What was it about Libby Tyler that affected Sam so? Even now, after an afternoon of incredible frustration, he felt something stirring for her.
Maybe it was that he could see his own failures in her eyes. He knew all about useless hope, knew all about slicing pain that came with that moment of realization, when the world you had built on a hope came tumbling down like a tower of ashes. He couldn’t help himself; he reached for her hand. It seemed to surprise Libby, but she turned her hand over, so that her palm was touching his, and wrapped her fingers around his hand, too.
“I’m starting to sound a little crazy to myself, you know?” she said softly. “I only know that one day, I thought everything was great, that we would always be together, and the next, it was like waking from a dream—it was all gone. And the worst of it was Alice and Max. I didn’t know how to go from practically being their mother to being nothing. I didn’t know how to not see them every day, or to not hear about their day, to not put them to bed. I guess I kept thinking it was a mistake, and somehow, I’d patch together a way we could still be together. I didn’t get how a father could take someone those two kids cared for from their lives for no apparent reason. Did he even once consider their feelings or what they needed?”
“You just hoped too hard,” Sam said. “You got too wrapped up.”
“Obviously. But I never thought of hope as a bad thing. Do you think it is?”
“I’m really not the person to ask,” he said. Sam felt antsy now; he didn’t like thinking about how hard he’d once hoped. How he’d wasted so many good years and had even risked his health on a razor-thin hope.
Libby sighed and slid her hand out from under his, leaving his hand empty. “Alice and Max were babies when I met Ryan. They were sleeping weird hours and they were eating the worst things, and they wore dirty clothes, and half the time they had stuff stuck in their hair,” she said, gesturing to her unruly mass of curls. “They were babies. And then they were my babies.”
That, sadly, was Libby’s downfall—those children had never been her babies. He had no doubt it felt that way to Libby, but they’d never been her children and they never would be. It was the crux of Libby’s problems this summer—she couldn’t let go of the maternal love she possessed for those children. Sam didn’t have to point out the obvious. Libby knew it, even if her love blinded her to her actions.
“I met Ryan when I was working as a clerk in the sheriff’s office. Did you know that?” she said wistfully.
Sam glanced up. “I remember.”
“He came in to report some cattle loose up on Sometimes Pass,” she said with a wan smile. “I thought he was really handsome, and we hit it off. He used to send me flowers, every Monday. They arrived like clockwork. Roses and marigolds, lilies, irises. You name it, he sent it.”
Sam remembered it—the guys in the office had teased her, making kissing sounds and pretending to be her, acting silly when the flowers came. Libby was a good sport about it, always willing to laugh at her own expense.
“He took me to the places I’d never really been, like the Stake Out, and the little French bistro out on the Old Aspen Highway. No one had ever treated me like that. He told me his wife had misunderstood him, and that what he needed was a woman who could be his partner. He said Gwen hadn’t connected with her own kids, and she’d left, taken off for Colorado Springs without them. He said what they needed was someone like me, someone who understood them, someone who could be a real mother to them.” She laughed bitterly. “I guess he set me up, didn’t he?”
Ryan had been fishing for a permanent babysitter, just as he’d told Libby today, and for that Sam reviled him.
“The thing is, he could have been straight with me about it from the beginning,” she said. “But he knew what he had, because I was knocking on the door demanding entry, because I wanted a family. I wanted exactly what Ryan offered—a love affair, kids, a house, and a dog.” Her gaze fell to her lap. “He said he loved me, and he loved how I had taken his kids in as my own, and he loved everything about our family. He said we would get married, and we would have more, and . . . and that’s where I thought we were headed. I wasn’t expecting the end. I never saw it coming.”
Something tweaked in Sam’s chest; it felt almost as if his heart was stretching a little. He felt for Libby, he truly did. “Most people don’t see ends like that coming.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve had more than my fair share of practice. I should have recognized what was happening.”