Quinn didn’t move and but responded. “Don’t call… okay… no one can know… listen… ”
“Quinn, Quinn. I have to call someone. You’re really hurt.”
He didn’t respond again. Her cell was upstairs so she ran into the kitchen. As she grabbed the phone, she paused for the briefest of moments. What should she do? He said don’t call anyone. She shook her head. Forget it all, he needs EMS. It could ruin his career, reputation, the ranch’s and the family’s reputation but he was hurt and it all meant nothing if he was injured or worse. She wouldn’t finish that thought. It seemed as though it took forever to make her decision but she knew time slowed down when the pressure was put to bear on an important decision.
Cheyenne called Liam, Ciarán and the ambulance before grabbing some blankets in the office they’d used to protect the desk when moving it. Then straddling the beam to get to him, she inched her way down and got behind his head. She threw one blanket over him and one over the bench to hide it. She knew not to move his head because they would want to put a collar on it. She didn’t want to hurt him more. She inched her way down and got behind his head.
There was blood seeping all over the floor. She feared the worst but he was breathing easy. He just looked asleep with a plank on him, lying in a pool of blood. Normal, right? It felt like a lifetime but the portable phone in her hand declared it only a few minutes before she heard her door being pounded frantically.
She hoped that one of the men brought their house key that they’d received only hours ago from Quinn. Each family carried a house key to the other houses in situations as important as this one, as well as the more mundane reasons. Cheyenne looked over at the bench one last time. The bench was on a flattened narrow cardboard box. The bench itself was collapsible until final bolts were put in the assembly. It looked like he had slid it down the stairs. It was still fully covered by the blanket and she expected no one to notice it during the push to get him to the hospital. If by chance his brothers checked, it would just be something they would deal with but his professional world would not be privy to it or their lifestyle differences.
The beams were just that. Beams with bolt holes and huge bolts attached to it. It could have been an exercise bar, or corner beams, or even the foundation of a wet bar. There was nothing else in the basement that would lead to any speculation, thank goodness. There was a ruckus going on upstairs and Cheyenne jumped up to shimmy back up the steps when Liam appeared at the top stairs along with several hands and Ciarán.
“What the hell?”
“He must have tried to move the wood himself. I told him not to,” Cheyenne stifled a sob. “He hit his head and he’s bleeding badly.”
“Hold on, honey,’ said Liam, his voice shaking.
Katie called over the top of the men, “Get out of my way so I can get to him. Did anyone call the ambulance?”
“I did. They’re coming,”
“Good woman. Guys, get this log off him, carefully.”
Just as the piece of timber was about to be removed from its residence on Quinlan’s body and leaned against the far wall next to its matching set, the rescue squad was piling in the door and the ambulance was behind them. Several volunteer firemen arrived and between them all, the beam was removed, the medical care assessment was done. They carried him from the stairs on a spinal board up to the waiting gurney.
Within ten minutes of their arrival, the men had Quinn loaded and on his way to the hospital. Cheyenne jumped in the back of the ambulance just before the door closed with nothing but her cell phone and wallet that someone had gotten for her clutched in her one hand and Quinn’s discarded shirt in the other.
“We will be right behind you,” Katie assured Cheyenne. “I’ll bring you some clothes.”
“You have to take care of your little one.”
“Jocelyn is in hog heaven keeping him. Don’t you worry about Kēven. And we will take care of calling Da.”
Once they reached the hospital, things moved quickly. Quinlan hadn’t regained consciousness and Cheyenne was feeling that panic return. She sat in his ER room while they hooked him up to IVs and stripped his jeans off all the while getting her story of the events. For some reason she hated that they stripped him and she took his jeans and the later discarded briefs, refusing to send them home to be washed with Katie. They had his scent and she needed that reassurance of him with her.
As hectic as the first hour had been, now time stood still as she was directed to the waiting room while the medical team did the MRI and the CAT scans of his brain and spine. Then they did X-rays and blood work, tapped his bladder and left in the catheter. Every time something else was done or he was resting between tests, the family was encouraged to sit and talk to him and around him so that he could hear his family.
“Why won’t he wake up?” Cheyenne asked in the now familiar tortured voice of one numb with fear. She rocked back and forth, holding his clothes to her face and staring for any movement.
Katie answered with a firm and calm voice cultivated from her work with the Bhaile Haven and her nursing profession. “His brain needs a rest, honey, and this is the way it gets it. You heard the doctor, he could have a brain bleed, swelling, certainly a concussion and any one of those is enough to keep him out for a while. His vitals are good and strong which is awesome.”
“How long does it take to get the results back? It seems like we have been waiting forever.”
“It takes as long as it takes but we should hear something soon,” Katie assured everyone.
Ciarán tried to pull Cheyenne into him just as Kelli and Parker arrived but she would not have it. Comfort was not something she could allow. Kelli ran to Cheyenne and hugged her for a moment before Cheyenne distanced herself from even Kelli.
“We are just waiting until someone, somewhere, wants to tell us what is going on with him.” She broke down. “I don’t know if I can wait much longer.”
Ciarán didn’t allow her to refuse his comfort the second time and presented with his immovable force, Cheyenne sobbed. Ciarán gently rocked her while she let out the stress and tension she had been holding onto tightly.
Liam filled Parker and Kelli in on the accident and Quinn’s state of unconsciousness. Parker said nothing. After a few moments of sitting quietly, Parker stood to sit near Katie, Cheyenne and Ciarán but Kelli asked the unasked question.
“Why didn’t he get help if it was so heavy? He should have known better,” declared Kelli.
“Who knows? He’s always tried to do things without assistance if he could,” answered Liam. “But it had to be obvious that it was too much for one man. Even as strong as Quinlan is.”
Kelli vehemently declared, “I wish he wasn’t so stubborn about things. He knows we help each other all the time. He tries to be so damn tough. Look where it got him.”
Cheyenne, hearing the last part of the conversation, shoved herself out of Ciarán’s arms and yelled, “Because none of you would have understood. You’re so self-righteous, so narrow-minded that you create an atmosphere of intolerance about other people. It isn’t always about what you think or feel. Sometimes, it’s about allowing others to feel, think, and be different than you. Quinn knows his family well. He wouldn’t ask you for help for this project because it was outside of your comfort zone.”
Ciarán answered quietly, “Cheyenne, honey, we know a lot more than we let on. That’s why Quinn thinks we don’t know, because it’s outside of our comfort zone at times and so we don’t say anything. But we know.”
“You do? You know?”
Liam stood and put his arm around her, speaking equally quiet. “We know about the lifestyle differences that you and Quinn have. Not the intimate details, and we don’t want to, but we know that Quinn is a dominant in the stricter definition. We know he likes to play scenes with you. If he had asked us to help him, we would have and not condemned it.”
“He didn’t know that. You let him go on thinking that you didn’t know. He was worried ab
out his job, reputation within the community and the family. He didn’t want you to think less of him or me. He wanted to be free to live his life without worry but he didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“A stór, we would have questioned the divided basement if we didn’t know. We didn’t say anything because we didn’t need to. Our mistake was not telling him that we understood his differences and we would not interfere or censor him because of them.”
“Thank you, Liam. And all of this was for nothing. He might—”
“Mrs. O’Connor?” When the doctor saw two women turn their heads, he clarified, “Cheyenne O’Connor?”
“Yes. We are all here for Quinlan; we are his family. Tell us what is going on.”
“Well, as you know he has a good concussion and a pretty good goose egg on the back of his head. The pressure from it is pressing on his brain. That pressure is approaching the stage where we might have to place a stint or drill a hole in his head to relieve it. We can’t stop the swelling but we can stop the increasing pressure. We’re just going to wait and see. He did have a small bleed but that appears to have stopped. We’ll continue to watch him for the next hours to see if things get better on their own.”
“He is still unconscious?”
“Yes, he is and frankly, I’m not concerned about that right now. It’s a blessing actually, because the headache from the pressure would be too intense. He’s better this way, at least until the swelling decreases. We’re taking him up to ICU and you’re welcome to go see him but only two at a time, please. I’ll get you any new updates as they surface, but things will probably stay the same for a few hours anyway. He’s definitely not out of the woods.”
They took turns sitting with Cheyenne in the hospital room. Katie went home and the men called their respective foremen to let them know the situation and to turn the operations over into their hands for a while. Parker left to go home, as he had to work in the morning.
“Kelli, I want you to go home and come sit tomorrow. It’s Saturday tomorrow and you can relieve the guys. They’ll send everyone home soon. Cheyenne will probably stay in the waiting room.”
“I’m going to stay with Cheyenne.”
Parker looked at Kelli for a moment. He relented. “I know it’s hard. Stay if you need to but don’t get yourself exhausted.”
She quickly leaned up to kiss her man. “Thanks. I love you.”
He kissed her again extending it a bit longer. “I love you too, baby.”
Cheyenne sat in the room and repeated what the doctor had said. A bleed in the brain, swelling on the brain, and a concussion was a lot to deal with. They might need to drill for relief. She could lose him. She allowed silent tears to roll down her face unchecked as she held his hand sitting next to his bed. She laid her head on his shoulder and dozed until they shooed both women out of the room to join the men in the waiting room where they all fell into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning, a nurse woke her up and told her that the swelling wasn’t increasing and, in fact, might be decreasing and that was a very good sign. Still not out of the woods yet, but closer to the edge of them. They moved him out of ICU early the third morning. Cheyenne never left his side, sleeping in the extra bed they had in the new room. Everyone came to visit in shifts. When Josh showed up later that morning, Cheyenne was full of apologies.
“No, don’t you dare chastise yourself. I’m happy to be here and spend some time with him. I don’t have anything that I need to do right now that I can’t do online. I’ll thankfully spend time waiting for him to recover. While we are alone, I can let you in on the plan that I think we can agree on with Quinn. It’s an incredible idea. We all agreed on this venture in Sheridan so we just need Quinn to cinch it. So many things have changed but I don’t want to go into it until Quinn is better. Do you mind if I call Carter?”
“No, call him but I don’t know what good it will do.”
“You never know, honey, you never know.”
Carter arrived late that afternoon and had a meeting with the physicians. Quinn had always used his family doctor or so Cheyenne had thought but when Carter took on Cheyenne, Quinn and Carter thought it simpler to keep only one physician. Carter became Quinn’s primary physician as well. Therefore, the direction of Quinn’s care was shared with Carter and then Cheyenne and the rest of the family.
“It has been four days, sir, Doctor Taylor, and he has still not regained consciousness. I’m scared.” Cheyenne’s words were echoed throughout the waiting room as the family gathered to discuss the plan with the doctors.
“We can’t rush these things but there is no longer a bleed, no longer much swelling. He’s beginning to look like his normal self—only sleeping. We have another scan to do today, just following up on what is going on in his brain. I feel certain we just need to give his brain time to recover. It was a profound knock on the head.”
The shift change was happening in the Quinlan O’Connor vigil when the outgoing watchers were saying goodbye to Quinn for the night and receiving their discharge orders for home. Those coming in were being updated on taking over when someone whispered to keep the noise down.
“You’d think Da was coming home early.” The room went silent.
“Quinn? Honey, was that you? Did you say something?” asked Cheyenne.
Silence. The room watched Quinn for a moment and then he tried to roll over and the room erupted, jumping for the IV and other monitoring leads attached to him. Cheyenne started to sniffle.
“Hold on, buddy, they have you trussed up like the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey so you can’t just turn over like that.” Liam was talking as though it was business as usual.
“Shit. What are you guys doing? Where is Cheyenne? If she let you all do this to me I’m going to spank her ass right after I kick yours.” That was met with laughter and the women telling him to hush. Someone went for the nurse.
After a few more verbal flame-throwers had been launched, Cheyenne became concerned. “He’s swearing a lot. He never does that normally. Do you think he’s all right?”
“Well, sweetheart, your Quinn is rolling around in his head right now. Give him a little bit to find his way through the fog. He’ll be right as rain soon,” said Carter with a big grin on his face.
“Okay, guys, clear out of here and let him rest.” Carter looked over at Cheyenne and said, “I know, you aren’t going anywhere and I would never ask you to but the hospital might. I’ll go talk to his physician on staff and figure this out.”
“I have to call Da and Mom. They can call Shane and Caoimhe. Ciarán will you call Cián?”
“Yep, right now.” Liam had taken back the last remnants of deferred control and Ciarán appeared content to let him.
Every hour Quinn was checked to see that he was still improving but by the next morning, he was wide-awake and except for a lingering headache, he was trying to take back his own control. He sent Cheyenne to get them something to eat. Quinn wasn’t hungry but he wanted her to have something to do besides sit in the room with him. It would also give him time to talk to Josh whom she charged with keeping Quinn quiet.
“Cheyenne is tired,” Quinn informed Josh. “She needs to go home. I’m doing fine.”
“You tell her, man, because I don’t think she’ll go. We’ve been trying all week but with no success.” Josh paused for a moment and then added, “Frankly, I think you should leave her alone and let her finish this out. They’re talking about sending you home tomorrow and she won’t go when she hears that.”
“I was afraid of that so you and Carter need to get your dom on.”
“Nope, that’s not going to happen, my friend. I’m not going to tell that woman, who has been a paragon of attentive love, that she has to go home without you. I wouldn’t count on Carter doing it either.”
“Fine, I’ll get Liam to do it. He’s the scary, tough brother.”
“If he does, I’ll lose some respect for him and you. Let her love you enough to stay and you lov
e her enough to allow it.”
“Okay, I get it. But she’s so tired.”
“She’ll sleep at home, next to you. Besides, in case you didn’t know, you have the family reputation for being the hard ass, even more than Liam does. He just seems to intimidate but you’re the real McCoy. If Cheyenne can stand you down, Liam isn’t going to be able to do it.” Josh looked over at his friend and saw the smile. “Yeah, I thought you would enjoy knowing that. Now I’m going back to your house to get the group’s plan to show you before I go home tomorrow. I need to get back now that you’re better. Carter is going back this afternoon as he has patients in the morning and Susan is getting restless in the house alone. Amazing how that woman is a powerhouse at work and a total brat sometimes at home.”
Quinn laughed. “She’s trying to sit on top because it’s what she knows in the rest of her world. She misses you guys and when did she move in?”
“A month ago and I get what she’s doing but why? And how is it that she can express her concerns dramatically in her professional world but in her private sanctuary, where all we want is to make her happy, she clams up and then brats when it gets built up so bad she has to let it out?”
“Cheyenne used to do that. She kept so many things inside and then I would leave on a training, loan out to Forest Service or when I came here for some reason, she would brat big time and forced me to show her I cared. When I called her on it, the behavior all but disappeared. Now, she asks for most of what she needs. I think she likes the naughty girl persona sometimes. But then, so do I.”
Both men laughed and Quinn finished by saying, “And if it doesn’t work to call her on it, then I would not give her what she’s asking for when she brats. I would ignore the bratting and not reward her with a spanking, flogger or whatever it is, you’re going to do. When she does it the right way, I would give her all she needs intensely until she brats again, and then withdraw the attention.”
Accepting His Ways (Quinlan O'Connor Book 2) Page 23