by Julia London
Tony squinted at her car. He put down his toolbox, took a smoke from his pocket. “It’s a Dodge,” he announced.
“Does that make a difference?”
“Just saying.” He wandered over to the car, and with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, he popped the hood and propped it open. “Oh yeah,” he said, nodding.
“Oh yeah? Oh yeah what?” Libby asked, moving in beside him to have a look. Only she had no idea what she was looking at. A lot of greasy things were all she could see.
“It needs work.” He leaned down, started sorting through his toolbox.
Libby heard the sound of two vehicles start up and drive away. She leaned to her right and through the open garage door she watched Sam’s truck move down the road ahead of Luke’s Bronco.
He hadn’t even said good-bye, hadn’t told her to stay out of trouble. It stung—ignoring him was her thing, and honestly, she’d started to come around to his showing up with basketsful of unsolicited advice.
She settled against the Buick as Tony began to dismantle parts of her engine. She watched him a few minutes and asked, “Did you learn to do this in the Army?”
“Marines. And no, my old man taught me about cars.” He paused to take a drag from the cigarette he’d perched on the edge of her car, and then adjusted the dirty bandana he’d tied around his head.
“May I ask what happened?”
Tony squinted at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m guessing you aren’t talking about what happened when my old man taught me about cars. I was in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. Heard of it?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Meanest place on earth, I’ll tell you that. Ran into an IED.” He glanced at Libby again. “Improvised explosive device. That’s what the locals make to blow up big nation armies.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Me too. Sure has put a crimp in my style.” He leaned over the car again, tapping on something. His pants, Libby noticed, were stained, as if they hadn’t been washed in some time. His shirt was torn at the hem. “If you know about cars, maybe you could get a job at Wilson’s in Pine River,” Libby suggested, referring to the oldest auto shop in town.
“Got no way to get there,” he said. “No license, no wheels. Not to mention hard to drive without a leg.” He grinned at her as if he found that amusing.
Libby wondered why Tony lived so far out if he couldn’t drive. Once, her dad said that the people who came to live in the mountains around Pine River were usually running from something. At the time, she’d thought Grant was referring to himself, because if ever there was ever a man who ran from responsibility, it was him.
“Maybe Sam could take you,” she suggested, absently studying her cuticle.
“Sam? He drives me around a lot, that’s for sure. To the store, to the clinic. To my meetings. Not fair to ask him to come and get me every day and take me into work.”
“What meetings?” she asked curiously.
“AA,” he said, squinting at her again through a tail of smoke. “Twice a week. Sam, that dude has a sweet tooth. He likes the cookies.”
The Stuffed Shirt formerly known as Sam didn’t seem the sort of man who would drop someone off at a meeting and run in to get a cookie or two. “You mean you bring him cookies from your meeting,” she clarified for her own benefit.
But Tony shook his head. “It’s not my meeting, it’s our meeting. We go twice a week, and everyone gets a cookie. I mean, you sit for an hour or so. People get hungry, so they put out cookies.”
While Tony explained the reasoning behind providing cookies at meetings, a bell was clanging in Libby’s head. “Wait—Sam goes, too?”
“Sure,” Tony said, his focus on the engine of her car. “I thought you knew that.”
She probably would have if she’d thought about it. It occurred to Libby that Sam seemed to know an awful lot about her, but she really didn’t know much about him. He suddenly seemed mysterious to her—there was a life standing behind that badge and the warnings to obey the rules, and she knew only bits and pieces of it.
“Yeah, this is going to have to come out,” Tony said.
“What?” Libby asked, alarmed. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of money. As in none. I can’t afford parts.”
“Parts!” He scoffed. “I don’t do parts. I rebuild.” He wiped his hands on his pants, and Libby thought that the man definitely needed a clean pair. “It’s going to take some time. Maybe a couple of days.”
“A couple of days?”
He looked down at her car. “Well, if you want to rely on it, it needs to run. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said carefully. “But I don’t have the money to pay you for that kind of work.”
“Don’t get all bent out of shape—we’ll work something out,” he said.
Libby didn’t know how they were going to work anything out, but he was already under the hood with his wrench, turning something.
At half-past six, he was still working, and she was a little frantic.
Libby was in the kitchen, baking banana nut bread she’d made from the fruit Luke had bought and then not eaten. She had gone down to the garage twice to offer Tony something to eat, and both times he’d informed her matter-of-factly that he only ate one meal a day, and never while he was working. She wanted to go down there again and beg him to stop, that there was no way she could ever pay him.
Libby saw the swerve of headlights turn onto the road as she checked the loaf, and recognized Sam’s truck. The shoulder from the local meat market had arrived, and Libby decided to stay inside, because she didn’t care to feel the icy blast from him again. She heard the truck stop, heard the low hum of the engine idle and a door slam. Apparently, he was in as much of a hurry to get out of here tonight as he had been earlier today.
Moments later, she heard voices, truck doors shutting, and then the unmistakable sound of Sam’s boots on the porch stairs.
He knocked on the door.
The dogs, sprawled in every doorway between her and the front door, lifted their heads, their ears rotating toward the door. Roscoe began to growl. Libby put her hands on her hips, debating.
He knocked again.
“Okay,” she said to the dogs. “I’m going to answer, see what he wants, and not engage. Got that?”
Roscoe responded with a thump of his tail.
Libby walked to the front door, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand before opening the door.
Sam was standing with his hands in his pockets. He’d shaved, and his hair was combed. And he was dressed in a suit and tie. “Evening,” he said.
It took Libby a moment to respond, because she wasn’t used to seeing him without a badge or a gun. Or looking so hot. He didn’t look official or intimidating, he just looked . . . hot. Jesus, had he always been this handsome?
One of his brows arched above the other as she let her gaze slide down his body and up again. “Is there something wrong?”
“Yes! I’ve never seen you in a suit.”
“Well now you have,” he said. “If you’ve got a minute, there is something I need to speak to you about.”
“Why? I haven’t been to town.”
Sam could not suppress a small smile. “Believe it or not, for once, this is not about you. It’s about your car.”
“Oh, great,” she said, steeling herself. “Go ahead, give me the bad news.”
“Tony thinks he has a way for you to pay him. Do you want me to freeze to death out here, or will you let me in a minute?”
She glanced down at the dogs, all of them standing between her and the door. “Where’s Tony?”
“He’s in the truck, wolfing down a burger I brought him. This will only take a minute,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m running late as it is.”
Libby leaned over the dogs and pushed the screen door open. All four of them quickly darted out and around Sam, running down the steps as if someone had called them.
Sam
stepped in and stood just inside the door.
“You know . . . you look nice,” Libby said, nodding approvingly. He looked more than nice, he looked completely delectable.
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“Going somewhere fun?” she asked, peering closely at him. “Dinner and a movie, maybe? Or, wait, a concert? Are there any concerts in Pine River tonight?”
“I don’t know—maybe you should Google it. So listen, Tony took a look at your car. And the Buick, for that matter. He says they both need some major work, nothing he can do in a day. It might take him a few days to get both up and running smoothly.”
“I knew this would happen,” Libby groaned. “I’m low on cash, Sam.” As in completely tapped out, save the bottom-of-the-barrel living expenses.
“That’s okay. Because what Tony wants is a place to stay for a few nights and food. That’s all.”
“How could he not want to be paid?” Libby asked, surprised.
“Sometimes, there are things more valuable than money. I was thinking that maybe he could bunk with Ernest.”
Sam was referring to the ranch hand who had been at Homecoming Ranch for more than twenty years. Ernest Delgado had lived in the bunkhouse forever, never marrying, never leaving except once a month, to see his mother in Albuquerque.
As for the bunkhouse, there wasn’t much bunking to it—from what Libby had understood from Luke, Ernest had been the only one to ever have bunked there.
“I can’t drive Tony back and forth every day,” Sam said, sensing her hesitation. “And apparently, neither can you. All he wants is to get out of that run-down house for a while.”
“Here?” she asked, and rose up on her toes to peek over Sam’s shoulder at Tony.
Sam leaned closer to her so that he could shut the door behind him, presumably so that Libby wouldn’t stare at Tony. “Here, while he works. It’s a bunkhouse, Libby. I don’t think Ernest would mind the company for a couple of days. Is that a problem?”
What was that she smelled, cologne? It was nice cologne, too. He did have a date!
He glanced at his watch again.
“Are you going on a date?”
Sam slowly lifted his gaze from his watch. “Was there an answer to my question in there somewhere?”
“No, I changed the subject. It’s not a problem, there’s your answer. So why don’t you want me to know you’re going on a date?”
He cocked his head to one side and looked curiously at her. “Why are you so interested?”
“Who says I’m interested?”
“Oh, I don’t know, because of the way you keep staring at me and firing questions.”
“I’m not staring,” Libby retorted. “I’m making conversation. You told me to be nice. I’m being nice.”
“You’re not being nice,” he said, his gaze dipping to her mouth. “You’re being nosy. There is a fundamental difference between nice and nosy.”
Libby gasped with indignation. “Pot and kettle!” she said, poking him in the chest. “You’re always nosy, asking me where I’ve been and if I have a golf club in my car, et cetera and so forth.”
“That’s because I am a law enforcement officer, and you are a law violator. I have the right to do that.”
“I don’t get the big deal,” she said. “If you have a date, why don’t you just say so?”
Sam sighed. He folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, I have a date. Satisfied?”
“No!” she cried with disbelief. “You said you didn’t have a girlfriend!”
“I didn’t say anything,” he corrected her, and rubbed his thumb across her cheek.
Libby swayed backward. “What?” she demanded, touching her fingers to tingling skin. “What was that?”
He tucked his thumb in his mouth. “Cake, I think.”
She tried to rub away the shiver his touch had put in her cheek. “So I guess I know why you totally ignored me today,” she said pertly.
He smiled a little. “Did I ignore you?”
“Totally ignored me.”
“Why would a date make me ignore you? That makes no sense.”
“Then why did you ignore me?” she demanded, propping her hands on her waist.
“I didn’t. But I realized I don’t have anything more to say to you. I’ve warned you, I’ve tried to counsel you, but you are clearly determined to do things your way. So, enough said. Life goes on. I go on. I’ve done my job.”
Libby was rendered temporarily speechless. There was something about him stepping back and away from her that made her feel unsteady. It made her feel awful, really—she had never meant to push him away. “Just because I don’t agree with everything you say doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be friends.”
“Friends,” he repeated, as if he found the suggestion ridiculous.
She suddenly reached around him for the door. “But go ahead, go on your date.” She opened the door a little too hastily, and it hit Sam in the back.
His gaze darkened, and he caught her wrist. “I swear to God, you are the most stubborn, intractable, infuriating woman I have ever known. One day you want me to leave you alone, and the next you are upset because you think I ignored you.”
“I am not upset—”
“Don’t lie to me, Libby Tyler. You’ve got irate female written all over you.” He pushed back against the door and in doing so, yanked her closer to him. She was suddenly staring into his eyes, which were silently, and effectively, daring her to deny it.
Libby couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t certain she could even speak, because suddenly, everything in her felt crooked. She was in that small space of teetering between righting herself and falling, her thoughts flailing about, looking for balance. Her gaze slipped to Sam’s mouth. His very lush mouth. A mouth she had never noticed until this very moment. “So?” she said. “It’s a free country.”
He pressed his magnificent lips together, pulled her even closer, and lowered his head, dipping down so that he was eye level with her. In a voice dangerously low, he said, “If I hear that free country shit from you one more time . . .”
Her pulse notched up. “You’ll what?”
He responded by kissing her so abruptly that Libby didn’t have time to even draw a breath.
His chest was hard, but his mouth, oh, God, his mouth was not. It was soft and wet, and his tongue was in her mouth, swirling around, stirring up all sorts of feelings and emotions and flames. He put his hand on her face, cupping her chin, holding her firmly in place while he kissed her so thoroughly her knees began to give way. It was a bolt of lightning shocking through every vein, every muscle, every tissue. Sparks were swirling around scattered thoughts that she shouldn’t be doing this, but she liked it, all of it mixing into one hot, wet mess. She could feel herself sinking beneath the haze of arousal, curving into him, pressing against his chest and legs, wanting in.
Libby grabbed his tie and held on, mildly disturbed that she had not even a whimper of protest in her, and worse, the fleeting thought that she would like to take off her clothes, right now, at the front door. All her female senses and desires were uniting in solidarity, making her willingly pliable so that his mouth and his tongue could do whatever they wanted to do to her. She hadn’t felt a physical response like this in so long that it seemed almost magical to her. She was reminded that she was still a living, breathing, red-blooded woman, a sexual being who missed sex.
His hand slipped around her back and down. He grabbed her hip, kneading it, and pressing it against his erection, which was possibly the most tantalizing thing she’d ever felt. She forgot everything else but the feel of Sam Winters. She forgot dogs, and Tony, and the last five months. She forgot that she had found her lowest point in a sterile room in a place called Mountain View Behavioral Health Center. She forgot that she was broke and had no idea what a business plan was, what she should do, or where she even fit any longer.
She forgot Ryan.
She forgot everything but how amazing it felt with
Sam’s arms around her, with his body pressing against hers, his lips sliding across hers.
And just as abruptly as he’d started, Sam lifted his head. He did not let her go. He still held her face in one hand. His lips were wet, and his eyes, good Lord, his eyes had turned deep water–green. “Libby,” he said roughly, his gaze sliding down to her mouth, to her chest, “something is burning.”
She was burning all right, burning to a crisp—
“The banana bread!” she cried.
He dropped his arms from hers, grabbed the door and opened it. “Try not to burn the place down,” he said, and opened the door. “By the way, I don’t have a date. I’m giving a speech at a graduation ceremony.” He smiled, stepped out through the screen door and let it slam behind him, stepping over a sea of dogs and down the steps of the porch while Libby stood there trying to catch her breath, her body still on fire.
She stood there after the taillights of his truck had disappeared, and kept standing until she began to smell a little smoke with that burnt banana bread.
TEN
Here’s the good thing about the Methodists: if they come up with a good idea, they’re like dogs after dropped barbeque. But here’s the bad thing about Methodists: they don’t get good ideas that often.
Which is where I, Leo Kendrick, certified genius, come in. I am the oar in their little boat, guiding them down the stream.
Okay, so like I mentioned, I seriously need a new van. The van we have is possibly the uncoolest van in the history of all vans. It was a bread delivery truck before it was ours, and you can still see the outline of the words fresh baked on the side. I don’t think I have to tell you that those words are not conducive to the life and moves of a chick magnet, which I happen to be.
So yesterday, the Methodists came to see me like they do every Wednesday. Deb Trimble always comes, and her friend Barbara Perkins does, too. You won’t believe it, but this time, they brought Gwen Spangler! Gwen is a Methodist, can you believe it? I know Gwen, we were in school together, and I tried to kiss her under the bleachers once. She wasn’t having it, probably because she was intimidated by my masculine physique, because I mean, look at the pictures, I was a stud. Gwen was cool, though, and I haven’t seen her since she came back and shook up the Libby-Ryan apple tree. So I was super happy to see her, because I figured by now she was regretting her reluctance under the bleachers and I knew she was going to help me.
