“Do you blame me?” she asked with a slight shrug.
“You’re not going to use the I-was-hurt-and-therefore-I-am-down-on-guys excuse, are you?”
“No. But that’s a good one,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll use it from now on. So?” she asked, settling back into her seat. “Girlfriend?”
“And you’re nosy, to boot,” he said. “I’m not exactly living in a hotbed of dating activity up here, you know.”
“The lack of a good dating scene didn’t stop Arnie Schmidt. He just ordered a bride right out of Russia. You should ask for the catalogue. If you want, I’ll help you pick.”
Sam laughed roundly at that. “Thanks . . . but you’d be the last person I would ask for an assist.”
“I am an excellent judge of potential wives!” she protested. “Ask Luke Kendrick!” She was now filled with the sort of enthusiasm he used to see in her, all shiny and bright-eyed with a man-appealing twinkle.
“You didn’t put Luke and Madeline together,” he said, calling her on that. From what he knew, they’d been adversaries—Luke wanting the time to buy back his family’s ranch, which his father had sold, and Madeline eager to sell it as quickly as possible.
“That is a matter of interpretation,” Libby said smartly. “If I hadn’t been so focused on the ranch and putting my fist through Ryan’s face, they wouldn’t have had so much time together.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but it was true that Libby had put all her energy into the ranch. Sam knew what it was like to be in Libby’s shoes. He knew what it was to seek that thing that would keep you from corroding from the inside out. He also understood how hard it was to look in the faces of people he’d known for many years, knowing that they understood how far he’d fallen.
They crossed a cattle guard, and the truck bounced up the pitted road until they reached Millie Bagley’s run-down bit of metal and stone house. The roof had been repaired so many times it looked like a patchwork quilt. The house sat unevenly, too, and looked as if it was sinking on the right. As they drove up, a dozen or more rail-thin cats, lounging on the porch and under the porch steps, scattered.
“Ohmigod!” Libby said, sitting up to peer out as a number of cats scurried away. “What is this, a meth lab?”
“Do you really think I’d take you out for a leisurely drive to a meth lab? This is Millie Bagley’s place. You remember her.”
“Millie Bagley!” Libby squinted out the front window. “Boy, do I ever remember her. She was on my route when I did Meals On Wheels. I didn’t know she’d moved out here. Probably better for all involved, because that woman is as mean as a snake.”
Sam couldn’t help but laugh, because that was absolutely right. “I figured you hadn’t forgotten her. And believe me, time has not mellowed her, so don’t take anything personally,” he advised, and opened the door.
“Wait!” Libby said, but Sam had already exited the truck.
Millie Bagley had lived in and around Pine River all of her life. She’d buried her parents, her brother, and, a couple of years ago, her husband. She had a daughter, too, somewhere—Sam thought Salt Lake City, but he wasn’t certain. She’d moved out here a few months ago to her family’s old homestead. It had probably been a fairly decent ranch at one point, but now it was nothing more than the old house on rocky ground, a shotgun, and an army of cats that looked to have grown by a dozen more every time he came around.
Millie viewed everyone as suspect. When a census taker had appeared last spring, she’d fired a warning shot in the air through her window, convinced the poor man was a government agent come to take her house away from her.
Sam noticed the shotgun propped up against a sagging porch railing and stopped short of the steps. Sam didn’t much like checking on her, but he had a conscience, and he was painfully aware that Millie Bagley didn’t have anyone to look after her. Neither did Tony D’Angelo, the Afghanistan-war veteran who lived in the old Baker house down in Elk Valley.
“Ms. Bagley, are you in there? It’s Deputy Winters.”
He heard some banging around inside the small house, and a moment later, Millie emerged in a filthy housecoat and tennis shoes. Her gray hair was clipped up behind her head in one of those plastic claws Sam saw on young women, and her skin had a greenish cast to it. A few of the cats hopped up on the porch and began to wind around her legs, meowing for food.
“Morning, Ms. Bagley.”
“Who is that?” she said, eyeing Libby, who reluctantly had come out of the truck.
“It’s me, Ms. Bagley—Libby Tyler. Remember me?”
“Libby Tyler!” she said. “Why’d you bring her up here?” she asked of Sam as she took Libby in from the top of her curls to the canvas sneakers she was wearing.
“She’s helping me today. I brought you a few things.”