Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I’m sorry, sir. The fastest itinerary to Great Falls will take at least fifteen hours from DFW.”
Dillon sat back on the damned bed in the hotel room that was starting to seem like a prison. Oh, he’d tried to get up and go Tuesday night, but David had called Ace, all right, and Ace had mounted up from his ranch just south of Fort Worth and come riding up to give him what for.
He was under contract, Ace said. He needed to rest and heal, Ace said. He had to work again in just about a week and a half, and no one could do what he had to do without letting a dislocated shoulder heal.
There were even veiled threats about getting his ass fired if he didn’t calm down and do what was best for the league and all…
Dillon had looked Ace right in the eye and told the man where to fucking go. He needed to go to Coke.
Of course, by the time the fight was over, it was nearly three in the morning, and he couldn’t really walk anymore because Jonesy had snuck in with David and poked his ass with a needle.
Jonesy was so not his friend anymore.
Well, he was, but Dillon had a few choice words for him. Lurking around down on the next floor, waiting to see what Dillon would do instead of going home like a sane med tech would.
“There’s no way you can get me there sooner?” He chewed his thumbnail, wincing as his bad arm protested. Doc had said something about all the tension from him fretting, fretting of all things, was aggravating the strain.
“I can put you on stand-by, but you really ought to be at the airport before I do.”
“Okay. I’ll take the itinerary, and I’ll come sit at the airport.
Here’s my card number.” It was Thursday.
Fifteen hours meant he wouldn’t make it until Friday.
That was five days. Five days since Coke had left, five days his bullfighter had been thinking Dillon was cheating on him, if Coke was thinking about him at all.
No one was answering Coke’s phone, Nate wouldn’t take his calls, and Jason wouldn’t talk to him. If it hadn’t been for Ace, asshole that he was, Dillon wouldn’t even know that Coke had broken his neck.
Broken his fucking neck. He’d been off his game, Nate had told Ace.
Oh, God, it still made him want to hurl.
He got his shit together and grabbed his bag, calling down to the desk to get him a cab. He’d go to the airport and wait for whatever flight they could get him on.
Dillon just had to pray that he could get there before Coke up and disappeared on him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Pardon my French, sir.” Bonner stood at the door of the hospital room, eyes wide. “Mr. Coke, man. You’re gonna get me killed.”
“I saved your butt.” He winked over, trying his dead-level best not to puke on the kid’s so carefully polished boots. “Son, did you bring me a truck?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is it gonna get me to Texas?”
“Yes, sir. Daddy said she was good to go.” Had he ever been so young? Coke didn’t think so.
Not at all.
“Then don’t you worry on me.”
He’d been in this goddamn place for two nights post-surgery, which was one night too many. Goddamn nurses bothering him and poking him and waking his ass up. A man with a broke neck needed his sleep.
He needed his house.
There was only so much any one man could take. He’d most likely lost a lover, broken his hand and his neck, had a zillion fucking stitches, and had tubes in his cock, his nose and his throat—all in a three-day period.
He had had enough.
Besides, the relief fund needed all the help it could get. That money could be spent on someone else hanging in the hospital.
Another week his ass.
Nate was at the arena, working with Fred.
Ace was somewhere doing something stupid.
Jason was freaking out at AJ’s, Brenda and Jack had called him enough that he’d just turned his phone off, and he had finally guilted the little boy whose ass he’d saved into calling Daddy and getting him transportation.
Sixteen hundred and fifty miles to home.
He could do this.
“Hand me that there gauze, son. I gotta get this IV out before you help me get my boots on.”
“Whut? Mr. Coke, I…”
“Son, this ain’t my first broke neck. I got my jeans on, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I did it one-handed with the brace.” Hell, the shirt was gonna be a hell of a lot harder, not that he was going to tell the kid that.
Good boy. “Then come on, I’ve got a lot of road ahead of me and that harridan of a Yankee nurse might actually make rounds this evening.”
Lord help him. He just needed to get his happy ass home.
“I’m sorry, sir. He’s gone.”
“Gone.” The word came out flat and unsurprised. God damn it, he should have known. The fifteen-hour trip had taken twenty-six, and by midday Saturday, Dillon was feeling a day late and more than a few dollars short.
“Yes.” The little nurse clutched a chart in her hands and looked anywhere but at his face. “We didn’t know until late Thursday night. The doctor had told us to let him sleep and only wake him for his medication.”
“I see. Well. Thank you. If I see him, I’ll call.”
He wouldn’t. Dillon knew he wouldn’t even remember the name of the hospital. He could call all the hotels. He could call the rental car places. It wouldn’t do any good, though. Coke would somehow, some way, be on his way home.
When he got back to his rental car, Dillon sat in the driver’s seat and leaned his head against the rest, closing his eyes. Now he had to go to Texas. Fuck, he was tired.
Maybe he should just… Maybe he ought to call Coke first. The man still wasn’t answering his cell, but Dillon could leave a voice mail at Coke’s house, explain what he and Nate heard. Soften Coke up a little first. Maybe that would…
His cell phone rang, and Dillon dug it out of his pocket, slamming it open. “Coke?”
“Better than, honey.”
“Adam?” The last person he’d expected to call him right now was Adam Taggart. “You okay?”
“I am. I’m okay as anything. I’m heading to Coke’s.”
Dillon sat up fast, banging his head on the roof of the car. “Ow! Coke? Is he all right?”
“He’s in a bad way, Dillon. Banged up and was driving himself home. He got himself a little stuck. I sent the boys to get him. How soon can you be here?”
“If it’s anything like getting here, it will be late tomorrow.”
“Well, come on, then. I’m going to clean up, make sure he has some food. I’ll leave the key taped to the top of the inside of the mailbox.”
“I… What if he doesn’t want to see me, Adam?” That was the worst thing he could think, that Coke would send him away.
Adam kinda yelled at him after that, and Dillon laughed, even as tears welled up in his eyes.
“Okay, okay. I get the picture. I’m on my way.”
Hanging up with Adam was tough, because that was one friendly voice, and that was something he’d had too little of lately. Sighing, Dillon turned the key in the ignition and headed back to the airport.
Coke was too important not to try.