“Right,” Libby said, and wiped her hands on her apron. She turned around and walked to the bar, standing beside the seat he had taken, and picked up his hat, clearly meaning to show him out. “Thanks for coming by, always great to see you, etc. But don’t call me, Sam, I’ll call you.”
She grinned as if she were teasing him, but Sam knew she wasn’t. Still, he smiled at her. He stood up, and stood so close to her that he could smell her perfume. It teased his nose and his thoughts, stirring something deep inside him as he took his hat from her. “That’s Deputy Winters to you. And no one is hoping more than me that we can stop meeting like this.” He meant that sincerely as he sat his hat on his head.
Libby’s smile softened. “Really? Because I was beginning to think you kind of liked it.” She gave him a friendly shove toward the door.
“I’ll see you around town, Libby.”
“Good-bye Deputy Winters!” she said in a singsong voice, and wiggled her fingers at him in a little wave.
“Good-bye, Libby.”
Sam emerged from the house just as Madeline Pruett, one of Libby’s half sisters, was coming up the steps. Four dogs were shadowing her, their snouts on the grocery bags she was carrying. She paused, her eyes widening when she saw him. “Oh no,” she said. “What’s happened?”
“How are you, Madeline? Nothing has happened. Just checking in.” He jogged down the steps, pausing to pet the dogs. “Have a good evening,” he said, and walked on to his patrol car, aware that Madeline was staring at his back.
Libby Tyler, he thought as he turned the ignition. A little nutty, a lot cute, and a truckload of trouble. Wasn’t this the way it always went? He was always drawn to the best-looking ones who caused the most trouble.
FOUR
Libby could hear Madeline banging through the front door and kicking it shut with her foot. The dogs raced into the kitchen before her, crowding Libby, sniffing her, looking for a treat.
“Hey, you mutts!” Madeline shouted after them. All four dogs reversed course and scrambled out of the kitchen, presumably to where Libby could hear Madeline putting things down in the hallway. That was a remarkable turnaround from five months ago, when Madeline had first come to Homecoming Ranch. She’d been petrified of dogs and of sisters she’d never met. Honestly, Madeline had been petrified of life.
When Libby’s father had died and left this run-down ranch to her and her sisters—meaning Madeline, whom she had never heard of until his death, and Emma, whom she definitely knew, but did not consider much of a sister if you got right down to it—Libby had been excited. After what she’d gone through with Ryan, and then her father’s death, she’d had hope that somehow she’d spin right into a new reality, one with sisters and meaningful relationships. She’d even said as much to her mother.
Libby should know by now not to say hopeful things to her mother, because her mother, God bless her, thought it was her purpose in life to make sure that Libby was, at all times, completely grounded.
“I don’t like to see you get your hopes up, honey,” her mother had said one day as she treated Libby to lunch at the Silver Leaf Teashop. “They may be sisters by blood, but these are grown women with their own lives. You can’t just throw three grown women together and expect that it will all be perfect and rosy.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” Libby had said. “Who says a sisterly bond is only formed at the beginning of life?”
Her mother had shrugged as she’d nibbled on a carrot. “You lived with Emma, what, two years? What kind of bond did you form with her?”
“I was seven or eight then, Mom. I’m twenty-six now.”
“It’s just that you always have such high expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met, you are so disappointed. I don’t want to see you disappointed, Libby. I tried to warn you about Ryan, but you—”
“Okay, all right,” Libby had said curtly, not wanting to hear the I Told You So chorus again.
But her mom was right, Libby had carried high expectations for her new family. Too high. When it fell apart, disappearing like the smoke and mirrors trick it apparently was, the emergence of sisters felt like a gift from God, tied up in a bow and given to Libby after losing her job and her family. She’d believed she deserved some happiness. Only Madeline and Emma hadn’t been as excited by the prospect of instant family and a run-down ranch as Libby had been.
But Libby, reeling from the loss of Ryan and Alice and Max, had desperately needed something to work. So she’d doggedly insisted that they go ahead with staging the ranch for a big family reunion—their father had rented the ranch out for that purpose before he’d died—and Madeline had grudgingly stayed to help.
And then, as if to add salt to Libby’s open wound, Madeline fell in love with Luke Kendrick. Big, gooey, hands-all-over-him love. Pretty Madeline with her long, dark hair and thick bangs, and big, rock-star handsome, rugged Luke, had fallen into the sort of love that burned a person up. Libby would see Madeline and Luke share a private joke and know they had a good thing, the real thing.