“She wasn't there. He wouldn't have had to look too closely. She stood out from others like an angel in hell or a rose in a sewer.”

“Iain didn't know what to say to her. They had all asked an incredible amount from her. She was such an innocent, too. Hell, she wasn't even married, and yet they'd demanded she deliver a baby. He wasn't even certain if she knew how Isabelle had conceived the babe.”

“It wasn't about how she looked, which was pretty, even though she was always wearing the wrong clothes and those beat-up sneakers. It wasn't about what she said in class--usually something no one else would've thought of, and if they had, something they wouldn't have dared to say. It wasn't that she was different from all the other girls at Jackson. That was obvious. It was that she made me realize how much I was just like the rest of them, even if I wanted to pretend I wasn't.”

“He calls me Josephine. He says I'm an angel, a saint, his good lucky star. I know I'm no angel, but in truth I have begun to like this Josephine he sees. She is intelligent; she amuses; she is pleasing. She is grace and charm and heart. Unlike Rose; scared, haunted and needy. Unlike Rose with her sad life.”

“Was he serious? Why would she be meant for a guy from Hell? If there was such a thing as destiny, she was supposed to find a quiet, smart guy, one who wasn't over six feet tall, with midnight hair and a face she couldn't stop staring at. He'd be Russian Orthodox. Or Episcopalian. He might even be Jewish. But he wouldn't be from Hell.”

“Don't you have somewhere you need to be?" she gritted. "The kitchen? The sewers? The fires of hell?”