Page 4 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

Chapter Four

Allison

When I wake up the next morning, I feel dizzy and a bit disoriented. I blame the interrupted sleep I got last night, not that sleeping in the hospital room is all that comfortable to begin with.

It’s why Cindy needed to take a break.

There’s a window seat bed in the hospital, but there’s something about it that I couldn’t get used to, so I ended up just sitting in the recliner.

Still, I’m out of sorts, which is just a testament to this whole thing. It’s been a week from hell. And of course, now that Colt is awake, it’s not like he’s making things any easier. I can’t really be mad at him about last night.

He was borderline hallucinating, I’m sure.

Between the morphine and how out of it and exhausted he has to be just from his body trying to heal these injuries, there’s no way he can be held accountable for his nonsense.

I’m just glad that there’s a team of doctors taking care of him. And not me. He’s guaranteed to be the worst patient alive. This is maybe the only time that I’m glad I’m not quite done with nursing school.

Being in the hospital, though, is giving me a window into the way my life is going to look when I start clinical rotations. When I graduate.

It still seems far away now, but I guess it’s not really.

I stand up and I look at him. There’s no one here. I haven’t been alone with him other than last night and now. I take the moment to just look. He’s hooked up to all manner of wires, his leg in traction. He seems totally out.

He’s still got an oxygen tube just below his nostrils, his face still a little swollen.

There’s so much bruising around his stitches, one artful contusion and an abrasion on his high cheekbone.

The kind of injury they would put on the hero in an action movie.

The rest of his injuries, though, are less aesthetic.

I know that his midsection was pretty severely gored, and even though he didn’t sustain any injuries to his internal organs, his skin was torn open through the muscle in parts.

Right now, his leg is the big concern as far as long term effects. But being gored had to have been so…awful.

I suddenly feel lightheaded, thinking about all of his injuries. All the pain that he must be in.

I decide that I need to go get some breakfast. I wander down to the cafeteria and get in line. For some reason, scenes of his accident keep playing in my mind, over and over again.

Him getting thrown off and landing on the ground. The bull going after him. Slashing him.

I blink, trying to wipe my mind clean of the image, and then keep walking forward.

I take a carton of milk out of the fridge, and I’m about to go over and grab an apple from the fruit bowl when I start to feel woozy.

By the time I see black spots in front of my eyes, it’s too late.

My stomach cramps unbearably. I feel so sick, like I’m going to…

Not vomit.

It almost feels like I’m dying.

Then, my knees lock and I fall. Forward. I hit my head on the corner of the counter and fall backward onto the floor as I lose consciousness. I’m out, then back. The blackness recedes, and I lie there, the back of my neck sweaty, my body hot and cold at the same time.

Hospital staff are converging on me. Then, someone is shining a light in my eyes and checking my vitals.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I passed out.”

“You hit your head,” one of the women hovering above me says.

“Oh.” I touch my forehead. It hurts. Yes. I did hit my head. I know that. I know that I hit my head.

“I think you have a concussion,” the nurse says, shining a light in my eyes.

I try to turn away from the blinding sight. “Oh.”

They help me sit up slowly. And then I’m the one getting taken into triage, getting examined.

“You know what caused you to pass out?”

“I just think it was because I hadn’t eaten,” I say.

I admit that it’s probably from imagining Colt’s accident.

Thinking about it again makes my stomach cramp up.

I don’t know why it’s affecting me like this.

It’s ridiculous. It’s definitely not because of some crush I had on him when I was thirteen.

I know it has something to do with the violent nature of all of it, but I’ve been watching videos.

I’ve been working toward being able to be in emergency room-type situations, and I’m supposed to be…

Able to handle this. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. I’m supposed to be good at it.

“I’m a nursing student,” I say.

“Well, we definitely need more nurses,” the nurse says to me.

“I know,” I say.

My words are bland, kind of stupid. I wish that I could say something a little bit more intelligent.

“You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

“I’m staying in the hospital. My… My stepbrother is here. He’s the rodeo rider who got hurt.”

“Oh,” she says. “Right. He’s in a bad way.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s not why I passed out. I can handle this. It’s just… I should have eaten sooner.”

“Do you often pass out when you don’t eat?”

“No.”

“It’s okay that seeing a family member hurt like this upset you.” She’s looking at me compassionately. But for some reason, that just frustrates me.

“No. He’s okay. It’s not that. But anyway, I’m going to be here tonight, so I’ll be observed. I’m not going to die in my sleep.”

“That’s good to know,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Good to know.”

I get up, like I’m going to walk out. “No,” she says. “Let’s get you a wheelchair, and I’ll take you up to his room, and then I can bring you some food. Since apparently that’s what you need to function.”

What I need is for my stepbrother not to be broken up and near death in a hospital room, but I decide not to say that.

The churning in my stomach makes it hard for me to deny that everything happening with Colt isn’t part of this.

Maybe I’m not weak when it comes to medical stuff. Maybe it’s just him.

I don’t really think I like that any better. But it doesn’t matter if I like it or not, because here I am, getting wheeled back to his room.

Maybe he’ll be asleep. He’s pretty hopped up on morphine, so it’s possible that he won’t react when I get brought in.

I get wheeled through the open door, and Colt lifts his head, his eyes meeting mine the minute I cross the threshold into the room.

No such luck as going undetected, I fear.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I’m fine,” I say.

I stand up, and move on unsteady legs over to the chair. I’m a little bit shakier than I realized.

“Okay. You don’t look fine, but also, that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Your food will be up soon,” the nurse says to me, and I nod, sitting back in the chair and fixing my gaze on the back wall.

“Allison,” he says, his tone cajoling.

“You’re injured,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be lying there in pain and self-pity?”

“I don’t know that you want me to sink into the swamp of my own self-pity. It’s unattractive. Honestly, it would be embarrassing for both of us.”

I look at him, his strong athletic body completely bound up in the bed.

Self-pity is coming. I can feel it. Because he’s going to want things to be a certain way, and he’s going to have to wait for the actual healing process to take effect.

I don’t think that Colt Campbell has ever, ever thought that he was subject to the laws that every other man had to endure.

He’s always moved through the world as if a light shines upon him.

Down from the heavens. One that gifts him with incredible talent to do whatever he wants, to be liked by everyone.

Social anxiety is afraid of Colt, not the other way around.

And I just have a feeling that when he really contends with the reality that he isn’t going to just be able to rise out of bed and walk on command, he’s going to be very, very unhappy.

“I passed out,” I admit. Because the longer that I spin this out, the weirder it’s going to be.

“What?”

“I passed out in the cafeteria, and I hit my head.” I indicate the bump on my forehead, which I can feel growing as each moment passes.

“Jesus Christ, Allison.”

“ What ? You’re saying that like I chose to do it, like I’m stealing your thunder. I’m not your little sister on that level.” Those words come out in a rush, and I regret them when he looks at me with a light in his eyes that makes my stomach go tight.

“You kind of are ,” he says, his tone dry. “I mean, here I am, the victim of a hideous accident, and you have to go get yourself admitted to the hospital too?”

“I’m not admitted,” I clarify. “It’s not that bad. I’m just safer if I’m not alone, and hey, I’m not, because I’m staying with you so that your mom can have a break.”

“I’m not a toddler. I’m not going to wander out of here if I’m left unsupervised.”

We glance at each other, and I fight the urge to smile, because there is a small amount of humor in that. As terrible as it all is.

“If you weren’t in traction, you might, though, and we both know that.”

“True. Are you okay?”

The sincere concern in his tone warms me.

It’s rare that Colt and I have an exchange that could be called anything like sincere.

I’m not really sure if it’s his fault or mine.

Or if it’s just a pattern that we’re in.

One that we’ve created over years, where I’m kind of a brat to him, and he teases me, which makes me angry, because I don’t want him to tease me.

That’s all old stuff. I remember hating it, because it felt like he was making me into that little sister that I never wanted to be to him.

It’s complicated, because I really do love his mom.

She’s been wonderful. She brought a substantial amount of joy into our family, and into my dad’s life specifically.

After my mom died, it was like a piece of him was missing.

Cindy brought a different piece into his life.

Not the same one that went away when my mom died, but something entirely new.

Something he very much deserved.