Return to Homecoming Ranch (Pine River)

by Julia London

  Dani was right. He was alone.

  Still, Sam might have been able to say no to Dani. But he couldn’t say no to Leo. Not that he hadn’t tried, but Leo had talked him to death. Sam had to give in to the man or lose his mind.

  But moreover, Sam wasn’t feeling himself. It alarmed him that in the last couple of days, he’d felt a creeping desire to drink unlike anything he’d felt in a very long time.

  He knew himself well enough to know that the desire for booze was usually a good indicator of his stress level. Only Sam wasn’t stressed. Why would he be stressed? Work was good, everything was good.

  Everything but this thing with Libby.

  There’d be no avoiding her tonight, so Sam had to have a stern talk with himself. He resolved to treat her like he treated his sobriety. He would see her, think of her as an alcoholic beverage, and walk away. He would keep his hands in his pockets. Never touch drinks or women.

  He dressed in a collared blue shirt he’d picked up recently at Tag’s Outfitters and jeans that were actually clean, and his cowboy boots. He combed his hair and tucked it behind his ears—reminding himself that he needed that haircut—and skipped the shave, leaving a shadow of a beard on his face. He fed his horses and headed into town.

  The little green house on Elm Street where the Kendrick men had taken up residence was lit up, even though the sun was still hanging over the horizon. It was unusually warm for this time of year—old-timers would tell you that meant an early snow was coming—but on Elm Street, the only thing coming that night was light and music drifting out from open windows.

  The house was set back from the street in a big square yard. A few months ago, a church group had built a ramp up to the front door for Leo. Since then, Luke had built a deck that wrapped around the house. Little pots of flowers graced the corners of the railings, and there were two lawn chairs around a small table on the corner of the deck, beneath the boughs of the old elm tree that draped over the house and lawn.

  Luke had removed the old front door and installed a wider one so that they could get Leo in and out of the house easily. Luke had also added a third bedroom and bath. The house was still awfully small, but at least it was more suitable to house three grown men. And it still needed work—the kitchen in particular. But the place was starting to look like a home.

  Sam walked through the gate of the chain-link fence, past the empty dog igloo, and waved at Jackson Crane, smiling a little at Jackson’s pencil-thin slacks, rolled up over his bare ankles and leather loafers.

  Jackson was probably in his early thirties. He was always wearing something that made it seem as if he’d just stepped out of an ad for private jets and fast cars, and it never failed to put a smile on Sam’s face. In that getup, Jackson looked ridiculous playing washers with Luke’s uncle, Greg Compton, who was wearing a sagging pair of Dockers and a T-shirt that had the Coors logo sprawled across the chest. “Hey chief,” Greg called out to him, lifting a beefy hand in greeting.

  On the deck, Greg’s wife, Patti, was arranging chips and hot sauce on the little table. She was the de facto woman of the house from what Sam understood, the one who oversaw all family gatherings. Leo said she cooked for them once or twice a week so, as Leo put it, they wouldn’t all succumb to salmonella poisoning.

  “Sam! It’s great that you could come,” she said cheerfully. She was a round woman, and looked just like the late Mrs. Kendrick, her sister. She had big, heavy breasts, and Sam could imagine that more than one kid had been smothered in them in the course of a motherly hug. “Dani says you don’t get down off that mountain much, so I’m really glad you did for us. Come in, come in!”

  Sam resisted a groan. He asked, “Is that Norah Jones I’m hearing?” referring to the music that was piping out of the open windows.

  “It sure is,” she said, her smile beaming. “Are you a fan?”

  “I am.”

  “Sam Winters, I always knew you were a man of discerning taste,” she said. “You’d think I put on church music the way the Kendrick boys reacted. Go in and get yourself a beer. We’ve got every kind you can think of because God forbid anyone should watch a football game without it. We’re going to eat a little early so everyone can settle in for the game. Luke’s rigged up a TV outside.” That she said with a voice full of awe, as if it were a feat of modern engineering.

  Bob Kendrick, Luke and Leo’s father, was standing at the door when Sam stepped through. He reached out to shake Sam’s hand. “Good to see you, Sam. You know Marisol Fuentes, right? And her husband, Javier?”

  Sam smiled at the fiery Marisol. She was rubbing her hand over her distended belly. “How are you, Marisol?”

  “Ready for this baby to come out,” she said. “It kicks me, night and day. You want beer, there’s beer in the fridge and coolers on the patio,” she said, and began a laborious shift down onto one of two twin recliners in the room. Both recliners faced a blank wall where normally an impressive flat screen TV hung. Sam guessed it was outside.

  In between the recliners was a large space where Leo usually wheeled in to watch his shows and play his video games. Hounds of Hell was his current favorite. Sam knew this, because when he’d stopped by last week, he’d had to listen to a detailed explanation of how Leo had made it to level fourteen.

  “Sam, come with me,” Bob said. “I’ll show you where the drinks are.”

  As they walked into the tiny kitchen, Sam heard Leo shout, “Hey, is that Sam? Sam, get out here!” Sam bent down and squinted out the little square window of the backdoor. Leo was on the deck, holding court like a fraternity brother. There was a picture in the house that Sam had once seen. It was of Leo, before his disease had manifested itself. He’d been a football player, a big tackle with a scholarship to the Colorado School of Mines. The picture of him had been taken on a river’s edge, and Leo stood a head taller than his companion, his arm looped around the guy’s shoulders, holding up a string of trout and grinning irrepressibly. It was the same grin Leo usually sported, but now it was made crooked by the betrayal of his muscles.

  Bob opened an old white fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. “Leo’s in fine form tonight,” he said. “When he gets like this, he’s usually cooking something up. Be prepared.” He smiled as he handed the bottle to Sam.

  “Thanks,” he said, and with the bottle of water in hand, he walked out onto the back deck. He noticed that a brace had been added to the headrest of Leo’s chair to keep his head from flopping to one side. It kept his head upright, but Sam realized Leo was even less mobile—now he couldn’t seem to turn his head at all.

  “Sam!” Leo said, looking genuinely pleased to see him as he maneuvered his chair around to get a better look at him. “Hey, have you met Dr. Levitt? He’s my in-town doctor. Not to be confused with my Montrose doctors. So get this,” Leo continued as Sam extended his hand to Dr. Levitt. “Mark here doesn’t know who was the first quarterback to catch a pass in a Super Bowl. Can you believe that?”

  Dr. Levitt smiled apologetically at Sam as he extended his hand. “Leo is very disappointed in me.”

  “Then I guess he’s going to be disappointed in me, too,” Sam said, shaking the doctor’s hand. “I have no clue.”

  “No clue about what?” Madeline Pruett materialized at Sam’s elbow. Luke was right behind her, clapping his hand on Sam’s shoulder in greeting, and speaking to Dr. Levitt.

  “Wow, Madeline, you look gorgeous,” Leo said. “Hubba hubba, if I weren’t in this chair . . .”

  “If you weren’t in that chair, you’d be down at the Rocky Creek Tavern, buying cheap wine for cheap broads and you know it,” Madeline teased him, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “What is it that Sam has no clue about?” she asked, looking around at the men.

  “Who was the first quarterback to catch a pass in a Super Bowl,” Sam said with a chuckle.

  “Oh,” Madeline said with a flick of her wrist. “As if the answer isn’t obvious to everyone here.” She snorted. “Give him a tough one, Leo.�
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  Sam looked from her to Leo.

  “Come on, Sam!” Madeline said, nudging him playfully with her elbow. “It’s John Elway, 1989!”

  “There’s nothing that turns me on more than a woman who knows her football,” Leo said gleefully, “but it was 1988.”

  “Was it?” Madeline said, and frowned a little as she tapped her finger to her lip. “You’re right, Leo. 1988.”

  Sam and Dr. Levitt exchanged a look of surprise at Madeline’s knowledge of useless football facts. Madeline tried for at least a minute to seem very nonchalant about it, but then Luke sighed, and she burst into laughter.

  “Hey, I can’t help it!” she said to Sam’s confused look. “This week is John Elway week at the Kendrick house, and it’s mandatory participation. Now that you’ve had your fun, Leo, I’m going to go say hello to Dani,” she said, and excused herself, walking past the men and down the deck steps onto the lawn, where Dani Boxer was chatting it up with Sherry Stancliff, who ran the Tuff Tots daycare.

  Leo whipped his chair around to watch Madeline. His hands curled like claws, but he could maneuver that chair like a champ. “Dad’s making his famous shoe-leather brisket tonight,” Leo announced. “Dad! Sam wants chips and dip!”

  “No, I—”

  “Just go with it,” Leo advised, wheeling past Sam to the ramp. “We were giving Dad the business about his culinary skills, and I think his feelings got hurt. Excuse me, gentlemen, but I see ladies,” he said, and sailed down the ramp at what seemed like a breakneck speed to Sam.

  “My feelings did not get hurt,” Bob Kendrick said, appearing at the kitchen door with a big red bowl full of chips. “All I said was that I would shove that dip down his throat with my fist if he didn’t knock off the food talk.” He handed Sam the big red bowl. “The kid’s got a mouth on him.”

  “As if that is news to anyone in Pine River,” Luke added cheerfully. “Hey, Dr. Levitt, could I talk to you a minute?” he asked the doctor. “I’ve got a couple of questions.” He and Dr. Levitt moved to one side, leaving Sam standing alone on the deck with a big red bowl of chips in one hand, a bottle of water in the other.

  He looked down at the lawn and the people gathered there, wondering what to do with it.

  “Is that your own personal chip stash, or are you sharing?”

  The sound of Libby’s voice slipped through Sam like a soft whisper and swirled around in the pit of him. He glanced over his shoulder; she was standing just outside the kitchen door in skintight black pants and a pair of leopard-print high heels. She wore a loose white pullover that swung around her hips, and had piled her wild curls into a loose bun on top of her head. A charge ran through him—Libby looked sexy as hell.

  “Want some?” he asked, extending the bowl.

  She shook her head as she walked across the deck to him. As she neared him, Sam could see that she was wearing makeup. He’d always liked the natural look Libby generally sported, but tonight, the dark, smoky lining around her lids had the effect of making her pale-blue eyes seem to leap off her face. She settled her weight on one curvy hip, holding a glass of white wine in one hand.

  Sam’s blood rippled through his veins. She looked spectacular, and that did not help Sam’s muddied thinking. He did not want to think of Libby as “spectacular” or “attractive.” He didn’t want to think of touching her or kissing her. He didn’t want to think of her at all. He’d spent the last two days working very hard not to think of her.

  Her gaze fell to the tub of chips he was holding. “You sure?” he asked, shaking the bowl a little before putting them aside on a table. Libby casually sipped her wine as she eyed him over the rim of her glass.

  “You look nice,” he said, and instantly regretted it, because her eyes sparked with pleasure.

  She glanced down at herself. “Thanks. I’ve been cleaning out the barn for the last two days and I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to put on something that didn’t smell like horses or could be worn to ride or groom horses. And, you know, it’s my first party since Mountain View, so I wanted to make a big splash.” She winked.

  Sam told himself to look elsewhere. He dropped his gaze to the water bottle and twisted the top off of it. “How’s Tony?”

  “Tony? Tony D’Angelo? The guy you deposited at the ranch and then never came back to see? Tony is good. Tony is rebuilding my car, one screw at a time.”

  “I told you he was good.”

  “I was hoping he might speed things along. I need a car so I can go to town.”

  Sam didn’t want to care why she needed to go to town. But he did. “Town, huh?” he asked, and casually drank his water.

  “Yes, town, Lone Ranger,” Libby said. “In spite of what you are clearly thinking, I learned a funny thing while clearing out the barn—I need one of those big shop brooms.”

  “Walmart,” Dani Boxer said as she sailed by in her signature Guayabera shirt and some chunky turquoise jewelry.

  “See?” Libby said to Sam, gesturing to Dani’s back as she stepped inside. “I need to go to Walmart. So?”

  “So . . . ?” he asked, confused.

  “Sooo, are you going to come check on Tony, or are you going to leave him at the ranch forever?”

  Sam had checked on Tony. Not a day went by that he didn’t check on Tony. He’d given him a disposable phone before he’d sent him up there, and had been diligent about calling. But he smiled at Libby now and asked, “Are you advocating checking on Tony? Because I was under the impression that you are adamantly opposed to checking.”

  “I am opposed to people checking on me. I didn’t realize that meant you’d never return to Homecoming Ranch.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Sam said.

  Libby gave him a withering look. “Really? That’s your answer? I find it very curious that you are suddenly so busy, Sam Winters. Just a few days ago, you’d hardly let me go to the bathroom without coming around to issue some sort of warning. And then . . .” She stopped talking and arched a feathery brow.

  Sam waited for her to say it.

  Libby didn’t say it. Her brows sank into a V. “You know.”

  Yes. He knew. But he was unwilling to talk about it.

  “Okay, why the big no-show all of a sudden?” she demanded.

  “I told you, I’ve been busy. I also told you that I’ve given you all the advice I have to give. It’s your life, Libby. You can do whatever the hell you want. You want to ignore a restraining order? Go ahead.”

  “Wow,” Libby said, clearly startled by his tone.

  So was Sam. “Excuse me,” he said, and turned around and walked into the house, looking for a place to dispose of his water bottle.

  Everyone else, however, was moving outside, apparently ushered by Patti. Sam stepped around Greg and into the kitchen to grab another bottle of water, and stepped aside when Marisol and Javier came through. “She’s like a ship,” Javier said, which earned him some strongly worded Spanish as Javier helped to maneuver his wife around the scarred kitchen bar and out the door.

  On the deck, a few people gathered around Marisol. Sherry’s hand went to Marisol’s belly. Someone—Bob, he thought—said something that prompted everyone to lift their beers and wineglasses and clink together. They were toasting the baby. Sam thought he should go out there, join the party, but instead, he slipped through the door into the small living area and leaned up against the wall, breathing in a moment, trying to erase a pair of eyes dancing around his mind’s eye.

  He heard someone come into the kitchen, heard something being placed on the little kitchen bar. A moment later, Libby’s head suddenly appeared through the doorway. She stepped into the living room. “There you are.” She looked around. “What are you doing?”

  Trying to stay away from you. “Taking a break,” he said.

  “From what?” she asked curiously as she moved a little closer and peered up at him. “You’re acting weird, Sam.”

  He shrugged. “Free country.”

  Libby gasped indi
gnantly at his use of her favorite rejoinder. “You know what I think?” she demanded, her hands finding her hips. “I think you’re standing in here so you don’t have to talk to me.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “I’m off-duty.”

  She gasped again. And then she took another step toward him. “Oh, I see what’s going on here,” she said, gesturing between the two of them. “You want to avoid the big elephant in the room.”

  “Mention any elephant you want,” he said, but he really wished she wouldn’t. He could already feel himself responding, that silent drumbeat of want sending out a call to arms in all body parts. “What do you want, an apology?”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “I just . . . maybe we should acknowledge that it happened, and agree it shouldn’t have happened, no harm no foul, and promise that it’s not going to happen again, right? Because, you know . . . there can’t be anything between us, right?”

  Well if that wasn’t rich, Crazy Pants telling him that she couldn’t be with him. “Whoa,” he said, throwing up a hand. “Did I say anything to give you the impression I thought there was something between us?”

  “Well . . . no,” she said, looking confused now. “But generally, a guy doesn’t kiss a girl if—”

  “Listen,” he said before she could launch into any ridiculous theories about why men kissed women. They kissed women because sex was always on the forefront of their mind. That was it, no ulterior motive. “It happened. And it shouldn’t have. And it definitely will not happen again.”

  “You don’t have to be that adamant about it.”

  “Yes, I do. I have learned that with you, the clearer and more adamant I am, the better chance I have that maybe you will listen. So let me reiterate—we’ve acknowledged it. We’ve agreed it won’t happen again. And now, you may go back to stalking people, and I can go back to law enforcement.”

  “Hey!”

  “Sam? Libby? Are you guys in here? It’s time to eat!” Patti sang through the back door.