Luke's Ride

by Helen DePrima

  Luke concentrated on steadying his hand before he reached for the coffee. He took a long swallow and a bite of his fritter before speaking. “I used to feel like this back in the locker room after a bull nearly nailed me. You’re a superman while the adrenaline’s flowing, but afterward—”

  “Like standing up when you’re supposed to be paralyzed.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, like that. But I have been standing. Okay, with help, but it’s coming back.”

  “Does Katie know that?”

  “I asked her to meet me at PT a few days ago. I sneaked behind her in the lobby. She dang near fainted. I’ve been using these computerized braces that help me walk and sit, climb stairs—just about everything. And the more I walk with them, the more it feels like I can do it on my own. Like today.”

  He took another bite, drank and then looked Marge in the eye. “Did you know Katie’s husband is rich?”

  “I thought he might be, from a couple things she’s let slip.”

  His chin dropped. “A rich man who has country club friends and can set her up with a nice café to run.”

  “I was hoping you didn’t pick up on that.”

  “He’s right. Even with me on my feet again, she’d be working her butt off on the ranch or here. Maybe she’ll get tired of it and wish she’d gone back with him.”

  Marge slapped her hands on the table. “How can you be so unfair to Katie? You think that little of her, that she’d run out on you over hard work? She’s seen at least a little of what ranch life is like, and she’s worked here like a stevedore without a word of complaint.”

  He shrugged, refusing to be reassured. “Maybe it’s like a wilderness trip, roughing it so you can go home with survival stories to tell at cocktail parties.”

  Marge rolled her eyes skyward. “You want to blow the best chance you’ll ever get? Now, at your age? Don’t be stupid.”

  The door opened, and Roger entered. “Your lady friend’s outside waiting, you lucky so-and-so. If I was twenty years younger...”

  Luke got one more stern look from Marge before he wheeled himself out to climb into Katie’s waiting vehicle.

  Katie leaned over and kissed him, making him feel like a bigger idiot. Or a monster for luring her away from a life of security and luxury.

  “I’m so happy Marge decided to close tomorrow,” she said. “I didn’t mind the extra last-minute baking, but I did feel a little like the one kid in the class not invited to a birthday party. Because I had to work tomorrow, I mean. Is it a surprise party?”

  “It’s supposed to be,” he said, trying to stifle his qualms, “but Auntie Rose will probably hear about it in advance through the moccasin telegraph.”

  He looked out the side window as she drove, weighing what he had just learned about Katie against Marge’s scolding. Marge was right. He should keep his mouth shut and take his good fortune on faith.

  “I have a hard time picturing you at a country club,” he said and could have torn his tongue out.

  “Me, too,” Katie said. “I hated tennis. Golf was a little better—I could pretend I was just taking a nice walk in the country. But the luncheons afterward made me want to scream—all the talk about this cruise or that island vacation. And whose husband is screwing around with whose wife.” She sighed. “I guess I should have paid more attention to that part.”

  Yep, stinking rich. “Sounds pretty lame. What do you like to do?”

  “Well, cook,” she said. “I read a lot. I like to hike—our house is next to a big conservation preserve, so I could get into the woods in about two minutes flat. I hiked in all kinds of weather because I didn’t enjoy the house. Too big, too fancy, not my taste at all. I like my apartment much better. I’d love to buy a house like Marge’s and restore it.”

  Good news and bad—he didn’t know which way to jump.

  “I’ve never been much for hiking. Nothing against it,” he added in haste, “but I get my nature fix on horseback. I’d be willing to try it. There’s a gal right now hiking the Appalachian Trail using the same kind of braces as mine.”

  “I’m still over the moon that you stood today,” she said. “Does that mean the nerve connections are back?”

  “More like jump-starting a dead engine—a onetime jolt of energy. But yeah, seems like every day I can do a little more.”

  Luke’s mind was still a muddled mess by the time they arrived at the ranch. He was glad to let Shelby and Lucy snatch Katie away for a recap of the action Tom and his dad had already described.

  “I so wish I could have seen the whole thing,” Lucy said. “What a great dramatic scene! Luke really stood up? On his own?”

  Luke sneaked to his room and closed the door. He needed time alone to think. He’d been so wrapped up in relearning to walk, he hadn’t given Katie’s welfare a thought, selfish bastard that he was.

  He stretched out on the bed, weary to his soul. He had worked like a demon in rehab, accomplishing everything the therapists asked and more. Since meeting Katie, he’d tried even harder, as if climbing toward a reward on a mountaintop. Instead he found himself on the edge of a cliff with the ground crumbling under his feet.

  He’d been injured before but had always battled back, which was maybe why he hadn’t fallen prey this time to the despair stalking close on his heels. Only now, with his recovery nearly assured, had the black cloud caught up with him. What good was a healthy body if he couldn’t have the woman he’d waited for all his life?

  Good thing he hadn’t yet asked her to marry him—how soon would she tire of the hard work and rugged lifestyle compared to the luxury and ease she’d left behind? And having her stay only from a sense of duty would be worse, the ultimate humiliation.

  A soft knock sounded on his door, and he heard Shelby’s voice asking if she could come in. He propped himself up on his elbows and then fell back.

  “Yeah, why not?”

  Shelby stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “I saw you slip away. Are you all right?”

  “Sure, couldn’t be better.”

  She didn’t speak for a bit and then said, “That’s good. Can I do anything for you?”

  He knew what she was asking, giving him a chance to open up, to throw himself on her counsel again, but he needed to put on his big-boy boots. To stand on his own, emotionally as well as physically. Katie had called her husband a pathetic child. He was no better.

  “Yeah, there is,” he said. “I’ll go check the horses after supper. Could you make sure no one follows me?”

  “Anyone?”

  “Like Dad or Lucy, I mean.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Many a time horses have been my only comfort—they set my mind straight.” She looked at her watch. “Supper’s in half an hour.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  KATIE SAW LUKE’S door close. Was he okay? He’d been a little quiet on the ride home, not exactly frowning, but with lines of tension bracketing his mouth and furrowing his forehead. Had he injured his back in his superhuman effort to stand, to come to her aid?

  She decided to check on him after she finished snapping the green beans for tonight’s supper, but she relaxed when she saw Shelby knock and then step into his room.

  Supper was an assortment of leftovers cleaned out of the fridge to make room for the party food. Luke seemed fine when he emerged from his room, but she caught him watching her during the meal, his gaze cutting away when it met hers.

  “Thanks,” he said when Lucy offered him a helping of bread pudding for dessert, “but I’ll have mine after I check the horses.”

  Katie watched him wheel himself to the barn and disappear into the shadows. Should she follow, or did he want to be alone? She’d always tried to find the right balance between listening to Brad’s problems with weather and workers and machinery while trying not
to pressure him. Obviously she hadn’t gotten it right. Maybe she’d do no better with Luke, but she had to try. At least he would know she cared.

  Shelby had Lucy helping her to frost dozens of cupcakes, each to be decorated with a pink rosebud. Katie knew she should pitch in; instead she slipped out the back door and hurried to the barn before anyone could ask where she was going.

  The interior lay mostly in darkness, but she could see Luke’s silhouette against the sunset at the side door. Dude stood beside his master’s wheelchair, his head lowered to enjoy Luke’s caresses. The horse lifted his head with a soft snort at Katie’s approach.

  Luke turned his head. “Hey, girl. I hoped you’d join me.” He motioned toward a tack trunk in the passageway. “Have a seat and enjoy the afterglow.”

  They sat without speaking while the sky faded from pink to rose and then to lavender. The first stars appeared. Katie couldn’t read his expression in the gathering gloom, but she could see his hands clenched in his lap and his shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow.

  At last she reached toward him and laid her hand over his. “How can I help?”

  “I don’t know that you can. I’ve got to figure this out for myself.”

  Feeling her way as if walking blindfolded, she said, “Marge mentioned you’ve been married before.”

  He gave a snort of laughter. “Just barely—it didn’t last but two weeks. When I landed in the hospital with a broken neck and ruptured spleen five years ago, Cherie caught the next bus to Kansas City. Her dad got busted up riding broncs—she couldn’t handle the idea of getting stuck with a disabled husband.” He shrugged. “At least we didn’t do each other any harm.”

  He looked at their joined hands. “I wouldn’t get off that easy the next time.”

  Katie was torn between longing to comfort him and wanting to slap some sense into him. Keeping her voice soft, she said, “Trying again isn’t easy for anyone. It takes courage to stick your head up over the barricade.”

  “I don’t know if I have the guts for it. Maybe I never did.”

  “Luke,” she said, “is bullfighting dangerous?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Besides my neck broken twice, I’ve had both shoulders rebuilt, torn ligaments in both knees. Plus little stuff like concussions, broken ribs.” He snorted. “More stitches than I can count. And now it’s put me in a wheelchair. Yeah, it’s dangerous.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “Truth?”

  “And nothing but the truth.”

  “It felt good. No, it felt over-the-top fabulous. Okay, I took pride in protecting the riders, but I wouldn’t have kept at it so long if I wasn’t having fun. I’d go back to it if I could.”

  “So it was worth the risk.”

  He was silent; she could almost hear the wheels turning.

  “I wouldn’t worry if you were a ranch girl,” he said at last, “but I’m scared you don’t know what you’re getting into. I grew up working dawn till nightfall—that’s what ranching is like. We’ve been beat up and knocked down—rebuilding is worse than starting from scratch because of new debt. You’re not used to living like that. It could get old real fast.”

  She leaned against the wall, cocking her boot heels in the dirt. “You’ve got the wrong idea about me. We lived with my grandparents because of Mom’s health and my dad being on partial disability. I held jobs after school and summers from fourteen straight through college. I worked in Brad’s company office until he went upscale and kicked me out of the office. He said I should concentrate on establishing social contacts and I hated it. I didn’t know how miserable I was till I started at the Queen.”

  She reached forward to pat his knee. “Maybe I don’t know about blizzards and losing cattle, but hard work doesn’t scare me. I languish without it.”

  She stood and bent to kiss him, a soft loving kiss without the heat of passion. “I’m going to the house to help ice Auntie Rose’s cupcakes.”

  “You go ahead,” he said. He grabbed her hand and kissed her palm, molding her hand around his cheek. “I think I’ll sit out here with Dude a little longer.”

  Jo had arrived to help while Katie had been talking with Luke. She handed Katie a cupcake with white frosting and something pink and green on top. The shape could have been a snail or a seashell or a piglet eating lettuce. “Do you think Auntie Rose will know it’s a rosebud?”

  “How many have you done?” Katie asked.

  “Four,” Lucy said. “Ninety-six to go.”

  “Stop the production line.” She went to her vehicle and returned with a box. “Lucky I haven’t finished unloading my car.” She opened the box, revealing a set of cake-decorating tools. “I took a course thinking I might start a specialty cake business.” She fitted a tip on one of the tools and reached for the bowl of green frosting. “And we’re up and running.”

  She had leaves on nearly half the cupcakes by the time Luke returned to the kitchen.

  “Make yourself useful,” she said and set a tray on his lap. “Carry those to the far end of the counter so the leaves can set before I start on the rosebuds.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and did as he was told.

  She smiled at him with love and trust before turning back to her task. In another hour all the cupcakes were done.

  Shelby awarded two of the first four to Luke for his help and gave the other two to Katie. “Take these to Jake,” she said. “He’s tending the barbecue pit out back.”

  “I’ll take them,” Lucy said.

  “No, let Katie go.” Shelby gave Lucy and Jo each a tray. “These should go down to the cellar where it’s cool.”

  Katie made her way through the spring darkness toward the glow of coals in an open pit. A side of beef turned slowly on a spit while Jake used a cotton mop to slather an aromatic sauce on the meat.

  “Shelby sent out a treat for you,” she said, handing him one of the cupcakes.

  Jake examined it by the light of the fire. “What’s that on top, a pig?”

  “That was my guess, too,” Katie said. “The rest have rosebuds—I had my cake-decorating kit in my car.”

  Jake bit into the cake and sighed with pleasure. “My sweetheart sure makes a mean red velvet cake. Go ahead, eat—I don’t want but one.”

  Katie tasted the second cupcake. “Is there anything Shelby can’t do?”

  “She sure makes my world go round. I’d pretty much given up on life after Annie died—crawled headfirst into a bottle of Beam to get away from all the sadness. The boys had their careers and Marge took Lucy under her wing. Me, seemed like I had nothing and nobody till Shelby happened along.”

  “I know she feels the same way about you, especially since your heart attack.”

  He laughed. “That woman is likely to drive me back to drink with her coddling, but I love it.” He pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you tell her that.”

  She mimed zipping her lips shut. “It took a lot of courage to risk loving someone again.”

  “Are we talking about me and Shelby or you and Luke?”

  She tried to laugh but didn’t quite pull it off. “Wow, are all Westerners this direct?”

  “I’d say mostly yes. We deal with some pretty big stuff out here, life and death that’s not on TV or stuck away in hospitals. We don’t waste time—we just get on with living. So what about you and Luke?”

  She finished eating her cupcake and licked frosting off her fingers before answering. “Before today, I’d have said we were on the same course, until my husband—”

  “Soon-to-be ex.” Jake chuckled. “Luke’s always had a mouth on him. But go on.”

  “Something’s changed—I don’t know what.”

  “Times when he was growing up I wanted to drown him in the rain barrel, but you can count on him to his last b
reath. He’ll stew over whatever’s bothering him till he sorts it out and then do the right thing. Just have faith in him.”

  On impulse, Katie leaned over and kissed Jake’s cheek.

  He laughed. “There you go, sugar—done like a real ranch gal.”

  “Can’t trust you out of my sight for a minute.” Luke’s voice came out of the darkness. “Getting cute with my old man.”

  “Old man yourself,” Jake said. He handed Luke the mop and bucket with the sauce. “Tend to this cow while I take a break inside.”

  Luke slopped sauce on the beef as it turned and then set the bucket on the ground. He rolled his chair out of the firelight and held out his hand. “Come here, darlin’.”

  Katie went without hesitation and let him pull her into his lap. They sat in silence with his arms around her waist and her face tucked into the hollow of his neck. She breathed in the mingled scents of smoke from the fire, the cotton of his shirt and Luke’s own clean musky tang. She wished she could sit like this all night, but after a peaceful interval she raised her head.

  “I’ve been here almost a month,” she said, “in your town and your home with your friends and family. I’ve learned a lot about you, but you know almost nothing about me. Doesn’t that scare you?”

  “I know more than I did yesterday. I know your husband’s rich and he wants you back.”

  “Too bad—I don’t want him or his fancy lifestyle, never mind his screwing around.”

  “I’m still worried you’ll get tired of the hard work. Maybe the country club would start looking good to you again.”

  “And maybe you’ll get itchy to start chasing girls around bull-riding events again. So I shouldn’t take a chance on you?”

  He didn’t answer. At last she took his face between her hands. “We both know life doesn’t come with any warranty—you buy it as is. I’m not too scared to try. Are you?”

  “I’m scared, all right, but I want you anyway,” he said.

  She stuck out her hand. “Deal,” she said and they shook as if sealing a solemn pact. She snuggled into his arms. “Does someone have to stay up all night with the barbecue?”