Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
The arena was a shitshow, but the news when they got out of the short go that Deuce had done well with the surgery and that he was out of recovery and not even in ICU anymore was fantastic.
They had decided that since the swelling had gone down enough for Deuce to feel sensation in his fingers and toes, they would go ahead and do the surgery on his broken vertebrae and make sure everything stayed stable.
Dawson thought that was a grand idea, so nothing shifted and did damage to his undamaged spinal cord.
He was in the waiting room sucking down a cup of terrible coffee and eating some kind of burrito, but really he was waiting so he could go see the kid.
Coke and Dillon were there, along with Mike, Davi, and Ranger. Sterling and Cody were on the phone, letting people know what to do.
Hell, even Hugo Givens was sitting there, Seamus’s dad next to his son, playing cards.
It was weirdly quiet, if he were honest.
Still.
Like that moment after a storm, maybe before one.
When Sandy and Greg walked into the waiting room, Dawson knew it had been the moment before the storm, possibly a shit storm.
He didn’t want to see them, especially Sandy with his ever-so-perfect five hundred-dollar jacket and his heavily creased jeans and his ostrich boots.
He looked like a fucking politician playing cowboy.
Dawson wanted to punch him right in the face. Greg, now, he looked tired and worried, and Dawson would give the guy that. It was a step in the right direction.
Seamus glanced up from playing the game with his dad and frowned, obviously reading the room correctly, too.
“It’s awful crowded in here.” Sandy looked at Coke, then at Sterling. Then back at Coke and Dillon. “I didn’t think you two were going to be in town.”
Dillon arched an eyebrow. “We weren’t. We came for Deuce.”
Coke stood, arms crossed, those gray eyes pure flint.
“Are you sure you’re welcome here?” Sandy dared to ask, and Sterling stood next, taking his place right next to Coke.
“Are you sure you are?”
“Dad,” Greg hissed.
Sandy lifted his hands. “Hey, Ace Porter’s kid got hurt? It’s not on me. I told you not to hire him.”
A pure fury hit Dawson, and he stepped up, right next Sterling. “I did that. It’s in my contract. I get to hire who I want to. I don’t have to ask your permission. Head bull fighter gets hiring and firing privileges exclusive.”
“Yeah, how are you gonna explain to the King of the Cowboys that you got his son’s back broke?”
“Well, maybe I’ll explain that—”
Sterling cleared his throat, then put his hands on his hips, and suddenly there were two bull fighters, his bull fighters, behind him.
“You have something to say?”
It wasn’t Sterling who spoke, though. It was Michael Boe, and that shocked the hell out of him. “Yeah, we all do. The goddamn arena is too small, and you know it. We know it. Brad knows it. Sterling knows it. The stock contractors know it, and Ace Porter’s about to know about it, too.”
“He already does.” Ace had stepped into the room, clearly coming out from another visit with Deuce.
His face damn near gray, lines of age on him standing out hard.
He wasn’t a big guy, and he was quiet. He had a presence that made everybody stop.
“He was doing his job, Sandy. For you. For your fucking corporation. Don’t you tell me that’s not on you. ”
Sandy scoffed. “You never wanted him to be a bullfighter.”
“It doesn’t matter what I wanted. He took the job, and he was doing it. And it was too damn dangerous because what? Some corporate suit didn’t want you fucking up part of the arena because it was just too inconvenient?”
“The equipment fit in,” Sandy started.
“The bulls aren’t equipment.”
Sandy snorted. “Sure they are, Colby. Was it one of your bulls that hit him?”
Colby shook his head. “No, but it doesn’t fucking matter if it was one of my bulls hitting him or not.
Those bulls didn’t have enough room to know what to do, and the bullfighters didn’t have enough room to maneuver.
They couldn’t even get behind the damn shark tank.
Don’t you try to go blaming this on us. You’re the one who made the deal. ”
“It’s never mattered.”
Sandy turned to Coke and bared his teeth. “Don’t you fucking talk to me. You don’t even belong here.”
“These are my bullfighters—”
”Bullshit they are. You don’t work for us. You don’t belong here.”
Someone was going to die. There was just no question about it at this point.
It was one thing for Sandy to jump him, jump Sterling, badmouth Deuce even, but this was Coke fucking fearless Pharris. He was the best of all of them.
Coke slowly unfolded his arms and stood right in the center of Sandy’s business, calm and sure and solid as a fucking rock. “You want to move me? I dare you to try.”
“That’s enough.” Dillon’s voice snapped out. Dawson bit back a smile because that man could be fucking vicious. “Don’t you touch him, Sandy. I swear to God.”
“This is absolutely not the time to air your grievances with Coke. Just back off.” Greg growled, which surprised him too. Greg usually didn’t say boo to his daddy.
Sandy looked from Coke to Dillon to Greg and back, and he smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket, as if he had not a care in the world, even though the set of his shoulders and jaw said something completely different.
“Fine. Fine. I just came to see how things were going anyway.”
“No, you came to cover your own ass.” Ace shook his head. “I don’t want you here. Neither does anyone else. Let me walk you out.”
Dawson knew Ace was probably going to let Sandy have it on the way out of the hospital ward. He didn’t want Ace to have to do that alone. He would bet the man didn’t want Kitty or Peanut to have to run into Sandy either, because that would be a shit deal for those ladies.
“I’ll go with you,” Dawson said, ready to escort the man away.
“I would like to look in on Deuce,” Sandy shot back.
“Why? Is it some kind of promo op?” Sterling sneered at the man.
Greg pulled in a deep breath. “They want us to sign some paperwork, and we can’t do that unless we actually see him.”
Ace’s eyebrows flew up. “Really? What kind of paperwork is that?”
“Walk with me and I’ll tell you about it.” Sandy turned and headed for the door of the waiting room, and Dawson wasn’t about to let that go. He was not going to let Ace have to deal with that, so he followed. Hell, half the waiting room seemed like they followed.
Maybe Sandy had more brains than he let on because he knew if they got out in the hallway near the patient rooms, nobody was going to scream at him, at least. No one would punch him.
“Back off, Kincade.” Sandy snapped, striding off, trying to get ahead of him.
Dawson was aware Seamus had slipped out of the waiting room behind them too and was following along, his boot squeaking a little bit otherwise making no noise.
He was tickled for the solidarity, but he wasn’t sure what Seamus was going to do. They got to the area outside of Deuce’s room, which thankfully was not right across from the nurses’s station, and Ace stopped Sandy at the door.
Ace went and peered inside and blew out a breath. “Kitty and Peanut must have gone to the bathroom, but I don’t want you going in there and bothering my son. Look at him through the fucking door.”
Dawes would block the door too if he needed to. He saw Dillon was there along with Michael, and Coke had come along. He puffed up trying to decide how to handle all this.
“Maybe I should just drop in real quick and have a look,” Greg said. “I won’t bother him at all, I promise.”
“I don’t want anyone in there who isn’t just there to tell him he’s going to be fine and that they love him.” Ace looked as if he was teetering on the very edge of just losing his shit.
Dawson got around and maneuvered Sandy away from the door, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Seamus slip in there. Oh, good man. That way they had somebody on the inside.
“Anyway, I’ve had just about enough of this shit.” Sandy’s eyes were flashing, the man’s cheeks red. “He was doing a job. That was it. He didn’t manage to do it. He got caught on the fence. I’m sorry he’s hurt.”
“You’re only sorry because you’re going to have to pay for it.” Dawson shook his head. “Damn it, let the man have some peace. He’s a kid.”
“Who you hired. You hired him to do this job. You thought he was good enough to do it. You were willing to take the risk so you could be rubbing up next to real cowboys.”
“Oh fu—”
The words started flying then, sharp and vicious, but low enough that no one at the nurses’s station was going to throw them out.
Dawson wanted to take Sandy outside and watch Coke wipe the floor with him.
Twice.
“Oi. That is enough.” Hugo’s voice snapped out, pure Aussie, and it was shockingly powerful. Hugo was a fairly soft-spoken man, helpful and kind and gentle, and he had a voice that could cut through steel. “Oi! Quiet all of you! Just shut the fuck up and listen, boyos. Just listen.”
Seamus slipped into the hospital room, and bloodshot hazel eyes met his, moving wildly, the blood pressure reading jumping. Deuce’s skull was screwed into a contraption, the bandages reminding him of The Mummy. “Mr. Givens.”
“Shay, please. How’s it going?”
How did folks handle all this infernal beeping? It wasn’t reasonable.
“It’s bad. It’s real bad, sir.”
God help him. This broke his damn heart. This guy was just a kid.
“Yeah, well, I’ve seen people come back from shit, from lots of accidents. Stunt men who were hurt like you.” He didn’t love looming over the bed, so he motioned to the chair. “You mind if I sit?”
There was some hardcore fuckery going on out in the hallway, but that was nothing this kid needed to worry about.
“No, please. It’s real nice of you to come and visit.”
He grinned and settled in. “I’ve been here, honey, I’m not a bull fighter, but I’m going to be around a lot, so just think of me as part of the weird extended rodeo adjacent family.”