Eagle Down (Cyber Cowboys Series Book 3)

by M Elle Kelso

  C.J. leaned weakly against the wall, tears streaming down her face.

  Jared and Blake found her there ten minutes later. They immediately assumed the worst.

  “C.J., what the matter? What’s happened? We were only gone for a few minutes. He was all right when we left...”

  She held up her hand to stop them, not sure if her voice would work.

  “Stop...there’s nothing wrong. At least not with David, I mean, he’s okay, oh, you know what I mean...”

  They didn’t have a clue what she was talking about but they had both registered the fact that she had said nothing was wrong with David.

  So that meant something must be the matter with C.J.

  Jared took her arm and gently led her to a chair.

  “Okay, C.J., slowly, take your time. Just tell us what’s wrong.”

  “Oh, Jared...”

  The tears were still rolling down her cheeks.

  “What, C.J., what happened?”

  “He knows.”

  Blake started to say something and then realized what she’d said. Jared just sat there.

  “How did he find out?” Blake’s quiet voice broke into their thoughts.

  “I don’t know. He said he overheard a nurse talking. She must have been in the hall, because he never even saw her. Just heard her. And now he knows.”

  She gulped and sniffed, trying to stem the tears.

  “Just what is it he knows?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t really say. Just accused me of not telling him things. Then he threw me out. Or at least he said things that made me think I’d better leave. He told me to go, and not to come back. Ever.”

  Her tears started again, causing both men to try to comfort her, neither knowing exactly how.

  “Have you talked to Matt Hawkins this morning, C.J.?”

  Jared’s question brought her thoughts back to the present.

  “No, why? Oh. I guess he needs to know, doesn’t he.”

  “I’ll see if he’s in the hospital and if he is, we’ll ask if he can meet with us. Maybe he knows more about this.”

  It took the nurse twenty minutes to track him down, then they had to wait another half hour while he finished in surgery. He walked toward them looking tired and defeated. The surgery must have been a tough one.

  “So. I understand you want to talk to me. What’s up?”

  He pulled a chair around to face the group and sat, draping an arm over the back of the armless chair.

  “Did you know that David knows something’s wrong? Did he say anything to you this morning?”

  Blake’s question surprised him.

  “I haven’t seen him yet this morning. I had a surgery that took longer than I expected. What makes you say that he knows?”

  C.J. answered before the others had a chance to speak.

  “Because he just threw me out for not telling him. He didn’t come right out and say what it was I hadn’t told him, but I have never seen David so angry. Whatever he heard, he heard last night, from a nurse. And he said something about not even seeing her, just hearing her.”

  Matt Hawkins was on his feet, headed for the nursing station. He grabbed a clipboard off the end of the counter and flipped pages, all the while looking like he might hit something. When his finger slammed into the clipboard, they knew he had his answer.

  But what was the question?

  He got on the phone, spoke to someone for only a few minutes, then hung up. His head was bowed. His shoulders slumped. He planted his elbows on the counter and let his head hang into his hands. Whatever he’d heard was not what he’d expected. Or wanted.

  His page for Nina Roman to return to the nursing station brought her at a trot.

  The woman would have been a beauty had she been wearing any make-up. But her dark good looks were still striking. And at 5’10”, she towered over most of the nurses around her. And some of the doctors. But she knew her job. And Matt Hawkins wanted her there when he tried to explain what had happened.

  Jared and Blake watched the nurse approach Matt Hawkins. They were seriously discussing something and both wore the same, unsmiling, angry look when they walked back to the waiting threesome. Jared watched Mrs. Roman detour to the drug room beside the station and then come out carrying a paper dispensing cup and a bottle of water.

  When they reached C.J., Matt handed her the cup and the water.

  “Take this, C.J.. It’s a sedative. Not much strength, just enough to relax you and help you stop crying.”

  She swallowed it obediently.

  “Now, I want you to listen to me. I know what happened last night. I talked to the nurse who was on duty and she admitted that she had a friend from another station sitting here with her just after she had done her meds round last night. She left the door to David’s room open about half way, because the previous night he had lost the call button and had to shout to get her attention.”

  He bowed his head, not sure how to tell her the rest of the story.

  “C.J., she was talking to her friend, telling her about David. She started by claiming, this morning, that they were only talking about how good looking he was, but then she remembered that she had told the friend that he wouldn’t walk again because he had an SCI.’

  C.J. gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. She sat in the chair and rocked. Her pain, on David’s behalf, was plain for all to see.

  “Oh, my God! How could she? How could she do that to him? He doesn’t even remember the accident, now he knows he’ll never walk again.”

  As she spoke, a new thought rose in her mind.

  “Matt, how does she know he’ll never walk again?”

  This time it was Nina Roman who answered.

  “Mrs. Taylor, I guess that’s my fault.”

  Matt interrupted her. “It’s not your fault. You were only doing your job. And on my instruction.”

  “I don’t care who told who to do what, what did you do?

  C.J. was becoming more frantic with each passing moment.

  “I wrote on the chart yesterday, up on the top where all the most vital information goes. I filled in the blank beside the question ambulatory.” The nurse looked like she might cry, she was that upset.

  “I wrote in paraplegic.”

  Jared had taken C.J.’s hand and he could feel her shuddering. He watched her, expecting her to react with more tears, with cries of anguish, anything. What he didn’t expect was for C.J. to shudder, then sit up, wipe her eyes and turn to the doctor.

  “Okay, now what? I guess you’ve decided that there isn’t any chance of his walking again, so now what?”

  She spoke so quietly that they all strained to hear.

  Matt Hawkins had never seen a reaction quite like it.

  “C.J., I met with three other doctors yesterday, all highly trained in dealing with SCI, and all three agreed that the swelling has had ample time to have gone down completely, and that if there was going to be any feeling return to his legs, it would have done that by now. The plan is to re-xray his back this morning and see exactly what damage was done to his spine, if it shows up. But I can tell you, we don’t expect anything to get any better.”

  He stared into her green eyes, knowing he was about to break her heart.

  “He isn’t going to walk again.”

  With C.J. in tow, Matt led the way into David’s room. He had asked Jared and Blake to come with them, because he wasn’t sure how David would react and he might need their help to physically restrain him. If there had been a couple of orderlies around he would have used them. But for now, this would have to do. Maybe it was better that they were his friends.

  When he approached the bed, he noticed that David’s eyes had found C.J.. Just as he started to speak, the doctor interrupted him.

  “Don’t you ever blame her for what happened last night, David. It wasn’t her fault.”

  Matt’s voice held a note of steel that none of them had ever heard him use before.

  “Then wh
ose fault was it? Hunh? She knew. She’s known all along. And she never said a word. She never told me.”

  David hadn’t taken his eyes off C.J. while he was speaking to Matt.

  “That’s because I told her not to, David. They were my instructions she was following. And what I’d like to know is just what exactly it is you think you know.”

  Matt’s voice told the others that he was going to push David, but they weren’t sure it was the right thing to do. He didn’t know about the man’s stubborn streak. He might only be making matters worse.

  “What do I know? What? I know that I heard that nurse out there last night telling someone that I wasn’t going to walk again. That my wife,” the sneer in his voice was unmistakable, “didn’t have to worry about me finding some other woman and leaving her. That enough?”

  He was yelling by the time he was finished, he was so angry.

  C.J. watched him, wanting to go to him and take him in her arms. All she wanted to do was love him. But the doctor had taken her arm and wouldn’t let her move. Still holding her, he turned back to David.

  “And did you happen to hear why this was going to be? Did you hear her say anything about that?”

  “Just that I had an SCI. Took me a while this morning to figure out what that was, then I remembered something I read someplace. Spinal cord - that’s what the SC stood for. I’m assuming the ‘I’ stands for injury. Something like that.”

  “And do you know how you got this SCI? Do you?”

  Matt’s anger was growing, at least it appeared that way to the others standing there. David was frowning.

  “No. I figure there must have been some kind of accident. Something like that.”

  David was looking at C.J. again. Somewhere in his mind he leapt to another wrong conclusion.

  “It was your fault. Something you did. That’s why you’ve been sitting here like a martyr all this time. You did something and I’m going to pay for it.”

  They all stood still, stunned to silence.

  “How could you, C.J? How could you? I thought you loved me.”

  David turned his head to the wall, anger and anguish fighting each other for the right to be his foremost emotion.

  Anger won.

  “I told you to get out, C.J. I meant it. Get out. Now. And don’t bother coming back.”

  With that, he turned away again, closing his eyes.

  Matt signalled Jared to take C.J. outside. She was in such a state of shock she couldn’t move.

  He gently pushed her, leading her out of the room and down the hall to the quiet family room they had used the first day.

  He sat her in a chair and sat next to her. She never said a word, just stared at the floor.

  As fast as that, the life left her eyes. Where before there had been love and concern for David, gratitude to those who had helped her, now there was only the dead, flat look of a woman who’d just realized that she had lost the one person who had been her world.

  They sat like that for a long, silent time.

  C.J. finally stood, picking up her purse and her jacket. Without a word, she walked out of the waiting room, down the hall to the elevators. Jared followed, not sure what she was doing or where she was going; not wanting to interfere, but also not wanting her to be alone.

  He became her shadow.

  On the main floor, she paused at the front desk long enough to hand her visitor’s pass back to the woman behind the desk. She hadn’t taken that pass off since the night they’d arrived at the hospital.

  Turning right as she went out the wide front entrance, she headed to the cabstand at the corner. She opened the back door of the cab closest to her and climbed in, pulling the door closed behind herself. Jared hastily jumped into the front with the driver.

  “Where to, folks?” He was a little confused, not knowing who to ask. The woman seemed to be leading.

  Jared waited for C.J. to answer, but he wasn’t expecting her reply.

  “The airport.”

  Her whispered answer sent shock waves through Jared.

  She’d given up. Just like that, she was leaving.

  Now what could he do?

  He touched the driver on the arm, at the same time dropping cash on the seat, quietly asking if they could have a minute alone. The driver took the hint, set his meter running and climbed out, to stand against the front fender of his cab.

  Jared turned to the back seat, took one look at C.J. and knew that whatever had happened, it had not been her fault. Tears were making silent tracks down her face, her hands were clasped in her lap and her head was held rigidly upright while she shook. Her body was vibrating with emotion.

  And that emotion was despair.

  Blake never took his eyes off David. He had heard everything that had been said, but he couldn’t believe what this man had just done.

  For C.J., he wanted to shake this stupid excuse for a man until David realized that he had just devestated his wife.

  For David, he wanted to wrap his arms around him and tell him that everything would be fine, that it would all work out just fine.

  But he couldn’t do either.

  He stood beside the doctor, not knowing what to say. He wished that Matt Hawkins would say something, anything. Just words to break the silence.

  When David finally opened his eyes, the desolation was so complete that it froze Blake’s mind. He simply couldn’t think. What did you say to a man who has just found out he would never walk again?

  What could he possibly say to this man who had just kicked his wife out of his room because he thought she was responsible for his accident?

  He didn’t know.

  The sound of the doctor’s voice brought him out of his reverie.

  “Okay, David, now I really need some questions answered. And you’d better be able to tell me the answers and be right, or so help me, I’m not sure I will care if you can fight back or not. I may just punch your lights out.”

  David’s wide-eyed stare was the result Matt had wanted and that’s what he’d got.

  Blake just gawked at the doctor.

  Blake recovered first.

  “What are you talking about, Hawkins. This is your patient you’re talking to.”

  “I know who I’m talking to. I’m talking to a man that I quite rightly think is probably the biggest jerk in this city.”

  Suddenly Blake thought he knew what the doctor was trying to do. Okay; he could play along with this.

  “Well, at least we both agree about that.”

  David’s glance from the doctor to Blake was comical. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Blake thought he might have laughed.

  “Now, David, I want those answers.”

  “It would help if I knew the questions.” David’s petulance had come to the fore, pushing aside the desolation.

  “All right. I want to know how you were hurt. What kind of an accident were you in? Where did this accident occur? When? How did you get here? Who found you?”

  He stopped asking questions.

  It will be interesting to see how he answers this.

  David’s silence told the two men that he hadn’t remembered his accident. That he knew nothing about how he’d got to this hospital in this state.

  When he finally looked at Matt, there was resignation in his eyes.

  “I don’t know, Doc. I don’t know.”

  Matt sat on the side of the bed and reached out to pick up David’s wrist. It was a defense mechanism he’d perfected. When you couldn’t hug them, look like you were taking a pulse. Anything to make physical contact.

  “Okay, David, I wasn’t planning on telling you all this just yet, but I guess we’d better set the record straight. I’m going to tell you what happened, but you have to promise me, if you remember other details later, you will tell me. I need to know if there’s any of your memory that doesn’t come back.”

  David was nodding slowly, not sure what to expect, but wanting to know.

  “Blake will
have to help me with some of it because I didn’t become involved until you got here. So he’ll tell you the first part, I’ll fill in this end.”

  Blake looked at David and wished he didn’t have to do this.

  “David, do you remember what we are working on? The agency, that is?”

  “Yeah, that cattle rustling problem for the Cattlemen’s Collective. We were working for Patrick. Doing aerial surveys of the ranches, to see if anyone was active.”

  “That’s right. And do you remember the time off we all took, for your wedding?”

  “I remember. It was two weeks before Christmas. We only took off the Saturday.”

  “And do you remember what happened two days after Christmas?”

  David’s puzzled look told Blake this was where his memory balked. He couldn’t remember the crash because the trauma had been so severe his mind couldn’t handle it. So he closed it out.

  “Two days after Christmas, Patrick phoned you. A truck had been seen leaving John Williams’s ranch.” Blake continued, telling him everything C.J. had told him about the day. When he got to the part about C.J. putting the horses in and Mirage putting up a fight, David frowned.

  “Is that when Jared saw him? He said he’d seen the horse and he was overweight.”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry about Mirage. His weight is fine. Can you remember anything at all about the day, from when you left your place and took the helicopter up?”

  Blake watched David’s face. There was absolutely no sign he remembered any of it. That meant he had to tell him.

  “You crashed your helicopter.”

  At David’s flustered frown, Blake decided he’d better tell him all of it. He poured himself a glass of water, anything to give himself time to figure out how to say what had to be said.

  David’s face reflected his skepticism as he listened to Blake recount that fateful day. When Blake told him about Mirage and his anxiety attack, David’s grin stopped him.

  “Yeah, that’s a high strung horse in so many ways. But I wouldn’t want him any different. He’s special. Then what?”

  Blake continued, only pausing when David began to look really baffled. Something might be niggling at his memory.

  “Blake, did the horse come real close to me at the crash site?”