The Bull Rider's Homecoming

Ruby’s cell phone buzzed beside her, and she fished it from her handbag to peer at the screen.

Been praying for you. Call me when it’s over.

Lana was the best instructor and mentor Ruby could ever ask for. Mama and Grandpa were supportive, but Lana often knew just how to bolster her spirits. It was probably due to Lana’s prayers that Ruby had lasted as long as she had with Luke.

Forgoing a text, Ruby dialed her mentor, taking a deep breath as Lana clicked on the line before the first ring even finished.

“And how was the Buckton beast?”

“Beastly,” she replied, glad to feel a damp laugh bubble up from all the tension in her chest.

“Does he look like you remember?”

“Oh, his looks have improved with age. Those eyes are still...those eyes. I’d forgotten how dark they could turn. That man’s angry glare could set a tree on fire.”

“That charming, huh?”

“Let’s just say I’m not so sure the Blue Thorn bulls have the worst temper on that ranch. If he’s the charmer of the bull riding circuit, I didn’t see any of it.”

“A mean son of gun, hmm?”

Ruby let her head fall back against the seat rest. “He was mean—but not in the way you might think. He didn’t yell at me or call me names. His methods were more cold. Heartless. Wisecracking and dismissive.”

“Ouch. How are you?”

Ruby looked back at the Blue Thorn’s rolling pastures that filled her rearview mirror. “I don’t know. I mean, I knew it’d be hard. But it was so much harder than hard—if that makes any sense. It felt more like sixty hours than sixty minutes.”

“Did you get him to do anything?”

In fact, she had. That was the one foothold she had in this mess, and no one could grab hold of an ounce of progress better than Ruby Sheldon. “Two exercises. And I tricked him into showing me his range of motion, which isn’t much at all. He thinks he’ll be back on a bull, that’s clear.”

“Will he? What sense do you get about his prognosis?”

“I have no way of knowing. At least not yet. If anybody could pull it off though, it’d be him.”

“Only...” Lana had caught the hesitation in her voice.

Ruby let one hand rest on the file. She’d have to write down her notes from the visit, and that would feel so very odd. It’d be a challenge to think of Luke Buckton in purely clinical terms. “You know how this goes. It may not be up to him.”

“Do you feel like it’s up to you?”

“No. Yes. Honestly, I don’t know. Even the best therapy program we have, followed to the letter, can only do so much.” Lana was the seasoned professional, but Ruby had seen patients throw themselves wholeheartedly into therapy and then progress both more and less than anyone expected—and it wasn’t always clear why. “I suppose it’s up to God more than anything else.”

She could hear Lana sigh on her end. She’d told her mentor the entire history she and Luke had together. “Ruby, I know I told you he could be a high-profile client for you, but is it worth it? You don’t owe this man anything. I’m sure he could pay anybody to come from Austin and take his bad attitude three times a week for thirty minutes.”

“I’m not so sure he can, Lana.”

“Don’t those guys earn big bucks? I read the guy who won last year’s championships was worth millions.”

“In the big series, yes. Luke’s not quite there yet. Besides, you don’t earn if you can’t ride, and Luke’s been out of commission since June. His sponsors may have all pulled out already. I don’t think he’d be back on the Blue Thorn unless it was his only option. Luke wasn’t coming home until he came home a champion, you know?”

“Don’t start making excuses for him. You told me you spent months crying over that man.”

Ruby closed her eyes. “I did. But I’m not that girl anymore, either.”

“And you just proved that. You could walk away from this right now and I would back you up.”

“I don’t quit on patients.”

“Luke Buckton isn’t ‘a patient.’ He’s an emotional minefield. Hearing the way you sound right now, I’m sorry I ever encouraged you to take him on. This can’t end well—for you or for him. You’ve got way too much water under the bridge.”

Lana was right. Their history did make things worse. “I know, Lana, but maybe it’s time to burn that bridge. After all, if I can get through Luke Buckton’s treatment, then I’ll know for sure I’ll never quit on a patient.”

“All right, I told myself I wasn’t going to ask this, but I have to know. You don’t still carry a torch for him, do you?”

The most startling thing about today had been the tiny, irrational part of her that did still care. The flicker of against-her-will compassion that made her walk to the car for a “forgotten” file just to save his dignity. It stunned her how, after all the ways he’d hurt her, her heart could resurrect any care at all.

“He needs grace.” It was true, but even she knew it wasn’t the whole truth.

“Perhaps,” Lana sighed. “But maybe it doesn’t need to come from you.”

Ruby looked back at the ranch in her rearview mirror. “Maybe I need to know I’m strong enough to show him grace. Maybe I need the closure I never got. Maybe I want the chance to walk away from Luke in a way that showed more mercy than the way he walked away from me.”

“I just want to be sure you’re taking him on for the right reasons. Professional concern isn’t the same thing as nostalgic sympathy.”

Sympathy was the last thing Luke wanted, or needed. That man needed someone to wage war on his condition, maybe even to wage war on the man himself.

If Ruby Sheldon was anything, she was a warrior.

* * *

Luke eased himself up off the hay bale as he watched his brother, Gunner, check some records in the barn after lunch. Nobody had yet said a word about Ruby’s visit—not even Gran, who he’d expected to cross the lawn the minute Ruby’s car was out of sight and grill him for details.

Lunch was an excruciating exercise in avoiding the topic. Gran, Gunner, Gunner’s wife of two years, Brooke, Brooke’s ten-year-old daughter, Audie, and even their seven-month-old boy, Trey, seemed to stare holes in him while talking about every other subject they could find. Good. Everyone ought to know the subject of Ruby Sheldon was off-limits. Still, Luke wondered how long that reprieve would last.

He balanced his weight on the good leg until he knew how well the bad one was working at the moment—an annoyingly necessary tactic these days—and leaned up against the barn wall as casually as possible. It was always an endless negotiation to be upright. How long would it be before he threw his leg over the back of a motorcycle without a second thought again? Over the back of a horse? A bull? He’d pressed both his surgeons in Montana, as well as the specialist he’d seen in Austin, but no one had any timelines to give.

Go ahead, ask me. Gunner could never leave well enough alone where he was involved, and after Ruby’s visit Luke was itching for a fight anyhow. He’d thought he’d appreciate the quiet of the ranch, but the truth was the inactivity was making him nuts. The guesthouse—the whole ranch—was too quiet, too slow, too watchful. One of his motorcycles was still in the ranch garage, and if he thought he stood half a chance of driving it with any control, he’d be off down the road in a heartbeat.

Gunner looked up to catch Luke’s stare. “I suppose it’s none of my business,” his brother said, replying to the question Luke hadn’t asked.

“It isn’t. But you’re gonna ask anyway, so go ahead.”

“Why are you being such an idiot?”

Luke was expecting a more specific question, but wasn’t it just like Gunner to paint his entire life in idiotic terms instead of just his attitude toward Ruby? It stumped him for a reply—Luke wasn’t sure where to start.

Gunner, evidently, knew exactly where to start. He straightened up, making Luke resent every one of the three inches Gunner had on him. “I thought Ruby showed a lot of spine coming out here after the way you’ve been behaving. Tell me, is it all an act, or are you really just that mean now?”