Eagle Down (Cyber Cowboys Series Book 3)

by M Elle Kelso

  “You don’t know me very well, C.J., but I came when Blake told us about the blood transfusion agreement he had with David and Jared. I’m the same type, and I’m clean, so if it’s alright with you, I’ll give blood, too.”

  She looked at him, seeing compassion in his eyes.

  “Thanks, Mac. I know David would appreciate that. I do, too. That makes four of us. Do you think they’ll need more than that?”

  She asked her question of no one in particular. Nobody knew the answer.

  The nurse came to get the three of them to give blood, then brought them back to the waiting room. Kaycee had joined them. It was a quiet group that waited. Jared was again beside C.J. and she had her hand on his arm, as if seeking solace. Time dragged. Five hours passed before there was a commotion in the hall.

  When the doctor entered the room, everyone except C.J. stood. He pulled a chair to face her and sat.

  “Mrs. Taylor, I’m Matthew Hawkins. I’ve just finished operating on your husband. I must tell you, he’s a strong man. I’ve seen people who weren’t hurt as badly as he was who didn’t make it. They just didn’t fight. But David is fighting. And fighting hard. Would you like something? Coffee? Tea?”

  At C.J.’s nod, Mac left the room, intent on finding something for her.

  “Now. The problem we had when we operated was that on the xray, the bullet appeared to be lodged in the area of your husband’s spine, although the entrance wound was just to the side of his hip bone and on his side. What we think happened is that the bullet ricocheted off a the hip bone and tumbled in that direction. And this is where he got lucky. Nothing, absolutely nothing was hit on the way. It may have bounced off another bone, we’re not sure. There is a mark on the xray that might be that. However, we really are guessing about a lot of this because there is so much swelling in the area, we really can’t tell for sure.”

  Mac returned and handed C.J. a cup of hot chocolate.

  “Thanks, Mac. All right, Dr. Hawkins, so where does that leave him? Will it take a long time for the wounds to heal?”

  Matthew Hawkins frowned, not wanting to tell this woman what he thought. But he had no choice.

  “C.J., may I call you that?”

  At her nod, he continued.

  “C.J., right now we don’t know what will happen. We’ve removed the bullet. We don’t know if it did any damage to his spine. We can only wait for the swelling to go down and see what happens when he comes to. Your husband was in extremely good physical shape before the accident so that is in his favor. What we don’t know is if there will be any lasting effects from the trauma to the vertebrae.”

  C.J. was crying, silently, her hand over her mouth to keep from making a noise.

  David was in there and he was badly hurt. And it was all her fault. She hadn’t been able to keep him from going up in the helicopter that morning. If she had, he wouldn’t be here. He had to be alright. He’d just had to be.

  She knew she was only fooling herself. David was badly injured. It would be a miracle if there was nothing wrong with him when he woke us.

  Jared asked the question to which none of them wanted to know the answer.

  “What kinds of problems might he have, Dr. Hawkins?”

  “Well, assuming he comes through all this surgery okay, the biggest problem would be spinal cord damage. Like I said, we can’t tell where the bullet hit, exactly, for all the swelling. If it hit the space between the vertebrae and damaged the discs, there is the possibility it may have damaged the spinal cord as well. And there is something else. Whatever hit his back caused some extreme bruising and trauma to the area. That might have an impact as well.”

  There was total silence in the room when he finished speaking. C.J. cried silently; Kaycee sat next to her, tears sliding slowly down her cheeks. The men sat, unmoving, looking deeply disturbed.

  C.J. finally had to ask.

  “Dr. Hawkins, if there is spinal cord damage, then what?”

  “It’s too early to tell, C.J.. It might be nothing more than loss of feeling until all the swelling disappears or it might mean he will never walk again.”

  Her head fell; her hands covered her face and she sobbed.

  No one spoke; there was nothing anyone could say.

  When they finally moved David from the recovery room to ICU, everyone who was waiting with C.J. made the move as well. They took over the waiting room on the second floor, nobody willing to leave until they knew what the situation was.

  Blake couldn’t stand that much inactivity. He decided that they needed to organize. They all needed a place to stay and they all needed sleep and food. Most of all, C.J..

  “C.J., I’m going across the road for a few minutes. There is a hotel over there, they should have a suite with lots of bedrooms. I’ll go over there now, book us in and be back real soon. Would you like me to bring you anything to eat when I come back?”

  She shook her head. She hadn’t spoken since Dr. Hawkins had dropped his bomb, but she did finally respond to Blake’s question.

  “No thank you, Blake. I’m not hungry. You go, take Kaycee with you. We’ll be here when you get back.”

  As he stood to leave, he noticed Dr. Hawkins coming toward them. He would wait until he heard what the man had to say before he left. Hawkins walked directly to C.J..

  “We’ve got him settled back here now. Would you like to see him?”

  She was off the chair before he had finished speaking.

  “Oh, yes. Please.”

  “Just remember, he is still unconscious. It might be just the anesthetic or he may still be in a coma from the bump on his head. There’s no telling when he’ll wake up. The anesthetic should have worn off completely in another hour, then we’ll know.”

  He took her arm and guided her through the double doors into the intensive care unit. Here the walls were glass. From the center of the unit nurses could see into each room and know at a glance what was happening. Drapes on the windows were only drawn if the family or a doctor wanted privacy.

  C.J. glanced quickly around, trying to find David. Dr. Hawkins led her to the door of his cubicle before she found him.

  He didn’t look like her David. With all the bandages and stitches on his face, he didn’t look like anyone she knew.

  His dark hair was hidden by the bandages around his head that covered the wound that might be keeping him asleep. His normally dark complexion was a pasty shade of gray, not a color she could ever have visualized for him. The sheet was folded back to leave his bandaged shoulder exposed and the once glorious mat of curly black hair that covered his chest had been shaved and replaced with the brown tones of the antiseptic wash they had used during surgery.

  There were tubes running in every direction. Intravenous tubes into each arm, a larger breathing-tube to his mouth and the heart monitor suctioned with small cups to his chest. There was another tube snaking out from beneath the sheet, a catheter that would take care of his bodily functions until he could control them himself. There were at least three different machines beeping at her.

  This wasn’t David. Not her David. What had happened to that happy man, that generous man? Was he still in there? Or had those parts of him disappeared when he crashed. C.J. knew then that she would have to get some sleep. She knew better than to think things like that. But looking at her beloved David, she saw a man who could have been a stranger.

  That scared her.

  C.J. jumped when Matthew Hawkins spoke from behind her. She had forgotten he was in the room with her.

  “C.J., the way it will work is that you can have access to David anytime you want. As for his friends, one of them will be allowed in for no more than five minutes and only one five minute period per hour. Until he is awake and doing much better than he is right now, those are the rules.”

  He looked with compassion at this redhead who was proving herself stronger than he had thought she’d be. He might have to give her a few orders just to make sure she got the sleep she needed and the fo
od she required to keep her healthy.

  “Right now, I’m giving you an order. You need to eat and you need to get some sleep. There is a bed in the family room just down the hall that you can use. If anything happens, anything at all, a nurse will come and get you.”

  C.J. looked at him; her fear of leaving David had grown out of all proportion.

  “Come on, Mrs. Taylor, you have to do this. David is going to need you when he wakes up and if you’re not ready for that, how will you feel?

  By asking her that simple question, he won her over.

  “All right. I’ll go and try to sleep. But I’m not leaving here to eat.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll get one of your friends to get you something and bring it back up here. Will that do? Will you eat something for me?”

  C.J. nodded, knowing that he was right. David didn’t need her yet, he was still unconscious, but when he woke up, she’d have to be there for him.

  Dr. Hawkins left her then, presumably to find someone to bring her food.

  “You know what she likes, Jared, so bring her as much as you think you can get her to eat. She has to keep herself well if she’s to help David at all when he wakes up.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Hawkins…”

  “Please, if you plan to be here a lot, you might as well call me Matt. No sense in being formal for the next month or so.

  When he said that Jared felt a physical pain jolt through his chest.

  A month. They’d be here for the next month. Maybe more. Oh, man.

  “Okay, Matt. I’m Jared Wynn.”

  Jared pulled up a chair for the doctor and sat down.

  “The tall, dark-haired one of us whom you’ve met is Blake Corbin and the redhead, at least the male redhead is Mac Blade. There are a few more that will be in and out. David is a favorite of ours. He and Blake are my business partners. The tall blonde woman is Kaycee, Blake’s wife. And my wife, who isn’t here at the moment, is Annie.”

  Matt Hawkins was laughing by the time Jared finished. Trying to keep this lot separated would take time but he knew he’d have plenty of that.

  “Jared, let’s get serious a minute here. I need to know a few things about C.J. and David. Things that aren’t on the hospital admitting forms. We usually find out these things by asking the questions over a period of time but it is so much easier if we can get all the information at one time and early.

  “What kind of things?”

  “I need to know what kind of lifestyle these two have led, what is their family situation. You know, children. What do they do when they’re working, playing, that kind of thing. And their financial situation. That’s going to be especially important because David is going to be a very long time getting back to work if there is an SCI.”

  Jared finally interrupted him by holding up his hand like a traffic cop. This man was hard to stop once he got rolling. But he knew that that was what made him a good doctor. He cared about his patients. Knowing these things would help him provide the best care possible for David.

  “Matt, you don’t have to worry about their financial situation. David is one of the three partners in our agency. He had money before he came to work with us and he has made a fortune in the last twelve years. The man is a genius with his investments. His wife is the publisher of the Dougle Sentinel. They only got married a few weeks ago and unless she’s pregnant and no one knows about it, there are no children.”

  He wondered for just a moment if there would be children in the future for David and C.J.. He knew they wanted them. He wondered if this would change things.

  “As for paying his hospital bill, he has the same hospitalization plan I do. He’s covered for everything and then some.”

  “I’m not worried about his hospital bills. Your other partner, Blake, has already assured us that whatever we need will be covered. What I am concerned about is what happens in the next few weeks, while he is recuperating. Until we know where he stands.”

  Jared took a deep breath.

  “Matt, you should know about the rest of David’s lifestyle, I guess. Because if this is a spinal cord injury that will affect him in any way, I think you are going to have some problems.”

  Jared leaned back, sliding down in his chair and scrubbing his hands over his face.

  “David has always been an active, outdoors type. Rides horses, trains horses, flies helicopters. Swims, plays ball occasionally. Used to ski but he hasn’t done that for a few years.”

  He pushed himself back up in the chair.

  “In other words, Matt, he is very active.”

  Matthew Hawkins sighed. He hadn’t wanted to hear that. David Taylor was the kind of patient he hated in this type of situation; active, an outdoors type, newly married, maybe wanting a family. If David was an SCI his life was going to have some dramatic changes.

  David opened his eyes. Slowly, afraid to move, afraid of what he might see. His body felt like a lead weight, lying motionless.

  For just a second, his eyes remained open but unfocused, looking up at a white light shining down on him from above. Then heaviness forced his eyes closed and he was back floating through gray space, trying to move, but unable.

  He wondered where he was, then decided that trying to figure that out would be too tiring. He drifted off to sleep again.

  At the bank of monitors in the ICU center island, the change in his heart rate was noted by the nurse on duty. She rose and quietly entered his cubicle. She checked all of his equipment and tubing and decided that he must be trying to wake up.

  She went back to the console at the desk and phoned for Matthew Hawkins. The doctor had been waiting around the hospital, just in case this happened. He was probably asleep in some empty room close by. He answered his page immediately.

  “Hi, Dr. Hawkins, it’s Nadine Roman, in ICU. There has just been some activity on the heart monitor for David Taylor. I think he’s trying to wake up.”

  “Thanks, Nadine, I’m on my way. Wake Mrs. Taylor, would you?”

  “Right away.”

  Nadine Roman, one of the duty nurses on ICU that night had met Mrs. Taylor. A gorgeous redhead, just married a few weeks ago to their patient. Would be interesting to see if she stuck around now that her husband was in trouble. She’d seen it happen too many times not to know that some of them couldn’t accept it.

  Letting herself into the family sleeping room, she found C.J. asleep, but moving fretfully in the bed. When she touched C.J.’s shoulder with her hand, the woman was off the bed so fast that Nadine found herself backing out of the way.

  “What is it? What’s happening?” C.J. had the nurse’s arm in her grip.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Taylor. Dr. Hawkins asked me to wake you. It looks like your husband might be starting to wake up.”

  C.J. stole a look at her watch and gasped.

  “Five hours. I’ve been asleep for five hours?”

  She shook her head in disbelief. How could she have slept like that while David needed her?

  Then she remembered. Until he woke up, he didn’t even know she was here. She grabbed her jacket and ran from the room. The nurse followed more sedately.

  C.J. collided with Dr. Hawkins as she rushed through the double doors of the ICU.

  “C.J., slow down. You can’t help David if you end up being a patient here. Walk. Do not run.”

  “I’m sorry, but the nurse said tha…”

  “The nurse said that he might be, might be C.J., just might be waking up. The only sign she had of that was that there was a fluctuation of his heart rate. So now, we will check and see if he really is coming out of it and if he is, you need to be calm for him. Can you do that?”

  She took a deep breath and felt herself relax as she exhaled. She could do that. She had to do that, for David.

  “I’m all right now. Can I see him?” She was wringing her hands and trying to pass him.

  “Yes, we can go and see him. But don’t talk to him about his condition, C.J., it’s too early for that. If he
says things, that’s one thing. But on no account do you tell him anything. He’s not ready to hear any of that yet.”

  David’s eyes opened again and stayed that way for a few seconds longer. The heart monitor beeped it’s awareness of his change of state and a different nurse looked to where Dr. Hawkins and the patient’s wife were standing. She decided to interrupt.

  “He’s trying to wake up again, Dr. Hawkins. The monitor showed that his heart rate increased for a longer period of time.”

  “Thanks. We’re on our way.” Taking her arm, he steered C.J. toward David’s room. “Come on, C.J.”

  In the cubicle, David’s eyes were fluttering madly, trying to stay open but not ready to face the new day.

  He saw a little patch of white ceiling and a light. He could hear something beeping. When he tried to move his arms, he found he couldn’t. They seemed to be tied down. His eyes closed again and everything faded.

  It was warm here, where everything was fuzzy. There didn’t seem to be anyone around him, but he thought he heard voices. Someone was calling him, but from far, far away. The voice sounded like someone he knew, but he couldn’t quite place it.

  He let his mind and his body drift. He liked the feeling of floating, even though he didn’t understand how or why it was happening. Again he heard a voice he thought he knew. Calling to him, calling him by name.

  C.J. stood by his bed, holding his hand and stroking the part of his arm that didn’t have a tube attached.

  “David, can you hear me? Are you awake? David?”

  She turned worried eyes to Matt Hawkins.

  “Why isn’t he moving or answering me if he’s trying to wake up?”

  “Sometimes it takes a long time for the patient to work their way through all that fuzziness. One man told me that he felt like he was trying to escape from a room full of cotton balls. He knew they didn’t weigh anything, but he couldn’t move them. I would say it’s a combination of the anesthetic and the blow on his head.”

  She turned back to David and continued to call his name, to talk to him about everything and nothing. Just so he could hear her voice.