“I enjoyed your book. You are a descriptive writer who paints well with pen in hand. Your story had a bit of everything....suspense, humor, history, and romance. Most of your main characters have some redeeming qualities about them. I like that. I know you are working on your second book, and I am looking forward to reading it!This was certainly a labour of love on your part, and I thank you! Josie Angod”

“You’re lucky I know your sense of humor and I don’t have a shortage of confidence, or I’d have to put you over the back of this couch to remind you how formidable my desert eagle can be!- Caleb”

“Do you have any idea how humiliated I am to be related to such a man, much less to have to call him father?""Take comfort. Perhaps your mother strayed.""Oh,dearly would I like to believe that!”

“You say often you wish a library; here I gif you one; for between these two lids (he meant covers) is many books in one. Read him well, and he will help you much; for the study of character in this book will help you to read it in the world, and paint it with your pen.”

“You want to control me.” She spoke dispassionately as though observing the plight of another woman far distant from herself. Dragon looked up, surprised. “You are my wife.”“Say rather possession for so do you think, do you not?”He shrugged, wondering why she stated the obvious. “All wives belong to their husbands.”“I wanted to be free.”His eyes darkened. There was greater challenge here than even he had thought. “You wanted to be safe from Wolscroft and the rest of them, even from me when you though misguidedly. That is why you fled.”She shook her head. “Oh, no, safety was a convent from which not even my father could have forced me. But it was not to one such that I fled, was it? I wanted freedom, and having tasted it, however briefly, I want it still.”His hands tightened on her, driven by the sudden, piercing pain her words brought. Did she think to leave him again? To flee as she had done and leave him once more bereft. No, by heaven, she would not! “No one is free,” he said fiercely. “We are all enmeshed in duty and responsibility.”“Your duty is of your own choosing, for you did not return here after many years away and willingly take up your inheritance. Your destiny is of your own making and you the master of it as much as any man can claim to be. I want the same myself, no more, less.”“But you are a woman . . .” His bewilderment was genuine. Such yearnings as she described belonged to the realm of men. Women were for hearth and home, the nurturing of children, such ordered security of days as could be wrested from uncertain fate. A man in the thick of battle, in the fury of adventure, in the depths of night had to be able to count on that, for without it, of what purpose was anything?“You are a woman,” he repeated firmly. “And my wife. You have been too long apart from womanly ways with no proper influence to guide you. I applaud your strength and your courage; both will breed true in my sons, but—”“Your sons? Your sons? They will be my sons, Lord Vanity, and my daughters as well, mayhap only daughters, for by heaven it would suit me to thwart you so!”

“Speaking of full of dirt, I am hardly fit company but in the spirit of wifely tolerance I wonder if you will accompany me to a pool a little ways from here."He meant to bathe. The memory of him emerging from the sauna at the lodge flashed through her mind. Her mouth was suddenly dry. "I thought Vikings liked to boil themselves first.""Ordinarily I would agree with you, but if I get into a sauna now, I will fall asleep.""You are tired from your exertions on the trailing field?"The look he trailed over her was purely male and so evocative as to warm her clear through. "I am tried from my exertions in our bed,lady,as I suspect you well know.""That is a relief!"He looked at her in surprise, prompting a red face and a quick explanation. "I meant that I could not help but think of you toiling as usual while I slept half the day away and felt myself shamed for such sloth.""Oh,well, if it's any consolation to you, I fell asleep under a tree, to the great hilarity of my men, who are not likely to let me forget it anytime soon."She laughed,tension coiling, and without hesitation she held out her hand to him.”

“ Don't. I understand. I knew going into this that a story about us was also going to be a story about the two of you. And it should be. He was a big part of your life, and I'm okay with your history. It made you who you are. And I happen to be in love with who you are.”