Return to Homecoming Ranch (Pine River #2)

Sam moved to the fireplace. He took a few logs from a stack he had to one side and put them in, building a fire. His cold demeanor was making the little house even chillier. Libby rubbed her arms and looked around. “Keep an eye on it,” he said once the flame took hold.

When Sam had the fire going, he stood up and looked at her. His gaze moved over her in one long slide, making Libby feel self-conscious. What did he see?

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He started for the door.

“Wait!” she said anxiously.

Sam paused and glanced back at her, his expression impatient.

“What should I do?”

He shrugged. “Sit. Wait. Take the time to think about things.” He picked up a hat. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge.” He went out the door.

She heard him run down the porch steps, heard his truck start up again. She listened to him drive away. She stood there until she couldn’t hear anything but the wind moaning around the house.

Libby slowly turned a slow circle in the middle of the room, concentrating on her breath. Try to center yourself. Calm your heart. She had a strong desire to lie down on the floor before the fire and curl up in a ball, let the day and her anger wash away from her.

Instead, she sat carefully on the edge of Sam’s recliner, her face in her hands.

She could picture her mother, her hair neatly trimmed, her rings blinking at Libby as she stirred Splenda into her iced tea, looking annoyed. For heaven’s sake, Libby, what is the matter with you? What would ever make you think he’d let you see the kids? You’ve always been like that, always imagining things that just aren’t so.

Libby’s hands curled into fists, her frustration with herself, with life, with everything that had gone on in the last twenty-six years bubbling up. Dr. Huber would tell her that her anger was justified, but her trust was misplaced. She would advise her to use the techniques she’d taught her—breathing exercises, word associations, change of scenery, and then remind her to take her pill.

All of that sounded inadequate for what Libby was feeling in that moment. Profound disappointment—with Ryan, with herself. With Sam. Overwhelming, bitter, bitter disappointment.

But if she dwelled on it, Libby knew she would sink deeper. Dwelling, brooding—that’s what got her into trouble, that’s how she’d found herself holding a golf club.

Libby abruptly stood up, and in doing so, knocked a magazine off the table next to Sam’s recliner. She picked it up and looked at it. Outside Magazine. Not surprising. He was obviously a solitary man. He was the smart one.

She noticed the coats and jackets again, remembered that she was freezing. She grabbed a flannel jacket from the wall and slipped into it, pulling it close around her body, dipping her head to touch her nose to the fabric. It smelled like Sam, spicy and earthy and . . . safe.

Get busy. Do something. Anything. Whatever it took to keep her mind from spinning into an angry mush beneath what had been another brutal rejection by Ryan.

Libby walked into the kitchen and looked around. It was a man’s kitchen, all right. The appliance population was small, and those he did have were the cheap varieties one picked up off the grocery store aisle. Pots and pans were stacked in the sink, and the counter looked as if it could use a good cleaning. In fact, the whole place looked as if it could use a good cleaning.

Outside the snow swirled in big gusts across a very big deck.

Just beyond the railing was another birdhouse. She couldn’t be sure, but this one looked like a plane.

She leaned over the sink, peering through the gray light of the blizzard. Something moved in the meadow, something dark and big.

Libby walked down to the desk and leaned over it, squinting out through the window. “Horses,” she said aloud. She glanced at the clock on the stove. It was almost five. What if Sam didn’t come back in the next hour or so? It would be too dark to bring them in. There it was, the thing she had to do.

Libby went back to the wall of coats, exchanged the flannel jacket for a coat with a hood, and put it on. From there, she walked into the mudroom, which was attached to the kitchen, and began to root around for some boots she might pull on.





EIGHTEEN

A hard wind was sending snow up in swirls and bringing it down sideways, making it hard to see as Sam drove up the road to his house. He worried about his horses and hoped he’d be able to find them in the snowy dark.

He pulled into the drive, turned the collar of his coat up, and hopped out. He walked around the side of the house to the meadow gate, trudging down to the barn to grab a lead. But as he neared the barn, he noticed the outside light was on. He didn’t generally use that light. He opened the door to the tack room, walked through to the barn . . . and stopped midstride, staring with disbelief: His two horses were in their stalls.

The sorrel mare lifted her head, sniffing at him, then pawed the ground.