Page 3 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

Chapter Three

Colt

I wake up violent . The air rushes into my lungs like a shock. I gasp, trying to sit up in a hospital bed that won’t let me move. “The fuck,” I shout.

Everything hurts like a son of a bitch from my head on down. It’s like I’m made of pain.

“Colt! Oh my God.”

I look to my left and see my mother staring at me, her face pale and streaked with tears. She rushes over to the bedside and begins to push a button next to my hand. Over and over again. “I have to call the nurse.” She’s shaking, visibly upset, and I can’t stand to be the reason my mom is crying.

Everything feels turned around in my head. I’m in a hospital but I don’t know why. My mom is here and that makes me feel – for a second – like maybe I’m here to see her but…

No. Everything hurts. So it’s not her who’s admitted to the hospital.

And then I remember, because suddenly I feel my body. Really feel it. Shit .

I know what happened…

Yes, I do.

It all comes back. Getting ground into the dust. Torn asunder, actually.

It’s a fucking miracle that I’m awake. Unless I’m dead, and this is my version of hell.

My mom crying while I’m bed bound and hooked up to wires, needles and beeping machinery.

I wiggle my fingers, my toes, and they move. I also don’t see any imps or demons hopping around the room so maybe I’m not dead.

My fingers and toes work, so that’s good to know.

I don’t know what my injuries are, though. I don’t know…

“What day is it?”

“Friday,” my mom says.

The last thing I remember is Saturday night at the rodeo. So either I went back in time or it’s been nearly a week.

“I’ve been out that long?”

“Yes. They were keeping you sedated to watch for swelling in your brain, and you’ve been heavily dosed with meds.”

“ This is heavily dosed?” My entire body feels like it got dragged to hell by a freight train. If this is what it’s like on pain meds, I don’t want to have anything to do with them.

I let my head fall back for a moment, then turn toward the door.

And I see her. Like an angel. Of death, most likely. Standing there with the light shining on her red hair.

My gorgeous, bratty stepsister.

What a pain in my ass that girl is.

Has been for years. Especially around the time I started to notice she was beautiful. Luckily, she hates me. That makes things easier.

Though it’s not hate that I see on her face right now. It’s worry. So, I guess she doesn’t hate me so much that she wishes me into an early grave. Which is something, I suppose, even if it is a small thing.

“You’re awake,” she says.

“Reluctantly.”

Then, a medical team comes in. My room is like a clown car of doctors. Everyone’s looking at readouts and vitals. And then there’s a doctor who comes in to talk to me about recovery.

I’m lucky, I didn’t get a severe head injury – I’m told.

It was bad enough. I had a concussion; if I hadn’t had the helmet on, my whole head would’ve caved in.

There’s absolutely no question about that.

But the superficial wounds on my head were the worst part.

The bull managed to graze me with that horn underneath the front grate on the helmet, and he tore my scalp from the center of my forehead down toward my ear.

I’ve got a fuckton of stitches there.

The real issue is scar tissue that could develop in my torso.

He tore open my midsection, and there was apparently a substantial amount of repair that had to be done internally.

They said it’s the kind of surgical scarring prone to creating networks of stubborn, healed-over scars, making movement stiff.

Then there’s the issue of my leg. The description of my leg injury is actually so graphic that I almost feel a little bit sick.

I look up at my mom, who I realize saw it all

“We had to go into the arena later that night and look for your bones,” she whispers.

Fuck .

My thigh busted open, and I lost bone in my femur.

The doctor says it has the potential to be a life-changing injury.

I’m lucky I didn’t lose it. The operation involved them methodically piecing my shattered bone back together, and it’s possible there will be long-term chronic pain and reduced mobility.

No. I just don’t accept that. I won’t accept it. I don’t want to.”

“It’s a very long healing process. You won’t be putting weight on this leg for four to six months.

” The doctor looks at me, his grey eyes steady on mine.

“I know that is not going to be a pleasant process. But I’ve gotten to know your family over the last few days, and everyone says that you're strong and you're stubborn. So, you’re going to do your PT and do the best you can. You’re not going to give up. ”

Being in the kind of pain I’m in, knowing that I’m essentially one giant stitched-up bag of cracked loose bones, makes me want to give up before I even have to start. This kind of helplessness is something I’ve never experienced before. I want to escape my body.

This is some bullshit, honestly.

I’ve got a cast from the top of my thigh down to my toes. I can’t move at all.

“But the championship is in October.”

“You’re not going to the championship,” my mom says, her voice firm. “Even if you healed, you didn’t get any points for that ride.”

I grit my teeth together, and I know she’s saying that because she doesn’t want me to hope.

Because I would have to keep competing if I wanted to go to the championship, since that ride fucked me all up, and while I might be crazy enough to try and get myself healed by October, I know that I won’t be healed in time for any of the rides leading up to that.

“But…”

I feel like a child. Sitting there arguing against logic and medical authority.

But it just doesn’t seem… Like the kind of thing that could possibly happen to me.

I’ve been working at this for so long. I’m good.

I’ve never had an injury that came anywhere close to this, and Dallas Dodge and I have been riding bulls since we were sixteen.

I look around the room for the first time, past my family. It’s an explosion of balloons and flowers. Sent from…I wonder who all sent all this?

“Has Dallas been here?” I ask.

“Of course,” my mom says. “He was here earlier today.”

I frown. It’s a long drive from Medford to Gold Valley.

Then I look out the window.

“Where are we?”

“They moved you to Tolowa Medical Center.”

I have no memory of a move. At all. The last six days are just…gone for me. Gone forever.

“Right.”

Gentry and his dad come into the room next. “This is what happens when we go pick up dinner,” Jim says, holding up a takeout box.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say to him. I’m lucky.

My stepdad is a good guy. Before him, there was no father figure in my life at all.

My own dad fucked off before I was born, and my mom was a single mom most of my life, working as hard as she could, establishing a successful real estate business before she got into buying and renting out houses.

Allison and Gentry’s mom died of cancer when they were little.

Gentry and I hatched a brilliant plan to hook our parents up, and it really worked.

The rest is history, and we’re almost one big happy family.

Except for Allison hating me.

“Can I get some of that food?”

“We have to check with your doctor,” my mom says as my family all sits down at a table across the room and starts to dig into the takeout. It feels mean.

I’m a bit comforted by the meanness, if I’m honest. Because at least I know I’m not dying. If they were all being too nice, then I would think that the doctors were lying, and I had some kind of ticking time bomb injury that was going to result in my untimely demise.

Especially if Allison started being nice.

I’m out of it, even though I’m awake now. Drifting in and out of consciousness as I lie there in bed, unable to stay fully awake, but I know my family is all there.

Not all of them.

Images of my dad— my biological dad— click through in my head like a slideshow. Because I only have a few memories of him. Very specific, and very short. In his cowboy hat, his Wrangler jeans, his boots, walking away from me at a rodeo. I had just done the mutton busting and fallen on my ass.

Did you see, Dad?

I don’t know if he saw. I don’t remember. I was little. It doesn’t really matter.

And then again, at my… It was a birthday. But it wasn’t my party. We met at the zoo.

I can still see him standing, facing away from me.

Watch this!

I wake up with a start. It’s dark. And I can’t see anything.

There’s a faint shape in the corner, in the chair. And I remember where I am. The hospital. When I went to sleep, my family was eating dinner, and now they’re gone.

But someone’s there.

“Hello?”

I hear groggy, sleepy sounds, and I realize that whoever’s there they were snoozing pretty hard.

“Do you need something?”

Allison . Allison is still here.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

She makes an exasperated sound, and I see as she rises up into a standing position, looking more like a ghost than a person in the dimly lit room.

“Your mom needed to sleep. To actually sleep through the night. And now that you aren’t on death’s door…”

“Was I on death’s door?”

I can see her crossing her arms even through the darkness.

“It looks like it for a while. Before they moved you. You were stabilized by the time they flew you here from Medford.”

“They flew me here? And I missed it?”

“Yeah. You have a head injury.” She moves toward me, standing at the foot of the bed. “And, not only did you have a head injury, you were on enough painkillers to put that bull down.”

“I’ve heard that,” I say, then, “ Did they put the bull down?” I realize that I’ll be unhappy if so. Because a bull doesn’t choose to be ridden, but I chose to ride. And whatever happens as a result, the consequences are on the cowboy. The animal shouldn’t bear any.

“I know.”

“Well, I want to find out. And tell them not to.”

“He wanted to kill you .”

“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean I want him to die.”

She puts her hands on the footboard of the hospital bed and leans in. “It doesn’t make any sense that you would want to defend the animal that tried to kill you.”

“Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t make any sense. But it’s how I feel. I put myself in that situation. I took the risk. And I’m going to do it again.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“No. I’m not out of my mind. But this isn’t me.” I gesture around the hospital room. “This is my life. I’m not going to be in here forever. I’m going to go back on the circuit. I still haven’t won a championship yet. I’ve got winning to do.”

“Colt,” she says, like she’s talking to a child, patronizing and lowering. “You aren’t just going to bounce back from this.”

“I’m going to be the best god damn patient that anyone has ever seen,” I say, frustration bubbling up inside of me. “The doctor is just talking about averages. Bone grafts and shit. I think I feel better already.”

“ You are on morphine . And you don’t know how you feel.”

“Being in nursing school doesn’t make you an expert.”

“Being you doesn’t make you an expert,” she says. “Whatever you may like to think. You don’t know better than your doctors, you dumbass.”

“I didn’t say I did. I am saying that I’m going to do a hell of a lot better than average. I’m going to get back on the bull.”

She makes an exasperated sound. “I’m not arguing with you at three in the morning.”

I look around and suddenly realize where I am, yet again. I keep losing myself. My brain feels fuzzy, and I’m not sure why. Morphine. She said that.

But I’ve never not been able to will my way out of a situation that I didn’t like. It just seems like, because I’m awake, my brain should be working the way I want it to. And because I want to get back into the rodeo, my body should obey. It always has. It’s always been like that for me.

“You need to take the time to recover,” she says. “If you don’t do that, you’re not going to be able to do anything.”

I look away from her. When I roll my head back over, she’s standing right next to me. It startles me. I can’t remember the last time Allison got anywhere near me of her own free will.

“Colt,” she says, her eyes sincere in the darkness.

“That was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

You probably don’t remember it, but I will, for the rest of my life.

When your mom came back to the hospital with your bones…

” Her breath catches. “We all know what you just went through. You don’t.

So maybe you should shut up, and quit being so arrogant and listen to other people for once in your God damned life. ”

She goes away from the bed, back to the corner. She sits in the chair, and I get the impression that she’s done with me for the night.

Then I fall back into an uneasy sleep. Filled with strange and disturbing dreams. About death. Dying.

Being crushed beneath the weight of the bull, my dad is looking away from me.

Did you see?

He never turns around.