Most of us adore watching a heroine tenderly help heal a wounded hero. It’s part of the beauty of reading romance. Part of the draw, the emotional kick that keeps us turning the pages toward their joint healing and happily ever after.
Wounded Heroes of Bygone Romances
Bygone romance heroes were brooding, arrogant alphas, who were also, and unfortunately, often abusive to the heroine and everyone else he considered an underling. His ‘wounds’ were more pride-focused than related to any other deep emotion. More focused on his sense of entitlement than on lingering physical pain from deep regrets or guilt. Oh, trauma from those issues were there, of course, but he seemed to lay blame for his woes on the people closest to him, the people, like the heroine, who saw him for who he was somewhere deep inside. In that hidden place where, before she came along, he had successfully buried his true and layered emotions.
Today’s Hero
Today’s heroes are still smart, powerful, decisive and dependable. No question. But they can be emotionally vulnerable as well. Cloaked in a defensive veil, their vulnerability pulses with energy, making them as dangerous as before, yet also more approachable. They’re aware, at least on some level, of their own faults and how their own errors in judgment, mixed with given circumstances, may have caused their own woes.
Whether within their control or steered by outward events, their trauma is real. It may be buried as deeply as the emotions of past heroes, but it’s there, seeping into their everyday life no matter how valiantly they try to subdue it.
Duplicity
So it is for Jaxton Carter, my hero in Duplicity. The lingering pain of his past mistakes is a daily reminder of the man he was, and how, in an instant, one wrong decision can—and does—alter the lives of many.
Trust is a huge issue for Jax now because, as he freely admits, he trusted the wrong person once and that trust cost a life. But for Jax, the blame doesn’t lie solely on the deception of others or on their excuses, but on his own poor judgement. For Jax, trust equals understanding and loyalty. Trust equals safety. And for Jax, whose own past decisions have forced him to question his own judgement every day since, trusting others doesn’t come close to the challenge of trusting himself.
Who Saves Who?
Cassandra Hall forces him to face that challenge.
Thrust into Jax’s path through well-meaning friends, Cass refuses to admit it at first but soon realizes she needs his protection from several unseen threats around her.
The problem? Cass is keeping a secret, and Jax knows it.
Everything about Cass, however, rang his bells, warning and otherwise.
He’s warned her how secrets can cost people their lives. She’s vowed to keep one that, if revealed, could unravel the lives of people she loves.
While Cass, a deeply loyal and compassionate woman, and Jax, a wounded though brutally aware man, are uniquely capable of helping each other heal, they wind up tangled in an ever-thickening web of deception, and trust – in one another – may be their only way out.
But how does a man who’s learned that trusting the wrong person can destroy everything he’s sworn to protect, convince himself it’s safe to trust the woman he’s falling for?
Especially when every instinct he has tells him not to.
