“I kept remembering Dolph Johnson’s beautiful, sexy hands.”

From the moment she learned of the senseless murder of her longtime family friend, Julius Barbarette, she determined to fight for the victims of the world. She vowed to provide the best legal services to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, thus providing a more level playing field. She had a wonderful lover, Gavin Davenport, III, whom she had met the first month of her freshman year at Tulane University. She had two loving parents, who would soon give her a baby brother, JoJo. She loved her cottage in the Garden District, of what she referred to as The City. She couldn’t imagine her life being any more perfect. Once she earned her legal degree from Tulane School of Law, she was single minded in setting up her law practice. She needed a managing partner, and was willing to pay the price to find that person and to keep them. Yes, J’nell Montalvo had her life mapped out and knew where she was headed. Or did she? From the first moment she saw Dolph Johnson, at his restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans, she realized she was not in control of her life. This man would float in and out of her life, and dreams, for the next eight years, before she was actually introduced to him. Her next question was, would the two of them be able to achieve the fairytale marriage she longed for? After all, J’nell was a romantic at heart.

Brenda McComb, an avid story teller, decided, at the age of 64, to put on paper many of her life experiences. She, her husband of 43 years, Steve, and their three Dachshunds, Mandy, Minnie and Rufus, divide their time between their homes in Waveland, Mississippi and Mountain Home, Arkansas.