A Helluva Man

by Sable Hunter

  Downstairs, Pepper scurried around preparing more food for her brother. She didn’t have to be told what happened. “Philip didn’t drop that tray, Jaxson probably threw it on the floor.” Tears began to well in her eyes. “He’s hurting. He’s hurting so bad.”

  Ryder came to give her sister a hug. “He’ll be okay. Just give him time.”

  Upstairs, Christian wheeled himself over to his injured son. His right arm had been rendered almost useless by a stroke and he still struggled to coordinate the effort. His children argued how he should get a motorized wheelchair to make things easier, but Christian fought the idea, insisting he wouldn’t get any better by letting a machine do the work for him.

  “So, that girl’s been calling you. She’s worried,” Christian said when he was close enough.

  Jaxson knew full well what his father was talking about, he just didn’t want to hear it. “What girl? Chelsea?”

  “Oh, Jax, knock it…off. Pepper told me all…about her. She said you and this Tamara girl were getting close before all this happened.”

  “Oh, well. I’ve got bigger problems to deal with at the moment, as you can see.” He wiggled his stump under the covers.

  “Listen. Jaxson. I know wh...what you’re going th…through.”

  Anger bubbled up inside of Jaxson. Losing his leg was devastating but losing the possibility of a future with Tamara was the hardest thing of all. “You don’t know anything about it!” Jaxson lashed out.

  “What don’t I know anything about?”

  Jaxson had no reply.

  “I lost my…wife to Katrina. Lost my home. Everything.”

  “You didn’t lose everything. You still had us!” Jaxson fired back at his father.

  “Exactly!” Christian said and this time he didn’t stutter. “And you…still have us.” Seeing the miserable look on his son’s face, he leaned forward, wishing he could take Jaxson in his arms. “I know I wasn’t the only one to lose your mother, you all lost her too.” He held up his crippled hand. “I can barely use my right arm. They might as well have cut it off like they did your leg.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Like hell, it’s not the same!” Christian’s voice reached a level louder than it had since the stroke. “You don’t think I wanted to pack it all in after my stroke? Hell, I thought about calling it quits after we lost your mama and Belle Chasse.”

  “You what?” The idea that his father hadn’t wanted to go on at some point floored Jaxson. Christian McCoy had been Superman to his children. Even after his stroke they all believed he would recover and be their rock once more. Only…he hadn’t recovered and Heath had stepped up to stand in the gap.

  “I felt it too. The hopelessness and the pain. It wasn’t easy to go on, but I did, Jax. And you will too.”

  Jaxson pulled back when Christian placed a hand on his. “It’s not the same.” His father had already made his mark in life. What made Christian McCoy a great man was still there. Still strong. “I’m not you.”

  “What the hell does…that mean?” Christian asked a moment before a knock came on Jax’s bedroom door.

  Pepper came into the room with a plate of food in one hand and the house phone in the other. “It’s for you, Jax. It’s Tamara.” Going to her father’s side, she held the phone out to her brother in bed.

  Jaxson stared stone-face at the phone, refusing to move a muscle.

  “Damn.” Christian took the phone when it became obvious Jaxson wasn’t going to. “Hello, this is Christian McCoy speaking.”

  On the other end of the line, Tamara was startled by who answered. “Mister McCoy?”

  “Yes, it is. Is this Tamara? I’ve heard wonderful things about you, young lady.”

  Jaxson leaned forward in bed. “Give me that.”

  Christian handed it over without argument. “Let’s go, sweetie,” he told his daughter who was placing Jaxson’s second plate of food safely on the dresser for later.

  Jaxson waited until Pepper wheeled their father out of the room and closed the door behind them before putting the phone to his ear. “Tamara.”

  Tamara was stunned to actually be speaking to him. “Oh, Jaxson…” It had been four days since she’d seen him in the hospital and until this moment he’d refused to take her calls. She’d heard every excuse in the book from his siblings as to why he wasn’t available to speak to her, and each time she heard another trumped up reason, Tamara knew the truth.

  Jaxson was depressed and Jaxson was stubborn.

  And he was breaking her heart.

  Pepper or Ryder called daily to give her an update on his progress, but it wasn’t the same. She missed Jaxson. She needed Jaxson. Tamara felt like her whole life had been put on hold. Maddox had called the other day to discuss when she would be able to finish shooting the commercial and Tamara hadn’t been able to focus enough to give him a timeframe. Instead, she told him she’d be in touch when the time was right.

  Since Jaxson’s accident, she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep, spending almost every waking moment worrying about him. He’d made it abundantly he didn’t want to see or hear from her, but Tamara couldn’t let it go. She knew her future with Jaxson was most likely over, but she still ached for him and needed to know he was going to be all right. His voice was stilted and cold, but just hearing it made her heart swell.

  “I’m so relieved to hear your voice. How are you?”

  “As good as a cripple can be, I suppose.”

  “Come on, Jax.” A lump formed in her throat. “Don’t say things like that. You’re going to be okay.”

  Jaxson thought back to the conversation he’d had with his father. Christian was right, he’d lost so much. They’d both lost so much. Even in the midst of hopelessness, his father hadn’t given up.

  But he wasn’t his father.

  He was so much less. So much less.

  Jaxson knew what had made him worthy – his strength, the roll he played in the family, the work he was able to perform on their behalf.

  Now, those things were gone.

  Honest to God, he didn’t think he could go on much longer. “Tamara. I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?” Her eyes filled with tears at the despair she could hear in his voice. “Do what Jaxson? Talk to me. Please.”

  Jaxson held the phone away from his face and stared out the window, delaying the moment as long as he could. He could barely look his immediate family in the eye, there was no way in the world he could ever face Tamara. Jaxson didn’t want her to see him like this. He didn’t want her to ever think he expected anything from her. There was no way he could bear to see the disappointment and disgust on her face when she realized he wasn’t the same man she’d known. He was changed. Forever and irrevocably changed.

  The new Jaxson McCoy was not only a cripple, he was a coward.

  “Us Tamara. You and me. I can’t do it anymore.”

  She couldn’t say his words surprised her, Tamara had been expecting this. Still, hearing him end things with her felt like a punch in the gut. “Jaxson, no. Please.”

  “I’m sorry, Tamara. I have to go.”

  “Jaxson, Jaxson, wait!”

  He didn’t respond, he just disconnected the call and placed the phone on the bed beside him. “Pepper! I know you’re out there.” The door opened a moment later and Pepper peered in. Jaxson pointed at the phone just as it began to ring again. “Take it away. I can’t deal with her.”

  Pepper ran to her brother’s side when she realized he was trying to rise from the bed. “What are you doing?”

  “Hand me my crutches.”

  Even as she complied with his wishes, the look on his face scared her. “Where are you going? Do you want your wheelchair?”

  “No, the crutches will do. I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving? What do you mean leaving?”

  They both ignored the ringing phone on the bed.

  “I’ve become a burden and I’m dragging everybody down with me. I’m moving out.
” Using the crutches, he slowly made his way to the closet and found the suitcase he’d brought home from the hospital, flinging it to the top of the bed he’d just vacated.

  “No! You can’t leave, Jaxson. Daddy came home to be with you and Olivia says you can begin rehab soon.”

  The phone went silent but began ringing again after only a brief respite. “Where will you go?” Pepper’s voice sounded desperate.

  Jaxson didn’t answer immediately, he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to know. All he knew was that he couldn’t stay there. “I’ll go to the hunting cabin.” He needed to get away from their prying questions and pitying eyes. He needed space to decide what to do next.

  “Jaxson…” Unable to speak, Pepper left the room in tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Ryder asked her crying sister when she came running back into the kitchen.

  “He’s leaving, Ryder.” Pepper wiped tears from her cheek. “Jaxson is moving out.”

  * * *

  The Highland McCoys owned a chunk of land on the San Saba River, about a forty-five-minute drive from their homestead. An old hunting cabin had come with the property and they’d spruced it up over the last few years. The family used it when they felt like it, but mostly they rented it out to people who wanted to get away for a weekend or longer and do some hunting.

  This was where Jaxson wanted to go. From the moment the thought entered his head, he began to long for the solitude the cabin would bring. Once he announced his intention to leave to the family, they’d begged him not to go. Pepper had been the most persistent.

  “Jaxson, this is a bad time for you to be alone. It doesn’t take a genius to see you’re depressed.”

  Jaxson’s answer was fairly subdued for him. “How would you feel if this happened to you, Pep?”

  “I don’t know. I’d be devastated I’m sure. But I wouldn’t want to be alone. I’d want to be with my family! I would need your support!”

  Jaxson shook his head. “I’ve had all the support I can stand. I just want to be alone.”

  When Pepper threw up her hands in frustration and stormed from the room, Tennessee tried to soothe things over. “You know she just cares about you, Jax. We all do. You look like shit, man.”

  Jaxson just sat in his wheelchair, staring out the living room window at the cattle in the distance. Watching them was just another reminder of how his life would never be the same. “I feel like shit,” he admitted.

  Heath spoke up from the doorway. “Your sister is right. Now isn’t the time to be going off on your own. Look at you, Jax. You haven’t shaved since the day of the accident. You wear the same damn shirt every day. You smell like the barn for fuck’s sake. You gotta snap out of it, man.”

  Jaxson held his resolve. “Heath, I don’t care if I have to hobble down to my truck and press the gas with a fucking stick. I am going to stay at the cabin.”

  Heath took off his hat and threw it across the room. “Dammit to hell! Fine! Nobody will stop you if that’s truly what you want, but you will give me a day or two to get the place in order.”

  Jaxson was tired of arguing about it. “Two days, tops. Then I’m going whether you like it or not, come hell or high water.”

  …True to his word, Heath, Philip, and Pepper drove him to the cabin two days later. Jaxson sat on the front porch while his big brother went into the cabin to remove the small arsenal of weapons they kept under lock and key in a safe hidden in the basement.

  “You don’t think there are other ways of doing it?” Jaxson asked him as Heath came out of the large wooden door with an arm full of rifles.

  “Oh, I know there are plenty of ways to off yourself, little brother. But if you think I’m gonna leave you alone with a bunch of guns right now, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “This is my life to live or not,” Jax stated flatly.

  “You’re breaking your sisters’ hearts. Hell, you broke Tamara’s heart! You know that, right?” Philip asked from the front steps of the cabin.

  Jaxson just stared at him while balancing his crutches across the arms of the rocker. “They’ll be all right.”

  “But will you?” When Jaxson glared at him, Philip tossed a bottle of pain pills to him that bounced off Jaxson’s chest. “Here. This is all you care about anymore.”

  Jaxson bent and picked up the bottle. He felt ashamed. Philip was right, his pain pills had become one of the most important things in his life. They allowed him to escape his troubles for a little while. Escape the crushing loss of his leg and the loss of his future. Most of all, they allowed him to escape the way he felt about himself and to stop thinking about the worst loss of all.

  Tamara.

  Hell, he was damaged goods.

  Tamara had assured him the loss of his leg didn’t change the way she felt about him at all. For a brief moment, Jaxson had allowed himself to believe it, to believe she could still love the man he was now. But those moments never lasted very long before reality came crashing in.

  “I’m going to miss you so much,” Pepper told him as she came out of the cabin. She’d brought a cooler full of food to stock the refrigerator.

  Jaxson took her hand in his. “I can’t be at home right now, Pep. It’s just too painful.”

  Pepper laced her arms around his neck. “I’m scared, Jax. I’m scared you’ll do something dumb that you won’t live to regret later.”

  Jaxson looked over the top of her head. Heath was staring at him, his face conveying the exact same worry Pepper was voicing.

  Flinching when she kissed him on top of the head, Jaxson pulled back from his little sister. “You all need to go now.” He didn’t acknowledge what she said. There was no use adding another lie to his list of sins. Truth be told, he just couldn’t make her any promises.

  “Well…” Heath pushed the black Stetson back on his head. “I guess he’s right, we’d best get back home.” He waited while a tearful Pepper gathered her things and Phillip walked her to the SUV. “I’ll check on you in a couple of days. I trust you not to do anything stupid. If you get ready to come home before then, just give me a call.”

  “I won’t.”

  Heath let out a long sigh. “I hope you can find some peace, bud. I also hope you can come to terms with this thing. Don’t forget, everything may look dark now, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

  With one last pleading look, Heath walked off and left Jaxson sitting there.

  Alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A light at the end of the tunnel?

  Jaxson couldn’t see any fuckin’ light. His future looked like gloom and doom to him.

  His first night in the cabin was proving to be a long one. He sat on the worn leather couch staring into the flames of the fire in the stove. Rubbing his eyes, he fought the groggy, disconnected feeling. He’d taken more than the prescribed dose of pain killers. The bottle sat on the kitchen counter across the room, daring him to come finish it all at once.

  What do you have to live for anyway? The brown bottle with the white label goaded him. A cripple like you ain’t good for nothing.

  “Oh, shut up.” Jaxson shot a finger at the bottle. “I’m the one calling the shots here, not you!”

  Sleep evaded him, the only thing keeping him company during the long, dark hours of the night was that taunting bottle and the buzz of the June bugs that kept flying into the screen door, drawn to the light of the lamp Jaxson had kept burning.

  Total darkness scared him. If he turned off all the lights, the blackness just might swallow him whole. “Motherfucker!” Jaxson’s curse echoed out over the water.

  Day two didn’t start off any better. Stumbling out onto the porch early the next morning, he’d seen a cluster of yellow wasps buzzing around the wood pile. Trying to shoo them away from the cabin with a waving crutch, Jaxson was stung twice on the hand.

  “I bet that hurt.”

  The unexpected voice almost caused Jaxson to take a tumble off the side of the porch. “What the hell
are you doing here?” Jaxson ignored the slight lifting of his spirits at the sight of Tennessee ambling up the path to the cabin.

  The smile that had stretched all the way up to Tennessee’s stormy blue eyes dissipated quickly. “Good morning to you too. Still an asshole I see.”

  “A one-legged asshole to be exact. What do you want?”

  “Good company.”

  “You won’t find any of that here, I’m afraid. What’s in the bag?” He was kinda hoping it was some breakfast tacos from Torchy’s.

  “Worms.” Tennessee held up the brown paper bag. “Thought we’d do us some fishing while you’re up here.”

  Jaxson moved back into the cabin and ran cold water over his hand. The wasps had been bad enough, he didn’t need anything else buzzing around annoying him. “I don’t feel like fishing today.”

  Hearing Tennessee’s footsteps on the plank floor behind him, Jaxson scrambled to stash the bottle of pain pills in a drawer before his brother could see how many he’d taken.

  “Hey, you’re not the only one with problems. Remember? I’ve got to deal with a pregnant ex-wife and Philip’s trial date is almost here. We’re going to need you, Jax.”

  Glancing around, Ten took in the mess Jax had made of the cabin. “Jesus. How in the hell did you trash this place up so quick?” He noticed the beer bottles on the floor. “Are you mixing drugs and alcohol? Don’t you know that will kill you?”

  Jaxson swiveled around on his one leg. “That’s sort of the idea, moron. As for the cabin, I did most of the work fixing it up, so if I want to make a mess of the place, I think I’m entitled to do so.”

  Walking over to the potbellied stove on the north wall, Tennessee bent and ran a hand through the ashes that had fallen out of the open door. A large chunk of burnt wood laid amongst the ashes and Tennessee picked it up. “Burning the place down ain’t gonna bring your leg back.”

  “Nothing is going to bring it back!” Fishing in the drawer, Jaxson brought the pill bottle out and dry-swallowed two.

  “Well, that sure as hell won’t either.”

  “Why don’t you take your worms somewhere else, Ten? Just leave me alone.”