The Bull Rider's Homecoming

by Allie Pleiter

  He didn’t hold back when he slammed his fist into the table as he got up, even though he could feel the bruise forming on the heel of his hand within seconds of the blow. He just wished he’d held back the look he gave Ruby, for her face dissolved into a look of pity so deep it made him want to growl.

  * * *

  “Luke...” Ruby stammered, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “What’s there to say?” he practically shouted back, scrambling to upright himself with such ferocity that she knew not to try and help. Pain and anger radiated off him in dark, sharp waves.

  “He’s got it all wrong,” she offered, feeling like the words weren’t anywhere near enough. “Who’d write something like that?” She knew Luke got fan mail—bull riders were big stars even on the smaller circuits—but hate mail? From young boys? She didn’t think the world was that cruel. “Who’d let their son write something like that to an injured man?”

  Ruby knew instantly she’d chosen the wrong words. Luke visibly flinched at the word injured, the fire in his eyes doubling in strength. “Some days it rots to be a role model, sweetheart. People get ugly when you disappoint them.”

  Ugly. That was the word for the letter she’d just read. Some of the star-struck letters were cute or silly or syrupy, but this last one was ugly. Ruby turned the envelope over to see the return address, some part of her itching to go ring that brat’s doorbell and give him a piece of her mind about the virtues of compassion and kindness. It’s a good thing he lives hours away, Lord, she prayed, or I’d do something I’d regret.

  “We’re done,” Luke’s words were dark and short.

  “You can’t let one mean boy’s letter...”

  “I said we’re done!” Luke shouted, not meeting her eyes as he eased himself into a chair.

  It felt dangerous to leave him like this. He’s angry enough to do anything, she thought. “We can be done,” she said softly, “but I don’t think I should go.”

  “You should.” He looked anywhere but at her. Did that boy have any idea of the senseless pain he’d inflicted?

  “Maybe, but I won’t. He doesn’t get to do that to you, Luke. He’s wrong.”

  Luke just shrugged. Ruby remembered how Luke’s father, Gunner Buckton Sr. never missed an opportunity to show any of this children his disappointment. Gunner Sr. was an angry man who took his failings out on his children, driving them all off as the ranch slowly slipped into failure. Only Gran’s plea to Luke’s older brother, Gunner Jr., had brought the eldest back onto the ranch after his father’s death and enabled the turnaround Blue Thorn Ranch enjoyed now.

  She grasped for something to say, some way to undo the damage. All the progress Luke had made seemed to melt off his frame, as if his body were sinking back toward woundedness right in front of her eyes.

  “It’s the bravest thing in the world to choose to heal, Luke. Any coward can let an injury define him.” She closed the gap between them and tried to hold his gaze. “To walk straight on, into the limitations of an injury, accept them and then face them down? Like you’ve done? Like you’re doing? There’s no braver thing.”

  He lifted his gaze with something that looked too much like resignation. Ruby found it far more unsettling than the anger that had consumed him a moment ago. “Oh, yeah,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “Look at me, big brave Luke Buckton on his silly blue ball.”

  Ruby grabbed his arm. “So that’s it? You ignore me, you disregard your doctors, you pay no attention to the people who want what’s best for you when we tell you that you’re pushing yourself too hard, but you give some mean little kid the power to knock you off your treatment? The Luke I knew would be stomping mad, just itching to put that brat in his place. We need that man, because that man is the only one strong enough to do what you’re aiming to do.”

  Luke shot up out of the chair faster than she’d ever seen him move. “You think I’m not mad?” He was close to yelling.

  Ruby felt her spine straighten, felt her resolve meet his, glare for glare. “I think you’re not mad enough!” Somehow, in the space of two sheets of paper, she’d moved from trying to hold him back to seeing how he needed to go at this full force. All-out, all or nothing. If he did that and failed, he stood a chance of healing. But if he didn’t, if he went down without a fight—he’d never be the same. He’d never be whole. He’d be just the man who used to be Luke Buckton.

  She knew that because she understood him, saw how his heart and soul worked, just the same as she had back when she loved him.

  Because a part of her still cared.

  Ruby grabbed her file and thrust her hand through the loop that carried the balance ball, whacking Luke’s chair as she yanked it off the floor. It was heavy, but right now she was so emotional she felt as if she could fling it clear across the bison pastures.

  “Find that man, Luke. Make sure he’s here when I come back on Friday.” She banged the guesthouse door so loud she saw Gran coming to the front door of the ranch house to see what was the matter.

  “Don’t bother!” he roared, from the doorway.

  She turned back after tossing her gear into the trunk of her car. “Try and stop me!”

  Chapter Nine

  Ruby turned over for the twentieth time that night, staring at the too-bright moonlight that came through her apartment window. It had been a waste of time to try to sleep. Good thing Luke had been her last appointment of the day—she’d have been useless with another patient, as preoccupied as she was.

  Every time she closed her eyes she saw the ugly words in those childish block letters. Why? She kept asking God. What’s the purpose of such cruelty? And from someone so young?

  Though he’d clearly been hurt, Luke hadn’t seemed all that surprised at the letter. Did he get many like that? She couldn’t pretend to know what it was like to have that kind of notoriety—and today showed her she was glad for it. It made her think. Had Luke been right in presuming she couldn’t handle what the rodeo life could dish out? If people were that mean to Luke—who had so many attractive and admirable qualities not to mention good looks—what would they do to the likes of her?

  It struck an old, raw nerve. I thought I’d gained more self confidence than this. She hated how second-guessing Luke’s years-old departure took her back to the young, tender—and yes, overly sensitive—version of herself. It felt as if the new, older Ruby was just a shell built over the younger Ruby. A shell that could crack and fall away at any moment.

  That’s not true, she told herself. You know it’s not true. God’s shown you over and over it’s not true. You can’t always trust the way you feel, you know that. Lord, show me a way to battle this.

  Her cell phone rang despite the late hour. It made her jump—she always kept it on in case Mama had an emergency with Grandpa. She scrambled for the phone—no one ever called at 1:30 a.m. with good news—startled to see Luke’s name on the screen.

  “Are you up?” His voice sounded different. Lower, huskier.

  “I am now. Well, actually, I was lying awake so yeah.” She pushed the hair out of her face and sat up. “Are you okay?”

  There was a pause on the phone, and the sound of him shifting. “Can we talk?”

  Ruby started to reach for the light, but instead walked over to the window. The moon was bright enough tonight; she didn’t need to turn on a lamp. She pulled aside the drapes and then backed instantly away, yelping when she saw Luke’s truck on the street in front of the duplex where she lived. He was sitting on the back of the open tailgate, looking up at her window.

  “How long have you been out there?” she gasped, clutching at the ratty T-shirt she’d been sleeping in.

  “About an hour. At first I wasn’t gonna call, then it was like I had to.”

  She fumbled around her bedroom for a pair of jeans and a shirt. “I’ll come
down.” There were more reasons than just the stairs why she didn’t want him coming up. This space belonged to her life beyond him, and she wasn’t ready to let him inside.

  Ruby hung up, got dressed, washed her face, pulled a brush through her hair and threw on a pair of shoes. “Oscar, honey,” she told her dog, “you make a lousy watchdog. I’ll be back.” On a last impulse she pulled two cans of sparkling lemonade from the fridge and walked down the stairs.

  Luke looked rattled. The bristling anger of this afternoon had mostly deflated, leaving him with a lost quality that tugged dangerously at her. Stumped for what to say, she simply hiked up to sit a safe distance from him on the tailgate. She set one of the drinks next to him, popping the tab on the other.

  “You still drink this stuff?” Sparkling lemonade had been a favorite of hers since childhood. Luke used to kid her about it, how she drank this particular brand on nearly a daily basis all through high school.

  Ruby nodded, taking a long drink before saying “You couldn’t sleep either?”

  He settled back against one side of the pickup, stretching his bad leg out across the expanse of the tailgate so that one showy cowboy boot pointed up inches from her knee. The boots really were just like him—stunning, but in an outlandish sort of way.

  “I used to be better about that sort of thing. You know, laugh it off, make wisecracks about dumb kids, jealous cowboys and mean old coots.”

  That confirmed her suspicion that such letters had happened before. “What makes someone write something like that?”

  “Oh, every rider’s got a different theory about why folks do that kind of thing.” Luke opened his own drink. “Nolan always says if you ain’t making someone mad you’re probably not doing anything at all. ‘Better to get a rise than to get ignored’ he always says. ’Course, no one’s writing to call him a disappointment and a coward.”

  “You’re not a coward.”

  He took a long swig. “But I am a disappointment. Even to me. This stuff is awful, you know. Like drinking candy.”

  “How does coping with a huge adversity like this make you a disappointment? And don’t give me the old ‘cowboy up’ bit—it doesn’t apply and you know it.”

  “Doesn’t matter if I know it. All they see is the guy who didn’t get back up.” He leaned back and looked up at the moon, round and brilliant in one corner of the sky. “I’ve dropped out of sight, Ruby, and that’s the kiss of death in my business.”

  “And all this business with that woman and the magazine is going to change that?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  None of this was news. “Why are you here, Luke?”

  He shifted his weight and returned his gaze to her. Those blue eyes stood out like beacons in the sharp shadows of the moonlit night. “Best Eyes” the yearbook superlatives section had called him. Magnetic. “Believe it or not, I came to apologize.”

  Now this was news. Luke Buckton rarely did regrets or apologies. She offered no reply.

  “I was a jerk to you today. It took some time, but life has taught me to recognize such things. I have added a few skills since...well since back then.”

  Neither one of them had come up with the right words to refer to their high school relationship. It had been love—as deep and true as it came at that age—but that didn’t help to find the words that worked now.

  “That letter hurt you. Hurting people do damage, usually to whatever’s in reach.” Ruby didn’t want to venture in the territory of the deep hurt he’d caused her back then. “I still don’t understand why anyone would think it’s okay to say such things. Whatever happened to not kicking a man when he’s down?”

  His body flinched at her use of the phrase. “Is that what I am? Down? Off limits for anything but pity?”

  He really did have a hair trigger for anything related to his injury.

  “Down is not the same as out. You are injured and healing. You are overcoming a setback that I expect would finish men with half your determination.” And, because she’d decided not to pity the man, she added, “And you said you were here to apologize.”

  “I am.”

  She crossed her arms. “Where I come from,” she began, fully aware they came from the same town currently asleep all around them, “an apology contains the words I’m sorry.” If he said he’d learn to recognize when he was being a jerk, then it was time to prove he’d also learned what real men do with such a realization.

  Luke Buckton let precious few people order him around. Back in high school, she’d gotten away with calling him on faults that might have earned other people a shouting match. It had been years, but he’d shown she still had that right. They both knew it was a big reason why she was treating him.

  Luke sat up straight, adjusting his hat as if making a formal proclamation. “Ruby Sheldon, I’m sorry for being a jerk to you today. I took my anger out on you when you were trying to help me. That was wrong. Please forgive me.”

  Some part of her wanted to offer a wisecrack about words she’d never expected to hear out of his mouth, but Ruby settled for a small smile and a “toast” with her can of lemonade. “Apology accepted.”

  He extended a hand. Not sideways for a shake, but palm up to take hers. Ruby hesitated a moment before slipping her hand into his; it felt like toeing up to a line that ought not to be crossed. His fingers wrapped warm and solid around hers, his thumb finding its way to the back to make lazy circles in a way that sent tingles to the back of her neck. Just like high school, only different. Back then, Luke held her hand to “woo” her closer, to spark something more. Right now, in the moonlight after such a painful day, it was just a gesture of friendship.

  At least that’s what she told herself.

  * * *

  Luke texted Ruby for the third time Friday morning. He’d worn a hole in the guesthouse floor waiting for her to reply, his patience all but exhausted. He had to tell someone, and he really wanted that someone to be Ruby, even if she wasn’t due for another three hours. Why wouldn’t she answer her phone? He’d typed URGENT and IMPORTANT in the last two messages and was ready to type CALL ME RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!! with an eighth-grader’s dousing of exclamation points if he thought it would do any good.

  He did another lap through the house, confirmed his findings, gave himself a wincing grin in the bathroom mirror, and glared at the phone sitting all too quietly on his kitchen table. Come on Ruby...

  At last the device buzzed, skittering on the table for only half a second before he scooped it up and hit the button to accept the call. “It hurts!” he yelped into the phone before Ruby said a single word.

  “What?”

  “It hurts. I woke up this morning and my leg hurt. Not all the time, and only when I do certain things, but Ruby, it hurts.”

  He felt the sound of her gasp all the way through his chest. “Where? How?”

  “Little sparks of pain, shooting up from the heel. And others shooting down from the small of my back. It hurts, Ruby. It hurts!” He turned the corner by his couch so fast he tripped, his heart doing leaps at the jabs of pain that shot up his leg when he landed sideways on the couch.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I just fell down. And it hurt.” He leaned his head back on the couch arm and fought the urge to whoop. “Bring it on. I want to be reaching for the aspirin by supper. I want to ache so bad tears run down my face.”

  “If sensation is coming back then that’s wonderful news, Luke. But you don’t want to push it. Be careful until I get there, will you? I just finished up at Doc Nelson’s office, I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “You’ll come now?” He really wanted her to. He wanted to celebrate with the whole world right now, but most especially with Ruby.

  “As fast as I can. Try to stay seated, will you?”

  He scrambled back up off the
couch, ignoring how his knee buckled when he did. He hurt—what did anything else matter right now? “Not a chance. I promise not to dance or run the mile, but no way am I sitting down for this.”

  “Try to take it easy? Just for the next fifteen minutes?”

  Luke stuck his foot out, and then stomped it on the ground, luxuriating in the pricks of pins and needles that shot up his leg. This was pain, and he knew how to conquer pain. Ruby had done it. He’d known she would. He’d known he could count on her. “Get here. Speed and I’ll pay for the ticket. Or I’ll ask Ellie’s husband, Nash, to get you off—having the sheriff for a brother-in-law ought to be good for something.”

  She laughed, and he remembered how much he liked her laugh. “I’ll get there when I get there—and legally, thank you. Just don’t be on a horse or a bike when I drive up.”

  It was a good thing the vintage motorcycle in Gran’s barn wasn’t rideable. The idea of racing down the road, feeling his leg burn when he leaned into the left-hand turns, lured like candy. Maybe he’d have Gunner wheel it out and he’d just sit on it to watch her eyes pop out of her head as she drove up. A million possibilities kept going off in his brain like strobe lights—flickers in rapid succession. Like the delicious pain in his left leg.

  Nolan. Should he call Nolan? Rachel from Pro Bull Rider Magazine was coming back into town on Monday for a second interview—think of what he could show off by then if things kept up the way they were!

  I’m back. His whole body was shouting it as if all the determination blocked by the numbness was letting loose like a floodgate. I’m back.

  He walked—okay, he was limping but that’s because it hurt—past the trashcan and caught sight of the crumpled letter from nasty little “former fan” Eddie Parker. Yesterday, he’d decided the kid didn’t deserve an answer. He had nothing to say to that brat, except maybe a few sharp words to the mom or dad who hadn’t had the decency to stop him from mailing it. Luke thought of his sweet niece, Audie—the kindest, most encouraging kid he’d ever known—and looked up on his fridge to see drawings from the girl. Imagine—give a kid some paper and writing tools and look how differently they could use them. Audie encouraged him, Eddie shot him down.