“It's a sad day when Myrnin is the safe choice, she thought. Apparently, he thought so, too, because he gave her a long, troubled look before pressing his thumb to a glass plate inside the room and opening the door.”

“When Grant opened the door, he thought she looked like some fairy princess-part ingenue,part seductress. Her eyes met his in the glass, and she smiled while following through with the last stroke of the brush."Take the wrong turn?""I took the right one." He closed the door behind him,then flicked the lock."Is that so?" Tapping the brush against her palm, Gennie arched a brow. "I thought you had the room down the hall.""The MacGregors forgot to put something in there." He stood where he was for a moment, pleased just to look at her."Oh? What?""You.”

“It seemed as though he gave way all at once; he was so languid that he could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her; they would bring back the scene,- not of his repulse and rejection the day before but the looks, the actions of the day before that. He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but never seeing them, -almost sick with longing for that one half-hour-that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her heart beat against his-to come once again.”

“He wants a fifteen thousand pound settlement.""Fifteen thousand!""He says you're a great deal of trouble."She hesitated for one startled moment before choking back a laugh."I am.""I thought so." He leveled Drew a look. "If I pay you the fifteen thousand, do you swear to keep her?"Drew reared back his head. "Forever?"Her father scowled. "Forever.""Oh, I suppose." He gave a long-suffering sigh. "If I must."She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing outright.”

“Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long.”

“Claire found herself staring at his feet, which were in bunny slippers. Myrnin looked down. "What?" he asked. "They're quite comfortable." He lifted on to look at it, and the ears wobbled in the air. "Of course they are," she said. Just when she thought Myrnin was getting his mental act together, he'd do something like that. Or maybe he was just messing with her. He liked to do that, and his dark eyes were fixed on her now, assessing just how weirded-out she was. Which, on the grade scale of zero to Myrnin, wasn't much.”