by Becky McGraw
"Stop!" she shouted then threw her arms around his neck. Guilt poured through him when he felt Terri's tears on his shoulder. "Don't you ever say that again, Ethan Cassidy."
His eyes drifted over to the doorway and met those of Joel Rhodes. His brother-in-law had remained silent thus far, but Ethan could see that he was upset, because his wife was upset.
Dammit, Ethan just wished everyone would leave him the hell alone. He felt closed in enough as it was without those who cared about him adding to that feeling. "I need some space, Terri," he mumbled into her hair and pushed her away.
Terri scrubbed at her eyes with her fists, before telling him angrily, "Well that's too darned bad, Ethan, because you're not gonna get it. I'm not letting you lay here in this bed and waste away."
"Well, unless you have a magic wand, I don't have much choice," he replied gravely.
"My magic wand is powered by your determination and will to live, Ethan. You are coming back to the ranch with me and we are going to get you back on your feet," she told him forcefully.
"Getting back on my feet isn't going to get my life back, Terri. I still won't be able to work or do the things I used to do. That part of my life is over, and this is how things are now. Dead legs, dead head," he told her with a short bark of derisive laughter as he tapped the side of his skull.
"You won't be mountain climbing or swimming with sharks, you shouldn't have been doing that to begin with, I've told you that for years, but you will be able to walk and do things. Who the hell says you can't work again? Your damn brain still functions."
"Not very well. I feel like I've got cotton stuffed in my head."
"You've never been a quitter, Ethan. You have fought for everything you've ever put your mind to, now I want you to fight for this," she told him firmly.
"I'll never be able to be a firefighter again or be on the task force, and a medic who can't lift a patient is useless."
"Not a medic who has help. Ethan, I'm pregnant and I won't be able to keep up with that job at the ranch for much longer. I want you to take over, but you've got to get your head out of your ass and get better. Things happen for a reason, and I think the reason this happened to you is so you can help me, and at the same time help yourself."
Panic shot through him as a spark of something too damned close to hope tried to take root in his brain. He got a grip on it and firmly locked it back where it belonged, but embraced a brief moment of happiness at the newest development.
He was going to be an uncle, Terri a mother.
"Congrats, Terri," he said with sincerity, then looked at Joel whose whole face was now covered by a broad smile. "Way to go man," Ethan told him and forced a smile.
"Thanks...we're really happy, but Terri is right, she's not going to be able to keep working. She needs to focus on taking care of herself and the baby," his brother-in-law informed and crossed his arms over his chest. Terri shot him a glare, which Joel countered with one of his own. Ethan figured her working must be a bone of contention between them.
But he had to set his sister straight. Her grand plan wasn't possible, and he wasn't letting her blow smoke up his ass trying to make him think otherwise.
False hope led to more craziness that he didn't need.
"Me taking your place at the ranch is a pipe dream, sis. You'll have that baby and then some, before I can even take a piss by myself. Speaking of which..." Ethan said and tried to lever himself to upright. "Help me, will ya?"
Instead of helping him though, Terri put her hands on her hips and gazed at him hotly, which Ethan knew from experience never meant anything good.
"You can sit there and piss your pants, because none of us is going to help you. You want to go to the bathroom? You do it. Here's your wheelchair," she said and walked over to push it by the bed and engage the brakes.
With a nod to their mother, Terri turned her back on him and left the room. His mother looked uncertain for a moment and gnawed her lip, but she too deserted him.
It took him fifteen minutes, but somehow Ethan managed to wrangle himself into the wheelchair and make it to the bathroom. When he finished, he was angry and frustrated with his whole damned family.
How dare they not help him. He'd spent his whole life trying to help them, and every damned body else in the community.
This is how they paid him back? When he was flat on his back they abandoned him?
Determined to give them all a piece of his mind, Ethan angrily wheeled down the narrow hall toward the living room, rapping his knuckles on the walls now and then as he went. He looked to make sure they weren't bleeding when he managed to get to the kitchen.
Terri and Joel sat at the table drinking coffee, while his mother worked at the stove cooking them breakfast. His stomach rumbled and was surprised that for the first time in a month he was actually hungry.
"What the hell?" he grumbled, then pushed the chair up to the table before asking, "Ya'll can't help me get in my chair, but you can sit around drinking coffee and chatting?"
"Help yourself, brother, then we'll help you," Terri told him belligerently and took a sip of her coffee. "Mom, that smells great. I've missed your biscuits," she said with a laugh.
"If you'd come to Sunday dinner like you're supposed to, you wouldn't be missing them," her mother informed and wiped her hands on her apron. "Just because you're four hours away doesn't mean you can't drive back here to visit occasionally, especially since you're giving me a grandbaby," she said and her face eased up into a smile.
That was the first smile Ethan had seen on his mama's face since he'd been hurt. Suddenly, he realized he was the one who had stolen her joy. Ella Cassidy had always been a happy person, always had a smile for everyone, until Ethan had stolen it from her.
Disgust settled in his chest and he added another brick onto the wall of worthlessness he was building around his heart. Maybe he did need to get out of his mother's house. He couldn't take care of himself though, and his sister had made it plain she wasn't going to be taking care of him if he went to her house.
"You guys should look at putting me in a rehab facility," he told them and all eyes swung in his direction. "Put me out to pasture, then you won't have to bother with me anymore."
Losing his family would kill him, but dragging them down into this black pit that had become his existence would kill him quicker, and them at the same time.
"Stop feeling sorry for your damned self, Ethan. I've had enough of your self-pity," Terri told him. "You want to go into a rehab facility, check yourself into one, I'm not going to help you. If you go to one of those places though, they're not going to let you sit on your ass either. They are going to actually make you attempt to rehabilitate yourself. Unlike me though, they're not going to give a shit if you succeed."
He snorted then said, "Mama can I have a cup of whatever she's having?" Evidently whatever his sister was drinking was black and strong. She had always been sassy, but today she was just being...mean. Terri had never been like that to him before.
Ethan swallowed hard when he met his mother's eyes, because they weren't soft and worried anymore. They shone with the same determination as his sister's.
"If you want coffee, you can wheel over here and get yourself a cup, son," she told him then reached up and pulled down a mug to set it beside the coffee maker.
Ethan got it now, this was an intervention of some sort. The women in his life were mutinying against him. Even his mother was following Terri's lead.
The help she'd given him for the last two months was obviously at an end. Wonderful, he thought, now he had no idea what he was going to do. Ethan didn't want to go into a rehab facility, but it didn't look like he was going to have much choice. His family wasn't going to give him a choice.
It was either rehab or his sister's ranch in Amarillo.
Either way, they were forcing him to face his limitations, figure out where his body would plateau in the healing process, and find out what that meant, which scared the shit out of him.<
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Joel, who had been quiet thus far, finally glared at him then said, "Come on, asshole, man up. You hung your ass out of a helicopter to save your sister, this is a piece of cake. Terri's right, quit your bellyaching and do something. I need your help at the ranch."
Suddenly, his mother blurted out, "Your dad and I are selling the house and moving to Amarillo." Her hand shaking, she moved the pan on the stove to the back burner and finished. "It's too much to keep up, and we're moving into an apartment, so I can be close by to help Terri. There won't be any room for you there."
Shock filled him as he replied, "Dad's been at the Henrietta Fire Department for twenty-five years, mom. He's the fricking Chief, what's he going to do?"
"He's going to retire, and we're going to travel some...enjoy the rest of our lives. He's put his life on the line too long. Jimmy's death and your accident drove that point home," she told him and her voice broke.
"Jimmy's death was not his fault, neither was my accident."
"He thinks they were, that's all that matters," his mother said and her eyes filled.
It looked like his accident had turned everyone's life upside down, not just his own. For his dad to agree to retire, he had to be upset, he loved his job. Ethan had decided on firefighting as a career because he admired and respected what his dad did so much. Now, he was quitting too. And it was all Ethan's fault.
"Ya'll can't sell the house, mama...you've lived here for thirty years. This is your home, and dad is a fireman. Don't do this because of me," he begged with a tremble in his voice.
"We're not doing it because of you, son. We're doing it because it's what we want to do, what we need to do. I want him to be around to enjoy our grandkids." Ella picked up the skillet from the burner on the stove and filled a platter with scrambled eggs, then forked out bacon from another pan onto the platter. She reached up into the cabinet and pulled down a bowl, then spooned creamy grits from another pot into the bowl.
Ethan's stomach rumbled loudly.
"Sounds like you're hungry," she told him with a half smile. "Come over here and get some plates and forks.
It looked like his family's tough love was starting right now.
Fighting down anger at their betrayal, Ethan forcefully shoved the wheels of the chair and moved over to the counter. His mother handed him plates down from the cabinet and he put them on his lap, then she gave him a roll of paper towels and silverware.
"I'll bring the rest," she told him.
"Mighty nice of you," Ethan grumbled then wheeled back to the table and sat the plates on the table.
Terri didn't move to set the table, she just lifted an eyebrow and took a sip of her coffee. With a growl, he handed her a plate, then shoved one in Joel's direction. Humor danced in the asshole's eyes as he took it and sat it in front of him.
"Ya'll drove four hours here today just to torment me?" he grated handing each of them a fork, before ripping off a paper towel and passing the roll to his sister.
"It's our job," Terri said and had the audacity to smile. "Someone has to save you from yourself."
"What if I don't want saving and it's not worth the trouble of trying? Why the hell can't you just leave me alone?"
"Oh, it's worth it...you'll see. And I'm here because I love you," she told him cheerfully.
Ethan's fists clenched itching to close around her small neck.
"Trust me when I tell you she's not going to let you rest, or give up," Joel told him with a wide grin. "She's one woman who won't let a man wallow in a good funk, no matter how well deserved," his brother-in-law informed and turned adoring eyes on his wife.
The love between the couple was a tangible thing, and although it thrilled Ethan to see his sister so happy after all she'd gone through with her ex-husband, it also made him realize how desolate his own life was now.
Odds were good that he would never have that kind of relationship with a woman now. Who the hell wanted a cripple who couldn't do shit anymore? Especially one as young as he was. People would look at him like a freak, women would pity him, but nobody would love him like that.
Emotion boiled in his chest and pushed up into his throat making it burn along with his eyes. "I'm not hungry," he said to no one in particular, then spun his chair and wheeled as fast as he could toward his room.
Ethan hadn't cried since he fell off his bike at ten years old and skinned his knee, and he wasn't going to do it now. Not in front of anyone anyway.
Pushing harder against the wheels, he got inside the bedroom then slammed the bedroom door behind him and locked it, just in time to keep the hot tear that tracked down his cheek private. He reached up and swiped it away angrily, then sucked in a deep breath, burying the rest of his misery deep inside.
Moving to his bed, he parked the chair then threw himself face first onto the mattress. Pain shot through him and he stifled a moan into his pillow. Pathetic.
Loud knocking started at the door, but he knew it was his sister, so he ignored it. Whoever it was, he didn't want to talk to them. Ethan did not want to talk to anyone now.
His family wanted a breakthrough, they got it. More like a breakdown. He needed space from them to figure out what he was going to do now that they weren't going to help him anymore.
The knocking continued then the door knob jiggled.
"If you think that's gonna keep me out, you must not remember I know how to pick this lock," Terri shouted through the door.
Ethan knew that of course. He had always intended to install a second lock that she couldn't get past, but he never had. Terri was a resourceful female, so he figured it would probably be a waste of time anyway.
How many times had she broken in here to borrow something from him?
His G.I. Joe toys to have a mock wedding with her Barbie dolls, his Operation or Twister games when her friends came over, nothing was sacred. If Terri wanted it, she came in here and got it.
Once she became a teenager, she upped her game to commandeering his razors to shave her damned legs, and his t-shirts to sleep in. She always returned his stuff, but it aggravated the crap out of him.
Even though they argued like cats and dogs, Ethan missed those days, and he missed the closeness he used to share with his sister. He would do anything for Terri, and she would do anything for him. That's just the way it had always been.
Especially in high school.
Much to the dismay of the varsity football coach, Ethan had gotten in more fights with guys he knew shouldn't be sniffing around his sister. They soon realized if they messed with his sister, he messed them up, so they showed her the respect she deserved, or they stayed away. Except for her damned ex-husband, he'd always been successful in weeding out the bad eggs. That is one guy he would love to teach some respect.
But like Terri told him though, things happened for a reason. All the hell she went through with that asshole had brought her Joel.
Reluctantly, he admitted that maybe she was right about his accident too.
To date, his life had been all about risk and adrenaline. The three close calls he had before the accident should have clued him in it was time to reassess the risks he took, but he had ignored the little voice that niggled at the back of his brain telling him so. The accident probably saved his life, but the jury was still out on what kind of life that would be now.
One thing was for sure, Terri had nailed it when she said Ethan had never been a quitter. Right now though that is exactly what he was doing, quitting on life. Being scared and insecure, feeling worthless, was not something he was familiar with.
When he heard the butter knife scraping at the doorknob, against all odds, he smiled. Ethan moved his fingers up to his mouth and felt the curve, amazed that it was actually there. He thought he'd never be able to smile again. The door swung open and his smile widened, but he was face down so it was hidden in the cradle of his arms.
With a feminine snort, the little general ordered, "Get your sorry ass out of bed and help me pack." His dresser drawe
r open, then she threatened, "Or I'm gonna find the ugliest clothes you have to shove in the suitcase, and underwear you wore when you were ten. It'll cut your circulation off and your balls will fall off."
All she'd find in those drawers was stuff from when he was ten.
Most of his current stuff was in boxes in a storage unit. The guys from the firehouse had helped his mama pack up his apartment and move his stuff to storage. He hadn't needed anything here except a couple of pairs of shorts and underwear, a few t-shirts and pajama pants.
He hadn't dressed since he had been out of the hospital two months ago. The thick scraggly growth of beard he'd grown since the accident brushed the back of his hand, reminding him he hadn't shaved either.
He looked like a mountain man. Smelled like one too, he thought with a crinkle of his nose when the rank air in the cradle of his arms wafted to his nose.
Of course he had cleaned up, but not frequently. His mom's shower was too small for him to get inside and sit on the shower chair she'd bought. Besides, he was pissed that he had to use one. He hadn't shaved because in his wheelchair he couldn't see himself in the mirror, and didn't want to make matters worse by accidentally cutting his throat.
That might have solved his problems though.
"My stuff isn't in those drawers, it's in storage," he told her gruffly.
"Where is it then? Joel brought his truck, we'll just go and load it up," she informed him and slammed the drawer.
"Ask mama, she set it up. Call daddy he'll probably get some of the guys to help you load it," Ethan told her knowing once Terri Cassidy set her mind to something she wasn't going to be deterred.
He was going to Amarillo and the Little General was going to push him to get better, whether he wanted that or not.
CHAPTER TWO
Rocky led Reed out of his stall and over to the wash bay. Yesterday, she had ridden him out by the creek, and he was muddy. Her baby loved to have baths, and she loved spending time with him to give him one, but lately she hadn't had much time to do that.