by Amy Brent
I had my hair pulled back like always and had even put on a little makeup. Silly, I know, but I wanted Luke to look at me and see what he missed out on when he left all those years ago.
Look at what you could have been fucking all that time, I wanted to say.
Look at what you could have had riding you like a buckin’ bronco.
Then again, by now we probably would have been divorced and fighting over custody of a couple of rugrat kids.
I don’t want them, you take them.
No way, they’re yours…
By the time the elevator dinged and opened to the fifth floor, I had just about decided that maybe it was best that Luke had left me behind.
If he hadn’t left home to ride the rodeo circuit, we might have gotten married and I might never have gone off to college to get my degrees and create a life of my own.
I might have lived my whole life on a dusty Texas ranch popping out babies and washing dirty diapers and wiping snotty noses while wondering if their daddy was ever gonna come home.
Maybe he did me a favor by leaving me behind.
Maybe I’m the hard-headed, strong-willed woman that I am today because Luke Daniels took off one day and never came back.
Maybe I was better off.
I guessed I’d never know.
* * *
Luke was in room 518. I held my breath as I walked down the long hallway, counting room numbers as I went. 510… 511… 512…
When I reached room 518, I paused for a moment to peek through the open doorway. It had been six years since I’d seen Luke. I was eighteen and he was twenty. We’d had sex dozens of times. We’d kept our relationship (if you could call it that) secret because Luke didn’t think Daddy would approve and he was probably right.
We weren’t exclusive or anything. I dated other boys and lord knows he went with other girls. But we had a bond that kept bringing us back together. Or at least I thought we did.
Then one day Luke said he was hitting the rodeo circuit and didn’t know when he’d be back. I was stupid in love with him and he was stupid in love with the rodeo. He just drove away and left me standing there in the dust waving goodbye like the village idiot. I kept waiting for him to turn around, but he never did.
Peering through the door, I held my breath, wondering how much he had changed, if he had changed at all.
The last time I saw him he was a strapping young bull rider with broad shoulders and a thick chest, and arms that were roped with muscle from hanging on to the backs of thousand pound bulls.
He had shaggy blond hair that hung down in his blue eyes and a smile that made me melt in my panties. His skin was the color of tanned boot leather from a life spent in the Texas sun.
He looked like a young Brad Pitt and he knew it.
And he took advantage of it every chance he got.
Besides me, he probably screwed half the girls in Calloway County and would have screwed the other half if he’d had the time.
All he cared about was getting drunk, getting laid, and hanging on to a bull for eight seconds to get a silver buckle.
I knew it at the time and I knew it now, Luke wasn’t the kind of boy you expected to stick around. He was like an angry Brahma bull: you might get a rope around his horns, but there was no way you were gonna tie him down.
The man lying in the bed in room 518 vaguely reminded me of the boy I’d once known, but as we say here in Texas, he looked like he’d been rode hard and put up wet.
He was lying on his back with his eyes closed and his hands resting over his stomach. He looked a little ridiculous, wearing a pair of blue hospital scrubs tucked into a pair of dusty old cowboy boots.
His complexion was pale, sickly, like he’d been out of the sun for a while. His sandy blond hair was pushed back and plastered to his head, like it hadn’t been washed in days. His chin and cheeks were hollow and stubbly.
I hadn’t seen him in six years, but he looked like he’d aged a couple of decades.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then stepped forward and tapped on the door. When his blue eyes opened and he smiled, the past came rushing back like a tsunami crashing into the shore.
My old Luke was there within that shell of a man.
I knew it because I felt my body tingle the moment I saw him smile.
CHAPTER SIX: Luke
I was lying there with my eyes closed, breathing slowly in and out, trying to will away the burning pain in my side, when I felt like I was being watched.
I opened my eyes just enough to see someone standing in the hallway outside my door. I couldn’t tell who it was exactly or whether she was there to see me or someone else.
It wasn’t until she knocked on the door and stepped closer that I realized who it was. I felt my heart jump into my throat. It was Shelby, Lil Sis, come to take me home.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, smiling when her face came into focus. “What are you doing here?” I held out my arms to hug her, but she just reached for my hands and gave them a loose shake.
“Cody sent me to pick you up,” she said flatly, giving me a smile that I could tell was forced. I tried to remember if I’d done anything to make her mad, as was the case with most women in my past. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen her, or if we had parted in good company. Too many concussions will do that to you, I guess.
“He too busy to come get me himself?” I asked, grinning, hoping she would grin back. She did not. She just shrugged her pretty eyebrows at me and said she reckoned so.
Time had been extra good to Shelby. She looked amazing in her tight jeans and little white shirt with her cleavage bubbling out. Her face was flawless except for the freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks. I used to count them with kisses after we made love in the barn loft. She was always the prettiest girl in Calloway County and that had not changed. She didn’t look like an awkward teenager anymore. She looked like a woman; so much so it made my mouth water. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to make love to her now.
“So, are you ready to go?” she asked, getting right to the point. Yep, I had done something to her and she was still stewing over it. I just wished that I could remember what that something was.
“The nurse will come with a wheelchair when I buzz her,” I said, wincing as I pushed myself up on the bed. My side bit at me when I tried to sit up. I put a hand over the bandage and pushed through the pain as I pressed the button to call the nurse with my other hand.
Shelby sat in the chair next to the bed, giving me the suspicious eye, like she thought getting gored by a damned old bull shouldn’t have put me in such a sorry state. She asked, “So what happened?”
I lifted my shirt so she could see the bandage and the wrapping going around my waist. “Oh, I just pissed off a bull is all,” I said, my fingers gently going over the tape holding the bandage in place. “He decided to show me some love by sticking his horn in my guts and tossing me around a little. Ain’t no big deal.”
“Do not listen to him,” a voice called from the doorway. It was Nurse Old Bat pushing a wheelchair into the room. She gave Shelby the once over for a moment. “You his wife? Girlfriend?”
Shelby frowned back at her like she’d been accused of farting in church. “No, I’m… family,” she said, though she didn’t sound too proud of the fact. “I’m here to take him home.”
The nurse narrowed her eyes at Shelby like she was trying to figure out if she was telling the truth or not. I would have loved to tell you that Nurse Old Bat looked much nicer when she was at the peak of orgasm at the end of my fingers, but that would have been a lie. That was her face, for better or worse. After a moment, her harsh features softened a little and she nodded at me.
“You sure you want to leave?” she asked, sounding a little like she didn’t want me to go. “The doc’s not happy about this.”
“The doc just wants to pad his bill,” I said, giving her a smile. I nodded at Shelby. “I’ll be in good ha
nds.”
“I’m not going to be your nurse,” Shelby shot back. Her words slapped my face like a horse’s tail swatting a fly. She frowned at Nurse Old Bat. “Tell me the extent of his injuries and what needs to be done. I’m sure my Daddy will hire a nurse to look after him.”
Nurse Old Bat leaned on the wheelchair and let her eyes go between us. It was easy to tell that one of us was pissed at the other, and the other had no idea why.
She said, “When he was gored by the bull there was extensive damage done to his stomach and spleen, which had to be removed. The doctors were able to repair the damage and stitch him up, however…” She shook her head at me. “Mr. Daniels managed to rip his stitches open a few days ago and that had to be repaired, so he’s still healing.”
“How did he rip his stitches open?” Shelby asked. When Nurse Old Bat looked at me, so did Shelby. “How did you rip the stitches open?”
“He tried to go to the bathroom by himself,” the nurse answered for me. “He got dizzy and fell and busted the stitches.”
Shelby’s pretty face took on a mask of concern that had not been there before. “Is that still a possibility? Him passing out when he tries to go to the bathroom?”
Nurse Old Bat shook her head. “It wasn’t that he was using the bathroom, dear,” she said, glancing at me again. “It was the fact that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He wasn’t supposed to get out of bed without help. He has a hard head, this one.”
Shelby nodded slowly. I could tell by her face that she knew she wasn’t getting the full story. She said, “I’ll make sure he has someone to help him until he’s strong enough to get around by himself.”
“I don’t need a goddamn babysitter,” I said, feeling a little bit like a fly on the wall with them talking about me like I wasn’t even there. “I just got dizzy is all. I’m fine now.”
“Are there any medications that he needs?” Shelby asked, ignoring me. “Prescriptions to be filled?”
“He’ll be on antibiotics for another week,” Nurse Old Bat said. “He has refused painkillers.”
Shelby frowned at me. I could almost detect a hint of giving a shit in her pretty eyes. “Why don’t you want pain killers?” she asked.
I set my jaw and shook my head. “I’ve seen a lot of cowboys get hooked on pain killers,” I said. “I won’t go down that road.” I tried smiling at her again, still with no effect. “Besides, they’d interfere with my whiskey drinking.”
“You’re hopeless,” Nurse Old Bat said, a rare smile on her face. She nodded at Shelby. “He just needs lots of bed rest. And don’t let him do anything strenuous that puts pressure on his stitches.”
“I understand,” Shelby said.
I couldn’t resist giving the nurse a wink. “Can you define strenuous?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said, smiling at me. She wasn’t half bad looking when she smiled. She was probably a looker twenty or thirty years ago. She nodded down at the wheelchair.
“Okay, cowboy, come on, I have real patients to tend to. Climb on and let’s get you out of here before you get somebody else in trouble.”
CHAPTER SEVEN: Shelby
I got the strange feeling that there was something going on between Luke and the nurse that they didn’t want me to know about. And there was more to the story than she was willing to tell about him busting his stitches.
I stared at her while she was talking to him. Her eyes kind of went dreamy when she looked at him and Luke blushed like a boy who’d been boning his teacher after class. I would not have been surprised in the least if you had told me Luke had laid pipe to half the nurses in the place, but to this one? No freakin’ way.
Her name tag just read: Dottie. She was thick and dumpy, probably in her mid to late forties, with chopped off reddish hair and a face that I doubted put too many patients at ease. Surely Luke had not done anything with this one. I mean, no offense, but… ewe.
Dottie helped Luke get into the wheelchair. There was a thick leather belt with a large silver buckle on the night stand. He asked me to hand it to him.
When I picked it up I noticed the dark brown stain of old blood on the buckle and the belt. I felt my stomach churn. That was Luke’s blood all over that old belt. I glanced at his face. He was still kidding around with the nurse, but I could tell that he was in pain. He was hurt far worse that he was letting on. Cody said that he almost died. I didn’t believe it at first. I figured it was just Luke looking for attention. But I had been wrong. He was seriously hurt.
“Hey.” I heard Luke’s voice and the sound of fingers snapping.
I blinked a couple times. Luke was holding out his hand and wiggling his fingers. “Hand over my championship belt, Lil Sis,” he said with a smile. I felt like I was in shock as I handed him the belt and followed them out of the room.
* * *
I went to get Cody’s truck while the nurse wheeled Luke to the sidewalk to wait for me. As I pulled to the curb, I saw several other nurses gathered around his chair telling him goodbye; younger, hotter ones, all smiles and hugs.
The older nurse shooed them away and helped Luke get to his feet and into the truck. She leaned in to buckle his seatbelt, then gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him to take care of himself.
“What was that all about?” I asked, frowning at him as he waved her away. “Please tell me that you didn’t – “
“Jesus, Shelby, she’s a nurse,” Luke said, shooting me a scolding look. “It’s her job to be nice to sick people. Maybe you should try it sometimes.”
“If you say so,” I said, giving him the once over before putting the truck into gear. “You all set? Need anything?”
“I just need to get the hell away from this place,” he said with a sigh. He leaned his head back on closed his eyes. “Goddamn hospital was gonna be the death of me.”
It occurred to me that he was leaving the hospital with nothing more than the borrowed clothes on his back. I asked, “Where’s all your stuff?”
“In my truck at the rodeo arena,” he said, his voice strained. He wiped sweat from his forehead on the back of his hand. I could tell he was in pain, though I knew he wouldn’t admit it. “I’m not too worried about it. There ain’t much there to steal. Let’s just go home. I’ll worry about it later.”
“Okay,” I said, sliding the gear into Drive and pulling slowly out of the lot. “Sit back and relax. We’ll be home in four or five hours.”
We were barely a mile down the road when I heard him begin to snore. I glanced over at him. His head was back on the headrest, his eyes were closed. He was breathing softly through his cracked lips. His left arm was resting on the console between us. I resisted the urge to touch his hand.
I was glad he had fallen asleep. I still wasn’t sure what to say to him. Maybe this would give me a little more time to figure it out.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Shelby
We’d only been on the road for an hour or so before it started getting dark. The highway going north out of Houston toward Calloway County was an old four-lane with no street lights and very few places to stop. I’d gassed up the truck before I picked Luke up, but my stomach was starting to growl at me. I decided I’d stop at the next burger joint or convenience store we came to so we could get us something to eat. We were still a good three or four hours from home.
Luke was still passed out dead to the world in the passenger seat. He smacked his lips and mumbled a few times, making me glance over at him. When I looked at him I still saw the handsome boy I grew up with. The boy I had willingly given myself to. The boy I thought I loved. The boy who still haunts my dreams.
I noticed he slept with a hand covering the wound on his left side. Every now and then he’d wince and jerk in the seat. He tried to make light of it, but I knew his wound was serious. The bull that had gored him, a sixteen-hundred-pound monster named El Diablo, had killed another rider the year before. Luke was lucky to be alive. And even though I was still pissed at
him, I felt lucky to at least have him back in my life for however long I could convince him to stay.
The hypnotic drone of the tires on pavement and Luke’s soft snoring were making me sleepy. I turned on the radio just loud enough to hear it. I searched through the dial until I heard an old familiar song: Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. It was playing the last night I was with Luke. It had always reminded me of him. And it always would.
* * *
I was just eighteen the last time I saw Luke, but I thought I was ready to take on the world. I had spent my entire life on a dusty Texas cattle ranch and now it was time to spread my wings and fly out into the great big world to see what my future might bring.
Luke was feeling the same, although our paths would take us in completely different directions.
He was just twenty and so full of life people would have paid to be around him. All the boys wanted to be him and all the girls wanted to fuck him. He was always happy and smiling and carrying on some kind of mess, but he was never happier than when he was hanging onto the back of a mad bull or a bucking bronco.
I loved watching him back then, the way the muscles in his right arm flexed as he held on to the latigo, hoping to hang on for eight seconds, the minimum time required to earn points.
He’d dig in the heels of his dirty boots into the side of the bull and let his left arm flail in the air as his whole body came up off the bull’s back and slammed back down. He always lost his hat right out of the gate. His long blond hair whipped as the bull’s hooves beat into the ground and it bucked its curved back, doing its best to throw him off.
All Luke could talk about was getting on the circuit so he could travel from town to town riding bulls and collecting trophies and silver belt buckles. His ambition only went as far as the next town and the next bull. That was one thing we argued about sometimes. I was hell bent on making something of myself and Luke has hell-bent on being the next Ty Murray.
Even though we knew we’d be apart for some time, I thought we had an understanding that one day we’d meet back in Calloway and start a life together. I reckon it’s like my daddy always said: you can plan out your life, but eventually life will get in the way of your plans.
