That was when Ryan met Libby.
Sam actually remembered it—Libby had been working as a clerk at the sheriff’s office in Pine River at the time. Sam had worked there, too, before his life had spiraled out of control and he’d had to leave. He remembered Libby’s fresh face, and how she’d bring cookies to the office. He remembered how she’d appear at his side with a cup of coffee when he showed up to work hungover. “Get some sleep, Sam,” she’d whisper. She organized the office parties, too, and was the one person who could get grown men to do a Secret Santa gift exchange. Sam remembered that holiday season—after everyone had agreed, which had taken some doing, they’d drawn names. But the names were unfamiliar to them. It turned out that Libby had given them the names of the kids at the children’s home in Corita City. She explained that she’d feared if she’d asked them to give a gift to the home, the deputies gladly would have done it, but would have handed off the task to their wives. She’d wanted them to connect to the kids, so she’d devised the Secret Santa.
The holiday party that year, with the kids from the home, was one of the best holiday parties Sam had ever attended. And there hadn’t been a drop of booze . . . except in the flask in his patrol car.
Sam also remembered the starry look Libby had when she’d met Ryan. She’d been completely smitten by him, and had really taken to his two little kids. Danielle Boxer, who owned the Grizzly Lodge and Café, had once told Sam that Libby threw herself body and soul into Ryan’s life and taking care of his children.
“She’d bring them down to Main Street on Saturday mornings, and they’d come into the café. Oh, she dressed those kids, Alice with a big bow in her hair, Max with his little high-tops. She’d take them down to the library for story hour, or over to the park to the new playscape they have over there. I’ll tell you, Sam, she loved those kids as if she’d birthed them herself.”
No one could ever fault Libby Tyler for effort.
Sam hadn’t seen much of Libby around that time—he’d had his problems at home and a daily cat and mouse game of keeping his addiction a secret.
Gwen came back to town about the same time as Sam, with a new hairdo and a new figure and a new job that paid pretty well, and apparently, Ryan got the idea things would be better with Gwen. But Ryan wasn’t the kind of man who could own up to his sorry truth; he kept his affair with Gwen under wraps, and told Libby it wasn’t going to work out. Sam didn’t know what Ryan had eventually said to Libby, exactly, but Dani said it was a coldhearted rejection, a shove right out the door without explanation. As far as Libby knew, everything was golden between her and Ryan. She thought she was going to be stepmom to those kids until they had their own families. She thought she and Ryan would be adding to the brood. She thought Ryan truly loved her.
After that, Sam would see Libby around town with a yoga mat on her back, or having lunch with her mother at the local tea shop. She seemed the same bubbly young woman, still volunteering her time to help others, but Sam had noticed something different about her. The light was not the same in her blue eyes.
The sad thing was, Libby didn’t know what everyone else knew—that Ryan had been having an affair with Gwen. When Libby found out about it a few weeks ago—months after their split, after trying to make sense of things—she’d lost it and picked up the golf club.
At the present moment, Libby was practically scrubbing that head of lettuce, then ripping the leaves and throwing them like grenades into the salad spinner.
“I told the Pine River cop that I’d handle today’s incident,” he said. “I asked Gwen not to make a bigger deal out of it. But Libby, you can’t violate a restraining order and expect that you won’t end up in jail.”
Libby stopped ripping leaves from the head of lettuce and looked out the window over the kitchen sink.
“Look, I know it’s been hard,” he continued. “But if you want to see those kids, you’re going to have to make nice. People don’t want women who bash truck windows coming around their little ones, you know?”
Libby snorted. “So I hear.”
Sam pushed a hand through his hair, tried to think of the best way to frame his thoughts. “You can’t let your emotions get the best of you. This restraining order is temporary. You don’t want to give Ryan any reason to make it permanent, do you?”
Libby didn’t respond.
The headlights from a car swept through the kitchen as someone pulled into the drive.
“So . . . you’re going to obey the order, right?”