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.
ELEVEN
Libby awoke several times wondering if she’d dreamed that kiss with Sam, only to open her eyes and realize she hadn’t dreamt it at all. And then she would lie there recalling every single moment of it. Every single one.
She thought morning would never come. But it did come, sliding in cool and cloudy under the night sky.
In the gloomy light of a new day, Libby couldn’t recall exactly how she had ended up attached to Sam’s very scrumptious lips. What was said that managed to throw them together?
There was another thing: she hadn’t thought about good, old-fashioned rolling-in-the-hay sex in a very long time. Several months, actually. Not that she kept count, for if she actually knew how long it had been, she might murder an innocent bunny or kick a helpless old woman.
Thanks, Sam.
She cleaned the kitchen after breakfast and tried to imagine wild sex with Sam. And in spite of the warm glow that gave her, she couldn’t picture it. Sex just didn’t compute with the deputy sheriff and his no-nonsense lectures. Sex computed with the guy in the suit and tie and the body made of hard planes and ironclad grip, yes. But that guy was not the same guy who showed up with his badge and his hat sitting backward to tell her to stay out of trouble.
Libby was going to have to confront Sam and that kiss. They had a professional relationship—sort of—as he had pointed out, and she couldn’t be walking around thinking of kissing him. If she was thinking about kissing him, how could she possibly take him seriously when he was admonishing her? She had to try and fix this before it could get complicated.
She was fully prepared to do it that morning when Sam dropped off Tony, but the dropping-off job fell to the woman with bleached-blond hair and a tattoo of a rose on her chest. Even from Libby’s vantage point at the window, she could see that rose.
Libby walked out onto the porch to greet Tony and realized that he and the woman were engaged in an argument, seeing as how she was calling him names. Libby thought maybe she ought to intervene before the woman yanked Tony’s prosthesis off of him, but the moment she started down the steps, the woman slid into her little Pontiac and roared down the drive, bouncing over the pits and rocks.
Libby walked down to where Tony was standing, his weight on his hip, watching the woman drive away. “She’s not going to come back with a sawed-off shotgun, is she?”
Tony bent down and picked up his duffel, and slung it over his shoulder. “I sure hope not.”
“Come on,” Libby said, her eye still on the road out of the ranch. “I’ll show you the bunkhouse.”
At the bunkhouse, she introduced Tony to Ernest, who was wearing thigh-high waders and a fishing jacket. Libby had mentioned Tony yesterday, and Ernest had seemed unfazed by it, but this morning, he eyed Tony suspiciously, his gaze sliding down to Tony’s leg.
“How you doing, man?” Tony said, extending his hand. “I won’t take up much space.”
Ernest took his hand. “Vet?” he asked.
“Yep. Afghanistan,” Tony said.
Ernest nodded. “Come in. I’ll show you a room.”
Libby left the guys to do whatever it was guys did in circumstances like this, and walked back to the house. She paused at the barn to glance inside. Homecoming Ranch kept three horses for working cattle. The horses spent most of the summer outside, grazing in the meadow around the tent pads they’d had poured after the reunion in June, but this morning, they were in the barn, munching contentedly from their feeders.
The horses were the biggest problem Libby had for the ceremony. She had to get them out so she could clean the barn and rid it of the smell of manure. Ideally, she would like to have that done before Austin and Gary showed up to check out the setting. Libby was convinced the barn setting would work very well, but she guessed that Austin and Gary would not be persuaded of that if they could smell manure.
This event was a lot of work. A lot of work. A lot of work she had not anticipated when she had put a cost to it.
She walked on, thankful to have something to think about other than that kiss. Or sex. In fact, the more she thought about Homecoming Ranch and all that had to be done, the more her senses were dulled into a throb of mild panic.