Allie Pleiter - The Bull Rider's Homecoming

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?”

“I can’t stand any of that stupid ‘stretch this way’ and ‘push against here’ nonsense.”

Gunner returned his gaze to the papers. “So you’ve got this all figured out then. You’ll just heal on your own and be back to break new bones next season.” Gunner looked so much like their father it made Luke want to kick something. As if he could. It had been so hard to get his boot back on after Ruby left that the frustration was eating him alive.

“It’s worked before.” Luke crossed his arms over his chest. “Come on, this isn’t the first time I’ve come up hurt.” It wasn’t. But it was the first time he had come up hurt this bad.

“No,” Gunner replied as he closed the ledger and shoved it back into a drawer. “But forgive me for pointing out this is the first time you’ve come home.”

Luke’s teeth ground at Gunner’s words. That was just like his big brother to cut right to the marrow without mercy. Luke fished for a good comeback, and came up empty. Instead he found a nail in the wall beside him and began to wiggle it loose.

“I know you.” Gunner went on. “I’ve been you. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t your last chance.”

“This is not my last chance,” Luke shot back as he yanked the nail from the wall. He glared at Gunner’s lousy, end-of-the-road choice of words. “I figured it was time to show up, that’s all.”

“That’s a load of bull, and you know it.” Gunner met his glare with one of his own. “How about you just stop pretending this isn’t a major setback?”

“It’s not a major setback.” Now he was really starting to sound like a five-year-old. Go ahead, Gunner, don’t hold back. Go for ‘career-ending’ why don’t you? You won’t be the first, and right now I’d love a reason to punch you. He threw the nail into a nearby barrel and found another one to work loose.

Gunner grabbed his hand on the nail and gripped it tight to hold it still. “Don’t you get it, Luke? No one here cares whether or not you ride next season. Whether you win the tour next season or world championship the season after that or never get on a bull again. This is your family. You don’t have to go all ‘big shot’ on us. You surely didn’t have to go all ‘big shot’ on Ruby or anyone else.”

“Nobody needs to baby me!” Luke yanked his hand out from under Gunner’s, the nail underneath leaving a small scrape on his palm. He shook his hand and then sucked on the wound while turning to head out the barn door. Every inch of him wanted to storm out, but his slow gait made it impossible.

“More bull. You’re hurt. Bad, if I had to guess—and I have to guess, don’t I? Because you’re not saying anything.” Gunner walked up and stood right in front of him now, his softened expression even worse than his previous glare. “Luke,” he said, in lower tones, glancing back toward the big house as if keeping his words away from prying ears, “just how bad are you hurt? Really?”

“Nothin’ to tell,” Luke dodged, shrugging.

“I don’t buy that for a minute. Talk to me. It’s eating you alive, man, even I can see it.”

His brother’s words started up a war in Luke’s chest—the need to talk waging battle with the need to keep everyone from knowing. His surgeons and even the local doc had been sworn to secrecy. His agent didn’t know the whole of it. If even a hint of this ever made it back to his sponsors...

“Don’t know,” he said finally, feeling rattled by even letting that much slip out.

“Of course you know.”

“No, I mean I really don’t know. Nobody does. It’s not pain. I’d be better if it were just pain. It’s...” He’d kept it bottled up for long enough that it fairly boiled inside him, desperate to get out. “I don’t feel anything. The nerves—they’re shot. At least for now. And nobody knows if they’ll stay that way.”

Gunner was wrong. It didn’t help to tell someone. It felt as if saying it aloud let the facts take root in the real world instead of just infesting his worries. The weight of not knowing felt heavier than ever.

Luke took a step toward his brother, hating how much effort the action involved. “So all the stupid therapies in the world can’t change the fact that I may have fried my leg, get it?” He hissed the words like the threat they were. “Either the feeling’s coming back or it ain’t. I’ve got no say in how this ends. None.” He jabbed an angry finger at Gunner and his infuriatingly compassionate expression. “So forgive me if I’m not a ball of sunshine about the whole thing. I need to beat this. I need to get my leg back. I need to show the whole tour that I am not washed-out for good.”