The Bull Rider's Homecoming

by Allie Pleiter

  Luke fished the letter from the basket and spread it on the table. “You’re going to hear from me, Eddie. I don’t know what yet, or how, and I get that you’re just a kid, but you’re a mean kid who just picked on the wrong guy.”

  Gran. Nolan could wait, even Rachel could wait, but Gran needed to hear the news. Luke made for the guesthouse door to cross the yard over to the big house, but stopped at the sight of the Bible Gran had left for him on the table by the door.

  She’d left it two weeks ago, and he’d not touched it. He and God weren’t exactly chummy before the accident, and he hadn’t been in any mood to warm up the relationship since. Still, it wasn’t hard to predict what Gran’s response to this leap forward in his healing would be: she’d call it an answer to prayer.

  Was it?

  It was easy to dismiss the Almighty’s hand in his recovery when he wasn’t recovering. While he hadn’t turned his anger toward blaming the Lord—God owed him no favors, he’d not merited any blessings, that’s for sure—he sure hadn’t seen any signs of mercy or grace in his injury. Yet Gran, Ruby, and even persistent Pastor Theo went on about how trials like this bring folks closer to their Maker.

  He’d come as close to his Maker—meeting Him, that is—as he wanted to get when JetPack decided to lob him into that metal railing. After all, it was one of “God’s creatures” who’d catapulted him to his demise, not the recklessness everyone always warned would be his undoing.

  What had healed him? Who had healed him? Ruby? Prayers? Gran? Time? God? His own stubborn resolve? Luke craved a concrete answer, but came up empty. He might never know the answer to that question, which left the uneasy possibility that either prayers or God had played a part. It felt like walking across the lawn would just open the door for Gran to go all “grace of God” on him, and he preferred to pin this victory on his own shoulders.

  She loves you. They all do—or at least that’s what they keep saying. Go give them the good news and let them think whatever they want. Who cares how or why those nerves are working again? It happened, and that’s all that matters.

  With a resolute yank, Luke pulled the guesthouse door open. Delighted to leave the cane on its hook by the door, he put on his hat and set to strolling in painful splendor across the Blue Thorn Ranch lawn.

  He made it halfway before his leg buckled and he went down like a rock.

  A furious, cheated, numb-legged rock.

  Chapter Ten

  Luke was so excited.

  He was too excited. She was thrilled he’d recovered some sensation—it really was good news—but she could hear the absolute victory in his voice, as if all the work was over. That kind of thinking with this kind of injury was dangerous.

  He deserved a victory. He deserved progress. And she’d been praying that something positive would show up to undo all the damage of Eddie Parker’s letter. She was glad for this, glad for him.

  But she also knew Luke. Give the man an inch and he took not just one mile, but three, and refused to accept the possibility of setbacks. Recovery didn’t work like that. She’d tried to make him understand that his progress would often be one step forward, two steps back, three steps forward, but he didn’t really listen.

  Make it stick, Lord. Give him this, will You? I know You’re using this to get through to him, but he could just as easily push You away. Despite all her prayers, and all the people she knew were praying and waiting for good news from Luke, she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that iced down her spine as she hit the intercom for the Blue Thorn Ranch gate.

  Granny B, answered, not Luke. “I thought Luke said you were coming this afternoon.”

  Why wasn’t Luke over at the big house whooping it up with the family about his good news? The ice in her spine spread around to her ribs.

  “Oh, mercy, did he fall and call you? He’s sitting on the guesthouse steps. He doesn’t look good. What happened?”

  There wasn’t an easy way to explain it. “I don’t know yet. Is he upright?”

  “He’s sitting, holding his leg I think, with a look so dark I’m glad I’m all the way over here. Should I go see if he’s okay?”

  “No, I think I know what’s going on. Leave him be, but pray. I think he just found out he’s not in control of his own healing, and I doubt that’s going down easy.”

  “I’ll say.” Granny B tsked. “God sure is doing some hard work in him right now. Breaks my heart to watch. Best you get on up here and see what you can do.” With that, the intercom clicked off and the mechanical gate whirred open.

  Ruby’s stomach tightened as she wound her car up the long drive. She’d known this moment was coming. At some point Luke would have to face the truth that he couldn’t simply grit his way back to bull riding. He’d have to face the terrifying prospect he might not get back at all. I trust Your timing, Lord, but this feels all too soon. Help me know what to do.

  Luke looked like he might dissolve. The set of his shoulders pressed down with an all-too-foreign air of helplessness, his face not pulled tight in anger, but sagging in frustration. It was the attitude she’d seen the day of Eddie’s letter, only ten times as strong. Her heart ached for him, for what he was enduring. Whether or not it was a necessary step in healing, Granny B was right: it was gut-wrenching to watch.

  She got out of the car slowly, glad she’d dismissed her impulse to stop by Lolly’s and get two slices of celebratory apple pie—Luke’s favorite flavor. Today wasn’t anything to celebrate—at least not anymore.

  He did not look up at her. In fact, he seemed so folded in on himself she couldn’t rightly say he even knew she had arrived. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Granny B move away from the kitchen window.

  Poor Luke—he went all the way to the heights, but that gave him such a long way to fall. A man who does everything at 110 percent is as lethal as he is mesmerizing. The air around him bristled with the frustration of a man defying surrender to forces he could not control. His breath came in tight pushes, his fingers fisted and then spread, his jaw worked.

  She sat down a small distance away on his good side. Sometimes you can’t speak peace, you can only bear witness to pain. Those were Mama’s words as together they watched Daddy die, surrendering to the damaged liver bent on taking Daddy’s whole body down with it. They were doing it now with Grandpa, even though his demise was more slow and so much more peaceful. I spend so much time bearing witness to pain, Lord. Right now it feels more like a curse than a gift.

  Finally, as his breathing eased up and the fingers stilled against his thigh, Ruby felt safe to speak. “It happens this way,” she said softly. “It’s still progress.”

  She wasn’t surprised when he balked. “Not to me.”

  She was tempted to ask “Does it hurt now?” But she didn’t really need to know the answer. He was in terrible pain—did it matter whether it was physical pain in his leg or the kind so much harder to heal? She simply said, “It is to me.”

  They sat in silence for a while longer. “I was so sure.” Disappointment sagged his words into something closer to a moan. She held out her hand, as he had done on the tailgate, and he slid his hand into hers. There was no life, no energy in his fingers. She squeezed them anyway, feeling her lashes dampen with the heartbreak of his struggle. Luke at battle was a challenge, but Luke defeated hollowed out the part of her heart that would always belong to him.

  “We just don’t know how these things work,” she offered, squeezing his hand again and still finding it lifeless. “Nerves don’t always go online all at once—sometimes it’s like a light bulb flickering on and off. Sometimes it goes in circles. That’s why I say it takes such courage.” She sighed. “If I could draw you a straight line to what you want, I would. But I can’t, Luke. And neither can you.”

  “It felt so good to feel it, you know? It was like there was a rocket going off
in my leg.” Emotion thickened his voice. “After so long of...nothing.”

  “It is good news, even if it feels like torture right now.”

  The dramatic word turned his face toward her, and Ruby nearly gasped at the empty look in his eyes. “It’s torture to have it dangled in front of me like that. I thought the pain meant it could work now. But...” He took his left hand and pounded the leg once or twice before she reached over him and stilled the punches.

  It brought her close to him, and she gave in to the impulse to pull him into her arms. It was odd, that moment, for in all their time together he had always been the one to pull her in. She’d never been the kind of girl to flirt; he’d always pursued her. His strong arms would find her at school or around town or across the kitchen table, and she’d let herself be swept in. It was so gloriously, youthfully romantic.

  This embrace was the opposite of that. It was, as Mama said, a “bearing witness,” a bearing up. Older, harder, and then again, somehow softer. At this moment, it was she who was the stronger one, she who pursued as she tried to haul him out of the dark hole his reckless optimism had thrown him into. Ruby the therapist could recount the dozens of times she’d warned him how fickle nerves could be, how inconsistent his recovery would progress, but none of that mattered to the heart breaking next to hers. What he needed now was Ruby the friend.

  * * *

  Rachel Hartman eyed Luke above her notepad Monday afternoon. “Tell me, what is it about you cowboys that lets you do what you do?”

  Luke rested his bad leg on the fence and scratched his chin. He’d been asked some version of this question by every version of a reporter from disbelieving eggheads to flirtatious correspondents. As such, he’d developed a standard reply—always accompanied by his most charming grin. “Well now, I do lots of fascinating things. Can you be a bit more specific?”

  As media tactics go, it had it uses. The answer usually told Luke what it was the reporter was looking for. Some wanted personal heart-tugging stories. Others wanted to take the sport down a peg or two as just a heap of rowdy recklessness. Others—mostly the pretty ones—were just hinting to take the story off the page into something more interpersonal.

  Rachel Hartman was smart, good-looking, but a city slicker of a gal who either dropped her Southern drawl or never had one. He was curious to find out just what she was looking for. “Get up on something bent on killing you,” she clarified.

  “You could say that about several sports. I had a buddy who moved up north to join the snowboarding circuit, and I’d say he gets up on something fixing to do him in every time he competes.”

  Rachel narrowed one eye. “A mountain is not actively trying to harm a skier.”

  Luke adjusted his hat. “Tell that to the surgeon who had to put Jake’s leg back together with a handful of metal plates.”

  She wrote something down on her pad. “And what’s holding your leg together?”

  It was a tricky question, especially after Friday. He hadn’t quite yet figured out a satisfactory answer. “The bones are fine. I got a nerve or two stomped on that’s taking a bit of work to get up and running, that’s all.”

  “So you’ve lost sensation in your left leg?” The way she said “lost” sounded far too final.

  “It’s not paralyzed, if that’s what you’re implying. As you can see, I walk just fine. Lots of times it doesn’t hurt at all, other times it feels like someone set it on fire.” That was putting a coat of shine on the infuriating combination of pain and numbness, but it was a good line for the press. “So while dancing might be a bit of a reach at the moment, I can always experiment for the sake of journalistic integrity.” He’d gotten away with so many innuendoes and crazy suggestions by tacking the phrase “for journalistic integrity” onto the end that Nolan had begun to call it “The Luke Buckton ‘bless your heart.’”

  “Do you feel ready to ride?”

  That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? After all, it was why she was here. “I’ll get there,” he said, making a show of testing his leg.

  “Have you ridden yet?”

  A horse, yes. Gunner had let him ride around the ranch with him Sunday afternoon, and that felt like a gift of normalcy even if his brother watched closely to make sure he could stay in the saddle. But a bull? That wasn’t something he was going to test until he was sure he’d succeed. Could he get to the point where even a questionable leg could hold him for the eight seconds he needed? He had to. An exhibition ride now would set him up to hit the ground with a full plate of sponsors next year. Just one more good season. That’s all I really need.

  Luke evaded her query. “If you ask me, the question is have you ridden yet? Let’s saddle you up and I’ll show you some more of the family ranch.” He made sure there was just enough challenge to his gaze before adding, “You can ride, can’t you? They didn’t just hire some pretty spectator from New York or anything did they?”

  She looked as if she’d heard that one before. “Colorado. No drawl, but plenty of horses. And yes, I’d love to see the ranch. Plus, Paul here can get some great shots.” She’d brought a photographer with her this time.

  Luke led her to the horse barn where he had asked the ranch foreman, Billy Flatrock, to saddle up a pair of horses before Gunner could weigh in to the contrary. “Caramel’s an easy mount.” He doubled his drawl. “You won’t even scuff up your boots none.”

  She tucked her notebook in the large leather bag she carried. “I can handle myself on a horse, Mr. Buckton.”

  “Luke,” he corrected. Sure, he was pouring on the charm, but he was going to do anything he could to make sure this feature painted him in the best possible light. He needed Rachel Hartman on his side.

  Billy tipped his hat as he led Caramel to the wooden box that would allow Rachel to mount up easily. Under other circumstances, Luke would have helped her up himself. Hoisting a lady up onto a horse had been a favorite trick of his for getting close to a woman. These days, he was neither in any shape to trust her weight on his legs, nor was he as fond of tricks. Even his appetite for the dreamy, gushing female fan letters had waned.

  “While I love a wild ride as much as the next cowboy,” he called back as he stepped into the stirrup with his good leg and threw the weaker one over Dash, “it’s best we don’t gallop around the bison. Gunner likes to keep ’em calm.” The gallop bit was a half truth. Gunner did value peace and calm for his herd, but the “no gallop” rule was a convenience more for Luke’s leg than for bison bliss. “Paul, Billy can take you out in the truck.”

  He’d hoped this little field trip would direct the conversation to his family heritage rather than his physical state, but Rachel steered the conversation back to where she wanted it. “To what do you owe your remarkable recovery?”

  “Grace of God, good genes and excellent therapy.” He and Nolan had crafted the first two elements of his answer, the third Luke had added as his way of thanking Ruby for her tolerance and persistence. He wasn’t fool enough to ignore what a pain he was as a patient.

  “Why didn’t you head off to some sophisticated city rehab center?” Rachel asked.

  “I love an audience, but not for this. Who doesn’t like to head home when you’ve got a challenge ahead of you?” Another line Nolan had written. He gestured out over the pastures. “Beautiful, don’t you think?”

  “Gorgeous. No bulls?”

  “Just the bison kind. Even I’m not fool enough to try riding one of those.”

  “Have you been back on a bull yet?”

  “While I’m not fond of JetPak, I respect him. I want to do this right, and that means not riding him until everyone thinks I’m ready.”

  “You’ll have to pick a date soon. What if your ride is scheduled and you’re not ready?”

  He flashed his best smile at Rachel. “Why discuss what won’t ever happen?”
/>
  Chapter Eleven

  “Is that how you keep up on patients now?” Lana stood over Ruby as she sat at the window table waiting for their weekly lunch at Lolly’s. Ruby went to stuff the phone back in her handbag, embarrassed that she’d used the time waiting for Lana’s return from the ladies’ room to pull up Luke’s social media page. She’d found three photos of him and an update that he was hosting Pro Bull Rider Magazine’s Rachel Hartman for a ride around the ranch. The photos were beautiful. Stunning scenery and two photogenic personalities. The sight set off a wiggle of uncertainty in her stomach.

  “No, don’t put it away,” Lana said. “Let me see.”

  “Well,” said Lana as Ruby turned her phone to show her mentor. “So that’s the reporter who’s covering your treatment of Luke? She’s a looker all right. No wonder she’s in television.”

  “She writes for a magazine,” Ruby corrected, taking the phone back and shoving it to the bottom of her handbag. “And she’s nice.” And beautifully dressed, well spoken and sophisticated. The photos had unleashed an unexpected curl of envy in Ruby’s stomach. That was why he’d left her behind.

  Lana sat down opposite Ruby at the table. “Awfully flashy for Martins Gap.”

  Ruby could already see where Lana was headed with this. “His life isn’t here anymore. I’m not sure it ever was—he was always chomping at the bit to get out. The Blue Thorn isn’t home, it’s just a detour brought about by his injury. I mean, he’s still staying in the ranch guesthouse even though he can climb stairs now—says it all, doesn’t it?”

  “So, once he’s healed, he’s gone.” Lana leaned in. “You’ve told me your personal history with him. Have you been able to keep it professional?”

  “Of course I have. You know, I’ve dreaded his return all these years, and now I’m over that. I won’t say I wasn’t anxious about treating him as a patient, but look at what I’ve been able to accomplish.” Ruby unrolled her silverware from the napkin and settled the red checkered square neatly in her lap.