Accepting His Ways (Quinlan O'Connor Book 2) (27 page)

“We are just waiting until someone, somewhere, wants to tell us what is going on with him.” She broke down. “I don’t know if I can wait much longer.”

Ciarán didn’t allow her to refuse his comfort the second time and presented with his immovable force, Cheyenne sobbed. Ciarán gently rocked her while she let out the stress and tension she had been holding onto tightly.

              Liam filled Parker and Kelli in on the accident and Quinn’s state of unconsciousness. Parker said nothing. After a few moments of sitting quietly, Parker stood to sit near Katie, Cheyenne and Ciarán but Kelli asked the unasked question.

“Why didn’t he get help if it was so heavy? He should have known better,” declared Kelli.

“Who knows? He’s always tried to do things without assistance if he could,” answered Liam. “But it had to be obvious that it was too much for one man. Even as strong as Quinlan is.”

Kelli vehemently declared, “I wish he wasn’t so stubborn about things. He knows we help each other all the time. He tries to be so damn tough. Look where it got him.”

Cheyenne, hearing the last part of the conversation, shoved herself out of Ciarán’s arms and yelled, “Because none of you would have understood. You’re so self-righteous, so narrow-minded that you create an atmosphere of intolerance about other people. It isn’t always about what you think or feel. Sometimes, it’s about allowing others to feel, think, and be different than you. Quinn knows his family well. He wouldn’t ask you for help for this project because it was outside of your comfort zone.”

Ciarán answered quietly, “Cheyenne, honey, we know a lot more than we let on. That’s why Quinn thinks we don’t know, because it’s outside of our comfort zone at times and so we don’t say anything. But we know.”

“You do? You know?”

Liam stood and put his arm around her, speaking equally quiet. “We know about the lifestyle differences that you and Quinn have. Not the intimate details, and we don’t want to, but we know that Quinn is a dominant in the stricter definition. We know he likes to play scenes with you. If he had asked us to help him, we would have and not condemned it.”

“He didn’t know that. You let him go on thinking that you didn’t know. He was worried about his job, reputation within the community and the family. He didn’t want you to think less of him or me. He wanted to be free to live his life without worry but he didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“
A stór,
we would have questioned the divided basement if we didn’t know. We didn’t say anything because we didn’t need to. Our mistake was not telling him that we understood his differences and we would not interfere or censor him because of them.”

“Thank you, Liam. And all of this was for nothing. He might—”

“Mrs. O’Connor?” When the doctor saw two women turn their heads, he clarified, “Cheyenne O’Connor?”

“Yes. We are all here for Quinlan; we are his family. Tell us what is going on.”

“Well, as you know he has a good concussion and a pretty good goose egg on the back of his head. The pressure from it is pressing on his brain. That pressure is approaching the stage where we might have to place a stint or drill a hole in his head to relieve it. We can’t stop the swelling but we can stop the increasing pressure. We’re just going to wait and see. He did have a small bleed but that appears to have stopped. We’ll continue to watch him for the next hours to see if things get better on their own.”

“He is still unconscious?”

“Yes, he is and frankly, I’m not concerned about that right now. It’s a blessing actually, because the headache from the pressure would be too intense. He’s better this way, at least until the swelling decreases. We’re taking him up to ICU and you’re welcome to go see him but only two at a time, please. I’ll get you any new updates as they surface, but things will probably stay the same for a few hours anyway. He’s definitely not out of the woods.”

They took turns sitting with Cheyenne in the hospital room. Katie went home and the men called their respective foremen to let them know the situation and to turn the operations over into their hands for a while. Parker left to go home, as he had to work in the morning.

“Kelli, I want you to go home and come sit tomorrow. It’s Saturday tomorrow and you can relieve the guys. They’ll send everyone home soon. Cheyenne will probably stay in the waiting room.”

“I’m going to stay with Cheyenne.”

Parker looked at Kelli for a moment. He relented. “I know it’s hard. Stay if you need to but don’t get yourself exhausted.”

She quickly leaned up to kiss her man. “Thanks. I love you.”

He kissed her again extending it a bit longer. “I love you too, baby.”

Cheyenne sat in the room and repeated what the doctor had said. A bleed in the brain, swelling on the brain, and a concussion was a lot to deal with. They might need to drill for relief. She could lose him. She allowed silent tears to roll down her face unchecked as she held his hand sitting next to his bed. She laid her head on his shoulder and dozed until they shooed both women out of the room to join the men in the waiting room where they all fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next morning, a nurse woke her up and told her that the swelling wasn’t increasing and, in fact, might be decreasing and that was a very good sign. Still not out of the woods yet, but closer to the edge of them. They moved him out of ICU early the third morning. Cheyenne never left his side, sleeping in the extra bed they had in the new room. Everyone came to visit in shifts. When Josh showed up later that morning, Cheyenne was full of apologies.

“No, don’t you dare chastise yourself. I’m happy to be here and spend some time with him. I don’t have anything that I need to do right now that I can’t do online. I’ll thankfully spend time waiting for him to recover. While we are alone, I can let you in on the plan that I think we can agree on with Quinn. It’s an incredible idea. We all agreed on this venture in Sheridan so we just need Quinn to cinch it. So many things have changed but I don’t want to go into it until Quinn is better. Do you mind if I call Carter?”

“No, call him but I don’t know what good it will do.”

“You never know, honey, you never know.”

Carter arrived late that afternoon and had a meeting with the physicians. Quinn had always used his family doctor or so Cheyenne had thought but when Carter took on Cheyenne, Quinn and Carter thought it simpler to keep only one physician. Carter became Quinn’s primary physician as well. Therefore, the direction of Quinn’s care was shared with Carter and then Cheyenne and the rest of the family.

“It has been four days, sir, Doctor Taylor, and he has still not regained consciousness. I’m scared.” Cheyenne’s words were echoed throughout the waiting room as the family gathered to discuss the plan with the doctors.

“We can’t rush these things but there is no longer a bleed, no longer much swelling. He’s beginning to look like his normal self—only sleeping. We have another scan to do today, just following up on what is going on in his brain. I feel certain we just need to give his brain time to recover. It was a profound knock on the head.”

The shift change was happening in the Quinlan O’Connor vigil when the outgoing watchers were saying goodbye to Quinn for the night and receiving their discharge orders for home. Those coming in were being updated on taking over when someone whispered to keep the noise down.

“You’d think Da was coming home early.” The room went silent.

“Quinn? Honey, was that you? Did you say something?” asked Cheyenne.

Silence. The room watched Quinn for a moment and then he tried to roll over and the room erupted, jumping for the IV and other monitoring leads attached to him. Cheyenne started to sniffle.

“Hold on, buddy, they have you trussed up like the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey so you can’t just turn over like that.” Liam was talking as though it was business as usual.

“Shit. What are you guys doing? Where is Cheyenne? If she let you all do this to me I’m going to spank her ass right after I kick yours.” That was met with laughter and the women telling him to hush. Someone went for the nurse.

After a few more verbal flame-throwers had been launched, Cheyenne became concerned. “He’s swearing a lot. He never does that normally. Do you think he’s all right?”

“Well, sweetheart, your Quinn is rolling around in his head right now. Give him a little bit to find his way through the fog. He’ll be right as rain soon,” said Carter with a big grin on his face.

“Okay, guys, clear out of here and let him rest.” Carter looked over at Cheyenne and said, “I know, you aren’t going anywhere and I would never ask you to but the hospital might. I’ll go talk to his physician on staff and figure this out.”

“I have to call Da and Mom. They can call Shane and Caoimhe. Ciarán will you call Cián?”

“Yep, right now.” Liam had taken back the last remnants of deferred control and Ciarán appeared content to let him.

Every hour Quinn was checked to see that he was still improving but by the next morning, he was wide-awake and except for a lingering headache, he was trying to take back his own control. He sent Cheyenne to get them something to eat. Quinn wasn’t hungry but he wanted her to have something to do besides sit in the room with him. It would also give him time to talk to Josh whom she charged with keeping Quinn quiet.

“Cheyenne is tired,” Quinn informed Josh. “She needs to go home. I’m doing fine.”

“You tell her, man, because I don’t think she’ll go. We’ve been trying all week but with no success.” Josh paused for a moment and then added, “Frankly, I think you should leave her alone and let her finish this out. They’re talking about sending you home tomorrow and she won’t go when she hears that.”

“I was afraid of that so you and Carter need to get your dom on.”

“Nope, that’s not going to happen, my friend. I’m not going to tell that woman, who has been a paragon of attentive love, that she has to go home without you. I wouldn’t count on Carter doing it either.”

“Fine, I’ll get Liam to do it. He’s the scary, tough brother.”

“If he does, I’ll lose some respect for him and you. Let her love you enough to stay and you love her enough to allow it.”

“Okay, I get it. But she’s so tired.”

“She’ll sleep at home, next to you. Besides, in case you didn’t know, you have the family reputation for being the hard ass, even more than Liam does. He just seems to intimidate but you’re the real McCoy. If Cheyenne can stand you down, Liam isn’t going to be able to do it.” Josh looked over at his friend and saw the smile. “Yeah, I thought you would enjoy knowing that. Now I’m going back to your house to get the group’s plan to show you before I go home tomorrow. I need to get back now that you’re better. Carter is going back this afternoon as he has patients in the morning and Susan is getting restless in the house alone. Amazing how that woman is a powerhouse at work and a total brat sometimes at home.”

Quinn laughed. “She’s trying to sit on top because it’s what she knows in the rest of her world. She misses you guys and when did she move in?”

“A month ago and I get what she’s doing but why? And how is it that she can express her concerns dramatically in her professional world but in her private sanctuary, where all we want is to make her happy, she clams up and then brats when it gets built up so bad she has to let it out?”

“Cheyenne used to do that. She kept so many things inside and then I would leave on a training, loan out to Forest Service or when I came here for some reason, she would brat big time and forced me to show her I cared. When I called her on it, the behavior all but disappeared. Now, she asks for most of what she needs. I think she likes the naughty girl persona sometimes. But then, so do I.”

Both men laughed and Quinn finished by saying, “And if it doesn’t work to call her on it, then I would not give her what she’s asking for when she brats. I would ignore the bratting and not reward her with a spanking, flogger or whatever it is, you’re going to do. When she does it the right way, I would give her all she needs intensely until she brats again, and then withdraw the attention.”

Cheyenne walked in the door and added, “And if that doesn’t work, be real with her. All this playing around isn’t worth it when your relationship is on the line. And all of you talk, not just one of you. Take her out to a nice dinner or have one at home, set it up, and be real about not knowing what it is she’s looking for, but you would give her what it was if you knew. Then just talk. I think sometimes you macho mania men just don’t get it; we want to talk and be real just like every other couple.”

Josh reached down and planted a noisy kiss on her cheek. “That’s what I needed, a woman’s perspective. Thanks, sweetheart.”

“Hey, that’s my woman, go home to yours.”

Josh laughed. “I’m trying to but this friend of mine took forever to wake up from his long nap. Be back soon.”

Later that afternoon when Cheyenne went home for clean clothes for herself and going home clothes for Quinn, she heard noises in the private basement side, the “treasure” side. Carefully heading down the stairs, she recognized the voices and found Josh, Liam, Parker, and Ciarán putting the St. Andrew’s Cross together and securing it to the base Parker had brought from his workshop at his family ranch.

“Um, what are you guys doing?” asked Cheyenne hesitantly. She felt embarrassed about the equipment they were assembling. More than that, she was worried they were in her basement doing what they were doing with equipment Quinn had gotten hurt trying to hide. They said they were not bothered by it, but she still wondered.