by Diana Palmer
In the background of Luke’s troubled thoughts he could hear the conversations of the other patrons. The two guys sitting together on his right were talking about fishing. At the table with the man and two women mixed topics were being discussed, though right at the moment the young women were discussing childbirth, while the man sat there beaming, obviously thrilled with the subject. Those three were a convivial group.
It was the couple sitting in the corner booth who began sounding a warning bell in Luke’s system. Although they weren’t screaming at each other or even speaking overly loud, they were fighting. Arguing intensely and trying to keep it quiet. He glanced over his shoulder at the duo and saw a woman of about forty, with bleached hair and layers of makeup, and a man maybe a little younger, wearing a cowboy hat and a fierce expression. With the music and the other talk in the room, Luke could make out only bits and pieces of their animosity.
“You did it. Why don’t you stop denying it?” the woman hissed.
The man’s head was turned toward her, and Luke couldn’t make out his reply, though from the set of his jaw he was angry through and through.
The saloon door opened and two men walked in. “Hey, Pete,” one called to the bartender. “Bring us a beer.” They sat in a booth.
Pete delivered the drinks and stood by the booth to chat about the impending rain. “Been a long dry spell” was Pete’s opinion. The two men agreed that the area needed a good drenching.
Luke took another swallow from his glass and tried to relax, though the tension in his body felt like a fixed condition. He was normally a pretty loose guy, so it wasn’t at all difficult to blame Maris for feeling as though his backbone had turned to granite. He wouldn’t have to put up with her on-again off-again attitudes for much longer, he reminded himself. September first was just around the corner. In a few more weeks he’d have his money, a new horse and be gone.
For some reason that thought was no longer satisfying. Monotonous long drives between rodeo sites and strange motel rooms had lost their appeal. Not that those aspects of his chosen vocation ever had been all that appealing, but neither had they really bothered him before. Picturing himself wandering from rodeo to rodeo until he was too old to compete created what felt like a lead weight in his gut. Did he have Maris to thank for that aberration, too?
Thin-lipped with annoyance, he picked up his glass for another sip of beer. Pete was behind the bar again, delivering drinks to the two fishermen. A sharp crack rang out, followed immediately by a wail from the woman in the corner booth. Startled, Luke swiveled on his stool to see the man from the booth getting up and heading for the door. The woman was crying, holding her face. Luke’s eyes narrowed. That bastard had hit her!
He got off the stool, strode toward the man and tapped him on the shoulder just as he reached the door.
The guy turned, snarling. “Whadya want?”
Luke’s expression was as cold and forbidding as a glacier. “I don’t know the circumstances and I ain’t asking, but hitting a woman for any reason makes a man lower than pond scum, mister.”
“Are you calling me pond scum?”
Luke could hear the woman sobbing in the corner booth. The two women from the table had gone over to her. “I think I said lower than pond scum,” Luke replied in a lethal tone. He sort of expected what happened next: the guy threw a punch.
A feeling of elation rushed through Luke as he sidestepped the blow. “I’d be a little careful if I were you,” he warned. “Beating up women is more your style than fighting with a man, isn’t it?”
“You son of a bitch!” the man screamed, and jerked out his arm again, clipping Luke on the jaw. Luke backed up a step, then rushed the guy with a flurry of punches that targeted his face and gut.
The men in the place jumped to their feet. Pete reached for the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office. The guy came at Luke again. More punches were thrown. Luke’s lip was cut and bleeding. The guy’s nose was gushing blood. People were shouting. A couple of the men tried to break up the fight, but one was in the wrong place at the wrong time and received a blow from Luke that had been aimed at his adversary.
“Hey, just watch it,” the newcomer yelled angrily.
Tables and chairs were knocked askew as the fight continued. Other than the three women in the corner booth, the saloon’s patrons gathered around, though staying back far enough to elude the melee.
The guy was as big as Luke and just as strong, he realized. But he was quicker on his feet and getting in a lot more punches. The exhilaration of adrenaline kept him fast and coolheaded. He connected a hard fist with the guy’s face, and the man sank to his knees.
Luke stood there rubbing his knuckles, which were bruised and hurting like hell. Moving to the bar, he picked up a cocktail napkin and dabbed at his bleeding lip. Just then the door burst open and two deputies walked in. In seconds they sized up the scene. One chair was broken, two tables were overturned and there were some shattered glasses on the floor.
“He started it,” Pete said with an accusing finger pointed at Luke.
“Benteen threw the first punch,” one of the fishermen volunteered, which was the first time Luke had heard the name of the man he’d fought and beaten to his knees.
“Doesn’t matter who started it,” a deputy said calmly. “Pete, are you pressing charges?”
“Damned right. Look what they did to my place. This is a decent place, and I ain’t putting up with drunken brawls.”
The door opened and Judd Hensley walked in. “What’s going on in here, Pete?”
Pete was only too glad to relate the story. “Jim Benteen was on his way out, almost to the door, when this guy here jumped him.”
Judd’s stern gaze went to Luke. “Luke Rivers. Now, why doesn’t this surprise me?”
“Maybe because you surprise easily,” Luke retorted grimly.
Lori Bains did a double take at Luke’s name. Sitting beside Melva in the booth, holding a napkin she’d filled with ice cubes from the drinks on the table to Melva’s bruised eye, she mumbled, “Oh-oh.” She had met here with Louise and Larry Hawkins, friends who just today had learned they were going to have a baby. Her celebration drink had been a glass of white wine. Larry’s had been beer and Louise had ordered sparkling water. But they’d been talking so excitedly about the baby, Lori simply hadn’t noticed Luke come in. Then, once the brouhaha had gotten started, she had rushed to soothe Melva rather than watch the fight, which she wouldn’t have watched anyway, as men pounding on each other sickened and disgusted her.
But Maris wasn’t going to like her hired man brawling in a public place and getting himself arrested. She sighed.
Jim Benteen staggered to his feet, saw Luke and charged into him again.
“Jesus!” Luke yelped, taking the man’s weight in the gut. The deputies rushed to pull Benteen back with warnings to cool down.
“Put the cuffs on him,” Judd commanded. He looked at Luke. “Cuff him, too. Charge them both with drunk and disorderly, and public brawling.”
“I’m not drunk,” Luke said angrily as his arms were yanked behind his back and the cuffs slapped on his wrists.
“No? Well, we’ll find that out at the station. Pete, we’ll make sure someone pays for the damage in here tonight.”
“Lock ’em both up,” Pete said disgustedly.
The deputies escorted Luke and Benteen through the door and to a police car. Judd ambled over to the booth with the women. “Melva, let me see your face.” Lori lowered the ice-filled napkin so Judd could check the damage for himself. His mouth tightened; Melva’s right eye was bruised and swollen. “Melva, are you going to file charges this time?”
The woman’s uninjured eye dripped tears. “I know I should,” she said bitterly.
“We all know that, but are you going to do it?”
“I…don’t know. I need to think about it. Lori, let me out. I wanta go home.”
“Would you like me to drive you?” Lori asked gently.
“No, I can get there myself. But thanks.”
Lori got up and Melva quickly slid from the booth, gathered her purse and made a hasty exit. Larry had come over to the booth. “Are you okay, honey?” he asked his wife.
Louise slid from her side of the booth. “I’m fine. Lori, we’re going to leave. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Yes, do that.”
Judd’s stern eyes rested on Lori. “Sit down and talk to me for a few minutes.”
“Sure, Judd.”
They sat on opposite sides of the booth. “I’d like to hear from you what happened in here tonight,” Judd said.
“I’ll tell you what I can, Judd. It all happened very fast. One second everything was quiet and peaceful, and the next…” She took a breath. “I guess Luke came in when I wasn’t looking. At any rate, I wasn’t aware of him sitting at the bar. I could tell Melva and Jim were arguing, but I really wasn’t paying them any mind. Anyway, he hauled off and hit her. There was no mistaking the sound of the blow. Melva started crying. Jim got up and started for the door. By then me and everyone else were stunned and watching. I still didn’t recognize Luke, as his back was to the room, but he tapped Jim on the shoulder and said something to him. Jim threw a punch and the fight was on. That’s really all I know, Judd. Melva won’t file charges, will she?”
“I doubt it. She never does.” Judd got to his feet. “Thanks, Lori.”
Lori was frowning. “Judd, are you going to call Maris?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. It’s late, and a night in jail won’t hurt Rivers none. Maybe he’ll call her. See ya, Lori.”
After Judd walked over to the bar to talk to Pete, Lori left the booth, got her purse from the table where she’d been sitting before the fracas and quietly left the Sundowner. Outside she drew in a breath of fresh air and walked to her car. Behind the wheel she sat there chewing on her bottom lip. Maris should be told. Maybe Luke would call her and maybe he wouldn’t. Should she, Lori, keep her nose out of it? She’d suspected the day Maris had introduced Luke that there were feelings between the two of them, though Maris had been quick to deny any such thing.
Feeling uneasy, Lori pondered the problem. She and Maris were close, but Maris always held some portion of herself in reserve. During her and Ray’s marriage there’d been times when Maris had needed to talk, times when she’d sounded off, but even when she’d been angry and hurt and at her most communicative, Lori had always sensed something held back. The truth was that Maris might resent anyone’s assuming she would care that Luke had been arrested for public brawling, even Lori.
She was still sitting there, when Judd came out of the Sundowner. To reach his car he had to pass hers. He came around to the driver’s side. Lori rolled down the window.
“I’ve been thinking, Lori. Maris should be told. Are you planning to call her?”
“That’s what I’ve been sitting here debating,” Lori admitted. “Judd, maybe she should hear it from you.”
Judd nodded. “All right. If Rivers doesn’t call her, I will. Good night, Lori.”
Maris awoke to rain on the roof. It sounded nice and she lay there for a few minutes just listening. Then, for some reason, she turned her head and glanced at the clock on the bedstand, which read 11:25. Almost eleven-thirty. Maris frowned. What had awakened her? Maybe Luke’s truck returning?
Climbing out of bed, she walked through the dark house to the kitchen window. Though the hard rain obscured the compound, she could see that Luke’s truck was still absent. Her nerves tautened as well as her mouth. How many nights had she worried and lost sleep because Ray wasn’t home?
Whirling, Maris returned to her bedroom and crawled under the covers. Damned if she was going to lose sleep over Luke!
Luke had been locked in a tiny cell with bars on three sides. He could see Jim Benteen in another cell some distance away. One of the deputies had dabbed Luke’s cut lip with antiseptic and given Benteen an ice pack for his bleeding nose. Luke had again stated, rather fiercely, that he wasn’t drunk and demanded a test to prove it.
The test proved negative, so he couldn’t be charged with drunk and disorderly, only disorderly and brawling in public. In his present frame of mind he didn’t give a damn what they charged him with. Sitting on the cot in his cell, he glared at the drab cement floor. If he ever saw a man hit a woman again he’d do the same damned thing, arrest or no arrest.
The sheriff came into the cell block, the heavy metal door clanging loudly behind him. He stopped at Benteen’s cell. “Anyone you want to call, Jim?”
“I already did,” Benteen said sullenly. “He’ll be down to bail me out.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t call Melva,” Judd said dryly.
“I’m through with that bitch,” Benteen mumbled.
“I think I’ve heard you say that before. This time I hope you mean it. You’d be doing Melva a big favor.” Judd strode the corridor down to Luke’s cell. “You’re entitled to a telephone call, Rivers.” Luke slanted him a glance but said nothing. “Did you understand what I said?”
Luke smirked. “You’re speaking English and there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. Yes, I understood what you said. So what?”
“So, is there anyone you want to call?”
“No.”
Judd studied the man in the cell for a long moment. “What about Maris?”
“What about her?” Luke’s voice was flat.
“Well, you’re working for her, damn it. Don’t you think she might wonder where you are?”
“In the middle of the night? We don’t sleep in the same bed, Sheriff,” Luke drawled sarcastically.
Judd’s skin reddened. “I never thought you did. Wait, let me rephrase that. I never thought of Maris that way.”
Luke turned his face toward the one solid wall of the cubicle until Judd realized he wasn’t going to prolong that line of conversation.
The metal door opened and a deputy entered the area. He unlocked Jim Benteen’s cell. “You’re outta here, Benteen.”
Luke watched the man stagger to his feet. “Bet he didn’t test negative,” Luke muttered.
Judd merely shook his head and followed the deputy and Ban-teen from the cell block.
Stretching out on the cot, Luke crooked an arm over his eyes to block out the bright lights. He swore he’d stay in this god-awful place for the rest of his life before he’d ever call Maris and ask for her help.
Maris was still awake, listening to the rain and pondering the misery of life in general, when her phone rang. Frowning, she sat up, switched on the bedstand lamp and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Maris, this is Judd.”
A chill went up Maris’s spine. Judd didn’t phone at midnight just to chat. “What’s wrong?”
“Has anyone else called you tonight?”
“No one. Judd, what’s going on?” A note of panic had entered Maris’s voice.
“It’s just something I figured you’d want to know. Luke Rivers has been arrested. I’ve got him here in jail.”
“In jail! What on earth for? What happened?”
“He was brawling in the Sundowner Saloon. Pete’s filing charges.”
Maris’s shoulders slumped. Brawling and drinking, no doubt. God, she hated drinking. Alcohol turned some people into fools or, worse, bullies. Sober, Ray had been reasonably amiable; drunk, he’d been belligerent, quarrelsome and mean. What if Luke was the same?
Still, the thought of leaving him in jail was abhorrent. “Judd…uh…how drunk is he?”
“He isn’t drunk, Maris.”
A dizzying relief rocketed through her. “In that case I’ll be down to bail him out.”
“Figured you’d say that,” Judd said on a sigh. “But I won’t be here, Maris. I’m beat and heading for the barn. Deputy Rawlins will be on duty. He’ll take care of the paperwork.”
“Thanks, Judd. Talk to you soon.”
“You’re acting like you’d rather I hadn’t gotten you out of jail,” Maris said
, taking her eyes from the road to send Luke’s stony profile a resentful glance. “Did you enjoy being locked up?”
“Of course I didn’t enjoy it, but Hensley shouldn’t have called you.”
“Why not?”
Luke jerked his head around and glared at her. “Because what goes on between you and me is no one else’s business, especially his.”
“Well, your being in jail could hardly be my business unless someone told me about it, now could it?”
“I didn’t want you involved. My truck’s parked in front of the Sundowner. Take a right.”
“I know where the Sundowner is,” Maris snapped. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I just told you. I didn’t want you involved.”
“I don’t believe you. You didn’t call because you’re angry with me. You left the house angry and you drove away angry. You were angry all day—don’t deny it—which is probably the reason you risked your damned neck riding Bozo.”
“I rode Bozo to break him, not for any other reason,” Luke retorted sharply. “Damn, women are something.”
“Meaning?” Maris sent him a glowering look.
“Meaning you’ve got me going in circles,” Luke muttered darkly. “Why in hell wouldn’t I be angry? Besides, if you’d care to remember, when we talked about my breaking the horses you laid down some pretty stiff rules.”
“What I said was no drinking or women on the ranch. Obviously you went elsewhere to do your drinking.”
“I had one lousy glass of beer, for your information.”
“But you got into a fight. Looks to me like your anger got a little out of control.”
“You have no idea what happened, so don’t go making any snap judgments, Maris.”
“Fine, I won’t. In the meantime, why don’t you fill me in?”
Luke was staring straight ahead. The wipers were slapping away the heavy rain on the windshield. “I don’t want to talk about it. There’s my truck. Pull over.”