Ed’s chest tightened on his held breath as he awaited her reply.
Just what do you think you are asking?
Anything. A few hours, another kiss or three.
When just a few short months ago, he’d despaired of ever walking again without assistance, much less wanting again…
To be here—now—on his own two feet, both working, was nothing short of a miracle. Add in the wanting of the lass? And unfulfilled desire ’twas a bodily discomfort he would cherish forevermore.
How did Warrick get on this close to a holiday meant to be celebrated with family? He, whose legs suffered far more egregiously than Ed’s… His comrade in arms, also severely wounded at Albuera last May? His friend who’d given him the use of his property, one small justifiable delay before Ed returned home to take up every ounce of responsibility he’d never expected…
“At least if you go,” Warrick had said from the sickbed next to Ed’s, “I can tell my mother her efforts were not all for naught.”
Mothers. He and Warrick had bonded not only over lingering injuries from the same battle, but over the bane of being burdened—er, blessed—with unusually caring maternal parents. Ones who refused to accept anything less than full recoveries for their sons.
Well, in Ed’s case, as full as one could be—with one-fourth of their limbs lopped off. Add in the crushed hand, multiple broken bones in the one that still remained, the injury to his hip, two breaks in one leg… And it seemed he had a great deal to be thankful for these days.
In Warrick’s case? Poor chap still didn’t know if he would ever walk again.
“Trade you my right hand for one of your legs? Even the one you busted to pieces?” Warrick had proposed after the painful journey home, once they’d reached English shores and found themselves occupying the same regimental hospital—that is until their pair of draconic mothers had swooped in to move them both to a private, rented home with a personally hired physician and care all round the clock.
But before their joint maternal transfer and orders to “recover or else”, he and Warrick had suffered along with the other injured in the large common room, taking solace in each other’s presence.
“A leg,” Ed had rejoined, the area surrounding the retrieved and removed projectile that had gouged and become embedded in his hip still fresh enough to cause significant pain. “Either one?”
“Aye,” Warrick groaned, his strong arms pulling his upper body over until he reclined on his side, facing Ed. “A working one, if you will. At the moment, I have neither.” The canister shot lodged near his friend’s spine deadening the feeling in both even now, weeks later.
“Hell, man, you might as well have bartered for my twanger.”
Warrick grunted. “Hmmm. Half my arm for your prick? Is it working?”
“Pisses just fine.”
“Not what I mean.” Warrick’s downturned expression and the flagging hope in his eyes evident as he tracked the bustling movements of the prettiest female either of them had seen since Spain—the young wife of a fellow officer—scurrying around the man’s corner bed to see to his comfort and that of others nearby.
They’d both commented on the comely woman, especially after a recent visit and boisterous chasing after her two-year-old had emphasized her attractively plump aspects in all their jiggling glory one afternoon.
Seeing where Warrick’s gaze landed once again upon her “aspects”— and admitting his own body’s decided lack of response to the lovely visitor, understanding dawned. “Oh-ho! You want a poker up to prigging? Afraid I cannot help you there, my friend. Since the battle, mine’s good for making water and naught else.”
Warrick swore. Then again. “Damn French frogs.”
Damn war, to Ed’s way of thinking. “Least our eyes can venture appreciation.”
“Aye,” Warrick agreed somberly. “Unlike Leonard’s.” He referred to one of the many soldiers lining the cots in the large room. Poor Leonard, with his eyes covered, wicked scarring visible both above and below the bandage wrapped firmly around his forehead.
Shifting again to his back, biting back a groan at the effort, Warrick slid his gaze to Ed’s. “But I do admit, a peppy pestle wouldn’t be amiss.”
“A jolly John Thomas.”
“A happy hammer.”
“A fortified frigger.”
In the end, that sick sort of laughter struck them both. The kind that releases tension and feels remarkably satisfying even when one felt rotten about laughing over what had caused the amusement to run amok.
In the end, Warrick had swallowed wrong, nearly turned blue trying to catch his breath through gasps and guffaws—made a hundred times worse when the frisk-worthy female in question bustled to his aid, brandishing water and back pats along with coos of comfort. A palm to his flushed cheek, a hand to his heaving chest, a kind word or three as the coughing attack finally stalled to silence.
In the end, Ed watched, a bit wistfully, as his friend enjoyed the feminine attention—even if for all the wrong reasons. And when she nodded at Warrick’s thanks and took herself off, back to her husband and their hushed corner, Ed speared Warrick with a glance, aiming his gaze at the area of the man’s sheet-covered, groin anatomy.