"I owe him everything," she murmured. "My birth parents died a few years ago. Dad adopted me." She felt the necklace around her neck, a gift from him. "He helped me ... not be so sad all the time. He took me out of depression."
He gave her something to live for at the best of times. And if she admitted it to herself, he was how she viewed men, the bar they had to live up to.