You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(67)

He wasn’t a hero. “Well, it sure wasn’t taught to me. My granddad was a bastard. Never hit me or anything, but he never let me know I was anything but a burden. My mom said I reminded her too much of my dad, and she couldn’t even look at me. She dumped me on the old man when I was just a kid. He made sure I went to school and had food, but that was about it. I was on my own for everything else.”

“And what did you do when he got cancer?”

He’d taken a leave and gone to see him, but his granddad had told him not to come back. He’d been so bitter, he’d turned away everyone. And still Jesse had felt a responsibility to do something. “I sent back everything I had so he could be comfortable. Like I said, I was stupid. Always have been.”

“No,” Kai insisted. “You’re the unique human being who can be kicked again and again and still maintain his peace, his love. It’s why they couldn’t break you in Iraq. He used advanced torture techniques meant to erase who you are so he could build a new you, one who he controlled. He apparently managed it with others, but not you. You are unbreakable because there is a core of deep strength inside you.”

“I never thought about it like that.” He’d kind of thought he was too stubborn for it to work.

“What happens to a dog who gets kicked too many times?”

That was easy. And it hurt a little because Kai knew what that meant to him. The Caliph had called him a dog over and over again. Jesse was the dog and the Caliph was the master. He told himself they were just words. “He gets mean.”

Kai leaned forward, his voice passionate. “Yes. You are not a dog, Jesse Murdoch. You are a man, and a remarkable one at that. I’ve studied hundreds who went through something like you and only a few maintain your light. So I’m going to give you some advice. You thought she could save you.”

He had. Deep down, he’d thought Phoebe was the woman who could heal him. He thought if he could get her to love him, he might feel worthy. He nodded, not wanting to speak.

“You were wrong.”

“I know.”

“No. You don’t understand. You thought her love could save you, but I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve discovered. Your love is the only love that can save you. Your love is powerful and worthy and more important than being loved in return. You already saved yourself. You do it every day when you wake up and make the decision to be a partner and a friend and yes, you saved yourself when you decided to love her. Don’t take that lightly and don’t regret it. It’s never, ever a mistake to love someone.”

“It is when it hurts her.” Kai’s words meant something to him. They really did. When he thought about it, he couldn’t control whether Phoebe loved him back. He could only love her or try to force himself not to love her.

The truth was, he liked loving her. It made him feel alive. He’d never felt anything like it before in his life, and he didn’t want to kill it. Throwing up that wall between them had felt wrong. It had been mean and he’d done it because he was trying to protect himself, trying not to ache. It hadn’t worked except to make him feel worse.

“It doesn’t hurt her,” a new voice said.

He looked up and wished the damn conference door had a lock on it. Was everyone going to walk in on his personal conversations today? Tennessee Smith strode in with a big bag from Sean’s restaurant. Big Tag followed behind him.

Ten set the bag down. “Someone needs to break through her walls and I can’t do it. I know what happened between the two of you last night, and I’m going to do something I swore I’d never do. I’m going to ask you for a favor, Murdoch.”

“What’s that?” Jesse asked, wary.

“Don’t give up on her.” Ten sounded more serious than Jesse had ever heard him before. Ten was always laid back, easy going, as if nothing really mattered. He was the quintessential good-time guy, which was a mask, of course. A man couldn’t do what Ten did and be easy going. He played a role like many of them did, but now he looked like a concerned brother. “She needs you. Phoebe had a rough childhood, and she’s got it in her head that her husband was her only shot at being happy.”

“She has abandonment issues,” Kai explained.

“Jamie didn’t abandon her. He died,” Ten shot back.

“It’s all the same in her head. She’s not thinking straight. She’s falling back on old thought patterns because in some ways they’re familiar and comforting, even if they keep her from what she wants. We tend to regress to our natural neuroses in times of crisis.” Kai pulled out a chair for Tag. “Like this one here has a god complex.”

“It’s not a complex if I really am the most powerful person in the universe. Then it’s simply a fact. And if you psychoanalyze me, Ferguson, I will murder you in your sleep.” Tag started unpacking boxes.

“He’s also got anger issues,” Kai said with a sigh. “But I’m right about the abandonment. It doesn’t matter that Jamie didn’t want to die. It only matters that he’s gone. She expects the people she loves to leave her. It’s easier to hold on to the past than to try for an uncertain future.”

“So what do I do?” If there was a shot with her, he would take it. Maybe he was too stubborn to get the picture the world constantly tried to paint for him. Maybe he should listen to the voices that told him everything would go to shit. Or maybe he should give in to his true nature and not give up. Maybe he was alive today because he hadn’t given up, and if he tried harder, he could have the future he wanted.