“You look really good,” she said, and took a seat on the bleacher below him. “Really good. Healthy, you know? That’s good to see.”
“Thanks. You look pretty good yourself.” He hadn’t meant it to come out quite like that, but she did look great. She looked fresh and wholesome, and untouched by the ugly side of life.
Libby blushed a little and self-consciously pushed a corkscrew curl from her face. Sam envisioned pushing that curl back himself. The image caused him to look at his plate. It had been a long time since he’d thought of touching a woman. He’d thought of sex, yes, of course. But nothing as simply intimate as brushing a woman’s hair from her face. Thinking of it now made him feel strangely empty.
“Are you coming back to work?” she asked.
“Not to Corita City,” he said, referring to the sheriff’s county headquarters. “I’m going to be a rural area deputy, stationed here in Pine River.”
“Really?” Her voice was full of delight. “That’s great news! When do you start?”
“A couple of weeks,” he said, and bit into some brisket. She was right—it was excellent. “I pulled a muscle in my back and I’ve been driving over to Montrose two days a week for treatment. Once the doc releases me, I’m good to go.”
Libby pointed at him. “Yoga.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yoga. You should come to yoga class.” She suddenly stood up and bent over to touch her toes. “Yoga will stretch you out, especially your back.”
Sam laughed.
“I’m serious!”
“Libby!”
Libby turned; Sam saw Ryan walking across the field, a wire clothes hanger in his hand. “Where are the marshmallows?” he called up. “Hey, Sam.”
Sam lifted a hand, then looked at his plate. Ryan’s appearance had ruined one of the nicest moments he’d had since coming out of treatment. He liked talking to Libby. He’d always liked talking to Libby. She’d always had a way of making him feel like he mattered, even when he knew better than anyone that he didn’t.
“They’re in the black bag in the back of the truck,” Libby said. “Right next to the cooler.”
“I looked there. I can’t find them. Come on, the kids are getting antsy.”
Libby smiled at Sam. “Trust me, they are in the black bag,” she murmured.
“Libby—”
“I’m coming, Ryan,” she called cheerfully. To Sam, she said, “Duty calls. But seriously, Sam, think about yoga.” She began to step down the bleachers.
“Thanks, but to be honest, I am probably not going to think about yoga,” Sam said after her. “Hey, thanks for the food.”
Libby had reached the last step. She turned back, put her palms together, and put them to her chest. “You’re welcome for the food. Just try the yoga. You can thank me later. Namaste.” She bowed her head. With a laugh, she jumped off the last bleacher and ran to catch up with Ryan.
Ryan swung his arm around Libby’s neck and kissed the top of her head.
Sam felt a weird tightness in his chest. It felt like loneliness. Yearning. A buried desire for what Libby and Ryan had.
He finished his brisket, listened to a couple of songs, then stood up and stretched his stiff back before heading home.
Yoga, huh?
Sam’s life resumed its normal rhythm, and after a couple of days, he didn’t think about his encounter with Libby Tyler. Not until a week later, when he walked into the room the Pinero County Sheriff’s Office had rented from the Pine River Police Department for him. There, on his desk, was a rolled up yoga mat and a DVD. On the mat was a Post-it note:
Hi, Sam. Now you have no excuse not to at least try it. Good luck! Libby Tyler.
He chuckled to himself with delight and picked up the DVD to read the back.
THREE
Present Day
Sam wished he’d picked up a jacket before heading up to Homecoming Ranch. The wind that bowed the tops of the Ponderosa pines and knocked a few thin clouds around carried on it the scent of change. It felt as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees in the last hour.
Eight miles from Pine River, the road up to the ranch was a drive through the best scenery the Colorado mountain ranges had to offer. Green valleys, dark mountains with bald tops, trees glittering gold and green. He drove through stands of pine and spruce, and cottonwoods that stretched out to each other, creating a canopy over the road; past horses grazing a meadow of spindly daisies, the herd increased by two over the summer, which he hoped—probably wrong, but still, he hoped—was a sign that the old ranch was turning around.