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

  “You’re my best friend, Kermit. I wasn’t going to let my weakness for your woman come between us. I’m still not. She’s yours. I knew that back then and I know it now. All you have to do for it be like before is tell her how much you love her and that you’re sorry for the things you said and why you said them. She’ll understand and after a suitable time of making you grovel at her feet, she’ll forgive your stupid ass.” Heath started to stand up again.

  “Sit down, Heath. We’re not finished with this. I want this settled before another day goes by.”

  “What’s not settled?” Heath asked.

  “I know Abby won’t care that I will never be able to do some of the things we used to do together anymore. I know she loves me for me and not for my legs and what I can’t do any longer. I know it’s not lip service when she says it doesn’t matter. That’s the amazingly wonderful woman that she is, but I don’t want her to have to make those sacrifices for me. I don’t want to lie in bed at night thinking about how something happened that day that might have gone a different direction if I’d still had my own legs. Those are regrets and I refuse to live them with Abby.”

  Heath watched as Kermit looked down at his hands for a minute, the silence testimony to how much he’d thought about his next words. Heath wasn’t sure he wanted to hear them.

  “Pushing her onto you would have taken the responsibility of her love and acceptance off of me. I could put it all on you to have to deal with and leave me free to wallow in self-pity and laziness. I was tired and didn’t want to fight anymore, Heath. I’m ashamed of that, but it’s the truth. I just didn’t want to have to try at anything ever again. Putting Abby’s pain and needs and happiness on your shoulders was a cowardly thing to do, but it was also easier than facing the fact of my fallibility. I wasn’t the king of anything anymore and my pride hurt.”

  “I get that, Kermit, but we all lose that at some point in our lives anyway. By the time it actually happens, it doesn’t mean as much as it did when we were younger and it won’t affect you or Abby either. You aren’t weak like those idiots who go through a midlife crisis and buy a big cock and a young girl to bring it all back to life.”

  “Yeah, well I had thought I’d have a few years before that happened and maybe even a few kids to remind me now and then. I got caught off guard and took it out on everyone around me, you included.” Kermit smiled almost sadly. “The thing is, even though I know none of it matters to Abby and never will if I don’t screw things up, it matters to me. I want her to have the best I can give her. I want her to be happy and safe.”

  “I get that,” he said frowning at the other man.

  “That means she needs you, too, Heath. You’re the only man I would ever trust with my Abby. She’s our Abby now.” He smiled and it actually lit up his eyes.

  Heath’s stomach rolled. “She doesn’t need me, Kermit. All she needs is you.”

  “You’re not listening,” Kermit said, shaking his head. “When she needs to be carried up the stairs for some reason, I might not always be able to. My freaking stumps will always be sensitive and some days I won’t be able to put a lot of pressure on them. When she needs fucking up against the wall and my legs are too weak that day to do it, she has you. When she needs to get away and hiking in the mountains is the only way she can get that freeing feeling she needs sometimes, you’ll be with her so neither one of us worries that something could happen to her.”

  Heath wanted to scream at Kermit to shut up. He wasn’t going to be his best friend’s substitute legs when the need arose. That very statement flew out at the next example the man gave.

  “Stop it, Kermit! Fucking stop it! I’d do anything for you, man. Give you my fucking kidney if you needed it, but I won’t be your stand-in set of legs when you need me. I can’t turn how I feel on and off on demand and you shouldn’t even ask me to,” Heath yelled, springing to his feet and knocking his chair over in the process.

  He snatched up the dishes and stomped over to the sink where he nearly broke them when he slammed the plates onto the counter. Heath drew in a steadying breath and tried to focus on his heartbeat. He needed to calm it the fuck down before he ended up having a damn coronary. What was wrong with the man?

  “Stop it, Heath! Just stop it. I’m not trying to make you my fucking stand-in. You couldn’t replace my legs if you wanted to. They were mine and now they’re gone! I’m not trying to use you to keep Abby happy so she’ll stay with me either. I’m trying to make us all happy. We’ve been heading down this road since almost the very beginning. I always knew how you felt about her and that she was attracted to you but it didn’t bother me. It should have. Don’t you see that? It should have pissed me off enough that I either stopped seeing her or cut it off with you, but I didn’t because you were both equally important to me.” Kermit drew in a deep breath and ran one hand through his hair before jerking at it. It had grown to the point that he needed to decide what to do about it. It either needed to come off, or he needed to get it shaped and let it grow out to a more natural length. Heath had a feeling his friend could care less about his hair right then.

  “Look. I love Abby. You know that. She knows that. You love her and I think she suspects but is trying to ignore it. I know it. I’ve seen that look in your eyes in my own eyes when I look in the mirror. That look has been in your eyes almost as long as it’s been in mine, yet it never once bothered me, Heath.”

  “You threw a fit back in the hospital about it, Kermit. You had Abby so upset and sick I was worried she’d do something stupid for a while. Then I thought it was all my fault and I couldn’t fucking remember what I might have said that you would think we’d made love. You crushed us, Kermit. You’re telling me that was all an act! Fuck you! That wasn’t an act, man.” Heath would have thrown the plate he had in his hand at the other man if his shoulder wasn’t giving him hell right then.

  “I admit that after I sat there trying to figure out what to do to get Abby to leave me alone, it hit me that you’d loved her forever and had just told me the day before how you’d kissed her and almost couldn’t let her go when she pushed away. I sat there and thought about it until I got upset and then fed it, man. I fed all my frustration and rage about what had happened to me into it until I was furious. Then I told the nurse to let her come in and I hit her with all of it.” Kermit looked up at Heath and nodded at where he was still holding the plate in a death grip. “Either throw it at me or put it down. You’re going to break it and cut your hand up, man. It’s not worth it. Hell, I’m not worth it.”

  “Don’t you dare give me that bullshit! If you weren’t worth it, Kermit, Abby and I would have already left your ass to wallow and stink up the VA weeks ago. Abby gave up everything she had to fall back on when she found out where you were going to be taken and rushed to your side believing you needed and wanted her. Everything, Kermit! Her home that she gushed over every spare second anyone would listen to her. Her job that was perfect for her. And then she came here and found that she’d done it all for nothing. I’m not so sure she knows anything anymore, man. I’m not so sure you’re going to be able to talk her into accepting you back let alone adding me to the equation. Think about it. Think hard before you start down this road.”

  He saw it the instant that Kermit got it. His face paled and his eyes glassed over with tears as much as emotion. Heath maybe should have been a little easier with what he’d said, but the truth hurt just as much as love did. It was time they all made some hard decisions because making a choice like what Kermit was suggesting was far more serious with greater consequences than deciding to jump into a normal relationship would be.

  “Look. I’m sorry, Kermit, but you need to think about it. I’m going to shower and dress. I have some things I need to do before we head out to eat lunch and then head to the gym for therapy. My fucking shoulder hurts like a damn bitch today. I’m going to find out what I need to do when I overdo it while we’re at the VA.” Heath didn’t wait for Kermit to say anything. The
last glimpse he had of his best friend was of him leaning back in the chair with his eyes closed and his metal sticks straight out in front of him as if his knees wouldn’t bend.

  How did Heath really feel about sharing Abby with his best friend? He didn’t know. He would have said damn happy to share as long as he could be with her, but that would have been on the spur of the moment. He really needed to think about this. Was he willing to settle at being a third or would he grow resentful after a few months or years had passed? Right then he didn’t know what to think, but he did know that whatever he and Kermit decided, they had to be united on it or Abby wouldn’t give either of them a second chance.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Are you sure it’s not a bother?” Abby asked the pretty golden haired woman who was living with Rex and Clark. “Clark had said you could give me more information on how to help Heath.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, Abby. Come on in and have a seat.” Abby sat down on one of the cushioned but sturdy straight chairs across the desk from Ellie as she closed the door to the office.

  “Those chairs aren’t the most comfortable for family members, but for the various amputees I see they give them the support they need to get up and down without making them feel like they’re falling. When you lose a limb, even just part of a hand, you are nearly always conscious of the change in your body’s ability to balance.”

  “I guess I hadn’t thought about that. I mean I knew Kermit was having that issue, but I hadn’t thought about someone who hadn’t lost part of a leg would feel the same things,” Abby said, wondering if Heath ever felt that way when his arm was acting up.

  “So from what you told me on the phone, Heath has issues with PTSD and wanted more information on what was available that might help him. Is that right?” Ellie asked.

  “That’s right, but I would have thought Rex or Clark would have told you about him already.”

  “Oh, no. The three of us don’t discuss anything about the men and women here among ourselves. What they talk about out on that floor is between them. What I talk about in here with them or their family members stays in here unless they want me to talk to them for some reason. If the guys out there thought one of us would talk to the other about something they’ve revealed about themselves, none of us would ever be able to help them. They wouldn’t open up to us.” Ellie pulled a folder out of one of the desk drawers and opened it. “Tell me what you can about his episodes and how they are affecting the different parts of his life.”

  Abby nodded and started talking. She gave her all the details she knew or had witnessed herself and talked about how it interfered with his job and that he was afraid they would fire him if he didn’t get control of them.

  “It’s not like he likes his job, but he needs it. He has to be able to pay his bills and he needs to be busy and productive or he’ll get depressed. Depression and PTSD go together anyway according to what I’ve read, but when it causes you to lose more than you already have in the first place, it could be the straw that breaks him. I refuse to let him go through that if I can help it,” Abby told the other woman.

  “Let’s talk about all the different options that are out there for him,” Ellie began. “None of the guys or gals like to talk to shrinks, but that is one way to help work through the episodes to break them down into what causes them and figure out ways to avoid it, or if that isn’t possible, conquer them. Another option is to try and control them with medication.”

  Abby interrupted her. “He’s gone that route and so far the only way any of that works is if it knocks him out and then he can’t work. And he’s been going to a psychiatric doctor off and on for almost six months now. He saw one for about two months when he first got home but quit because he didn’t see any need to continue. Then about six months ago the episodes started and he finally made an appointment to go back. He says they aren’t helping him at all. That if anything, messing around in his head and with the different drugs has made them more real and the frequency has increased.”

  “When did the frequency increase, Abby?” Ellie asked.

  “About the time that Kermit got hurt,” she told the other woman.

  Ellie nodded and wrote in the folder for a few seconds. Now Abby felt like she was talking to a shrink and could see how the guys wouldn’t like it. She felt exposed and she didn’t have anything hidden inside of her that should make her feel that way. It was almost a fear of discovery.

  “Instead of his conversations with his doctor making things worse, could it be that hearing about the horrible injuries that his best friend had suffered did it instead? What about you? How did you react to all of it? Did you have some bad moments? Like nightmares or panic attacks or anything?” Ellie asked her.

  “Um, not really. Or not at first. I’m from a long line of Marines and had been coached and instructed on how to deal with this for years. I’ve lived through my father’s injuries several times and some of my older brother’s as well. None of them had as much damage as Kermit, but it had been drilled into me from the time I was old enough to understand the concept of war and soldiers, so I handled it fine to begin with. I just wanted to be able to see him and help him, but that didn’t happen right away. I had to wait until they brought him home from Germany.” Abby didn’t add that even then he hadn’t wanted her to visit. That was private. Even if the other woman knew from the talk that would have gone around, it was still something she didn’t want to discuss.

  “So is it possible that Heath’s PTSD episodes changed with the knowledge of what had happened to Kermit and then again when he actually saw his best friend for the first time after returning home?”

  “Yes. I suppose you’re right, but how is knowing that going to help him now?” She was getting frustrated. Even though Abby knew there was no quick and easy fix, she wanted something positive to hold on to for him to come from her visit with Ellie.

  “It helps a lot. It gives you an idea of what could trigger an event and what could be done to either remove or improve that trigger. In Heath’s case, finding out that someone important to him was injured or seeing it happen would more than likely trigger the event. The obvious answer would be to make sure those possible triggers never happen to him or anyone important to him,” Ellie said.

  “That’s impossible though. No one knows when something bad might happen. There are car wrecks and falls and illnesses. I can’t keep him locked up somewhere and never tell him about anything bad that happens.”

  Ellie nodded. “That’s right, you can’t. So what other options are out there for Heath? There are groups who meet to talk through the episodes to help each other work through them. Some meet here and are more formal, but there are some that meet at a coffee shop or restaurant so it feels more natural and less like an intervention. Having the support of others who know what you are going through goes a long way in validating to their selves that they aren’t crazy and can cope.”

  “I can see where that would be good for Heath. I think he already feels alone. He’s made statements that his injury wasn’t all that bad and he should feel grateful not to have lost his arm instead of upset at his limitations. I think that’s why he left the VA so soon after he got home and did outpatient therapy instead of staying there until he was in better shape. I did a lot of dressing changes on him because of that. I was always afraid I was going to mess up and he would end up with an infection.”

  “I bet he quit his PT too early, too,” Ellie mused.

  “Yeah. He says he didn’t, but I know he did. He kept getting phone calls from the VA that he never returned,” she told the counselor.

  “So, we also know that he feels guilty for not having been hurt worse and that he is more likely not to follow through with something if he feels threatened or challenged.” Ellie’s grasp of Heath’s personality out of just thirty minutes of conversation surprised her. The woman was good.

  “Well, what can I do to help him? What else is out there?” Abby refused to give up even
if Heath tended to on occasion.

  “I believe the therapy dog is a good idea for him,” Ellie said. “Not just because a trained canine can help with things like nightmares or holding a specific distance between him and anyone around him, you can do that for him already. But also because it will give him someone to connect with who isn’t challenging or competing with him. Someone who needs him as much as he needs them.”

  “Um, Heath doesn’t, um—he and I aren’t a couple or anything. I wouldn’t be there to wake him up and help him after a nightmare. I live I my own apartment. He and Kermit are sharing a house. Kermit can’t help him yet either. He’s not able to get up and walk without help yet,” she explained to the other woman, feeling how hot her cheeks had grown at her assumptions.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume there was a sexual relationship there. I just knew that you were helping him with his recovery like you were trying to do with Kermit. Please forgive me.” Ellie seemed genuinely upset at herself for embarrassing Abby.

  “No. It’s okay. I’m not ashamed of staying with Heath when he needed me or worried about what people might think. I just wanted to be sure you knew that I wasn’t there to help him now. He needs someone and it sounds like the canine therapy dogs would be wonderful.”

  “Good. I never judge anyone. I’m in a position with my personal life to know how it feels to have others look at you differently and I would never subject anyone else to that,” Ellie said. “But I agree, one of those programs would be perfect for Heath. There are questions you need to ask him, like will there be anyone around him who doesn’t like dogs or is uncomfortable around dogs? If they are important to him or he will have to be in contact with them very often, either he needs to choose another option or that person may need some therapy with dogs to help them adjust to having one around them.”

  “There isn’t anyone that I’m aware of who doesn’t like dogs or is afraid of them in Heath’s life. I don’t know what it will mean for his job, though. I’d have to get him to talk to them about that.”