Luke’s Ride

She had set the timer on the tub jets for twenty minutes so she wouldn’t miss the sound of the garage door opening if Brad returned early. She wanted to greet him in the kitchen, ready to pour his drink. When the bubbles died down, she climbed out and padded to her closet, taking out a silky robe the bronzy green of new willow leaves. Brad had bought it for her two birthdays ago, calling her his Celtic princess. She brushed her hair until it shone and returned to the kitchen just as she heard his car door slam.

When he walked through the door carrying a takeout bag from the China Dragon, she wrapped her arms around his waist under his jacket and gave him the kiss she’d been saving for months.

“Hey!” he said with a laugh when the kiss ended. “Maybe I should have stayed away longer.”

“Not a minute longer.” She set the bag on the counter and peeled his jacket off his shoulders. She sniffed and frowned. “I must have sprayed you with my cologne while I was dressing for the funeral.” She couldn’t recall using it but couldn’t say she hadn’t. Most perfumes were too heavy and gave her a headache, but she ordered this light, woodsy fragrance from a cottage boutique on Cape Cod.

“I’ll take your suit to the cleaner’s tomorrow,” she said and hung the jacket over a chair.

They ate by candlelight almost without speaking, he nursing his Scotch and she sipping a glass of wine, before they climbed to the bedroom with their arms wrapped around each other. Kathryn laid her robe across the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and slipped between the sheets. When he joined her, she slept at last in his arms, cherished and utterly at peace.

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

LUKE REVELED IN the first few hours on the road home, almost like returning to his life before his injury. He’d taken this route dozens of times driving to and from bull-riding events, mostly with his brother at the wheel and then alone after Tom retired from competition five years ago.

After a career traveling every weekend to a different city and working on the ranch during the week, almost three months of confinement had been first cousin to a prison sentence. With his wheelchair stowed in the back of the van his dad had rented for the trip, he could lean back in the front seat and enjoy the passing scenery. The Austin suburbs gave way to countryside with armies of white wind turbines marching to the horizon. Farms petered out to rangeland; the terrain became more broken the farther west they drove. Buttes rose in the distance like tables for an extinct race of giants.

Jake was describing this spring’s relatively trouble-free calving season when the muscle spasm hit Luke. He doubled in his seat with a grunt of agony.

Jake swerved the van onto a gravelly ranch road and swiveled in alarm. “What’s happening? What can we do?”

“Gotta straighten my legs,” Luke said through gritted teeth as the agonizing cramp brought tears to his eyes. He got his door open and released his seat belt.

Shelby was beside him in an instant, helping him turn sideways and extending his legs to brace his heels on the door’s armrest. “Tell me where to rub,” she said.

“Back of my thighs.” He fumbled a medicine vial from his shirt pocket and reached a hand behind him. “Water bottle, Pop.”

Jake slapped the bottle in his hand, and Luke swallowed a capsule with one long gulp. Shelby’s strong hands had already begun to loosen the muscles. The medication to relieve the spasm would do the rest once it kicked in.

Jake patted Luke’s shoulder. “This happen often?” His voice shook.

Luke swallowed to steady his voice. “More than I like. My nerve pathways are all screwed up. Sometimes it feels like knives or broken bones, mostly when I don’t move around enough.”

“Would you like to lie down for a while?” Shelby kept rubbing. “I brought along an air mattress—I can fold down one of the rear seats so you can stretch out.”

Luke sighed. “Probably a good idea.” The attacks exhausted him, and the pill would make him drowsy, as well. “Sorry to be a bother.”

Jake’s voice cracked like a whip. “That better be the last time I hear you talk that way. You’re no more bother than your mother was with lupus.”

Luke’s chin dropped on his chest. “Sorry, Pop—it’s still a lot to get used to.”

Shelby settled Luke’s feet on the van’s running board. “I’ll have you set up in a minute. Do you need the wheelchair?”

He had driven himself like a slave during physical therapy to maintain upper-body strength; now with Shelby to guide his legs, he managed to pivot himself into the rear of the van and lie down. Jake pulled back onto the road; soon the steady hum on the tires and the muted twang of country-and-western music on the radio lulled Luke to a drowsy half wakefulness.

Random thoughts rambled through his mind—uppermost was the yearning to be home. Here he was, thirty-six years old and totally screwed—no wife or kids, unsure of his future. Though he was the older son, he’d never shared the same passionate devotion to the ranch, to the whole family tradition, his dad and brother did. Now his heart reached toward Cameron’s Pride like a wounded animal seeking refuge in its den. Maybe he’d walk again, maybe he wouldn’t, but he understood for the first time how generations of Camerons had endured by drawing strength from the green valleys and red-rock ravines.

The van slowed, breaking into his reverie, and gravel grated under the tires. He jacked himself up on his elbows as Jake pulled into the parking lot of a low adobe-front building with a simple sign above the door: Ana’s Kitchen. He knew the place; he and Tom had stopped here for meals.

The side door of the van slid open. “We checked this out on our way to Austin,” Shelby said. “Good food and a wheelchair-accessible restroom.”

Luke’s heart dropped like a shot bird, jerking him to the reality he’d now be planning his life around his disability. He settled his black Stetson on his head and eased into his wheelchair, rolling into the dim interior of the restaurant while his dad held the door open.

A round-faced hostess with black hair in a sleek braid showed them to a table that would accommodate his chair. They all ordered coffee and studied the menu. The food at the rehab center hadn’t been bad, but Luke’s mouth watered at the prospect of good Southwest food with plenty of beef and beans, cheese and green chili. And real fresh-made tortillas—he could see a skinny kid in the kitchen slapping out dough into thin circles.

Luke was trying to decide between pork enchiladas and carne asada when he became aware of a little boy, maybe six, standing beside his chair. He turned with a smile. He liked kids, had been thinking lately about having his own, especially with his younger brother’s two always underfoot at the home ranch. Fat chance of that now. Doc Barnett had said there was no physical reason he couldn’t father a child, but who would want him like this, a broken man?

“Hey, pard,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Danny, sir.” The child held out a tiny paw. “My daddy’s got a chair like yours because he’s a soldier and he got blown up in the war. Did you get blown up, too?”

“No, I got stepped on by a bull,” Luke said, shaking the boy’s hand. “I’m a cowboy.”

Danny’s eyes got big. “A real cowboy?”

“Pretty real.” At least he used to be—who knew what he’d be in the future?

A young blonde woman appeared from the direction of the restrooms and hurried over to the table. “I’m so sorry Danny’s been bothering you,” she said.

“He’s no bother,” Luke said. “Danny, your daddy’s a hero—he’s lucky to have you for his top hand.” He touched his hat brim. “Thank your husband for his service, ma’am, and thank you, too.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes, and led her son to their table.

Jake and Shelby sat in silence during the exchange. Now Jake surprised Luke by reaching across the table to shake his hand. “I reckon you made that little guy’s day.”

Luke shrugged. “Little enough I could say. A lot of veterans have it lots worse than me—it’s just my legs that don’t work.”

He’d tried to keep his relative good fortune in mind through the drudgery of learning new ways to manage daily activities, functions he’d never given a thought to in the past. At least he had full control of his body except for his legs, and he planned to keep fighting against all logic to walk again even if his chances were slim.

* * *

BY LATE AFTERNOON the next day, Luke regretted his decision not to fly. Jake and Shelby had done everything in their power to make the trip comfortable for him, but the hours in the van and the effort of personal care in the motel’s impersonal setting exhausted him more than his rigorous exercises at the rehab center.

“We have to make a quick stop to pick Lucy up,” Jake said as they approached Durango. “She’s going to drive the van back tomorrow.”

“Lucy’s in Colorado? I thought she was acting in a play on Broadway.”

“Off Broadway,” Shelby said. “And the play folded. She’s going to do summer stock in New Hampshire starting in June, but right now she’s home managing the Silver Queen. Marge had double knee replacements last month.”

“Ouch,” Luke said. “Not fun.” He’d had both knees rebuilt after tendon injuries. And Marge Bowman was no spring chicken, although she always seemed ageless. “Lucy’s running the whole show?”

“Pretty much,” Shelby said. “Marge decided they would do just breakfast and lunch, so Lucy moved into the apartment upstairs and opens in the morning. Jo and I have been pitching in for breakfast until the regular waitress shows up to work lunch.”

Jake double-parked across the street from the Victorian storefront with Silver Queen Saloon and Dance Emporium in ornate gold letters across the wide window. He honked the horn; a few minutes later a slim young woman wearing jeans and a leather jacket came out carrying an insulated bag.

Lucy Cameron climbed into the back seat beside Shelby and leaned forward to kiss Luke’s cheek. “Hey, big bro—good to have you back.”

He reached over his shoulder to ruffle her ruddy curls. “Good to see you, too, Red.”