She didn’t reply right away. She looked at Shane again then quickly dropped her gaze. There was something maidenly about the gesture that Coop stored away in his memory bank. “I’ll have to think about it,” she said. “The Mystery Spot is opening soon. It takes most of my time during the summer.”
Coop explained to Shane about Sentinel Pass’s lone tourist trap.
“There’s your answer. She’s busy.”
“During the day. But she could help us in the evenings after the Mystery Spot closes.”
Shane didn’t say anything.
Coop didn’t know what was wrong with his friend, who was known for his diplomatic prowess. He seemed to have a problem with Jenna, but Coop couldn’t imagine why. If any of Libby’s friends were going to give him a hard time about trying to worm his way back into Libby's life, he would have put his money on Jenna.
“Well, in that case,” Jenna said, “I might be available for a few hours each day, provided my mother’s health remains stable.” She looked at Coop. “And I might know a place you could rent short-term.”
She explained about a house that had recently come on the market. “If it’s still available.”
“We’ll take it,” Coop said, just as Shane’s elbow drove into his side.
Jenna didn’t seem to notice, as she’d already picked up the phone and was dialing.
Coop motioned for Shane to follow him a few feet away to give her some privacy. Beside a shelf of Sioux pottery he whispered, “What?”
Shane took a deep breath and let it out before answering. “I know her.”
“Jenna? How?”
“I went to college with her. I don’t mean we hung out or dated or anything, but I knew who she was. Something happened—”
“He said okay,” Jenna called out, stopping Shane midsentence.
“Great,” Coop called, waving to her. “We’ll take it.” To Shane, he asked, “How come she doesn’t seem to recognize you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she made more of an impression on me than I did on her. Plus, my hair was a lot longer. And I wore glasses.”
“Oh, yeah. You had LASIK surgery about the time we met. But surely she’d recognize your name…”
“Reynard is my mother’s maiden name. I legally changed it when I started making movies.”
Coop had no idea what was going on or if this was going to play a factor on the show, but he could tell his usually unflappable friend was flapped. He still had his sunglasses on-–a social gaff he found pretentious and silly.
“So, how do you want to play this? Are you going to say something or not?”
“No. Definitely not,” Shane said. “In fact, I’ll wait for you in the car. That was a dark period for both of us. She isn’t going to want to relive it any more than I do.”
Coop watched him leave. But as intrigued as he was by the glimmer of revelation into Shane’s history and the bizarre happenchance that made two lives intersect for a second time, Coop’s first priority was to get to Sentinel Pass. There would be time later, when he and Shane were discussing plots and story lines, to delve into the misty past.
“The key, my good woman,” he said, returning to the counter. “My kingdom for the key.” He bowed with a flourish.
She rolled her eyes, but her smile was softer and more indulgent than it had been earlier, lending hope that he’d win her-–and Libby-–over eventually.
“It's the yellow house two blocks off Main. Oh, and by the way,” Jenna said before laying the key, which was attached to a cast-metal key fob in the shape of a moose, in his open palm, “I lied about the town meeting. It wasn’t last night. It’s tonight. At seven. Libby said she was parking the truck facing outward in case she caught a whiff of hot tar and feathers.”
Coop closed his fingers around the key and doffed an imaginary hat. “Thanks, Jenna. I owe you one.” He turned to leave but stopped. A scenario started to unfold in his imagination. He looked over his shoulder. “I’m not going to ask you to lie, but if you could avoid mentioning the fact that Shane and I are here… Well, did you ever see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?”
Her smile seemed genuine. “It’s one of my mother’s favorites. She’s a huge Jimmy Stewart fan. I can picture what you have in mind. A grand entrance. But you know why women loved Jimmy, right? He wasn’t the most handsome of the male stars of his time. He was the most sincere.”
He took his time walking to the car. Basically she was suggesting he strip naked emotionally and let everyone-–especially Libby--see the real Cooper Lindstrom. The boy who knew at a tender age that he wasn’t very bright. Beauty without depth, he overheard his mother on his fifth or sixth birthday.
If he laid himself bare, Libby might feel sorry for him, but she certainly wouldn’t love him. And would she want to expose her children to his flawed, learning-challenged genes? His mother had taught him how to make people like the man he pretended to be, but who in the world could love the man he was?
Chapter 18
Libby rushed directly from work to her grandmother’s house. She only had about an hour to prepare for the town meeting that was scheduled to take place at the history center. There wasn’t a great deal she could say except “mea culpa” and offer to resign from the community board.
She opened the back door of the small house, calling out, “Hello? Anybody home?”
Onida answered with a series of sharp, high-pitched barks. Her grandmother’s usual reprimand failed to follow.
Libby bent to pick up the excited, wiggling poodle. “Hey, girl, where is everybody? Did they leave town to avoid seeing me? Now I really am an outcast.”
Onida’s long pink tongue licked her chin – a shade too close to Libby’s lips for comfort. She put the dog down with a pat on the head then looked around. “Gran? Calvin?”
“We’re on the back porch,” Cal called.
Libby hurried through the kitchen, surprised to see pots and dirty dishes sitting around. Calvin was meticulous as a rule. She pushed open the screen door. The temperature had climbed into the mid eighties that day, but it was cooling down nicely.
“Hi. Keeping cool outside, I see,” she said.
Her smile faded. Cal and Gran were sitting on the glider, gently rocking back and forth. But with one arm around her grandmother’s shoulder and the other diagonal across her body, he seemed to be restraining the older woman, not relaxing with her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your grandmother had a rough day, didn’t you, dear?” he said, looking at Mary. His tone and expression was compassionate and loving, and Libby relaxed some. She rushed to where they were sitting and drew up a faded wicker foot rest.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Gran. You’re not feeling good?”
“I feel fine as fish feathers,” the woman answered forcefully. “But I need to go home. Why won’t anybody take me there? Marshall will be there. I’m supposed to make dinner for him. I think it’s burning.”
She struggled to stand, but Cal was prepared. He started them rocking again and whispered something low and soothing that Libby couldn’t hear into her grandmother’s ear. Libby reached out and stroked Gran’s bare forearm. “Marshall was your son, Gran. He’s been gone a long time. You moved into the big house and took care of me and Mac after he died, remember? And now we’re here to take of you. Us and Cal. We love you. We’re not going to let anything burn. I promise.”
Gran relaxed and a moment later closed her eyes. Her head dropped to one side to rest on Cal’s shoulder. He relaxed his hold and let out a long sigh. “I have a call into her doctor. She woke from a nap agitated and paranoid. Didn’t seem to recognize me. I’d just started making vegetable lasagna and suddenly I had this stranger trying to get out the door without her walker. I was afraid she’d fall and break a hip.”
Libby leaned over to give him an awkward hug. “I’m so sorry. What does the doctor think happened? Could it be the new meds he started her on last week?”
“Possibly. Or just an aspect
of dementia. She’s had a few episodes. Nothing this scary.”
“What can I do to help? Shall I sit with her? Or go clean your kitchen?”
He chuckled. “No offense, but young people don’t know how to clean. How ‘bout you help me get her to bed? If she wakes up, I’ll give her an Ensure and one of her sleeping pills. That way I don’t have to worry about her getting up in the middle of the night.”
Libby groaned. Had she been so self-absorbed that she’d completely missed her grandmother’s decline? And what was she going to do without her grandmother’s advice? She wanted to cry, but had to be strong-–for Gran’s sake.
“Heard about the big meeting t’night,” Cal said, securing the brake on the wheelchair that Libby had brought close. “Someone tried to get me to sign a petition to force you off the committee. As if I’d sign such a thing. What’s wrong with people?”
“I like that petition better than the one suggesting I ride sidesaddle on a rail on my way out of town. There was one of those tacked to the door of the post office this morning.”
His low chuckle seemed so normal and familiar she was finally able to relax a bit. “Mary and I were talking about the situation earlier. She seemed pretty clear at the time. Said you were too levelheaded to do anything to put the town in jeopardy.”
“But my online ad is going to turn Sentinel Pass into some late night comedian’s punch line.”
“So what? Haven’t you heard the saying there’s no such thing as bad publicity?”
“Yes, but—”
He put his gnarled hand on her arm. “Is there a chance your grandmother and I might be cast as characters? We both thought that sounded like fun. They can make us as old and quirky as they want so long as they include the part about us being in our eighties and living in sin.”
Gran woke up as they helped her into the wheelchair. She lifted her chin and looked at Libby. “Hello, dear, where’d you come from? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Libby’s heart broke a little but she managed to smile. “I know, Gran. I’m sorry. Been busy with work and…stuff.”
Gran touched her cheek. “You need more stuff in your life. Work is what you do, not who you are.”
“Thanks, Gran. I came here for advice and like usual you knew what to say.”
“Come back tomorrow, Nieva,” Gran said with a sigh. “I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
Nieva. Daughter-in-law, not granddaughter. “I will. I promise.” She kissed her grandmother’s peachy-soft cheek then held the door open so Cal could wheel her inside.
“I can handle everything from here,” he said. “Don’t want you to be late for the meeting. Sorry your grandmother and I can’t be there to stand in your corner.”
“Me, too. But Mac is coming. Besides, I got myself into this mess, I’ll just have to get myself out.”
His low chuckle was oddly comforting. “That sounds like your grandmother. Go get ‘em, girl.”
She made sure the dog was safely inside, then she walked around the side of the house to her car. She might be pregnant, unpopular and missing a crucial member of her support team, but she would handle this.
She put the key in the ignition and turned on the motor. She had time to run by Jenna’s but wasn’t sure her friend was home. Jenna had failed to return Libby’s call earlier in the day. Hopefully that didn’t mean Jenna had to take her mother to the doctor. Libby already knew that Kat wasn’t going to be at the meeting. Her eldest son had some school function, and his flaky father had bailed, so Kat was stuck in Deadwood. Char had spent the day in Pine Ridge, where she met quarterly with a group of artisans whose work she sold in her shop. She’d promised to try to get back in time, but when Char was on “reservation time,” as she put it, anything could happen.
She’d never felt more alone in her life.
She drove straight into town and parked in her usual spot at the Post Office. Since she was early, she took her time, pausing to read a poster that someone had stuck to a telephone pole using hot pink thumbtacks.
Oust Libby McGannon the headline read.
Her stomach heaved, but willpower kept her from throwing up.
Her town had turned on her. She’d felt the dirty looks, heard pointed remarks in the lobby. Where was the unconditional love people constantly touted? She’d always tried to do the right thing, but the one time she made a mistake-–granted, a very public mistake-–the support she'd hoped to find wasn't there.
She felt lost, rootless. And to her profound surprise, liberated.
She had a career, vested time in a government job. She could move anywhere. Start over. Maybe Mac and Megan could go with her. Not Gran. No, her grandmother needed to stay where she was for as long as that was possible. But Gran would have been the first to encourage Libby to spread her wings and fly.
Maybe I'll transfer to Cheyenne or Sheridan? Both cities were within reasonable driving distance so she could visit her grandmother.
She kept walking toward the small square that schoolchildren loved to visit. There were already a good number of cars in the parking lot. Her palms were damp and she had a bad taste in her mouth, but pride kept her from crumpling.
She put a hand on her still-flat tummy. She needed to look ahead--and not just for her sake anymore. She wouldn’t look back with any more regrets than she already had. She’d blown it with Coop, but she wasn’t going to let anybody say anything bad about him. She planned to stand up for her child’s father, and if her town didn’t like it…
---
“The meeting is called to order. I make a motion that we skip the old news and minutes from the last meeting to get down to business,” Art Gadoya said. He’d been elected secretary of the group about ten years back and, since nobody else wanted the job, was still in office. “Second?”
Libby could have raised some objection to the abuse of protocol, but instead, she stood up. “I’ll second that.”
A collective gasp told her the audience of around a hundred people, including those smokers hanging just beyond the open door at the back of the building, hadn’t expected her to be so bold.
The board murmured its yeas. There were no nays.”
Since she had the floor, Libby decided to lay out her side of the story. “The business we’re here to talk about is whether or not I should step down from the city council. I will. I do. Art has my formal letter of resignation in front of him.” She looked over her shoulder. “Sorry, Art. I should have made copies, but we had three full-coverage circulars today.” Art had been a mail carrier when Libby’s grandmother was postmaster. He understood.
“No problem,” he murmured.
“I’ll let you get on with the business of electing someone to fill my spot as soon as I tell you what I assume you’re here to hear. How did this happen? How could Sentinel Pass go-–almost overnight–-from a sleepy little mountain town to the subject of a proposed television sitcom?”
“Yeah,” somebody in the back shouted. “How could you sell us out, Lib? Did that Cooper fellow promise you a leading part?”
“Naw,” another voice said. “He promised her a kid. Women her age start hearing the tick-tock of their biological clock and—”
Libby grabbed her chair and moved it back enough to stand on it. She searched through the many faces until she spotted Robert Greise. “I thought that was your voice, Bobby. And the reason you know so much about women is why? Because you watch Dr. Phil? It can’t be because you’ve ever been married or had a serious girlfriend.”
The man’s blush went all the way into his receding hairline. “I know you had to put an ad on the Internet to find a man,” he charged.
“You’re right. And I found one. The wrong one, perhaps, but that’s the trouble with Internet dating. A guy who’s short, balding, thirty pounds overweight and still lives with his mother can portray himself as tall, well-built, gorgeous and successful. By the time you realize you’ve been sold a bill of goods, it’s too late. He knows where you live.”
>
Since she’d basically described Bobby to a T, a low murmur of snickers filtered through the audience. She looked around and let out a sigh. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle. So unless you want my head on a stick, I suggest you elect a new board member, then create some kind of plan to deal with the onslaught of media attention once the film crew arrives.”
She turned to step down and realized too late that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The table appeared to wobble, and she blinked to regain her equilibrium. She heard someone cry “Uh-oh,” then suddenly she was falling.
The sensation didn’t last long. Miraculously, someone caught her. Strong, male arms pulled her into a tight hug that felt comforting and protective. Mac, she thought, smiling. She hadn’t seen her brother in the audience, but obviously he had her back.
Then, to her horror, he kissed her.
“Oh, God, what are you do--?” Blue eyes, not brown, smiled back at her.
“Coop,” she cried, unable to fully grasp that he was here. Holding her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
“I couldn’t have written a better opening than that, my love,” he said, kissing her again. “Thank you. Now I need to set a few people straight about what’s happening. Are you okay? Can you sit down?” Someone moved the chair she’d been standing on so he could lower her to it. “You still look pale. You haven’t been eating, have you?” He made a tsking sound. “My bad. But things will be better soon. I promise.”
If she’d been able to think straight, she’d have told him his promises were as worthless as a T-Rex’s arms. But her heart was pounding too hard. She could barely make out what he was saying.
He stepped to the table. “Citizens of Sentinel Pass. Hello. My name is Cooper Lindstrom. Some of you know me from television. Others, I met the last time I was here, about a month ago. I’m absolutely certain each and every one of you has an opinion of me.” He paused for effect. “All good, no doubt.”
His mocking look garnered a few snickers and even more catcalls.
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