by Jane Graves
He’d just finished the burrito and started in on the hot dog when he heard bells against glass. Turning around, he saw Sheriff Sizemore come through the door. Judging by the way he stopped to gaze around the room, it was pretty clear he was looking for somebody in particular. And Luke knew who that somebody was.
Ben Sizemore had been sheriff in Rainbow Valley as long as Luke could remember, which meant he had to be pushing sixty by now, but he was still as tall and lean as ever. Ben rarely spoke unless it was necessary, and even then he spared his words. He always deputized a couple of guys during the summer months when tourism was at its height, and a couple more when the festival was in full swing. Most of the time, though, it was just him patrolling the streets of Rainbow Valley and keeping its citizens safe from the bad guys.
When Luke was in high school, Ben had represented everything about Rainbow Valley he hated, particularly the assumption that just because of where he came from, everybody had to keep an eye on him. After a while, Luke got so tired of the wary looks he got for doing nothing but walking down the street that he finally gave them something to gossip about. By the time he was in high school, he found some kind of trouble to get into at least once a month, and to this day he couldn’t look at a police car without a small part of him wondering if a cop was inside looking back at him, waiting for him to screw up.
The sheriff approached Luke’s table and slid into the seat across from him. “Hey there, Luke. Mind if I sit down?”
“Looks like you already have,” Luke said.
Ben nodded toward the brace on his leg. “Knee problems?”
“Just had surgery.”
Ben slid his hat off, revealing a permanent crease in his graying hair. “So…what have you been doing with yourself since you left the Valley?”
“Riding bulls,” Luke said. “I’ll be heading to the World Championship Rodeo in a few months.”
Ben just stared at him, which irritated the hell out of Luke. Either the man was too ignorant to know what that meant, which Luke didn’t believe for a moment, or he was acting as if it meant nothing when he knew it did. Either way, it pissed Luke off.
Ben leaned back in his chair, eyeing Luke carefully. “I thought you left town after the funeral.”
“I came back.”
“How long you staying?”
“Three months.”
“So what will you be doing with yourself while you’re here?”
Mugging a few old ladies and robbing the savings and loan. “Working at the shelter. I’m the new caretaker.”
Ben never blinked. Courtesy of Myrna, it was clear he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking.
“Frankly,” the sheriff said, “I’d have been happier if you’d come here for your daddy’s funeral and then just kept on going. But it’s none of my business unless you break the law. You gonna break the law?”
“Do you ask that question of every new person in town?”
“Only if that person’s name is Luke Dawson.”
Luke remembered now just how much he’d hated Sheriff Sizemore. To Luke, he’d been nothing more than a starched uniform, a stern expression, and a pair of handcuffs when the situation warranted it. Luke had been more familiar with the backseat of that police cruiser than any teenage kid ever should have been.
“But no matter what you think,” Ben said, “I wasn’t out to get you back then. We had problems only when you were breaking the law. Too bad I never convinced you of that.”
“That was a long time ago. People change.”
“Some do, some don’t.”
“You were talking to a boy before,” Luke said. “Now you’re talking to a man.”
“Good. That’s good. Then I can see we’re not going to have any problems at all.” Ben picked up his hat and slid it back on his head. “We’ll both just go about our business, and that’ll be that.” The sheriff’s words may have been low key, but Luke heard the veiled threat behind them. I’m watching you. Step out of line, and I’ll nail you to the wall.
Ben rose from his chair and walked to the counter to have a word with Myrna, which really irritated Luke. He was an adult, for God’s sake, but as he watched them talking about him, he felt like that angry kid all over again.
After the sheriff was gone, Luke stood up, stuffed the hot dog back into the sack, and dumped the rest of his trash into a nearby can. Todd peered at him from around the counter. He gave the kid one last wink, which made Myrna’s already caustic frown deepen even more. Her gaze burned a hole in his back all the way out of the store. He hadn’t expected a backslap and a friendly smile, but somehow he’d thought the passage of time might have made some kind of a difference to these people.
Evidently not.
He drove back to the shelter, telling himself to let it go. It was going to be a damn long three months if he allowed things that were over and done with to eat away at him. In no time he’d be heading back to his old life, on the road to the top again, leaving this town behind him in a cloud of dust.
The next morning, Shannon pulled through the sanctuary gate and drove toward the office. Goliath lay on the seat beside her. He seemed calmer than usual, and she hoped that meant she was making progress with him. Hell, she was more uptight than he was. She would have liked to have said Luke had nothing to do with that, but she’d never been one to delude herself.
As she got out of the car, she looked down the hill toward the back pasture. Dewdrops glittered in the morning sun, and she heard the soft cooing of mourning doves. Overhead, a sky of solid blue stretched from horizon to horizon without a cloud in sight. They needed rain something awful, but she couldn’t help enjoying the tranquility the clear weather foretold. It was at times like this that she could stop, take a breath, and bask in the beauty of this place. Sometimes she even did it for a whole thirty seconds before she was driven to get back to work.
Then it dawned on her. The pasture was empty. Where were the horses?
Her skin prickled with apprehension. This time of morning, they generally gathered near the gate leading to the barn, waiting to be led to their stalls to be fed. From this vantage point, she should have been able to see at least a few of the five horses they had on the premises right now, but all she saw were the llamas in the adjoining paddock.
Then she had a terrible thought. Had Manny found another way out and taken the lot of them with him? If so, rounding them up was going to take all day. If they’d been out for hours, no telling how long it would take to find them.
Shannon jumped out of her truck, put Goliath in the office, and trotted down the path leading to the barn and the pasture beyond. Damn it, damn it, damn it! I do not need this right now!
A little out of breath, she approached the barn. Closer now, she could see into a few of the stalls. To her surprise, the horses were in the barn. And they were eating.
Then she came into the barn, and what she saw stopped her cold.
Luke stood in the breezeway. His shirt was slung over a stall door, leaving him bare chested. He’d put on a pair of work gloves and slid his hands through the wire surrounding a bale of hay. Now he was lifting the hay to his chest, dropping it back down, then lifting it again, those beautiful biceps bulging. A sheen of sweat coated his chest and shoulders, with beads of sweat forming on his forehead. She watched, mesmerized, her mouth going dry as dust. Finally he dropped the hay bale, breathing hard.
Then he turned around and saw her.
He froze for a moment, then walked over and pulled the wooden bench out from the wall.
“Shannon,” he said. “You’re up early this morning.”
“You already fed the horses. You’re not on the clock until nine.”
“I figured they could be eating while I worked out.”
He peeled off the gloves, grabbed a sack of horse feed, and slung it to the bench. He straddled the bench, then lay back and hoisted the horse feed over his head. She watched, fascinated, as he pushed it from his chest to the full extensi
on of his arms, then back to his chest again. God, he was gorgeous when he moved like that. Oh, hell. He was gorgeous just lying there breathing.
“I guess you don’t need a gym as long as you have horse feed,” she said.
“Normally I stay in hotels with workout rooms. Here I have to make do with whatever I can find.”
“I thought it was your knee you were supposed to exercise.”
“That, too. But bull riding is no different from any other sport. Gotta stay in shape.”
Shannon knew she should at least pretend to do something productive, but she just couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Luke. He moved with the smooth assurance of a man who treated his body like the fine instrument it was, making sure it was polished and tuned and ready to go at a moment’s notice.
“If I’d had surgery, I might be tempted to take it easy for a while,” she said.
“Nope. Miss one workout, then another, and sooner or later you’re drinking until midnight and sleeping until noon. If I didn’t stay focused, I’d never get anywhere.”
Shannon thought about the wild, angry boy he used to be, whose every move was filled with attitude. She remembered how he used to drive his old Mustang along the road leading from his father’s house, kicking up gravel behind him before swinging the car onto the highway and burning rubber. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that same kid riding a bull equally as wild as he was. What she’d never imagined was how much discipline it must take to do it well.
“So how did you start riding bulls in the first place?” she asked.
He completed two more reps, then sat up and tossed the horse feed to the bench in front of him. “I worked on a ranch outside of Amarillo. Learned how to ride. How to rope. One day one of the guys dared me to ride a bull. Found out I was pretty good at it. So I went to a rodeo school where I could trade lessons for working around the place. Then I started competing. Met a few good people along the way who helped me out. Pretty soon I was winning. A few years later I went on the pro circuit, and I’ve been there ever since.”
He rose from the bench, favoring his knee, and reached for a bottle of water.
“Is the work around here going to be too much for your knee?” she asked.
“If it is, I’ll let you know.”
“There are plenty of things to do that don’t involve a lot of physical effort.”
“I’m fine.”
“Just for a few weeks, until your knee gets better.”
“You hired me to do a job. I intend to do it. So why are you arguing with me?”
“Because I’m afraid you’re going to push too hard.”
The faintest smile crossed his lips. “Worried about me, are you?”
Shannon felt a flicker of embarrassment because that was exactly what it sounded like. “Of course I am. What good are you to me if you screw up your knee again and can’t work at all?”
“That’s a relief. For a minute there, I thought you were actually concerned about my well-being.”
“I’m concerned that things get done around here.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” he said, his voice gearing down into a slow Texas drawl. “I intend to do all kinds of things around here.”
His expression made her feel as if he was only seconds away from tearing her clothes off. It annoyed her to no end that he could make her hot just by looking at her. Worse, he knew it. With every word he spoke and every glance he sent her way, he knew just how much he made her sweat.
He took a long drink from the water bottle, then put it aside again. He moved the sack of horse feed and lay back down on the bench. Carefully bending his knees, he began doing sit-ups slowly and methodically, his abs standing out in sharp relief with every move he made. And once again, Shannon couldn’t seem to stop watching.
Then she heard footsteps. She spun around, shocked at who she found behind her.
Russell?
He wore a starched dress shirt and a pair of slacks, looking cool and put-together as always. As he stared at Luke, though, his expression was considerably more rumpled, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of what he was seeing.
“Russell!” Shannon said as cheerfully as she could, even as she looked nervously back and forth between him and Luke. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”
He mumbled a hello, but he still wasn’t looking at Shannon. As for Luke, he didn’t appear to notice he had more company. She could probably scream fire and he’d wait until he’d finished that set of sit-ups before he walked out of the barn.
“What brings you here?” Shannon asked Russell.
“You asked me to come.”
“What?”
“The sponsorship,” he said, talking to Shannon even though his attention was still on Luke. “You told me you have a sign you want me to see.”
“Oh, yeah,” Shannon said, a little surprised. “The sign.” Now he decides to come see it?
Luke sat up for the last time, moving his braced knee carefully to straddle the bench. The attention he’d been focusing on his workout he suddenly turned full-force on Russell. Shannon had the sense that if Luke wanted to, he could blow him over backward with a single glance.
“Russell, this is Luke Dawson,” she said. “Luke, this is my…friend, Russell Morgensen. He’s the new dentist in town.”
They nodded a greeting, and then Luke grabbed a towel and swiped it across his forehead. Russell frowned, as if something about the situation really pissed him off.
“Luke Dawson,” he said. “Heard you grew up in Rainbow Valley.”
“That’s right,” Luke said.
“When we were at Shannon’s parents’ house last night, your name came up.”
Uh-oh. “Russell,” Shannon said. “The sign is right back here in the—”
“I hear you got yourself into a little trouble now and then,” Russell said. “Let’s see…how did Eve put it? That people used to think you were the devil himself?”
Shannon cringed. Did he have to bring that up?
But Luke just wiped the back of his neck with the towel, as if it didn’t bother him in the least. “No, I believe my father held that title. I was the son of the devil himself.”
“Russell,” Shannon said. “The sign?”
“Don’t worry,” Russell went on. “Shannon took up for you. She told them you weren’t nearly as awful as they said.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “That’s what I like about her. She’s always looking out for the underdog.”
Not funny, Shannon thought, but Luke seemed unaffected by any of it.
“Real nice meeting you, Russell,” Luke said. “But I have to get back to it.”
He took another long drink from the bottle and snapped the cap shut. He set it on the bench, then went to the doorway of one of the horse stalls. With a little hop, he grabbed an overhead two-by-four and started doing pull-ups, his biceps and shoulder muscles straining with the effort. Russell’s gaze followed every move, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“Shall we take a look at the sign?” Shannon asked him.
Russell snapped out of his trance. “Forget the sign. I’ll sponsor the…what was it again?”
“The petting zoo.”
“Right. The petting zoo. After all,” he said, a little too loudly, “what’s a thousand dollars for a good cause?”
When Luke continued with his pull-ups as if he hadn’t even heard, Russell told Shannon he had patients to see and left the barn.
Shannon started after him, calling over her shoulder to Luke. “We have some new procedures for taking care of the animals since you were here last. Come to the office when you’re finished and I’ll fill you in.”
Without even waiting for his response, she left the barn and caught up to Russell as he strode toward his car. “That’s great about the sponsorship. It’ll give your business a lot of visibility, and—”
“I know. It’s a tax deduction. And it’s a nice thing to do for the animals. And the
townspeople will thank me.” He hiked his thumb back over his shoulder. “What’s with the Rocky routine?”
“He’s competing in the World Championship bull riding competition in November. He has to stay in shape.”
Russell frowned. “Does he intend to do that every day?”
“What? Work out?” She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. He says he never misses a day.”
Russell’s frown grew deeper still. They reached his car, and he turned to face Shannon. “What are you doing next Friday?”
“Uh…”
“Come with me to the club. My membership will be approved by then. They’re having a wine tasting event.”
Shannon felt an automatic twinge of aversion. The club? Ugh. But after he’d offered to buy a thousand-dollar sponsorship for the shelter, and because they were more or less dating, turning him down would seem a little ungrateful. He’d done something nice for her, and she really did intend to keep going out with him. So why wouldn’t she accept?
“Uh…yeah. Sure. That sounds like fun.”
“It’s a date, then.”
She forced a smile. “It’s a date.”
After Russell drove away, Shannon went back to the office and headed to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. While it brewed, she sat down with her phone. She pulled up Google and put in the search terms “Luke Dawson” plus rodeo.
She couldn’t believe what came up.
Stories about his rides. His stats. His injuries. Interviews with sports magazines. She hit “Images” and saw photos of him accepting awards at rodeos across the country. Then there were dozens of photos of him riding bulls that looked mean enough to stomp a man to dust. There were even a few YouTube videos. She played one that showed Luke going the full eight seconds on a particularly evil bull, only to get hung up in the rigging as he bailed off. The bull continued to buck, dragging him over half the arena. The rodeo clowns finally got him loose and he walked away without injury, but it didn’t make it any less heart stopping.
And then there were the blogs, one by a woman who called herself Queen of the Buckle Bunnies. In the next few minutes, Shannon learned it was a term for women who dressed in a sexually provocative way and chased after rodeo cowboys. Luke was number two on Buckle Bunny’s list of top ten hot cowboys. Number one was a cowboy named Carter Hanson.
