Luke’s Ride. Helen DePrima

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.

      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

      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