A Helluva Man

by Sable Hunter

  “I never should’ve left,” she wailed. “I should’ve been here when he woke up. This wouldn’t be happening if I’d been there, not if I’d been holding his hand when he opened his eyes. It’s your fault!” She yelled at Heath. “You made me go! He thinks I don’t care and it’s because of you!” She wanted to push past him, but she knew it was futile. Heath’s chest could’ve been designated as a mountain range. There would be no getting past him. In agonized desperation, she raised her hands to pound Heath’s chest.

  Instead of pushing her away, Heath enveloped her in a hug, holding Tamara while she sobbed her heart out. When Jaxson came to himself, Heath would make sure he answered for this travesty. There was just no use in this, no use whatsoever. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  When she was all cried out, Tamara stepped back and wiped her eyes. Chelsea was still standing there with a triumphant smirk on her face. “Don’t look so damned pleased with yourself, Miss Stanhope. Things have a way of working out.”

  “Maybe, but for now…” She held up her hand. “Buh-bye.”

  Tamara felt ripped in half. She hadn’t known pain could be so debilitating. “You’re far more of a snake than the one you put in my suitcase.”

  “What?” Heath asked, but neither woman bothered to answer him.

  Tamara faced Jaxson’s brother one more time. “Tell him I love him and I will be waiting for his call.” As she left, confused by what exactly had happened, Tamara hoped she wasn’t leaving Jaxson McCoy for the last time.

  * * *

  At the end of the day…

  Jaxson was alone. He’d finally convinced Heath and Chelsea to go home for a while. After all, he wasn’t going anywhere until the doctor released him. He’d laid there and plotted, planning how he would escape. His crutches were nowhere in sight and there wasn’t even a spare wheelchair rolling around anywhere. In his mind, he’d get up and run out. The thought brought burning tears to his eyes.

  He’d never walk again without help, much less run.

  Hell, he was even too damn weak to hop. “I’m a frickin’ freak. A cripple. An am-pu-tee!” he dragged the word out, ending his self-effacing declaration with his voice cracking.

  How was he going to go on? He covered his face with his arm and tried to imagine returning home to his family. A damn shut-in. Who would do the ranch work? And how would he watch someone else do what he loved? Who would ride Memphis?

  And how in the world would he live without Tamara? She would move on. She would find someone else. She would make love to someone else!

  “Fuck!”

  He tried to roll over into a fetal position and the pain in his stupid stump caused him to cry out again.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Jaxson screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. McCoy?” A nurse came into the room walking briskly.

  “Someone cut off my fuckin’ leg. Have you seen it?” He groaned out the words, needing to lash out at someone. Anyone.

  She didn’t answer him. Instead, she checked his chart. “I can’t give you a dose of pain meds for another hour.”

  “Well, that’s fuckin’ great!” he roared. “Do you happen to have any morphine?”

  “Morphine’s not on your prescribed list of drugs,” she stated reasonably.

  “Well, how about cyanide? Is that on the damn list?” he shouted, throwing the stupid bedpan across the floor, splashing a few drops of urine in its bouncing wake. That was another thing that wasn’t working. His fuckin’ cock. He couldn’t piss worth a flip. The doctor said it was just a nerve thing, but he didn’t give a fuck. Other than taking a leak, he had no use for the damn thing.

  “Mr. McCoy, you need to calm down. There are other people in this hospital besides you.”

  “Are they all as unhappy as me?” No, he knew they weren’t. Some people were here having babies, bringing new life into the world. Others were being helped, mended. Cured. And what about him? He’d be leaving with less. Less a leg. Less a future. Less hope.

  The nurse looked confused. She didn’t know what to say. “I’ll call your doctor.”

  Jaxson collapsed back on the bed. “Don’t bother. I don’t need him.”

  The doctor couldn’t help him.

  He wanted to die.

  * * *

  Nearing midnight…

  Tamara was alone. She’d been alone many times before, but she’d never felt this alone before.

  Curled into a small knot in the bed, she stared out the window. Her whole body was sore from aching for Jaxson. She hated he was hurt, she abhorred the fact that fate had dealt him such a shitty hand. Most of all she hated that he wouldn’t let her share his pain.

  She rolled over in the bed and pulled the pillow over her head.

  Surely, this was temporary.

  He’d feel differently tomorrow. After all, he’d asked for her when he’d come out of surgery. Before he came out from under the drugs. Those were his real feelings. Weren’t they? A person didn’t lie when they were under anesthesia. Could they?

  And Chelsea! “God, she’s vile.” And to think, she was beginning to like her.

  She hit the bed with her fist. “And Heath…he…”

  Tamara screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Who was she kidding? This wasn’t Chelsea’s fault, it wasn’t Heath’s.

  For some reason, Jaxson had decided he didn’t want her. She clutched the covers, pulling on them so hard that she tugged the sheet from underneath the mattress. Torturing herself, she went back over everything, every moment, every touch, every kiss, every breath…

  “Jaxson!” she cried, her throat raw from sobbing.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Something didn’t make sense.

  He loved her.

  He knew she loved him.

  If he didn’t, she needed to make sure he did.

  Their life together was too important to let anything go to chance.

  * * *

  The next morning, Tamara took care of a few things. She talked to Joseph. She talked to her parents. And she talked to Storm. Everyone was concerned about Jaxson. Tamara didn’t let on that anything was wrong between them. She just couldn’t. First, she didn’t want their sympathy. Second, she didn’t intend to let things stand the way they were.

  If she could just get him to see her, Tamara knew this would all go away.

  Just one look shared between them, that was all it would take to put things right.

  Dressing with care, she made sure she looked her best. Jaxson was the love of her life and she intended to fight for him with everything she possessed.

  Leaving her small house, she headed south from Burnet. The hour drive to Austin gave her time to think…to practice.

  The passing scenery faded into the imagined scenarios. She watched the road, but she also talked herself through what was to come.

  “Jaxson, it’s me.”

  Tamara could see it. She would open the door and Jaxson would jerk his head up. Their eyes would lock. He’d be hesitant, but she’d be able to see the love on his face. There would be a few moments of anticipation, then he would lift his hand and beckon her to him.

  She would smile and run to his arms. They would kiss.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you awoke,” she would tell him.

  “Don’t worry, I’m glad you’re here now.”

  “I’m so sorry about your leg, but you have to know, Jaxson…” She fumbled for the words she’d say to him. “It matters so much, and yet it doesn’t matter at all.”

  “That sounds dumb, Tam,” she told herself.

  She tried again. “You have to understand, Jaxson. I would rather have lost a limb than you have to lose one. I hate that you’re in pain. I hate that you have to worry about…adjusting. I hate that your life changed in ways you would’ve never wanted it to change.” She swallowed, took a breath and kept on with her solo rehearsal. “What you need to know is that you’ve changed, your body has chang
ed, your outlook has changed.” She laid her hand on her chest. “What hasn’t changed is how much I love you. How much I desire you. How much I want to share my life with you.”

  She wiped a lone tear from her cheek. “I love you, Jaxson McCoy. I love you just the way you are.”

  When she pulled into the parking lot, Tamara was ready. She was going to march into that hospital and make Jaxson listen. Soon, everything would be fixed. Everything would be the way it was…when they were happy.

  …In the hospital, the doctor stood over Jaxson as he sat in the wheelchair. “I want you to know that the only reason I’m doing this is because of Olivia. I’ve known her for years and I know she’s a great nurse.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Olivia stood between Christian and his son. “I’ll take good care of both my boys.”

  Jaxson wanted to roll his eyes. He just wanted to get out of here. Deep in the night, the plan had come to him. He regretted using his father and his nurse, but if he’d had to stay one more day in this fuckin’ hospital, he’d do something drastic. The nurses were glad to see him go. He’d thrown his breakfast tray at one this morning.

  “I know you will. Just follow the care regime I set up for you and I’ll need to see him back here in a week. We’ll set Jaxson up in good rehab program and get this cowboy back on his feet in no time.”

  The doctor’s jovial attitude sickened Jaxson. “Don’t you mean…foot?”

  “What?” The doctor turned his attention from his old friend, Olivia, back to his patient. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said don’t you mean foot?” Christian shook his head, but Jaxson continued. “You said you’d have me back on my feet in no time, but I don’t have feet. I have a foot. Singular.”

  “Right.” The doctor nodded. “For now. Soon, we’ll fit you with a prosthetic and no one will be able to look at you and know any different.”

  Jaxson didn’t argue. He didn’t intend to have rehab or a prosthetic. He wouldn’t be needing them where he was going. “Let’s get out of here. I want to go home.”

  …With high hopes, Tamara hurried through the lobby. The elevator was on another floor, so she didn’t bother to wait for it. Taking the stairs, she counted them in her mind as she flew up one flight, and another, then another.

  Finally, she arrived. With a shaking hand, she pushed open the door from the stairwell and emerged just down the hall from where Jaxson lay waiting.

  When she came to his door, the NO VISITORS sign was still in place.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “Jaxson?”

  The room was empty.

  She felt so let down.

  “Can I help you?” A nurse asked from behind her.

  “Yes, I was looking for Jaxson.”

  “Oh, sorry.” The nurse laughed and fanned herself. “You just missed him. He’s gone home.” Leaning near to Tamara, the woman whispered. “I hope they have an easier time with him than we did. He can be a handful, can’t he?”

  Tamara nodded sadly. “Yes, he can.”

  “Pity.”

  “What?” she asked the nurse. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just a pity, a man like that, with his looks.” She shook her head sadly. “He’ll never be the same. Nothing will ever be the same for him or for anyone who cares anything about him ever again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “You planning on being one of those vampire goth weirdos now?” Philip asked as he entered the gloomy guest room where Jaxson was sleeping these days.

  Before, he’d used the crutches to hobble up the stairs, but now he had no desire to try. Jaxson immediately rolled onto his side to face away from his brother. “Go away,” he muttered through the pillow his face was buried in.

  He’d been home from the hospital for three days and done nothing more than handle his business in the attached bathroom.

  “You know...” Philip placed a tray of food on the dresser and went to the window. Opening the dark curtains, he let light into a room that hadn’t seen much of it lately. “This whole moping around act is getting pretty old.”

  Jaxson flopped onto his back and hurled the pillow across the room toward his brother. The throw was off and the pillow came down right on top of the tray of food Philip had brought with him.

  “Fuck you,” Jaxson cursed as the tray clanged to the hardwood floor, making a huge mess as the beef tips and rice, pinto beans, and fresh cornbread smashed together to form a nasty jumble. “You didn’t lose your leg, asshole.”

  Philip had the good sense to look a little bit ashamed of what he’d just said to his brother. They’d all had their trials and tribulations over the years. Hell, he was still fighting to prove his innocence in a damn murder trial, but none of the McCoy’s could possibly relate to what Jaxson was feeling now. Only days ago, he’d been a complete person, now he was down a leg and Philip wouldn’t wish that tragedy on friend or foe.

  “This isn’t how you’re going to live the rest of your life, Jax,” Philip stated after a moment of consideration. “You’ll…adjust. I understand you’ve suffered a huge loss, but there’s an expiration date on feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Fuck off, shovel-bum.”

  “Okay, maybe three days isn’t long enough.” Philip picked up Jax’s phone, seeing it was turned off. “No wonder Tamara and Chelsea haven’t been able to get hold of you. Your damn phone is powered down.” He turned it back on.

  Jaxson made a lunge for his brother. “Give me that fuckin phone. If I wanted it on, it’d be on.”

  “Why would you do that?” Philip held the phone higher than Jaxson could reach without getting off the bed.

  “Because there’s no one I want to talk to, that’s why!”

  After seeing the desolation in Jaxson’s face, Philip returned the phone to him. “Tamara’s called the house phone every hour on the hour, you need to talk to her.”

  “I don’t take my orders from you, dick-face.”

  “Dick-face? Do I need to bring you an insult manual?” He placed his hands on his hips and stared at his brother. Seeing the leg and half under the sheet just twisted his gut in a knot. “Okay, I understand you need some time, but know this – I won’t let you give up on life, Jaxson, it just isn’t going to happen.”

  “What the hell would you know about my life?” Jaxson demanded to know. He was sitting up in bed now, watching his brother kneel to clean up the mess on the floor. “You realize that I need these fucking crutches just to take a piss.” Snatching one of the hated crutches from beside him, he hurled it across the room toward his brother.

  Philip held up a hand to deflect the in-coming projectile. “Damn you, Jax,” he cursed when an edge of the crutch caught him on the side of his head and opened up a gash that began to leak blood down into his left eye.

  Rising from his place on the ground, Philip stalked to the bed and took his brother by the collar, raising his upper torso from the bed. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

  Jaxson stared up into Philip’s face defiantly. “No, I lost a leg. They took a saw and cut through my flesh and bone until it was severed from my body.”

  “Oh, my God!” Instead of turning Jaxson loose, Philip just lifted him an inch higher. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “You know what you want to do. I can see it in your face.” Jutting his chin out, he offered a target to the cocked hand that hovered above him. “Go ahead!”

  Philip took a long hard look, a scowl on his face, hand poised to deliver a blow. “Someone needs to knock some sense into you!”

  “Leave him alone, Philip.”

  The command came from inside the room in a somewhat frail but very familiar voice.

  Philip craned his neck to look behind him, Jaxson still in his grasp. “Daddy.”

  Christian McCoy was seated in his wheelchair just inside the doorway. “Let your brother go, Philip. Or by God, I’ll get out of this chair and wallop you myself.”

  Even in a wheelchair, Christi
an McCoy still inspired respect and a bit of fear in all his off-spring.

  “Philip!” Christian raised his voice when Philip didn’t immediately release his brother. “Boy…don’t make me…te-tell you again.”

  His father’s words were weak and a bit jumbled at times, but his boys knew better than to defy him. “Don’t think you’re going to get away with this crap forever, Jax,” Philip murmured as he released his brother.

  Jaxson laid back on the bed, his gaze cast away from his family. Even he knew he was being an asshole.

  But he couldn’t help it.

  He was beyond depressed. Sick to his soul. Jaxson hated the whole world, especially himself. Lately, he’d been thinking about all the guns in the house and how easily it would be to just take one, hobble out to his truck and…pull the trigger. There were times when he’d had to put an injured animal out of its misery, and that’s what Jaxson was now – a lame-ass cripple animal who wasn’t worth anything to anyone anymore.

  “Go tell your sister to fix him another plate,” Christian directed Philip.

  Philip stopped and looked back to his brother. “All right. Fine,” he muttered as he wiped a drop of blood from his cheek.

  “And my pills. Bring me my pills,” Jaxson demanded. At Philip’s glance of censure, he exploded. “I’m in pain, asshole!”

  His outburst was loud enough for Pepper to hear downstairs in the kitchen. “What’s going on?” she yelled from the bottom of the stairs. “Am I going to have to come up there?”

  “Fix Jaxson another plate, Pep!” Philip called down, looking at Jaxson as he spoke to their sister.

  “Goodness! Did he already clean that plate?” she asked with amusement in her voice.

  “Nah, I…dropped it.”

  “Klutz!”

  Philip didn’t respond further. Stepping over to his father, he placed a hand over to his shoulder. “You okay, daddy?”

  “I’ll be fine, Philip. Now leave us be for a while.”