Johnathan

Julie was almost two and a half years old now. I never got tired of holding that beautiful little girl in my arms, but it was starting to get to be more and more of a challenge the heavier she got. I set her down gently in her crib, and stared down smiling at her.

She was out like a light.

We'd gone down to the beach today, here on vacation for the first time as a family. I'd watched, beaming, as Veronica played with her near the water's edge, building sand castles and walking barefoot through the wet sand.

It was amazing to think how much had changed in the year or so that had passed since I'd saved Veronica's life- and of course, since she'd saved my life in return.

The police showed up not long after she knocked out my would-be killer. He survived and was taken to the hospital, and I was brought in and treated for my injuries a few rooms down from him.

It turned out that the kid's name was Zac Thompson, a young man in his mid-twenties who'd decided to throw his life away in the hopes of making a quick buck. My housekeeper Celia was his aunt.

Apparently, Celia had been talking with Zac's mother at a family get-together about her job cleaning for me, and happened to mention my $200 million Picasso painting in passing. The young man must have immediately seen dollar signs, and set off figuring out how he might go about stealing the piece from me and cashing it in for big-time bucks.

Honest to God, I would have given the thing to him in a heartbeat if it could somehow mean bringing Celia back...

He'd never meant to kill his aunt on that horrible night. All he'd wanted was to get in the house and gain access to the painting. Celia, ever the faithful employee, had tried to resist him, then made the fatal mistake of recognizing his voice through the cover of his ski mask.

There was no possible way he could let her get away with that information...

Thinking ahead, he'd stolen the gun Celia's husband Stan had stashed away for protection, and even had the foresight to bring along hairs from his clothes to make it seem like his DNA was present at the scene. And so, when police had investigated, they'd come to the simple conclusion that Stan was responsible for the killing, nothing more than a domestic dispute, and that had been the end of that.

He might have stayed in there rotting forever had Zac not gotten greedy again, and decided to have another go at robbing me after so nearly being caught the first time. Apparently, thinking he would have a better time with Veronica than he would with me around the house, he waited for just the right moment before striking again. His obvious mistake was assuming that Veronica knew the combination to the safe, and that was, of course, ultimately his downfall.

There was enough security footage of the entire incident for things to all go fairly smoothly at the trial, including video captured on the streets of New York City. In the end, he hadn't had much choice in the matter but to confess, and pray to God above that they went easy on him.

And so, in the end, Stan was exonerated for his crimes, and Zac went to prison in his uncle's place. I decided it would only be right of me to give Stan some money, and a pretty healthy amount at that. It wasn't that I felt that I owed him anything, exactly. I was just sorry for what had happened to him, and I wanted to at least try and make his life easier for him. After all, I knew just what it was like to lose someone like that, and I had cared an awful lot about Celia myself. A few dollars would never be enough to make up for her loss and the pain of his nephew's betrayal, but I thought it could at least help him get his life a little bit more stabilized after such a period of turbulence.

And in a way, I felt like there was almost a kind of karmic justice about that. Like having my own grief relieved as I had was enough to make me want to pass that on. Even if I knew a monetary gift paled in comparison to the love of a woman like Veronica.

God, Veronica... My beautiful angel.

She seemed to think I was joking, or delusional or something when I asked her to marry me. Maybe I was, just a little bit at that time, but I meant it with the utmost sincerity.

I asked her again after the moment had passed, this time with the engagement ring I'd bought for her in hand, and down on one knee. And thank God her answer was the same as it had been before.

“Yes. Yes. A million times yes.”

And so, we'd gotten married. Six months ago to the day, and we hadn't looked back ever since.

And as I stood there, looking down at my little Julie sleeping away there in her innocence, I swelled with pride to think of the other little bundle of joy growing in my wife's belly. Our first child together, only a couple months along, but the thought of it so beautiful that it sometimes made me break down crying before I could even stop myself.

Veronica would never be a replacement for Lydia, of course. Not in my life, or in Julie's. She couldn't be, and I would never ask her to be. They were both their own separate selves, each beautiful to me in so many ways, each coming into my life exactly when I needed them.

What had Veronica had done was bring me a hope I'd come to fear I might never know again, and the way I felt in that moment I had every reason to believe that would last forever.

I crept silently from Julie's room and into the main area of our hotel suite, returning to join my beautiful young wife for the night.

Only to find, when I entered our room, that she was lying on our bed, completely naked. Her body still glistening from a shower, her hair soaked in curtains along her shoulders and her perfect breasts. One arm tucked over the gentle slope of her pregnant belly, her hand pressed down between her legs, gently stroking herself, looking as pretty as a picture- if a slightly x-rated one.

“I want to paint you like one of your French girls,” I teased, and she beamed at me. Her art career had taken off like a ship in flight ever since the need to worry about money had been taken from her life, and I loved to remind her of her success whenever the opportunity arose.”

“I just want you to get over here and do me already,” she said, and I immediately felt my pants get tighter.

“Well,” I said with a shrug, “I guess I can't really argue with that, now can I?”

She opened up her legs for me in response, and I took that as my answer.

I stepped over to the bed in the happiest of trances, my erection like a divining rod as I slipped out of my shirt in hopes of joining her as quickly as possible.

In spite of everything, and all that I'd been through, it was moments like this one that made me certain I was the luckiest man alive.