Love Me for Me(36)

How much I don’t belong here. “Nothing, really,” she said instead.

Jeanie pulled onto the extensive drive to Pete’s cottage, and they bumped down the rocky path to the front of the house. She turned off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. “Ready?” she asked.

“Yep!” Libby said with forced enthusiasm. Her hands began to tingle with nervousness.

They exited the car, piled a stack of food tins in their arms, and walked around to the back of the house where Libby was surprised to find an enormous crowd of people. Had the whole town come to Helen’s party? she thought. She gazed from face to face, recognizing nearly all of them. A few looked her way, surprise registering on their faces before they settled back into their conversations.

Leaving, with her Columbia acceptance letter in hand, she’d felt unstoppable. She’d made it clear to anyone who’d asked where she was going and what kind of life she’d planned on having. She’d said so many hurtful things about where she’d grown up, she couldn’t even remember to whom she’d said what. At eighteen, having grown up hearing her mother constantly complain about White Stone, she didn’t realize the enormity of her actions. Now she understood, and that made it worse because the guilt overwhelmed her. And there they all were, looking at her. She felt uneasy, nervous. Jeanie had already set down her tins and took the ones from Libby’s arms, leaving Libby standing alone. She looked around for Pete but didn’t see him.

“No way!” she heard a booming voice over the chitchat. “Libby Potter?” Ryan Bennett emerged from the crowd, and despite her nervousness, Libby hurried over to him. Ryan was Pete’s brother, three years his senior. He was a little taller and broader than Pete, with darker hair, but the two looked strikingly similar—same green eyes, similar smile. “Where have you been, young lady?” he kidded.

Until he was standing in front of her, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him. Ryan was that classic big brother, not only to Pete but to her as well. He’d looked out for her and stuck up for her when it came down to it.

“I’ve been in New York,” she said, the late morning breeze off the water giving her a chill.

“I’m in Richmond now. Got a little one. Her name’s Charlotte.” He nodded over to a wisp of a girl with blond ringlets snaking down her back, dressed in a white sundress with a fat, pink ribbon belt and sandals. She was sneaking M&Ms off the table.

“Oh, Ryan, that’s fantastic.”

“My wife’s around here somewhere—Emily.”

“Well, I declare…” Libby turned to find Helen Bennett pacing toward her, her dark, shoulder-length hair blowing in the wind, a glass of white wine in one hand and a camera in the other. “My sweet girl, I have missed you so much!” She leaned in and kissed Libby’s cheek. Her familiar scent of citrus and flowers sent Libby unexpectedly spiraling toward the memory of Helen holding her when she’d fallen on the gravel outside.

Libby had been just twelve at the time, running as fast as she could after Pete and his friends, but their legs were longer and she couldn’t keep up. Her mother had always advised against playing with the boys. Libby wasn’t used to that type of play; she’d been taught to be more reserved and ladylike. But she loved to be with Pete and his friends, having some free-spirited rough-and-tumble play away from the eye of her mother.

While trying to catch up to them, Libby had slipped in the dirt and skinned her leg all the way to the top. Helen picked her up and carried her back to the house just as Pete had noticed she wasn’t with them. He’d burst through the door, concern on his face, checking to be sure she was all right. Libby remembered being embarrassed because Helen had pulled her shorts up to bandage the scrape, showing her entire leg. That was her awkward age, when she wasn’t sure yet what parts of her to show and what not to show, and she remembered that Pete’s presence had made her bashful.

Helen got her all bandaged up and held her face in her hands. “You okay?” she’d asked. Libby nodded. “Good,” she’d said, smiling, and she kissed Libby on the cheek just as she had right then at the party.

“Want a drink?” Ryan asked, pulling her back into the present. “I can make you a Mimosa. We have champagne,” he grinned deviously. “And now we’re old enough to drink it in front of people,” he winked.

She let out a quiet giggle. Libby had a rule: she didn’t drink alcohol before noon. When it was mixed with a breakfast drink such as orange juice, however, that created a gray area, and she was forced to make a judgment call. Given the situation, and the fact that she was about as nervous as she’d been since she’d arrived, with all of those faces staring at her, she accepted Ryan’s offer.