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be,” he said with a wry bent of his mouth. “I’m not big on God or prayer, and that’s the only thing I remember from Sunday school. That and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
    “Ah, yes, which brings us to question number three.” She sat back down, hands folded like before, her probing gaze pinning him to the chair. “Explain to me, Dr. Cunningham, just how you can have a fling with anyone else if Jasmine ‘possesses your soul’?”
    He grimaced. “Uh-oh, looks like I may have to scratch ‘soft and shy.’”
    She shimmied to the edge of her chair, suddenly extremely curious why men—even great guys like Jack before his faith was rekindled—had no qualms about toying with a woman’s affections. “I mean, Jack says you’re a pretty decent guy for a player,” she said, ignoring his flinch, “and you’ve chosen a noble profession, so you obviously have a great love for children. You could have blown me away when Jack mentioned you’ve been part of the Family for Every Child mentor program for years now, which clearly indicates a heart for others.” She leaned in on the table, arms crossed while she absently tugged on her lower lip with her teeth, softening her voice to cushion the blow. “So tell me, Sam, how can a nice guy like you who is supposed to be in love with one woman, tease and take from so many others without ever really giving back?”
    “I give back,” he said with a thread of hurt in his tone.
    She hiked a brow. “Dinners, dates, and sleepovers? Sounds like more trappings to make you feel better. Call me picky, but that doesn’t say love to me, especially for a woman who ‘possesses your soul.’”
    He sat straight up, frustration ridging his brow. “Hey, need I remind you it was Jasmine who broke up with me, Miss Bottom-Line? Not the other way around, so technically I’m a free man.”
    A weary sigh feathered her lips as she slumped back in her chair, heart aching for this man who was so desperate for love, yet so clueless as to how to go about it. “But that’s just it, Sam,” she said quietly, “you’re not free. You’re trapped in a cycle of rejection. Jasmine rejects you, so you reject her back, then you turn right around and reject every woman you use to fill the hole in your heart.”
    “You’re crazy—I don’t reject anybody,” he snapped. “Especially Jasmine. For crying out loud, I’m so crazy in love with her, I’m sitting here in my kitchen with the room spinning and a sledgehammer pounding my brain, talking psycho-babble with some girl I just met.”
    “Sorry, Sam,” she said, brows sloped in a look of sympathy usually reserved for skinned knees and hurt feelings in the classroom. “But that’s not love.”
    “Really.” It was more of a statement than a question as he hiked a leg up on the rung of the next chair, one thick brow jutting high. “Then what’s your definition, Einstein?”
    Shannon drew in a cleansing breath, closing her eyes to focus on the only kind of love she would ever settle for again. “‘Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.’” She opened her eyes, her heart flooding with the assurance that this was exactly what God wanted for her too.
    And for Sam.
    Her smile was pure peace. “‘Love bears all things, Sam, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ And you know why?” She stood and pushed in her chair, that very same love she espoused now spilling from her gaze. “Because ‘love never fails,’ Dr. Cunningham, which is the best news I could possibly give you right now.”
    She lifted the strap of her purse off the back of the chair and slung it over her shoulder, heart bleeding for this man who had so much potential—and need—for love.