When Luke Buckton left Blue Thorn Ranch, he’d hoped to return in a blaze of rodeo glory; instead, he’s limping home with a busted leg. To get back on the circuit he’ll need physical therapist Ruby Sheldon’s help. Six years ago, he left Ruby behind, convinced she was too innocent for such a public life. Now his high school sweetheart is stronger, tougher and even more captivating. A high-profile success story like this could make Ruby’s career. All she has to do is rein in Luke’s bullheadedness, heal his injuries—and hope his reckless charm doesn’t trample her heart again…

“You’re punishing me,” he huffed.

“I’m treating you. You’re the one who set the ambitious goal on the tight time frame.”

“It’s not the exercises, darlin’, it’s the attitude. You want me to hurt.”

She took the bull by the horns. “I do not want to hurt you.”

He stopped again. “You should. I hurt you.”

It took Ruby a moment to decide how to respond.

“Yes, you did.” In for a penny, in for a pound. “You hurt me deeply, Luke Buckton.”

Luke stopped walking, holding her gaze for a moment. His blue eyes looked like their depths went on forever. “I know that.”

“Did you know it when you left? Did you think about it at all?”

“I wouldn’t let myself think about it at first. I let all the dreams and the money dangling in front of my face crowd it out.”

“You said such…hurtful things.”

She heard him sigh. “I needed to burn the bridges behind me. I figured we’d both be better off if you hated me.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Luke.”

Dear Reader,

This novel represents our fourth visit to the Blue Thorn Ranch, a place and family I’ve come to know and love. God has taken each of the Buckton siblings (and their cousin) on journeys of faith and purpose, and it’s my prayer that your faith has been strengthened by their stories.

If you’ve not yet enjoyed the other three books in the series, The Texas Rancher’s Return, Coming Home to Texas, and The Texan’s Second Chance; please do! There will be one more book in the series coming out in September 2017, so keep watch for it.

As always, I love to hear from readers. You can reach my website at alliepleiter.com, email me at allie@alliepleiter.com, like my Facebook page at facebook.com/alliepleiter, or connect with me on Twitter at twitter.com/alliepleiter (@alliepleiter) or Pinterest at pinterest.com/alliepleiter. Of course, if good old mail is your thing, you can always reach me at P.O. Box 7026, Villa Park, IL 60181. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Blessings,

ALLIE PLEITER, an award-winning author and RITA® Award finalist, writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion for knitting shows up in many of her books and all over her life. Entirely too fond of French macarons and lemon meringue pie, Allie spends her days writing books and avoiding housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in speech from Northwestern University and lives near Chicago, Illinois.

The Bull Rider’s Homecoming

Allie Pleiter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.

—2 Corinthians 12:9

To physical therapists everywhere

who help so many to heal.

Acknowledgments

There was a heap of technical information to get right in this book, and I had lots of generous help. Dr. David Chen from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago always lends his expertise for injuries and their symptoms. Nancy A. Hughes, PT, ICCE, enthusiastically shared her insight and great scene ideas as a physical therapist. Ed Crowder was kind enough to read the manuscript for bull-riding accuracy. If there are mistakes or misrepresentations in this book, the fault is purely mine, and not in the excellent information they provided me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dear Reader

Extract

Chapter One

Luke Buckton stood on the porch of the Blue Thorn Ranch, his childhood home, disgusted at how he needed to grip the handrail to keep his balance.

Pain came with a life spent trying to stay on top of 1,700 pounds of bucking bull. Every bull rider knew pain went with the territory. Bull riding was dangerous—that’s what made it exciting. And profitable, if done right. Sure, you got hurt—everyone got hurt—but you “cowboyed up” after an injury and got back in there, period. Luke hadn’t come close to winning the Touring Pro Series championship by paying attention to pain. He ignored it.

The numbness he fought now? That was a whole other kind of enemy. It messed with his mind and defied submission. Luke could ride in pain, could win in pain—he had, in fact, on dozens of occasions. Now, he couldn’t always tell where his leg ended and the ground began. He could think “stand” but couldn’t feel it, even when he was standing. That threatened his career worse than the largest, meanest bull on earth.

It made him mad. And the anger and frustration made him mean to just about everyone, including his grandmother who’d just come up behind him.

“How are you feeling?” Gran asked as she approached him with a cup of coffee. He’d left six years ago in such a fury of pride and defiance—and had returned home so full of bitterness and dissatisfaction—that he couldn’t quite understand how Gran found it possible to be nice to him.

Luke took the coffee and gave Gran the answer he gave everyone: “Better.” Most days it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true today.

His hometown of Martins Gap was as gossipy as a small Texas town could get. In the days and weeks since he’d returned, he’d heard the whispers, caught the rumors and ignored the stares. Isn’t that Luke Buckton, home on the Blue Thorn? Did you see he limps now?

Luke had always envisioned his eventual return to Martins Gap as the grandest of victory laps—a homecoming for the local golden boy whose future had always been too big for this place. He’d planned to come home a national champion.

If Dad was still alive, wouldn’t he have had a field day with how those plans turned out?

Gran sipped her tea. “The new therapist is due about now, isn’t she?”

Luke didn’t buy his grandmother’s sugar-sweet tone. He knew full well Gran wanted to take a switch to him for the way he’d treated the last two therapists they’d sent. It was so clear to Luke they weren’t up to the challenge that he’d groused them away in a single session each. He didn’t have time or patience to pussyfoot around with careful exercises or gentle treatments. Luke needed to hit this fast and hard so that he could recover and get back to work. Anyone who wasn’t on board with that strategy was useless.

Which meant he had a pretty good idea of who was about to come up the drive. Had planned for it, in fact.

He shifted his foot, reaching to feel the give of the porch boards underneath his boot. Nothing. It was beyond infuriating. “At ten.”

“So...you think it’ll be her?” Gran asked, as if it were an innocent question.

Two could play at that game. “Who?” he asked in equally innocent tones.

Gran swatted him. Hard. For eighty-five, that woman could still hold her own. “You know who. Don’t think I can’t see exactly what you’re doing. If you wanted Ruby Sheldon to be your therapist—and I certainly can’t imagine why she’d ever agree to such a notion—you should have just asked for her.”

As if it were that simple. Luke didn’t truly know if he wanted Ruby to be his therapist. He’d hoped there was another way. It’d be much simpler with someone else, that was sure. Only the two others his doctor had sent clearly weren’t up to the job, at least not by his estimation. And that left going all the way to Austin to get treatment, or putting up with Ruby.

Putting up with Ruby. As if she was a nagging itch or an uncomfortable chair instead of the biggest regret and saddest chapter of his life. He’d never quite forgiven himself for how he’d broken Ruby’s heart, despite six years of steady effort to keep all thoughts of her firmly out of his head. It stuck in his craw to need her help now, and he wasn’t sure he could choke that down even if she might be the only person in twenty miles who knew him well enough to get him where he needed to go. “I was hoping to avoid this.” He grumbled. “I think I’d rather cut off my leg than give Ruby the chance to order me around.”

Gran’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you ever talk like that.” He knew Gran loved him, but she’d never minced words about what she thought of his choice to leave home to join the bull riding circuit. It didn’t matter how good he was at it, or how he rose in the rankings, Gran still thought it “dangerous nonsense that took him away from family” and told him so. Of course, that was only when he bothered to call her, which had been woefully rare until the gut-wrenchingly humble call of “can I come home?” three weeks ago. Had there been any other way...

Had there been any other way, he wouldn’t be standing on the Blue Thorn Ranch waiting to see if Ruby Sheldon dared to show up back in his life. Suddenly, he wanted to do this moment on his own terms, not under Gran’s scrutiny. “I’ll be waiting in the guesthouse.” With that, he took his coffee and his cane and made his way across the clearing to the closest thing he had to “his own turf” on Blue Thorn land.

* * *

The Blue Thorn Ranch.

Ruby couldn’t quite believe she was back here, about to see Luke Buckton. Funny and sad how life worked in circles.

The physical buildings and layout of the ranch hadn’t changed. The big house still boasted the front porch swing where she and Luke had plotted his dazzling rodeo career. The horse barn where he’d first kissed her—a stunning surprise of a kiss she hadn’t ever dreamed could really happen—still stood facing west across the pastures. The ranch had come back to life since her high school days dating Luke. Back then it had had a desperate sort of taint, like fabric fraying around the edges. A once-prosperous ranch sliding down in decline despite the desperate efforts of Luke’s father to hold it together.

Now, the ranch gave off the air of new life, of the fresh start Luke’s brother, Gunner, had launched after taking over a few years earlier. The place struck her as both familiar and different.

And soaked in too many memories.

This guy’s meaner than the bulls he used to ride, one note from the therapist at the other agency had said. I’m not going back there. Let someone in Austin have at him.

I can’t handle him, another note complained. I say let this cowboy recover on someone else’s watch.

It had been such a huge blessing when Ruby’s clinical instructor and mentor, Lana Donmeyer, chose to make Ruby a partner in her practice and allow Ruby to open a satellite facility here in Martins Gap. Even if Lana called Ruby “bright and gifted,” to land this type of semi-partnership setup fresh out of school was practically unheard of. Dad’s life insurance money was supposed to be for Mama, not funding a fledgling practice. She’d pay Mama back, even if Mama said her staying close in Martins Gap to help with Grandpa was payment enough.

Luke Buckton could be a landmark patient for her. As a high profile rider, with a high profile injury, getting Luke back on his feet could really launch her career. Even Lana said so. Yes, there was so much history between them. But today was her chance to show that cowboy what she was made of now that six years had gone by.

She’d been full of resolve...until she pulled up to the big house. The sight of the place quickly dissolved into a blur of memories that overthrew her control.

She’d been so happy here.

She’d been so miserable here.

A quick look around as she got out of the car revealed no one but “Granny B” standing on the house’s big porch. Ruby found herself telling her limbs to get out of the car.

“Ruby,” came Adele Buckton’s warm voice as she hobbled down off the porch. “My stars, but it’s Ruby Sheldon.”

“Hi, Granny B.” The words belonged to some eighteen-year-old version of herself, young and squeaky. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t crossed paths over the years, small as Martins Gap was, but neither of them could pretend this was anything but awkward and difficult.

“Look at you.” Her gaze fell to the folder in Ruby’s hand. “You’re here for Luke.” Somehow Granny B made the simple statement sound as complex as it truly was.

“Yes, ma’am.” She wished for something more clever to say, but came up short.

Ruby had always liked Granny B—the Buckton children all called her “Gran” but everyone else in town called her “Miss Adele” or “Granny B.” The old woman had been as much of an anchor as Luke ever had in high school. Luke and his dad locked horns on a near constant basis, and Luke’s mom had passed when he was eleven. Though he had three siblings—including a twin—they’d all pretty much been born with one foot out the door. Granny B had been the one responsible for anything that felt homey and welcoming about this place.

When Luke left town after graduation, Ruby had wanted—expected, actually—for Granny B to show up and make sense of how Luke broke things off. She’d always been so sure either Granny B or Luke’s twin sister, Tess, would appear on her doorstep and explain why the boy she loved both left her and left Martins Gap without a backward glance. It had never happened.

Granny B’s gaze lifted over Ruby’s head to settle on the guesthouse behind them. Ruby turned to see the guesthouse door open up. The figure of Luke Buckton stood in half shadow behind the screen door.

“I’d best leave you to it, then,” Gran was saying behind her.

Ruby’s heart twisted and surged and stung all at the same time. A hollowed-out panic, an empty awareness froze her chest—all feelings that made no sense but surrounded her anyway as she stared at him.

He was just like the ranch—familiar yet different. The eyes were still their spell-binding blue—“Buckton blue,” everybody called it—but now they were framed by tight features. His wild-boy hair still tumbled around that strong jaw, only now the jaw was roughened with a man’s stubble. Luke had filled out into a man’s body, lean and hard-edged, but even his defiant stance didn’t quite conceal the hint of uncertainty that made him favor one leg. How he could be the boy of her memory and a stranger before her at the same time made Ruby’s mind spin.

“Ruby.” His voice, somehow octaves deeper now, held more challenge than welcome. “Why are you here?”

It was an absurd question—they both knew why she was here. His prickly tone held the faintest hint of the dismissive words he’d flung at her the night he told her he was leaving. Not just Martins Gap, but her as well.

The tone snapped something to life in her, resurrecting all the anger against him she’d swallowed down over the years. It was helpful—clearing her head and straightening her spine, giving her the composure to calmly call his bluff. “You need help.”

Need and help weren’t in Luke Buckton’s vocabulary back then, and she doubted he was friendly with the concepts now.

She’d read the file. No one really knew what level of functionality Luke Buckton would get back from his left leg. Such injuries were unpredictable.

“Well, now, that’s a matter of opinion,” Luke replied as he flexed one hand against the doorknob. Rather flippant for someone in his position—but then again, that tactic had been a Luke Buckton specialty.

“No,” she retorted, “I’d say that’s a medical fact.” When she saw the edge in his eyes give just a little, she pressed further. “Whether or not you’re man enough to accept it...well, I expect that is a matter of opinion.”

She’d never have spoken like that to any other patient, but no one could call Luke Buckton “any other patient.” She heard Granny B mutter something that sounded approving and the big house door shut behind her.

Luke looked at her with an almost amused disdain, as if some uppity puppy had taken to yapping at one of the thousand-pound bison that were raised on the ranch. A “don’t you know who you’re dealing with?” warning glare. Frustration made people hard and sour, especially those for whom weakness was an unforgivable sin. She knew that his frustration was why he’d pushed away the other therapists, and it told her he was that frightened he wouldn’t heal. And yet despite their history, he hadn’t tried to hire in a therapist from Austin, even when he knew Ruby was the only option left in town. Which meant that while he’d never admit to it, he’d decided he needed her.

He’d done exactly the same thing in high school when they’d met as she tutored him in algebra. That boy had gone all “I don’t need you” when she was the only thing standing between him and failing out his senior year.

Begrudgingly needing her had turned into respecting her, had turned into liking her, had turned into—she’d thought—loving her. That boy had made her feel pretty and full of possibility...only to turn around months later and declare her not pretty enough and without enough potential to follow him to rodeo stardom.

She suddenly realized it had been half a minute or so, and neither of them had spoken.

Luke shifted his weight again. It dawned on Ruby that while she could wait all day for this standoff to end, he could not. He’d been injured, and badly. He may be in possession of all the bravado, but she was in possession of the solution—if there was one.

“This won’t work,” he said under his breath but still loud enough for her to hear. How many times had she heard those words during Luke’s tirades about algebra and graduation requirements?

The remark revealed just how much he needed this to work. He hadn’t changed: the more he needed it, the less he’d act like he did. She could see it, clear as day, because sensing things about patients was her gift.

She did have a gift. The bravest, strongest version of herself looked Luke straight in the eye. She clutched her file and took a step toward him. “Won’t work, huh? Prove it.”

Chapter Two

The red scarf didn’t suit her.

It was a weird thought to have, given the drama of seeing the girl you’d loved and left after so much time, but that was the first thing that went through his mind.

Ruby, despite her name, wasn’t a red girl. She was more of a dusky pink, the color of Gran’s roses that ran along the back of the house. Red was trying too hard.

The Ruby of his memory was a soft pink thing, kitten-like, full of wonder and amazed at whatever he did. She’d put him on a mile-high pedestal all through high school, and he’d liked that. Dad was lightning-quick with the put-downs, but Ruby looked at him—as Gran would put it—as if he hung the moon.

He’d given her plenty of reason to admire him when they’d gotten to know each other. He’d swept her off her feet. First by accident, just to distract her from the tutoring she was supposed to be giving him, and then on purpose. The more he got to know her, the more he liked her. He’d delighted in romancing her with dramatic gestures and flat-out charm. By the spring of their senior year, like had turned to love.

And then he’d done her wrong. Dropped her as dramatically and abruptly as he’d swept her up. If he could manage to regret anything—which was a reach for the likes of him—what he’d done to Ruby would top the list.

Which made today excruciating on any number of levels.

Right at this moment, however, what topped his list was that he couldn’t stand up much longer. The numbness was creeping up his leg, his sense of the floor beneath his left foot all but gone. If he turned to walk back into the house now, there was a fair chance his foot would drag against the ground, if not trip him outright. He’d left his cane back at the couch, determined to stand there on his own two feet and show her he was still strong. Now the only thing that felt strong was the throbbing in his wrist from the choke hold he currently had on the doorknob.

This was the part he hated the most—he couldn’t tell if his knee would hold him or buckle, if his ankle would bend or drag. It was as if his body had dismembered itself, splitting off into strange pieces that refused to talk to each other.

It’d be so much easier if it just hurt, just as it would be so much simpler if it didn’t have to be Ruby.

As it was, she walked up to the guesthouse and stood waiting for an invitation to enter. The Ruby he’d known would have gotten back into her car after his first mean glare. This Ruby who’d just said “prove it” was an older, harder Ruby. It bugged him that he might be the reason for some of that armor.

“Are you going to let me in?” Her voice tried too hard to be loud, mismatched to her personality just like the scarf the wind kept flapping up off her neck.

“Do I have to?” The comeback sounded childish. Stupid, given that getting her here was what he’d wanted in the first place. He’d thought she was the only one who could get him out of this. Now that she stood in front of him, most of him hated the idea.

Ruby stared at him, one eyebrow scrunched down in thought—the way she used to stare at a math problem. It had been one of his favorite things, watching Ruby’s mind whir into gear, but the fact that she was now trying to solve him sent an itchy feeling down his spine.

“I forgot something in the car,” she said. It had the tone of a convenient excuse, and Luke swallowed the infuriating sense that she recognized his dilemma and was giving him a chance to spare his pride.

Ruby made an exaggerated turn back toward her car. Luke wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the out she gave him and hobbled awkwardly back to the couch while she had her back turned. He left the door open. He couldn’t decide if he should be glad she’d given him the chance to sit down unseen, or ticked off she’d sensed he needed it. That was always the best and worst thing about Ruby—she could read him like a book.

“You always wanted Granny B to let you live here,” came her voice as she closed the guesthouse’s front door behind her. There was no nostalgia in her tone; she recited it like fact, the way she’d recited the algebra theorems that gave him fits in school.

Luke let his hand lead his numb leg to come up and cross casually over his good knee. She was watching the way his leg moved, and he fought the urge to cover it with the issue of Pro Bull Rider magazine lying on the couch next to him.

Ruby settled herself in the chair opposite him, a file and clipboard balanced on her lap. She sat upright, knees together, elbows close, the way she used to sit with him in study hall back before he’d coaxed her out of her shell. Ruby had always been a much more entertaining equation to solve than algebra.

“This won’t work,” he challenged again, knowing it made no sense but needing to keep her at a distance until the knots in his gut settled.

“So you said.” Her eyes fell to the cane he’d forgotten to hide in his rush to get “casually” settled on the couch before she came in the door, and he bit back a scowl. She gave him what he was sure was her worst “therapist” glare. “Don’t think I haven’t heard that kind of talk before.”

She’d heard it from him all those times he’d said he’d never be able to learn algebra. The history in the air between them was so thick and painful he could practically reach out and press his hand up against it like a cement wall.

Ruby opened her file folder with an infuriatingly clinical air. “Left leg, nerve root injury close to the spinal cord. Concussion, loss of consciousness at the time of injury. Ongoing symptoms include loss of muscle strength and neuropathy.”

Luke despised the clinical terms they used—why couldn’t they just say that a mean bull threw him against a fence at an event in Montana, knocked him out, and busted up his back. He remembered the ride, but any memory of the grisly fall came from video tape—he only woke up afterward in an ambulance with several panicked people poking and asking urgent questions.

“How would you rate your current level of pain?”

She’d have read every page of his file, so she knew that was a trick question. This new Ruby Sheldon wasn’t playing nice. “Ain’t nothin’,” he drawled, omitting the wink he usually gave the buckle bunnies. Those pretty, love-struck rodeo fans usually cooed and pouted over his collection of bruises and scratches after a show. They’d showed up at the hospital the first two days, then trickled off as the tour moved on.

Her eyes narrowed, and she clicked her pen. “On a scale of one to ten, please.” He had to admit to a shred of surprise that she could produce such a hard shell in his presence. Maybe hate really was more powerful than love, like Dad always said.

“Point-five.”

“Do you have difficulty with any limbs other than the involved leg?”

He sat back against the couch cushions. “I’ve been told all of me works just fine.”

That irritated her—those kinds of lines always did. She stood up and put her hands on her hips.

“Stand up.”

He glared at her. “You know, I believe I’m fine right here.”

Something shot through her eyes, a stubbornness that surprised him. “Stand up. I’m not going to be scared off, so how long this takes is entirely up to you. Let’s try standing for eight seconds. That ought to be a time frame you know well.”

Eight seconds. The length of a qualifying bull ride. Whenever she’d worried about how much risk or pain was involved in bull riding—which had been often—he’d always said, “Honey, I can take anything for eight seconds.” He hadn’t expected her to use their history against him.

Luke Buckton had burned a heap of bridges on his way out of this tiny town, and now it felt as if he was going to have to fight to keep the pile of ashes from rising up and choking him.

* * *

Ruby made herself look straight at Luke as he pulled his long body up off the couch. He was trying hard to hide every single weakness—physical and otherwise—but she wouldn’t allow it. I’m as stubborn as you are, Luke Buckton. And I have just as much riding on this as you do. Lana was right; success with a high profile client like him would bolster business. But right now, Ruby mostly just wanted to show Luke up. Who’s stronger now, cowboy?

She spied a straight-backed chair up against the wall and dragged it to his side. “Hold on to this and put all your weight on your good leg.”

Luke shot her a look, and she suspected he was concocting some remark about all of him being more than good, but he simply grabbed the chair and rocked back on one hip as if leaning against a bar in an Old West saloon.

“Raise your left leg as far as you can and hold it there, please.”

Effort tightened the corners of his cocky smile. He got the injured leg up about as far as his knees, and she noticed a tremor near the top.

“Like the boots?” He pointed toward his expensive-looking cowboy boots. Ruby guessed they cost as much as her used car. “Custom work. Gift from a sponsor.”

“Very nice,” she replied. “Take them off.”

“What?”

“I can hardly see how your ankle rotates if you’ve got it locked up inside all that fine, hand-tooled leather now, can I?”

He frowned. “None of the other gals made me take off my boots.”

Ruby wasn’t backing down. “None of the other therapists,” she emphasized the correction in terms, “got that far before you drove them off.”

There was a long, prickly pause before he said, “I can’t.”

It must have cost him to say that. His bitter tone made her hair stand on edge. He looked like a porcupine, defensive spines sticking out in all directions, warning the world to keep its distance.

Her heart twisted at the anguish she wondered if only she could see. Luke was deeply hurting, but scrambling to keep it hidden. It gave her only one way forward: if she was going to treat him, she’d have to meet his defenses head-on.

But this was Luke. Luke with those eyes and all that history. Ruby made herself hold his gaze despite the monster-sized flip it caused in her stomach. “You can’t what?” she asked as directly as she knew how. Do not back down.

He stared at her for a long moment. “I can’t get ’em on and off without...help.”

The last word stuck, as if he’d had to drag it up from some pit to say it out loud.

Cowboys pulled their boots off every day. Most did it without even thinking, either heel-to-toe or with a fancy little hook-like gizmo set up beside many Texan doorways. Way back, she’d seen Luke do it hundreds of times. Of course, such maneuvers required standing on one leg—something Ruby was pretty sure Luke could no longer do.

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