Carla felt the shudders that ripped through Luke’s control, felt the scalding heat of his tears against her skin and held him until she ached. For long minutes there was only the sound of his broken breathing and her own whispered words of love. Finally he stood up, carrying her with him, holding her as close as the beating of his own heart.

Then Luke looked down in Carla’s clear eyes. He felt something shimmer through him like sunrise, transforming him, freeing him from the darkness of the past, giving him a vision of a future more beautiful than his hungry dream. He wanted to tell Carla all that he saw – a girl with dark hair and golden eyes and her mother’s flashing smile, a boy with gentle hands and blue-green eyes and his father’s easy strength, a man and a woman sharing and building and creating together, giving back to life the gift it had given them.

The vision was so clear to Luke, so real, beyond question or doubt. He wanted to share it with Carla, to tell her that neither one of them would ever be lonely again. Yet of all the gifts that had come to him, of all the truths yet to be given and received, only one came to his lips when he bent down to her, for it was the only truth that mattered.

"I love you, sunshine."