“But you refused.”
“I was a Ranger, and for the first time in my life, I was proud of what and who I was. I told my mom to leave him, that I would take care of her, but she refused. She loved him.” He said the words with such scorn, and finally Josie understood where it came from.
His mother had used love as an excuse to stay in an abusive relationship that had destroyed her family and caused a separation with her son.
“A year after I signed on for my second tour, my dad lost his temper again and threw my mom against a wall. Her head hit at the wrong angle, and she was knocked out. She went into a coma. I flew home and sat beside her hospital bed for three days, but she died without ever coming out of it.”
And he had been denied the opportunity to say goodbye, or tell his mom that he loved her. Josie’s eyes stung with tears. “It wasn’t your fault. Your mother chose to stay in a destructive relationship. She knew the risks, and she stayed.”
“If I’d gone home, I could have been there to stop him. I should have gotten out of the army and stayed with her. I should have taken care of her, but I’m no good at taking care of other people.”
“Your mother didn’t ask you to come home to protect her; she asked you to come home and take care of your drunk of a father,” she said, taking a stab in the dark, “didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“She wanted you to protect him, not her, and you couldn’t have done that. You would have hurt him physically the next time he lost his temper and hit your mother. She would have kicked you out of the house and blamed you for not being patient enough.” Josie didn’t have a lot of experience with abuse victims, but Claire had taken her to a women’s shelter once so she could teach a class in self-defense.
Most of the women there wanted new lives, but they had shared with her the kind of twisted thinking that had kept them in their victim roles.
Daniel moved toward her, his expression grim. “You’re wrong. I was an adult then. I could have convinced her to leave him if I’d taken the time to go home, if I’d cared more about her safety than my pride.”
“No. You’re a good man, Daniel. You had to make a life for yourself away from your parents, or you would have ended up in the same ugly cycle they lived in.”
“I’m not getting married, so that can’t happen. I’ll never hurt a woman like he hurt her.”
So many things became clear to Josie. Daniel hadn’t been rejecting her earlier. He’d been rejecting himself as someone who could make her feel safe. His mother hadn’t been safe, and he thought that was his fault. He’d spent his adult life fighting other people’s battles, saving people as part of a mercenary team that specialized in extractions, but he still believed he wasn’t a protector.
It would be laughable if he didn’t believe it.
Running his latest words through her mind again, she realized something else. He wasn’t against a long-term commitment with her; he really did have an aversion to marriage.
“Are you seriously afraid you’d end up like your father?” The same man who had practically given himself a heart attack assuring her first time making love was special and as painless as possible.
“Everyone who’s ever met the both of us says we’re carbon copies, that we could be twins.”
“On the outside maybe. Even if you got your to-die-for good looks from him, you’ve got something he didn’t have where it counts.” She stood up and reached for him, pressing her hand over his heart. “You aren’t alike inside. You’d die for me before you would hurt me, no matter how angry you were. I know it.”
Something sparked in his almost black eyes. It looked like hope, but then it was gone. “I don’t believe in love and commitment, Josie.”
“I know.” And she understood, but that didn’t change the way she felt. “It doesn’t matter because I do believe in you. I still feel safe with you, Daniel.”
“You shouldn’t, damn it. Didn’t you hear what I said? When the important moment comes, I could make the wrong choice. I could put myself first.”
Both his parents had a lot to answer for in her mind, but Josie wasn’t buying any of Daniel’s fears. “I’m betting you won’t.” She didn’t say wouldn’t as if there was a possibility the occasion would not arise because she knew the time would come.
And either he was going to rip her heart out by its moorings and walk away, or overcome his fears to make a future with her. With this new insight, she believed that given enough time together, he’d do the latter. It would just take time for him to realize that fact.
In the meantime she wasn’t going to dwell on her own unhappy truth: that in order to have a future with Daniel, she had to give up her dreams of leaving the soldiering life behind. She never had to be a mercenary again, but if she wanted to be with him, she would have to move back to the mountain and spend her time surrounded by soldiers in training.
Any children they had would be raised the way she’d been raised, maybe not as stringently, but soldiering would be the life they knew. They would be misfits in a world that had an uneasy alliance with its military. Perhaps she would have to give up her dream of being a mother at all.
She understood Daniel’s mother’s frustrations. She’d fought against her son being limited by his surroundings and paid a huge price for refusing to back down. According to Josie’s dad’s diaries, the only thing her father and mother had fought about was his need to raise her with the ability to protect herself from any foe.
“What happened to your dad?”
“He went to prison for manslaughter. I was a witness for the prosecution. I wanted a murder charge.” She could feel Daniel’s pain reaching out to wrap itself around her and squeeze at her sore heart.
“They didn’t take his pattern of abuse into consideration?” she asked.
“It was unsubstantiated. I’d been gone too long for my testimony in that regard to be taken into consideration, but there was no doubt that he was responsible for her death.”
“But you weren’t.”
“We all have regrets to live with. I can’t dismiss mine.”
“Fine.” She grabbed his shirt in both of her fists, needing him to hear what she was saying. “Regret not being able to help your mother, but don’t blame yourself for her choices or your father’s. They were both adults. She could have walked out any time, and you would have taken care of her. She didn’t, and she paid a price for staying with a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t control his temper. None of that was your fault.”
“Maybe he didn’t know how,” he said, ignoring her exonerating words. “It took me a long time to learn to control mine, and that was with a really good teacher.”
“Does he get in a lot of fights in prison?”
“I don’t know. I don’t keep in touch.”
She understood it, but wondered if that choice had taken another toll on Daniel. “Have you ever considered going to see him?”
“No.”
“Has he ever tried to contact you?”
“No.”
She couldn’t tell if that bothered him or not. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have one parent responsible for the death of the other. Love and family loyalty got irretrievably twisted and distorted in that scenario.
“Why did you tell me all this?”
“I hurt you.”
“When you told me that I didn’t count for anything but sex?”
His eyes flared, and his jaw locked, but she didn’t give him a chance to say anything.
“Yes, you did hurt me. Are you trying to tell me that maybe I mean something to you and that despite your belief you aren’t capable of watching over me and being trusted with my safety, you’re doing it anyway because you care too much to turn away from me?”
She wasn’t making guesses about anything with him anymore. She wanted his feelings spelled out. If he said no, it would hurt, but at least she wouldn’t be deluding herself.
His hands locked on to her waist, and his body vibrated with tension. “I don’t want you hurt.”
She just looked at him, willing him to answer her question.
Something seemed to snap inside of him, and he gritted out, “Yes, damn it, yes. Are you satisfied?”
