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  I asked Marisol if she could get some tea or something for the ladies, and Marisol said she wasn’t the hired help, which technically, she is, but I guess she meant she wasn’t the kind of hired help that got tea for anyone but me, and she hauled her enormously pregnant body off the couch and stomped off.

  It was Dad who came back with the tea, and by that I mean he showed up with the Rubbermaid pitcher in one hand, and some stacked plastic cups in the other hand. Maybe it’s just me, but is it too much to ask that we show some decent hosting skills from time to time?

  Anyway, I was right in the middle of telling the Methodists that I really need a new van, because my bread delivery truck breaks down a lot and I can’t rely on it to get me to my important doctor appointments when Dad came in and he was like, “Whaaaat? What are you talking about Leo, you’ve never missed a doctor’s appointment because of that van.” And I said, “Dad, don’t help me,” but he was on a roll, and he said, “That van has two hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, and she’ll go another fifty, sixty thousand before we run into any big repairs. Hell, you can take that van down to Old Mexico and they’ll get another fifty thousand miles after that. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

  And then he sort of chuckled, like try and top that one, like he was super proud of the van for having that kind of mileage, and I ask you, in what other instance would a man be proud his old girl had that many miles on her? Which I pointed out to him not too long ago, along with the suggestion he sell the van for parts, and of course Dad got offended. “She’s managed to cart your tush around, hasn’t she?”

  I’ll tell you right now, I don’t care if he gets all new insides for that van, I am not arriving at Mile High Stadium in that. I need wheels, and I need them bad, and I swear if I could use my hands, I would have given Dad the Vulcan death grip then and there.

  Of course after his speech, no one said anything. Debbie and Barbara looked at each other like they were trying to figure out what to do, but then Gwen said, “That’s a lot of miles, Mr. Kendrick. Maybe if Leo got a new van, you could keep that one around for backup.”

  I didn’t know if she meant that she was worried another one of us might get MND, or if she thought a new van would break down a lot, but I didn’t care. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her before she said anything, but then when she said that, I wanted to kiss her times ten.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said, which is not what I was thinking at all, I was thinking about sex, and I said, “Do you have any ideas how to get one?”

  Sometimes, you have to lead the horse to water.

  Gwen got this little wrinkle between her brows like she was thinking super hard, and she looked really cute, and I could see why Ryan would want her back, although Libby is no slouch in the looks department, but you know how it is, one man’s gorgeous is another man’s meh. Gwen said, “Well, I think a fundraiser. Because those vans are expensive . . . aren’t they?”

  You don’t want to know how expensive they are. The problem is the kind of van I need isn’t your average minivan. It’s got to have a lift, so me and my chair can slide right into the back like a rodeo bull into a chute, and then there has to be a way to secure the chair.

  I said, “Yeah, they’re a little more than you’d think,” because I didn’t want to shock them, but maybe I should have said something a little more informative, because Deb said, “We could have a bake sale!”

  We’re talking at least fifty grand, and that is going to require a lot of muffins. But Gwen got it, because she said, “or maybe a series of bake sales and some other fundraisers.”

  “What about a fall festival event?” I asked them, because the wheels were already turning. “We could do one of those dunk tanks.” I laughed at this.

  But Barbara gasped like she was going to have a heart attack. “Leo! We can’t put you in a dunk tank!”

  I think it would be totally awesome to be able to sit on that little metal seat and then fall into the water, especially since I haven’t actually been in a bath or a pool in like, forever. But I know none of the Dudley Do-Rights in this room are going to let me, probably because I couldn’t bring myself back to the surface and there would be a lot of concern about liability and drowning, and blah blah blah. “No, I agree,” I said. “But we can put Dad in the dunk tank.”

  They all laughed, but I was totally serious.

  Anyway, we hammered out some great ideas, most of them mine, because that’s what I do: I think. And when the Methodists left, we’d agreed to form a fundraising committee, and I was feeling pretty good, even if we didn’t know who would be on the committee.

  But when Marisol was hosing me down later, she said, “You use these Methodists, Leonard. They want to do good, and you use them.”

  First, my name is Leo, not Leonard, but Marisol refuses to acknowledge that when she’s mad. Second, of course I am using them. It’s not like I can go out and get a job and buy my own van, is it? People, I have to rely on my superior cunning and exceptional good looks to get through my own little hell on earth, and that’s what I told Marisol.

  So anyway, I am lying in bed with my legs stretched out as far as they’ll go so they don’t freeze in a crooked position, and I hear Luke come in. Even though I was watching Shark Tank and was totally into this one guy’s innovative sippy cups (I have some similar ideas that will probably require a patent), I couldn’t help noticing the voices in the living room. Sounded to me like Luke, Dad, and Marisol were having a “conversation” which is never a good sign.

  Sure enough, Luke popped his head into my room, but I was ready for him.

  He said, “What are you watching?”

  Like it wasn’t totally obvious. “Shark Tank.”

  “Oh, is it Shark Week already?” he asked, because Luke can be totally clueless sometimes. I mean, really, how can one person be so ignorant of important pop culture trends?

  “Different shows, different networks,” I told him, and honest to God, I tried not to sound condescending about it. “Let’s just jump to the finish line here. What do you want?”

  Luke looked kind of taken aback, and he said, “Geez, Leo, I just want to talk.”

  And he proceeds to talk about how I don’t really need wheels, and that if I want to embark on some big fundraiser, what I really need is a new chair, especially if I am going to talk the Fed Ex guy into helping me out on the sidewalk like I did the other day so I could zip down to the ice stand at the end of Poplar Street and sweet-talk my way into a snow cone. Cherry limeade, my favorite. I even got the cute teenage girl to hold it up for me so I could eat it until Marisol came bouncing down the street like a beach ball and cussing at me in Spanish because I didn’t “tell her” that I was “going out.”

  Anyway, Luke reminded me that the bread delivery van gets me to Montrose and the doctors, and he said it like that’s high on my list, like he doesn’t know they’re total downers in Montrose, always talking about new seizure meds and feeding tubes and heart monitors and breathing machines.

  I just let Luke do his big-brother, I-am-here-to-fix-everything talk, and then I said, “Luke, it’s like this. The Methodists figured out how to get me into the Broncos game, which is super cool, but they can’t figure out how to get me to the game. I have to go to the game, Luke. If I don’t have that game to think about, I end up thinking about other less fun things, you know? Do you know how hard I’ve had to work to make it happen? And I did it. I did it from a goddamn chair. But I can’t roll up at Mile High Stadium in a bread delivery van. That’s not cool, Luke, so not cool. I have to have wheels! The Broncos are playing the Patriots! If I miss that game, go ahead and yank the tubes out of me, because I’m done.”

  At first Luke looked freaked out, like he thought I was really going to yank the tubes, which, you know, to get my point across, I would consider. Hell, I have considered it. But then Luke figured out I was more interested in seeing the Broncos play than offing myself, which, at this point in time, would be
an accurate assessment, and he said, “But that’s a lot of money for the folks of Pine River to come up with.”

  And I said, “Well yeah, but I will figure it out.”

  Luke looked at me like he’d never heard that before, but finally he reached over and he rubbed my gnarly, twisted foot, and he said, “Yeah, I remember. If anyone can figure it out, it’s you.”

  Like, hello. Everyone knows that.

  “Maybe you can put that ginormous brain of yours to the ranch,” he said, because he was trying to change the subject. “We’ve only got one wedding lined up. If we don’t get some business in the next couple of months, we’re going to have to rethink things.”

  After all that mess with Dad practically giving away the ranch to Grant Tyler, who then up and died and left it to his three daughters, who didn’t know each other, and Luke quitting his job in Denver to come home and figure it all out, and deciding okay, maybe the ranch should be this event thing, and now he tells me they have one little wedding on the books?

  I told him that I couldn’t solve all of his problems, and he said, no one asked me to solve his problems, and I said, get your hand off my foot, dude, or I will take it off for you, and some other stuff that brothers will say to each other when they’re annoyed, and I was annoyed.

  But I got over it. Which is why I told Dad to fire up the grill, we’re going to have a party for family and close friends and chat about how they need to be on my new committee and raise enough money to get me that goddamn van. And while I’m at it, I’ll talk to the Libster about Homecoming Ranch.

  I ask you, what are these clowns going to do without me when I’m gone? I’m going to have to write a manual or something because I don’t trust them to step up when I’m not around to tell them what to do. If I could hold a pointer, I’d give them a presentation they would never forget, and assign all the tasks. But I can’t hold a pointer, which you probably already knew, so I’ll just have to talk my way through it, and thankfully for them and for you, I am a brilliant speaker. It’s one of my best talents.

  ELEVEN

  Libby awoke several times wondering if she’d dreamed that kiss with Sam, only to open her eyes and realize she hadn’t dreamt it at all. And then she would lie there recalling every single moment of it. Every single one.

  She thought morning would never come. But it did come, sliding in cool and cloudy under the night sky.

  In the gloomy light of a new day, Libby couldn’t recall exactly how she had ended up attached to Sam’s very scrumptious lips. What was said that managed to throw them together?

  There was another thing: she hadn’t thought about good, old-fashioned rolling-in-the-hay sex in a very long time. Several months, actually. Not that she kept count, for if she actually knew how long it had been, she might murder an innocent bunny or kick a helpless old woman.

  Thanks, Sam.

  She cleaned the kitchen after breakfast and tried to imagine wild sex with Sam. And in spite of the warm glow that gave her, she couldn’t picture it. Sex just didn’t compute with the deputy sheriff and his no-nonsense lectures. Sex computed with the guy in the suit and tie and the body made of hard planes and ironclad grip, yes. But that guy was not the same guy who showed up with his badge and his hat sitting backward to tell her to stay out of trouble.

  Libby was going to have to confront Sam and that kiss. They had a professional relationship—sort of—as he had pointed out, and she couldn’t be walking around thinking of kissing him. If she was thinking about kissing him, how could she possibly take him seriously when he was admonishing her? She had to try and fix this before it could get complicated.

  She was fully prepared to do it that morning when Sam dropped off Tony, but the dropping-off job fell to the woman with bleached-blond hair and a tattoo of a rose on her chest. Even from Libby’s vantage point at the window, she could see that rose.

  Libby walked out onto the porch to greet Tony and realized that he and the woman were engaged in an argument, seeing as how she was calling him names. Libby thought maybe she ought to intervene before the woman yanked Tony’s prosthesis off of him, but the moment she started down the steps, the woman slid into her little Pontiac and roared down the drive, bouncing over the pits and rocks.

  Libby walked down to where Tony was standing, his weight on his hip, watching the woman drive away. “She’s not going to come back with a sawed-off shotgun, is she?”

  Tony bent down and picked up his duffel, and slung it over his shoulder. “I sure hope not.”

  “Come on,” Libby said, her eye still on the road out of the ranch. “I’ll show you the bunkhouse.”

  At the bunkhouse, she introduced Tony to Ernest, who was wearing thigh-high waders and a fishing jacket. Libby had mentioned Tony yesterday, and Ernest had seemed unfazed by it, but this morning, he eyed Tony suspiciously, his gaze sliding down to Tony’s leg.

  “How you doing, man?” Tony said, extending his hand. “I won’t take up much space.”

  Ernest took his hand. “Vet?” he asked.

  “Yep. Afghanistan,” Tony said.

  Ernest nodded. “Come in. I’ll show you a room.”

  Libby left the guys to do whatever it was guys did in circumstances like this, and walked back to the house. She paused at the barn to glance inside. Homecoming Ranch kept three horses for working cattle. The horses spent most of the summer outside, grazing in the meadow around the tent pads they’d had poured after the reunion in June, but this morning, they were in the barn, munching contentedly from their feeders.

  The horses were the biggest problem Libby had for the ceremony. She had to get them out so she could clean the barn and rid it of the smell of manure. Ideally, she would like to have that done before Austin and Gary showed up to check out the setting. Libby was convinced the barn setting would work very well, but she guessed that Austin and Gary would not be persuaded of that if they could smell manure.

  This event was a lot of work. A lot of work. A lot of work she had not anticipated when she had put a cost to it.

  She walked on, thankful to have something to think about other than that kiss. Or sex. In fact, the more she thought about Homecoming Ranch and all that had to be done, the more her senses were dulled into a throb of mild panic.

  Madeline was up and puttering around the kitchen when Libby came in. She smiled sleepily and stretched her arms high overhead. She was wearing one of Luke’s T-shirts that came to mid-thigh.

  “How are things?” she asked, yawning.

  “Good,” Libby said. “Tony is going to stick around for a couple of days to get the cars going. He’s bunking with Ernest.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Madeline said absently. She poured herself a cup of coffee and walked into the living room, a magazine tucked under her arm.

  Libby was sorting laundry when her phone rang. She picked it up, looked at the display, and smiled. “Hello, sweetie,” she answered.

  “Hi, Libby, it’s Alice!”

  “I know! Why aren’t you at school?” she asked curiously, looking at the clock. When Alice had begun calling her a couple of weeks ago, Libby had been suspicious, but Alice had told her twice that her father had given her permission. Libby hadn’t understood why Ryan would do that, but now, it all made sense. He was allowing Alice to rekindle the relationship she’d lost with Libby, because he intended to apologize and allow Libby to see the kids.

  “It’s Teacher Day. Daddy’s taking us to the movies when he comes home.”

  “Oh yeah? What are you doing now?” Libby asked, wondering where Gwen was.

  “Watching cartoons. So is Max. We’re watching SpongeBob SquarePants.”

  “I love SpongeBob,” Libby said wistfully. “I miss you, Alice. I hope we get to see each other soon,” she said as she wandered into the dining room.

  “I told Daddy I want to go to your house and he said okay.”

  “He did?”

  “He said maybe in a few days.”

  Libby frowned a little. “Alice? You k
now you should always tell the truth, right?”

  “I am!” Alice insisted.

  That confused Libby. Had the man who had said she was too lenient, was turning his kids into monsters, really had such a change of heart? While Libby couldn’t wait to see Alice and Max, everything seemed so sudden. It made her feel uncomfortable. “Well, I can’t wait,” she said to Alice, her mind racing.

  “I’m taking dance lessons!” Alice said suddenly.

  “I know! Do you like your teacher?”

  “Yes. Her name’s Miss Janie, and I’m going to be a butterfly in the recycle!”

  “Recital,” Libby laughingly corrected her. “A butterfly! How cool is that? Are you going to have a costume?”

  “Mommy said she was going to try and make me one. But she doesn’t really know how.”

  Libby could imagine that was true. Gwen had never struck her as the crafty type. “Maybe I could make one for you,” she suggested, realizing, even as she spoke, that it was the wrong thing to say. “I mean, if your mom agrees,” she quickly added. “Anyway, I bet you’ll be the best butterfly in the recital.”

  “You can make my costume!” Alice eagerly agreed. “You just have to get the wings.”

  Libby laughed. “Where do I get wings?”

  “At the store. I want to be a purple butterfly.”

  “A purple butterfly, how pretty,” Libby said. She sat down in a chair that was up against a wall and fixed her gaze on the wallpaper in front of her, on the corner that had begun to peel away from the wall. “Is Max there? May I speak to him?”

  “Sure,” Alice said. She put down the phone on her end, but Libby heard her yell at her brother and tell him to come to the phone. Then she heard Alice say, “It’s Libby.”