He wanted desperately to stay, just a little while longer. But he couldn't be here, in this place, with her. It was calm here. She was innocent and beautiful and perfect. He was not. He didn't want his mess or his mental illness or his past anywhere near her. He wanted to protect her from a lot of things, but most of all from himself.

Loving someone wasn't about their perfection. It was about coming to accept every part of them, their good qualities at their weaknesses and flaws--looking on everything they were and loving it all.As she looked on everything Jake was, right down to his center, she loved him.

He'd sacrifice even his sanity for her. If it came down to it, he'd let her break his heart.Because he loved her.

His eyes settled due west and gazed through the silhouetted, leaf-bare branches to the now-black rolling hills of the mountains he called home. The sun was setting on another day in Laurel Cove, though he couldn__ help but wonder what was rising on the horizon.

Hiding had been effortless in New York City. Getting lost in a sea of people was as easy as stepping onto a crowded Subway car. Sweet Laurel Cove would be very different. Generations of families filled its church pews, ran its farms, and schooled its children. Anonymity was as rare as lightning bugs in wintertime__s her grandmother would say.

Had God kept from being made those who through His goodness were to have existence, but who by their own choice were to become evil, then evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. Thus, all things which God makes He makes good, but each one becomes good or evil by his own choice. So, even if the Lord did say: 'It were better for him if that man had not been born,' He did not say so in deprecation of His own creature, but in deprecation of that creature's choice and rashness.