Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Jacob didn’t remember falling asleep. He barely remembered anything except pain. And when he opened his eyes, that pain came back with full force. Along with all the memories of what came before.
He immediately attempted to sit up, but a man in scrubs rushed to his side and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Best not to move until we know everything we’re dealing with.”
There was something thick and hard around his neck, preventing him from looking anywhere but at the ceiling. He winced as he gingerly reached up to touch it. Everything hurt when he moved. There wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t scream in protest.
Heck, even blinking took a toll on him.
“What happened?” he rasped, his eyes darting to the side where he’d last seen the man.
He could hear the clacking of a keyboard and the distinct beeping sound of a heart monitor.
The ceiling looked like any ceiling in a commercial setting, but he knew from the smell and the bed he was in a hospital room.
He screwed his eyes shut and forced himself to remember. He’d needed to talk to Hallie. Her cousin had seen her heading up a dirt road adjacent to Sagebrush property and he’d taken a chance.
The field.
The bull.
Hallie caught in its crosshairs.
Jacob muttered a curse under his breath. Hallie could have been seriously hurt and for what? Some pictures? He groaned and opened his eyes once more.
At least he hadn’t lost his memory.
He shifted and the pain in his leg made him see stars.
“It’d be best not to move too much until the doctor can come in to see you. Lucky for you, we have an orthopedic surgeon on staff.”
“Orthopedic—” Jacob tensed and his eyes went wide.
His hands shook as he reached for the collar around his neck again.
“Did I break my neck? Am I paralyzed? Will I be able to walk?” Questions flew from his mouth in torrents.
This couldn’t be how it ended. He wasn’t supposed to go down like this.
“I’m supposed to compete in the National Rodeo Finals in December. ”
The pregnant pause that filled the air made Jacob’s stomach swoop then land with a sickening thud.
“Someone tell me what’s going on. I can’t—” He tried to sit up again but once more he was pushed down.
“I don’t want to have to restrain you, but until you get the answers you’re needing, you really shouldn’t move.”
“Then give me the answers,” Jacob snapped. “Tell me what I’m dealing with so I can—”
“Wonderful, you’re up.” It was a female voice this time, but Jacob still couldn’t look around the room with the way they’d situated him in bed.
“Sebastian, will you please adjust his bed?”
There was the sound of movement and shuffling then Sebastian must have found a remote on his bed because a whirring sounded and the head of the bed slowly rose, bringing into view a tall woman who looked to be in her late thirties.
She smiled at him and pulled a rolling stool to the edge of the bed.
“Mr. Hines, I’m Dr. Smith.” She turned to her tablet and tapped on the screen. “It appears you took a nasty fall.”
“I was charged by a bull and knocked to my—”
Sebastian cleared his throat and Jacob snapped his mouth shut.
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I see that in the notes. We took the liberty of getting x-rays while you were out to assess the damage. I believe you were in shock. You have several injuries. Dislocated ribs, a concussion, a fractured fibula, and a simple compression fracture in your cervical spine.”
The blood drained from his face. He knew that men got hurt all the time from being knocked to the ground by a bull, but this seemed excessive.
His mouth went dry and all the questions he’d shouted at the nurse before seemed to fade in his mind.
He didn’t know if he wanted to find out just how bad off he was.
He’d had a dislocated rib a time or too.
Heck, he’d even suffered through a concussion.
But the cervical fracture scared the life out of him.
He didn’t dare move now. If the nurse had just told him up front what he was dealing with, he wouldn’t have tried to move that second time.
The doctor looked at him expectantly. The smile on her face didn’t match the mood in the room whatsoever. Jacob wanted to rant and rage. He wanted to throw things. He needed answers, but he was too scared to ask.
What did this mean for him? For his career?
“Do you have any questions?” the doctor pressed.
A low chuckle came from Sebastian and Jacob wanted to shoot him a death glare but there was no hope in moving his neck at this point. “He had plenty when he woke up.”
Dr. Smith reached forward and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “How about I give you a few minutes. I’ll come back and we can discuss my suggestion for treatment and any concerns you might have.” With that, she rose and left the room.
“Do you have anyone I can call?” Sebastian asked when he came over to check Jacob’s blood pressure.
“No,” Jacob whispered. He wasn’t about to call his brother over this. Ryker would probably just get mad at him for putting himself in danger. He had the overbearing parenting down to a science even though they were only brothers.
“There’s someone here to see you, can I send them in?”
Jacob sighed. “Yeah, I guess.” But then he realized his mistake. The only person who would know he was here was Hallie and he wasn’t up for seeing her right now. He opened his mouth to tell the nurse he’d changed his mind, but Sebastian was already gone.
Dang it all!
Closing his eyes, he willed the anger and anxiety to leave him. There was nothing he could do right now. Not until he got a handle on what he was dealing with. He should have just asked the doctor the hard questions when he’d had a chance. Rip off the proverbial Band-Aid as it were.
The door opened and his eyes shifted that direction. Sure enough, Hallie inched into the room. She gasped the second their eyes locked. Then tears spilled down her cheeks and she rushed to his side. “Oh my gosh, Jake! Are you okay?”
He gritted his teeth, holding back the vitriol he wanted to throw at her. There was a part of him that wanted to blame her for his circumstances. If she hadn’t been out in the middle of a field with a known monster, then none of this would have happened.
But just one look at her tear-stained cheeks and he knew he couldn’t put that kind of blame on her. She was likely beating herself up over this whole thing already.
So he remained quiet.
“Have they told you how bad it is?” she asked quietly. Her hand found his and she held it tight enough he winced. “Sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
His eyes shifted to her again. “It’s pretty bad,” he finally managed.
Her lower lip wobbled. “Really?”
Jacob stared up at the ceiling. What was he going to tell his sponsor? What about Kai? His manager was going to be livid with him for putting himself in this situation to begin with.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her voice cracking, breaking, shattering the silence that filled the spaces between each beep of the machine.
He scoffed, then winced at the effort it took him. “And let you take my place? Not on your life, Hallie.”
Her tears fell faster then, pouring down her cheeks.
The twinge in his chest morphed into something almost feral.
She shouldn’t have to deal with this. He’d made a decision.
He’d tried to be a hero. Maybe he regretted it.
Maybe he didn’t. It was too soon to tell.
But he’d never admit it, least of all to her.
“You need to go, Hallie.”
Her head snapped up and she stared at him with more pain than he’d thought possible. “What?”
“I don’t want you here.”
“But—”
At that moment Dr. Smith walked in. “Mr. Hines, this is Dr. Drake. He’s the leading physical therapist in the area. He’s on his way out of town for the weekend but he wanted to ensure we both speak with you regarding your treatment.”
Jacob couldn’t see Hallie anymore and he wasn’t sure if she left the room or if she simply moved out of his line of sight. He opened his mouth to ask, but the doctors jumped in before he had a chance.
“Mr. Hines, Nurse Sebastian has alerted me to your concerns regarding your ability to walk.”
A sharp gasp filled the air, the only indication that Hallie hadn’t left. But at this point, Jacob didn’t care. He needed answers.
Dr. Drake continued. “The compression fracture of your cervical spine isn’t severe enough to present problems to your mobility as long as you give yourself time to heal.
There doesn’t look to be any damage to your spinal cord.
Dr. Smith and I have discussed treatment, and the best course of action will be a sturdy neck brace for six to ten weeks followed by some physical therapy. ”
“And as for the fracture to your fibula, it was also simple enough to avoid surgery. We’ll put a cast on it and the same treatment will be prescribed as with your cervical fracture,” Dr. Smith added. “You were very lucky.”
Jacob didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until those words reached him. He exhaled heavily and blinked rapidly to avoid shedding tears, but still, one escaped. “That’s good, then. I should be able to ride again, right?”
The doctors exchanged looks and his heart sped up. “I’ll still be able to compete in the rodeo, right, doc?”
Dr. Smith cleared her throat. “It’s a little soon to tell. I can’t give you a firm answer yet.”
“But you said they weren’t severe breaks.”
“I did, however there are a lot of things to consider. We need to see how you heal. Some patients see a higher likelihood of additional breaks. Others don’t have an increase in risk. We’ll need to wait until you get through the initial stages of the healing process.”
“But if you had to guess,” Jacob pressed, hating the urgency in his voice, the pleading. “I’m not going to hold it against you if you’re wrong. Just tell me if there’s a chance I can.”
“Of course there’s always a chance you can return. But you can’t—”
“But I shouldn’t get my hopes up. That’s what you’re saying.” Jacob looked from one doctor to the other. That was it then. There was a good chance his career was over and this was the end of it. He might as well hang up his spurs. Served him right.
Dr. Drake spoke up again. “How about we take this one day at a time. Let’s see how things go and we’ll reevaluate it in six weeks. Then eight. What do you say?”
Jacob worked his jaw even though it was incredibly painful.
He refused to answer the man. There wasn’t any point to any of this.
He’d be sent home, expected to just sit and wait for his body to heal.
By the time he was healed, he would have lost time—time he could have used to practice, time he needed to ensure he would earn a national title.
“Now, we need to discuss what happens next. We should be able to discharge you in the morning. Do you have anyone at home who will be able to help you—”
“No.”
“Yes.”
His voice clashed with the firm female voice of the woman who was likely hovering a few feet away. Jacob closed his eyes. “No, Hallie.”
She stepped forward. “I can help. I don’t have a regular job right now.”
Both doctors gave him an unsure look. But it was Dr. Drake who spoke.
“Mr. Hines, you can’t be discharged without having someone to help care for you.
With both fractures, you can’t lift anything, and you’ll need assistance with some of your other day-to-day…
” He didn’t have to voice it. Jacob was well aware of what he was referring to. The more intimate parts of his day.
There was no way he’d want Hallie helping him with certain things. But there was no one else he could call and both he and Hallie knew it. She didn’t even know he had a brother. Jacob didn’t talk about Ryker to anyone.
“I can do it,” Hallie insisted again. “And if I need help, I have a big family who can stop by.”
Jacob squeezed his eyes shut. There was no getting out of this.
He didn’t want to spend a single second longer at the hospital than he had to.
If that meant agreeing to taking Hallie’s help, then he would.
“Fine, I’ll let her help. I have a spare room she can use.
” The defeated sound of his voice made him want to crawl into a hole and hide until everything just faded away.
“Wonderful,” Dr. Smith said with a smile. “Miss…”
“It’s Hallie,” she said.
“Hallie,” the doctor repeated, “please stick around for the next thirty minutes or so. I’d like to get you an information packet on what to expect.
Since the fractures aren’t very serious, it won’t be too difficult.
Mostly we want to keep Mr. Hines off his feet.
Cooking, cleaning, and helping him to the bathroom as needed. ”
Jacob groaned. This was going to be miserable. He could already tell.
Hallie moved into his line of vision, her eyes locked on the doctor and a serious expression on her face. “Of course. I’ll be right here.”
The second the doctors left, Hallie lowered herself into the seat by his bed. She didn’t speak. Smart. Because he had a feeling if she did, he’d lose his temper and send her packing. Who cared if he lost his privilege to go home?
Instead, they sat in uncomfortable silence.
If this was how the next eight weeks were going to go, they were both in for a new brand of torture.