“The bathroom’s down the hall if you want to take off your tights. I can throw ‘em in the dryer for you if you want. Or, you can hang them on the shower curtain rod.” He turned. “It’sbeen a long time since I’ve had a woman’s tights draped over my rod.” A quick wink and he was gone before she could do anything more than gape.”

“But there’s more. When I was on my way to the event today, Carolyn texted me and told me that Steve and Eve got married over break. Six months after he broke up with me, and after he kept telling me he didn’t see marriage inhis future! And did I tell you that he broke up with me at the school, during the Fitness Fun-a-Thon fundraising eventwe worked at?” Her face grew reflective. “I was handing out bottled water when he asked me to go behind the hydration station so he could talk to me privately. The whole time, Eve kept staring at us from the finish line of the three-legged race.She knew I was getting dumped before I did.”

“He returned in a moment with a phone, a high-end model that probably cost way more than hers. His cell phone wallpaper was an abstract artwork with lots of colorful circles and blots—Kandinsky, maybe, or Miro? She always got thosetwo confused. She gave him points for not having a picture of some scantily-clad woman thrusting her boobs at the camera, like Steve had on his phone. Tacky. Nude-woman wallpapers were the cell phone equivalent of silver naked-lady mud flaps, in her opinion.”

“He has an eternity of love He is just waiting to give you. The more you soak it in, the more of His love you can take in. He wants to saturate you in His love.”

“You can make yourself believe that someone can look into your eyes and read your mind. You can wish for it, or dread it. There is no cause for either. As long as you carry your words inside, they are safe. You are the sole keeper. But sometimes that is a terrible curse, Adam. Those unformed words take on an enormous weight. Sometimes the burden of them becomes more than you can carry. For me it did. I simply had to share it. And Angela came to me. (238)”

“If life can end in one minute - so damn quickly with no damn warning - you better do what you want to do now right this minute. Because your next minute might not happen.”

“Eden, I had planned to use that information to hold you grandfather overfire. I intended to force him to return what Townsend stole through manipulating my mother. I wouldn't want you to think otherwise. I went to a lot of trouble to get that story over a two year period of my life."She knew it had cost him. It was still costing him because he had allowed his work to slip through his fingers.And you surrendered it," she said. "Why? You could have won. Grandfather would have given you what you watned to keep you from publishing the story. He would have made Townsend cooperate."Rafe looked off in the distance...If I had, Eden, I would have lost more than Hanalei. I weighed everything in a balance and decided there was something I wanted even more.”