by Honor James
“It’s not uncommon, ma’am. Some patients take a little longer to come back to awareness. We removed the ventilator yesterday and all breath sounds are good and strong, he reacts well to pain and his ocular reactions are right on scale. Talk to him, talk about anything at all, the weather, a movie you saw, a book your read. Keep it light and free of stress. Don’t talk to him about the accident or your worries. Let him know that it’s safe to wake up and you are here waiting to greet him,” the doctor advised.
* * * *
August 5th, 2012
“There is no reason that man shouldn’t be awake,” he muttered to the nurse at his side. “All the scans are clean, no residual swelling, no mystery bleeds or tears. Hell, we pumped him full of die on the off chance it could have been something else somewhere else in his body and nothing.”
“It’s not from one of the broken bones is it?” the male nurse asked. At the doctor’s look he rolled his eyes. “I’ve been around a while. It isn’t unheard of, you know.”
“No, I know, but no it’s not that either. Everything I can do to him medically indicates he should be awake and talking up a storm. Instead…” He waved a helpless hand to the room where the man lay in the bed.
“Well, we both know, when it comes to head injuries of any kind sometimes there just isn’t a reason for why they don’t wake up. Sometimes they just can’t break through whatever is holding them under and give up.”
“You are right but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it. I’m not ready to accept it, not yet,” he said with a frown. “I need to talk to them. There’s still a couple things I can try but they are experimental so they aren’t exactly approved for use.”
“Well,” the nurse said with a shrug. “Best to try everything, no matter how out there, then to give up before you have. At least when you say that you’ve tried everything it will be the honest to god truth.”
“Yeah, let’s just hope it doesn’t do more damage.”
* * * *
October 10th, 2012
“I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. McKaughan, but there is nothing more medically we can do. I have tried everything I know of and several things others have suggested and nothing appears to be working. At this time we can only assume that Quinn has a reason for remaining in the coma and, until he is good and ready, won’t be waking up.”
“What are you saying, Doctor Theory?” Mr. McKaughan demanded, chin up, full of defiance.
“I’m saying we now need to stop looking at the immediate future and look to the foreseeable future and think on long-term care. He may be in this coma for a week more, a month or years. Maybe even decades. You need to think about how to care for him and yourselves over that time frame, no matter the length. Now, I know this is a lot to take in, so I will give you some brochures of options to look over when you are ready. Any questions you have about specific programs or places, you come to me with your questions. I won’t pressure you to make a choice today or tomorrow, but you should have one made in the next week,” he told them.
“The sooner we have Quinn settled the quicker they can begin whatever physiotherapy regime they deem best for him,” he added looking at them. Digging into his folder, he passed over a few flyers. “Some are for in home nursing and therapy care up to a hospice type setting. There are different levels of care for every type of injury so take your time, read through and make the choice best for your son.” Waiting until Mr. McKaughan took the flyers he left the room as quickly as he dared.
* * * *
October 16th, 2012
Shaking their hands he looked at them both. “I think you made the right decision, the best one for you all. I spoke with the nursing agency this morning to pass along the latest of the scans and they will have the nurse out to you tomorrow morning. For this evening James here”—he waved to the male nurse from their staff—“will remain with Quinn and then pass along any additional information to the nurse you’ve chosen to care for your son.”
“Thank you for all you’ve done, Doctor,” Mrs. McKaughan said quietly. “We realize you went above and beyond for our boy and we can never thank you enough. No matter what happens in the future know you have our deepest and most heartfelt gratitude.” She shook his hand.
Nodding to her, he shook her husband’s hand. “If you need anything, follow-up-wise or just advice, don’t hesitate to give me a call. It’s more than unusual but I’d really like to keep tabs on your son’s case, even from afar if that’s all right by you.”
“We’ll keep you posted, Doctor,” Mr. McKaughan said with a firm nod and shake. “Thank you for all you did for our family. It won’t be forgotten.”
Lifting a hand in a wave to the ambulance he let his arm drop as he watched the ambulance and town car pull out of the hospital. Shaking his head slowly he went back into the hospital. After all, he had patients he could still help, and he really needed to let go of the one that got away from him, medically speaking.
Chapter Three
December 14, 2012
It still was odd coming to this monstrosity of a house to see his pal Quinn. Hell, Quinn’s shoebox apartment could fit into the bedroom he currently lay in, twice over with a bit of space left over. Fucking place was massive!
Nodding to the butler—a butler for fuck’s sake!—Jordan shrugged out of his jacket and passed it over. He knew the routine well now. He’d been visiting every fourth day, in the hospital and then when Quinn’s birth parents had moved him to their home for private nursing care.
Quinn’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. McKaughan or George and Janelle as they’d insisted he call them, were an interesting pair. They’d explained why they’d distanced themselves from Quinn and, in light of what had happened, it wasn’t such a stretch to figure out that they’d been right to be wary. Especially given the fact that George was a Supreme Court judge, a lot of people would do shit to get back at him. And Janelle was an heiress to a massive fortune from her grandfather who’d been a shipping magnate back in the day.
Yeah, they both had enemies and people in the world willing to go to any lengths to get what they wanted from the couple. Sick, twisted and often desperate people. Quinn would have been the perfect pawn as a child. Still would be as an adult given what Janelle had revealed about the struggles to have him in the first place.
Passing off his gloves and scarf, Jordan bent to shuck off his boots. Straightening he went to the mirror and straightened his blonde, slightly wavy hair off his face. Dark gray eyes stared back at him from his Slavic face. His mother all the way, he thought with fondness for the petite Scandinavian woman that had given him life and who could still terrorize him into a sweating ball of fear with a look.
Ah, the power of mothers. Chuckling, he straightened his sweater so it wasn’t strangling his tanned throat and then headed up the stairs quickly, taking two and three at a time. With his six-foot-four height he had long legs, easily eating up the stairs and then the hall to his friend’s room.
Knocking, more out of habit than anything else, he slipped inside. Quinn was alone, one of the rare times, because the McKaughans knew that Jordan was coming by to chat with him. Routine was big in Quinn’s life right now.
Stopping at the bedside he stared down at his friend. He had black hair that was a little longer than Quinn preferred which showed the curl he despised, from his mother, Jordan now knew. His face was pale from lack of sunlight, very different from the tanned goof who loved to hit the waves whenever he could. His face was leaner, too, showing off the strong, aristocratic bone structure he got from his father, George. A slight cleft in the chin, the strong yet slightly bent nose from a bar fight at age eighteen gone a bit wrong.
The large king-sized bed he lay in dwarfed his six-foot-three frame that normally was stacked in a svelte sort of way, six pack, toned, heavy definition and yet riding that very careful edge of being too bulky for fashion runways. Now he was thin, wasting away before everyone’s eyes.
Pulling up the chair Jordan sat down to talk to his
friend. Catching him up on the latest news about this friend or that, he also let Quinn know that everyone at the agency was preparing for the spring fashion show in a flurry, as usual, for Paris. And of course, they missed him being there to pull pranks.
“I’ve been doing my best to keep up the tradition, buddy. But it’s just not the same without you there grinning at the pranked individual with your big blue eyes and dimples that get you out of serious shit every time. They know I’m doing my best and play along, but really, it sucks ass.”
Jordan wasn’t a model, though the agency had tried to get him up on the runway more than once. No, he was better as a coordinator, handling all the little details from flights to shipments to appointments to everything else that the agency needed done yesterday. He had the memory for such things and the quick mind. He’d go insane having to strut around the runway and he knew it, so he resisted the pleas to do it each and every time.
“Just so you know, Jean-Paul is on my case again to hit the runway,” Jordan said. “He says that he needs me out there since you are unable to do your traditional opener for the season. He fears that without a, and I quote here, sexy man to woo the ladies into opening their purses and other things, that he’ll have a horrid season. I told him to stick it where the sun didn’t shine, again. To which, yeah, you know the reply, ‘But dear boy, I might enjoy that.’” Jordan laughed softly, almost hearing Quinn’s echoing laugh in his head. But he knew the truth. He might never hear his best friend’s laugh again.
Shit, now he was getting maudlin. That wouldn’t do. Happier talk, definitely much happier talk. So he told Quinn about the fitting “incident” with one of the female models, remembered laughter in his voice the entire time.
* * * *
February 20, 2013
Stepping into the house, Jordan brushed the fresh dusting of snow from his hair before passing off his coat to the butler. As he handed off the rest of his things he looked around and frowned. “Hadley, did you guys redecorate?” he asked.
“The missus had the urge, yes sir,” he was told as the older gentleman put his jacket, mitts and scarf neatly away.
Shooting him a look he let out a low whistle. “What did this cost?” he asked, his voice a near whisper.
“More than either you or I shall ever make, sir,” the butler said and grinned. “A word of warning, sir. The nurse is still with Quinn, with all this going on it’s disrupted the schedule a little so she’s running behind.”
“That’s okay, I think I’ll meander through for a few minutes and see what else the missus has changed,” Jordan replied.
“Very good, sir. If you find your way to the kitchen I believe Cook has made some of those cookies you may have mentioned were to die for,” Hadley said.
“Oh, that vixen, she knows my weakness and is exploiting it.” He grinned.
“She does like doing it, sir.” The butler bowed and then went off about his day.
Moving out of the grand foyer, and it was seriously grand, Jordan went down a hall to where he knew the more formal part of the house was. Salon, living room, meeting room and an office for in-house meetings that needed to be private. Looking into each room he shook his head. Janelle had been crazy busy obviously. Everything had been altered.
Though, Jordan had to give her props, it looked a lot better than some of the gloomy stuff that had been in the spaces previously.
He found her in the office and smiled at her. “Good morning, Janelle.” Moving to her when she stepped away from some assistant he bent in and kissed both her cheeks. “Keeping busy I see,” he commented, tongue in cheek.
“You rascal, it’s just a little redecorating,” she said. Right, a little, he thought, rolling his eyes mentally. “I felt everything needed some freshening up. We haven’t done it in too many years, and it was well past time.”
“Well, it’s looking good. Really good,” he said, which was the truth.
Janelle beamed at him and glanced at her watch. “The nurse should be finished with Quinn in another fifteen minutes. I’m afraid that I’m to blame for her schedule being off and I feel terrible. I know that routine must be stuck to with my son but it just couldn’t be helped today I fear. But, from the rumor around the breakfast table, I hear that Cook has been busy in kitchen in anticipation of your visit today.”
Chuckling, he nodded. “Hadley mentioned something to that effect as well. She’s trying to make me fat I think,” he said, faking a paunch. Which was hard given he hit the gym every day and watched everything in his diet. With his father’s family’s history of heart disease and heart attacks he’d always been very careful. Oh, he strayed now and again, after all, sometimes a growing boy needed a greasy burger or a sweet cookie.
“Hardly.” Janelle smacked his arm and laughed. The sound was warm, deep and much like her son’s own laugh. “Not there, Donald, oh,” she huffed. “Off you go, dear boy, I need to wrangle in my designers I can tell,” she muttered before stalking off.
Grinning, he headed out to find cookies and then his way up to Quinn to tell him about the insanity going on in the house around him. His friend would never believe it.
* * * *
June 4, 2013
“All right, buddy. So I’m not going to be around for the next week, remember that, there will be a quiz later. I promised Mom I’d get home for Dad’s birthday so you’ll have to survive with that sweet little nurse to tend to you for the next seven days. While I’m out in the backwoods of America, you get to have that darling’s hands all over you.”
Jordan would love to get her little hands on him, one specific part of him really, but he wouldn’t be too picky. She was a hot little number, all the right curves in all the right places and a face the angels just had to weep over.
She was good at her job, seemed to love doing it, and yet was a little shy, too. Jordan had tried, on more than one occasion, to engage her in conversation. But she just answered in one or two words and then found an excuse to escape. He’d think she didn’t like him if not for the little blushes he’d caught coloring her cheeks from time to time.
“How you can just lay there without waking up when she’s massaging you, I will never know. You’ve always had better restraint than I ever could, but man, this is a new record. She is fucking hot,” he whispered. “To have her hands petting me, bathing me, massaging me or rearranging all my parts. Oh hell, now I need a cold shower, fucking great.”
Chuckling, he stood up and rearranged his cock in his jeans. The images he’d just spoken of had indeed affected him greatly. “I’ll be back in a week and I’ll catch you up on all the latest from the market, the fishing escapades and whatever backwoods stuff my brother has cooked up for our week with Dad.” Patting his friend’s shoulder, he squeezed and then left the room.
* * * *
November 19, 2013
Striding down the hall, a bounce in his steps, he came to a halt with a little, very female, body slammed into his. Catching her by the shoulders he stepped back and stared in horror. Tears were streaming down her face. “Susan, what’s wrong? Is it Quinn?”
She shook her head and wrenched away from him. Pressing a fist to her mouth she ran off down the hall to where, vaguely, he knew her room was. With the other servants in a separate wing.
Shaking out of his stupor he raced into Quinn’s room. Quinn was lying there, same as always, nothing amiss. “What the fuck just happened?” Jordan asked, spinning around looking for anything that could have been the cause of Susan’s upset.
Not a thing was wrong. “Fuck buddy, what the hell did you do to Susan to upset her so much?” he asked. Pulling up his usual chair he sat down with a frown on his face. “Seriously Quinn, what the fuck is going on around here today? First Hadley is all stiff and proper. Your mother barely looks at me as I greet her and your father tears off for his study as soon as I’m spotted. Do I have some disease or something and no one’s willing to tell me?”
“Jordan?” the weak voice had him standing up, f
ast.
“Quinn!” he practically shrieked out. Stepping to the bed he leaned over and pressed a hand to his friend’s chest. “Quinn, tell me that was you talking,” he whispered, desperately afraid that he’d just been hearing things.
Quinn’s lashes fluttered and then his eyelids slowly opened. “Where is she?” he whispered.
Stunned, all Jordan could do was stare. Quinn was awake and talking, sorta. It was rough and weak, but he was talking.
“Jordan.” Quinn’s voice was getting weaker. “Bring her back,” he pleaded, pain in his eyes.
Without even questioning it, Jordan raced off to do what his friend demanded. He had that kind of trust and faith in his friend. Racing down the hall to the servant’s wing he knocked on Hadley’s door. When the older man opened it, a stunned expression on his face, Jordan grabbed his shoulders.
“Where is Susan? I need to find her now, Quinn’s awake and wants her.”
Hadley’s mouth was moving but nothing was coming out. Shaking the old man slightly, Jordan leaned in closer. “Where the fuck is she, Hadley?” he practically bellowed.
“Ms. Ellington, was let go this morning,” the butler wheezed out.
“Let go, what the fuck do you mean let go?”
“She was fired,” Hadley said and then seemed to just deflate right before Jordan’s eyes.
Stepping back, he stared in horror. Fired? Oh fuck, no.
Chapter Four
Susan Ellington had only one dream in life, to help those that couldn’t help themselves. She worked her way through college so that she could gain the position she wanted and needed. She was a physical therapist, and loved it. She always had.
When she was assigned Quinn Brodie as a patient she had been dumbstruck. It was one of those cases of hero worship, at first. As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months Susan found that she enjoyed the time with Quinn. He didn’t speak, but she hadn’t expected him, too.