Christmas Delights 3 (43 page)

“Are you awake under there? It’s Jax, Dr. Jackson, we met
earlier.” The voice, deep and pleasant, sounded amused and familiar, but his
memory of a face remained elusive. Every time he tried bring it into focus, his
mind was awash with blue. “You were more cooperative unconscious and I took the
liberty of examining you. Are you interested in knowing what I found?”

“Cracked head, cracked ribs, dislocated shoulder, bruised
jaw, and various scrapes and bruises all around.” Talking made his head hurt
and he clenched his jaw against the pain, only to relax it just as quickly.
“Damn. Fuck. Hell.” That hurt too. Now that he thought of it, every inch hurt
like a bitch. Goddamn homophobic bastard. Lane had a baseball bat with his name
on it if the asshole had the nerve to darken the door of Moonlit a second time.

“Physician heal thyself.” His doctor sounded more sarcastic
than compassionate he reflected despite the suave voice. The pillow was lifted
away, and Lane scrunched his eyes against the sudden light. The doctor didn’t
say anything else, and unable to resist taking a peek at Dr. Smooth Voice, he
cracked his eyelids. The blue eyes peered back at him. “Ah, there you are.”

The man sounded inordinately pleased, but Lane couldn’t
rouse any interest in being annoyed. He was too caught up in staring. Not a
blue shirt. The doctor’s irises were deep blue with an outer ring of navy that
verged on black.  “You have the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Blue-eyes blinked and color blushed fair cheeks. Lane
smirked. “You blush? Holy fuck, now that’s just too cute.” He wanted to flirt
some more, but pain cut through his head and he closed his eyes against it.
“Hurts like a bitch, doc. You’ll understand if I don’t get up.” He had a cute
gay doctor. At least it seemed like he did. Surely the head stomping hadn’t
broken his ability to spot gay. No straight man blushed like Doc had over a
little flirtatious compliment, although they had been known to put a fist
through his face from time to time. Lane decided he must have been a damn good
boy to get a hot gay doctor for Christmas, or maybe he’d been exceptionally bad
considering he wasn’t in any condition to appreciate, much less unwrap, his
present. 
Just my luck.
 

“Good job on cataloging your injuries.” The doc’s dry tone
didn’t sound amused, but he didn’t sound particularly annoyed. “But considering
you have a concussion, you didn’t even mention you should thank whoever called
for the ambulance instead of cursing them. You scored a thirteen on my coma
scale, which wins you a trip to my CAT scan.” Lane heard the click of computer
keys and assumed the doctor was making arrangements for the test.

“No scan. I’ll be fine, I am fine.” Words that were hard to
prove considering his attempt to sit up and demonstrate how well he felt caused
pain sharp enough to steal his breath.
Damn ribs
. He lay perfectly still
and panted through the pain. It was going to be pretty fucking hard to convince
the doc to skip anything when the slightest movement made him want to scream
and simple conversation drove a spike of agony through his head. 

“Hmm, I see. I’ll just sign the release forms and you can
jog home.” Clicking keys filled the silence between them again. “You have Blue
Cross Blue Shield. They usually cover most tests without preapproval in the
case of an emergency.”

Lane snorted and then couldn’t hide the grimace in reaction
to the increased discomfort from the thoughtless action. “Damn.” He took a
shallow breath and then another. He continued to focus on breathing until he
felt he’d gained a temporary truce with the agony that currently comprised his
shoulder and torso. “Look, there’s a five-thousand dollar deductible that’s not
even close to being met. I took out that policy in case a building falls on my
head or a still explodes. It’s not for…”

“Falling off barstools?”

Lane cracked his eye to take a peek at the doctor.
Was
that what he’d said, or was the doctor just that much of a smartass?
Pretty
damn clever either way. He didn’t have any intentions of giving up the guy
who’d kicked his ass. No one had whaled on him like that since he’d been a
skinny high school kid tormented for being gay when he hadn’t even figured it
out for himself. He’d crack his knuckles in anticipation if he could move his
arms. Payback was a bitch. Telling the cops was way too easy. Calloway had his
coming as well, that fat bastard was going to learn to keep his dumbass mouth
shut. Lane figured he could teach lessons as good as the next guy.

“Yeah, exactly. Not to mention it’s fucking December
twenty-fourth. Nothing like meeting the deductible from hell six days before
the damn policy resets. No thanks.” Wow, long sentence. He fell silent and
waited while the hurt in his head tried to out-power the pain of his shoulder
and ribs.

The doctor didn’t answer and Lane was content to remain
quiet and wait for the wash of discomfort to ease.
Christ, didn’t the
fucking place have any pain meds?

“You’re cold.”

Not the next words he expected to hear from the doc, but
they made him realize his entire body was shivering and the chill added an ache
that seemed to seep into his bones. He wanted to answer but his tongue had
turned unusually thick and unwieldy. His eyelids were so heavy he couldn’t
force them open, and the only thing he wanted to do was sleep. The hum of the
bed being adjusted to raise his feet higher than his heart didn’t make much of
an impression, and when the warmth of a blanket straight from a warmer settled
over him, Lane didn’t even try to fight his need to sleep and let himself drift
away on the hope that the pain couldn’t follow him into the dark.

* * * * *

“Scan for you, buddy.” Jax tucked the blanket around an
unconscious Lane, making sure no drafts could find their way under it. The
first time the guy passed out, Jax had him stripped down for examination, which
was when he’d confirmed the dislocated shoulder. That and the cracked ribs had
been a matter of cursory examination. Jax had listened long and carefully
before determining there was no evidence of lung trauma. The fracture was
directly under a particularly colorful portion of flesh, and he thought once
the bruising had completely surfaced it would be in the shape of the boot that
Lane had as much as admitted took him under the jaw.

How much he’d been talking had surprised Jax, but everything
else probably hurt enough the jaw injury wasn’t registering. Jax had seen it
before in patients with extensive injuries, and there was no other way to
describe the guy’s condition no matter how much he denied it. Shock was
creeping in despite their efforts to hold it at bay. The chill getting worse
regardless of the number of blankets cocooning him, increased pallor, and the
cold sweat once again beading his forehead were all evidence Jax had no choice
but to move ahead with treatment. He had hoped to get the patient’s permission,
but they were in danger of losing him to shock of he didn’t do something.

Lane’s breathing was shallow, which was to be expected in
association with the rib fracture, but the even breaths were a good sign, and
though his pulse raced under Jax’s fingers, it remained strong. He decided
their first course of action would be to get his shoulder back in place. That
would relieve a huge portion of his upper body discomfort. Once he wasn’t
guarding his arm, the stress on his ribs would ease. And then, considering he’d
plummeted to a three on the coma scale, one CAT scan coming right up.
Unconscious guys got a three, so did the dead ones. Jax had no intention of
trading one for the other.

“Sorry, dude, I understand what you were saying, but you’ve
got something going on inside that head of yours, and I need to make sure it’s
not going to kill you.” Jax gave in to the temptation to brush a wayward strand
of brown hair off Lane’s forehead. The short glimpse he’d had of those
incredible green eyes surrounded by long dark lashes had caused a reaction
completely inappropriate in a doctor. Maybe he should surrender his care to the
other doctor on duty, but Jax couldn’t bring himself to make the call. He
wanted to be there when those eyes opened with real awareness behind them and
find out if the flirty comments were more than the byproduct of a temporarily
short-circuited brain. 

Lane shifted a little in his sleep, and his brows drew
together as a soft hiss of pain escaped. Jax’s heart twisted with sympathy, and
he shook his head. “Ridiculous. Get over it, Jackson, you aren’t fifteen.”
Still, it wasn’t his fault if the guy was exactly the sort that pushed every
one of his buttons. Growing up in the heart of Alabama hadn’t been easy for the
sensitive gay boy Jax had once been. Sometimes he’d been tormented to the end
of his endurance. But somehow he’d still come away with an unhealthy attraction
to country boys.

Put a guy with a thick-as-honey drawl in a pickup with a
shotgun in the rear window and a hunting dog in the bed, and Jax turned into
putty. Unshaven jaws, flannel shirts, and bodies that looked soft belying the
strength underneath made him dream of rough kisses under the pines and callused
hands on his skin. Needless to say, in the man’s man world of the southern US
it wasn’t a fantasy Jax had often had opportunity to fulfill. Lane’s teasing
flirtation had reawakened every one of those old needs, and while above his
waist he might not be able to decide how he should feel, below his waist…well
things down there had never been known for having the best ideas.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the PA he’d
called for, and Jax transformed without pause into Dr. Jackson. He made
decisions for Lane the man couldn’t stay conscious long enough to make for
himself. He filled the young woman in on the patient’s condition as they
prepared to manipulate his shoulder.

* * * * *

Lane didn’t open his eyes right away when he regained
consciousness the second…or was it the third time? He’d lost count. At any rate
he had a vivid memory of sharp-edged pain the last time. He took stock of his
various aches and pains, none of which were as debilitating as he recalled. His
shoulder had been reduced to a dull background throb. The doctor must have
reseated the joint while he was out of it. The ribs were a little better since
he no longer suffered from the muscle spasm in his shoulder, but Lane knew the
first deep breath or shift in position would reawaken the stabbing pain. His
jaw hurt more and his head less. Overall he felt better and thought with some
assistance he could sit up, maybe even go home if there he had anyone to call
to take him there.

Never one to feel sorry for himself, Lane pushed the thought
away. One of the staff would take him when shift changed the next morning. He
knew quite few of them from his bar. There’d be no tender loving care awaiting
him on the other end, but at least he’d be out of the damn hospital. God he
hated the place. They sucked bank accounts dry and the life out of people. His
mother had died in a hospital, wasted away to nothing. She’d refused to see him
until the very end, and the sight of her looking so small and vulnerable had
nearly knocked him to his knees. He’d taken the hand she was too weak to lift
into his own and held it with gentle devotion.

Regardless of what’d passed between them in his teen years,
he’d loved his mother with dogged affection and had been eager to mend things
between them before it was too late forever. Her tired, bloodshot eyes blinked
open and focused on him with surprising awareness considering her condition.

“Do you love me?” Her voice had been softer than the dry
rustle of the brown leaves in the trees outside the window.

At the sound tears had filled his eyes blinding him. “Yes,
mama, you know that I do.”

“I’m dying.” Her pragmatic view of life and acceptance of
things she could not change had not extended to his sexuality, but Lane hadn’t
been surprised that she faced her impending end without fuss.

“I know.” He remembered how he’d wanted to add that he was
sorry, to profess his love for her once more, but she cut him off.

“Will you promise me something?” Her dry voice rattled into
a cough, and concerned, he’d tried to let go her hand to reach for the water
beside the bed. Skeletal fingers had tightened around his with surprising
strength, refusing to release him. “Promise!”

Lane had opened his mouth on the verge of promising anything
to this husk of a woman who had given birth to him and nurtured him with true
love throughout the first half of his life, but an unnamed a dread cut off his
words before he could utter them. “Promise what?” he whispered instead, eyes
fixed on her tired, lined face. Her eyes had closed shut as if he exhausted
her.

“Promise you will stop playing games and become a man.” She
had looked at him again with a gaze that threated to pierce to his soul. “A
real
man.” In all the years since he’d come out to his family, she’d never said the
words gay or homosexual to him. She persisted in viewing his life choices as
being a phase, something he’d one day move beyond. Her inability to face the
truth had at least spared him from being forced to endure from her the same
hateful words and outright violence he’d been the victim of at the hands of his
father and older brother.

Lane had stared at her in silence as tears tracked his
checks. He thought the hurt would’ve been less if she’d ever struck out at him
with real emotion, if she could have been honest about what she really thought
of her gay son. Then he may have been able to let go of the ridiculous hope
that she might understand someday. Instead it had been that moment, despite her
effort to dissemble, that he’d seen the fervor with which she hated him, an
emotion so consuming she’d used her death in an effort to manipulate him.

He remembered freeing his hand from her grip and leaving the
room without a single word. In the hall he had wiped the tears from his cheeks
and there had been no more to take their place. He’d walked away without
looking back, not realizing until much later he had carried her legacy with
him. He had yet to shake the deeply rooted lesson that he was unworthy of
love.