“Libby, I—”
“No, really,” she said. “Do you think I don’t know what people say about me, Sam? I have lived in Pine River all my life. I know all these people, and I know how they talk. I know what they think of people who have nervous breakdowns, and it’s not good. Half the people in that town think there’s no burden you shouldn’t be able to bear, that what doesn’t kill you should make you stronger, and that God never ever hands us more than we can handle. They have no use for people like me, and I know it. The only difference between everyone else and Ms. Bagley is that she has the guts to say it to my face. So . . . it’s okay.”
Sam was in no position to argue with Libby, because she was right. Like her, he knew how talk circulated in this town. How someone could smile and ask about you, and offer to help in some way, but then sit at the bar an hour later repeating what they’d heard, how you looked, inventing signs of trouble.
Libby smiled a little. “But she really is one crazy old bat.”
Sam chuckled. “I won’t argue with that. But she’s had her share of problems. Sometimes, life has a way of making people hard.”
Which is what he feared would happen to Libby if she didn’t get some ballast into her life.
“Are you taking me back to my car now?” Libby asked. “I’ve done my penance, haven’t I?”
“Nope. Got one more while we’re out this way,” he said. “Tony’s a little more laid back than Millie.” Then again, entire militant nations were more laid back than Millie. The truth was that Tony was a walking, ticking time bomb of self-destruction. But Sam still held out hope for him.
“Hopefully someone who is just a little more receptive to me, if you please. Is it just me, or is something else going on here today?” Libby asked. “I have this funny feeling that you’re trying to tell me something.”
There was something else going on here, but Sam couldn’t say what it was as he took in the spill of curls framing her face, the eyes intent on him, her very lush, pursed mouth. If he said it, he’d have to face it, and it was best just to let some things lie deep and still. “When did you get so paranoid?” he asked casually. “I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble, one day at a time.”
“Hmm,” Libby said, her gaze still zeroed in on him. “I don’t trust you, Sam Winters. Not one bit.”
He laughed and said with a wink, “The feeling is entirely mutual, Libby Tyler.”
SEVEN
Libby wouldn’t admit it to Sam, but she’d forgotten just how mean Millie Bagley could be. Libby had been shocked by Millie’s in-your-face reminder of her collapse.
But not as shocked as Sam, judging by his appalled expression.
She looked curiously at Sam as he pulled the truck out onto the main road and headed in the opposite direction of Pine River. Why did he care so much, anyway? About Millie, about this Tony guy, and most of all, about her? He didn’t have to care, he didn’t have to do anything but enforce the law. So why didn’t he do just that instead of driving around with a bunch of groceries in his car?
Even though she had been called a Good Samaritan from time to time, she was suspicious of them. At least she knew why she did it. It made her feel like her life had meaning. Is that why Sam did it? She couldn’t imagine going to see Millie Bagley on a regular basis, much less taking groceries to that old bag of bones. She could imagine being doubly sure to never drive down Millie’s road, and if she did, to do it in an armored vehicle.
Sam was squinting at the road ahead of them beneath his Ray-Bans. He didn’t have classic good looks, no, but he was handsome in a rugged way. He was a big man, but trim, with a lot of muscles everywhere. He looked rugged, like someone you would easily believe lived by himself on the side of a mountain and drove a big truck over bigger rocks, just like in the truck commercials. She remembered the first time she’d met him, back when they both worked out of Corita City. He came to work with an infectious smile and always seemed eager to get to work. She never would have guessed at the trouble brewing inside him. Looks were deceiving that way—they masked the history in everyone. No one knew what trouble had been lurking inside her, either.
Least of all, her.
If there was one thing about Sam that Libby would have found knee-bendingly attractive, it was his eyes. She had never seen eyes like that on a man, the color of them reminiscent of an Irish sea. Or, at least what she imagined an Irish sea to look like. They were knowing eyes, too—Sam had a way of looking at her that made her feel he could see in her, knew what she was on the inside, knew the thoughts that went through her mind.
He must have felt her looking at him, because he glanced at her as he propped his fist against the wheel. “Something wrong?”
“You’re a nice guy. A do-gooder.”