The Bull Rider's Homecoming

A quick look around as she got out of the car revealed no one but “Granny B” standing on the house’s big porch. Ruby found herself telling her limbs to get out of the car.

“Ruby,” came Adele Buckton’s warm voice as she hobbled down off the porch. “My stars, but it’s Ruby Sheldon.”

“Hi, Granny B.” The words belonged to some eighteen-year-old version of herself, young and squeaky. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t crossed paths over the years, small as Martins Gap was, but neither of them could pretend this was anything but awkward and difficult.

“Look at you.” Her gaze fell to the folder in Ruby’s hand. “You’re here for Luke.” Somehow Granny B made the simple statement sound as complex as it truly was.

“Yes, ma’am.” She wished for something more clever to say, but came up short.

Ruby had always liked Granny B—the Buckton children all called her “Gran” but everyone else in town called her “Miss Adele” or “Granny B.” The old woman had been as much of an anchor as Luke ever had in high school. Luke and his dad locked horns on a near constant basis, and Luke’s mom had passed when he was eleven. Though he had three siblings—including a twin—they’d all pretty much been born with one foot out the door. Granny B had been the one responsible for anything that felt homey and welcoming about this place.

When Luke left town after graduation, Ruby had wanted—expected, actually—for Granny B to show up and make sense of how Luke broke things off. She’d always been so sure either Granny B or Luke’s twin sister, Tess, would appear on her doorstep and explain why the boy she loved both left her and left Martins Gap without a backward glance. It had never happened.

Granny B’s gaze lifted over Ruby’s head to settle on the guesthouse behind them. Ruby turned to see the guesthouse door open up. The figure of Luke Buckton stood in half shadow behind the screen door.

“I’d best leave you to it, then,” Gran was saying behind her.

Ruby’s heart twisted and surged and stung all at the same time. A hollowed-out panic, an empty awareness froze her chest—all feelings that made no sense but surrounded her anyway as she stared at him.

He was just like the ranch—familiar yet different. The eyes were still their spell-binding blue—“Buckton blue,” everybody called it—but now they were framed by tight features. His wild-boy hair still tumbled around that strong jaw, only now the jaw was roughened with a man’s stubble. Luke had filled out into a man’s body, lean and hard-edged, but even his defiant stance didn’t quite conceal the hint of uncertainty that made him favor one leg. How he could be the boy of her memory and a stranger before her at the same time made Ruby’s mind spin.

“Ruby.” His voice, somehow octaves deeper now, held more challenge than welcome. “Why are you here?”

It was an absurd question—they both knew why she was here. His prickly tone held the faintest hint of the dismissive words he’d flung at her the night he told her he was leaving. Not just Martins Gap, but her as well.

The tone snapped something to life in her, resurrecting all the anger against him she’d swallowed down over the years. It was helpful—clearing her head and straightening her spine, giving her the composure to calmly call his bluff. “You need help.”

Need and help weren’t in Luke Buckton’s vocabulary back then, and she doubted he was friendly with the concepts now.

She’d read the file. No one really knew what level of functionality Luke Buckton would get back from his left leg. Such injuries were unpredictable.

“Well, now, that’s a matter of opinion,” Luke replied as he flexed one hand against the doorknob. Rather flippant for someone in his position—but then again, that tactic had been a Luke Buckton specialty.

“No,” she retorted, “I’d say that’s a medical fact.” When she saw the edge in his eyes give just a little, she pressed further. “Whether or not you’re man enough to accept it...well, I expect that is a matter of opinion.”

She’d never have spoken like that to any other patient, but no one could call Luke Buckton “any other patient.” She heard Granny B mutter something that sounded approving and the big house door shut behind her.

Luke looked at her with an almost amused disdain, as if some uppity puppy had taken to yapping at one of the thousand-pound bison that were raised on the ranch. A “don’t you know who you’re dealing with?” warning glare. Frustration made people hard and sour, especially those for whom weakness was an unforgivable sin. She knew that his frustration was why he’d pushed away the other therapists, and it told her he was that frightened he wouldn’t heal. And yet despite their history, he hadn’t tried to hire in a therapist from Austin, even when he knew Ruby was the only option left in town. Which meant that while he’d never admit to it, he’d decided he needed her.

He’d done exactly the same thing in high school when they’d met as she tutored him in algebra. That boy had gone all “I don’t need you” when she was the only thing standing between him and failing out his senior year.

Begrudgingly needing her had turned into respecting her, had turned into liking her, had turned into—she’d thought—loving her. That boy had made her feel pretty and full of possibility...only to turn around months later and declare her not pretty enough and without enough potential to follow him to rodeo stardom.

She suddenly realized it had been half a minute or so, and neither of them had spoken.

Luke shifted his weight again. It dawned on Ruby that while she could wait all day for this standoff to end, he could not. He’d been injured, and badly. He may be in possession of all the bravado, but she was in possession of the solution—if there was one.

“This won’t work,” he said under his breath but still loud enough for her to hear. How many times had she heard those words during Luke’s tirades about algebra and graduation requirements?

The remark revealed just how much he needed this to work. He hadn’t changed: the more he needed it, the less he’d act like he did. She could see it, clear as day, because sensing things about patients was her gift.

She did have a gift. The bravest, strongest version of herself looked Luke straight in the eye. She clutched her file and took a step toward him. “Won’t work, huh? Prove it.”

Chapter Two (#u469d60a5-5bb2-5165-bc90-08a27085c2e4)

The red scarf didn’t suit her.

It was a weird thought to have, given the drama of seeing the girl you’d loved and left after so much time, but that was the first thing that went through his mind.

Ruby, despite her name, wasn’t a red girl. She was more of a dusky pink, the color of Gran’s roses that ran along the back of the house. Red was trying too hard.

The Ruby of his memory was a soft pink thing, kitten-like, full of wonder and amazed at whatever he did. She’d put him on a mile-high pedestal all through high school, and he’d liked that. Dad was lightning-quick with the put-downs, but Ruby looked at him—as Gran would put it—as if he hung the moon.

He’d given her plenty of reason to admire him when they’d gotten to know each other. He’d swept her off her feet. First by accident, just to distract her from the tutoring she was supposed to be giving him, and then on purpose. The more he got to know her, the more he liked her. He’d delighted in romancing her with dramatic gestures and flat-out charm. By the spring of their senior year, like had turned to love.

And then he’d done her wrong. Dropped her as dramatically and abruptly as he’d swept her up. If he could manage to regret anything—which was a reach for the likes of him—what he’d done to Ruby would top the list.

Which made today excruciating on any number of levels.

Right at this moment, however, what topped his list was that he couldn’t stand up much longer. The numbness was creeping up his leg, his sense of the floor beneath his left foot all but gone. If he turned to walk back into the house now, there was a fair chance his foot would drag against the ground, if not trip him outright. He’d left his cane back at the couch, determined to stand there on his own two feet and show her he was still strong. Now the only thing that felt strong was the throbbing in his wrist from the choke hold he currently had on the doorknob.

This was the part he hated the most—he couldn’t tell if his knee would hold him or buckle, if his ankle would bend or drag. It was as if his body had dismembered itself, splitting off into strange pieces that refused to talk to each other.

It’d be so much easier if it just hurt, just as it would be so much simpler if it didn’t have to be Ruby.

As it was, she walked up to the guesthouse and stood waiting for an invitation to enter. The Ruby he’d known would have gotten back into her car after his first mean glare. This Ruby who’d just said “prove it” was an older, harder Ruby. It bugged him that he might be the reason for some of that armor.

“Are you going to let me in?” Her voice tried too hard to be loud, mismatched to her personality just like the scarf the wind kept flapping up off her neck.

“Do I have to?” The comeback sounded childish. Stupid, given that getting her here was what he’d wanted in the first place. He’d thought she was the only one who could get him out of this. Now that she stood in front of him, most of him hated the idea.

Ruby stared at him, one eyebrow scrunched down in thought—the way she used to stare at a math problem. It had been one of his favorite things, watching Ruby’s mind whir into gear, but the fact that she was now trying to solve him sent an itchy feeling down his spine.

“I forgot something in the car,” she said. It had the tone of a convenient excuse, and Luke swallowed the infuriating sense that she recognized his dilemma and was giving him a chance to spare his pride.

Ruby made an exaggerated turn back toward her car. Luke wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the out she gave him and hobbled awkwardly back to the couch while she had her back turned. He left the door open. He couldn’t decide if he should be glad she’d given him the chance to sit down unseen, or ticked off she’d sensed he needed it. That was always the best and worst thing about Ruby—she could read him like a book.

“You always wanted Granny B to let you live here,” came her voice as she closed the guesthouse’s front door behind her. There was no nostalgia in her tone; she recited it like fact, the way she’d recited the algebra theorems that gave him fits in school.

Luke let his hand lead his numb leg to come up and cross casually over his good knee. She was watching the way his leg moved, and he fought the urge to cover it with the issue of Pro Bull Rider magazine lying on the couch next to him.

Ruby settled herself in the chair opposite him, a file and clipboard balanced on her lap. She sat upright, knees together, elbows close, the way she used to sit with him in study hall back before he’d coaxed her out of her shell. Ruby had always been a much more entertaining equation to solve than algebra.

“This won’t work,” he challenged again, knowing it made no sense but needing to keep her at a distance until the knots in his gut settled.

“So you said.” Her eyes fell to the cane he’d forgotten to hide in his rush to get “casually” settled on the couch before she came in the door, and he bit back a scowl. She gave him what he was sure was her worst “therapist” glare. “Don’t think I haven’t heard that kind of talk before.”

She’d heard it from him all those times he’d said he’d never be able to learn algebra. The history in the air between them was so thick and painful he could practically reach out and press his hand up against it like a cement wall.