said, kicking at him.
“Not until you listen to me.”
She shoved at his chest. “I don’t want to hear it!”
“You were right, do you want to hear that? You were right, Libby Tyler, I am a coward. I was afraid of loving you, afraid of giving all to you and being disappointed. And, by God, I’m still afraid of that, but I’m a helluva lot more afraid of missing out on the happiness I had with you if I don’t at least try. I’ve thought a lot about what you said, and you were right.”
She stopped struggling and glared up at him. “I was right . . . but? There’s a but, isn’t there? Some rule I have to follow.”
“No buts,” he said. “I just love you, Libby. And I’ve missed you so damn much.”
“I don’t believe you! How do I know you won’t decide I’m too impetuous, or too much trouble, or too unpredictable for your carefully crafted life? How do I know that if I get mad at someone, you won’t break it off? How can I trust you?”
“The same way I’m going to trust you, one day at a time. I’m going to believe that you have learned from the things that happened to you this summer and you’ve moved on. I’m going to believe that you see a future in us, and you are going to work to make it happen, just like you’ve made the race happen, just like you’ve made Homecoming Ranch happen.”
“That’s too easy, Sam!” she said angrily. “You can’t pretend everything is suddenly okay! You can’t sweep it all under a rug!”
“I am not pretending everything is okay, baby. But I’ve thought a lot about what you mean to me. I have thought even more about what happened between us, and I realize, I love you too much to let you go because I have issues. I love you too much to hide behind a birdhouse anymore, okay? I want to move on. I want to be us again.”
“Maybe I don’t,” she said, shoving against him. “Maybe I don’t know how I will ever believe that you won’t reject me if the going gets tough.”
Sam sighed, realizing that his fear of disappointment was matched only by her fear of rejection. He pushed back loose tendrils from her face. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? So much crap to overcome.” He rolled off of her and sat up, looping his arms around his knees. “You’re right, Libby. It’s a gamble for us both. I guess trust is not something that can be promised, it has to be earned. But I know that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to earn yours.”