“Come on! You must have at least suspected there was someone else," he said. "Couldn't you smell her on his pants?”

“He put his forehead against hers. “Alannah, my heart is yours.” He said softly.“And yet, I must hand it over to someone else for the keeping.” Her last words falling to a strained whisper.”

“Fancy finding you here," he said jauntily.Nothing about it was fanciful, and she suspected he might have followed her. Why else would he be there?"You've taken up knitting, have you?" she countered as she walked to the yarn section of the shop."No,I've taken up finding you alone. Nice of you to accommodate me."His answer pleased her more than she could say, but she warned him, "I'm not alone.""For the moment you are.”

“Come on,” he said, and then dragged me toward the house.I stopped when we got to the porch. “What is that smell?”Ryan sniffed his shirt and with a smile said, “Armani. You like it?”“Not you,” I said. “It smells like someone is frying up dog vomit in your house.” This took Ryan by surprise. I guess it was pretty random. “You’rereally sick sometimes, Baker,” Ryan said. “You know that?”

“Sweetie,” Dino said, coming over to put his arm around her shoulder. He tipped her head up and looked into her eyes with great empathy. “You can’t fuck a statue. At least not at that angle. You’d at least have to tip it onto its back first, and as a conservator, I can’t recommend it.”

“There was another pause and then Bastien clucked and snapped, "Dammit, Thomas! Inez is one of my best employees."He pulled the phone away from his ear to peer at it with disbelief, and then slapped it back to his head. "What the hell has that got to do with anything?""Well, if you had to find your lifemate, couldn't it have been someone else's employee. I'm going to lose her now. She'll want to be with you and come to Canada and--”