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.”