“I need to see how badly the bear tore at me.” The person asked him what he meant. “A bear. Damn it. A bear cut me up when I was trying to get into my house. And it’s my fucking house too.”
“Sir, you’re going to have to watch your language while you’re on the intercom.” He did not argue with her. He supposed there might be some little kiddies around. “I’ll have one of the nurses come in and help you with your request. However, if you would bring your tray table to you, you’ll find a mirror on the drawer. Can you reach it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” He had to reach out a little more than he should have but didn’t fall. Lucky for him. Josh almost told her his table was broken when it suddenly popped open, and he saw the mirror. “Stupid thing. Smallest damned mirror I ever seen.”
As soon as he got it adjusted, he wished with all he was worth he’d not bothered. The way his face was swollen, he was sure he shouldn’t have been able to speak. Looking up at the nurse who came into the room, he watched her close the little drawer that hid the mirror from his view.
“It looks much worse than it really is.” Nodding, he asked her what the bear had done. “Bear? I don’t know, Mr. Jackson. We were only told that you were in a freak accident that cut into your face.”
“A bear did this.” The nurse didn’t comment when he repeated what had done this to him. She checked his IV as well as the fluid-filled bags that were hung just behind him. “What is it I’m looking at here? Am I going to be disfigured? Is there a doctor I can talk to about having it fixed so I can look at myself once in a while?”
“You’ve had your cheek split open, but it’s been sewn together. The surgeon said as the swelling goes down, he’ll go in and tighten the stitches up, which will help lessen the scarring.” He told her he didn’t want any scars. “I don’t know anything about your wounds, Mr. Jackson. I do know we’re to make sure you’re not in any pain, and that we change the dressings. I can, if you want, show you the way you’ve been taken care of when we take the bandages off in the morning.”
“Yes. That’s what I want. I need to know how badly I’m going to sue that fucking McCray.” She asked him if he meant the local family of McCrays. “Yeah, you know them? Sorriest bunch of people I ever met. One of them married my niece and took my home away from me. Do you believe that shit? Just waited for me to go out to get me some groceries or something, and they had the locks changed on it and even raided my bank account.”
“Without the donations from the McCrays, you’d still be waiting in the emergency department while we transferred you to a larger hospital. Now, if you don’t need anything else, Mr. Jackson, I have more grateful patients to care for.”
“What the hell did I do to you? Shit in your oats or something? I’m just telling you that those fucking shits have done this to me. They’re bears. All of them. Did you know that?” Not another word from her as she stood there. “Listen. I’m guessing we can agree to disagree. Right now, I need something for my hurting. Can you bring me something for it? I’m hurting pretty badly right now—I’m guessing it’s because I’ve been talking so much. Also, you remember to charge this to them too.”
When she left him, Josh had a feeling he not only wouldn’t get anything for his pain, he’d bet anything she was going to make sure he didn’t have any services that were required of her. Like fluffing his pillows when he needed it. Changing out his sheets. Even the sponge bath might be better left undone. She’d more than likely scald him.
Why the hell couldn’t people see others the way they really were? The McCrays had money, he supposed. They were generous with it too. Because he’d badmouthed them, he was going to be shit on the entire time he was in here.
Josh dozed off and on for the rest of the evening. He did get his medications. However, he was sure they’d waited for him to be sleeping before they brought them to him. Waking to have his blood pressure taken was another dig to him badmouthing the McCrays. As soon as he would settle down, someone would turn on the light in his room and ask him a million questions before he could get his head awake enough to answer them.
Deciding to take notes on the way he was being treated, he realized the mistake in that too. If he asked them for paper and a pen, he’d have to explain what he was doing. That, he was sure, wouldn’t go over too well. Even his dinner wasn’t anything he’d eat if he had his way.
“Why am I not getting a good meal? You’re doing this, aren’t you?” She asked him what he meant. “Since I told you what the McCrays were doing to me, you’ve been treating me like I’m a big pile of dump. I’ll tell you right now, I don’t care for it.”
“Mr. Jackson, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but you’re not the only post-op person on this floor. Since you were brought here, we’ve had sixteen other patients brought to us, three of which were critical.” She looked at his meal, then at him. “If you think you can eat a full dinner without tearing out any of the stitches, then I’ll order you one. However, the doctor, silly him, thought you should be on a liquid diet so as not to have to go back into surgery to repair any damage you might bring to yourself. Your cheek was open to your jaw, sir. I asked in the event you asked me again. Doctor Martin said he could count your teeth from the wound in your face. Also, your eye socket was damaged, which is the reason your eye is covered, so you don’t strain it trying to focus. But, if you’re smarter than the surgeon who put you back together, then, by all means, let me order you a three-course meal.”
“Nobody told me all that.” She asked him if he’d asked anyone for information other than this morning. “No. What about waking me to get medications or my blood pressure? You’re doing that to be mean too, aren’t you?”
“When you’re on my floor after surgery, we take your blood pressure every hour for the first six hours. If there is no change and you seem to be all right, then we downgrade it to every two or four.” She looked at his chart. “Medication is given to you every six hours, so you’re not suffering and tensing up to cause damage to the stitches in your face. Keeping ahead of the pain is the only way to keep you from having to have too much of it at one time. Again, if you’re smarter than the people that do this for a living, I can arrange it, so you have your pain medications when you ask for them. It’s the least I can do for you, being that you seem to think you’re my only patient today.”
When she finally left him after making him feel like shit, he laid there on the bed and wondered if he could get her fired. There wasn’t any reason for her to be treating him like this. He was a paying customer, just like if he’d been eating in a fancy restaurant. Well, he wasn’t paying, but someone would. Lucy and those sisters of hers were getting themselves into deeper shit every day.
The television was on a station he didn’t care for. Before asking how to change the channels, he worked on it himself. There was no telling what she’d do to him if he asked for a little help with the stations.
“May I help you, Mr. Jackson?” He told her he was changing the channels. “You’ve pressed the nurse’s button. The channel button is at the top.”
Three more times he accidentally called the nurse’s station and managed to turn the television on and off four times before he just quit. He’d have to have one of them come in here, and it just wasn’t worth the time to piss them off again. Josh wanted to stay on their good side in case he needed something important. He couldn’t think what that would entail, but he held his tongue as things were moving around him for the night. Drinking his dinner wasn’t all that fulfilling, but he didn’t complain all that much. Even using the straw, he’d found in the tabletop thing had gotten him into Dutch with the nurses. How the hell was he to know that sucking on a straw to eat this shit was going to be bad for him? Finally, he asked for a list of things he wasn’t supposed to do.
“We don’t have a list like that.” The person who came into his room just before his tray was taken away huffed at him several times
before she looked all through his table and bedside table to make sure there were no more straws or other contraband, as she called it. “We expect people to use their noddle after having their face put back together. Did it hurt you when you used the straw? I imagine it did. Yet you kept right on using it, didn’t you?”
“How the hell else was I supposed to get this stuff in my belly?” She said the thing would have been for him to ask before he used a straw. “I know that now. How the hell am I supposed to know all this when you don’t tell me?”
“Was there a straw on your tray, Mr. Jackson? No, there wasn’t. Do you want to know why there wasn’t? Because you’re not supposed to have one. If you were to look on the menu that came with your meal, you’d see in bold letters not to give you a straw.”
“I thought you were just being mean to me again.” She moved to the door, but he could tell she was ready to pop him a good one. “Look, lady. I’m in here because the McCray men are all bears. If you’d been there with me, you’d have pissed yourself, it was that scary. I think you could cut me some slack on not knowing how to keep my stitches in place after a bear attacked me.”
“You keep talking like that, Mr. Jackson, and I’m going to have you transferred to the fourth floor. Where all the other people having those sorts of thoughts are currently staying.” She laughed. It was a mean little laugh. “I might just send you there so we can have some peace for a while. You’re the neediest patient I’ve dealt with.”
“Thank you.”
She left him before he could ask her for some graham crackers he’d seen being passed out earlier. Josh thought about calling her back on the nurse thing but decided they’d probably tell him they weren’t for him. Yes, he thought, there were just too many rules he was expected to know and follow. After he was home again, he was going to write a book on staying in the hospital. It might well be a best seller. People would want to know what he was learning the hard way, and he’d be hailed as a genius. Josh laughed a little, then stopped.
His face was really beginning to pain him badly. Again, he’d suffer through it without making too much of a fuss. It was the least he could do today. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Picking up the call button again, he told them he was ready for his medications and left it at that. He was going to call them every five minutes if he had to. Waiting five minutes, by his estimation, was about all he could take, so he called them again.
Josh figured the only way to get good service was to make a stink. Yes sir, he was going to write a book about all this. Just as soon as he took care of Lucy and her sisters.
That was something he had to think on too. How to not just get back into his home, but to get his money back. Also, to stay clear of the McCrays. It was their fault, he figured. Who else would have helped his nieces get into his account and kick him from his home? He really loved that old house. His brother should have invited him to stay with them more, too, he thought. He was, after all, his blood brother. Those girls were secondary to him, he realized. He and Donald were related by the same parents. The girls were just his and his wife’s.
Josh was going to bring that up the next time Lucy started talking about how he had no rights to the house and money. The will should have said what he’d written it out to be. Blood was thicker than water, he’d always heard. Not that he knew what that meant in this circumstance, but damn it, he wanted his home and money back.
That was going to be taken care of first. When he got out of here, he was going to demand that he was allowed back into the house. He had been injured by them. They should want him to live in the house. He’d bring that up too, by god. Josh was going to start laying down the law with his nieces.
Chapter 8
Ian didn’t know what to do. It was as if every cell in his body was vibrating. Not just a little either. It was like they were all riding a bronco ride at the same time. He lifted his head slowly when his dad said his name.
“Boy, are you all right?” He said no. “I was just talking to your wife, and she said you’ve been chosen for some kind of big deal. Want to talk about it?”
“Dad, I’m in deep shit here. I can’t make my mind stay still for even a second.” Dad sat across from him. “Did Lucy tell you she’s a bear?”
“She did. I don’t know how that happened. She said you didn’t change her. Not really. I haven’t any idea what is supposed to have happened.” Ian told him he wasn’t entirely sure either. “Ian, you’re sounding a little wigged out. Why don’t you start from the beginning and we’ll work it out? All right?”
“We had sex.” It wasn’t as hard to admit that to his dad as he’d thought it would be. Maybe if he’d not been so messed up. “My bear left me. I mean, he was sitting across from me while he told us what was going to be going on. He’s old, dad. I mean, he was really old, and he went away with his wife and other family members.”
“Were they having a picnic?” Ian growled at his dad. “Son, I’m trying my best to understand this. But you’re just saying things like I should understand. What do you mean, his family was there? I was understanding that this bear was our family.”
“Okay. Do you remember any uncles called James and Ian? They would have been from different generations.” Dad told him he’d been named for them. “Yes, that’s what they told me. That I was named for them, and they thought I was going to be the one that had his mate survive the change. All of the ones before me, their mates couldn’t handle the magic. Understand?” Dad said he did.
The best he could, he explained to his dad what had happened. He had to jump around a little, forgetting a little detail or something like that. After he was finished telling his dad, he just sat there staring at him. Ian actually felt a little better after explaining it to him. It sort of cleared it up for him as well. The telling of it made it feel like it made sense.
“I’m not being smart-alecky or anything, son, but I do have a few questions. All right with you?” Ian told his dad he’d answer them as best he could. He, too, was having trouble getting it all straight. “This bear, he never told you his name? You just called him Bear?”
“I did. He didn’t seem to mind it either. His wife, she told me his name was Holland, and they called him Hollie. But he never said that to us. Why?” Dad said he was getting to that. “Dad, I don’t know all we’re supposed to do or even how to make it work, but Lucy, she seems to have a better handle on this than I do.”
Lucy entered the room with a large platter of food. Carrots and cheese with crackers. There were also some meats. He was too buzzed to talk. Even though he was feeling better, he didn’t think he was ready for food yet. Lucy kissed him and then turned to his dad. She asked him what he wanted to know.
“Ian told me his name was Holland. They called him Hollie. Right?” Lucy told him that was right. His wife was Honey. “Yes, Honey. Do you know why she was called Honey? I think I do. They could get honey to sell without any issues. Jars and jars of it. Honeycombs too. That was how families at the start of this bloodline would have been able to trade for things they’d need in the house.”
“That makes sense, I guess. I mean, being a bear, she’d be able to know not only where it was, but also how to get it.” Dad told them that was correct. “Hollie told us he was the original shifter from bear to man. Not man to bear. I didn’t know there was a difference. He said it was a huge deal for him to have been the first shifter.”
“Yes. It’s written down in the Bible your mom has that has been passed down from generation to generation since Holland was born.” Ian asked his dad when Hollie had died. “Well, I don’t know that. I’ve contacted your mom, and she’s bringing the Bible here now. We might not get to the bottom of this, but we’ll be able to make some headway in it. What sort of magic do you have? I mean, have you figured that out yet?”
Lucy stood up and changed her clothing several times. Just one outfit to the next. When she put out her hand, a t
all glass of what appeared to be tea appeared. Dad asked Ian if he knew what they were supposed to do.
“Use magic to help other bears populate. I’m not sure what that is supposed to entail completely, but I have a feeling it’s going to be along the lines of making sure they’re healthy and have a place to live. Things like that.” Dad asked him what else he might have to do. “To be honest with you, Dad, I think it’s going to depend on what is needed at the time. Each person or group we help, we’ll have whatever magic is needed to make sure we can help them. If they need shelter? We help them with that. Food? Again, we make sure that the grounds will yield enough for them to eat on. Also, we’ll be able to help barren females and males be able to have a child. I have bits and pieces of things like that in my mind. That’s why I believe it’s going to be dependant on the situation.”
Mom came into the house with the big Bible. She didn’t seem all that happy about something, but she said she’d tell them later. When Dad asked her about Hollie McCray and when he’d died, she stared at him for several seconds before speaking.
“I looked when you asked me about him. There isn’t a date on the year he died. It just says…. Well, let me show you. It’s the strangest entry I’ve ever read.” Lucy brought the Bible to him, and they looked for his name. “Also, those names you asked me about. Ian and James? Well, there isn’t a name there for either of them. I don’t know what that means either. I thought they were wed, and then they died. I nearly put the book away and was going to tell you I couldn’t find it. Then I looked up Hollie. Go ahead, Lucy. You tell him what it says.”
Ian: McCray Bruin Bear Shifter Romance Page 10
