Page 44 of Jameson’s Salvation

“Where’d you learn how to do that?”

“In the Navy. I have basic med training.”

“And you were a Navy SEAL?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and asked, “Does that happen a lot?”

“When we were in the teams and deployed, yes. But that’s the first time it’s happened since we started Gemini Group.”

“The scar on your shoulder and the one on your torso?”

“The one on my shoulder was a bullet graze. Hurt like a motherfucker when the adrenaline from the firefight wore off. I’d wished the bullet had actually gone through rather than burning my skin off. The scar on my stomach is from a blade. We’d breached a house and were cleaning it when a man jumped out from inside a hidden closet. When he attacked, he stupidly went for center mass and hit my vest, but his last slash as he was going down, hit below my plates and gashed my stomach. Holden stitched me up when we got back to base. He’s better at it than I am, his patch jobs rarely leave scars. It would look worse now if one of the other guys sewed me up.”

“And your back? I saw a few puckered scars there.”

“Shrapnel. We were rescuing an aid worker. When we got to the camp where he was being held, there was a second hostage we weren’t prepared for. I gave her my vest and on the way out, the terrorists detonated a bomb. I was hit with some fragments.”

Jameson pulled into Kennedy’s drive and parked next to her truck. He was happy to see the newly installed motion light flooded the area nice and bright.

He unbuckled and turned toward her and asked, “What else do you want to know?”

Jameson had found that answering her questions wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.

“You’ve been shot at a lot.” That was a statement but he still answered in the affirmative.

“And you’ve shot back.”

“If that is your nice way of asking if I’ve killed someone, the answer is yes.”

Kennedy was suspiciously quiet, and as much as he feared her censure, she had a right to know what kind of man she’d invited into her home and her bed.

“I told you I’m the way I am because of the things I’ve seen and done. I’m not proud of taking lives but I am proud of my service.” Jameson shifted in his seat. “I do not take joy in killing another human, but I don’t feel remorse or sympathy for ending a warlord’s life, or a terrorist’s, or any other man or woman who meant us harm. I don’t dwell on the people I’ve killed or the act of ending a life. I dwell on the knowledge that people are seriously fucked-up.”

He looked out the windshield, thankful for the light. “There are men out there that will starve their people for power, they will rape their women for control. There are women who will sell their daughters for food, but more astonishing is that there are places in this world where a mother has to make that choice.”

Jameson didn’t dare look back at Kennedy as he went on. “Men who will strap bombs to their daughters because they know that Americans will grapple with the moral dilemma before we shoot a ten-year-old girl. They give their five-year-old sons rifles and hide behind them, because again, we will struggle with killing a child.”

He shifted his gaze to his hands gripping the steering wheel. “That haunts you, knowing you had no choice, your decency and honor was stolen from you and you were forced to end a child’s life. A child who should’ve been home tucked away and protected. Instead, their own flesh taught them hate and sent them out to kill and be killed.”

Jameson hadn’t realized he’d fisted his hands until Kennedy reached over and pried his fingers open and laced them with hers.

“There are times when I hate myself more than I hate the world. I fucking hate I’m not strong enough to bury it.”

He hadn’t meant to tell Kennedy his closely guarded secret. He’d never told anyone that. His friends all thought his bad attitude and general dislike for everybody was simply because he was an asshole. They had no idea it was because the person he despised most was himself for being weaker than them. The kernel of distrust his father had planted had blossomed into a forest and Jameson wasn’t strong enough to stop it. He’d allowed it to take over his life and turn him into a cynical prick. And war hadn’t helped, it had only reinforced his notions, there was no such thing as love. There was only evil in the world—and in an effort to protect himself, he’d gone into seclusion, only allowing those who proved themselves close.

“You can’t bury it, Jameson,” Kennedy spoke softly. “And it’s not because you’re weak, it’s because you’re a good man. A protector.” She squeezed his hands in her tiny ones.

“You can’t forget what you’ve seen because the things you’ve witnessed are disgusting and atrocious. They’re unforgettable to you, because it’s unfathomable that a man would harm his child. A woman would be put in the position to have to sell her child. But you did not do those things, they did. And yes, they took your control, forced you to do something or see something that burns your soul. And it burns because you are good person.”

Kennedy searched his face. “I hope you don’t think that by you sharing that with me I think less of you. I may be just a girl from a small town living a simple life, but I’m not naïve to the fact we’ve been at war for a long time. And knowing that means I know that men like you exist. The men that are sent to keep us safe. Who face things that they should never have to.”

She ran her thumbs over the tops of his fingers. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done. If it weren’t for men like you that live with the burdens you do, I could be one of those women. I don’t like that you carry the pain, but, Jameson, the alternative is that one day it may be my children or their children that are one of those women with no rights, no protection, living under the constant threat of being harmed.”

Kennedy paused and squeezed his hand and shook it, bringing his attention from staring unseeing out the windshield to looking at her. Determination and compassion shone in her eyes, and the tight knot in Jameson’s gut started to loosen.

“I’m not trying to diminish what you’ve seen, I’m telling you that you’ve made a difference and I hope that helps you just a little bit. I appreciate your sacrifice. You feel things much deeper than you let on and that does not make you weak, that makes you strong. It makes me proud to know you. It makes me thankful.”