The Bull Rider's Homecoming

by Allie Pleiter

  “So” Lana said as she did the same, “no worries about anything wandering into personal territory? None at all?”

  “None.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Be honest with yourself. Let’s get this out in the open so we can deal with it. Do you feel anything for the man?”

  Ruby hesitated. She wanted to deny it, but it was harder to lie to Lana than to lie to herself. “Maybe.”

  “I’m not going to berate you for that, Ruby. You were serious with him once. You’re working closely, and in close quarters. That history doesn’t just disappear into thin air.”

  “He’s still the driven, reckless, rocket of a man who launched himself out of Martins Gap in a blaze of ‘I’m too big for this town,’ convinced all the while that I deserved to be left behind.” She fiddled with her silverware. “A walking danger zone, even if we are friends.”

  “Just friends...” Lana didn’t look convinced.

  Ruby let her hands fall into her lap. “I feel like...he’s changed.”

  “It’s been six years. Of course he’s changed. The question is how much?”

  “The smart part of me knows the answer is ‘not enough.’”

  Lana rested her chin in her hands. “Wouldn’t it be great if we always listened to the smart parts of ourselves? I’ll have your back if you decide you shouldn’t be treating him. Based on what you’ve told me, that man knows just how to get to you.”

  Ruby resented Lana’s questioning, but the truth was her partner was right to be concerned.

  “I understand the dangers, Lana, really I do.” Ruby leaned in. “But it goes both ways, which is the very thing that has helped me make such progress with Luke. I know it’s why he fixed it so I would be his therapist.”

  “You mean he manipulated it so you’d be his therapist. An average person would have just asked, you know.”

  No one could call Luke Buckton “average.”

  “I would have said no.”

  “And I’m saying maybe you should have said no.”

  “But I didn’t. I thought you always told me my best asset was that I’ll never give up or walk away when it gets hard.”

  “That’s true.”

  Ruby accepted her tuna melt when it arrived. “If I am able to get Luke to functionality, it would be a huge professional victory for us. Haven’t we always said we want to convince doctors their patients can have choices outside of Austin for first-class care as well as in the city? What makes that case better than Luke Buckton’s highly visible recovery? Luke’s already thrown a lot of credit my way, even with Rachel Hartman. Her magazine is a national publication.”

  “Which also means that if he fails, he fails in the national spotlight and we’ll be connected to that failure. We have to consider that.”

  Ruby had thought about it plenty, but not in the professional sense. “It’ll kill him. Plain and simple. I don’t think he’d ever recover from it, physically or emotionally.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to watch that happen?”

  She considered the question for a moment, then looked Lana straight in the eye. “Am I ready to stand by and do nothing when I could prevent it? Hold back my gifts and talents just because the stakes are too high?”

  “The stakes are high. Very high. As your mentor and partner, I just want to make sure you recognize that.” Then, in true straight-talking-Lana fashion, she asked, “After all, you said you had some unconventional therapy you wanted to do with him.”

  Ruby felt her face flush. “Nothing like that.” Then, with a laugh she added, “I think I’d slap him if he tried.”

  “I should hope so,” Lana replied. “Sounds like you’ve owed that man a slap for six years if you ask me.” Her face softened. “I’m just trying to look out for my friend, okay?”

  “You don’t have to worry about Luke Buckton,” Ruby said as the image of Luke flashing a million-watt smile Rachel Hartman’s way returned to mind. “Just when you think he might be a good guy, he’ll always find a way to remind you otherwise.”

  “No offense, but I’ll be spending my time praying for ‘otherwise.’”

  “Pray for him to recover. He deserves that much.” The image of Luke slamming his fist against his leg back on the guesthouse porch refused to leave her mind. No matter what he’d done to her, he deserved a recovery if God chose to grant him one. Everybody deserved to recover. That belief was at the very core of what she did. The thing with Luke was just that his recovery had to be on a grand scale for him to truly heal in his mind and heart.

  And she’d uncovered just the way to do that. “As for that unconventional therapy, let me tell you what I’ve got in mind for tomorrow’s session, and don’t say no until you hear me out the whole way.”

  * * *

  Friday morning, Luke got out of Ruby’s compact car to stand in, of all places, the Red Boots parking lot. “We should have taken my truck.”

  “It would have spoiled the surprise.” She was nervous, different than the level of confidence she usually displayed lately. Still, the slightly jittery Ruby tugged his heart’s memory back to the sweet, fade-into-the-woodwork girl he’d fallen for in high school.

  He’d dated dozens—maybe even hundreds—of women since high school. Fallen for a few of them, too. But he’d only ever really loved Ruby Sheldon.

  That was then. This was now. And right now, he didn’t know what Ruby was up to when she told him she had some sort of nontraditional therapy in mind. It was 9:30 a.m. and Red Boots didn’t serve breakfast, so “food” wasn’t the answer.

  “Let’s go inside,” Ruby said. She had a look in her eyes that set off a tiny alarm in his stomach. “The owner’s waiting.”

  The owner? Ruby Sheldon wasn’t the kind of person to be friends with the owner of a place like Red Boots. Luke had been here enough times to know what this place was like. Wild nights, loud music, and...

  It struck him like a two-by-four to his bad knee. He stopped and stared at Ruby. “You’re not.”

  She kept right on walking. “Of course not. You are.”

  He had to stand there for a moment, hands on his hips, taking in the massive revelation she’d just dished up to him. Girl, I didn’t think you had it in you.

  Red Boots had a mechanical bull.

  Suddenly, Luke wasn’t sure he had it in him. All that bravado, those claims, all that grit, and Ruby Sheldon just called his bluff. It sunk a new kind of rock in his stomach.

  Ruby was standing at the door, holding it open. “Well, get on in here and let’s see what you’re made of.” When he shot her a look, she rolled her eyes and said, “We’re going to go so slow you could probably take a nap up there if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Luke settled his hat. “I’m not worried about nothin’. It’s the Red Boots toy bull, after all. My baby nephew could ride it.” Big talk for a guy whose pulse had just doubled.

  Just as Luke reached the door, a grisly old cowboy came out, handing the keys to Ruby. “I’ll be back in an hour. Lock ’er up and leave the keys in the mailbox if you leave before then.” As he walked past Luke, the man offered a big old wink and said, “Ride ’em, cowboy.”

  “We were never here,” Ruby called.

  “Who? I don’t hear nobody,” the man called over his shoulder as he walked toward his truck at the far end of the parking lot.

  Ruby looked at Luke. “Much as I know you love an audience, I didn’t think you’d want one for this.”

  A gush of reassurance warred with the spike of wariness in his chest. No one ever knew him like Ruby did. Does. To be so known brought out more emotions than he could sort through at the moment.

  The Red Boots was a different place in empty daylight. Quiet, almost hollow. “Do you know how to work that thing?” he asked as they made their way to the ba
ck bar where Buster Boot had been a fixture for years.

  “I got lessons from Tyler yesterday afternoon. I even rode it.” It was the closest thing to cocky he’d ever heard from Ruby, complete with a “so there!” look as she set down her purse and snapped on the lights. Did she offer that last little detail knowing it would guarantee his compliance? No way could he walk out now, aware that she had ridden the robotic little monster.

  Luke stood there for a moment, looking at Buster’s cartoonish face, startled at the ball of ice in his stomach. He’d stared down uglier beasts three times its size, but the thing still unnerved him. He hated that Ruby saw his nerves—he’d never been able to hide anything from her, then or now—but then again he knew there wasn’t anyone else he’d have in the room with him for this.

  She stepped into the padded ring and motioned for Luke to join her. He did, a zing down his bad leg offering an odd commentary on the feat. Ruby put one hand on the bull’s head and held out her other hand to Luke. Unsure what this was all about, he gave her his hand, which she placed onto hers on the bull.

  Touching the thing somehow broke the momentary chokehold his fear had over him. And yet he wasn’t touching it, he was touching Ruby’s hand touching it. As if she were the bridge between them—and wasn’t she?

  “I’m going to pray.” She announced it as if praying over mechanical bull therapy in an empty bar happened every day. When he stared at her in what he thought was well-founded shock, Ruby eyed him and said, “So pray with me.”

  What could he do? Even that Pastor Theo guy would find this a bit nuts. But Luke knew better than to argue with Ruby when she got that expression on her face. He shut his eyes.

  “Father, You made all of us. You know us, our bodies, our abilities, our needs and fears. Lay Your hand on this machine and this man, see to it that Your will is done through our efforts both now and in the days to come. Amen.”

  Luke opened one eye. “Why’d you do that?”

  She opened her eyes, but didn’t move her hands from atop the bull and under his hands. “Why wouldn’t I pray over something important?”

  “’Cause it’s a mechanical bull.” He tried to keep the “isn’t it obvious?” tone from his voice but didn’t quite succeed.

  “It’s a mechanical bull that’s about to show you what you can and cannot do yet. That’s a big thing, and I always pray over big things. You might want to give it a try.”

  She’d always been able to wake up the spiritual side of him—what little of it existed back then—and inspire him with her easy, effortless relationship with the Almighty. It had never come quite so easy to him. Truth be told, it hadn’t come at all in the last few years. Sure, there were the hospital bed pleas, but Luke didn’t think desperation prayers really counted as authentic faith. Ruby’s faith was as authentic as they came. Ellie had always been like that, Gran was absolutely like that, and Gunner had become like that. He was trying not to think that much about it, but lately it seemed as if God was showing up everywhere.

  Still, Red Boots was the last place he expected to bump up against the hand of God in his life.

  All this was slamming around his brain while Ruby just stood there, as if waiting for him to catch up to her. After a moment she said softly, “Get on.”

  “I’m scared.” It jumped out of him, two escapee words from behind his usual bravado. It made him crazy that they had slipped out to her, revealing a run-and-hide impulse he’d never want anyone—especially not Ruby—to see.

  “Of course you are.” She didn’t seem to think one bit less of him for admitting it. “I’m scared for you, too. Get on anyway.”

  It was that simple, wasn’t it? For a crazy moment he wanted to pull her toward him and kiss her—from habit, or old love, or just stalling, he couldn’t say which—but had enough wits about him to realize what a seriously stupid idea that was. Instead, he nodded and gave her hand a squeeze.

  It was a dumb mechanical amusement ride in a building where nobody was watching. It should have been the easiest thing in the world. Instead, it felt as if he was taking the entire world on his shoulders as he threw his leg over the thing. He was maybe three feet off the ground, but his stomach did summersaults as if standing on the edge of a high cliff. He slipped his left hand into the braided rope handhold and felt his breaths come short and panicked. This was a hundred times more difficult than he’d imagined—and that wasn’t even the physical challenge of it.

  Help! he yelped silently from some place deep in his chest, and with a startle realized it was a prayer. He looked over Ruby as he settled himself a second time, her steady gaze an anchor in the nervous swirl all around him. Feeling like he was gulping down his last breath, Luke slid up on the rope and nodded.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ruby’s heartbeats were galloping, her whole body thrumming with anxiety and purpose. She’d known from the moment the idea came to her that this was the first step Luke needed. She couldn’t believe it when Lana actually agreed. Clinically, it would tell her where his balance was off and what muscles weren’t working the way they ought to. Emotionally, it would show him—in a way he couldn’t ignore—what he could and couldn’t do.

  All of that made great sense ten minutes ago. Right now, even with Lana’s blessing, it felt like a huge risk. An absurdly unconventional therapy for a man unlike any she’d ever known.

  A man she still cared for way more than she should.

  Lana was right; there was no point in pretending this was any kind of conventional patient/therapist relationship. She couldn’t classify this struggle they were in together—it was beyond physical, beyond emotional, partly spiritual, partly professional, and 100 percent confusing.

  Stay close, Lord, guide my hand. Show both of us what we need to see, even if it’s not what we want to see.

  Pulling in a breath, Ruby turned the key in the controls. The machine gave a little rumble and a small lurch, startling both of them. Then it stilled, the only sound the hum of the mechanism waiting to move. She turned the dial.

  With a grinding sound, the bull began to swerve comically slowly, ducking and raising its big brown head. At first, Luke’s body stiffened, his eyes as wide as the false glassy orbs on the bull.

  Ruby tamped down her heart—currently stuck in her throat for what she knew Luke was feeling—and forced her therapist self to kick in. Gradually, the instinctual counterbalance seemed to wake up in his spine. She wondered if he even knew his right hand had risen in the posture all riders adopted. She watched the left leg—was it sensing his body position, was it flexing and releasing with control? Would Luke’s body, so finely trained to react in split-second timing, remember the skill it had been famous for?

  She waited until he seemed impatient with the current pace before adjusting the dial. With a few hisses and whirrs, the bull picked up speed and made more exaggerated movements. She watched Luke’s face take on the laser focus of an athlete, even though she could still read fear in his eyes. This was the equivalent of asking a thoroughbred jockey to ride a carousel pony—it wasn’t a true match to his skills—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a challenge. This new speed came slightly easier to him, however, since it was a bit closer to what he’d been used to. She watched his hips, watched the muscles in his back stretch and flex. Ruby felt a little light-headed and realized she’d been holding her breath. She let the machine go two whole minutes at this level before turning it up one notch.

  The bull’s movements became more jerky, the swings dipping lower and higher, direction changes coming one on top of the other. Luke’s face hardened into gritted teeth, his eyes down on the shoulders of the mechanical monster, a tense face but a body swerving in an almost graceful way atop the frantic mass. They were still at only one-third the machine’s possible levels, but he’d been riding for over six minutes now, and the room’s colored lights showed sweat breaking out o
n his forehead. Ruby felt as if she were sweating herself.

  At eight minutes, she turned the machine off, the mechanism slowing down until it came to a halt. Even from where she stood outside the padded ring, she could hear Luke’s breath coming hard and fast.

  It was a long moment before he looked up at her, his face an unreadable mix of pain, victory and doubt.

  “Eight minutes, twenty seconds,” she said, reading the digital time display on the control panel. She waited for the question he was going to ask, unsure how he would take the answer.

  “What level?”

  “Three.”

  Luke wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and muttered something she was sure she’d rather not hear. Then he looked up at her, eyes hard. “Three, huh? Felt like seven.”

  She didn’t reply. He’d have to wrestle with this on his own. She waited for him to dismount. He didn’t. Instead, he recentered himself on the bull. “Turn it on again.”

  “Luke...”

  He flexed his fingers inside the handhold. “Turn it on again.” She’d been foolish enough to think it wouldn’t come to this. The only way Luke was going to get off that bull was by force—and not force of will. By force of gravity.

  “You might hurt yourself.” The warning hung useless in the air. She knew those eyes, knew that man. There was no reasoning with him when he got like this. Better to have him fall on the padding here than in the arena or in front of the cameras. If he was going to end his career by force, this was the least horrible place to do it. Her heart sagged at the prospect of having to bear witness to it. But her gift was bearing witness to pain, and this moment was of her own doing.

  Her expression must have shown her feelings, for Luke caught her eyes and said “Just the next two levels. If I can.”