Shelter by Sara McLachlin

Flack wasn’t a man who was used to showing his emotions. None of the women he was with had seen him open up. To them, he was always debonaire, always charming, always light-hearted. They never saw the job get to him, never saw him stumble, never saw him break.

            But as he stood in front of Stella, his walls broke. She could see right through him; she knew that his heart was breaking, that he felt lost and alone. She had watched him carefully through the whole case, worrying about what a toll it was taking on him.

            And suddenly Don realized that he was safe with her. For every horror he had seen, for every ounce of depravity, he knew that she had seen it too. He wasn’t alone – she felt the same things he felt.

            And that was the comforting thought that enveloped him even as he fell into her embrace. Flack was fairly certain that the last woman he had cried in front of was his mother, but he no longer cared. Stella was the safest person in his life, and he was going to take every bit of comfort she was willing to give.