“Because Charlie and Perry Brandt are old friends.”

“That explains why Charlie’s here.”

“Charlie asked me to come.”

“That explains you. Why am I here?”

“You’re here to support your best friend.” When she’d heard Anarchy and I had been invited, she’d begged me—us—to join her and Charlies on this back-country weekend.

“Liz is here.”

“Liz does everything well and looks gorgeous doing it.”

“And I don’t?” I didn’t.

Libba stared at her glass as if she were puzzled where the gin went. “You might shoot well and ride well, but you’re not intimidating. You spill things, and you find bodies.”

I frowned at her.

She held up her free hand. “You don’t judge me. Except for Liz, the women who are here this weekend treat me like I have the plague.”

My gorgeous best friend went through boyfriends faster that I went through coffee. She had a zest for living that caught men’s eyes—not that she’d knowingly dip her toe into adultery. That didn’t stop wives, who’d been thickened by childbirth and aged by surly teenagers, from being nervous.

In addition to Thatch’s wife, Willa, and Liz, Melanie Paige was coming. If she’d arrived earlier, Mel would have been at the range with Thatch and Graham and me. The woman was a crack shot.

Then there was Buffy Geller. Her husband Bill had a wandering eye. Buffy didn’t trust any woman around him. Or to be more precise, she didn’t trust him around other women—especially unmarried women.

As for Merit Dodson, who knew if she worried about Libba? I doubted it. But I could be wrong. Merit was one of those women who believed Eleanor Roosevelt when she said, “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” Using that logic, Libba and I had average to small minds. Merit had little use for us.

Finally there was Graham’s wife, Sumner. She'd been beautiful as a girl, but her looks had faded with the passing years. Not that she was going gentle into middle age. She tended to wear clothes too young for her and was the only woman I knew who wore false eyelashes on a daily basis.

Oh, dear Lord.

My inner voice was beginning to sound as judgmental as Mother’s.

Who was I to judge if hairy spiders perched above Sumner’s eyes? I bet she thought the short, sometimes-I-forgot-mascara lashes around my eyes were dull as dishwater.

“Aside from Buffy, I don’t see any of the women here treating you like a deadly illness. Besides, you’re with Charlie now.”

Libba might not admit it to herself, to Charlie, or to me, but she’d fallen hard for my high-school flame and current next-door neighbor. She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I needed you here.”

“Well, here I am.”