Luke’s Ride

“A visiting nurse came out to the ranch,” Jake said. “She said Luke should be fine with the changes we made downstairs for Tom that time the bull fell with him.”

Dr. Barnet nodded. “I figured you folks would be able to manage.” He turned to Luke. “I’m sending your records to the University of Colorado School of Medicine. I know Denver’s a haul from your corner of the state, but they’re doing some great research on spinal injuries—I hope you’ll get in touch with them.” He handed him a card. “Here’s the contact number.”

“Maybe.” Luke stuffed the card in his shirt pocket. Or maybe not. He’d had all privacy stripped from him in the hospital; he didn’t much feel like becoming a case number in a research study.

As if he could read minds, Doc said, “I can’t promise you’d get any personal benefit, but you could add to their data, maybe help other patients in the future.”

Luke flushed. “Sure, I get that.”

He switched gears. “Okay if I ride?” If he could get a horse between his knees, he could be of some use on the ranch. After all the years he’d complained about mending fences and clearing irrigation ditches, now he’d give up years of his life to stand knee-deep in icy snowmelt.

“Okay with me—riding would be good for your balance and core strength. But can you?” Doc shrugged. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

Luke couldn’t imagine hanging on to his own cutting horse. Jigsaw had great cow sense but was so quick he’d left Luke sitting in the dirt more than once. Old Sadie, maybe, but she stood over sixteen hands and had gaits like a truck with square wheels.

“We’re on it,” Shelby said.

Count on Shelby to put him on horseback. She’d find him the right mount and train the crap out of it.

“Sure you don’t want to go home by plane?” Jake asked. “It’ll be two long days on the road. I can fly with you and let Shelby drive the van home.”

“I can’t,” Luke said. He’d flown all over the US and Canada, to Australia and Brazil as well for bull-riding events, but the thought of being wheeled through the airport made his throat close up in near panic. Even worse would be the ordeal of security screening. Old ladies and kids in wheelchairs got hassled—they’d take a guy his age apart from his bones out. He’d never backed down from a challenge, but he wasn’t ready for this one.

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“I’ll miss you,” Betsy said and planted a kiss on his mouth, something he’d been angling for ever since he landed here three months ago.

“You could come with me,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist.

“I am so tempted, but my husband wouldn’t care for the idea.” She shook hands with Jake and Shelby. “Take care of this boy—he’s one of the good ones.”

Luke grabbed his gear bag off the floor and settled it on his lap. “Let’s hit the trail.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ue79c903c-b6ca-5deb-8908-9871437f3ec4)

KATHRYN GARRISON SHIVERED, chilled to the bone in her navy wool suit, the only outfit in her closet appropriate for a funeral. The calendar might say spring, but the March wind off Long Island Sound still held the bite of winter. She leaned closer to her husband, wishing Brad might think to put his arm around her shoulders, but he was staring toward the mourners amassed on the far side of her mother’s grave.

She dragged her attention back to Reverend Blackburn’s words—no more suffering, gone to a better place, together again someday—breathing past the hollow ache in her chest. She didn’t begrudge a single moment of caring for her mother, but her release from twenty-four-hour nursing duties left her unsteady, as if she had entered a sudden calm after trudging forever against a pitiless gale.

Maybe some sense of normalcy would return tonight when she slept in her own bed instead of napping on the foldout sofa in her mother’s room. She had stayed in her mother’s house two extra nights caring for Blondie, Mama’s old spaniel. Brad didn’t like dogs and Blondie didn’t like Brad, growling every time she saw him. After the funeral Blondie would live out her days with Aunt Joan, who had given Mama the puppy twelve years ago.

Another cold gust buffeted the canopy over the grave. A few more hours and Kathryn could return to her own home where a long, hot soak in the jetted tub would drive the chill from her bones. Maybe Brad would join her and they would lie together in each other’s arms for the first time in months. Tomorrow she would start gathering the threads of her life as it had been before her mother’s diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer only four months ago.

Brad nudged her and she realized Reverend Blackburn had stopped speaking.

Kathryn stood and took the first yellow rose from the florist’s box to lay on her mother’s casket. After the rest of the roses had been placed by the other mourners, she was free to return to the limousine with its soft seats and comforting warmth.

Later, she would come back alone to bid farewell, although she and Mama had said their goodbyes over the past months. Elizabeth Gabriel had endured the roller coaster of crisis and remission with lupus for nearly twenty years before the cancer had taken her down quickly. Kathryn had loved her mother dearly, but she was glad the ordeal was over for both of them.

One more trial: the obligatory post-funeral luncheon. Brad’s old secretary, recently retired, would have booked a room at a local restaurant, but Brad’s personal assistant had arranged the event at the country club. All Kathryn had to do was nod and smile as friends and relatives shared their memories of her mother.

The limousine pulled up at the canopied entrance of the Tudor-style mansion built by a Connecticut Valley tobacco baron, now home to the Rolling Hills Golf and Tennis Club. Kathryn followed Brad through the carved doors, half expecting to be stopped and ejected as an intruder. She was hopeless at tennis, and if she wanted to hike across rolling hills, she would rather carry binoculars and a camera than trundle a bag of golf clubs behind her. She understood Brad’s explanations that big contracts could be landed on the links and afterward in the bar, but every function she was obliged to attend was an ordeal.

She followed him to a private dining room overlooking the golf course, still drab in its winter brown. A willowy blonde wearing a black pencil skirt with an ivory silk blouse looked up from a clipboard and hurried over to meet them.

“Mrs. Garrison, I’m Britt Cavendish, Mr. Garrison’s personal assistant. Please accept my condolences—Mr. Garrison has told me what a wonderful woman your mother was and how devoted you’ve been, caring for her.”

Kathryn had never met Britt, although she’d spoken to her on the phone a few times.

“Thank you for taking care of the luncheon arrangements, Britt,” she said. They exchanged a few more pleasantries and then Britt excused herself to tell the headwaiter the hot dishes could be brought out to the buffet table.

Kathryn turned to Brad, but he had drifted away and stood in conversation with a couple she recognized from club dinners, although she wasn’t sure of their names—Vera and Charles something, she thought.

At last, it was over. Tomorrow or the next day she would return to her mother’s house to restore the parlor from sickroom to its original function, but tonight she wanted only peace and pampering and uninterrupted sleep.

She was nearly stumbling with fatigue by the time they left the country club. Brad pulled his Mercedes into the garage and unlocked the door leading to the kitchen. All was in perfect order, with gleaming surfaces and quietly purring appliances. Kathryn always kept the house up with no outside help, but Brad had gotten a weekly cleaning service during the months she had been caring for her mother. She had made quick trips home—forty miles each way—to pick up clothes or books she wanted to read during the long nights. Now she stood in the middle of the room as if she were a visitor.

“I guess I’ll have a cup of tea,” she said, mostly to break the silence.

“I’ll make it for you,” Brad said, slipping off his suit jacket and loosening his tie. “You can pour me a Scotch.”

She watched him move around the kitchen with assurance, putting the kettle on the eight-burner Viking range, taking a mug and tea bags from the cabinet. He’d learned to do more for himself while she’d been gone, although she suspected he’d eaten most of his meals out. He looked like he’d spent more hours at the gym, as well. He’d never been soft, but he appeared leaner and more muscular—younger, somehow. Apparently her absence had done him no harm.

She opened the liquor cabinet and found his favorite Scotch behind bottles of cordials and brandies she didn’t remember seeing before, probably gifts from sales reps at Christmas. His phone chimed while she was dropping ice cubes into a glass. He pulled it from his pocket and frowned before answering.

“No,” he said after listening. “I can’t make it tonight. Tell them I’ll meet them tomorrow. It’ll have to wait till then.”

She touched his arm. “Brad, go if you need to—I know the funeral arrangements have taken up a lot of your time the past few days.”

“Hold on,” he said into the phone and turned to her. “You’re sure? This deal has been simmering for weeks. These guys came up from the city with no warning—”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I need some time to decompress anyway. You won’t be late, will you?”

“I promise I won’t. I’ll pick up Chinese on the way home.”

He spoke into the phone again. “Tell them I can be at the office in half an hour—we can talk there or maybe go out for drinks, but I promised my wife I’d be home early.”

He picked up his jacket. “You’re sure you’re okay? I can call them back—”

She waved him toward the door. “Just go and take care of business. We can both relax better if your mind isn’t on work.”

He kissed her cheek and left.

The kettle began to whistle. She poured boiling water into a squat iron teapot and added two Earl Grey teabags, leaving it to steep while she made her way through the spacious downstairs rooms. She and Brad had occupied this house only a few years, and like the country club, she wasn’t at ease in the elegant open-concept rooms.

She did like the big soaker tub in the master bathroom. She also loved the kitchen, with its high-end appliances and acres of marble counter space, but would have enjoyed it more if she’d had a big family to cook for. An only child, she had hoped for sons and daughters with Brad’s blond, college-boy good looks or her own chestnut hair and freckles, but it hadn’t happened. Maybe it was time to find out why or why not. And there was always adoption. Thirty-four wasn’t too old to start a family.

She returned to the kitchen and set dishes and candles on the breakfast table before carrying her steaming mug upstairs to place on the edge of the tub. The tensions of the long day dissolved while she sipped her tea and relaxed in the swirling, lavender-scented water.