“His heart actually stumbled when he remembered her pain. He immediately knelt by her head.“Eve, how can I fix this? Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything.” He moved her hair out of her face.Eve let his words lay in the room with them for a while before she uttered her blasphemous ones. “When I’m with you, it doesn’t hurt as bad.”He picked her up again, surprised—now that he could think—at how much she weighed. This girl’s pure muscle.He sat on the couch with her on his lap. Starting over. “I’m so sorry, Eve.”Eve touched the new marks on his chest, lines that linked all his past violence with a path of red, new pain. “I know you are, Beck. I know you are.”

“He stepped close to her; she could feel his breath on her neck. “Eve, you make me not want to die.”She turned to see his face. “I didn’t want to be this, and now it’s all I am.”He put his hands on her cheeks. The look on his face did her in. He was kind, caring, and mourning her losses. Tears wet his cheeks. Eve felt a very deep sob choke her. If he was mourning, so could she.He pulled her into his arms. “Cry. It’s okay. Cry.”Eve felt her knees give. He caught her and carried her to his couch. He petted her hair and let her empty her pain and guilt onto his chest. He kissed the top of her head. For the first time, his actions toward her seemed to have no sexual intent whatsoever.Eve let go of a rope she’d clung to for too long. And she fell. She fell right into him. Wrong or right, she gave up judging. Her lips found his, and he kissed her gently, not demanding any more than she was willing to offer.”

“He needs to tell me what he knows before he gets anything else from the Grahams."She folded her arms across her chest and gave him her best "you will do what I say" look. He only shrugged and kept drinking his coffee.Eva frowned at her. "Hija, you must be nice to Ranger Armstrong. His is a good man."Oliviva snorted. "I'll believe that when he treats me like a person instead of a pain in the ass.""You are a pain in the ass."At first she could hardly believe he'd said it, but then when it sank in, a chuckle burst out of her mouth. She didn't want to be amused by his smart mouth, but she was. "So are you. Now tell me what you know.”

“You can have that life,” he told her. “It’s right there for you to take.”“I love you,” Eve quickly countered.“Loving me hurts you, doesn’t it?” Beckett asked, looking down. “No, you don’t have to tell me. I know. I can smell it. I can smell the pain coming off of you,” he said, looking at the floor. “You had love before and a future. What does loving me get you, Eve? What does it get you?” He stood, angry with himself.“I don’t need to get anything from you. It’s the way it is. There’s no changing that.” She gripped the porch railing.Beckett stepped close to Eve and tenderly tucked a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear.“You’re saying goodbye,” she said, her eyes full of questions.“Do you know there are other little girls out there like that one? I lived with a few of them. They would sell their souls for a mother like you.”At the word mother Eve’s chin crumpled. She tried to hold back the tears, but they wouldn’t obey.“See that? It’s what you need. You need that—a little kid calling you Mom.” Beckett put his arms around her as she shattered.The pain she kept hidden surfaced from where it had been smoldering. When he felt her knees weaken, he hugged her harder.“That’s right. It’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, baby. You want normal.” He guided her to the chair he’d vacated. “There’s a guy out there who’ll hold your hand. There’s a little girl out there. She’s waiting for you. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” He knelt in front of her and rubbed her arms.She slapped at his hands, letting outrage carry her words. “I don’t want another man. I want you. I’ve killed for you. I’ve protected you. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you honestly think these hands that kill can hold a child?” She held her fingers in front of her face.“Yes. Absolutely. Don’t you know, gorgeous? Mothers are some of the most vicious killers out there, if their kids are threatened. You just have more practice.” He took her hands and kissed them.“I’ve lost too much. I can’t lose you. Don’t make me. Please. I’ll beg you if I have to.” She watched his lips on her palms.He shook his head and used her own words against her. “The hardest part of loving someone is not being with them when you want to be.”He stood, and she mirrored his motion,already shaking her head. “Don’t say it.”Beckett ignored her; he knew what he had to do. He had to set beautiful Eve free to find that soft, touchable woman he’d seen her become with the little girl.”

“Won? He’s one of them! How exactly is that winning?”Michael shook his head, moved up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. He kissed the nape of her neck gently. “I don’t know, Eve. I’m just telling you what I heard. He got some kind of agreement out of the vampires. And it was because Amelie loved him.”“Yeah, loved him enough to kill him and turn him into a bloodsucking fiend,” Eve said grimly. “How sweet. Romance isn’t dead. Oh, wait. It is.”

“Do they still hurt?" she whispered in anguished surprise."No," Jason said tautly. Shame washed over him in sickening waves as he waited helplessly for her inevitable reaction to the stark evidence of his humiliation.To his utter disbelief he felt her arms encircle him from behind and the touch of her lips on his back. "How brave you must have been to endure this," she whispered achingly, "how strong to survive it and go on living..." When she began kissing each scar, Jason rolled to his side and jerked her into his arms. "I love you," he whispered agonizedly, plunging his hands into her luxuriant hair and turning her face up to his. "I love you so much...”