Cowboy Take Me Away

Chapter 22


Swallowing his apprehension, Luke moved closer to Manny. When he touched him, he thrashed crazily, trying to free himself. Luke knelt down and quickly wrapped his arms around him. “Take it easy,” he said as calmly as he could. “Be still, now. Be still.”

He reached a hand up and scratched the little horse behind his ears. Only seconds passed until he settled down, but it felt like hours to Luke. Holding his halter with one hand, Luke used his other hand to carefully and methodically loosen the stiff barbed wire. But just as he’d start to free one of Manny’s legs, a barb would dig into the other and he would struggle again, causing even more damage.

Damn it! This wasn’t working. If only he had wire cutters. But if he let go of Manny so he could run back to his truck, would he only cut himself worse? The fire was so close now that the wind felt like a blowtorch. Even beneath the canopy of trees, ash swirled in the air, and breathing was a chore. No. He couldn’t go back now. No time.

He kept working with the wire. When he finally freed Manny from one strand, he held it down with his foot while he worked with the other one. The heat was unbearable. Luke swiped sweat out of his eyes with his shoulder and kept working. Every time he felt like giving up, he thought about the tears in Shannon’s eyes as she told him about the animals in her nightmares that she couldn’t save.

Finally Luke managed to tuck the remaining wire beneath his boot along with the other one. Then he lifted Manny away from both of them. He felt a rush of elation, only to realize that Manny was hanging his head, making no move to run away. There was no doubt now the blood loss had taken its toll. He would never be able to walk back up the rocky trail.

Luke scooped the little horse up in his arms. He could lift well over Manny’s weight, but the heat and the effort of getting him loose had drained Luke’s strength. He moved as fast as he could over the rocky path, feeling the strain in his back and legs. Once he tripped and almost fell, then righted himself again and kept pushing forward.

He didn’t care what it took. He was bringing Manny back to Shannon. No matter what he had to do, he was going to make sure all the animals she loved so much were finally safe.



Shannon checked her watch. Only fifteen minutes had passed, but it felt like hours. The fire had raised the air temperature, and sweat poured down her temples and soaked her shirt.

“The fire’s getting too close,” the trooper told Shannon. “I’m going to have to back this roadblock up soon.”

“What do you think it’s like another mile up the road?”

“Hell on earth.”

Just those words made shivers run up her spine. She paced away from the car and back again. “Something’s gone wrong. We need to go up there.”

“Can’t,” the trooper said. “I’ve got my orders. If I don’t hold this position, people could drive right into this.”

“But it’s been too long!”

“That guy clearly knew what he was getting into. Anybody who ignores the evacuation order and the roadblock is on his own.”

Shannon was furious at Luke for leaving her there and crazy in love with him all at the same time. She only hoped he wouldn’t stay up there too long, so long that he succumbed to the smoke-filled air and couldn’t get out.

Then she saw it. Luke’s truck, coming up over the rise.

Thank God! He made it. He’s coming back!

The trooper got into his car and moved it out of the way so Luke could get by. Luke drew closer, then came to a halt. Leaving the engine running, he jumped out. Shannon ran toward him.

“Luke! Did you get Manny?”

“Yes.”

Then he came around the truck, and she saw something dark staining the front of his shirt. For a moment she didn’t realize what it was, and when she did, her stomach turned over with apprehension.

Blood.

She raced up to meet him. “Luke! Are you all right?”

“It’s not me.” He looked toward the back of his truck. “It’s Manny.”

“Manny? What happened?”

“He tried crawling through the barbed wire fence that runs through the trees on the east side of the pasture and got caught. I got him loose and carried him out, but he’s cut pretty badly.”

She put her hand to her throat. “How badly?”

“He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

Luke’s expression turned dark, and dread washed over her. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, God…” Her knees went weak, and tears came to her eyes.

“Shannon? You need to hold it together, okay?” He handed her the keys. “I’ll ride in the back with him so I can keep him as calm as possible and try to stop the blood flow. You get us to the nearest vet you know outside of Rainbow Valley.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice shaking. “Okay. I will.”

Luke raced to the back of the truck and jumped inside. Shannon got behind the wheel and hit the gas.



What happened in the next half hour was a blur. Shannon drove straight to Dr. Adler’s clinic in Rosemont, about twenty miles away. Manny seemed barely conscious as Luke lifted him from the truck. The sight of Manny’s wounds made her stomach turn over with anger and self-recrimination. Damn it. Why hadn’t she found a way to replace that fence a long time ago?

Luke carried Manny to the barn, where Dr. Adler and her assistant took over with IVs and blood and wound care. Shannon just stood there, feeling helpless, afraid Luke had been too late. Afraid whatever the vet did, it wouldn’t be enough. Afraid it was her fault because of that damned barbed wire!

Luke took Shannon’s arm and led her out of the barn. “We need to go.”

“No,” Shannon said. “I want to stay with him.”

“You can’t. That fire is coming fast. If they don’t get it under control, it could eventually take out Rainbow Valley. We need to get you evacuated from your apartment.”

“But I can’t leave him like this.”

“There’s nothing more we can do now. Dr. Adler said she’d call when she had news.”

“She won’t be able to get through. All the lines are blocked because of the fire.”

“She’ll let us know as soon as she’s able,” Luke said.

“At least I need to go to the vineyard. Other shelters may have to come up to get the animals. I need to help out there.”

“Freddie Jo and Angela are taking care of that.”

“But—”

“Sweetheart, you have to trust that other people will do their jobs. It’s time to take care of you. What about Eve and your parents?”

“Eve has a big truck for her business. She’s taking them to my parents’ vacation house on Lake Travis. I suppose we’ll go there, too, once we’ve evacuated.”

They got in Luke’s truck. As they drove, she saw heavy gray clouds filling the late afternoon sky. Or was that smoke from the fire? It was getting harder to tell one from the other. She wondered how soon the buildings at the shelter would be overrun by flames. If that happened, what was she going to do if the other shelters couldn’t absorb all the animals they’d evacuated to the vineyard, and then the vineyard itself became threatened?

She didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t think about it, or she’d go crazy.

As they drove into town, they saw cars and trucks backed up to houses and garages. People ran from houses to vehicles with as many possessions as they could reasonably take with them. It wasn’t until that moment that Shannon was hit with the full impact of what was happening.

This fire could take out the entire town.

Luke swung his truck into a parking space in front of Shannon’s apartment. As they rushed up the sidewalk, they met Tasha coming the other way. She had her handbag over her shoulder and Ginger was inside it. She looked at the blood on Luke’s shirt.

“Oh, my God! What happened?”

“It’s okay,” Luke said. “I’m fine. What about Rita? Is she out?”

“Everybody’s out. Shannon’s the last. I just heard the fire’s only six or seven miles away now.”

“Where are you going?” Shannon asked.

“There are several churches south of here that are setting up emergency shelters.”

“Can you take Ginger with you?”

“They said it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Let us know where you are as soon as you’re able,” Shannon said.

Tasha nodded and hurried off, and Luke and Shannon headed for the door to the apartment building. The wind gusted, the sky had darkened, and the air felt charged with electricity. All at once a streak of lightning sizzled to earth with a horrendous crash, following by a loud rumble of thunder. She and Luke stared at the sky. Up and down the street, everybody had stopped their evacuation efforts and were doing the same. Another lightning bolt zigzagged to earth, illuminating the murky sky, followed by a deafening crash.

“That lightning is dangerous,” Luke said, “it could start more fires. Make what’s happening now seem tame.”

Then all at once, Shannon felt a drop of moisture. Two drops. A dozen. She and Luke looked at each other, the moment suspended in time. It was almost too much to hope for given how many times in the past few months it had looked like rain and rain had never come.

Then all at once the heavens opened up, and it began to pour. Within seconds, they were drenched.

“It’s rain,” Shannon said, holding out her palms. “Rain!”



Luke and Shannon ran inside to her apartment, where he stripped off his stained shirt and threw it in the trash. Shannon grabbed towels, and they dried off as they watched the local news, which was covering nothing but the fire and the rainstorm. Shannon prayed this wasn’t the kind of flash storm they’d had so many times where it rained for five minutes, then passed through, leaving the landscape as dry and brittle as before.

The weatherman said they’d expected the storm to swing west of the fire, but it hit an updraft from the gulf. The wind picked up and the storm took an unexpected turn, hitting Rainbow Valley dead center. Behind that was a massive cell that was even stronger. From the radar, it was clear that the rain they were going to get might be the rain they desperately needed.

On the strength of that weather report, Luke and Shannon made the decision to stay put. For another hour, they watched the television radar as it swept over Rainbow Valley time and time again, revealing little movement of the storm. It actually seemed to grow more intense, giving Shannon hope that it might put the fire out completely. Lightning crashed all around them, rain battering the windows so hard she thought they might actually crack.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Shannon said. “I still can’t believe you heard about the fire and came back.”

“That wasn’t why I came back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before I even knew about the fire, I’d turned around. I hated what happened between us. I couldn’t leave things like that.”

“I hated what happened, too,” Shannon said. “But at least I know now. I know what happened when you were a kid, how you felt—”

He looked away. “I’ve never told anyone about that.”

“You needed to. You needed to say it. To shout it. I’m glad you did.”

For a long time, Luke just sat there, his face drawn and tired. She could see the toll this day had taken on him.

“You were the only good memory I had of this town,” he told her. “The only one.”

Shannon was silent, unable to imagine that his entire childhood and adolescence had given him nothing else worth holding on to.

“That night in the hayloft,” Luke said. “The night we were together. You have no idea how I felt at that moment. You were the kind of girl who could have any guy she wanted. I just couldn’t believe you wanted me.”

“I did, Luke. You have no idea how much. But then afterward, when you acted as if you didn’t care—”

“When you said it was a mistake, when you said you didn’t want anyone else to know…I had to pretend it didn’t matter to me. But it mattered. You mattered. I thought if the most perfect girl in the world wanted to make love with me, then maybe I wasn’t so terrible after all. But afterward, when you seemed to regret everything we’d done…”

“I didn’t regret anything,” she told him. “I didn’t regret one moment of what we did. But I was a kid, just like you. I was scared. Scared of what my mother would do if she caught us together. That was all.”

“I realize that now. But I didn’t back then.”

“God, Luke,” Shannon said. “If only we’d known. If only each of us had known what the other was thinking, things might have been different.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Luke said.

“But—”

“No. We were kids. There were things going on we couldn’t control. It wouldn’t have made you willing to go against your parents, and it wouldn’t have knocked the chip off my shoulder. Nothing would have back then. You had to go your way, I had to go mine.”

“But you found your way back here,” she said, slipping her hand inside his. “Thank God you found your way back.”

Lightning flashed outside. Thunder exploded. But inside the apartment, huddled together on the sofa, Shannon felt as if nothing could touch them.

“After Denver, I won’t be riding bulls anymore,” Luke said.

Shannon came to attention. “What do you mean?”

He sighed. “I’m tired. Tired of starting over every year. I’m going to win that championship. But after that, I’m done.”

“But what will you do then? You told me bull riding is all you know.”

“I don’t know. All I know is that all these years, I’ve made it my reason to get up in the morning. That championship was the only thing that mattered to me. I thought people would respect me. People I didn’t even know, as if that mattered. Then I found out there was something even more important to me than winning that title.” He tightened his hand against hers. “You told me you love me. Did you mean it?”

“Yes!” she said, grasping his hand with both of hers. “Of course I meant it! I love you! Why in the world won’t you believe me?”

The most profound look of sadness crossed his face, and his voice was a near whisper. “Because no one’s ever said that to me before.”

Shannon couldn’t believe it. It broke her heart to think of a man getting to age thirty without ever once hearing those words. She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in the hollow of his neck, vowing to tell him she loved him a hundred times a day from now on.

“And after the championship,” Luke said, “I want to stay here.”

Shannon was stunned. “Here? In Rainbow Valley?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? So much has happened. I was afraid you’d never want to live here again.”

“This is your home. I’d never take you away from it. I don’t know what I’ll do here, but wherever you are, that’s where I want to be.”

Shannon couldn’t believe it. It was as if every dream she’d ever had was coming true.

“I don’t know if I can give you anything,” Luke said. “I honestly don’t know if I have it in me. But I’ll try, Shannon. I’ll try so hard to make you happy.”

“Luke,” she whispered, “you’ve been doing nothing but give since the moment you showed up.”



Another hour passed. Luke and Shannon huddled together in front of the television, and eventually word came. The evacuation order for Rainbow Valley had been lifted.

Luke let out a breath of relief. “It’s official. The town’s safe.”

“But we don’t know if the fire reached the shelter. I can’t stand not knowing.”

“This storm is still too strong. The wind. The lightning. We need to stay put.” He looked down at himself. “But I do need to get cleaned up. I’ll go to my truck for a change of clothes.”

Shannon ran her hand along his shoulder, then placed it against his neck, her thumb stroking his jaw back and forth. Then she leaned in and kissed him.

“Don’t bother right now,” she said. “You won’t need them.”

Shannon rose from the sofa, took his hand, and led him to the bathroom. They took a shower together, kissing, caressing, and occasionally even washing. They stepped out and dried off. Luke went to Shannon’s bed, turned the lamp on low, and lay down. The effort he’d expended getting Manny away from that fire had made every muscle in his body ache, and his eyes were heavy with exhaustion. In the bathroom, he heard the whir of a blow dryer. A few minutes after that, Shannon came into the bedroom wearing a short black robe. Her feet were bare, and her dark hair hung in glossy sheets over her shoulders.

She sat down on the bed beside him. “You look tired.”

“Just a little.”

“How’s the knee?”

“A little sore. But no more so than any other place.”

She stroked her hand up and down his arm. “Tell me where it hurts and I’ll kiss it.”

Luke sighed with contentment. He’d taken care of himself for so long that he didn’t know how to act when somebody was taking care of him. To feel her soft, gentle hands wanting nothing more than to ease his discomfort and soothe his pain was a dream he never could have imagined living.

“Everywhere,” he said.

Shannon smiled. “That might take all night.”

The tie of her robe had loosened, allowing the front of it to fall open slightly. A droplet of water still clung to the swell of one breast, and he couldn’t take his eyes off it. At the same time, he slid his hand beneath her robe to caress her bare thigh.

“The robe,” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“Take it off.”