Cowboy Take Me Away

by Jane Graves

  The door swung closed. Shannon took a deep breath and counted to ten before grabbing a couple of plates and following her mother into the dining room. Russell was carrying on an animated discussion with her father about the merits of one golf putter over another while Eve poked away at her iPhone.

  They finished dessert, and a short time later, Shannon and Russell rose to leave. He made all the appropriate noises of delight at being invited to dinner and complimented Loucinda once again on her cooking. By the time they walked out of the house, Shannon knew her mother was going to have to restrain herself from getting a subscription to Modern Bride.

  “While you were in the kitchen,” Russell said as he drove, “I was talking to your father. He asked me to play golf.”

  Shannon froze. “You’re playing golf with my father?”

  “This Sunday. And he’s going to introduce me to the general manager at Majestic and sponsor my membership application.”

  “You’re joining the club?”

  “My application should be approved by next week. Your father said it would be no problem.”

  No, no, no! No country club!

  She could not date a man who expected her to play golf and rub elbows with the rich folk. She’d had enough of that kind of thing when she entertained clients in Houston, and the last thing she wanted was to start in again.

  “I didn’t even know you played golf,” Shannon said.

  “Of course I play golf. What man doesn’t like golf?”

  She pictured her father wearing his plaid golf pants, green shirt, and ugly golf shoes. In thirty years, that was Russell.

  No. Take it easy. Golf is not evil. The devil does not wear golf shoes.

  At least she didn’t think he did.

  “That’s nice,” she said. “I’m glad you two are getting along.”

  When they got to her apartment building, Russell walked her inside. When they reached her door, she said, “Have you given any more thought to sponsoring the petting zoo at the festival?”

  By the look on his face, he’d given it several thoughts, and he didn’t appear to like any of them.

  “This is my first festival,” he said. “Tell me again what my sponsorship would involve.”

  “Well, we’d create a really big sign that would say, ‘Rainbow Valley Animal Shelter Petting Zoo, sponsored by Russell Morgensen, D.D.S.’ in big letters. Your name would be in all the special literature we put out during the event. And you’d be a featured judge for the animal costume contest on Wednesday afternoon.”

  He nodded. “How much was it, again?”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  When Russell still looked unsure, Shannon imagined the word no coming out of his mouth and jumped back in again.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t you come out to the shelter and see the signs we used for the sponsor last year? I’ll show you all the literature, too. That’ll help you make a decision. We have everything in a storage room out in the barn.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I can drop by sometime.”

  Sometime. When exactly was sometime?

  Shannon couldn’t bring herself to pin him down any more than that. If she did, it looked a little too much like she was continuing to date him in order to get the sponsorship. Not a good thing.

  Russell gave her a quick good night kiss, then leaned in again for a more substantial one. He was a decent kisser. Actually, better than decent. So why was she having such a hard time warming up to him?

  He pulled away, giving her a congenial smile. “Good night, Shannon.”

  As she went inside her apartment, she felt a little guilty. If she were to make a list of pros and cons, Russell’s pros would clearly win. Maybe she instinctively shied away from him because her mother thought he was so wonderful. Should she really hold that against him?

  Then she thought about how her mother felt about Luke.

  Her entire life, Shannon had walked the straight and narrow. Eve may have colored outside the lines every chance she got, but Shannon? Never.

  Until Luke.

  For the first time in her life, she’d directly defied her mother. Stay away from that Dawson boy, her mother had told her repeatedly when she was a teenager. But the more her mother told her to steer clear, the more she was drawn to him.

  For a long time, Shannon’s interaction with Luke had been filled with nothing but sarcasm-laced animosity. His bad attitude colored every word he spoke, and her comebacks had been equally caustic.

  Then things started to change.

  They occasionally joined forces. Helped each other with tasks. Soon they’d left the sharp words behind, finding a new understanding Shannon had never anticipated. Before she knew it, Luke had found his way into every waking thought she had and edged his way into her dreams. The long hours they spent together only intensified her feelings for him, and soon she was sharing things with him she never would have told anyone else. And when he kissed her for the first time, something she thought would stay in her dreams forever finally became reality.

  Then came the evening that changed everything.

  Shannon sat down on her sofa, her mind tumbling backward through time. It had been a hot August day, just like this one. She’d finished up with the horses and was getting ready to leave the barn, when she realized she wasn’t wearing the diamond necklace her parents had given her. Even though she always tucked it beneath her shirt when she worked, somehow it had come loose, and she panicked. If her mother ever found out she’d worn the necklace to the shelter, much less lost it, she’d be furious.

  Shannon retraced her steps. Searched everywhere she could think of. Finally the only place she hadn’t looked was the hayloft. She climbed the ladder, then stepped off it and dropped to her hands and knees. She shoved stalks of hay aside, desperate to see the glint of diamonds in the dim light. She’d just about given up when she heard a noise behind her. Spinning around, she saw Luke at the top of the ladder.

  “Looking for this?”

  When he held up her necklace, relief flooded through her. “Oh, thank God! You found it!”

  He climbed off the ladder onto the floor of the loft. She turned around and leaned against a hay bale, and he sat down next to her.

  “I found it next to the stock tank,” he said, holding it up. “It’s pretty. Where did you get it?”

  “My parents. They gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday.”

  “Pretty good haul for one birthday. Diamonds and all. What do you suppose it’s worth?”

  Shannon shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot, knowing my mother.”

  “Hmm. Finders keepers,” he said, swinging it gently back and forth, the gems sparkling in the dim light of the hayloft. “I could pawn it for a bundle.”

  “No way. If I come home without that necklace, I’m in big trouble with my mother.”

  She held out her hand, and he let the necklace puddle into it.

  “She’d be that pissed?” Luke asked. “Even if it was just an accident that you lost it?”

  “Oh, yeah. With my mother, there’s no such thing as an accident. It means I wasn’t careful. Or I didn’t plan ahead. Or I’m not responsible.”

  Luke made a scoffing noise. “Nobody’s more responsible than you are. Tell your mother to fuck off.”

  “Right. Like I could actually do that.”

  “I would.”

  “Sure, you would.” She sighed. “I wish I had the guts.”

  “Just do it. Nothing’s stopping you.”

  Nothing was stopping her? Was he serious?

  Suddenly the ability to stand up to somebody like her mother seemed like the most amazing talent in the world to Shannon, one she couldn’t imagine ever having herself.

  “What does it feel like?” she asked. “To not care what anybody else thinks?”

  He shrugged offhandedly. “It doesn’t feel one way or the other. I just ignore all of it.”

  “But how?”

  He shrugged again, but this
time he didn’t look at her. “What people think about me is pretty bad. If I cared, I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.”

  In that moment, she knew he’d lied. It did feel a certain way. It felt like hell. The kind of hell he avoided any way he could.

  “I still wish I could be more like you,” Shannon said.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to be like me.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked at her with disbelief. “I know you’re not dumb, so you must just be fucking with me.”

  Shannon turned away. “Sometimes it’s not so great being me, either.”

  “Yeah. Big house. All that money. Must be hell on earth.”

  “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Sometimes they’re worse.”

  His words hung in the air for what seemed like ages. She had some sense of what he went through with his father, but he’d never really talked about it.

  “How much worse?” she said.

  He swallowed hard. “You don’t want to know.”

  She looked down to see Luke’s fingers tighten against his thighs as he spoke, turning white with the pressure. She slid her arm through his, then lay her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  For the next several minutes, she silently consoled him, knowing there were things she still didn’t understand, things she knew he didn’t want to talk about. She only knew that the boy she’d always thought was so tough and indifferent was hurting inside, and she wanted to take the pain away.

  Soon she realized the sun had set, and she could see the moon rising out the small window in the hayloft. She didn’t want to leave him, but she had no choice.

  “It’s getting late,” she said, reluctantly pulling away from him. “I should go.” Then she realized she was still holding the necklace in her other hand. “I’d better not put it back on. The clasp must be broken.”

  “Here. Let me take a look at it.”

  She handed it to him, and he looked closely at the clasp.

  “No. Not broken. Just a little bent.” He fiddled with it for a moment, then handed it back to her. “There. It’ll stay now.”

  She looked at it and nodded. “Can you put it back on me?”

  She’d turned her back to him, pulled her hair to one side, and held the necklace up. When several seconds passed and he didn’t move, she wondered what was going on.

  Then she felt his lips against her neck.

  She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling. Then he slid his hand around her waist, resting his palm just beneath her breasts. It was a shockingly sweet and tender gesture that shot shivers right down her spine.

  She turned around, and there it was in his eyes. Desire like nothing she’d ever seen before. And she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. The wild, swooping sensation in her stomach told her she might even be in love with him. She wasn’t completely certain she knew what love felt like because she’d never experienced it before, but wasn’t it supposed to be about feeling good around a guy? Trusting him? Wanting him? Even now, Shannon remembered every look, every touch, every breathtaking moment that came next.

  But she remembered even more vividly how everything had fallen apart.

  In one painful blow, all the excitement and exhilaration had been wiped out by anger, regret, and guilt. So it was no wonder that when she looked up at Rosie’s that day and saw Luke standing there, the myriad of emotions she felt had practically knocked her to her knees.

  As the years passed, she’d tried to shove her feelings for him to the back of her mind, to that place where unfulfilled promises and might-have-beens went to die. Then the day of his father’s funeral, all it had taken was one glance at him to bring it all back to life, to make her fall right back into that sea of desire all over again.

  But there was nothing between her and Luke anymore. He was a rodeo rider, a drifter who went from town to town and probably had a woman in every one of them, so getting tangled up with him again was a fool’s game. If she were ever to forget that, she could only imagine how badly things might end between them now.

  Chapter 7

  An hour later, Luke pulled up next to one of the two pumps at the Pic ’N Go and got out of his truck, wincing at the sudden twinge of pain in his knee. He filled his truck with gas, then parked beside the building and walked stiffly into the store. A woman holding a loaf of bread stood over two kids picking out candy bars. Along the windows at the front of the store were three Formica-topped tables surrounded by four chairs each, a place to sit and have a burrito or a hot dog. He decided he’d order one of each.

  As he was grabbing a copy of the Rainbow Valley Voice from the stand to read while he ate, an older woman came out of the back wearing a green apron and a pair of beige pants. She moved with the gait of a woman with a little arthritis and a lot of bad attitude. Her hair was a little thinner than he remembered, and a little grayer, but it was still Myrna Schumaker through and through.

  The woman and her kids came to the register, and Myrna rang up their purchases. After they left the store, Myrna tossed the receipt the woman had left on the counter into the trash, then turned around.

  Luke knew the precise moment she recognized him. She stood motionless, her jaw going slack before she closed her mouth again and turned away, rearranging a few energy bars on a point of purchase display and acting as if he wasn’t even there.

  He came to the counter and set the paper down. “Well, hello there, Mrs. Schumaker. Long time no see.”

  She grabbed the newspaper to ring it up.

  “Why don’t you give me a burrito and a hot dog, too?” Luke said, nodding to the heated glass case beside the counter. “Those sure do look good.”

  Myrna grabbed the food from the case, stuck it in a bag, and started ringing everything up.

  “Now here you’re acting as if you don’t remember me,” Luke said. “I think you’ve hurt my feelings.”

  “Oh, I remember you,” Myrna said. “I remember you painting graffiti on the side of my building and shoplifting beer. I assume you’re just passing through?”

  “Now, you know nobody just passes through the Valley. You have to work to find this place.”

  “So what’s your business here?”

  He would have loved to have told her he’d just gotten out of Huntsville after doing hard time, or that he was working for a Mexican drug lord pushing crack, just to see if gossip got around town as quickly as it used to. Those things were no more true than some of the stories people told about him all those years ago, but since when did these people care about the truth?

  “I’m the new caretaker at the shelter,” he said.

  Myrna’s eyes widened with surprise. “Shannon North hired you to work at the shelter?”

  “That’s right. But don’t worry. It’s only temporary. Three months and I’ll be out of here.”

  “Hmm,” she muttered. “Never took Shannon for a crazy girl. Now I gotta wonder.” Myrna took the ten-dollar bill Luke gave her, stuck it in the register drawer, and handed him back his change. “Maybe she doesn’t remember what a troublemaker you were.”

  Of course she did. But in the event she didn’t, Luke knew Myrna would let her know, along with every other citizen of Rainbow Valley. By the end of the day tomorrow, there wouldn’t be a person in town who didn’t know that one of its most notorious citizens was back.

  Luke took the bag and the newspaper and sat down at one of the tables. He knew Myrna would prefer it if he left her store, but he decided it was going to be a long three months if he couldn’t at least sit down and have a bite to eat in public. As he unwrapped the burrito, Myrna started talking on the telephone, which meant she was already spreading the word.

  Luke heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned to see a little boy several feet away near the potato chip display, looking at him curiously. He had close-cropped blond hair and big blue eyes.
He wore a pair of ragged denim shorts and a faded blue and red striped shirt, both of which looked as if they’d been laundered within an inch of their lives.

  Luke smiled at him. “Hey, kiddo. What’s your name?”

  “Todd,” he said.

  “How old are you, Todd?”

  “Almost seven.”

  Luke nodded at the stuffed animal under the kid’s arm. “What do you have there?”

  “My dog.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Tramp.”

  “From Lady and the Tramp?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So I guess you like dogs?”

  The kid smiled. “Uh-huh. Our neighbor Mr. Brady has two dogs. Sometimes he lets me play with them.”

  “What color are they?”

  “White. With lots of curly hair. Someday I’m gonna get a real dog. But my grandma says not now.”

  “Todd!”

  Todd whipped his head around.

  “Come back over here,” Myrna said.

  Todd gave Luke a little wave good-bye and hurried back around the counter. Myrna gathered him against her and gave Luke a look that would melt granite. Then she leaned over and whispered something to the little boy, and he disappeared into the back room.

  Luke wondered who he was. Was Myrna the grandma he talked about? Maybe. But that would mean he belonged to her daughter, Belinda. As Luke remembered, she wasn’t much older than Angela. No telling what the situation was there.

  Luke opened the paper to read as he ate the burrito and hot dog. About halfway through dinner, he heard his text tone. He grabbed his phone to take a look.

  Well, crap. Carter Hanson?

  He punched the button to view the message. How’s the knee, Dawson? Bet it hurts like hell. Miss you!

  Right. Hanson missed him like a dog missed fleas. But he never missed an opportunity to cause trouble.

  Irritated, Luke stuffed his phone back into his pocket, wondering where Hanson had gotten his number. Wait a minute—did he really have to wonder? There was a certain buckle bunny out there with a grudge. He was lucky she hadn’t posted his phone number on the front page of her blog and encouraged everybody she knew to spam him.