Evangeline waited serenely as she stared into her lover's eyes searching for an early answer. Inside, her stomach twisted in knots. 

"I knew you were going to ask that," was all John said.

"Well, then you know me very well."

John stroked Evangeline‘s thigh absentmindedly. "Natalie isn't an issue anymore. I don't she think ever was," he said truthfully. 

"I didn't say Natalie John," Evangeline pointed out.

"But you were thinking it. I know you better than you think Evangeline." When she looked away he smiled knowing he was right. "She was never a threat; only my guilt over her and Cristian. I was the threat. But I had already told you that before. I was never in love with Natalie and I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise."

Evangeline sighed. It was her turn to be honest and to face her own insecurities that had come in the picture right around the time John came into her life. "John, my issues weren't with Natalie. To tell you the truth, I didn't know her well enough to be concerned with her actions. Sure, I heard the stories about how she blew into town and of course I represented Mitch Lawrence so I knew all about that. But I was concerned more so with your feelings and how you viewed your relationship with her. And yes, I questioned whether your feelings for Natalie were deeper than yours for mine. It seems like every time I turn around, there she is-or was. And you...well, I can see why she is attracted to you, why she wanted you. You're a good man and those are hard to come by. There is always going to be a woman or two who have their eyes on you. I can handle that if I know I've got you the way you've got me."

John shook his head in protest but Evangeline would have none of it. "Demons and all you are still a wonderful man. You wouldn't have trouble getting any woman if that's what you set our focus on. So when Natalie would come to you, I almost expected it. But what I didn't expect was that you would keep allowing her to enable you to protect her from everything, including yourself. And you couldn't even see what you were doing. To make matters worse, people around town seemed to think that you two had this connection of some sort. And it's not like I didn't see it. I knew there was something there, but the connection I saw when I first spoke to you about...it wasn't the same one I realized later on. What I finally saw were two people who were in a very bad way trying to stay that way together but for different reasons. As long as she was a victim you could play hero to her and you would endlessly be trying to rectify what you think you did or didn't do for Caitlin and whoever else was a part of your life before you came to Llanview. And I guess for Natalie she could play that role and have someone take care of her. She has many insecurities, all which usually involve men taking care of her in the end. It's why I kept telling you to figure it out before we got deeper John. I could not save you, you had to save yourself. And I wasn't going to play games trying to get you to do it. I've given you all the time in the world without complaint because I wanted you to be sure that this was what you truly wanted."

John blew out a big breath. He knew it was coming. This was the moment of truth. He had told her he loved her which by no means was a lie. But could he still crack his heart open enough to let her see all the turmoil that lay dormant? Well, he thought, here goes nothing. "Natalie was a clutch. A sick clutch, I know. It was easy to be with her and just...exist.  We could talk about all the unimportant bonds we shared. The things that didn't really matter. And usually she did all the talking. I could listen to her problems and sort of fix them for her. She demanded so little and needed so much at the same time. So you're right when you say it wasn't really her fault. I allowed it because I thought that after getting her husband killed, the least I could do was spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy. Even fill Cris' shoes if that's what she needed."

"But all at the expense of what you needed?" Evangeline asked.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. When I met her, it started with a lie. And when it all ended...the truth was harder to come by. Maybe I thought it was pointless too. I had lied to her so much it felt like the truth to me. I was convinced that it was all for her own good. And then you walked into my life. You just came out of nowhere. And what happened in Mary Barnes' basement, I never saw it coming. I think I told you that before."

"You did," Evangeline said with a small smile. 

"But when it happened, it was like this energy that was bigger than you and I. We said we both weren't ready for anything more than casual and yet, we couldn't stop being near each other. Honestly, I thought, ‘It's just really great sex.' We're good together like that. Whatever issues we had outside of the bedroom we kind of took it out on each other inside. But then I started to see early on that it was going to be more than that. We were talking, opening up about our pasts, spending time with each other outside of the bedroom. It just seemed so natural when you suggested a date then, finally, strings. And I knew what you were doing. I knew you weren't trying to corner me but I could see that you were becoming more interested because you're not the kind of woman who gives her body to a man without giving them a piece of her heart. Still, you always gave me an easy out and I wanted to take it at first. My mind was working against what I was feeling in my heart. I thought I could control everything I was feeling for you. I could give you what you wanted just enough to keep you with me without having to go to the next level. Every time I went to put a stop to this, every time I said that this couldn't go farther, I kept adding more strings or wanting you to demand more. You ruined my plans."

"I did?" she asked with a raised brow? She had no idea John McBain made plans of any kind. Especially ones that involved her.

John nodded. "You don't even know how electric you are do you? How wonderful you are to someone like me. You wouldn't let me run away when you saw that I was starting to hide. You saw that there was something there and you didn't really push, but you kind of let me know where you were and I could either follow or stay back. And while I thought I should just stay where I'm at and just let things fizzle, I couldn't. The more time spent with you, the more I could feel myself changing. And you were changing too. You took interests in what I liked ,asked me about me, and made sure I was okay. For the first time in a long time, someone was taking care of me and I didn't even see it until I was in the thick of it. I didn't know how to react to that."

Evangeline shook her head in disbelief. "You're not used to being put first are you?"

The detective chuckled. "Yeah. I'm not sure if that's completely the fault of others or some of mine. But you're like that to. Used to taking care of yourself without letting others help you. Except with me. You opened up to me to show your vulnerable side. The side that no one sees. The day that bastard attacked you, I know how hard it was for you to lean on me and let me take care of you. But you did. I was beginning to see that I was going to have to meet you halfway at one point or another and that scared me. Because that step meant that love wasn't far away."

"So what are you saying John?" 

"I say all this to say that maybe I did push Natalie in between us. She was like a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. She gave me the opportunity to keep my life the way it was, to keep floating in the middle of nowhere. With her, I could be in control of my feelings because it was never about my feelings. It was all about hers. Being her savior. And maybe if I could be there for her enough, you would get the picture and walk away. Leave me rotting in my misery."

"But then Cristian came back."

"Yes, he came back. And it was like a wave of relief. Relief that the world was almost right again. Natalie was going to get her happy ending after all and I could scratch her off my list of righting wrongs. But at the same time, it meant that I couldn't use her anymore to stop you from coming in. Suddenly you were always in my thoughts. The only one in my thoughts. I would spend hours in the office thinking about you and us. And the possibilities. And every time I got close to saying to you that I loved you, I shut those thoughts down."

Evangeline sighed. This side of John, it was so new. So different. She didn't know if she could handle it all at once. But she understood that he needed to get this out, and she wasn't going to stop him for anything in the world. She stroked away a tear that fell slowly from his face and closed her eyes as he kissed her hand. "Why would you do that? To protect me?"

"To protect me," he admitted almost ashamedly. "If I didn't let you in, I could never be hurt again. I could never lose another person that I loved. But the night you were attacked I was working on suppressing my feelings and I was still scared shitless. So I guess it wasn't working. But for you to understand why I'm like this you should know the whole story."

Evangeline nodded and replied, "I always knew this went beyond Caitlin and your father. Am I right?"

John smiled and gave her the look that always made Evangeline melt to the floor. The look where he seemed to be staring into the depths of her womanhood. She was almost mystified by it; the way the look would put her in a trance. "You always are."

He shifted a little until Evangeline was forced to straddle him and when she wriggled up against him in innocence, he wanted to forget about everything and just take her right there. Instead, he settled for a mental groan and his hands placed on her ample bottom; one of his hands' favorite resting places on her body when they were just being mellow or just being plain naughty. Once she was settled she waited for him to speak. 

"My father was the kind of officer who always had his scanner on in the house. Day or night, on call or off, it was glued to him like a third arm. My mother would always make him turn it off when we were eating or doing family stuff. He always told me being a cop was about protecting people who couldn't protect themselves. And every time he turned the scanner off, he was allowing another defenseless person to be harmed. He said it was his duty to protect and serve at all times and at all costs. And I loved him and was so in awe of what he did every day. He risked his life for strangers so that they could home to their families in one piece. He was like a hero, you know? So during dinner he would turn it off dutifully, but I would always wink at him and sneak into his bedroom to turn it back on for him. We always made it like a little mission between us and the object was to keep mom from catching us, but she always knew. She wasn't stupid, she knew exactly why he would excuse himself from the dinner table every ten minutes to ‘check the score'. Mom knew everything that happened under her nose whether she spoke it aloud or not."

Evangeline couldn't help but laugh at this remembering all the times her mother would catch her and her father sneaking midnight snacks behind her back. "I think all mothers have that ability. It's like a sixth sense."

"Exactly," John said with a nod. "The night my father died it had been pretty routine. Dad always had half a day on Fridays and was at home by the time school let out. On most days he worked until ten but always came home for dinner hour. That night, dad had turned his scanner off and my mother rolled her eyes because she knew it would be about two minutes before I'd turn it back on. He always made a big show of it and it would get me and Mikey laughing and my sister Brenna too. Anyway, we were sitting at the table when the scanner beeped a code from Dad‘s partner. That day when I turned it on, I forgot to turn the volume down. When the call came in over the scanner in code from his partner it was loud so everyone at the table heard. Dad answered it immediately calling into the station. There was a big drug bust they had been working for the better part of a year. It had major ties with the local mob boss and maybe even a bigger boss in the New York area. They were being real careful as they thought this thug had some connection s with an officer. His partner said he got some new leads that could put the scum away for life. My dad apologized about leaving but my mother was not happy and said she didn't want him to go. They bickered for a few minutes until he grabbed her by the waist and gave her a kiss and told her he loved her, but he had to do it. He kissed us all goodbye and said he would be back before bedtime."

John stopped for a moment and Evangeline wisely said nothing. She let him compose himself, caress her back in small circles and nuzzle his nose in her neck as if trying to gain the courage from where her words of comfort lay silently in wait. "The bust turned out to be a trap. His partner had been doing double work for the past few years. A lot of times, the cops get caught up in the investigation and the greed and lust take over. Money becomes the new law and..." Evangeline pulled John gently from her neck in horror at what she was going to hear. John laughed bitterly and nodded. "Yeah, he set my dad up. His partner of fourteen years set him up for the fall. Tony Silvano, the bastard, shot him point blank at the warehouse. Execution style, with no warning. I always wonder when my dad knew the moment he had been double crossed. What did he think about? Was it about me or my mother? Himself? When my mother got the call, when she picked up the phone, I know she knew because she was worried that night. More worried than I had ever seen her. She and my father were...she knew something went wrong. It was like she was preparing herself as she got us ready for bed and started talking to us about all the good things our father had done for the community and to always remember how much he loved us. What a good person he was. 

"When she finally told us what had happened, I felt immediate guilt. If only I had listened to her and turned the scanner off. It was such a simple thing, a simple action. A request that she asked almost every night and every night we disobeyed her fervently. If I would have listened to her that one time, maybe he still would have been alive. Not only had I lost the person who meant everything in the world to me, but my mother had too. My parents, they loved each other so much. My father, he never told me or Mikey he loved us all the time. It was the things he did for us day to day that let us know. But when it came to my mother, he was always telling her he loved her. Mom and Brenna. They were his wild Irish roses he called them. Losing him like that, so unexpectedly, I saw how it shattered my mother's world. She fell apart. She stopped breathing. I had to step up and be the man of the family. To make up for what I had done."

Evangeline couldn't help the single tear from falling down her cheek at the thought of John the little boy already setting the stones in motion for a life time worth of guilt and an obsessive need to save the world. "John, how could you take the blame for something that was out of your control? You didn't ask for your father to be shot, you didn't ask for him to become a cop. You were just a little boy doing something you had always done and every night your father came home no worse off for it."

"Evangeline, my mind knows that now, but my heart still kinda feels like I'm still stuck in that zone when I was a kid...that it's all on me. As a kid, you always put the blame on you when bad things happen. It's like a natural reaction or something. But that feeling doesn't go away. It stays with you. It grows as you grow and messed with your mind.  When Dad's funeral happened, I made a vow to him that day that I was going to watch over our family and protect them. I was going to fix what I broke. And then Brenna..."

Evangeline squeezed his arm in support. "John, I know you never talk about your sister. What happened with Brenna?" She had always wondered, but always felt it was never the right moment to ask. And if tonight was John's moment of clarity, there was not better time than now than to ask him to share if he could. 

For a moment, it was as if John had traveled back to his childhood in Jersey when things were less complicated and simpler. He could see little redheaded, green eyed, three year old Brenna snatching the toy GI-Joe from him and Michael and sweetly shouting, "Mine!" His parents laughing as she bopped them on the head with the action figure covered in her slobber. Always with the mischievous look in her eyes as if she dared anyone-even that young-to call her on her mess. If anyone else would have done that, they surely would have caught a square punch in the nose from John, but his baby sister could do no wrong in his eyes or anyone else's in the family. McBain women were few and far in between and Brenna had been the only girl in their generation.

"Brenna, from the moment she opened her eyes to the moment she closed them, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was full of life, full of love.  Ambitious. She always had some get rich quick scheme growing up. When she wanted a pair of cowboy boots because that's what Linda Ronstadt wore, she put on a little musical with the kids on the block and charged the adults a buck a pop to get in. She was the life of the party, a real go get'em type of person. You would have appreciated her drive and determination. You reminded me of her in a lot of ways. Very strong, very independent, but fiercely loyal and just a little sensitive underneath it all. She never wanted to be in Jersey. Said it was too small for her dreams."

"How old was she when she...?" Evangeline let the question hang in the air.

John swallowed hard and said, "She was sixteen. It's, uh, funny because I remember that day so well. Dad had been dead for about five years. It was right around her birthday when he was killed. It was really bad. Bren's birthday, the first one after dad died, was hard on everyone. She was his favorite. Not that he didn't love us all equally but-"

"It's something about daddies and their little girls," Evangeline interjected, understanding completely.

John nodded. "She was his pride and joy. Smart, friendly, intelligent, outgoing. And Irish to the core both in appearance and temperament. So when he died she took it the hardest I think. Michael was always the practical one. He was crazy over it, but he shook it off faster than all of us because that's just how he was. I couldn't fall apart as the oldest. It was my job to let everyone cry on my shoulder. For me to step up and be the man. And Brenna being the baby, she was at a loss. She stopped going out for a while. She cut and dyed her hair black. She wouldn't eat. So when her birthday came, it wasn't fun to say the least. 

"But then another year went by and another one after that and slowly but surely she had come around. Her hair was back to its natural color, longer than it had ever been. Almost to her knees. She was smiling again. She had a boyfriend. She wanted to be an actress or veterinarian so she spent all her time in school plays or at the local pound watching the vets with the strays. She was so talented she could have done it all. Then the day of her birthday party, I was supposed to pick her up from school at four. She was staying late to help with some charity event because she was in student government. The plan was I would pick her up and take her over to her friend Karen's house so they could try on some new clothes they had brought at the mall earlier in the week. Karen was supposed to convince her to wear one of the outfits out. Since it was a Friday, Karen was going to come over and have a birthday sleepover with some of their other friends so Bren wouldn't  be suspicious."

"How old were you then?" Evangeline interrupted.

"I was 20," John replied, "still living at home but going to community college. By then I had already been a bad boy gone good. It was rough for me living without dad. I was always trying to live up to his reputation. Everyone expected me to just follow in his footsteps and be the kind of stand up guy that he was. But after he died, I lost faith in what was good and I was thinking there was no point in pursuing it. So I hung with the wrong crowd for awhile, but then it got kind of stale and just a little too dangerous and I grew up. I knew I had to watch over my family and be something more than a failure. So I graduated and went to college. I was convinced I could never really leave home so I chose to keep it local. Just in case. Well, on this particular day my mother was flipping out because the caterer was late with the cake and the decorations hadn't gone up yet and she wanted this sweet sixteen to be perfect for Brenna. Everything had to be right. She didn't know about the party and I couldn't stop by the bakery without her getting suspicious. I had called to see if her boyfriend Grant Porter could pick her up but he and Michael had gone to the market to get some more food for the party. 

"It was November so it got dark really quick. I headed to the bakery which was about fifteen minutes outside of town. It was a small town, though, and everyone wanted to stop and tell me to wish Brenna happy birthday, ask how was I in school and didn't Michael start high school in a year? By the time I got out of there it was almost 4:45 and the sun was setting. I dropped the cake off at the house and mom told me she had called the school and talked to Brenna to let her know I was running late. Brenna told her she would be waiting outside by the gate since she knew how I was about being late. Mom said the last thing Brenna told her to tell me before I left was that I was an excellent hypocrite. It was a running joke in the family that I was always a stickler for everyone else to be on time, but I made up different rules for myself. As I was leaving, some sick, evil, scum of a bitch was right across the street from where Brenna was waiting. Watching her. Planning his move. She was guileless so she wouldn't have thought twice about talking to a stranger. And in this town, everyone knew everyone. It was a rough town, but it wasn't to the point where people were scared to be out at night. He came up to her and told her he had lost his puppy and could she help him find it."

Evangeline gasped. "Oh John."

"I know right? Classic line. When I look back on it, the way your reaction is now, I bet growing up your parents drilled it in your head not talk to strangers. To watch your back. Always read the signs. And I think maybe now as an adult who knows a little more about the world, it might have been a cultural thing like you being from the city and me being on the outskirts. You were probably taught not to trust strangers. But to us there were good guys and bad guys and you always knew which ones were which. Like the bastard that killed my father. He looked like he was guilty. Like he was a killer. But this guy. He was different. He was one of us. He looked like one of us, and I don't mean in color."

"I get it John," Evangeline assured him. And she did. "You don't have to explain it."

"No, I do. We don't talk about that part of us. We never really have except for that one night after the football game. And there is a reason why. Because it doesn't matter. Not to me anyway. And stuff like that never has. I never want you to think that I think badly of your or where you come from. I'm as proud of your heritage as I am of my own."

"And I know that," Evangeline assured him. She squeezed his arm to continue. 

"What I meant was, he looked normal. Like any guy you would see walking down our neighborhood. Clean cut, well mannered. Nice looking. So of course Brenna wouldn't have hesitated for a moment to help him look for his dog. She couldn't stand to see a wounded animal. To hell with people, if there was a pet to be saved, she wanted in on it."

Evangeline could see the buildup of his emotions ready to crumble and her heart was breaking for him. She didn't want him to continue, not if it was too painful. "If you have to stop John, we can. I can't imagine how hard it is for you to relive this."

But John didn't her. He couldn't stop. The words had finally stopped pausing at his throat and they were just flowing out of him. He couldn't stop himself even if he wanted too. "I remember pulling up outside of the gates and not seeing her. I figured she may have gone back in the school to use the bathroom. Or it was dark, so she probably went inside to wait. I remember getting out of the car going in the school to look for her and not finding her there. Her best friend Shayla Harrison ran up to me all excited telling me that she and about seven or eight girls were headed over to our house to help mom finish with decorating. I remember Shay saying she felt bad having to lie to Bren about not being able to come to Karen's with her, but she wanted to make sure Mom had the best friend stamp of approval. I asked where Brenna was. She said the last she had saw her she was heading out to wait for me. I told them she was probably in the bathroom and one of the girls said she wasn't because she had just come from there. I was immediately worried. My gut told me something was wrong. When Brenna said she was going to be somewhere she was usually there unless she had an extremely good reason not to be. But she always called. Always. I ran back outside thinking maybe I would catch up with her and as I got to the gate I saw her silver bracelet that my dad had brought her lying on the ground. 

"The first thing that came to my mind was she had been kidnapped. I got back in the car and drove home as fast as I could going by all the routes I knew she would take sometimes on nice days after school to go home. I didn't see her anywhere. I was hoping to God that maybe she had called Mom and told her she was at Karen's already. When I pulled up to the house, the guests were just starting to arrive. Shayla and the girls had got there first. When I walked in my mom must have seen my face because she immediately stopped smiling and she said asked me what was wrong. I pulled her over to the side and told her that Shayla wasn't at the school. I could see it in her eyes the fear. It was like she was reliving the night dad died over again. Both Michael and Grant had come over by that time and Grant started freaking out. I know he loved my sister. I think had she would have lived they would...maybe, I don't know. Very quietly we got a few of the guys that were already there and told them that Brenna was missing. None of them had heard or seen anything suspicious but they wanted to help see if they could find her. I told them it was very important that they keep this quiet. If Brenna was okay and just had an emergency then I didn't want to get people upset and worried for nothing. Karen had called to ask if I had picked Bren up yet, so we knew she wasn't there. I told my mother to get back in the room and not to worry. But of course I knew she was. But she was a cop's wife. She knew how to be stoic and put on a show. She marched back into the living room as if nothing was going on. Later she told me the whole time, she knew something was going to end badly. She had felt it all day, but thought it was just because of the anniversary of dad's death being so close to Bren's birthday."

John paused for a moment. He had lived with the memories inside of him for so long, he could almost touch them to make them come alive. Evangeline waited with abated breath, her face half in shock, the other in disbelief that such an ugliness could exist in this world. Even as a lawyer who many times represented the scum of the earth, there was a naiveté about her that most people were still capable of being good. Of choosing good, even though the world proved otherwise. But she had to believe because if she didn't, the only other option was to become a recluse, emotionally closed off like...John.

"We searched for her all night. All night. By then it was hard to keep people at the house in the dark. People were starting to figure out something was wrong. By midnight, almost the whole town had been helping. But the ironic thing is that it was a few neighborhood kids who were playing T-ball at the old mill factory that had found Bren. The bastard raped her then...he strangled her and dumped her body in the thicket near the mill. He touched her innocence, ripped it from her. When the boys found her, they ran to my house and my mother was the one they told. Being the man in the family, it was my duty to go ID the body. I couldn't let Mom see Brenna like that. And Evangeline, when I saw her lying there on the ground, lifeless, with this white sheet covering her skin. Skin that used to be so warm and fresh and full of...just lifeless, I think I may have cried for the second time in my life. She had only been dead for a few hours, her eyes were open, the look of horror on her face. The thing I most regret about her death is that she had to die finally understanding how fucked up this world is. How evil we are. Even when Dad was killed, she still believed in life and justice that people were good, they just needed love. But those eyes they were the windows to her soul. They felt everything and they showed everything she felt. She must have been so terrified. And I kept thinking, ‘Look what you've done. You were late. This is your fault. What kind of man are you John McBain? You wanted to be like your father but you couldn't even keep him or his baby girl alive. What kind of son sends his father and his sister to his death?" 

"Did they ever catch him?" Evangeline asked. She would address John's self-loathing later, but for now, she didn't want him to stop.

"Yeah. They did. It didn't take long for them to link it to a Howie D. Johnson. They found out that he had just moved into the neighborhood that year. He had a rap sheet the size of Llanfair. Most of them were sexual assaults. This was before Megan's Law obviously. He wasn't obligated to let the community know of his past crimes. Most people had seen him around before. You know, at the market, getting gas. He seemed normal, a loner, but that was nothing unusual since he was new. I was actually at the station when they brought him in. I came as soon as they said they caught him. When I finally saw his face for the first time, I never felt so much hate before in my life. I wanted to kill him. I almost did. It took a bunch of officers to pry me off of him. I thought maybe if I could kill him, I could get rid of some of the guilt. Maybe I could make it right. But I don't think it would have helped if I succeeded. Brenna was still dead. My mother went deeper into depression. Started drinking. I don't think she ever really recovered from losing Brenna. And at the time, I thought it was my fault. Hell, I still think that."

Evangeline shook her head as she grabbed John's face. "But you know your father and sister would never blame you for what some sick, evil, horrible people did to them. They know how much you loved them John. And quite frankly, you do them more of a dishonor by refusing to live your life without all this guilt and pain then you do holding on to it. It wasn't right for them to die the way they did. No one should have to go like that, but if anything, it should have taught you a lesson: That our lives aren't promised to us nor is how long we have on this earth to get things right. To be happy. So you've got love, live, die for happiness at every opportunity. By refusing to let them go, to accept you‘re not to blame, their deaths go in vain. And I know you wouldn't want that. And I know they wouldn't want it. Not your dad or Brenna or Caitlin." 

"But Caitlin did change all of that," John protested. "She helped me to open up my heart again. And just when I thought I could be healed, when I let her in enough to love her, she just went away. Everyone loves you, but they never stay long enough to prove it."

"Look, John," Evangeline started, "I'm not going to do us both a disservice here by promising that I'll be here forever. That I'll never leave because we both know the minute I do that, I'm setting us both up for some serious irony. The truth is that I don't know what's going to happen two days from now or tomorrow. Any day could be our last day here. But I will promise you this: today or tomorrow, this year or next, whether here or in heaven, whenever or wherever, I'm always going to love you. I'm always going to want what's best for you. And I'm never going stop believing in the wonderful man that I know you are. You risk your life to protect others every day. Some don't deserve your protection but you give it to them anyway. Most will never know how much of yourself you sacrifice to keep them whole, but I know. And I'm always going to love you for it. And should the day come that you are left behind, know that you're not left alone. Love is not a physical thing. It's everything. It's in your spirit, your heart. And I hope you carry my love for you like you carry you badge: close to you always."

The detective who rarely spoke, if at all, who could never think beyond the moment, was suddenly filled with so many words and so many thoughts of what tomorrow would bring that all he could do was stare at the woman that sat on his lap with the doe eyes stained with tears and her glossy hair tied in a messy bun perched on either side of him giving herself, all of herself, to him on a silver platter. He knew that he didn't deserve the woman that sat before him. Not because she had a fancy title, or a classy upbringing or because she preferred tennis to football. She was probably the most sincere, honest, and loyal woman he ever meant. He knew that whatever it was that gave him to her was letting him know that she was not something to throw back into the pond for someone else to recognize how incredible she was. He had said Natalie was a life preserver who just kept him afloat, but Evangeline was his anchor. She kept him grounded when he needed it the most. When he was drifting farther from himself and those he loved, she calmly held him at bay. This was love.

"I'm going to try to get it right, Van. I promise."

"I don't need you to try, just to do it. I know losing people you love is never easy. Especially the way it happened with your father and sister and fiancée. That's a lot for a person to have to go through. But you don't have to do it alone. You've got people here who'll always want to help. Including me. And if we never make it together, you can still count on me to be there."

John's brow rose at her last comment. "You looking for us to not make it together?"

Evangeline laughed and pretended to think on it seriously. "Um, not in a million years McBain. You're stuck with me just as much I am with you."

John took the opportunity to suckle her bottom lip. It was one of his favorite body parts to explore. Evangeline had very kissable lips. Suddenly, the weight of all the things he had carried on his back, seemed to have lifted as he connected with her mouth. Evangeline moaned as she felt John harden against her bare thigh. 

"So, are you satisfied.? Did I answer all your questions?" John asked, his breath quickening.

"Yes, you did. Thank you John. For sharing all of that with me. I know that share time is not something you like to do but I really appreciate it."

Evangeline shivered as his hand steadily traveled up her thigh until they disappeared under her gown. John's eyes grew dark at her reaction. "It's the least I could do for someone who is going to be responsible for my life's happiness. Are we good now?"

"We are so very good now."

He stopped his stroking and looked at her in a way she had never been looked at before. Like he was staring into the very depths of her existence. Like he had uncovered of all her secrets, her mysteries. "I love you. I'm so in love with you I'm scared to death of it."

The lawyer closed her eyes taking in the sound. "You have no idea how long I've waited to hear those words coming from your lips. It feels good."

"Good," replied. " I think I couldn't say it because, for me, words are nothing special. Anyone can say I love you. But their actions speak louder. I had to mean it before I could say it.. I know I more than liked you very much. And I knew that what we had going was the start of a good thing. But I wouldn't let my heart feel that. And until I did, I couldn't let you hear what you wanted to hear from me."

"I understand that John. I did. I do."

John looked at the woman. His woman. She was all legs and curves. In that moment she looked like an Amazon. Strong and sensual. A woman who knew her power. And he couldn't wait for her to use it on him. "Now that all of this is settled. I want two things to happen in the next hour. Possibly three things."

"And those things would be?" 

"First, I want you to kiss me because it was only seven hours ago that I last saw you and we have a lot of kissing to make up for the time we've missed in between. Then I want you to let me make love with you because that is something that I can never get enough of. And finally, as we're completing task number two, I want you tell me you love me back." 

John's lips moved to her ear, his hands still caressing her thigh. "While I'm inside of you," he whispered.

Evangeline wrapped her arms and legs around her lover as he got off the couch and said, "You know Lieutenant, I think that I would like to take you up on that offer."

Please say honestly 
You won't give up on me
I shall believe
I shall believe...