Cowboy Take Me Away (21 page)

“He did it,” Shannon said. “He stayed on the full eight seconds!”

“That bull threw him four seconds in,” Luke said. “He just refused to get off.”

The kid left the arena as nonchalantly as he’d slid down onto the bull. But once the gate closed behind him, Shannon noticed he wasn’t looking at his friends. He wasn’t being congratulated by any family members. He was looking into the stands. A few seconds later, his gaze settled on Luke. Luke looked back at him, turning his fist into a thumbs-up. The kid nodded, then walked away.

“That was nice,” Shannon said.

“He can take it for what it’s worth.”

“Are you kidding? Your approval meant everything to him.” A few loose strands of hair fanned her face, and she brushed them away with her fingertips. “You’re something special around here, aren’t you?”

“Like I said before. It’s a high school rodeo. Kids are pretty easy to impress.”

“It’s not just the kids. Everybody here knows who you are.”

Luke just shrugged, but she could tell the attention wasn’t lost on him. In Rainbow Valley, he was the son of the most disreputable man the town had ever seen. But in this world, he was a man other people looked up to. No wonder he was so desperate to get back to his old life.

“I told Myrna I’d have Todd home by ten,” Luke said to Shannon, then turned to Todd. “It’s getting late, buddy. We need to go.”

They hadn’t been in the car five minutes before Todd fell asleep, his head on Shannon’s shoulder, his breathing measured and even. The evening had worn him out in a good way, and she had a feeling he was going to be talking about it for some time to come.

“Have a good time?” Luke said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Shannon said. “It was fun. I didn’t know there was so much involved in rodeo. And bull riding. No offense, Luke. But you’re
nuts
.”

He smiled. “Most days I wouldn’t disagree with you about that.”

After tonight, that didn’t really surprise her. But what did surprise her was how incredibly good he was with kids. He seemed to thrive on that almost as much as he did bull riding.

She looked at Todd. “You were so good with him. And with those boys at the rodeo.”

“I like kids,” Luke said. “There’s no pretense with them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t have any ulterior motive. No hidden agenda. If they like you, they like you. If they don’t, they’ll tell you why, and it’s usually your fault. It doesn’t take much to make them happy. With the little ones, just let them wear your hat, or pet a horse, and they act like they’re at Disney World.” He glanced at Todd. “I’m going to have my own kids someday. Boys, girls—it doesn’t matter which.”

“You want to be a father?”

“Does that surprise you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I guess it does.”

“Because I didn’t exactly have the best example of a father to guide me?”

“Some men would say they don’t want kids because they figure they’d be terrible fathers just like their fathers were,” Shannon said.

“Does that make any sense at all? If a man has a terrible father, why on earth would he let himself become just like him?”

“It happens.”

“Not to me. No matter what the people in town think, I’m nothing like my father was. I want to have kids someday. And you can bet your life I’ll do it right.”

Shannon believed him. Every word.

Soon they pulled up in front of Myrna’s house. Shannon waited in the truck as Luke picked Todd up, still sleeping, and took him to the door. They disappeared inside the house, and a few minutes later Luke came back to the truck.

“Did he ever wake up?” she asked.

“Nope. He was dead tired. I put him right in bed and he never made a sound.”

“You and Myrna seem to be getting along just fine these days.”

Luke gave her an offhand shrug. “She’s been real good to Todd since his mother left.”

Luke drove to Shannon’s apartment, where he pulled his truck into a parking space and killed the engine.

“So what are your plans for after you win the World Championship?” she asked.

“The money won’t last forever. I’m a bull rider. Come January, I’ll start all over again.”

“So how long can a man ride bulls before the bulls get the best of him?”

“I don’t know. Guess I’ll find out sooner or later, won’t I?”

“You say you want to settle down. Have kids. How are you ever going to do that when you’re in a different city every week?”

“A man’s got to make a living first. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

She nodded. “When the day comes you can no longer compete, what will you do?”

“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that.”

A silence stretched between them, and she was sure Luke knew what she was thinking.

“Rainbow Valley,” she said finally. “Do you still hate it?”

He looked at her, then looked away again. “This isn’t the place for me. Never will be.”

“There are some good people here.”

“I know that. And I appreciate every one of them. But as long as I stay here, I’ll always be Glenn Dawson’s son. When I’m anywhere else, I’m my own man. If you were me, what would you do?”

After tonight, she understood exactly what he was saying. She saw what it was like for him at that rodeo. How people related to him. Why wouldn’t he want that life instead of this one?

“When I was growing up, most people wouldn’t even look me in the eye,” Luke said. “Some of them in this town still won’t. How do you think that feels?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“Of course you don’t. Because you’ve always been somebody other people looked up to, not down.”

He was right. She couldn’t imagine what it had been like for him. She just wished he would try to look at things differently now. Realize that things had changed.
He
had changed. Maybe now it wasn’t how the people in Rainbow Valley felt about him. It was how he felt about himself.

“What about you?” he asked. “Would you ever consider leaving Rainbow Valley?”

“I’ve thought about it,” she said. “But this is home. I had no idea how much I loved this place until I came back. And the animals…” She shook her head, not looking at him. “I can’t imagine ever leaving again.”

Each of them knew what they were asking the other, and both of them had their answers.

Just then she heard Luke’s text message tone. He pulled out his phone. Took a look. She saw his jaw tighten ever so slightly, and then he put the phone back in his pocket.

“Bad news?”

“It’s nothing.”

“I need to go,” she said. “Good night, Luke. Thanks for a wonderful time.”

Before he could say anything else, she got out of his truck and went into her apartment. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, fighting the regret she knew was coming. There had been a time earlier in the evening when it had crossed her mind that she might invite Luke in tonight. Maybe ask him to stay. And now that she hadn’t, all she could think about was how much she wished she had. After tonight, she wanted him so much she was in danger of becoming obsessed. But if she gave in to that, what would she feel like when he eventually left this place and never came back? And that was exactly what was going to happen. He couldn’t have made it any clearer if he’d shouted it. She remembered how she’d felt all those years ago when she woke up to find him gone, and if she put herself in a position to be hurt by it again, it was her own damned fault.

She sat down on her sofa, resting her head against the back of it and closing her eyes, feeling miserable. So she didn’t want to be hurt? Too late. The wound was already there. All she could do now was try to stop the bleeding.

She felt sorry for herself for a while longer, floating in misery and teetering on despair. The she sat up slowly, telling herself she needed to cut it out. She’d had a life before Luke showed up—a good life with good friends in a place she loved. She could either wallow in depression for the next several weeks wishing for something she could never have, or she could get on with that life. As long as Luke was there, he was temptation. He always had been. But he clearly wasn’t a man she could have a future with, so it was time to get those thoughts out of her head and replace them with something that made sense.

Now—
right now
—was the time to do that.

She picked up her phone and called Russell. He sounded sleepy enough that she knew she’d probably woken him up, but she didn’t care. He didn’t appear to, either, because when she invited him to dinner at her house on Saturday night, he sounded thrilled to accept. She couldn’t cook worth a damn, but she figured that was a good test. If he ate whatever below-average thing she made for him and paid more attention to her than the food, she’d know they were on the right track.

She hung up her phone and congratulated herself.
There.
That felt good. She’d done something logical and reasonable to counter all the irrationality she displayed every time Luke was around. Even if she hadn’t sold herself completely on Russell yet, he was a decent guy. She hated to say her mother was right about anything, but eligible men her age showed up in Rainbow Valley about as often as…well, just about never. If she blew this opportunity to get to know a man who might be right for her if only she gave him a chance, God only knew when the next one would come along.

Russell was stable, which Luke wasn’t. He had an established profession, which Luke didn’t. He was sincerely trying to become part of this town, which Luke had no desire to do.

And long after Luke had left Rainbow Valley, Russell would still be there.

A
s Luke drove back to the shelter, he thought about how he hadn’t been quite up front with that kid at the rodeo. He’d acted as if that ride in Amarillo had been just one more. The truth was that he remembered every single second of that ride, because it had started the greatest year of his life.

But after going to the rodeo tonight, Luke realized how far his mind had wandered from where it should have been. He’d become so caught up in life at the shelter that sometimes a few days went by without him focusing on his goal. As he was working out, his mind should have been centered on performance-boosting mental replays of his best rides. Instead he found himself thinking about a cat that was having a hard time finding an adoptive family, or a repair that needed to be done, or the progress he was making with Manny.

But most of all, his mind drifted to Shannon.

But she could no more be his now than she could back then, because nothing had changed. She’d made it quite clear tonight that she intended to stay there forever, in the one place he’d never want to live again even if he gave up rodeo forever.

Bridget nudged the door open, came into his room, and jumped on his bed. He petted her for a moment, and she lay down beside him, purring loudly. He started to turn off the light, only to think about the text message he’d received when he was in his truck with Shannon. He pulled out his phone and read it again, hating Carter Hanson more with every word.

Guess who’s leading the pack now? Hint: It’s not Luke Dawson!

Luke’s stomach sank. When he saw that message, he realized he hadn’t checked the rankings in a long time, and when he pulled them up, he saw Hanson was right. He’d passed Luke up. Not by much, but Hanson still had the opportunity to hit a few more rodeos before the championship and amass even more prize money, while Luke was stuck here earning nothing.

He gritted his teeth, hating that feeling that his dream might be slipping away. For a minute, he had the crazy idea that he should leave town now, get back on the circuit, and make sure when he hit Denver he was leading in the standings again.

But what if he screwed his knee up again and knocked himself out of the championship altogether?

There was a limit to how much Hanson could earn between now and then with only a few more rodeos on the schedule. Luke was still firmly in the top ten, and the prize money was so great in the finals that a couple of good rounds could put him right back on top again.

He decided it was better to keep getting stronger so he was a hundred percent the minute he arrived in Denver. If he was in top-notch shape, there was no way that Carter Hanson, or anyone else, would be able to touch him.

On Saturday night at five o’clock, Shannon rounded the corner onto Calico Court and headed for her apartment, running so late she’d never be ready before Russell got there. She’d gotten hung up at the shelter with a family who was adopting a cat, and now she had less than an hour before he was supposed to be at her place. She still had to put dinner together, shove it in the oven, and hop into the shower before Russell arrived. Then, as she drew closer to her apartment building, she saw something that filled her with exasperation.

Her mother’s Mercedes sat in the parking lot.

Shannon steered her truck into a parking space. She grabbed Goliath’s leash, and together they trotted into the building. Shannon swept open her apartment door, expecting the worst. And that was exactly what she got.

The very worst.

Her living room was sparkling clean. The sofa pillows were fluffed. The dining room table was set with expensive linens that weren’t hers. In the air was a scent that might have been a cinnamon apple candle that she likewise didn’t own. The rugs were free of dog hair. The pile of books and magazines on her coffee table had shrunk by half. And her end tables…

Wait a minute. Was that what they looked like without dust? They were a whole new color. And shiny. Very weird.

She unclipped the leash from Goliath’s collar. “Mom! Where are you?”

Her mother appeared at the kitchen door. She wore a crisp blue oxford cloth shirt, a pair of beige slacks, and sensible but stylish shoes.

“Oh, hello, dear,” she said. “It’s about time you got home.”

Goliath took one look at Loucinda, whimpered a little, then trotted to his spot beside the fireplace, where his blanket was supposed to be. Unfortunately, it had not-so-mysteriously disappeared. He ducked his head and looked back at Shannon anxiously.
I’m so confused! Did the scary lady steal my blanket?

“Where’s Goliath’s blanket?” Shannon said to her mother.

“In the wash. It was filthy.”

“But he’s used to it being beside the fireplace. He’s still uptight about his surroundings. The blanket helps.”

“The dog may not care about the blanket being clean, but Dr. Morgensen will care very much.”

“Mom? What are you doing here, and why are you cleaning things?”

“Don’t be silly, dear. I don’t clean houses. Rosalinda cleaned it.”

“What?”

“Why not? Heaven knows she can use the extra money.”

“You paid
your
housekeeper to clean
my
house?”

“Well, you certainly can’t afford it. Not on that salary you make at the shelter.”

This was it. The last straw. Shannon was going to have to get her key back so her mother couldn’t come and go as she pleased. But she could only imagine the fallout that would cause, and she just didn’t have the time to deal with it now.

She swept past Loucinda and went into the kitchen. “Mom, you have to go. Russell is going to be here in less than half an hour. I have to get dinner ready to—”

That was when she saw that her oven was on. Peering through the glass door, she saw her mother’s favorite French white two-quart dish.

“Mom?” Shannon said with disbelief. “What have you done?”

“It’s a casserole. I put it on low so it’ll be hot when you sit down to dinner. Don’t worry, though. I made something simple. We don’t want Dr. Morgensen getting suspicious about where it came from, now do we?”

“You made dinner for my date?”

“Considering what’s in your refrigerator and pantry, there wasn’t a way in the world you could have made dinner yourself.”

“I was just going to bake some chicken breasts. Stick one of those vegetable steamer thingies in the microwave. And put out some bread or whatever.”

“Bread? All I saw was a sandwich loaf.”

“Right. Toast it a little, butter it—”

“Good heavens! Are you
trying
to drive him away?”

“How did you even know I invited him to dinner?”

“Eve told me.”

“How did she know? I didn’t tell her.”

“I think it had something to do with that odd little woman who works for Dr. Morgensen, whose name escapes me.”

“Mom. No casserole. You shouldn’t even
be
here.”

“Be realistic,” her mother said. “Dr. Morgensen is coming at six. It’s almost five thirty. You have no time to cook
and
make yourself pretty.”

“Fine,” she said on a breath of frustration. “Leave the casserole.”

“There are rolls to go with it. They’re wrapped in foil on the counter. And there’s a Boston cream pie in the refrigerator.”

Shannon opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Sometimes her mother just left her speechless.

“Wear something besides blue jeans,” Loucinda went on as Shannon escorted her to the door. “Dr. Morgensen is a professional man with good taste. He expects any woman he dates to look like…well, like a woman.” She faced Shannon, looking almost teary-eyed. “I’m so proud of you for doing this. There’s nothing like a home-cooked meal to let a man know how much you care about him. Who knows where this might lead?”

Yeah, and Shannon would just bet Grandma North was looking down from heaven with tears of joy, too.

“Call me tomorrow and tell me how things went,” Loucinda said.

Shannon let her mother out. Then she heard a whimper and glanced at Goliath, who was standing in the living room near the place where he’d last seen his blanket, looking lost. Shannon ran to her laundry room, grabbed his blanket out of the dryer, and laid it beside the fireplace.

“There you go, sweetie,” she said.

He stepped onto the blanket. Sniffed it. Looked back at Shannon.
It smells funny.

“I know,” she told him. “My mother loves April Fresh Downy. Stinks, doesn’t it?”

He finally turned a circle and lay down, looking up at Shannon with grateful doggie eyes.
That’s okay. It’s still my blanket. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

She ran to the bathroom and showered in record time. She’d just thrown on a clean pair of jeans and a nice shirt when the doorbell rang. She blew out a breath of frustration. The man was so punctual you could set Big Ben by his departures and arrivals.

She opened the door to find Russell looking tall and handsome and impeccably dressed as always, wearing a sport coat and slacks, which practically screamed
special occasion
.

“I overdressed,” Russell said.

“No. You didn’t. I underdressed. The, uh…the dress I was going to wear…I didn’t get it back from the cleaners in time.”

He handed her a bottle of white wine. As she took it, it dawned on her that she hadn’t seen the casserole before her mother shoved it in the oven.
Please let it be chicken.

“How was your day?” she asked as they went into the kitchen.

“I did Mrs. Hunsacker’s crown. A few fillings. Then a checkup and fluoride treatment on the Martin kid. He bit me.”

Shannon pulled the casserole out of the oven. “That’s kids for you.”

When Russell frowned at that, she said, “So do you want kids someday?”

“Well, sure. Eventually. That’s one of the steps, isn’t it?”

Russell lived his life as if he was painting by numbers. Fill in all the blue spots, then the red, then the orange and green, and pretty soon the picture was complete. He went to school. Got his degree in dentistry. Opened an office. Drove a certain kind of car, lived in a certain kind of house. Sometimes she felt as if she was a certain kind of girlfriend he eventually intended to make into a certain kind of wife.

The kind of wife her mother was.

Shannon cringed at the thought. She’d hated painting by numbers in kindergarten, and she didn’t like the figurative version of it now.

Russell opened the wine, and they sat down to eat.

“Smells good,” he said. “What is it?”

Let’s find out together, shall we?

She took the lid off and cringed. She couldn’t say exactly what it was, but there were definitely chunks of beef swimming around in it. Russell looked distressed.

“You said you were making chicken,” he said. “So I brought white wine.”

I don’t care about the damned wine!

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Shannon said. “But it’ll be fine. What is it they say? Good wine is whatever you like. And I like white wine with beef.”

Russell was one of those men whose thoughts were written all over their faces. And right now his face was telling her what horrifically plebian taste she must have if she was even considering such a thing.

As they ate, Russell said, “
Mmm.
This is good. I wouldn’t mind if you cooked more often.”

Shannon realized she could either tell the truth and sound grossly incompetent, or lie and set herself up for the kind of future expectation that only her mother’s cooking could meet. In the end she just said nothing.

They chatted about nothing in particular through dinner, and afterward they sat on the sofa with another glass of wine. Shannon had been selling Russell to herself all evening long, but when he leaned in and kissed her, it was like point of purchase packaging on a candy bar. Good enough to get her attention, but the more she ate of the candy itself, the more she wished for something more substantial.

No. Knock it off. Give him a chance, or you may be alone forever.

Russell dragged his lips along her neck. “I’d like to stay tonight.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Shannon just about choked. In that moment, she knew just exactly how wrong this was. No, they hadn’t been dating long. But if he’d been a man she was truly interested in, her reaction would have been something other than sheer panic. Clearly she’d sent the wrong signals by making dinner for him at her apartment. What was she supposed to do now?

Tell him. Tell him right now this is going nowhere.

Then her phone rang.

“Don’t answer it,” Russell whispered, kissing her neck again. But she pulled it from her pocket and checked the caller ID.

Luke?

Her heart jumped halfway to the moon.

“Ignore it,” Russell said, but she leaned away and punched the
Answer
button.

“Uh…hi,” she said, glancing at Russell, then looking away again. “What’s up?”

“I’m at the shelter,” Luke said. “A woman just called about an abused dog.”

She came to attention. “Abused dog? Where?”

“I have an address about fifteen miles from here. The woman didn’t leave her name.”

She stood up and walked toward the kitchen, speaking more quietly. “Tell me what she told you.”

Luke related a story about a dog in a neighboring county staked out in his owner’s front yard, skin and bones, who rarely got food or water. Shannon’s stomach turned over at the very thought of it.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go have a word with the owner.”

“No. We need to call the sheriff.”

“Sheriff Sizemore can’t go. It isn’t his jurisdiction. And all law enforcement tends to do is issue a lot of warnings, which do no good. We need an animal control officer, but budgets are stretched too tight around here.”

“So you’re the unofficial animal control officer?”

“Just think of me as a concerned citizen.”

“With no authority. Nice people don’t abuse animals. That’s who you’ll be talking to. Somebody who’s not nice. You shouldn’t go alone.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”