Return to Homecoming Ranch (Pine River)

by Julia London

  “Are we going to be friends?” he asked.

  He was looking at her in a way that made Libby’s pulse flutter. “Friends” sounded too soft for what she was feeling. She said, “It depends.”

  His smile was slow and easy, and Libby felt another shiver course through her. “There’s nothing to know,” he said. “Life is pretty boring up here.”

  “Come on,” she said, measuring vanilla now. “We’re stuck here. What else are we going to do? If you don’t talk, then I guess I can keep talking about me and where my relationship with Ryan went wrong—”

  “God no,” he said, throwing up a hand and laughing. “Honestly, Libby, I’m not being coy. I go to work and I come home.”

  “Well. What do you do when you come home?”

  He frowned a little as if he was thinking about it. “Putter,” he said.

  “That’s so lame!” Libby said laughingly. “You’re not playing the game correctly. Start at the beginning. Where did you go to school? When did you get married?”

  She could see his entire body tense.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, turning her attention back to the ice cream. “I didn’t mean to strike a nerve.”

  “You didn’t strike a nerve,” he said, but it was clear she had. He again tried to brush it off by saying, “It was a long time ago.”

  “Not that long,” she said. “You were married when you started at the sheriff’s office.”

  “Yep,” he said, and pushed away from the counter. “I’m going to go tend the fire.”

  Libby listened to him rummage in the wood caddy, more curious than ever. She finished making the ice cream and put it into two small bowls. With a pair of mismatched spoons, she followed him into the living room and handed him one. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Welcome.” She crossed her legs and lowered herself to the ground, sitting before the fire. Sam sat on the edge of the couch.

  Libby’s gaze flicked over him as she tasted the ice cream.

  “What?” he asked, smiling uncertainly.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s never nothing,” he said.

  “You’re right. I was wondering what it is you don’t want to talk about.”

  Sam groaned. “You’re not going to let it go, are you?”

  “Probably not. I’m curious.”

  He sighed.

  “Here’s a simple question, yes or no,” she said. “Have you ever been in a situation where you hoped too hard?”

  “That is not a simple question,” he said. “But for the sake of peace, I probably did, yeah. Nevertheless, it was a long time ago, and I’d really rather not drag it all up again if it’s all the same to you. I’m going to enjoy my poor man’s ice cream.”

  “Sure,” she said, and turned her attention to her ice cream. “Mind if I ask you something else?”

  “About hope?” he asked suspiciously.

  “No.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Against my better judgment, okay. Ask.”

  “What’s it like, being in recovery?”

  This time, Sam clanked his spoon into the bowl. “Wow. Talk about skipping the salad and going right for the meat.” He put aside his bowl. He leaned forward, rested his hands on his thighs. “Libby . . . if I give you the Sam Winters rundown, will you stop asking so many questions?”

  Libby thought about that a moment. “I don’t know if I can make that promise for all of eternity . . . but I could probably stop for the night.” She winked.

  “I’ll take what I can get. So move over,” he said, nudging her with his foot, then dipped down, settling in front of the couch, his legs long in front of him, crossed at the ankles. “You want to know the truth about me, huh? Okay, here goes. I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been sober for three years and thirty-two days.”

  “Congratulations,” Libby said, uncertain what else to say.

  “Thanks.”

  “That must have been really hard,” she said.

  “To quit?” he asked, and Libby nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It was the hardest thing I have ever done.”

  “Is that why you . . . you know, split up with your wife?”

  His gaze wandered over her face, and yet he didn’t seem to be looking at her, but rather something only he could see. “Alcohol was a huge problem in my marriage. On both sides.”

  This was a whole new side to Sam Winters. Libby placed her bowl in his, put them on the end table, and turned to face him. “I’m a good listener, too.”

  Sam chuckled. He casually touched the back of his hand to her face. “No you’re not. You’re possibly the worst listener I’ve ever known. But I’ll tell you anyway.”

  He told her how he’d met his wife in college. Terri was her name, he said. A free spirit. Sam said he’d been enthralled, that he’d never known anyone like her. “We fell in love, and after college, we moved around to various jobs. She was always looking for a big cause to get involved with.”

  When the jobs had ended up leading them nowhere, Sam brought her to Colorado Springs and joined the ranks of law enforcement, and eventually they ended up in Pine River. Terri, he said, had trouble keeping a job because she couldn’t stay sober, and by that point, he wasn’t much better.

  “It snuck up on us,” he admitted. “I’d never been much of a drinker. My dad drank, and I didn’t want to be like him,” he said, shifting his gaze to the fire. “It made him as mean as Millie Bagley.”

  “Oh wow,” Libby said. “I’m sorry. He was an alcoholic?”

  “I’m sure,” Sam said. “But I never really thought of him that way. To me, he drank too much, that was it. I never thought of it as a disease, or that it could happen to me. And when I started drinking, it didn’t seem like a big deal—a drink here or there, that was all. I guess I fooled myself. I remember justifying it by telling myself it wasn’t like I had to have it. I had myself convinced I was very different than dear old Dad, you know? Terri and I drank to unwind after class. She’d binge drink on the weekends, but you know, it was college, and a lot of people did that. I was naïve.” He glanced at his hand.

  There but for the grace of God, Libby thought. When she first started working at the sheriff’s office, there had been some wild parties. On a couple of occasions, she’d had far too much to drink. She’d even known in the moment she was drinking too much, but alcohol had a way of making her believe she was okay. “When did you realize you had a problem?”

  “Not until it was too late,” Sam said with a snort. “By the time I graduated and we got married, Terri and I would have a drink at the end of the workday together. And then, it began to roll into the dinner hour, changing to wine. And somewhere along the way, it became a cocktail, wine with dinner, brandy or port after that.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Libby said. “I know a lot of people who relax with a few drinks.”

  “They’re probably not alcoholics,” he pointed out. “I remember the first time I put whiskey in my morning coffee. I remember standing at the kitchen sink telling myself it wasn’t that big of a deal. That was my life—a constant state of rationalization. I refused to acknowledge that my life and my marriage were unraveling into one tangled string of drinks. Terri and I were of one mind—any excuse for another drink.”

  It was hard for Libby to imagine it. It was hard to look at Sam, a stand-up guy by anyone’s measure, and imagine him in the grip of addiction.

  “I tried to talk to her about it. I told her we should get help, but it’s easier to talk about than it is to do.” He paused, glanced at his hands again, stretching his fingers wide. “I tried to stop drinking. I tried to be a good husband even though Terri had abandoned any pretense at being my wife. She drank in front of me, and I couldn’t vanquish the temptation to drink with her. I was losing everything. I knew it, I could see it, and still, I couldn’t stop drinking.”

  “Wow,” Libby said softly. “I’m sorry, Sam. It must have been so difficult for you.”

  “You have no idea,” he said with a wr
y laugh. “I tried everything, but I still found myself pulling off the side of the road while on patrol and digging a bottle out from beneath the seat.”

  Libby knew something like that had happened—everyone knew Sam had been drunk on the job. But looking at him now, the strong, kind man that he was, she couldn’t picture it. She couldn’t guess how hard that must have been for him, to be that strong and yet unable to defeat his biggest adversary.

  “I started missing work with some pretty spectacular hangovers. When I was at work, I chewed gum like a maniac to keep the smell from my colleagues, but they knew. Everyone knew. I’ve smelled it on drunks myself—once alcohol gets into your blood, there’s no masking it.

  “It caught up with me. At the time, I thought it was the end of everything, but it ended up being my salvation. If it hadn’t caught up with me when it did, I could very well be dead now.”

  That was painful and sobering to hear. “What happened?” Libby asked. “I only know that you were asked to go.”

  “Nothing splashy, no wrecks or shootings, thank God,” Sam said. “What happened was that I picked up a kid for burglary. Caught him right there, with the stuff in his truck. But I was drunk, and the paperwork was incoherent, and so was I. The kid was savvy, too, and he kept accusing me of being drunk. Loudly. Yelling at other officers that I was drunk, and he was right. I had plenty of excuses for it—long shift, no sleep, whatever—but it was apparent to everyone by then. I was a drunk.”

  “And the sheriff fired you?”

  “No,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “What he did was give me a chance, and for that, I will always be grateful. He called me into his office the next day. I’ll never forget it; all the top brass were there. His chief deputy, the head of human resources, the attorneys. Basically, he gave me an ultimatum: either I went for treatment at the facility the department had already arranged and get sober, or I would lose my job. Plus, he said he would see to it that I never worked in Colorado law enforcement again. But if I did as he asked and went for treatment, maintained sobriety, and proved I could be trusted, he’d find a job for me. He kept his word—that’s why I have this position now.”

  “Oh, Sam,” Libby murmured. “It was brutal, wasn’t it? Treatment, I mean. It’s such a depressing place to be.”

  “It is definitely that,” he agreed. “The drying out wasn’t as bad as the therapy, and facing things you don’t want to face. All those old childhood hurts and traumas you didn’t even know you had, but somehow drink to numb them. I never knew what an issue I had with my old man until I went to therapy, for example.”

  Libby smiled ruefully. “I remember lying on this cot. I felt like I was literally on the floor, and I kept telling myself, if I could just peel one shoulder up, just one, I could get up and make it right. But there was some invisible weight on me and I couldn’t even do that.”

  Sam took her hand in his. “I know, it was hard as hell. But in the end, I can say it was the best thing to happen to me. The sheriff was being a friend, and to tell you the truth, I was actually a little relieved. I was at the bottom, and I knew it. I just didn’t know how to crawl out of that hole, and he offered me a rope.”

  “What happened to Terri?” Libby asked.

  Sam’s expression changed. He looked sad. “She still refused to admit she had a problem, or quit, even though she was going through a fifth of vodka a day. And when I came out of treatment ninety days later, sober, and ready to reboot my life, she wouldn’t stop drinking. She wouldn’t or couldn’t do that for me, or for herself. And I . . .” He closed his eyes as if the memory pained him. “I left her. I couldn’t stay married to her. It was either me or booze, and she chose booze. I chose sobriety.”

  “Heartbreaking,” Libby murmured.

  Sam smiled and lazily traced a line down to her wrist. “You know when you go to a concert in the park, and everyone is sitting on blankets, but it seems there is always one person up front, totally into the music, dancing alone, like they are the only person there?”

  Libby nodded.

  “Well, that was Terri. When I first met her, I thought she was a free spirit, a woman who danced to her own beat and didn’t care what the world thought. But now I look back and see that she was dancing for attention. She was always dancing for the attention, and not because she was moved by some artistic spirit. Alcohol gave her attention. Not all good, but attention all the same. And whatever had been between us had drowned in the booze a long time ago.”

  He glanced at the fire.

  Libby laced her fingers with his. Her problems with Ryan and the kids felt so small in comparison to what Sam had been through. “Have you had a drink since?”

  “Once,” he admitted. “A couple of months after treatment when I was living in the halfway house. But I had a sponsor who shook me up and got me back to meetings, and I haven’t had a drink since that day.”

  “But that’s great,” Libby said.

  Sam gave her a patient look as if he’d had this conversation before. “It’s okay, Libby, but it will never be great. Every day I go without drinking is a victory, and it’s always going to be that way.”

  He sighed, leaned his head back against the couch. The recounting of his past had exhausted him.

  “Thanks for confiding in me.” Libby turned around, leaned against the couch beside him, and stretched her legs out next to his and folded her arms across her middle. Sam had his own private demons, just like her. The difference between them was that he was better at controlling his demons now than she was. “We’re not that different, are we?” she mused.

  She heard the chuckle deep in his chest. “I guess not.”

  She liked being next to Sam. She liked feeling his warmth beside her. She liked that they were kindred spirits. Sam might not see it that way, but Libby did. They were two people who hadn’t coped with life’s messiness as well as they would have liked, and paid a price most people couldn’t imagine.

  They remained side by side, nothing but the sound of the fire crackling in that room, surrounded by the moan of wind through the eaves. On the floor of his small house, Libby felt strangely content. There was something very comforting about being here, with him. She could forget she’d made a mess of things with Max and Alice, or that she was broke, or that she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do after Gary and Austin’s wedding. This was where she was supposed to be tonight, away from the world, with someone who understood her better than she had even realized.

  Sam shifted a little, and Libby reflexively put her hand on his arm, as she might have done with one of the kids, or with a friend. But when she touched him, she felt Sam still. She turned her head to look at him.

  He was looking at her, too, his gaze questioning.

  Libby moved her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot for a moment that we are captive and captor.” She smiled. “You’re a good guy, Sam. It’s funny, but you’ve seen more of me than anyone else has ever seen. The real me, I mean. You’ve been more of a friend to me than . . . than anyone. Did you know that?”

  “There’s the friend thing again,” he said, his gaze sliding down to her mouth. “Are we friends, Libby? Because I like kissing you too much to be a friend.” His gaze slid right on down to the sweater she was wearing. He cocked his head to one side, studying it. “I think I ought to take you in and let you sit a night in a holding cell, but I can’t seem to make myself do it.”

  “I won’t argue.”

  “Good call,” he said, and slowly lifted his gaze, piercing hers with his sea-colored eyes. “We’re not friends, Libby.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  His gaze was smoldering, and Libby was ignited by it. She shifted around, onto her knees, facing him. “Then what are we?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what scares me,” he said with a wry smile. He touched her waist, his hand sliding around to her back.

  “Do I scare you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then y
ou’re the only one.”

  Sam began to pull her toward him.

  “Sometimes, against my better judgment, I feel things about you, Sam Winters.”

  “Oh yeah?” he asked, and casually caressed her back. “What sort of things?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” She touched his chin, traced her finger along the jawline, feeling the stubble of his beard. “Because sometimes it feels really pissed off. But other times, it feels warm and fuzzy and . . . tingly.”

  “I like tingly,” he said, and leaned forward, touching his nose to her hair.

  “But I’m pretty sure tingly is not something one should feel for one’s arresting officer.”

  “That’s true.” He brushed her hair from the side of her face and touched his mouth to her neck, sending a hot tingling flush down Libby’s body. “And then again, I haven’t actually arrested you.” He cupped her chin with his hand, kissed her cheek, and then the corner of her mouth. A swirl of tingling flared across her skin, and she sighed with longing as she turned her head to kiss him. She didn’t care if he arrested her or not. Tonight, in the middle of this blizzard, she only wanted to feel his arms around her.

  Sam lifted his head. He studied her a moment as he stroked his thumb across her bottom lip. “I thought we weren’t doing this anymore.”

  “That might have been a hasty decision,” she said.

  “This is a dangerous path we’re on, Libby Tyler. Are you sure you want to slide down it?”

  She touched two fingers to his lips and smiled. “I’m sure.”

  “Good,” he said, and grabbed her, dragging her across his lap to kiss her.

  His hand slid down to her hip, squeezing it. Libby’s hand was still on his chest, caught between their bodies. She could feel the beat of his heart melting into her pulse. She moved her fingers across his nipple, felt it harden beneath her touch. She nestled closer, wanting to feel the heat of his body seep into her skin.

  Sam’s tongue was in her mouth, sweeping over her teeth. He nibbled at her lip, filled his palm with her breast, kneading it, and then tucked his hand underneath her sweater. His rough skin against hers aroused her, made the tingling in her spread to all her limbs. She was aware of her body dampening, her pulse throbbing at her temples and in her groin. All her second thoughts washed away from her. No matter how they’d come together, no matter anything else, this felt right, as if she belonged on his lap before a fire, his hands on her body, his tongue in her mouth.