by J. M. Madden
Gabe had been shot in the right femur. The bullet had shattered the bone but more importantly, it had nicked the femoral artery. Surgeons were repairing it now, but there was a chance they wouldn’t know how the surgery had gone for hours, once blood flow in the leg was confirmed.
Julie listened to everything her friend Cari told her, then went back to waiting. Gabe had been in the swamp, so the chance for infection in the wound was extremely high.
This was the hard part about being a nurse; knowing all of the worst-case scenarios, everything that could possibly go wrong. But it also allowed her to know that the body was an amazingly resilient organism, especially a body in top physical condition, like a Navy SEAL.
She tried to remember that as she walked into the ICU an hour later. Gabe looked like death warmed over. He was breathing on his own but his right leg was strung up in a traction device. His face was still dark, as if somebody had tried to get the greasepaint off, then given up. Moving closer to the bed she reached out to touch his face.
“He’s a tough dude,” a nurse murmured as she came in to check his vitals. “Woke up right after surgery and asked for you. He shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
Julie smiled. “You don’t know Gabe.”
In spite of the woman’s words it took him several more hours to rouse fully, and as soon as he did, she wished he hadn’t. Pain pinched his face and he looked around, confused. Julie moved forward, locking her hand on his. “You’re okay, Gabe. You were in an accident but you’re going to be okay.”
He blinked heavily and his hand tightened on hers a little, then he gave her a small smile. “I love you, Julie.”
She laughed. “I love you too, handsome.”
His other hand moved restlessly, down toward his leg.
“You were shot in the leg. Do you remember that?”
He nodded once. “Burns like fire,” he gasped.
Julie was sure it did. The nurse brought more pain medication and he drifted off to sleep again.
A doctor that she didn’t know arrived a couple of hours later, and he seemed pleased with Gabe’s progress. When he pulled back the bandaging to check the wound, Julie stared, aghast. Gabe’s leg had been destroyed, then very carefully put back together again. The skin was puckered a little oddly to make up for the deficit in his thigh and pins were screwed into the length of the bone. Until she had seen the injury for herself, she’d had no idea how badly injured he was.
This was going to be a long recovery.
* * *
GABE WOKE TO a burning pain so intense, it made him cry out. His right leg throbbed and when he tried to sit up, pain sliced through him even more. Going still, he dragged in air as he tried to breathe through the agony.
“I know it hurts, Gabe, but she’s coming with the shot. Just a few minutes and it will feel better. I promise.”
Julie’s voice was a balm to his soul. He knew he was in a hospital but he didn’t know how bad he’d been shot up. “What’s wrong with my leg?”
There was bandage around his thigh, he could see now, and his leg was stretched out.
“The bullet shattered your femur and nicked your artery. They’ve put you all back together and you’ve got decent blood flow to your foot, but there’s a very high risk of infection.”
Oh, yeah, the swamp. With all its lovely, muddy water full of nasty organisms.
Another wave of pain rolled through him and he gritted his teeth. “You know, I’m getting tired of this shit. Maybe it’s time for a change. The last bullet didn’t hurt nearly this bad.”
Julie’s cool palm drifted over his face and she leaned down to look him in the eye. “I go where you go.”
The nurse arrived eventually and gave him another shot to knock his ass out. “I’ll be back,” he told Julie as his lids began to droop. “I love you.”
* * *
HE STAYED IN the ICU for four days, semi-drugged to keep him from moving. The toes of his right foot stayed pink, testifying to the blood flowing through them. On the fifth, just before he was to be moved out of the ICU, the first signs of infection started. In spite of the massive loads of antibiotics they’d been pumping into his body, angry red streaks began to radiate out from the incisions.
The antibiotics were changed as Gabe’s fever started to spike.
Julie had talked people through similar situations her entire career, but all of that training flew out the window as his vitality began to wane. His skin turned clammy and pale, and he shifted restlessly with fever in spite of being under sedation.
They fought the new infection for two days before they slowly began to get it under control. Gabe had lost a lot of weight from the ordeal and as soon as they took him off the sedation the next day, he complained of being hungry.
She laughed when his RN told her that as soon as Julie walked into the room. She’d run home to shower and change once she’d realized he was pretty much out of the woods. Gabe looked up to see her standing in the doorway and smiled.
“Did you bring food?” he rasped.
Julie shook her head. “Nope. Sorry.” She crossed the room and leaned down to give him a kiss. “Want me to see if I can get you something?”
“Nah, the nurse is getting me my steak dinner.”
Julie laughed at his joke, because there was no way he would be able to take down a steak as weak as he was right then. “Maybe you should start with something a little easier on your system,” she murmured.
Though he pretended to growl, she could see how worn out he was. Though he’d never left the bed, he’d just fought for his life. That took a lot of energy out of a person.
“Was anyone else hurt? If somebody told me I don’t remember.”
“I don’t think so. You, apparently, were the lucky one to break in the new guy.”
Gabe sighed. “Hell, it was him? Butter’s replacement? I knew he was twitchy but I didn’t realize he was going to shoot me. Fucker,” he grumbled.
Julie had said the same thing many times over in the last few days. “Supposedly, a cottonmouth crossed directly in front of him and he jerked back. His finger slipped in to the trigger and fired.”
At least, that was what Bartlett had told her. Gabe might be told a different, less sterile story when he saw him.
“There’s nothing you can do about it right now and I’m sure he feels guilty as hell for shooting a fellow SEAL.”
Gabe’s eyes burned. “If he has problems with snakes we’ll just have to ship his ass to Alaska.”
Julie laughed, but Gabe didn’t, and she wondered if he had the power to do that.
“So, how long do I have to be in here?” he asked her.
Julie very carefully controlled her face, but something must have slipped because his eyes narrowed on her. “What? Tell me, Julie.”
She cringed and looked down at her twisted hands. “I’m not sure how long you’ll have to be in here. That’s the truth.”
“But,” he prompted.
She looked up at him. “You’re going to be pinned for a couple of weeks.” She motioned to the steel bar running the length of his thigh, holding the pins that were holding his leg together in place. “And then, depending upon how your leg heals, you’ll have to have another surgery. The cage isn’t long term. To actually fix your leg, they’re talking about putting in an intramedullary nail. Basically, a long pin down through the shaft of the bone to pull all the pieces together they can. Then, weeks down the road, you’ll have rehab. Possibly for a long time.”
“Are we talking months?”
She nodded. “More than likely.”
“But I’ll be fine after that, right?”
Julie winced. She didn’t want to lie but she didn’t want to tell him the truth, either, even though he deserved it. “I’m not sure. We’ll have to wait and see. You had massive damage to the bone and the surrounding muscle. You’ll have to learn to compensate for the injury.”
Gabe blinked at her, his brown eyes almost black with turmoil
. Julie crossed to the side of the bed and took his hand in hers. “I’m not a doctor, Gabe. I could be completely off about this.”
“But you are an aftercare nurse. You’ve seen amputations and other bad injuries. Was this as bad as those?”
Julie knew she was wading into dangerous waters, but he had to be prepared for the fight he was going to face. “Yes. It’s bad, but it wasn’t an amputation. With your determination, I strongly believe you will be back in top form in no time.”
Gabe seemed to sense that she wasn’t telling him everything, but Julie refused to demoralize him. Was his injury bad? Yes. It was the worst she’d seen without actually being an amputation.
Chapter Ten
THE INACTION WAS going to kill him.
If it wasn’t for his Team keeping him occupied, he would have gone nuts long ago. Every single day there was somebody new waiting for him to wake up. While Julie worked her shifts at the hospital, one of the guys came to sit with him. Or play games. Or watch TV. As soon as Julie arrived, the Team member disappeared. He was very rarely left alone to stew in his own juices.
As much as he appreciated his Team supporting him, though, he missed Butter. Over the past few weeks, he’d come to the realization that a situation could be as bad or as good as you made it. Butter had made decisions that Gabe never would have. In spite of the never ending support he could have had, that Gabe was experiencing now, Butter had chosen to end his life.
That was not what he would do.
Gabe vowed to return to fighting form before winter.
As he stared out the window of his room, summer began to slip into fall and he counted down the time before he could start the serious rehab.
The surgery to insert the nail had gone off without a hitch. And now, weeks later, he was ready to start gaining back what he’d lost.
Julie had left her job at Petrovic’s office, gladly, she’d told him. She’d been going nuts there, she was so dissatisfied with her job. She’d returned to Walter Reed full-time now so that she could be closer to him in the rehab facility down the street, but he worried about her. There were dark circles under her eyes and when he asked her about them, she gave him some flip answer. After being in the hospital so long, he could understand how the nurses could burn out.
Restless, Gabe worked his way out of bed. He propped the crutches under his arms and headed for the weight room. He couldn’t work his leg but he could sure as hell work his upper body.
When the day finally came for the doctor to read his most recent x-rays and decide whether or not he could start rehab, he tried not to snap at the guy with impatience. He’d waited so long and the boredom and inaction was going to kill him. Literally, his muscles were wasting away.
After much hemming and hawing, the doctor nodded. He could go to rehab.
Gabe and Julie celebrated by having pizza in his room.
“I’m so ready to get moving again. I want to run.”
Wincing, she held up a cautionary hand. “Don’t get too excited. You have to start with walking, and that will be painful enough at first.”
* * *
DAMN, SHE WAS right. Three days later Gabe was giving serious thought to punching the guy currently straightening his leg against the mat. The muscles around the gunshot wound were quivering with fatigue. Snatching at the towel beside him, Gabe mopped sweat off his face, more tired than he could remember being since waking up in Walter Reed after the first surgery.
The rehab guy, Gabe thought his name was Trent, flexed Gabe’s knee, sending the muscles into a new flurry of quivers.
Julie walked into the room later that evening and made a commiserating sound as she pressed kisses across his face. “You look completely whipped. Can I do anything for you?”
She hovered over him and his eyes drifted to her breasts. For some reason she’d taken off her scrub shirt and only wore her plain white undershirt, which outlined her breasts to perfection. Julie noticed his attention and posed a little playfully. “I don’t know if you’re ready for any heavy duty action yet.”
Gabe gave her a look. She was probably right but man he would like to try.
“I have an idea,” she murmured.
Gabe tracked her as she moved around the room. First she went to the door and flipped the lock. Then she moved to the bathroom and ran a basin of steaming hot water. As she returned to the bed she grabbed a washcloth and towel from the rack.
The look in her eyes made Gabe’s cock harden.
He still wore the t-shirt and shorts from rehab. He hadn’t had the energy to sit in the shower and get cleaned up. And now, as she began to tug the clothes out of the way, he was extremely thankful.
Julie soaked the washcloth then twisted as much water out of the cloth as she could. While it was still hot she draped it over his right pectoral. The heat sank into his abused body. Pushing a wheelchair used completely different muscles, he’d learned. She did the same movement several times, moving the heat all over his body. Yes, she scrubbed too, but the warmth was what made him sigh.
Then she reached his lower belly and he remembered what had started all this. Without jostling his leg she tugged his boxer-briefs down, then wrapped his hard cock in that cloth.
It had been weeks now since they’d made love, right before he’d left for the field. As she bent over to sink her mouth down his length, Gabe groaned. The sight of her tongue reaching out to stroke the head of his cock, savoring the taste of him, ratcheted his arousal through the roof. Gripping his hard length in her hand she started to pump, timing the movement of her tongue. Within just a few seconds, Gabe was a goner. Crying out, he gripped the sheets in his fists and let the orgasm rock through him.
When he looked down, Julie ginned him. The washcloth had caught the mess and had been disposed of. “How do those endorphins feel, honey?”
Gabe laughed. “Awesome. Do you do these sponge baths for all your patients?”
Returning his grin she leaned over to kiss him on the lips. “Nope. Only the ones I love.”
He pulled her up onto the bed with him in a hug. This was exactly the relaxation he’d needed after the demanding rehab.
A couple of days later, Gabe was on his feet and realized he had a new problem. Yes, the bone was growing back together but there was a deficit. His right leg was now two centimeters shorter than his left. No, not a lot, but enough that his gait was off just a touch. At night, when he was done with the rehab work and luxuriating in a hot shower, he could really feel the pinch in his back from compensating for the difference.
It was very hard not to get depressed when he realized this would be a permanent problem. Possibly enough of a problem to knock him out of the SEALs.
Julie seemed to know that he was having trouble with it all because she showed up in a dress as he was getting out of the shower. Gabe stared at her, stunned at how pretty she looked. “You take my breath away,” he told her.
She beamed at him, her green eyes narrowing with her smile. “Thank you. And I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that you are on your feet. I thought you might like to celebrate.”
In spite of the tiredness, excitement flared to life. “What did you have in mind? Another sponge bath?”
Laughing, Julie shook her head and leaned up for a kiss. “I thought we could go grab some ice cream. Put your shorts on and we’ll go for a drive.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. He had barely been outside at all. Moving carefully, Gabe got dressed then eyed the wheelchair she brought before waving it away. “I can walk to the car.”
She gave him a look but complied, handing him his crutches with a smile. Within just a few minutes they were cruising down the interstate toward the coast, windows down to enjoy the cooling evening. Gabe was curious but didn’t say anything. It was too nice just being out of the facility.
Eventually she pulled off the road to a little roadside snack shop. He remembered they had been a couple years before, on one of their dates. After giving her his order, Gab
e walked to a bench that overlooked the beach.
The waves crashed against the rocky shore and Gabe wished he could be out there in it. Unfortunately, he didn’t see himself training with his team for a very long time.
If ever.
Julie handed him his chocolate waffle cone and sat beside him to eat her own. “So, how are you doing, really? Please don’t tell me fine again.”
Gabe sighed. He didn’t know if he wanted to articulate his fears. That might make them too real. But, this was Julie. “I’m not doing as well as I’d hoped,” he admitted. “I thought this would be one of those things I just powered through, but it’s not working that way. The pain is more than I ever expected and I can’t exercise it away.”
Julie nodded, leaning against his shoulder. “Your bone is growing back and filling in. It is painful. Unfortunately, it will be painful for a long time.”
The doctor had told him that, too. Just today, actually.
“I get to go home soon. He thinks within the week. Then I’ll have outpatient rehab.”
Julie’s brows lifted in surprise. “That’s excellent! I’m surprised you didn’t tell me that first,” she laughed.
But Gabe didn’t feel like laughing with her.
“I’m worried that I won’t be able to go back to the Team.”
Julie’s expression turned serious. “I think you’ve known that was a possibility since you were injured. It was a devastating injury, Gabe.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But I guess I never really believed it until now. My body has never let me down before. Through BUD/S and all the years in the field, my body has been a machine. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t be a SEAL.”
Making a face, she turned to stare at him. “Are you serious? You can be anything. Just because your leg can’t take the rigors or being a SEAL it doesn’t mean it can’t take the rigors of other jobs. I mean, SEALs are in a class of their own.” She waved a hand in frustration. “I’m not explaining this very well. SEALs actually do go on to other jobs, you know, and kick ass. Did you plan on being the Bull Frog?”