Abby's Two Warriors [Wounded Warriors 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Marla Monroe

  His bed had been freshly made and there was fresh ice in his water pitcher. A hole the size of someone’s fist had been taped over on the wall across from the foot of Kermit’s bed. That was why Heath’s knuckles had been scraped up. He hadn’t told her what he’d done, but it was pretty obvious now.

  How had her life gotten so complicated? The two men she’d always thought of as her closest of friends were at each other’s throats and it was somehow her fault. When had falling in love and wanting a normal life with a husband and a couple of kids gotten so out of reach? Maybe she was expecting too much from life. Or maybe she just needed to give Kermit some more time.

  * * * *

  “That was pretty harsh, Kermit,” his therapist said as he had him lifting his upper legs and holding them that way.

  “What?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “What you told the orderly to tell your fiancée. Poor man was sick looking as he walked back toward the waiting area.”

  “She needs to realize that I don’t want her hanging around me,” Kermit squeezed out as he slowly lowered what was left of his legs to the table. “And I’m not her fiancé anymore.”

  “Sounds like you haven’t told her that yet. Or maybe you just haven’t convinced her of it,” the man said.

  “Yeah, well, she’s stubborn. I’ll make sure I explain it to her a little clearer when I see her again. She’ll be back. She comes from a long line of Marines who don’t give up easily.”

  “You mean they don’t give up at all, don’t you, soldier?” That didn’t come from his therapist.

  Kermit turned his head and looked up to find Rex standing there with another man he hadn’t met before. That man had reddish brown hair that was shaggy and unkempt. Looked like he’d ridden in on a motorcycle without a helmet on. Kermit couldn’t help but wonder who he was. He didn’t look the least bit military to him.

  “No sir.” Kermit was fairly sure Rex outranked him but without a uniform there wasn’t much way to tell without asking.

  “Kermit, I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine.” He pointed toward the other man standing next to him. “This is Clark Givens. We served together. Thought he might be able to help you some with something I overheard you talk about yesterday.” Rex nodded at Clark then walked off, leaving the man hanging.

  “He always like that?” Kermit asked.

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Clark smiled for a second then lost it as he sighed. “Rex said you were talking to a friend of yours who was also a vet about him losing time. Has he been diagnosed with PTSD?”

  Kermit had to clamp down on a retort that it was none of his damn business. Again he had no idea what this man’s rank was and it was stupid to get so defensive about Heath when the man wasn’t high on his friend list right then anyway. Okay, maybe he’d forgiven him, but his all over the place emotions were going to get him into a world of trouble.

  “I’m not sure. We haven’t talked a lot about it. He’s, um, had episodes where he just sort of spaces out and reacts weird to things. He thinks something triggers it, but I don’t know. The only time I’ve seen him really do it, he was trying to stop it by pacing. He got real agitated.” Kermit was surprised he’d remembered that much with everything that was going on.

  “It sounds like what he has. There are things that can help him cope and handle the episodes. Some people even learn to stop them once they recognize what is happening. Either way, he needs to see one of the head shrinks that specializes in PTSD,” Clark said.

  The man had sat on a table next to him while he’d been talking. Now as Kermit finished another set of leg raises, the other man stopped talking.

  “Do you have it?” Kermit asked.

  “Yeah. I didn’t lose a limb over there. Got cut up with the shrapnel that took Rex’s lower leg, but I came back with the PTSD. You would think that Rex would have it worse than I do, but he doesn’t really have it at all.” The man shrugged. “There are days where I can’t function. I usually manage to drag my ass out of bed to open the gym, but there have been days where I couldn’t.”

  “How do you manage to hold down a job like that?” Kermit asked, thinking about Heath and what he was going to do if his got that bad.

  “I’m lucky. I own my own gym and train men for Ultimate Fighting. If I can’t deal, there are a couple of other guys who take over. I have a college kid that handles a lot of it for me anyway.”

  “Has it gotten any better on what you’ve tried?” Kermit asked.

  “A little bit, but not enough that it makes a lot of difference in my quality of life. Mostly Rex and I help each other. I make sure he remembers things and he makes sure I get out of bed and move on when things get bad. The medications they gave me to counteract the episodes made me too lethargic. I couldn’t function like that either. Now I mostly do a lot of self-talk and depend on Rex to keep me real.” Clark’s sheepish looking smile was kind of cute. “Thinking about maybe getting a dog or something. I’ve heard that animals help. They can sense when you’re freaking out and warn you. But I’m still just thinking about it right now.”

  “Thanks for telling me this. I’ll talk to my friend about it. If he’s really having trouble like that, you’re right. He needs to see someone.”

  “True, but more than anything, he needs someone he can count on to watch his back.” Clark leaned over and shook Kermit’s hand before walking off toward where Rex was working out without his prosthesis on.

  Seeing the other man like that after having seen him walking around as if nothing was wrong gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. What if he couldn’t do it? What if he couldn’t manage to handle walking on two prosthetics? They’d shown him videos of other vets walking on two prostheses, some were even running. There were all types to choose from as well. But would he be able to do it?

  “Okay, Kermit. Enough daydreaming. Time to work those arms, buddy. Hop on and I’ll give you a ride over to the trapeze bars.” Kermit looked at his therapist like he’d grown a pair of horns or something.

  “Are you fucking crazy? I’m not riding your back. Get the damn wheelchair,” he snarled.

  “It’s part of your therapy, man. You have to be able to hold on to me, which uses your arm strength. Now stop acting like a baby and climb on,” he said, turning his back to Kermit.

  Kermit started to push him in the ass with his foot, but that would be a stump and not a foot, and right now, it would hurt to do that. His stumps hadn’t healed all the way yet.

  Fuck! I’m not a damn invalid. I’m not!

  But he was because he couldn’t walk across the gym to the damn trapeze bars on his own. He needed someone else to at least line the wheelchair up for him to get in and out of. He could roll the damn thing though. At least he could do that much.

  It took every shred of dignity he could muster to climb on the back of his therapist and hold on while the other man carried him over to the taller table with various trapeze bars hanging over it.

  When he’d slipped off of the other man’s back to the table, the room erupted in oorahs once again. Another round of support from his fellow cripples and a reminder that he wasn’t alone. Everyone had to go through the same steps, he’d been told. They all knew what was going through his head because they’d been in that spot at one time. No, he wasn’t alone, but it sure as hell was lonely where he was right now. Now he understood when someone had once said that the worst type of loneliness in the world was when you were lonely in a crowd of people surrounding you.

  By the time they’d finally finished his exercises for the morning, Kermit was worn out. They removed his bandages and left him in a whirlpool for twenty minutes before helping him out, drying him off, and re-bandaging his stumps. He thought they looked a good bit better than they had been, but maybe that was only wishful thinking. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention to them the last three weeks. He needed to ask the nurse the next time he changed them.

  Right on time, an orderly stepped up to help him transfer to th
e wheelchair. He was doing a lot better on that now. He’d had to do it so often, it should have been second nature by now, but then he hadn’t really been putting any effort into it until now. And that bothered him. Why was he suddenly trying harder? Why should he bother? He had no future. What could someone like him do for a living when all he’d ever trained for was found on the water? He’d planned to join the Coast Guard after the Marines. Now he wouldn’t be able to do that. What the hell could he do?

  Once again he had a bitter taste in his mouth and sour outlook on his future. While he’d been down in the gym surrounded by others in similar circumstances it had been easier to handle the future one exercise at a time. But up here, without the support and only his own humanity for support, Kermit felt more than just the weight of the world on his shoulders, he felt the weight of his failures crushing him, riding him to the ground.

  “Here we are. Looks like you have company to welcome you back,” the orderly said as he opened the door all the way and pushed the chair through.

  He sort of expected to see Heath there lounging in his chair, but it wasn’t the other man he saw when the door was fully open, it was Abby. She wasn’t sitting in the chair, she was sitting on the edge of his bed, obviously waiting on him.

  Chapter Seven

  The second the orderly left the room, Kermit snapped at her. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you I wasn’t interested in you anymore. I told that orderly to tell you to leave and not come back.”

  It was worse than she’d imagined, Abby realized. He’d told the poor man to get rid of her. Well, he was going to have to get rid of her himself—in person. She wasn’t budging without hashing this out with him. She refused to allow herself to buy into his act that he was through with her.

  “Well, he didn’t tell me that. He said you didn’t want me seeing you work out like that and the other guys weren’t comfortable around strangers. I decided to wait for you in here instead of in the waiting area. The chairs down there are hard.” She smiled sweetly at him and slid off the bed to offer him the Coke she’d bought him. “Would you like me to get some ice for you to pour it over? The ice in your water pitcher is melted now.”

  “No. I want you to leave me the hell alone. Why are you hanging around me like this? Are you one of those weirdo women who get off on doing a man with stumps?” he asked with a growl in his voice. “I mean, that’s sick, Abby.”

  “Kermit. Stop it. Stop it right now!” she said in a near whisper. Her emotions where all but choking her right then. “You’re deliberately trying to hurt me, but I’m not going to let you do it. You’re hurting, I get that. I sure as hell don’t blame you, but you know what? You’re not the only one! I’m hurting, too. Just like your parents are hurting and Heath is hurting.”

  Abby held up her hand when Kermit started to say something. No doubt it would have been something smart-assed, but she was going to get her words out first.

  “I get that it’s nothing compared to what you’re feeling, but by God, you’re going to at least acknowledge that we’re hurting, too. Just imagining the kind of pain you’ve gone through and are still having brings me to my knees sometimes. It hits me so hard I lose my breath, and I know it’s nothing compared to the real thing. Thinking about the road you have ahead of you makes my heart hurt and tears me up inside. That road is going to be long and hard and never ending, Kermit, but it doesn’t have to be traveled alone. You’ve got family and friends who want more than anything to be there for you, to help you take those next steps.” Abby licked her lips and swallowed. “And you’ve got me. I want to be there with you every single step. I want to catch you when you start fall, and when I can’t hold you up, I want to be the pillow under you to cushion your fall.”

  Abby watched his face the entire time she was talking. Every muscle jump and every nerve tick told her she was getting to him, but would it be enough? She loved him so much that Kermit had the ability to crush her with so little effort. Fear led her heart on a brutal race as it filled her stomach with a burning sensation that said she might not recover from whatever her lover decided to say next.

  “You,” he began then stopped. The muscles around his mouth worked as he seemed to struggle with something. “You have no idea what I need or want, Abby Redgrave. What makes you think that you’re the answer to all my needs and prayers? Funny, I never thought of you as being that conceited before. Guess I was wrong.”

  “Kermit…” she tried to speak but he stopped her.

  “No! You listen to me now. Okay, I loved you once. I did. But war has a way of changing you. You realize that there is no real happiness out there. You have to make that yourself and if you try to live on a dream, when it dies, you’re left with nothing but a bunch of bills you can’t pay and kids you can’t take care of. That’s not what I want anymore, Abby. I tried to make it enough, but it isn’t. Now that I’m like this.” He waved his arms at his bandaged lower legs. “It just proves my point. The dream is gone and my reality is this. I’m stuck with months of rehab, maybe years. I have no way to support myself, much less a wife. I see no future ahead of me and that means there’s no future for us, Abby. Stop torturing both of us and go home. Go back to Tampa where you belong. I don’t belong there anymore.”

  Abby stared at him. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. She wasn’t even sure if she could move. Everything he said did make sense if you didn’t believe in anything anymore. It was obvious that Kermit was in that mindset. He’d let go of everything instead of holding on as tightly as he could. She wasn’t so sure she was strong enough to hold on for both of them anymore. It had been a long three months. The last four or five weeks had tested everything in her.

  They’d moved from his not acknowledging her at all to refusing to let her in. Then they got to pushing the blame on her and Heath for having an “affair” and moved on to I’m a man and women turn me on. Here they were at his declaration that it was over. He didn’t want her or need her and even if he did, he had nothing to give her.

  Abby let it all sink in. It hurt. In fact, it hurt a hell of a lot, but she still wasn’t sure how much of it he really believed. Still, fighting him was only going to make things worse. Worse for him and for her.

  She nodded her head, so what if it nodded a little too fast. Then she looked up, fighting back the tears and cleared her throat.

  “I’m sorry, Kermit. I’m sorry I’ve made this worse for you. I only wanted to help, to be here if you needed me. Your injuries, the loss of your legs is horrible and tragic, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. It matters only because of what it means to you. I’m sorry.”

  The last came out on a strangled sob, but she managed to make it to the door before she completely broke down. She made it all the way down the hall to the elevator before she lost all control. Instead of waiting on a car to make it up, Abby found the stairs and raced down them as if she could run fast enough she might manage to outrun the pain that was right behind her waiting to consume her.

  When she burst through the front doors of the hospital and jogged to her car, she thought she was home free, but before she could unlock the door to the car and get in, someone stopped her.

  “Ma’am? Abby, right? Are you okay?” The voice sounded familiar but she wasn’t going to look up. Not with tears running down her cheeks and hysteria dogging her as hard as it was right then.

  “Yes. I’m fine. Thank you,” She pulled her key free of the lock and started to open the door, but a hand got to the handle before she did and started slowly pulling it open. Abby had to step back.

  “Don’t let him drive you away, Abby. He needs you. He’s just too stubborn and in too much pain right now to realize it,” the man said.

  “Maybe I can’t hold on any longer. I gave up everything at home to come here to help him and it has been weeks and weeks of him refusing to even let me in to see him. Now that I finally wore him down enough to let me in, all he can say is that he doesn’t love me anymore and hasn’t for som
e time. He’s accused me of having an affair with his best friend, of being clingy, and of downplaying his injuries. I’m not sure I’m strong enough after all. Maybe I’m not the one to help him through this.” She slid past him to climb into the car. When she looked up, she recognized the man from the other day, who’d been introduced as Rex.

  “Thank you for trying to help him. I hope you won’t give up on him. I’m not sure what I can anymore.” She closed the door and started the engine.

  When she pulled out of the parking lot, she checked her rearview mirror, but he was gone. Now with everything else clawing at her, she had Rex’s words asking her not to give up. What about her? She needed Kermit’s help just as much as he needed hers, but he wasn’t going to give it.

  Abby jerked the wheel, making a turn into a vacant lot in order to change directions and head to Heath’s apartment. It was close to the hospital since he’d spent a lot of time in therapy right after he got back stateside. She needed to talk to him about Kermit and what he planned to do. If Heath would stick by him regardless if she was there or not, she could leave without feeling the guilt from Rex’s words eating her alive. If he wouldn’t, she wasn’t sure what she would do.

  * * * *

  “Abby. You can’t leave. He needs you.” Heath couldn’t stand the idea of her hurting like she was, but he knew that the two of them were meant to be together. She had to keep trying.

  “Heath, he won’t have anything to do with me. All that happens is that he gets upset and stops talking. I’m not doing him any good. If anything, I’m keeping his blood pressure up because he doesn’t want me around.” Abby threw up her hands and continued to pace in front of where he sat on the couch.

  Her face was a mess, but Heath could care less what she looked like. He loved her and that made it all the harder to beg her to stay where she would be miserable and tortured by the man she loved. Instead he wanted to hold her and take her away from the pain and rejection she was feeling. But that wouldn’t have been right and eventually she would have resented him for it. No, Abby needed to stay and be there for Kermit.