Worth the Trouble (4 page)

"Congrats, Terri," he said with sincerity, then looked at Joel whose whole face was now covered by a broad smile.  "Way to go man," Ethan told him and forced a smile.

"Thanks...we're really happy, but Terri is right, she's not going to be able to keep working.  She needs to focus on taking care of herself and the baby," his brother-in-law informed and crossed his arms over his chest.  Terri shot him a glare, which Joel countered with one of his own. 
Ethan figured her working must be a bone of contention between them.

But he had to set his sister straight
.  Her grand plan wasn't possible, and he wasn't letting her blow smoke up his ass trying to make him think otherwise. 

False hope led to more craziness that he didn't need.

"Me taking your place at the ranch is a pipe dream, sis.  You'll have that baby and then some, before I can even take a piss by myself.  Speaking of which..." Ethan said and tried to lever himself to upright.  "Help me, will ya?"

Instead of helping
him though, Terri put her hands on her hips and gazed at him hotly, which Ethan knew from experience never meant anything good. 

"
You can sit there and piss your pants, because none of us is going to help you.  You want to go to the bathroom? 
You
do it.  Here's your wheelchair," she said and walked over to push it by the bed and engage the brakes. 

With a nod to their mother, Terri turned her back on him and left the room.  His mother looked uncertain for a moment and gnawed her lip, but she too deserted him.

It took him fifteen minutes, but somehow Ethan managed to wrangle himself into the wheelchair and make it to the bathroom.  When he finished, he was angry and frustrated with his whole damned family. 

How dare they not help him.  He'd spent his whole life trying to help them, and
every damned body else in the community. 

T
his is how they paid him back?  When he was flat on his back they abandoned him?

Determined to give them all a piece of his mind,
Ethan angrily wheeled down the narrow hall toward the living room, rapping his knuckles on the walls now and then as he went.  He looked to make sure they weren't bleeding when he managed to get to the kitchen. 

Terri and Joel sat at the table drinking coffee, while his mother worked at the stove cooking them breakfast.  His stomach rumbled
and was surprised that for the first time in a month he was actually hungry.

"What the hell?
" he grumbled, then pushed the chair up to the table before asking, "Ya'll can't help me get in my chair, but you can sit around drinking coffee and chatting?"

"Help yourself, brother, then we'll help you," Terri told him belligerently and took a sip of her coffee.
  "Mom, that smells great.  I've missed your biscuits," she said with a laugh.

"If you'd come to Sunday dinner like you're supposed to, you wouldn't be missing them," her mother informed and wiped her hands on her apron.  "Just because you're four hours away doesn't mean you can't drive back here to visit occasionally
, especially since you're giving me a grandbaby," she said and her face eased up into a smile. 

That was the first smile Ethan had seen on his mama's face since he'd been hurt.  Suddenly, he realized he was the one
who had stolen her joy.  Ella Cassidy had always been a happy person, always had a smile for everyone, until Ethan had stolen it from her. 

Disgust settled in his chest and he added
another brick onto the wall of worthlessness he was building around his heart.  Maybe he did need to get out of his mother's house.  He couldn't take care of himself though, and his sister had made it plain she wasn't going to be taking care of him if he went to her house.  

"You guys should look at putting me in a rehab facility," he told them and all eyes swung in his direction.  "Put me out to pasture, then you won't have to
bother with me anymore." 

Losing his family would kill him, but dragging them down into this black pit that had become his existence would kill him quicker, and them at the same time.

"Stop feeling sorry for your damned self, Ethan.  I've had enough of your self-pity," Terri told him.  "You want to go into a rehab facility, check yourself into one, I'm not going to help you.  If you go to one of those places though, they're not going to let you sit on your ass either.  They are going to actually make you attempt to rehabilitate yourself.  Unlike me though, they're not going to give a shit if you succeed."

He snorted then said, "Mama can I have a cup of whatever she's having?"
  Evidently whatever his sister was drinking was black and strong.  She had always been sassy, but today she was just being...mean.  Terri had never been like that to him before.

E
than swallowed hard when he met his mother's eyes, because they weren't soft and worried anymore.  They shone with the same determination as his sister's. 

"If you want coffee, you can wheel over here and get you
rself a cup, son," she told him then reached up and pulled down a mug to set it beside the coffee maker. 

Ethan got it now, this was an intervention of some sort.  The women
in his life were mutinying against him.  Even his mother was following Terri's lead. 

The h
elp she'd given him for the last two months was obviously at an end. 
Wonderful
, he thought, now he had no idea what he was going to do.  Ethan didn't
want
to go into a rehab facility, but it didn't look like he was going to have much choice.  His family wasn't going to give him a choice. 

It was either rehab
or his sister's ranch in Amarillo. 

Either way,
they were forcing him to face his limitations, figure out where his body would plateau in the healing process, and find out what that meant, which scared the shit out of him.

Joel
, who had been quiet thus far, finally glared at him then said, "Come on, asshole, man up.  You hung your ass out of a helicopter to save your sister, this is a piece of cake.  Terri's right, quit your bellyaching and do something.  I need your help at the ranch."

Suddenly, his mother blurted out,
"Your dad and I are selling the house and moving to Amarillo."  Her hand shaking, she moved the pan on the stove to the back burner and finished.  "It's too much to keep up, and we're moving into an apartment, so I can be close by to help Terri.  There won't be any room for you there."

Shock filled him as he replied,
"Dad's been at the Henrietta Fire Department for twenty-five years, mom.  He's the fricking Chief, what's he going to do?"

"He's going to retire, and we're going to travel some...enjoy the rest of our lives.  He's put his life on the line too long. 
Jimmy's death and your accident drove that point home," she told him and her voice broke.

"Jimmy's death was not his fault, neither was my accident."

"He thinks they were, that's all that matters," his mother said and her eyes filled.

It looked like his accident had turned everyone's life upside down, not just his own.  For his dad to agree to retire, he had to be upset, he loved his job.  Ethan had decided on firefighting as a career because he admired and respected what his dad did so much.  Now, he was quitting too.  A
nd it was all Ethan's fault.

"Ya'll can't sell the house, mama...you've lived her
e for thirty years.  This is your home, and dad is a fireman.  Don't do this because of me," he begged with a tremble in his voice.

"We're not doing it because of you, son.  We're doing it because it's what we want to do, what we
need
to do.  I want him to be around to enjoy our grandkids."  Ella picked up the skillet from the burner on the stove and filled a platter with scrambled eggs, then forked out bacon from another pan onto the platter.  She reached up into the cabinet and pulled down a bowl, then spooned creamy grits from another pot into the bowl. 

Ethan's stomach rumbled loudly.

"Sounds like you're hungry," she told him with a half smile.  "Come over here and get some plates and forks.

It looked like his family's tough love was starting right now. 

Fighting down anger at their betrayal, Ethan forcefully shoved the wheels of the chair and moved over to the counter.  His mother handed him plates down from the cabinet and he put them on his lap, then she gave him a roll of paper towels and silverware.

"I'll bring the rest," she told him.

"Mighty nice of you," Ethan grumbled then wheeled back to the table and sat the plates on the table. 

Terri didn't move to set the table, she just lifted an eyebrow and took a sip of her coffee.  With a growl, he handed her a plate, then shoved one in Joel's direction
.  Humor danced in the asshole's eyes as he took it and sat it in front of him.

"
Ya'll drove four hours here today just to torment me?" he grated handing each of them a fork, before ripping off a paper towel and passing the roll to his sister.

"It's our job," Terri said and had the audacity to smile.  "Someone has to save you from yourself."

"What if I don't want saving and it's not worth the trouble of trying?  Why the hell can't you just leave me alone?"

"Oh, it's worth it...you'll see
.  And I'm here because I love you," she told him cheerfully. 

Ethan's
fists clenched itching to close around her small neck.

"Trust me when I tell you she's not going to let you rest, or give up," Joel told him with a wide grin.  "She's one woman who won't let a man wallow in a good funk, no matter
how well deserved," his brother-in-law informed and turned adoring eyes on his wife. 

The love between the
couple was a tangible thing, and although it thrilled Ethan to see his sister so happy after all she'd gone through with her ex-husband, it also made him realize how desolate his own life was now. 

Odds were good that he would
never have that kind of relationship with a woman now.  Who the hell wanted a cripple who couldn't do shit anymore?  Especially one as young as he was.  People would look at him like a freak, women would pity him, but nobody would love him like that. 

Emotion boiled in his chest and
pushed up into his throat making it burn along with his eyes.  "I'm not hungry," he said to no one in particular, then spun his chair and wheeled as fast as he could toward his room. 

Ethan hadn't cried since he
fell off his bike at ten years old and skinned his knee, and he wasn't going to do it now.  Not in front of anyone anyway. 

Pushing harder against the wheels, he got inside the bedroom then
slammed the bedroom door behind him and locked it, just in time to keep the hot tear that tracked down his cheek private.  He reached up and swiped it away angrily, then sucked in a deep breath, burying the rest of his misery deep inside.

Moving to his bed, he parked the chair then threw himself face first onto the mattress. 
Pain shot through him and he stifled a moan into his pillow.  Pathetic.

Loud knocking started at the door, but
he knew it was his sister, so he ignored it.  Whoever it was, he didn't want to talk to them.  Ethan did not want to talk to anyone now. 

His family wanted a
breakthrough, they got it.  More like a breakdown.  He needed space from them to figure out what he was going to do now that they weren't going to help him anymore.

The knocking
continued then the door knob jiggled. 

"If you think that's gonna keep me out, you must not remember I know how to pick this lock," Terri
shouted through the door. 

Ethan knew that of course. 
He had always intended to install a second lock that she couldn't get past, but he never had.  Terri was a resourceful female, so he figured it would probably be a waste of time anyway.

H
ow many times had she broken in here to
borrow
something from him? 

His G.I. Joe toys to have a mock wedding with her Barbie dolls,
his Operation or Twister games when her friends came over, nothing was sacred.  If Terri wanted it, she came in here and got it. 

Once she became a teenager, she
upped her game to commandeering his razors to shave her damned legs, and his t-shirts to sleep in.  She always returned his stuff, but it aggravated the crap out of him.

E
ven though they argued like cats and dogs, Ethan missed those days, and he missed the closeness he used to share with his sister.  He would do anything for Terri, and she would do anything for him.  That's just the way it had always been. 

Especially in high school.

Much to the dismay of the varsity football coach, Ethan had gotten in more fights with guys he knew shouldn't be sniffing around his sister.  They soon realized if they messed with his sister, he messed them up, so they showed her the respect she deserved, or they stayed away.  Except for her damned ex-husband, he'd always been successful in weeding out the bad eggs.  That is one guy he would love to teach some respect.