Voyager (Outlander, #3)

by Diana Gabaldon

Always, always, I had had to balance compassion with wisdom, love with judgment, humanity with ruthlessness. Only with Jamie had I given everything I had, risked it all. I had thrown away caution and judgment and wisdom, along with the comforts and constraints of a hard-won career. I had brought him nothing but myself, been nothing but myself with him, given him soul as well as body, let him see me naked, trusted him to see me whole and cherish my frailties—because he once had. I had feared he couldn’t, again. Or wouldn’t. And then had known those few days of perfect joy, thinking that what had once been true was true once more; I was free to love him, with everything I had and was, and be loved with an honesty that matched my own. The tears slid hot and wet between my fingers. I mourned for Jamie, and for what I had been, with him. Do you know, his voice said, whispering, what it means, to say again “I love you,” and to mean it? I knew. And with my head in my hands beneath the pine trees, I knew I would never mean it again.