“Very sweetly, he always told her he loved her just the way she was. Although, honestly he had no idea. She shuddered to think what she would really look like if she stopped waxing, plucking, highlighting, manicuring, applying make-up anddressing with care and concentration.”

“You have savings?" she was astonished.As a woman who lived on the very extreme edges of her budget, whose credit card bills were a source of monthly concern, the idea of savings was just so alien. But then this was Ed, a different kind of person altogether."Why do I know nothing about your savings?" she'd asked."I wonder!" he'd answered with a smile. "Maybe because I don't want my savings to be translated into "really great investments" like Miu Miu shoes or Hermès handbags.”

“In a second or two he would get up and join her in the shower he could hear running--consolidate his place with some very passionate seed-sowing and at the same time he would make Nell fall in love with him again.”

“Been there, done that, never want to go there again.”

“Mary, is it ok if I love you?" Joey asked.Tears filled Mary's eyes and she laid her hand over her lips for a moment. "That would work just perfectly, Joey, because I love you too.”

“We need to have an escape plan."""I'll shoot him," Bradley offered helpfully."He has your gun,"Mary replied. "Oh, then that won't work."Mary sighed. Somehow she didn't think that Bradley's warrior-police guy was coming back anytime soon. "So, how do your legs feel?" she asked. She felt a large hand squeeze her thigh. "Bradley, that was my leg.""Oh, sorry, but what a relief, I thought I had lost feeling in my legs.”

“It was as if she saw him in a whole new way, as if he had magically been transformed into a new person. Perhaps what she could really see, or wanted so very much to see, was how much he cared for her. Not that he wanted something from her, but that he wanted to see to it that she was happy, that she was taken care of, that that was what he truly wanted. And in that instant, it made her love him.”