by RJ Scott
Texas Gift
Texas Series, Book 8
RJ Scott
Copyright © 2017 by RJ Scott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For every reader who wanted to find out what happened to Jack, Riley, and their family.
And always for my family.
Contents
A personal note from RJ
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
RJ Scott - have you read?
N.R. Walker - Have you Read?
A personal note from RJ
In the past few weeks the community has lost two people that impacted my life.
First, Stacia Hess, a constant cheerleader, and one of my trusted proofers.
I missed you when I sent out the files for this book.
Second, Sandrine Gasq Dion, who left us suddenly.
I’ll miss your smiling face.
Chapter 1
Riley needed to apologize. Right now.
He’d fucked up big time, and he should have seen it coming, because everything he did went in cycles. He and Jack hadn’t argued in so long. Maybe the tension that had been building inside Riley had needed an outlet; he’d provoked the argument. He’d pushed and prodded and sulked and shoved at Jack until Jack had snapped.
Not in loud shouting temper, or anything like what Riley deserved. No, Jack had gone deathly quiet.
Absolutely. Utterly. Quiet.
Riley shouted at him, got everything out of his system, felt the weight of it all lessen by throwing it at Jack, and what had happened? He’d stood there at first, confused, and then steadily calmer. Weirdly calm.
They argued; no normal marriage went without arguments over things as important as the kids or as trivial as picking up wet towels. But they resolved things, Jack/Riley was a unit that worked. They sometimes bickered and teased, they rarely shouted, and on the odd occasion there would be sulking. Mostly from Riley. He considered it as thinking time but Jack just called him on his sulking like a child.
Their arguments always ended in love; talking, kissing, complete forgiveness that could only come when two people understood and loved each other.
This morning though, Riley had made Connor cry, Lexie scowl, and caused Max to hide under the table with Toby. Jack hadn't even stayed for that—the crying, scowling and hiding had happened after he’d left.
“Why are you shouting at Pappa!” Connor shouted back at Riley. “Stop shouting.” Then he’d started to cry.
Riley’s heart had broken into a million pieces. He’d sat between a crying Connor and a sullen, angry Lexie and tried to explain that he had a bad headache and he didn’t mean to shout. For headache, read migraine, tight painful migraine that blurred his vision and made him feel sick. He’d taken meds and the sharp edges of the glass in his head were easing, but he couldn’t think straight. Connor stopped crying.
“You were so mean,” Lexie summarized, but she did give Riley a hug and kissed him on the forehead to make it all better.
Max on the other hand, while not angry with Riley and the shouting, was still under the kitchen table with Toby. The black lab, Riley’s black lab, lay between Max and Riley in a protective furry wall.
“It’s okay Tobes, I got this,” Riley tried to fold all six-four of himself under the wood tabletop. He got caught on a bench, his neck burned, his stomach was in knots, but nothing was going to stop him from getting to Max. Toby did eventually move to one side but not too far. Toby may have well been Riley’s dog initially, but he and Max were inseparable now.
“Max, buddy?” he began, and Max at least looked up at him for a split second. “You okay?”
“M’okay,” Max said. “You’re noisy.”
At least he wasn’t rocking, or stimming. He was just sitting with his dog in his favorite place under the kitchen table.
“Is everything okay?” Carol said from behind him. He scrambled back and brushed himself off. “Riley?”
“I shouted,” Riley explained simply.
“At the kids?” Carol asked, aghast, as if that was the ultimate sin in her eyes. Which, to be fair, it was in Riley’s as well. He and Jack didn’t shout, they cajoled, and bargained, and ran a happy house. Most of the time, anyway. Just not this morning.
“No, at Jack.”
“Is Max okay?” She peered under the table and smiled at Max. He adored her, the kids all loved their nanny, probably quite a bit more than they loved their dad today.
“He seems fine.” Riley peered out of the window at where Jack had gone. The damage had been done, but Connie and Lexie were chatting to each other, Max was with Carol and he needed to go and make things right with Jack.
“I think we’re okay in here,” Carol said, “Go find Jack.”
Riley shot her a grateful glance, and as he left the kitchen he heard Lexie telling Carol that her Daddy had a headache and that she’d kissed it better. When he closed the door it was just him and the ranch and finding Jack. It didn’t take him long; he was outside their barn, looking up at the siding, with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his chest.
Riley inhaled the fresh morning air and pulled back his shoulders. He could do this; he could ignore the pain in his head now it had lessened a little, he could push back nausea, and he could go and apologize to Jack for being a fucking idiot.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, coming to a stop next to Jack, only a few inches separating their arms. Jack didn’t move.
“It’s okay.” Although it didn’t sound okay at all. Okay was one of those words that meant nothing in the context of an argument, it was a word that plastered over cracks in a relationship. Okay was quiet and tight-lipped silences and Riley recalled okay from when he was a kid.
He hated okay.
“It’s not okay, I have a headache and I didn’t mean any of what I said.”
“You didn’t mean to say that life would be easier if you didn’t have to listen to me?” Jack’s voice was low and serious, and Riley winced.
“You were saying too much, and I couldn’t think.”
Their discussion had started in the bedroom.
“I asked if you’d made an appointment to see someone about the headaches.”
“I know—”
“And why you were limping again—”
“Jack—”
“And why you weren’t sleeping, and why you spent so much time at the office, and why the fuck have we not used the barn in over a month?”
The barn wasn’t just the barn, it was a euphemism for sex. They hadn't been together in a month, over a month now. How did Riley explain that he’d been at the office, sometimes with the blinds shut, closing out the light, sleeping? How did he explain he didn’t want to see a doctor because the headaches scared him? And how the hell did he tell Jack he was limping because every single one of his muscles hurt, because he was tired, because it was all too much?
“Jack, I’m sorry.”
“You’re no
t, Riley, because you won’t listen to me.” Jack pointed at the barn. “I’m thinking we turn this into a game room for the kids.”
Riley gripped Jack’s arm. “No, what the hell?” His tension fled and in its place was panic. This was their space. Sometimes they came out here to talk, to hide away from the world, but it was also the one place they had the hottest sex he’d ever experienced. He wanted that again, but he was so tired, every time he turned over in bed his neck hurt, and his head pounded, and his leg ached, and he was fucking tired of it all. “Jack, I’m sorry, don’t…”
Jack turned to face him. “Either you go to the doctor, right here, right now, or I start clearing the place for a pool table.” He looked dead serious, and Riley couldn’t tell if this was an empty threat. Then Jack softened, cradled his face and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Riley, please.”
Just those two words pierced the fear in Riley, he couldn’t stop the pain, or the threat of being sick, or not sleeping, but whatever was wrong, Jack would be there for him.
“I’m scared,” Riley murmured.
Jack gathered him close. “You think I’m not?”
“Please don’t,” Riley said against Jack’s neck. His words sounded slurred and fear made him sway. What the hell? “Please don’t let me chase you away.”
“I won’t.”
And that was the last thing he heard as his world went black.
Chapter 2
Jack held Riley’s hand. It wasn’t much but it was all he could do. The rest of it, getting him to the hospital, the doctors poking at him, Riley pretty much out of it, that was all out of Jack’s hands.
And now he had to listen to the whys, after the MRI scan and with Riley in and out of sleep. He had to sit here and listen to a doctor explain to him what had happened. The words were muddled, but Josh was here with him, and Eden, and they flanked him in the room as he held Riley’s hand.
Riley wore a neck brace and was asleep, finally free from the headaches that had been plaguing him. His doctor, a thin wiry man who was attempting to explain the issues at hand, was wording things to keep Jack calm.
“Cervical spinal stenosis is diagnosed when degenerative changes in the cervical spine cause spinal cord compression,” he began. “The spinal cord is a nerve bundle that runs from the base of the brain to the lower back.” He turned an iPad with a 3D image of a spine rotating and then pressed an arrow. This time the images were cross-sectional. “In a normal spine, there is more than enough room for the spinal cord in the spinal canal, but what we see here in this case is that with his cervical spinal stenosis, space becomes too narrow. The spinal cord is a critical component for sending signals all over the body, which would explain the pain in his previously injured leg.”
“And you know for sure this is what my brother has?” Eden asked, composed, even though Jack had seen the worry in her eyes. Riley and Eden were so close, brought up in an environment of entitlement and hostility.
“We carried out a detailed exam, and the MRI simply confirmed our initial diagnosis.”
All Jack could think was that he was grateful Riley had been sedated for the MRI; Jack couldn’t imagine being in such a tightly confined space.
“Okay, so what else?” Jack asked when Doctor Edwards checked back at his notes.
“The neurological deficits that the patient has been experiencing—”
“Riley,” Jack interrupted, “his name is Riley.”
Doctor Edwards nodded. “The effects that Riley has been experiencing, resulting from the spinal cord compression, is a condition called myelopathy.”
“And this was all because of that accident in Nuevo Laredo?” Josh asked the question Jack wanted to ask but didn’t know how. He needed to understand why this had happened, and the suggestion that a trauma caused the whole thing gave Jack something to blame.
“Or the incident with the horse and the fire,” Eden interjected. She and Josh exchanged glances.
“Either incident could be to blame,” Doctor Edwards said. “Cervical stenosis with myelopathy tends to get slowly worse over time, the initial injury could have affected his spine and been missed, or maybe it wasn’t so bad initially and has worsened. There is always variation. Symptoms can remain stable for long periods or rapidly worsen, it depends on the patient involved.”
“So what now?”
“In most cases the first course of action is physical therapy, aided by epidural injections to allow realignment of the affected area, but I think that in Riley’s case, the first option would be to operate.”
Jack’s didn’t want to hear that, he didn’t want to know that this was anything worse than some shit like food poisoning. He tightened his hold on Riley’s hand for a moment and Riley moved his head, but didn’t open his eyes. He was still sleeping the sleep of the dead.
Jesus, Jack, why the hell are you using words like that?
“But we could try nonsurgical treatments first? Right?” Jack said, and he knew he sounded panicked, feeling only reinforced when Eden leaned into him and Josh put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
Doctor Edwards placed the iPad on the bed, right next to the notes.
“In rare cases, the symptoms of myelopathy can be mild enough we could go the nonsurgical route. However, because of the risk of severe nerve damage, you can ask any surgeon and they’ll recommend an operation to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord.”
Jack attempted to unknot the tension inside. He had to be the strong one here, the one who could handle everything that happened to Riley. The one able to make the decisions for him.
“What would the next steps be?” he asked, even though he didn’t want to hear it at all.
“We’ll be taking more scans, but from my assessment and that of my surgical colleague we are looking at anterior cervical decompression and fusion. Simply put, this procedure involves approaching the cervical spine from the front and removing any discs, bone spurs, or other structures that might be impinging the spinal cord.”
That doesn’t sound simple at all.
The doctor paused for a moment and picked up the model of the spine he’d brought with him. He flexed the model and began to talk, but to Jack it was all a blur. “It typically includes fusing one or more levels of the cervical spine to maintain stability. He will wear a neck brace post-op, and there will be a good four weeks of recovery time, some of which will be here in this hospital.”
“Our bedroom is downstairs,” Jack blurted out, horribly aware that everyone was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “So, that makes it easy for him to come home.”
I want him to come home.
Doctor Edwards nodded, whether that was in agreement or just acknowledgment of what Jack had said, it was not certain.
He asked if there were any more questions, and Jack was sure he would think of so many once the doctor had walked out of the room. Right now, though, he just wanted to know.
“Will he be okay?”
“The usual statistics about operations in and around the spine apply, but your husband is young and strong and there is every hope that this will be successful and with therapy he will be absolutely fine.”
Was it weird that out of all that Jack focused on the word hope? The doctor hoped that Riley would be okay.
He could hold onto that hope in a negative way, where Riley died or was paralyzed, or he could take the word hope and turn it on its head. He refused to let the faith he had in what the doctors could do and tarnish it with terror.
So he took hope and held it close.
Right next to his heart.
When Riley woke next, Jack was the only one in the room. Hayley was flying in today and he’d told Eden and Josh they should go and pick her up, get out of the hospital, get some air. They argued, but Jack wasn’t leaving Riley. Not for anything.
“Wha’appened?” Riley’s voice was gravelly, and Jack focused on hazel, bloodshot eyes, and the slurred words. He leaned over and helped Riley with a drink of water, then sc
ooted his chair a little closer so he could hold Riley’s hand again.
“You have a problem with your neck,” he explained, deciding the word spine was one step too far. “It gave you the headaches, and explained the problems with your leg.”
Riley looked at him from the corner of his eye, then from him to the ceiling, blinking up at the tiles. He didn’t say anything.
“Bad?” he asked.
“Not so much,” Jack lied. “Small op and you’ll be back home.”
And the worst of this? Riley closed his eyes again, and let out a small sigh. What Jack said had reassured him, even though he’d been lying.
When Riley woke the next time he appeared more coherent, the time after that he asked to sit up, but still Jack didn’t tell him the whole truth.
Hayley arrived a little after four in the afternoon. She’d been in New York with her school, and had demanded to come home as soon as she’d heard what had happened. How could Jack say no, Riley would want her here, and so did he.
Jack stood and hugged her. Was it possible she’d gotten taller in the three weeks she’d been away? Or maybe something made her look more grown up, or maybe it was just because she was calm.
“Oh, Pappa,” she said. “What happened?”
Jack wanted simple words to explain to their daughter the terror he felt, and the pain Riley had been in, and the fact that he needed an operation. He was the one who faced things head-on, who didn’t panic, but right now he was not doing well at all.
