“When he’d started out, he’d expected to find his brother. What he’d never thought to find was the treasure that slept beside him now.Would you trade this to have Kieran back?It was a choice he was grateful he didn’t have to make. But in the end, he knew the truth.Catarina was his life. He would sacrifice anything for her.Anyone.”

“It finally happened, he thought as he burrowed under his shirt and took hold of his heavy cross. All his life he’d wondered why he’d never fallen in love, and now he knew: He’d been waiting for this moment, this woman, this time. The female is mine, he thought. - Manny”

“He’d tried so hard to convince himself that it didn’t matter if she loved him, that having her as his wife was enough. But now…Now that she’d said it, now that he knew, now that his heart had soared, he knew better.This was heaven.This was bliss.This was something he’d never dared hope to feel, something he never could have dreamed existed.This was love. --(Michael)”

“Clever enough when it suits you, aren’t you?”“I have my moments. That cat’s out,” he continued as he took his own jacket from the hook. “Take no pity on him should he come scratching at the door. Bub knew what he was when he insisted on moving out here with me.”“Did you remember to feed him?”“I’m not a complete moron.” Unoffended, he wrapped a scarf around his neck. “He has food enough, and if he didn’t, he’d go begging at your kitchen door. He’d do that anyway, just to shame me.”

“There was a time he’d heard tales of Dab Sweet and he’d stuck thumbs in his belt and chin to the sky and tricked himself that was how his life had been. But the years scraped by hard as ever and he got less and the stories more ’til they were tales of a man he’d never met succeeding at what he’d never have dreamed of attempting.”

“It suddenly made sense. Only twice in his life had he felt this inexplicable, almost mystical attraction to a woman. He’d thought it remarkable, to have found two, when in his heart he’d always believed there was only one perfect woman out there for him. His heart had been right. There was only one.”