Return to Homecoming Ranch (Pine River)

by Julia London

  “It’s true!” Libby said laughingly. “I wasn’t really violating—well, okay, technically I was.” Her mother opened her mouth to protest, but Libby held up her hand. “Mom, spare me the lecture, please. I’ve heard enough from Sam and Madeline.”

  She told her mother about the things Ryan had said, and Alice’s phone calls. She explained how she wanted more than anything to hear Ryan say he was sorry. She repeated the awful things Ryan said in the parking lot by the soccer fields, how angry Sam had been, and how the blizzard had put them together, given them a chance to talk, and . . . and now, she was happy. Utterly, completely, happy.

  Her mother listened attentively, nodding as Libby talked, her brows rising up only once or twice. When Libby had finished filling her in on the last few weeks, her mother settled back against her chair, sipped her coffee, and put down the cup. “Libby, I’m happy that you’re happy.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “And I don’t want to point out the obvious.”

  Libby sighed heavenward. Here it went—her mother could never just be happy for Libby. There was always a but, always a warning, always a little black cloud to cast over her. “Then maybe you shouldn’t,” Libby suggested.

  “What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t say it?” her mother asked cheerfully. “You have a long history of creating impossible expectations for people and things and being terribly hurt when they don’t work out.”

  “Mom—”

  “Anh,” she said, throwing up a hand to keep Libby from disagreeing. “I’m serious, honey. From the beginning, this whole business with Ryan was one long impossible expectation that ended badly. Do you remember I warned you that he had a reputation around town?”

  “You also told me the boy I crushed on in the fifth grade was bad news.”

  “And I was right,” her mother said triumphantly. “He’s probably doing time somewhere right now.”

  “You have never been happy with my choice of boyfriends.”

  “Well, I’m happy with the choice of Sam Winters. Ryan . . .” She waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter, it’s all in the past. I just don’t want you to place some overly idealistic rosy picture on what’s happening between you and Sam right now. He has a history, as do you.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” Libby said evenly. “Because God knows I might have forgotten I spent a week in Mountain View this summer if you didn’t constantly remind me. Mom, I need to go. I’m going to be late to my meeting.”

  “Oh, Libby,” her mother groaned. “Why did you volunteer to be on this committee? Of all the charitable things you could volunteer your time for, did it have to be Gwen Spangler’s committee?”

  “It’s not Gwen’s committee, it’s Leo’s. And why did Gwen have to end up working on a cause for Leo? He is my friend, Mom. His brother is marrying my sister. Everyone seems so concerned about Gwen,” she said with mock worry as she fished her wallet from her purse.

  Her mother waved her off the wallet and reached for her own. “I’ll get this, honey. I mean that you’re making it awkward for everyone because of what you did.”

  “Great, I can add awkward to the list of things I have to worry about. You know what really gets me, Mom? I had one bad summer, and now I’m the town menace.”

  “No, you’re not,” her mother said. “But you have to understand that no one will ever be comfortable with you and the Spanglers in the same room again.”

  “So, what, I should live in the mountains and never come to town?”

  “No,” her mother said patiently. “But maybe you should let Gwen have this committee.”

  “Have some faith, Mom!” Libby said irritably.

  “Libby, honey,” her mother said. “I have faith in you. But I worry. Sometimes, you’re not the best judge of people.”

  “Oh my God,” Libby muttered.

  “You’ve worked so hard to come back from the events of the summer, to come back to you,” she said, gesturing to her. “I don’t want to see anything happen to ruin that for you.”

  Libby was sick of everyone being so worried for her. “I’m fine, Mom. Really. I am.” Libby leaned over her mother to kiss her cheek. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll talk to you later.”

  As she walked out of the coffee shop, Libby shook her head. She had worked hard. She was trying to improve herself. But she wasn’t going to sit back and not be part of this town.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Methodist church was a turn-of-the-century, redbrick building that smelled musty. The wooden floors creaked underfoot, which Libby discovered as she walked along the confusing maze of hallways, looking for the meeting room. She was late; her clomping about would announce her to everyone. So much for sliding in and taking a seat in back.

  She saw the open door before she reached it, heard the sound of female voices rising up. She composed herself, put a smile on her face, and poked her head in.

  The moment she did, everyone stopped talking and all heads swiveled in her direction. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said apologetically, and looked around for a seat. Dani Boxer, bless that woman, instantly pulled out an empty chair next to her. “Come sit here, Libby,” she said, as if she’d been expecting her.

  Libby gratefully took that seat and kept smiling as she met everyone’s eye around the table. Deb Trimble was there, for course, her hair recently dyed a new shade of red. So was Karen Miller, who wore an Indian blanket around her shoulders. Barbara Perkins and Michelle Catucci were also in attendance, as was the ancient Mrs. Freeman, who had taught Libby tenth-grade English. She had a cotton-top head and smiled distantly at Libby.

  Gwen was dressed in her dental hygienist scrubs. A row of toothbrushes carrying musical instruments marched around her torso. Her short, blond hair was pulled into a little ponytail, and held back by a pair of sunglasses on top of her head. She was wearing a big sparkly ring—a sapphire, it looked like. Libby wondered if it was an engagement ring.

  Gwen did not look at Libby, but kept her gaze on her notes. But Libby was acutely aware that every other woman in that room was watching her and Gwen, and she could almost feel a collective shift forward in anticipation.

  “Could we please get started?” Gwen asked, lifting her gaze from the paper before her and looking down the table. “A bit of good news first—we have raised forty-two hundred dollars so far.”

  “Ooh,” said Mrs. Freeman. “That’s a good start!”

  “I think we should give ourselves a round of applause,” Deb Trimble said, already clapping.

  The group applauded themselves, Libby perhaps a little less enthusiastically than the others. Forty-two hundred dollars didn’t sound that great to her; they needed so much more.

  “All right!” Gwen said. “Let’s get through this agenda so we can all get back to work. I assume most of us have to get back to work, anyway,” she said, and Libby was certain that her quick glance up was directed at her.

  “So let’s talk about the silent auction,” Gwen said. “What have we been able to round up for bids?”

  Deb Trimble raised her hand. “My husband was able to get the golf club over at Corita City to donate one annual membership. That’s a fifteen-hundred-dollar value.”

  “Oh, that’s fantastic!” Dani said, and everyone congratulated Deb, who was eager to accept their praise. And so it went, the announcement of donations the women had arranged. It was great, Libby thought, really great . . . but none of the things mentioned—the golf membership, free guitar lessons, a new sewing machine—were enough to bring in the amount needed to buy Leo a van in time.

  The talk shifted to when the silent auction would be held. Dani had volunteered the Grizzly Lodge. They batted around a few dates and finally settled on one a month down the road. When that was done, Gwen began to stack her papers. “Thanks, ladies!” She glanced at her watch. “We got a lot accomplished today.”

  “Ah, excuse me?” Libby said, raising her hand.

  Gwen tried not to look at her, but Dani said, “
Oh, Libby, you’ve got something?”

  “Okay,” Gwen said, and looked down at her paper. “Libby?”

  “I thought maybe we could organize a race.”

  “A race!” Karen said, as if she wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

  “A run. Everyone is running these days, right?”

  “Not me,” Barbara said, folding her arms over her chest. “I don’t run unless someone is chasing me.” She laughed as if no one had ever said that before.

  “But a lot of people do,” Libby said, and inched forward on her seat. “I talked to the manager at Fleet Feet, the running store out on the Old Aspen Highway? They’ve organized a lot of races and said they would be happy to help with a fundraiser. The way it works is that we ask runners to pledge to raise two hundred dollars each. If we can sign up five hundred people, that’s one hundred thousand dollars. After the race expenses are deducted, there would still be at least seventy thousand to contribute toward the van and more. And it’s something we could do fairly quickly.”

  “Sounds like a great idea to me,” Dani said.

  No one else said anything. Gwen was watching Libby curiously, and Libby couldn’t tell if she was interested in what Libby had to say, or merely amused.

  “I don’t know,” Deb said, shaking her head. “That’s a lot of money to ask someone to raise. I can’t imagine there are five hundred people in Pine River willing to run very far.”

  “A 5k is only 3.1 miles,” Libby pointed out.

  “I think it will be too cold,” Mrs. Freeman said with a grimace. “It’s already so cold,” she said, pulling her sweater a little tighter.

  “We don’t really have enough time to organize a race,” Michelle said. “You need sponsors and a course.”

  Libby pulled a paper from her purse where she’d jotted some notes. “Fleet Feet has done this before. We just need to help organize it. They also have a course they’ve used that is the right distance. I’ve made a list of potential sponsors.”

  “I say we add Libby’s idea to the list,” Dani said.

  “Maybe if we had more time,” Barbara said uncertainly, “but it just seems too ambitious to me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with ambitious,” Libby said. “If we all pulled together, we could do it, and raise some good money.”

  “It feels like too much for this group,” Gwen said firmly. “None of us has ever done anything like that, am I right?” she asked, looking around. “Have you, Libby? Have you ever put together a race to benefit a charity?”

  “Ah . . . no,” Libby said. “But I think I could do it.”

  “Right now, I think we have enough on our plate.” Gwen stacked her papers and stood up. “And, we all have to get back to work. When’s our next meeting, Deb?”

  “Friday. We’ll meet at the Grizzly so we can have a look at the banquet hall for the silent auction.”

  Everyone stood, leaving Libby sitting at the table, her idea effectively dismissed. Pushed aside. Ignored.

  She pasted a smile on her face, pushed down that whisper of anger that was trying to take hold. Deep breaths. Tropical paradise. She stood up. “Deb, can I bring anything to the next meeting?” she asked as politely as she could make herself speak.

  “No thanks, we’ve got it covered.”

  Libby nodded, slung her purse over her arm, and walked out of the meeting room while the others lingered to say good-bye.

  She walked straight to the ladies’ room, and into a stall. She sat down and braced her hands on her knees, taking deep breaths, trying to quell her anger before she said or did something she’d regret. Before she could manage it, she heard the door open, and two entered.

  “Anyway, he said it was a joke.”

  That was Deb Trimble speaking.

  “He said they knew it was going to be a disaster, but it was too late to do anything about it. So off they went and got married in a barn.”

  Libby’s mouth dropped open.

  “A barn.”

  She recognized Karen’s voice over the sound of water running.

  “Yes,” Deb said with a snort. “A barn wedding. I guess that’s the kind of thing they do in California, but not here. And Gary said it was all so disorganized, as if it hadn’t been thought through.”

  That was not true! If there was any disorganization, it was because Austin and Gary kept changing their minds! And Gary! He’d seemed so happy, and he and Austin had been totally on board with the barn setting, had both said it was a really cool idea.

  “Well, you know, what can you expect?” Karen said. “It was probably a little too early to jump into something like that after her breakdown.”

  “Yes, probably,” Deb agreed.

  “My aunt had a breakdown when I was a girl. They just need a little time to recover, you know?”

  They. As if the people who reached a breaking point were a different class of person. Deb and Karen probably thought that she needed to be wheeled into the sun every afternoon and have poetry read to her instead of returning to her life.

  “I think I’ll speak to Gwen,” Deb continued. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea that she plans a big race, either. I heard she’s been driving by Ryan Spangler’s house.”

  “Oh no. But you know, Deb, it might be best if she goes off to plan something on her own so we don’t have any issues with the auction.”

  “That’s true,” Deb said, and Libby heard the door open. The ladies walked out of the bathroom.

  A month ago, Libby’s anger would have exploded. Today, she felt as though if she just kept breathing, she could keep it under control. She had to keep it under control. She couldn’t possibly give them anything else.

  But she wasn’t giving up on that race, especially now.

  When she felt as if she could walk out of the church and smile at whomever she encountered, she left. In her car, she found her phone at the bottom of her purse and dialed a number.

  It rang three times before Emma picked up with a lazy, “Hello.”

  “Emma!” Libby said, surprised to have reached her. “It’s Libby. I can’t believe I got you.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Libby could count on one hand the number of conversations she’d had with Emma over the last couple of years, and Emma never once asked about her. Emma never said much of anything other than no and leave me out of it.

  “Nothing is wrong, but . . . but I need your help.”

  “I’m not going to come out in the middle of nowhere and plan weddings, Libby,” Emma said. “I’ve told you that. It’s not worth my time. Or yours, for that matter.”

  “This isn’t about a wedding, it’s about me,” Libby said. “I need to put on a 5k race in two months’ time and make some money from it.”

  “Why?” Emma asked suspiciously. “Did you do something?”

  “Do something?” Libby repeated, confused. “Like what?”

  “Like a drug deal gone bad,” Emma casually suggested.

  Libby pictured her sister somewhere in Los Angeles, her long, blond hair slick and shiny, her bee-sting lips, her skinny legs in skinnier jeans. “I don’t do drugs.”

  “Oh, right, of course not,” she said, sounding disdainful. “Middle America does not do drugs. Or so they say.” She snorted. “So why do you need the money?”

  “I am trying to raise money for Leo Kendrick. You know, Luke’s brother? He’s in a wheelchair and needs a new van.”

  Libby could hear the clink of glass and voices in the background. “You don’t need me for that,” Emma said. “It’s easy. Get a couple of sponsors to make T-shirts and buy some trophies, and voilà, there’s your race.”

  “No, this has to be done right.”

  “So do it right—”

  “No! Emma, listen—here is the real reason I need you,” Libby said flatly. “The real reason I need you is because this summer, I had a nervous breakdown and spent a week in a mental institution, okay? They call it Mountain View Behavioral Health Center, but that’s what it
is, a place where they lock the doors at night and give you pills to help you sleep. And the other women on this committee think I can’t do this. They all think I am too crazy to do it. But I’m not, Emma. I want to prove I’m not. That’s why I need you.”

  There was silence on the other end, nothing but the sound of a car driving by.

  “Well, well, at last, something interesting to come from Pine River. Tell me about it,” Emma said.

  Libby told her. And a half hour later, she was smiling and still in a bit of shock, because Emma had agreed to come and help her.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  If there was a lesson Sam had learned in his years of recovery and sobriety, it was that you could never take anything for granted. And that there was no rhyme or reason to why an addict or alcoholic would return to drinking or drugs.

  He’d known a guy once who had been sober for six years. His name was Rick, and he was solid, he had it beat. Rick worked as an accountant, dated a beautiful, sexy woman, and liked golf. To Sam, he moved through life with ease. Rick had told Sam more than once that his addiction wasn’t a problem, that once he’d turned away from the Oxycontin, that was it—there was no turning back.

  He said, like Tony had said the other night, he’d turned the page.

  But then one fall the Colorado Rockies baseball team blew a pennant race, and Rick turned another page. Only he went in the wrong direction and took a bunch of pills, and just like that—like that—he fell off his sobriety.

  It could happen in the blink of an eye.

  Sam worried for Tony. To an outsider, it would seem that things were looking up for Tony. At Homecoming Ranch, he’d struck up a friendship with Ernest Delgado, and was doing some odd jobs around the place. Luke told him that Tony had been helping make some repairs and that he was pretty handy with a hammer. Just like Libby, Luke told Tony he could stay as long as he needed. They’d even try and pay him a little something.

  But then Tony’s friend Justin left for a job down in Texas, and Tony seemed to sink. He told Sam he liked the work okay, he liked Ernest, and liked being around people and animals. But Tony also worried about his missing leg. He feared that no woman would ever want to take that on. Sam pointed out he’d had a bunch of women take it on, but Tony shook his head, said they all took off after they found out what was involved in taking care of the stump and the prosthesis.