Her nurse followed her into the room. In the beginning the man had had to help her, but now, it was more a case of him watching to ensure she was moving safely. “When are you seeing Chris again?” Chuck asked that as she slid her full-length track pants on. She was getting the hang of dressing with the prosthesis on, though it was easier to put the loose-fitting pants on first and then put the prosthetic on.
“I have to call him and reschedule.”
“I see.”
Chris Williams was her peer counselor. He’d lost his lower right leg in combat. She’d been seeing him twice a week ever since she landed in San Diego after leaving Germany. She liked him and had even met his wife, Rosemary. He kept trying to get her to talk about her anger, but she couldn’t see the point of it. Shit happened, and she was dealing with everything just fine—or at least, the best she could. She was alive, and that was the most important thing.
Chris had said it, her folks said it, hell even Sean and Noah had said it. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful to be alive. She was. But…just but.
She put on her smile and looked Chuck in the eye. She didn’t mean to lie to him, but she guessed in a way, she had.
“I will call him tomorrow.”
“See that you do, Brittany.”
She nodded and reached for her cane as she got to her feet. Chuck and Linda had been hinting that she really didn’t need the cane. She could walk on her own one foot, and one fake foot. The only help she needed was her crutches, for those times at night when she was without her prosthesis. They kept telling her that, and she pretended not to hear them. She saw Chuck’s look as he eyed the device.
She decided to be totally honest with him since she hadn’t been a few minutes before. “Look, I just feel more secure with the cane when I’m away from the house. In here, yes, I walk fine. But out there it’s a world of broken or uneven sidewalks, gravel parking lots, and spongy grass.”
“You should set yourself a goal. A date by which you’ll donate that cane for use by someone who really needs it.”
“I’ll see you next Tuesday, Chuck.”
“Okay, see you then.” Chuck focused on her face. “You call or come in if you need to, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant, not Brittany. I guess he has a better bullshit detector on him than I thought he did.
“Yes, sir.” Out there, she’d outrank him. In here, the shoe was on the other foot. Ha, ha. If there’s no future for me in the Marines, maybe I can do stand-up comedy. Nah, I only have one leg to stand on.
She’d once read somewhere that comics were, in truth, a dark lot. That was how she felt when she got into her head the way she’d been so much of the time, lately. Dark, broken, and battered.
As she made her way out to where Sean and Noah were waiting for her, she accidentally caught her reflection in the full-length mirror. Instead of turning away, she looked. Her gaze automatically went to her left leg, but with her yoga pants on, she couldn’t really see that she was crippled. She looked beyond her leg and saw a woman who’d lost weight, one who looked…awful. It’s as if what’s been inside me lately is leeching out to taint my skin. Her hair didn’t shine, and there was no sign on her face that she’d ever really laughed.
She had to turn away. She hated what she’d seen in the mirror, and just right then, she hated herself.
Brittany stopped in front of the door and inhaled deeply. Showtime. She reached out and pushed. The door opened. Two men stood, their gazes fixed on the door, and then swiftly fixed on her. Their smiles were sweet and not only reached their eyes but seemed to live there.
What do they see in me? Brittany smiled back, and when they appeared to blur, when they left where they’d waited and came to her, she knew a moment of total weakness.
As Sean and Noah held her close, she clung to them. Maybe if I hold on tight, they’ll never leave me. “I love you both so much.”
Brittany didn’t know if the tremor she felt was from her or from them. Maybe it was from all three of them.
Sean sighed. “Thank you, baby girl.” He tilted her face up and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “We both needed to hear that.”
“I’ve been such a bitch lately. I’m sorry.”
“No.” Noah ran his hand down her hair, something he’d done almost from the beginning. No one had petted her before, and the first time he’d done it, she’d nearly melted. “You’re too hard on yourself, sweetheart. If I was going through what you’re going through? When I wasn’t crying, I’d be throwing stuff.”
She looked up at him and felt her mouth stretch into a slight smile. The move felt rusty. “I haven’t started throwing stuff. Yet.”
“See? You’re nowhere near real bitch territory.” Noah leaned over and gave her the same kind of light kiss as Sean had.
“Maybe you just need a good steak and lobster meal,” Sean said. She met his gaze, and his grin gave her a case of butterfly-belly. She’d told him very early on—probably within a week or so of meeting—what her favorite meal was. It didn’t surprise her in the least that he remembered.
Sean and Noah Kendall were the most wonderful men she’d ever met. The thought whispered in her head again that they were far too good for the likes of her, for what she could give back to them. And the seed began to sprout that if she loved them as much as she claimed, she would let them go.
As the days passed, Brittany tried to trim that weed growing in her mental garden. And each time, it came back bigger and heartier. Louder. Her time in San Diego was coming to an end, and she would soon return home—well, to her parents’ home for now.
She knew she needed to set Sean and Noah free, and she chose to do it a few days before she was scheduled to head back to Indiana.
They’d just arrived, bearing coffee and muffins from a local bakery. Her mom, as usual, kissed each of them on the cheek and then had taken her treats with her as she headed for the small den near the back of the house, to give them some privacy.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Noah sat on her left and Sean on her right at the cozy kitchen table.
“You’ve been on edge for days, baby girl. We’ve both noticed, and we’ve both been worried sick.” Sean reached out and used a finger to lift her chin. She wanted to avert her eyes from his piercing stare, but she couldn’t be that much of a coward.
She loved them both so much, and she wanted to keep them. But she couldn’t be that selfish. She couldn’t chain them to her.
They deserved a whole woman—whole in body and in spirit. At the moment, she was neither.
“I think…I think we need a break from each other.” There, she’d said it. When neither man looked particularly devastated, she rushed on. “You’ve been so good to me, and I hate myself right now, but I think we need to be apart for a bit. I…I need to figure out what I’m going to do. Where I’m going.” I need you to be away from me, so you can see what a burden I am. “I…”
“Brittany? If this is what you truly want, then why are you crying?” Sean’s words held a quaver.
“Because no matter how much it hurts me, I have to do the right thing.”
They stayed silent for a long minute. “If space is what you want, what you need, then we’ll give it to you.” Noah’s voice sounded funny, and when she looked at him, she realized he was devastated.
“We are not giving up on you, Brittany Phillips. If that’s what you’re thinking, you can get that shit right out of your head, right now. Until you can tell us you don’t love us, and mean it, we’re yours.”
Brit met Sean’s gaze. She felt her temper flare and welcomed it. “You two think you’re God’s gift to the female population? Well, get over yourselves. I need a damn break! You have no idea what it’s like to be me right now!”
Her explosion was met with silence. Inside, she was shaking. She could only hope that if she was shaking on the outside they’d attribute it to anger, and not heartbreak.
“You listen to me.” Sean cupped her face. “No, we don’t know what it�
�s like to be you.” He looked like he was going to launch into a tirade of his own. Instead, he kissed her forehead and got to his feet. He and Noah did that mind thing where they looked at each other in a way that made her wonder if they were talking telepathically. Then he met her gaze.
“But we do know what it’s like to love you and to watch you struggling and in pain. To love you and to sit in that waiting room in Germany and pray that you would make it through surgery, that you’d live.”
“Are you blowing us off, Brittany?” Noah’s question felt like a stab to her heart. His voice had sounded strained.
She was hurting them, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. “I’m not blowing you off.” Even though she believed in the end that was what this move would amount to. “I just need some time.” And she really needed to give them time. She believed once they were away from her, once they didn’t see her every day, once they got some distance, then they’d see she was a waste of time.
She was just a complete and total waste of time.
“We’ll give you some time, little one. But not too much.”
“We love you enough to do that, Brittany.” Noah stroked her hair. He bent and kissed her, a just-barely-there kiss. She felt the tension in him, and in that moment, she hated herself more than a little.
Sean wasn’t gentle in his kiss at all. His mouth devoured hers, his tongue demanded her capitulation, and Brittany became totally and instantly aroused. It was the first time sexual arousal had flowed through her since the accident.
They hadn’t made love yet, and while a part of her craved just that, the other part told her it was better this way.
Sean lifted his head, a smug look on his face as he used his thumb to rub his kiss into her lips. “We won’t wait forever.”
They didn’t slam the door on their way out. They just left. She heard the sound of their car leaving the driveway and then there was…silence.
She hadn’t heard her mom come down the hall toward the kitchen. She hadn’t known she’d heard the last few minutes.
“Oh, sweetheart, what have you done?”
Brittany looked up at her mother, at the sadness on her face. Through her tears, it seemed as if her mother’s image shimmered. “What I had to do. They deserve a whole woman. That’s not me.”
“I do believe they’re quite capable of making that decision for themselves.”
Brittany shook her head. “They’re too honorable for their own good.” She knew she was right. Hadn’t Sean just said they wouldn’t wait forever?
A couple of days later, Brittany and her mother flew back to Indianapolis. Her dad met them at the airport, and his hug held her together. It took an hour to get home. Brit’s bedroom was upstairs, pretty much how she’d left it when she’d moved into her own apartment in the city at the age of eighteen. She felt as if everything that had happened from then to now had somehow been erased, even though she knew it hadn’t.
As the days passed, she missed Sean and Noah, maybe even more than she missed her left foot and lower leg. It became harder to get up each morning as she imagined the two of them moving on with their lives. Had they gone back to Africa to oversee their company? Maybe they’d moved on to a new adventure entirely. She had no doubt that was the truth, because Sean’s last words kept echoing in her head.
Each morning she awoke, with nothing much to look forward to. She’d been giving Chris Williams the slip over the phone and hadn’t yet contacted his replacement in Indianapolis through the VA there.
Brittany felt hopeless, useless, and she thoroughly hated herself. The worst part was that she’d begun experiencing something she’d heard about but hadn’t believed in—ghost pain. She’d awaken in the night, aching, and shocked every time when she reached down to rub the ache, only to discover there was no left ankle or foot there to massage.
She’d been home two weeks when her mother let her know just how exasperated she was with her.
“You need to get outside and get some fresh air instead of moping around the house all day! Why don’t you go for a walk? It’s a beautiful day out today.”
Brittany remembered that tone. It was one she’d heard, from time to time, when she’d been a child. Once in a while she’d get in a mood and would mope and pout and just generally be disagreeable.
Moping was something her mother didn’t tolerate.
Though she didn’t really feel like it, Brittany decided to do as her mom asked. She couldn’t recall the number of times she’d strolled down this country road. There were several houses on either side of her parents’, but they were not as easily seen from the road.
The leaves of the trees—aspens, birch and even some dogwood—were lush and in full leaf, and she realized a part of her had missed this. She’d missed the green and the smell in the air, especially, like today, after a rain.
Brittany looked up and realized she’d gone further from home than she’d intended and turned to head back. Her left foot got tangled with her right one, and before she could recover, she fell.
“Ow! Damn it!” She landed on her hands and knees in the gravel at the side of the road. Her skin was stinging, both on the palms of her hands, and her knees. She eased herself onto her butt and examined her hands. Covered in grit and showing places where the skin was broken, they waivered before her. When some of her tears landed on them, they stung even more.
“I’m so fucking useless I can’t even go for a walk!” She caught sight of the hole in the right knee of her yoga pants. “Great, just great!” Her lip quivered, and she fought for control. She used her arm to wipe away her tears.
Brittany eased her legs out, straight, working the joints, trying to determine if she’d done any more damage to herself than a few abrasions. Her knees didn’t scream at her, so she guessed she’d gotten off lucky. This time. Then she looked down at her outstretched legs and realized her left one was…askew.
“Shit. Damn it to hell!” She reached down and eased her prosthesis all the way off. She must have kicked the release button with her right foot. “I ought to just throw the fucking thing away!”
And then she recalled what Noah had said at the rehab hospital that one time, when they were still with her in San Diego.
“If I was going through what you’re going through? When I wasn’t crying, I’d be throwing stuff.”
Brittany was shaking all over. She didn’t need to throw any more stuff away. She’d already thrown away the best stuff.
She’d thrown Sean and Noah away.
The sound of a car easing to a stop on the road caught her attention. Their neighbor, Mr. Clarkson, climbed out of his tan Taurus, the engine still idling, and made his way toward her.
She recalled her mom had told her he’d retired just last year. Brittany hadn’t seen him since she’d been back. He had a little less hair than she remembered, but his smile was the same.
“Looks like you need a hand there, young lady.”
“Yes, sir, I do. Thank you for stopping.” She did her best to give him a smile in return. The action hurt her heart, but she did her best to hide that. She was already showing herself at a disadvantage. She didn’t want him to see her emotional misery, too.
Mr. Clarkson might be over sixty, but he was no feather weight. He extended her a hand and helped her up. Then he insisted upon helping her into the car and driving her home.
“Thank you. I do appreciate your help.” Brittany tried not to cringe. She hated the help—no, she hated needing the help.
“You’re very welcome. It’s I who owes thanks to you for your service to our country.”
She kept quiet for the short drive to her house. It only took a moment. Rather than just letting her get out of the car, her rescuer turned off the engine and got out, holding her hand as she hopped toward the door, her prosthesis clutched in her other arm.
“Oh, Brittany!” Her mother must have seen Mr. Clarkson’s car through the window. She had the door open before Brit even made it to the front porch.
“Bick! Come help!” Her mom’s shout brought her father in a rush and before she could take a breath, he was helping Mr. Clarkson guide her to the sofa in the living room.
“Thank you again, Mr. Clarkson. Thanks, Dad.”
Her mother had left the room but returned quickly with her crutches, and a first aid kit. While her dad chatted for a moment with their neighbor, her mom began to treat her hands and her right knee.
There were no open abrasions on her left knee. That was something to be thankful for, but she was seriously having any trouble feeling thankful for anything at all.
After examining the device, she saw her prosthesis wasn’t damaged, either. As she’d suspected, she’d just somehow managed to depress the release button with her right foot when her legs tangled.
“Why don’t you go have a nap?” her mother offered. “You look tired.”
Brittany wasn’t just tired, she was exhausted. Nightmares plagued her. Each night seemed so long. She’d wake up every few hours, and when she awoke having relived the crash in her dreams, she couldn’t get back to sleep.
One night about a week after her fall, she awoke from another nightmare of the helicopter going down. Only this time, instead of being the only one seriously hurt, she was the only survivor. The only one left. She’d seen the bodies of her fellow marines, her family…even Sean and Noah.
It was too much. Her left ankle throbbed, only it wasn’t there. Her heart ached, and the enormity of what she’d done weighed her down. She was so damned tired of feeling tired. She was just tired. Nothing was getting better for her. Brittany reached for the bottle of pills on her bedside table, the prescription sleeping pills she’d received the day before to help her get more than a couple hours rest at a time. The tiny glow from her nightlight was perfect. She poured the entire contents of the bottle into her hand.
She stared down at that handful of pills. It would be so simple to just go to sleep and never wake up again.
“Brittany! Oh, baby, no!”
Her mother’s cry of anguish jerked Brittany’s attention to her. The look on her mother’s face clenched her heart. Her mother’s pain, fear, horror…she’d done that.
Love Under Two Prospectors [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting) Page 4