Page 97 of The Moment He Saw Her

“But if I’m in jail, no one can get near me,” she whispered loudly. That cider really was potent. “Your brother hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s hurting is all. Ryder takes things harder than the rest of us because he’s the best of us. He feels betrayed because you didn’t tell him the truth about yourself.”

He nudged her outside to where groups of people were forming up and down the main street. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Nina was tugging Samuel out and Delores her father. Both looked terrified.

“Libby!” her brother called. She ignored him.

“Now, I want to ask you a question, Libster.”

“Libster?”

“Hey, I have more nicknames than anyone in this town. It seems fair you should have one.” Dan’s smile reminded her of Ryder’s.

“I’m not from this town, Dan.”

Her father and brother were in the group behind them, and the people with them, Red being one, were explaining what was going on. She doubted Phillip Caldwell had ever been forced to do something like this, and he would hate every second of things being out of his control.

Lyntacky had changed Libby in many ways—ways she’d never change back from. Looking around her, she saw the storefronts and the faces that were familiar. She’d often thought small-town life simple, and it was, but it was so much more than that. It was about belonging here in Lyntacky.

“I know you’re not from this town, Libby, but do you want to be?” Dan said, tugging her around Linda and Bradford.

“My life is not here, Dan.”

“Well then, maybe you should go with your family and leave my brother. Because the man I just left is hurting and trying not to show it. And I’ll tell you something, Libby, I’ve never seen him look like that before. But if you care about him, if he’s the man you want in your future, the miles you live apart and the differences that lie between you mean nothing.”

“Dukes,” Linda said, sniffing into her handkerchief and no doubt leaving a lot of orange concealer behind, “they always know exactly what to say and when. Lovely, Dan.”

“Meant every word, Linda.”

The pain of hurting Ryder burned inside Libby. She had to at least try to explain why she’d done what she had before leaving Lyntacky, or she’d always regret it.

“I’m going now, but think about my words, Libby,” Dan said when the music finished. He then leaned in to hug her. “I know you never meant to hurt him, so make it right if you want to have something with him. But he’ll make you work for it.”

She’d never thought her future could be in Lyntacky and deep inside believed she’d go back to Piedmont, but did she really want that?No.

“What just happened?” her father said, reaching her. Samuel, she noted, was still in conversation with Bart, so he could be a while. “How can you be happy in a place that carries on the way this town does? One man gave me a full rundown on how he makes fish pie. I tell you, do I look like I would want that?”

He looked flustered, and it wasn’t a look she was used to seeing on him.

“Don’t be a snob, Father,” Libby said. “They’re good people. Your problem is you surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear, but you won’t get that here. They wouldn’t care if you were royalty. They’d still treat you the same.”

“Enough! This place is not a good influence on you, Elizabeth.”

“Come on, Lib. It’s girls’ night at my place. Let’s go.” An arm slid through hers, and she was soon walking up the street with Nina on one side and Cill on the other. Looking over her shoulder, she noted Bart was now imitating fly-fishing for Samuel, and her father was standing there in the middle of the street, frowning.

Chapter29

Ryder hadn’t been the recipient of a family intervention before, and he had to say he wasn’t happy about it happening now… in his house.

His family had helped him clean up after the party, and then his mom had taken the exhausted yet happy Ally and her two friends home for a sleepover and movie night.

But she’d taken Ryder aside before she left and told him that Libby was a good girl, and she’d not been raised like him, where every problem was a family one, even if you didn’t want it to be. He’d tried to protest. She’d ignored him and told him to shut up, as she wasn’t done yet. She’d then gone on to explain that he was a good, sensitive boy, to which he’d tried to protest but had again been shut down. His mother had then kissed him, patted his cheek, and said she hoped the rest of her family could talk some sense into him.

“There is enough candy in Mom’s house that I fully expect those kids to be awake until well past midnight,” Brody said from his position beside Zoe and JD on the sofa.

“Are we really doing this?” Ryder asked as Dan walked in with pizza boxes and beer. “I have shit to do, so you can all just take your well-meaning advice and fuck off,” he snapped from his kitchen doorway.

“Yes, we are doing this,” Dan said, lowering his supplies to the floor and then dropping down beside them to start opening boxes.

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