Luke's Ride

by Helen DePrima

  She watched from the front window while he blasted a path down the driveway and then returned to gun his Mercedes out onto the unplowed street.

  She sighed and returned to the kitchen. She had scarcely filled her mug with coffee when she heard the garage door opening again. Brad stamped in, running his hand through his hair so that it stood in stiff spikes like an angry cat’s fur.

  “There’s a big pine down across the end of the street,” he said. “No telling when the town will get around to moving it.”

  “The downside of a secluded country setting,” she said, hoping to defuse his anger and frustration. Theirs was one of only six houses on a cul-de-sac bordering a conservation area. Although Kathryn wasn’t fond of the house, she loved the easy access to the woods and swamp just out their back door.

  “At least you’ll have time now for a decent breakfast,” she said. “Pancakes or waffles? And I still have some of that good bacon we got from Vermont.”

  He scowled but then took a deep breath. “Waffles, I guess.”

  “Waffles coming up.” She took his coat from him, pausing to pat his shoulder as she carried it to the closet. “Being marooned could be kind of fun.”

  The scowl returned, with interest. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I used to know, when I was working for you and your dad,” she said, stung by his curt reply. Since Brad’s father had retired and an architect had joined the firm, she didn’t feel welcome in the new glossy chrome-and-glass offices. “Now I’m not so sure.”

  He stared at her for a long moment before turning away.

  She prepared breakfast in silence. He caught her wrist as she set the plate before him. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. This snow has hit at the worst possible time. We’ll have to wait till the ground dries out before we can start excavating or the heavy equipment will bog down. We’ll be behind before the season even gets underway.”

  The spring construction start-up was always stressful, but a mini break like this would be welcome. Kathryn had been working hard to ready her mother’s house for its next occupants. She couldn’t bring herself to put it on the market. Instead she had offered it for the cost of upkeep to her cousin Greg Gabriel, newly out of the Marines—little enough to thank him for his service.

  She bent and kissed Brad’s cheek. “We’ve both been under a strain,” she said. “Enjoy your waffles while they’re hot. We’ll hope the snow lets up and they get the road cleared soon.”

  The snow persisted most of the day, and they heard no chain saws working on the downed tree. Brad paced laps around the kitchen island, barking instructions into his phone and muttering curses at the end of each call.

  Kathryn cooked Brad’s favorite dinner, pot roast from his mother’s recipe. She held him close in the night but lay awake sad and frustrated when she wasn’t able to penetrate his angry preoccupation.

  When the town plow finally ground its way up their street late the next day, she was glad to see Brad roar out of the driveway. Once he resolved all the construction crises, maybe she could talk him into a brief getaway, a few days on Cape Cod or at an inn on the Maine coast. She laughed at her fantasy—she wouldn’t be able to pry him loose until construction wound down in late fall.

  She saw little of Brad during the next week. He left the house early and returned late, usually eating dinner somewhere between job sites and falling into bed with only a few words to her.

  She filled her days with sorting through the contents of her mother’s house. The work might seem a sad occupation, but she rediscovered forgotten memories, taking comfort that her mother’s suffering was over.

  Kathryn’s last chore was rearranging the top floor of her grandparents’ Victorian to accommodate any furniture Greg and his wife Allie might want to store there to make room for their own possessions. The attic had always been a magical place for her. When she was very small, she had played with her dolls under the south-facing window while her mother hung bundles of herbs to dry under the rafters. On Kathryn’s sixth birthday, her mother had placed an old bridge lamp and a bookcase beside a shabby wing chair to create a private reading nook. From her aerie, Kathryn could look out into the top of the copper beech in the backyard. Now in early spring the budding branches framed a view of the old carriage house still holding her mother’s gardening tools and where her father had restored a succession of antique autos and refinished secondhand furniture.

  She began sorting through the trunks and boxes shoved under the eaves. In a camel-back trunk she found a white tin bread box decorated with red and yellow tulip decals. Inside were letters tied in bundles with the gardener’s twine from long-ago herb swags. Arranged in chronological order beginning nearly twenty years earlier, each bore the letterhead Cameron’s Pride, Hesperus, Colorado and were signed by Annie Cameron.

  Kathryn began reading the earliest one.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  Too bad we met under such sorry circumstances, but I’m glad you felt well enough to travel to the Grand Canyon. Like you, I’m always grateful when the Red Wolf lets me do something I’ve looked forward to. Thanks for letting me know what a great time you and your husband had the rest of your trip.

  She laid the letter down. Her parents had taken a driving trip to the Southwest her freshman year in college. Her mother’s lupus had flared up, landing her in the hospital in Albuquerque, but a simple adjustment in medication had solved the problem. She must have met Annie Cameron there. Her mother often spoke of her struggle with lupus erythematosus as “fighting off the Red Wolf.” Had she thought up the expression or adopted it from Annie?

  The afternoon sunlight was beginning to fade, so Kathryn switched on the old lamp and continued reading. Annie’s letters carried her into a foreign world of cattle and horses, mountains and desert, introducing her husband, Jake, their young daughter, Lucy, and their sons, Luke and Tom, both involved with the sport of bull riding. Annie hadn’t written much about her illness except in one of the last letters, telling Kathryn’s mother the disease had damaged her kidneys to the point she needed a transplant.

  My sons are mad at me because I won’t accept a kidney from either of them. I don’t know whose job is more dangerous, Tom riding bulls or Luke fighting them, but I can’t leave either of them with only one kidney in case they get injured. Luckily my Jake is a good match, so he draws the short straw—he would move heaven and earth to help me.

  The sun had almost set by the time Kathryn unfolded the last letter, dated more than ten years ago. Jake Cameron had written a brief note saying his wife had died from complications following the kidney transplant. Tears filled Kathryn’s eyes for Annie, for her own mother’s long decline and for the suffering both women had endured.

  Kathryn wondered if Annie’s family would like to have these letters, this wonderful chronicle of their lives, but she didn’t recall seeing the name Cameron in her mother’s address book. Then she remembered she had given her mother a new book five Christmases ago; inactive addresses wouldn’t have been transferred. Maybe she could call the post office in Hesperus, Colorado, for an exact mailing address or check online. She carried the letters downstairs, thinking to show them to Brad.

  The attic had been warm enough as heat rose from the lower floors, but the kitchen seemed unnaturally chilly. She turned up the thermostat and heard no answering hum from the cellar. Frowning, she peered down the stairs. She’d had the furnace serviced in the fall, but it was almost twenty years old. A quick inspection showed no flicker of flame from the boiler.

  She sighed and dialed the heating contractor’s number.

  “Not till tomorrow morning?” she said after describing the problem. “I guess that’s no big deal—the temperature won’t drop enough for the pipes to freeze.”

  Next she called Brad. “The furnace just quit,” she said. “Someone’s coming over first thing
in the morning. I don’t know how early that might be, so I guess I’ll sleep here. I’m sorry—I had a nice dinner planned.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Looks like we might have a thunderstorm, and I know you don’t like to drive in the rain. I’ll grab something to eat and put in a couple more hours at work. You sure you’ll be warm enough?”

  “I’ll be fine. I bought an electric heater for Mom’s room.” She’d always felt cold. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

  “I may be late,” he said. “The Springfield project has turned into a hairball. I’ll be there all day, maybe into the evening.”

  “Just don’t drive too tired,” she said. “I’ll have supper waiting.”

  She ended the call and took a can of chili from the pantry. While it heated, she finished the list she’d been compiling for her cousin—whom to call for plumbing and electrical problems, who delivered oil and repaired the furnace, how to jiggle the light switch beside the front door to turn on the porch light. Greg could call her with questions, of course, but she wanted to make his occupancy go as smoothly as possible.

  She finished her meal and was peering into the freezer in search of ice cream when a knock sounded at the back door. She switched on the porch light and recognized Frank Dutton, who had serviced the furnace ever since its installation.

  “I saw Gabriel on my work order for tomorrow,” he said. “I figured I’d stop on my way home and see if this might be an easy fix—I didn’t want to leave you ladies in the cold overnight.”

  “Bless you, Frank,” Kathryn said. “Although there’s just me here—Mom died a few weeks ago.”

  His face screwed up in distress. “Say, I didn’t hear about that. I’m sure sorry—she was a nice lady, always sent me off with a piece of her applesauce cake.”

  He hefted his tool bag. “Let’s take a look at that furnace. It’s got some years on it, but you’ve always kept it serviced—should be good for a while longer.”

  He clumped down the stairs, and soon Kathryn heard clanking and banging. A short time later the whoosh of the burner floated up the stairs. Frank emerged from the cellar wiping his hands on a square of red cloth.

  “Good as new,” he said. “It was just a clogged valve. You selling the house?”

  “Not any time soon,” Kathryn said. “My cousin just got out of the Marines, so he and his wife are moving in to take care of it. Maybe they’ll want to buy it sometime down the road.”

  “Good for you. I’m a Navy man myself, but the jarheads deserve all the perks they can get. Just tell him to ask for me if the furnace gives him any trouble.”

  The house was deathly quiet after Frank’s service van rolled down the driveway. Kathryn shivered. She wasn’t afraid to stay in the house alone, but announcing her mother’s death again had brought home its reality, the utter finality, as nothing had done before. She couldn’t bear to be alone tonight. She needed the warmth and comfort of her husband’s arms.

  Only eight o’clock—she could be home in less than an hour. She locked the back door and set the box containing Annie Cameron’s letters on the front seat of her Volvo. The air was heavy with the threat of rain, but the first drops held off until she pulled into her own driveway.

  A dim light shone through the front window from the kitchen and another from their bedroom—Brad was probably already upstairs, watching TV or getting ready for bed. If she didn’t open the garage door, she could slip in quietly and surprise him.

  She stepped out of her shoes in the entryway and padded barefoot into the kitchen. A soft rumble overhead told her the tub jets were running. Brad must be relaxing after a hard day, although he seldom used the big soaker tub without her.

  She decided to carry two glasses of wine upstairs and join him. She crossed to the wine keeper and picked up the cork already lying on the counter; he must have taken a bottle up with him. When she reached toward the overhead rack, she saw two glasses were missing. Puzzled, she looked around for the missing glass, and then her heart stopped before beginning again in slow painful rhythm. A woman’s jacket hung on a chair in the breakfast nook. A purse and scarf lay on the table.

  She set the cork down like an unexploded bomb precisely where she had found it and lifted the scarf. A whiff of her own cologne struck her like a slap in the face. The name on the cards she found in the purse came almost as an anticlimax: Britt Cavendish.

  Moving without conscious volition, she drifted to the stairs. She froze with a foot on the first step when she heard Brad’s laugh answered by a woman’s giggle. The grumble of the tub jets ceased.

  Kathryn fled through the kitchen as if pursued by demons; she would never be able to live with the sight awaiting her at the top of the stairs. Into her shoes, out through the rain to her car. She had enough presence of mind to put the gear into Neutral, letting the vehicle roll down to the street before starting the engine.

  The downpour lashed at the windshield all the way to her mother’s house while lightning streaked from heaven to earth. Some benevolent angel guided her safely—in her present state, she didn’t care if she lived or died.

  She sat in the driveway while raindrops ran down the car windows like endless weeping. Thunder boomed and lightning illuminated the black sky in strobe-like bursts while she sat dry-eyed, wounded too deep for tears.

  Brad had been her first and only lover—she had never considered settling for a cheap thrill outside marriage. She might have understood if he’d said he’d been lonely with her gone so much, that he’d fallen to temptation in a single lapse that would never be repeated. Instead his betrayal was deliberate, calculated and ongoing. As the ultimate insult, he had ordered her special perfume for another woman—maybe for many women—to divert suspicion.

  By the time the storm moved on, her course was set, her resolve hard as the rocky New England shoreline. She laid her hand on the box containing Annie Cameron’s letters, a testament to faithfulness and courage, before entering her mother’s house. That night she slept as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A HORSE’S NEIGH and the slam of a car door woke Luke before dawn. The bedside clock read five thirty, the usual beginning of a workday on the ranch. Great—now his dad would be on his case for goofing off when he should be halfway to the barn or at least sitting down to breakfast.

  He started to swing his legs out of bed before reality flooded back in a bitter wave. He flopped down and considered his options: hole up and feel sorry for himself or get dressed and try to make himself useful.

  He pulled on jeans and socks before propping himself up on the edge of the bed, waiting to make sure of his balance before reaching for a shirt. He had just transferred to his wheelchair when he heard a soft knock at his door.

  “You up, Luke?” Shelby asked. “Ready for some French toast?”

  “Five minutes,” he said and dragged on his boots before heading into the bathroom.

  He wheeled into place at the kitchen table and accepted the mug of strong New Orleans coffee Shelby poured for him.

  “Man, I’ve missed this,” he said. “Makes other coffee taste kind of sad.”

  “I told your dad to stop ordering that for me when the blizzard almost wiped us out,” she said, “but he bought it anyway.”

  “You deserve it, lady—you kept us all going through that trouble.”

  She waved his words aside. “You feel like working today?”

  “You need me to peel potatoes?”

  “Later, maybe. You know Cinnamon, that roan filly I started last fall? Something about her trot feels off to me. I’d like you to ride behind me and tell me what you see. You’ve got the best eye in the family.”

  Luke snorted. “I doubt I can keep up in my wheelchair.”

  “I don’t expect you to. You ready to meet your new legs?”

  He
plowed through his breakfast in record time and drained his coffee before donning his hat and denim jacket.

  “Lead on,” he said. “Time for me to get back in the saddle.”

  Out the back door he discovered a narrow blacktop walk now led to the barn. The dirt floor inside had been raked smooth and rolled flat; he could propel his chair almost as easily as on the paved surface. Later he might fret over the extra trouble everyone had taken for his benefit, but now his eagerness to be active overrode all other thoughts.

  Getting on a horse would go a long way toward making him feel like more than half a man.

  He followed Shelby to the side door opening to the horse pasture and halted beside her as she gave a piercing whistle. Several horses paused in their grazing, but one lifted its head and started toward the barn.

  “Whoa! That’s my ride?” A flashy Appaloosa gelding, dark chestnut with dramatic white markings on his rump, halted in front of Shelby and dropping his muzzle into her hand.

  “I knew you’d fix me up,” Luke said, “maybe with a nice old bombproof mare, but I didn’t expect anything like this.”

  “I got him from a rescue in Utah,” Shelby said. “His owner died and left them a chunk of money if they’d take special care placing his horse. He’s been used for hunting, so he’s not likely to blow up with you.”

  “This guy have a name?”

  “Luke, meet Duke. Duke, here’s your new person.”

  “Duke and Luke—that’s kind of much. How about Dude? He sure is one handsome dude.”

  The gelding dipped his head into Luke’s lap, inviting a scratch under his mane.

  “Give him this.” Shelby handed Luke a piece of hard candy. “He’s a sucker for butterscotch.”

  “Whatever you say, stepmama. Just tell me what to do.” Luke fed Dude the candy and was rewarded with a gentle nudge.