Page 7 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

Chapter Six

Allison

“They’re discharging him today.”

My stomach jumps. Colt has worked so hard to get to this point.

It’s been six weeks since his accident, since the surgery, and he’s come a long way from the man who was completely trapped in bed until only recently.

The one who was clinging to his life when he was first brought to the hospital in Tolowa.

He got his rigid cast cut off, he’s in a flexible brace that allows him to bend his knee and lets his skin breathe a little – but he can’t take it off or get it wet.

He can walk with crutches now — sort of — after using a wheelchair for about a month.

I’m trying to imagine him alone in his house just a couple of doors down from mine, and it gives me a weird amount of anxiety. I can’t really say why.

“I need you to do me a favor,” my stepmom says, reaching out and grabbing my hand as we stand there in the hospital hallway. “Help take care of him. If I hover, he’s going to start to resent me.”

Shock is rolling through me. “But he already resents me.”

“He doesn’t,” she says. “I know you two haven’t had the most cordial relationship over the years, but you’re a nursing student. I think it will feel less like a family member thinking he can’t do things, and more like something valid.”

“Right.”

I can’t deny that she’s right, and I didn’t really like the idea of him being stuck there by himself anyway.

It’s a good idea. It’s probably a great idea.

Because the man is stubborn and difficult, I know that.

He’s got a lot going on beneath the surface, despite his laid-back exterior.

If you were to ask anybody about Colt Campbell, they would say that he’s this wonderful, gregarious, likable guy, and that is certainly part of him.

But he’s tenacious and stubborn, because you don’t get to where he is in the rodeo without being that, and he hides it beneath that affable exterior.

All I can think is I’m going to be lucky if I don’t get my arm bitten off while trying to take care of him.

“If you don’t want to, I can have him come stay with us, or I can go stay with him in town, but I just think…”

I know he won’t like that. Her instincts about her son are right, of course.

He’s going to have an attitude about anything that he doesn’t think gives him enough credit or independence.

He’s going to take it as a challenge that he can’t do things, and I think that has the potential to make him attempt to do things he shouldn’t do.

Because he’s Colt, and he’s too much of a risk-taker.

He always has been. He and Gentry and Dallas always wound each other up. It’s how they ended up where they are – two bull riders and a firefighter.

To be honest, I think Gentry has more sense than the rodeo cowboys. At least we need firefighters. Literally no one needs you to risk your life riding a bull.

“Of course I’ll help,” I say.

Because I love Cindy with my whole heart.

Because she’s the mother figure that I would never have had.

It’s always been so complicated. Her marrying my dad was such a wonderful thing.

I was an adolescent, and I needed a woman in my life so badly.

But she also brought Colt with her, and that was a real hallmark of difficulty for me.

I made a conscious effort to separate her being my stepmom from having to have the object of my teenage affection living down the hall from me.

But Cindy made my dad smile again. She left space for my mom while being there for me. She never tried to erase the love I had before; she only added to it.

This has been so hard on her. And I need to pull myself out of it. That’s the problem. I’ve been a little bit too self-obsessed with all this because of how complex my own feelings for Colt are.

They don’t need to be complicated. Weird… Family. I guess.

Even if that has always felt like such an uncomfortable label for the two of us.

But I can be family right now. I need to be.

I can’t worry about how annoyed he’s going to be with me, or how difficult it’s going to be for us to have that kind of proximity. It’s not like we haven’t had it before. And anyway, we won’t be living together, so there’s that.

“Of course, if he gives you any trouble, let me know. And I’ll scold him.”

I laugh. “I’m sure he won’t.”

I drove his truck here to the hospital when he was moved from Medford, and it’s been sitting here the whole time, which is how I end up being tasked with driving him back home that day.

I came with Cindy, and he and I live right next to each other, so it makes sense.

I can tell that he’s irritated when discharge includes a wheelchair, even though that’s standard procedure.

I can also tell that it’s a window into exactly what I’m going to be dealing with when I’m doing the caregiving.

I go and get the car from the far reaches of the parking lot, and drive it up to the front doors, where I wait for the hospital staff to help him out of the chair and into the car. I can see beads of sweat on his forehead, his teeth gritted against the pain.

I can tell that the pain makes him angry.

He gets into the passenger seat and slams the door shut.

“Do you need to take a pain pill?”

“Advil. Maybe. I’m not taking anything else.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like being out of control. And I know that I need to limit the amount of time that I’m on opiates.”

“Sure,” I say. “That’s a real concern, and I get it. But you also have very real pain that you need to deal with.”

“I don’t have anything else to do but deal with the pain, Allison, so I might as well give it a nice warm hug and tell it to make itself comfortable.”

I don’t roll my eyes visibly, and I consider that to be a real triumph.

“You don’t need to martyr yourself on top of everything else,” I say, waving at Cindy as we pull away from the curb.

“I’m not,” he says.

He’s smiling, but I can hear the anger in his voice.

“I would’ve thought you’d be happy that you’re headed home.”

“Different view, same prison. These injuries. I just want to get back out on the circuit.”

“But you know that’s not happening,” I say softly as we pull out of the hospital parking lot and onto the road. It’s about a forty-minute drive back to Gold Valley, and I’m going to be stuck with this surliest of passengers.

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he says. “I’m not stupid. But I’m not happy about it either.”

“You definitely don’t have to be happy about it.”

“Thanks,” he says. I’m not sure for a second if he’s thanking me for giving him permission to be mad or what. Then he continues. “For being there for all of this. You didn’t have to do that.”

I debate whether or not to tell him that I’ve been tasked with his further care and keeping, and decide now isn’t the time. “Of course,” I say.

“No. I get that I’m not… The most fun to be around right now. And hell, you’ve never been particularly excited to be around me.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

It’s not. There was a time when being around Colt Campbell made my entire week. When Gentry would bring him over for dinner, and I would just sit there eating meatloaf, staring at him. Until he became my stepbrother, and it ruined that.

“I expect you weren’t dying to have another older brother.”

“You probably didn’t want a younger sister.”

“No,” he says. “I always wanted a family. I mean, and everything was great with my mom, don’t get me wrong. But… Something was missing. Also, my mom has been a hell of a lot happier since she married your dad.”

“Same with my dad.”

We’re saying all these nice things, talking about the situation, but it doesn’t really touch us. The way that our relationship has always been kind of difficult.

But he and I don’t really do civil conversation, and we definitely don’t do deep dives into what makes each other tick.

I decide that it’s better now to just go ahead and tell him.

“Your mom asked me to check in on you. Because it’s really either me, or you move home with your parents, or the hospital sends people by.”

I look over at him, at his profile. The stitches on his forehead are gone, but there’s an angry red line remaining, and I wonder how bad the scar will be.

He’s still so handsome, and if anything, I think the scar is going to make him a little bit less pretty, add to the masculine, rugged energy that he has.

It’s really unfair. He’s perfect, even ruined. That’s quite something.

“Yeah, seems reasonable.”

I don’t think he thinks so at all. I can tell that he’s angry. But I have a feeling that it’s not at me. Or even at his mom. Just at everything.

He’s always had an intensity, just beneath the surface, and sometimes I feel like other people don’t see it.

Hell, I know they don’t. Because everybody always talks about how nice he is.

In fact, one of my friends called him a golden retriever once.

And I can’t think of anything less true than that.

Golden retrievers are happy to stay in their yard and play fetch.

To chew on a ball unbothered, and to get scratched behind the ears.

Colt isn’t content. That’s one of the last words I would ever use to describe him.

I don’t think anybody who's so obsessed with a career like his could ever be called content.

The competitiveness, the danger, all of it, suggests someone striving for the next thing. And none of that happens by accident.

Nothing he’s ever done has been by accident.

It feels like his intensity is closer to the surface right now, though.

Like almost anyone could see it, and that isn’t normal.

That’s something I haven’t seen before. A way of being that just isn’t typical Colt.

Of course, how could he be his normal self?

I’ve been so focused on whether or not he was going to survive that I guess I didn’t really sit with the reality of him having to heal.