by Cat Johnson
Luke’s gaze hit upon Annie up in the stands above the chutes looking like she was getting ready to go on air. The moment she saw him looking at her she smiled. She mouthed, “good ride”.
He felt the smile cross his lips and mouthed back, “thanks”.
Then she was all business again as the station cut to her live and she began an interview with someone up in the VIP section.
Chris was still next to him, shuffling his booted feet around, totally distracted and fidgety. Luke smothered a sigh.
When it rained, it poured. His life had been pretty much stagnant for years—same girl, same job, same best friend. At least it had been uneventful, just days passing by. Now, everything felt different with the new developments with Annie and this strangeness with Chris. At least his job was the same, and he better get prepared for his second ride or he’d lose that too. The biggest mistake a rider could make was to get on a bull with his head not in the game. Luke needed to work on his focus and now.
“I gotta stretch a bit. Will you be okay here for a minute?” Luke hated that he had to get away from the guy he’d called friend since they’d been young boys riding sheep in local mutton-busting events, but a man had to do what a man had to do.
Chris nodded. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Luke dipped his head once in response then moved to the floor behind the chutes where he could stretch in peace and get his focus back. He saw Chris making another call. Was this the second or the third he’d seen Chris make? Was he reporting in to someone maybe?
The last thought Luke spared to the situation before he had to start running through the upcoming ride in his head had him intrigued before he pushed it aside. Perhaps Chris was here to break it to him that Lilly had found someone else. She always had wanted to get married young. Maybe she was even engaged. In that case, Luke couldn’t have been happier for her.
But again, that was something to think about later.
The bull decided to lie down in the chute. And not just lie down, but only halfway, which meant Luke had to lean far forward over its head to stay on since it was only the animal’s ass that was on the ground while his front half was still upright.
“Shit.” Luke shook his head in frustration. These were the best bulls in competition but sometimes it happened. They misbehaved. Nothing a rider could do about it except deal with it.
“Get as settled as you can and go.”
Luke glanced up at Mustang perched on the rails of the chute. “What? With him positioned like this?”
“Yup. Listen—” Mustang grabbed the back of Luke’s vest and held him as the bull jerked up and then sat his rear back down again. Once the animal had quieted, though remained in the same awkward stance, Mustang continued. “He’s upright in front. When that gate opens, he’ll go.”
Mustang was right. The bull probably would go the minute the gate opened. Luke only hoped he wouldn’t be launched off like a rocket when he did. “Okay.”
He flexed his gloved fingers in the bull rope then flipped the legs of his chaps out of the way one last time. After a nod to the gateman, there was no looking back for Luke. The gate swung open with a loud clang and they were off. Mustang had been correct. The bull leapt forward and after a second, settled into a smooth and comfortable spin into Luke’s hand.
Luke spurred the animal with his outside leg to keep him going in that direction, while at the same time he intentionally showed a little daylight between his leg and the bull to dress up the ride and impress the judges. The bull didn’t feel as if he was kicking as strong or as high as Luke needed him to for a high score. A little showmanship could add enough points to an otherwise unimpressive ride to keep him among the top scorers. The bull didn’t reverse directions and stayed in a smooth spin. Luke kept himself centered and balanced against the centrifugal force that pushed against his body as both man and beast spun fast.
The buzzer sounded and Luke ended the near perfect ride by landing on his feet, followed by a fist in the air.
The bullfighters patted him on the back as he made his way out of the arena, where the sight greeting him made him smile.
“I’m here with Luke Carpenter who just scored ninety in the short go. Great ride, Luke.”
It was only after Annie said his score that Luke wrestled his attention away from her smiling face to notice the confetti in the air. Ninety. Wow. Maybe that bull had bucked harder than he’d thought.
Luke adjusted the brim of his hat back a bit and dipped his head in response. “Thanks, Annie.”
The flashing red light on her cameraman’s equipment was a reminder that he couldn’t reach down and kiss those tempting lips, but he could sure think about doing it. Hopefully his thoughts wouldn’t show on camera.
“What were your thoughts when the bull laid down in the chute.”
That he was screwed. “Um, well, my first instinct was going to be to wait for him to get back up.”
“And what made you change your mind?”
“Actually, Mustang Jackson told me to go. That the bull would get up when the gate opened.”
A slow smile spread across Annie’s lips. “Mustang’s a wise man.”
“Yeah, he just hides it real well.” Luke laughed.
She grinned. “Maybe later we’ll get Mustang’s rebuttal to that accusation. Thanks for talking with us, Luke. The next rider’s up on the bull. Jim and JW, back to you guys in the booth.”
The incessant blinking of the red light went dim and Luke relaxed a bit and had time to enjoy his victory and Annie’s closeness. “You wanna help me celebrate later?”
Annie looked tempted by the suggestion. “What about your friend?”
Shit. He’d forgotten about Chris for a minute. “Well, maybe we could all go out to grab a bite and a beer together. He’s an early bird. Give him a steak and a few beers and he’ll be sound asleep by nine. And he sleeps like a log.”
Her brow rose. “Oh really.”
“Hell, I’ll knock him out if I have to.” Luke couldn’t control his grin. He felt like a teenager again, hoping to sneak out of the house after his parents fell asleep. “We’ll play it by ear.”
Her pursed lips showed her skepticism at his plan. “That’s probably a good idea.” Then she touched her earpiece before raising her gaze to his. “I have to—”
“Go. You have work to do. I’ll catch up with you after.”
She nodded and was gone. He couldn’t resist watching her walk away. His attention was still glued to her butt as she climbed the stairs when Chris was beside him again.
“You done?”
He smothered a sigh and glanced at the leader board. He’d scored well, but he wasn’t going to finish in first place. That meant he didn’t need to hang around for the winner’s interview or the presentation of any checks or buckles, but what the hell was Chris’s problem that he couldn’t wait a little while if Luke had been required to stay? “Yeah, I’m done except that we usually go back out into the arena after the close to sign autographs for the fans.”
“Do you have to?”
What the hell was up with Chris today? “No, I don’t have to but I like to. The fans are—”
“Luke. Please. I need to talk to you. Now.”
The pleading in Chris’s tone, matched by the strange expression in his eyes, told Luke there was something very wrong. “All right. Let’s go on back to the dressing room. We can talk in there.”
Luke could get out of his chaps and unwrap his wrist and hopefully solve whatever was wrong with Chris so they could move on with the night’s celebration. Though when Chris pushed him down onto the bench in the dressing room, then squatted down in front of him, Luke wasn’t so sure there would be any celebrating.
Chris let out a big huff of air, as if he was gathering his strength, and Luke felt his stomach fall. “What’s wrong, Chris. You’re starting to scare me.”
When his best friend’s gaze met his, there was the glistening of tears in his eyes.
“At about five-
thirty this morning your mother called our house in a panic.” Chris paused to swallow while Luke fought the urge to vomit. “Your father had collapsed. She’d called the ambulance first. They were already on their way, so my mother and Lilly met her at the hospital. My dad and I stayed behind to take care of your father’s herd before meeting everyone at the ER.”
Luke tried to swallow and found his mouth so dry he could barely manage it. “What did the doctors say? Is he all right?”
The slow sway of Chris’s head had Luke’s entire body quaking. Luke ran a shaky hand over his face. “Tell me.”
“They said it was a brain aneurism. It ruptured.”
He shook his head. “What does that mean?”
“The doctors can tell you better. They told us a third of people die on the way to the hospital, a third die in the hospital, and a third make it if they can operate fast enough.”
“Which third is my father in?”
“He flat-lined in the ambulance.” Chris drew in a deep breath and let it out again. “They have his body on machines to keep him alive until you can get home but Luke, he’s brain dead.”
Anger replaced all of Luke’s other emotions. “Why the hell didn’t you call me first thing this morning? At five-thirty when it happened, instead of worrying about the damn herd?”
“We decided we couldn’t tell you this over the phone. That’s why I got right in the truck and drove here. To tell you in person and drive you home.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me the minute you got here?” Luke’s eyes flashed.
Chris’s expression softened. “That was my own decision. I wanted to let you finish the event.”
“Fuck the event, Chris. This is my father.”
“What difference would an hour make either way, Luke? It doesn’t matter now.”
“I could have been with him.”
“Luke, he’s gone. When you get home, they’re going to unhook the machines.”
“No, maybe—”
Chris shook his head. “There is no maybe. He’s gone.”
It couldn’t be true. People came out of comas all the time. Luke had just seen something about that on television. “How can they be sure?”
“They’re sure, Luke. They brought in some neurologist.” Chris shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
Luke felt dead inside as the full impact of what he was hearing numbed him.
“I just need to get my gear, then grab my bag at the hotel and check out.” He clung to the details, as if putting things in order would turn his world right side up again, because it sure as hell wasn’t that way now. Then another reality hit him. “My mother?”
“She’s…” Chris looked at a loss for words. “She’ll be happy you’re home.”
“We have to get going.” Luke stood, surprised he could do so, and began shoving gear into his bag.
“I know.” Chris began coiling Luke’s bull rope. “We’ll be home by nightfall.”
“Okay.” Luke drew in a shaky breath and let it out just as Annie came around the corner.
Her smile faded the moment she saw him. If he looked half as bad as he felt, Luke guessed Annie had figured out something was horribly wrong just from the expression on his face. He had to tell her what had happened. They had tentative plans for tonight and he needed to cancel. The other guys would have to be told too. And he’d have to let somebody in charge know he wouldn’t be competing next week. He didn’t know how long it took to plan a funeral, and he couldn’t leave his mother so soon afterward anyway, so of course he couldn’t compete this coming weekend.
He just didn’t know if he had it in him to say it out loud to even one person, let alone repeat it all a whole bunch of times.
“Luke?” Annie’s gaze cut from him to Chris, and then back again. A frown creased her brow. “You okay?”
He started to nod but it turned into a shake when he realized he wasn’t okay at all, and he wouldn’t be for a very long while. He turned to Chris with a pleading glance.
His friend’s hand came up and gripped his shoulder. “I’ll tell her.”
“And the guys—” Luke hated laying it all on Chris, but at the moment he had no other choice. He was holding on to his composure by the skin of his teeth. If he opened his soul to Annie and saw the sympathy in her eyes, he’d lose it. He’d turn into an emotional mess in the middle of everyone and he didn’t want that.
Chris gave his shoulder one last squeeze and then released his hold. “I’ll take care of it all. You finish packing up then we’ll go.”
All Luke could do was watch Annie and Chris walk away, and try to remember to breathe.
Chapter Six
The drive had been hell. Knowing his family needed him and he couldn’t get home fast enough while he sat helpless in the passenger seat had been torture. But actually arriving at the hospital was not a relief in any way either. The sights and smells of the ICU nearly took Luke off his feet. The steady beep-beep of monitors. The overpowering scent of bleach or whatever it was they used to clean with. He walked like a zombie through the hallway guided by Chris. Without his friend, Luke probably wouldn’t have been able to even follow the simple directions the floor nurse at the desk had given them to his father’s room.
Maybe the truth was that deep down he didn’t want to locate it. Inside would be simply the shell of the man who’d been the most important person in his life since the day he was born. The man who’d put him on top of his first sheep in the mutton-busting competition in the local rodeo when Luke was barely five years old. The man who’d worked day and night to make the money to help pay for Luke’s entrance fees and equipment when he was just starting out as an amateur bull rider in high school. The man who had taught him to shoot, to pray and to respect both women and the value of a dollar.
How in the world could he live without that steadying force in his life?
Chris slowed to a stop and then stood to the side of a doorway. Luke knew this was it. Steeling his nerves, and dreading what waited inside that room, he walked through the entrance. He saw first his mother, her face tearstained and showing the strain of the past day. Luke realized how selfish his thoughts had been. Only of himself and what his father’s death would mean to him. How would his mother live without the man she’d been with since they’d started dating at age fifteen?
His gaze traveled to the figure in the bed beneath the oxygen mask and wires. It was not his father. He couldn’t think of this as his father, because far too soon all that stuff would be unhooked and then…
Luke couldn’t even think of it.
“Luke.” His mother rose from her chair and threw herself into his arms.
“Mom. I’m sorry I took so long to get here.” He held her tight and buried his face against the top of her head. The familiar feel and smell of her helped combat the less than comforting atmosphere of the hospital.
“It’s okay. You’re here now.”
He glanced over his mother’s head and at his father in the bed. His face was ashen, the sickly color obscuring whatever tan was left over from all the hours the man had spent working out in the sun.
“What—” Luke’s voice caught in his throat. He cleared it and tried again. “What happened?”
“He got up early just like he always did to feed the stock. He went into the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. The next thing I heard was something crashing. By the time I got to the kitchen, he was lying on the floor with the chair on top of him. He must—” his mother’s voice cracked, “—must have grabbed for it when he started to fall. I called the ambulance right away. Then I called the Collins’s house.”
“But why did he fall? What caused it?” A strong man like his father didn’t faint or just collapse for no good reason.
“The doctor said it was a brain aneurism.”
He still didn’t know exactly what that meant or what they could have done to avoid it. All Luke knew was that his father never looked so helpless. A man who could rope and wrestle a steer
to the ground, taken down by what? Some sort of microscopic blood clot or whatever an aneurism was? How was that possible? How was that fair?
“Luke…we have to—” She stared at the machines beeping away. Proof his father still lived and breathed.
“Why? Why do we have to?”
“Because he’s gone.”
“He’s not gone. Maybe he’ll—”
“No. He won’t. There’s no brain activity.”
“But maybe—”
“No, Luke. There’s no hope. Please don’t make this harder than it already is. You know your father and you know what he’d want. Hell, if he wasn’t so healthy and stubborn and convinced he’d live to be a hundred, he probably would have thought to get one of those do-not-resuscitate orders when we had our wills drawn up right after you were born. But you know this…” She swept her hand at the room full of equipment. “This wouldn’t be what he’d want. This isn’t living.”
Luke knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. Hell, he’d barely been able to let his old horse go a few years back when the vet had said it was time to put him down. This was the man who’d raised him. How the hell could you simply unplug the machines and let him die? His thoughts must have shown on his face.
“It’s not him, son. It’s just his body. We’d be keeping him here for us, not for him.”
Tears he didn’t let fall blurred Luke’s vision as he nodded. “When?”
“They’ve arranged for the organ donations, so as soon as you’ve said your good-byes. I’ve had all day. I’ve already made my peace with it. Take your time, son.”
Time wouldn’t change anything. He shook his head, not knowing if he could do as she asked. He knew he needed to be strong for her, but right now he was like a little boy again clinging to his mother.
She took his hand, her grip stronger than it should be given the situation, and led Luke to the bed. He forced his gaze up from the floor, trying to ignore the machine breathing for his father because he couldn’t do it for himself. He knew his mother was right. There was no dignity in living like this. If he had been aware of any of it, his father would have hated it.
