Cowboy Take Me Away (10 page)

“Yeah. Big house. All that money. Must be hell on earth.”

“Things aren’t always what they seem.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “Sometimes they’re worse.”

His words hung in the air for what seemed like ages. She had some sense of what he went through with his father, but he’d never really talked about it.

“How much worse?” she said.

He swallowed hard. “You don’t want to know.”

She looked down to see Luke’s fingers tighten against his thighs as he spoke, turning white with the pressure. She slid her arm through his, then lay her head against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

For the next several minutes, she silently consoled him, knowing there were things she still didn’t understand, things she knew he didn’t want to talk about. She only knew that the boy she’d always thought was so tough and indifferent was hurting inside, and she wanted to take the pain away.

Soon she realized the sun had set, and she could see the moon rising out the small window in the hayloft. She didn’t want to leave him, but she had no choice.

“It’s getting late,” she said, reluctantly pulling away from him. “I should go.” Then she realized she was still holding the necklace in her other hand. “I’d better not put it back on. The clasp must be broken.”

“Here. Let me take a look at it.”

She handed it to him, and he looked closely at the clasp.

“No. Not broken. Just a little bent.” He fiddled with it for a moment, then handed it back to her. “There. It’ll stay now.”

She looked at it and nodded. “Can you put it back on me?”

She’d turned her back to him, pulled her hair to one side, and held the necklace up. When several seconds passed and he didn’t move, she wondered what was going on.

Then she felt his lips against her neck.

She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling. Then he slid his hand around her waist, resting his palm just beneath her breasts. It was a shockingly sweet and tender gesture that shot shivers right down her spine.

She turned around, and there it was in his eyes. Desire like nothing she’d ever seen before. And she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. The wild, swooping sensation in her stomach told her she might even be in love with him. She wasn’t completely certain she knew what love felt like because she’d never experienced it before, but wasn’t it supposed to be about feeling good around a guy? Trusting him?
Wanting
him? Even now, Shannon remembered every look, every touch, every breathtaking moment that came next.

But she remembered even more vividly how everything had fallen apart.

In one painful blow, all the excitement and exhilaration had been wiped out by anger, regret, and guilt. So it was no wonder that when she looked up at Rosie’s that day and saw Luke standing there, the myriad of emotions she felt had practically knocked her to her knees.

As the years passed, she’d tried to shove her feelings for him to the back of her mind, to that place where unfulfilled promises and might-have-beens went to die. Then the day of his father’s funeral, all it had taken was one glance at him to bring it all back to life, to make her fall right back into that sea of desire all over again.

But there was nothing between her and Luke anymore. He was a rodeo rider, a drifter who went from town to town and probably had a woman in every one of them, so getting tangled up with him again was a fool’s game. If she were ever to forget that, she could only imagine how badly things might end between them now.

A
n hour later, Luke pulled up next to one of the two pumps at the Pic ’N Go and got out of his truck, wincing at the sudden twinge of pain in his knee. He filled his truck with gas, then parked beside the building and walked stiffly into the store. A woman holding a loaf of bread stood over two kids picking out candy bars. Along the windows at the front of the store were three Formica-topped tables surrounded by four chairs each, a place to sit and have a burrito or a hot dog. He decided he’d order one of each.

As he was grabbing a copy of the
Rainbow Valley Voice
from the stand to read while he ate, an older woman came out of the back wearing a green apron and a pair of beige pants. She moved with the gait of a woman with a little arthritis and a lot of bad attitude. Her hair was a little thinner than he remembered, and a little grayer, but it was still Myrna Schumaker through and through.

The woman and her kids came to the register, and Myrna rang up their purchases. After they left the store, Myrna tossed the receipt the woman had left on the counter into the trash, then turned around.

Luke knew the precise moment she recognized him. She stood motionless, her jaw going slack before she closed her mouth again and turned away, rearranging a few energy bars on a point of purchase display and acting as if he wasn’t even there.

He came to the counter and set the paper down. “Well, hello there, Mrs. Schumaker. Long time no see.”

She grabbed the newspaper to ring it up.

“Why don’t you give me a burrito and a hot dog, too?” Luke said, nodding to the heated glass case beside the counter. “Those sure do look good.”

Myrna grabbed the food from the case, stuck it in a bag, and started ringing everything up.

“Now here you’re acting as if you don’t remember me,” Luke said. “I think you’ve hurt my feelings.”

“Oh, I remember you,” Myrna said. “I remember you painting graffiti on the side of my building and shoplifting beer. I assume you’re just passing through?”

“Now, you know nobody just passes through the Valley. You have to work to find this place.”

“So what’s your business here?”

He would have loved to have told her he’d just gotten out of Huntsville after doing hard time, or that he was working for a Mexican drug lord pushing crack, just to see if gossip got around town as quickly as it used to. Those things were no more true than some of the stories people told about him all those years ago, but since when did these people care about the truth?

“I’m the new caretaker at the shelter,” he said.

Myrna’s eyes widened with surprise. “Shannon North hired
you
to work at the shelter?”

“That’s right. But don’t worry. It’s only temporary. Three months and I’ll be out of here.”

“Hmm,” she muttered. “Never took Shannon for a crazy girl. Now I gotta wonder.” Myrna took the ten-dollar bill Luke gave her, stuck it in the register drawer, and handed him back his change. “Maybe she doesn’t remember what a troublemaker you were.”

Of course she did. But in the event she didn’t, Luke knew Myrna would let her know, along with every other citizen of Rainbow Valley. By the end of the day tomorrow, there wouldn’t be a person in town who didn’t know that one of its most notorious citizens was back.

Luke took the bag and the newspaper and sat down at one of the tables. He knew Myrna would prefer it if he left her store, but he decided it was going to be a long three months if he couldn’t at least sit down and have a bite to eat in public. As he unwrapped the burrito, Myrna started talking on the telephone, which meant she was already spreading the word.

Luke heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned to see a little boy several feet away near the potato chip display, looking at him curiously. He had close-cropped blond hair and big blue eyes. He wore a pair of ragged denim shorts and a faded blue and red striped shirt, both of which looked as if they’d been laundered within an inch of their lives.

Luke smiled at him. “Hey, kiddo. What’s your name?”

“Todd,” he said.

“How old are you, Todd?”

“Almost seven.”

Luke nodded at the stuffed animal under the kid’s arm. “What do you have there?”

“My dog.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tramp.”

“From
Lady and the Tramp
?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I guess you like dogs?”

The kid smiled. “Uh-huh. Our neighbor Mr. Brady has two dogs. Sometimes he lets me play with them.”

“What color are they?”

“White. With lots of curly hair. Someday I’m gonna get a real dog. But my grandma says not now.”

“Todd!”

Todd whipped his head around.

“Come back over here,” Myrna said.

Todd gave Luke a little wave good-bye and hurried back around the counter. Myrna gathered him against her and gave Luke a look that would melt granite. Then she leaned over and whispered something to the little boy, and he disappeared into the back room.

Luke wondered who he was. Was Myrna the grandma he talked about? Maybe. But that would mean he belonged to her daughter, Belinda. As Luke remembered, she wasn’t much older than Angela. No telling what the situation was there.

Luke opened the paper to read as he ate the burrito and hot dog. About halfway through dinner, he heard his text tone. He grabbed his phone to take a look.

Well, crap. Carter Hanson?

He punched the button to view the message.
How’s the knee, Dawson? Bet it hurts like hell. Miss you!

Right. Hanson missed him like a dog missed fleas. But he never missed an opportunity to cause trouble.

Irritated, Luke stuffed his phone back into his pocket, wondering where Hanson had gotten his number. Wait a minute—did he really have to wonder? There was a certain buckle bunny out there with a grudge. He was lucky she hadn’t posted his phone number on the front page of her blog and encouraged everybody she knew to spam him.

He’d just finished the burrito and started in on the hot dog when he heard bells against glass. Turning around, he saw Sheriff Sizemore come through the door. Judging by the way he stopped to gaze around the room, it was pretty clear he was looking for somebody in particular. And Luke knew who that somebody was.

Ben Sizemore had been sheriff in Rainbow Valley as long as Luke could remember, which meant he had to be pushing sixty by now, but he was still as tall and lean as ever. Ben rarely spoke unless it was necessary, and even then he spared his words. He always deputized a couple of guys during the summer months when tourism was at its height, and a couple more when the festival was in full swing. Most of the time, though, it was just him patrolling the streets of Rainbow Valley and keeping its citizens safe from the bad guys.

When Luke was in high school, Ben had represented everything about Rainbow Valley he hated, particularly the assumption that just because of where he came from, everybody had to keep an eye on him. After a while, Luke got so tired of the wary looks he got for doing nothing but walking down the street that he finally gave them something to gossip about. By the time he was in high school, he found some kind of trouble to get into at least once a month, and to this day he couldn’t look at a police car without a small part of him wondering if a cop was inside looking back at him, waiting for him to screw up.

The sheriff approached Luke’s table and slid into the seat across from him. “Hey there, Luke. Mind if I sit down?”

“Looks like you already have,” Luke said.

Ben nodded toward the brace on his leg. “Knee problems?”

“Just had surgery.”

Ben slid his hat off, revealing a permanent crease in his graying hair. “So…what have you been doing with yourself since you left the Valley?”

“Riding bulls,” Luke said. “I’ll be heading to the World Championship Rodeo in a few months.”

Ben just stared at him, which irritated the hell out of Luke. Either the man was too ignorant to know what that meant, which Luke didn’t believe for a moment, or he was acting as if it meant nothing when he knew it did. Either way, it pissed Luke off.

Ben leaned back in his chair, eyeing Luke carefully. “I thought you left town after the funeral.”

“I came back.”

“How long you staying?”

“Three months.”

“So what will you be doing with yourself while you’re here?”

Mugging a few old ladies and robbing the savings and loan.
“Working at the shelter. I’m the new caretaker.”

Ben never blinked. Courtesy of Myrna, it was clear he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking.

“Frankly,” the sheriff said, “I’d have been happier if you’d come here for your daddy’s funeral and then just kept on going. But it’s none of my business unless you break the law. You gonna break the law?”

“Do you ask that question of every new person in town?”

“Only if that person’s name is Luke Dawson.”

Luke remembered now just how much he’d hated Sheriff Sizemore. To Luke, he’d been nothing more than a starched uniform, a stern expression, and a pair of handcuffs when the situation warranted it. Luke had been more familiar with the backseat of that police cruiser than any teenage kid ever should have been.

“But no matter what you think,” Ben said, “I wasn’t out to get you back then. We had problems only when you were breaking the law. Too bad I never convinced you of that.”

“That was a long time ago. People change.”

“Some do, some don’t.”

“You were talking to a boy before,” Luke said. “Now you’re talking to a man.”

“Good. That’s good. Then I can see we’re not going to have any problems at all.” Ben picked up his hat and slid it back on his head. “We’ll both just go about our business, and that’ll be that.” The sheriff’s words may have been low key, but Luke heard the veiled threat behind them.
I’m watching you. Step out of line, and I’ll nail you to the wall.

Ben rose from his chair and walked to the counter to have a word with Myrna, which really irritated Luke. He was an adult, for God’s sake, but as he watched them talking about him, he felt like that angry kid all over again.

After the sheriff was gone, Luke stood up, stuffed the hot dog back into the sack, and dumped the rest of his trash into a nearby can. Todd peered at him from around the counter. He gave the kid one last wink, which made Myrna’s already caustic frown deepen even more. Her gaze burned a hole in his back all the way out of the store. He hadn’t expected a backslap and a friendly smile, but somehow he’d thought the passage of time might have made some kind of a difference to these people.

Evidently not.

He drove back to the shelter, telling himself to let it go. It was going to be a damn long three months if he allowed things that were over and done with to eat away at him. In no time he’d be heading back to his old life, on the road to the top again, leaving this town behind him in a cloud of dust.

The next morning, Shannon pulled through the sanctuary gate and drove toward the office. Goliath lay on the seat beside her. He seemed calmer than usual, and she hoped that meant she was making progress with him. Hell, she was more uptight than he was. She would have liked to have said Luke had nothing to do with that, but she’d never been one to delude herself.

As she got out of the car, she looked down the hill toward the back pasture. Dewdrops glittered in the morning sun, and she heard the soft cooing of mourning doves. Overhead, a sky of solid blue stretched from horizon to horizon without a cloud in sight. They needed rain something awful, but she couldn’t help enjoying the tranquility the clear weather foretold. It was at times like this that she could stop, take a breath, and bask in the beauty of this place. Sometimes she even did it for a whole thirty seconds before she was driven to get back to work.

Then it dawned on her. The pasture was empty. Where were the horses?

Her skin prickled with apprehension. This time of morning, they generally gathered near the gate leading to the barn, waiting to be led to their stalls to be fed. From this vantage point, she should have been able to see at least a few of the five horses they had on the premises right now, but all she saw were the llamas in the adjoining paddock.

Then she had a terrible thought. Had Manny found another way out and taken the lot of them with him? If so, rounding them up was going to take all day. If they’d been out for hours, no telling how long it would take to find them.

Shannon jumped out of her truck, put Goliath in the office, and trotted down the path leading to the barn and the pasture beyond.
Damn it, damn it, damn it! I do
not
need this right now!

A little out of breath, she approached the barn. Closer now, she could see into a few of the stalls. To her surprise, the horses were in the barn. And they were eating.

Then she came into the barn, and what she saw stopped her cold.

Luke stood in the breezeway. His shirt was slung over a stall door, leaving him bare chested. He’d put on a pair of work gloves and slid his hands through the wire surrounding a bale of hay. Now he was lifting the hay to his chest, dropping it back down, then lifting it again, those beautiful biceps bulging. A sheen of sweat coated his chest and shoulders, with beads of sweat forming on his forehead. She watched, mesmerized, her mouth going dry as dust. Finally he dropped the hay bale, breathing hard.

Then he turned around and saw her.

He froze for a moment, then walked over and pulled the wooden bench out from the wall.

“Shannon,” he said. “You’re up early this morning.”

“You already fed the horses. You’re not on the clock until nine.”

“I figured they could be eating while I worked out.”

He peeled off the gloves, grabbed a sack of horse feed, and slung it to the bench. He straddled the bench, then lay back and hoisted the horse feed over his head. She watched, fascinated, as he pushed it from his chest to the full extension of his arms, then back to his chest again. God, he was gorgeous when he moved like that. Oh, hell. He was gorgeous just lying there breathing.