"Put the gun down," I shouted as I took aim with my Beretta.

Andrew Mackey didn’t listen. He spun around to take a shot at me, but before he got the chance I squeezed the trigger and placed one round between his eyes. He fell to the sand in a lifeless heap, his finger still on the trigger.

Just a few weeks earlier I was a part-time police officer in the small island town of Tendahl Island in northern California. That’s what I did in the summer when my family moved to the island from the middle of June to Labor Day.

It was Friday, August 14^th, when I first noticed the blonde goddess named Dawn arrive with her family to spend the rest of the summer in their beach house on the north shore of the island. She looked about five foot four, one hundred thirty pounds, about my age (twenty-two), and carried lovely 36D breasts. That day, as she stepped off the two o’clock ferry, she wore a tight red tank top and khaki cargo shorts that closely hugger her hips. My heart skipped a beat with the first sight of her.

The following evening I started seeing Dawn hanging around one of our local lowlifes, Andrew Mackey. Mackey was from a family that lived on the island year round. His father was a poor fisherman, one of the few who still struggled to make out a living when the fish population started to dwindle. His family wasn’t troublesome, but Andrew was. He constantly got in trouble with the law for public drunkenness, fighting, and a few small misdemeanors.

He was the kind of guy whom, in a place like Tendahl Island, one could tell was a problem child. Amid all of the yuppies in sandals, khaki shorts, and polo short, Mackey stood out. He was a muscular boy standing five-foot-ten with shaggy black hair that came below the collar of his worn t-shirts, chains around his neck and wrists, and black jeans with the knees torn out. I heard many islanders refer to Mackey and his friends as "white trash."

Mackey was a sharp contrast to me, the clean-cut all-American boy from Oregon. I wore my brown hair in a military cut and had no tattoos or piercings. I was six-foot-one and that summer I weighed about one-seventy. Although I wasn’t athletic and didn’t play any sports, I tried to keep myself in good shape because I was in the National Guard back home in Oregon, which help pay for college.

That Saturday night in August, the day after Dawn arrived on the island, I was working downtown. On the slow nights like that one we practiced what our chief called "policing by presence" – we walked around town to stick our heads in everywhere there were people and spend a few minutes talking with them. That way the cops establish a friendly relationship with the tourist population, making them more willing to come to us with problems.

I sat inside the Mariner’s Restaurant on Main Street sipping a cherry Coke and joking with the man behind the counter and a few tourists from Portland. The restaurant was designed for tourists and the walls were covered with all sorts of maritime artifacts. I finished my Coke and the conversation, paid the waiter, and stepped outside just as the movie in the theater across the street finished and the patrons filed out into the somewhat chilly summer night.

Amid the crowd, Dawn and Mackey stood out like a sore thumb. Dawn dressed in what were probably designer clothes and Andrew Mackey dressed in the ragged clothes he normally wore. I wasn’t sure what attracted them, or even how they hooked up one day after she arrived on the island, but I knew Mackey’s reputation as a womanizer and figured that he was just looking for a weekend fling. A little bit of tail he could use and then loose.

After that night, I started seeing Dawn and Mackey everywhere. Naturally, it was none of my business, but I suspected that Mackey was just using her so, as a fellow human being, I felt sorry for Dawn. I didn’t want her summer to be ruined by a jerk like that.

One evening a week later, I was walking my beat downtown and popped by head into a small gift shop down by the waterfront. It sold all sorts of new age items such as crystals, candles, incense and for some reason did really well among the tourist crowd. I guess that sort of merchandise appealed to the yuppies. I knew the woman who owned and operated it. Even though she was ten years older than I was, we always flirted whenever I went in there.

"Evening Skip," the woman, named Janette, said as I entered. Skip was my nickname from high school and only a few people still called me it, mostly the ones who remembered me from when my family vacationed on the island back then.

"I hope you don’t stay long, that gun of yours brings a lot of bad karma in here," Janette joked.

"I decided to get rid of all my bullets and use those little crystals by the window," I said, pushing aside the beaded curtain that divided the store in two. "I like the way they sparkle."

"Why don’t you come upstairs to my place and I’ll show you something else you might be interested in," she replied.

"Sorry," I shook my head. "I’m on duty. Besides, I’m young enough to be your . . . younger brother."

And this banter went on for several minutes until the chimes hanging above the front door sounded. We looked over and saw Dawn step inside. She carried shopping bags from a few of the other waterfront stores and looked like she was just making her way down the strip, checking out all the stores. Janette and I watched her as we continued talking.

Dawn decided to buy a couple of scented candles and brought them up to the counter.

"Hi there, sweetie," Janette greeted her. "Can I help you find anything else?"

"No thanks," Dawn said. "This will be fine."

"She grows some really amazing pot in the back," I joked. "She used to make her own meth, but she blew off the back half of the building."

Dawn stared blankly at me, probably trying to figure out why this cop was asking her if she wanted some drugs.

"I’m kidding," I said after an uncomfortable pause.

"Oh, don’t mind him, honey," Janette said, touching Dawn’s shoulder. "My marijuana isn’t that great."

All three of us laughed.

"My name’s Mark," I said, reaching my hand out to Dawn. She introduced herself and then shook hands with Janette as well.

"Say, do either of you know where I can get a mocha java or some herbal tea?" Dawn asked.

"Well, Tendahl Island is a little small for a lot of the big city coffee shops," I said. "But I think there’s a coffee counter in drug store on San Juan Street that might have what you’re looking for."

"How far away is that?" Dawn asked.

"Just a couple blocks inland," Janette said.

"I’m heading that direction," I lied. "I’ll show you the way."

Dawn smiled and Janette rolled her eyes. She knew that I normally just walked up and down Waterfront Avenue. But she also knew that this new girl was incredibly attractive.

"That’s okay," Dawn said. "I don’t want to keep you from your job."

"The only police-like thing I’ve had to do all summer is give one citation for underage drinking. And that was two weeks ago. Trust me, nothing happens in this town."

"Well, in that case I would love a police escort," Dawn said with a smile.

I said goodnight Janette, and Dawn and I left the store. We stepped outside into the cool evening as the smell of salt water wafted in on the omnipresent breeze.

"So where are you from," I asked.

"Seattle, Washington," Dawn said. "Just outside of it, actually. My father just bought a summerhouse on the island. He owns some sort of Internet company and made almost thirty million dollars last year."

"That’s not bad," I said. "Certainly more than I make, but I’m only a part-time cop."

"So what do you do when you’re not a cop?" Dawn asked.

"Mostly build models," I said. "I’m working on a model B-52."

"What’s that?" she asked.

"It’s a bomber, a really huge one," I answered. "The Air Force flew them during the Cold War and still has a lot of them. They’ve been around since before Vietnam. You’d probably recognize one if you saw it."

"I don’t know," Dawn said. "I’m not that interested in military stuff."

"That’s cool," I replied. "It’s not for everyone. What are you interested in?"

Dawn shrugged. "I don’t know. I’m going to school but I don’t have a major yet. I’m just taking general classes to see if there’s anything I like."

"What about in your free time, when you’re not in class?"

"Not much, hang out with friends, party on the weekends," she said.

"Boyfriends?"

"Not really."

"I saw you the last week with Andrew Mackey," I said. "Are the two of you together?"

"Nope," Dawn said. "Andy kept wanting to have sex and I didn’t want that sort of thing with him yet. We just hang out together."

"He doesn’t seem much like you’re type," I said. "Not that I know what you’re like, but I know about Andrew."

"Actually, he’s more of the type my father doesn’t like," she confessed. "I was sick and tired of him telling me what to do, I wanted to show him that I could see anyone I wanted to."

"Well, it’s none of my business anyway," I shrugged. "Just watch out. He’s the sort who will take advantage of a girl, especially one who’s only here for the summer."

"Thanks, but I can take care of myself."

I held my hands up in the air to show I wasn’t trying to insult her.

"I never said you couldn’t," I pointed out. "I just wanted to let you know that if you ever do get in trouble, you can give me a holler. We’re not like mainland cops who harass teenagers and college students, that takes away tourist dollars."

"Thank you, Mark," Dawn said with an apologetic smile.

We stopped walking outside the picture window of the drug store on San Juan Street.

"Well, here we are."

"Thanks for the escort, Mark," Dawn said.

"No problem," I replied. "It’s all part of my job, as easy as may be."

"I’ll see you around," she said, walking into the store.

"You can count on it," I answered. "It’s a small island."

For the next week or so, I could only think about Dawn. Her long blonde hair, the way her rosy red lips smiled and her eyes glistened, the warmth that radiated from her body when she was near me. I couldn’t get her out of my mind and it was driving me crazy. Every night when I went on duty at five o’clock, I walked the waterfront hoping to run into her but never did. I started to think that maybe she had left the island.

On Saturday, August 29, two weeks after she arrived on the island, I ran into Dawn again. I had every third Saturday night off, and this happened to be one of them. I walked into town from my parents beach house to catch a play at the outdoor theater, a free showing to entertain the tourists. Afterwards I started walking along the beach on my way home. It was a pleasant evening with a nearly full moon and no clouds in the starry sky.

But the pleasantness ended as I passed some tall grasses between the beach and the highway and heard what sounded like a struggle coming from inside them. I stepped closer to investigate and heard a weak female voice say, "help me, somebody help me."

That was all the probable cause I needed. I jumped into the tall grass and pushed my way through towards the sound. Suddenly I burst into a clearing to see a male kneeling over a tied up and half-naked female.

"Hold it!" I shouted.

The male looked up at me, then down at the girl, then back at me.

"Please, help me," the girl gasped.

I ran over was close enough to see who he was. Andrew Mackey, I should have recognized him from a mile away. Mackey leaped at me and knocked me to the ground. I rolled over and kicked him to get him off of me, then leapt to my feet. Mackey threw a punch at me, but I blocked it and gave him a right cross against his face. He stumbled back as I prepared for his attack, but instead of returning the punch, he ran back into the grass and disappeared. I tried to follow after him, but tripped on a piece of driftwood and he got away.

Behind me, I heard the girl say, "please, Mark, don’t leave me."

It was Dawn’s voice; I’d recognize that sweet angel’s voice anywhere. I ran back over to her and slid in the sand as I dropped to my knees.

"Dawn," I gasped. "Are you alright?"

"He . . . he tried to . . ." Dawn stammered, unable to finish speaking.

"It’s okay, Dawn," I said. "He’s gone, you’re safe now.

She was wearing a dark blue dress, but her left shoulder strap had been ripped and the dress pulled down to show her the top half of her left breast. Her lip was bleeding from where Mackey had hit her. Her hands were bound behind her back and her legs were tied together. I pulled the pocketknife out of my pocket and untied her.

"Let me see your wrists," I said, taking her hands in mine.

She wasn’t injured, except for some minor rope burn around her wrists and ankles. The lip had stopped bleeding and there was no sign of injury anywhere else. Part of being a policeman in a small town was that I also had to double as a paramedic. I must have arrived just in time to stop Mackey from seriously injuring and raping her.

"We need to get you indoors," I said. "I’ll take you back to my parents house, it’s just over that hill. I don’t think you need medical attention, but I’ll check you out more carefully when we get there to be sure. I need to call the police anyway to report this and make sure Andrew Mackey is arrested."

I picked Dawn up in my arms – she wasn’t too heavy to carry a quarter of a mile – and carried her back to my parents’ house. They had gone to the mainland for the weekend to see friends of my mother so I was left with the house to myself.

As I opened the front door and carried her inside, Dawn made a crack about carrying her across the threshold.

"It’s a little early for a honeymoon, don’t you think," she said. "We haven’t even been on one date yet."

It was a good sign that she could joke, that meant she wasn’t mentally damaged by the attack. Had she actually been raped, I would have called for an ambulance and had her taken her to the hospital at once. But she seemed to be doing fine, all things considering. I got there just in time.

I carried her into the living room and sat her down on the couch in front of the television. I handed her the remote and said, "You can find something on TV while I go call the police to get Mackey picked up. I’ll need to get a statement from you later on. Do you want anything to eat or drink? Pop, water, coffee, tea?"

"Actually, some hot chocolate would be nice," Dawn said.

"Hot chocolate it is," I answered. "I’m a full service policeman tonight."

She smiled and turned on the television. I put the water into the microwave to warm it for a couple minutes while I called the police station. The dispatcher, Katherine, would let everyone know and send a car out to the Mackey place to pick him up, although he probably wouldn’t head home.

When I returned to the living room, I brought Dawn a large mug of hot chocolate, with marshmallows, and a blanket to wrap herself in.

"How do you feel?" I asked her.

"Kinda scared," she said with a sigh. "If you hadn’t shown up, it would have been a lot worse."

"I was going to get a bite to eat downtown after the show," I said. "I’m glad I didn’t. I wouldn’t have come by until it was too late."

"You saved my life," Dawn said, wrapping the blanket tight around her.

I shook my head. "I did my job, tonight may be my night off, but I’m a cop here on the island twenty-four hours a day."

"Thank you anyway," Dawn said, reaching out to take my hand. Her touch was cold. "Thank you for doing your job."

"You need to get cleaned up," I said, brushing the sand off her face. "And into some serviceable clothes. Come on, I’ll show you the bathroom."

Dawn stood and I led her upstairs to the large bathroom, which was adjacent to both the master bedroom and my room. When my parents had the house remodeled ten years earlier they had expanded the bathroom to include a large shower stall, bathtub/jacuzzi, and a sauna (although the sauna hadn’t worked for three years).

"I’ll draw you a bath," I said as I turned on the light. I walked across the plush red carpeting and bent down to work the control knobs for the bathtub and turn on the water. "Feel that in a couple seconds and let me know if it’s too warm."

"Okay," Dawn said, sitting down on the toilet.

I walked over to linen closet between the shower stall and the sauna to find some towels for her to use. As I stood with my back to her, I didn’t hear Dawn stand up and cross the room to me. She placed her arms around me and hugged me.

"Please, don’t leave me, Mark," she said softly.

"I’m just going to be in the next room," I said, turning around to stare into her wide green eyes.

"I don’t even want to be alone in here," Dawn said.

She wrapped her arms around me and leaned her head on my chest.

"You make me feel so safe, Mark," she said. "When I’m with you I feel like nothing can hurt me. You won’t let it."

I tried like hell to keep the erection from forming in my pants. I thought about every non-sexual, un-stimulating thing I could think of in the first few seconds after Dawn pressed her body against mine, but nothing worked and the erection slowly grew. She felt so wonderful against me, the tightness of her breasts pressed against my chest, the warmth of her body, and the smell of her hair. Yes, it was inappropriate for me to do anything except leave, but damnit if Dawn wasn’t the most arousing girl I had met in a long time.

She stepped back and removed her torn dress, which was only hanging on her luscious body by a thin strap over her right shoulder.

"Why don’t you give me a bath," Dawn suggested, a devilish gleam sparkling in her eye.

Again, I should have said "no" but the little devil on my shoulder convinced me otherwise. There, standing not three feet in front of me was an attractive girl wearing only a pair of black lace thong panties. Her naked breasts, amply sized and perfectly round, called to me. Her nipples reaching out from the rose colored areolas surrounding them. They seemed to call for my fingers to caress them and my lips to suck on them.

"How could I say no to an offer like that?" I said, stepping forward to grab Dawn in my arms and kiss her on the lips. Her hands reached behind me to un-tuck my t-shirt while I ran my fingers through her golden hair and palmed her derrière.

"I’ve thought about you since the moment you stepped off the ferry two weeks ago," I whispered in her ear.

"And I’ve dreamed about you since we met in that store," Dawn replied.

My hands slid to her hips and my fingers entwined themselves in the lace of her panties. Slowly, I pulled them down until they fell to her ankles. Dawn’s fingers reached out to unhook my belt, unbuttoned my jeans, and slowly unzipped the fly.

"Oh my," she said, slipping her fingers in and feeling the bulging erection beneath my white briefs.

I pulled off my shirt while she let my jeans drop to the floor and reached into my undershorts to grasp my member. She stroked it with both hands for a few moments before kneeling on the carpet and going down on me. Dawn pleasured me with the skill of one who had done this many times before, but that didn’t bother me that night as my hormones took over. With each stroke of her tongue against the tip or her lips sliding along my shaft, my body shook as the pleasure pulsed through me.

Rapidly, my ability to control everything vanished into the night as the stimulation grew more and more intense. I tried to fight back the climax – we’d only just started, after all – but to no avail. Her lips and tongue pulled me towards climax and I ejaculated in her mouth, groaning with pleasure and holding her head in my hands.

Dawn swallowed, stood up, and licked her lips.

"That was quick," she said with a smile.

"I couldn’t help it," I said apologetically. "You were pretty intense."

"I didn’t want you to wait for your reward for helping me," Dawn said.

I pulled her close to me again and said, "And now it’s time for your bath."

I took Dawn by the hand and led her over to the large bathtub, which had almost finished filling up. We stepped into the warm water together; she sat in front of me between my legs. I wrapped my arms around her and Dawn leaned her head back on my shoulder.

"I know it’s probably the wrong time to ask," Dawn said, looking up at me. "But do you have a girlfriend?"

"I don’t know," I said. "That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On whether you say ‘yes.’"

We kissed each other and my hands cupped her breasts and gently played with the luxuriously textured nipples between my fingers. They were already firm and she moaned and groaned with excitement as I played with them.

"Yes," she answered in a gasp as one of my hands slid down her and between her legs to stroke the neatly trimmed patch of hair in between.

Gently, I pressed my fingers between her labia and found the swollen mound of her clitoris, and a little bit lower the opening into her body. Carefully, my fingertips probed her body, searching for every area to pleasure her and watching the look of excitement in her eyes, the flushness of her cheeks, and slight parting of her lips.

Just as I knew Dawn had sexual experiences previous to being with me, I too wasn’t a novice. I was glad that I was skilled enough to bring Dawn as much pleasure as she had been able to give to me. I carefully watched her body to tell exactly how I could give her the greatest pleasure.

She pulsed her hips in rhythm with my fingers and the writhing of her body increased as she neared her own climax. I stroked harder, pressing my thumb against her clitoris and stretching my fingers inside of her. In an instant, she became a distant person, like a girl who had lived her whole life in a far-away garden towards which she was now returning, and I knew she was releasing herself into the pleasures before the orgasm.

And when she climaxed, I thought she would fly out of the bathtub with the pleasure. She sealed her lips tightly to keep from screaming as I pulled her through several more orgasms.

Afterwards, our bodies relaxed and we held each other.

"What an evening," she said after catching her breath.

"Who’d have thought any of this would happen," I added.

We lathered and cleaned each other with the scented soaps beside the tub. When we were finished with our bath, the room smelled like a combination of a garden and a fruit cocktail. By the time we finally climbed out of the water to dry, our fingers were as wrinkled as prunes from the water as they could get.

"I can’t believe I met someone who can pleasure me the way you do," Dawn said as I dried her with a thick blue towel.

"Perhaps it was fate that brought us together," I said, wrapping a towel around my own waste.

"But in a few weeks both of us will be leaving," Dawn said morosely.

I placed a finger against her lip.

"Don’t worry about that. It will give us something to look forward to next summer, and the summer after that."

"And the summer after that," she finished with a smile. "The school year will go so slow; it will seem to last forever."

"Then we’ll have to build memories to last that long," I said.

I scooped Dawn up in my arms and carried her into my bedroom. After setting her down on the edge of the bed, I removed my towel and gently lowered her until she lay on the bed and I knelt on my hands and knees beside her.

I quickly snatched a condom from my nightstand and put it on. Dawn rocked her hips back and forth as I knelt over her and lowered my body onto hers. I rocked my hips to match her rhythm and let the tip of my sex touch the folds of hers. With each stroke I pushed deeper and deeper into Dawn until I was entirely inside of her.

I bent down to nibble on her lovely nipples; Dawn cupped her breasts in her hands and brought them closer to my mouth. The pleasure of our bodies grew with each passing moment and the speed of our movements increased, then slowed, and then increased again. We were like animals, lost in our physical lust for each other.

Since she had arrived on the island, I had watched this gorgeous creature from afar and fantasized about her every night. Now what I dared to dream about was finally happening and my fantasies were realized as we made love that summer evening.

Both of us, having satisfied our urges earlier, were able to keep up the animalistic pace for over an hour. But finally my body said it was ready for another climax and I felt the first signals of the coming orgasm surge through me.

The moment came rushing on us quicker than I anticipated. Dawn wrapped her legs around my back and held me tight as I thrust as deep as possible into her. The climax, though not as intense as the earlier one, was just as pleasurable. We were lost in the moment; both of us carried away by the pleasure. Afterwards we just stared into each other’s eyes for several minutes.

"My hero," Dawn said with a smile.

We both laughed.

The next morning, I made Dawn breakfast and afterwards typed up her statement about the night before. I called into the office but learned that they hadn’t found Andrew Mackey yet.

"We’ve got his house staked out," Katherine said over the phone. "And everyone is keeping an eye out for him, but he's probably keeping a low profile. We’ll catch him eventually though, there’s no way for him to get off the island without us seeing him."

After breakfast, Dawn kissed me on the cheek and said, "I’d better get home. My parents are already going to freak, but I don’t want to make it worse."

"Okay," I said, throwing the napkin down on the table. "Do you want me to talk to them about what happened last night, the assault?"

"No, I can tell them," Dawn said.

"Okay, but give them my phone number if they need to talk to me," I said. "Oh, and you’d better call me Officer Christianson instead of Mark."

She smiled and said, "Yea, daddy would probably sue if he knew what we did last night."

I gave her a t-shirt and pair of my jeans to wear as I drove her home. I wore my navy-blue police uniform in case I needed to go inside to talk to her parents.

"I’ll need you to come down to the station this afternoon, there’s quite a bit of paperwork that we’ll have to sort through."

"Okay," Dawn said. "What time."

"How about three o’clock," I suggested. "My shift starts early today."

"Okay, I’ll see you at three."

We kissed quickly before she got out of the car and walked up the stone steps of the walkway in front of her house.

That afternoon, I went into work at two and gave the chief Dawn’s statement. He said they still hadn’t caught up with Mackey yet, but his family was cooperating fully with us. They were embarrassed about the whole incident. I sat down at my desk and started filling out the forms and typing my report of the assault and what followed – minus, of course, making love to the victim. Officially, she fell asleep on my living room couch and I drove her home when she woke up that morning.

By three o’clock, all that needed to be done was to have Dawn sign some of the forms. I leaned back and watched the car race on the television in the corner. Dawn didn’t show up.

By three thirty I started to get worried. By four o’clock I asked the chief if I should go out to her house to see if everything was all right. He told me to take one of the squad cars.

I drove out to her parents’ summerhouse and found the front door ajar. It looked as if someone had kicked it in and broken the lock. Splinters of wood littered the entrance. I grabbed my radio’s speaker mic, which was clipped to the epaulets of my shirt, and pushed the talk button.

"This is Officer Christianson. Requesting backup at 613 Harbor View Drive. Requesting backup at 613 Harbor View Drive."

A piercing female scream from inside filled the air. I drew my sidearm, a Beretta 9mm with a fifteen-round magazine, from the nylon holster on my duty belt and cautiously entered the house. I crouched low to present less of a target had there been anyone inside with a gun, but all I saw were two bodies lying on the floor between the living room and the dining room. I quickly ran over to them and realized they were Dawn’s parents. Her mother was dead and her father had only a fait pulse.

"This is Officer Christianson. Request and ambulance, same address as before. Two civilians down, both with shotgun wounds to the chest."

The scream came again and I knew it was Dawn, she was in trouble and behind the house. Still cautious of a hidden gunman, I quickly made my way through the house and to the open back door. I peered between the curtains of the window next to it and saw Andrew Mackey with a 12-gague pump-action shotgun. He was dragging a petrified Dawn behind him along a path through the grass between the back yard and the beach. He was struggling with Dawn and didn’t pay attention to the house.

With my gun in hand, I ran out the back door, across the lawn, and jumped into the tall grass where Mackey couldn’t see me. Quickly and with stealth, using what I learned in the Army, I moved through the tall grass towards them.

Just as Mackey was about to step onto the beach with Dawn in tow, I emerged from the concealment of the grass a few feet away from them.

"Put the gun down," I shouted as I took aim with my Beretta.

Andrew Mackey didn’t listen. He spun around to take a shot at me, but before he got the chance I squeezed the trigger and placed one round between his eyes. He fell to the sand in a lifeless heap, his finger still on the trigger.

"Mark!" Dawn cried. "Help me! Help me!"

She looked down at the body of Mackey and screamed in terror. It was probably the first time she’d seen a dead body. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a body, but it was the first time that I had taken a life. With my Beretta still trained on Mackey, I cautiously approached him and kicked the shotgun out of his dead hands.

I then ran over to Dawn, who threw her arms around me and started crying.

"Oh, Mark, Mark, I was so scared, I thought he was going to kill me," she sobbed. "He said he loved me and he couldn’t live without me."

"It’s okay now," I said, placing my hand firmly against the back of her head. "It’s all over now. It’s all over."

As the sirens of police cars and an ambulance approached, I escorted Dawn back to her house. Her parents were dead, but I couldn’t break the news to her. There were some parts of being a policeman that I was never able to get used to.

The summer ended and Dawn and I went our separate ways, both returning to college. She became a psychologist who counseled rape victims and I became a US Marshall instead of the geologist I was studying to become. We didn’t see each other for fifteen years until a chance meeting again in a Seattle shopping center. She had never married and I was going through a divorce from a woman who didn’t want to be married to a cop.

Dawn and I started dating again and were married a year later. Today, when people ask us how we met, no one knows whether I’m making the story up or whether it’s the truth.

Copyright © 2000 by Thomas Blaine.
All rights reserved.
thomasblaine@yahoo.com
http://geocities.datacellar.net/thomasblaine/

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or actual events is entirely coincidental. This story may not be redistributed without permission from the author.