“The future vibrated with uncertainty. I had failed. I had ignorance. I had hope.”

“If we place the books randomly, how are they ever found again?'She smiled. "The books just seem to know to go where they'll be found.”

“I thought I had made a mistake, but I was mistaken.”

“Something was in her mouth. Sami's tongue slid along the edges of something plastic. Flat, low ridges, holes-an adjustable strap. A baseball cap? Another taste. Hair spray. Gross. Someone had stuffed her baseball cap in her mouth, and from the feel of it they had taped it in place. Her arms were tied behind her and she lay face down on the floor-of what? Her car. The carpeting scraped her cheek every time they hit a bump. Panic flooded Sami's senses. She came instantly awake. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she willed herself to calm down. Her working motto flashed through her brain, panic never accomplished anything. Of course she had never been kidnapped and tied up before. In the dim light of passing cars, she glimpsed things-paper gum wrappers, an old straw, one whopper wrapper, a CD cover. That's where Sting went. Been looking for that for days. Man did she need to vacuum this car out. A metallic scent hit her nose. She'd recognize that smell until the day she died. Blood. And by the odor, someone had lost a great deal of it.”

“Laughter greeted Clint’s ears at the open doorway—rich, soft laughter, like the creamy center of a melted caramel. The kind of laughter that made you want to wrap yourself up in it and stay a while. Clint stopped in the doorway, spellbound.The boys sat on different sides of an antique four-poster bed, sunk knee-deep in patchwork quilts, sheets and what he would swear was an old fashioned feather-tick mattress. But it was the vision between the little boys that held Clint’s attention. Emma Lewis had the same rich, dark, burnt-copper hair as her sons, and the burns-if-she’s-out-in-the-sun-longer-than-one-hour skin of most redheads. Beneath the wrinkled T-shirt and jeans she’d fallen asleep in, he could tell she was neither too thin nor too heavy, just the luscious type of figure Clint decided long ago he liked on women. She also possessed that wonderful laughter that had stirred more than his heart to life.But when she raised the deepest cornflower-blue eyes to him, Clint nearly moaned. If he let himself, he could get lost in that open, clear gaze forever.“Can I help you?” The remnants of sleep in her voice brought on visions of hearing her voice after a night of endless passion.”

“So what are you going to wear?” I looked at her, wondering if she thought I had suddenly grown a vagina in the past five minutes. “Clothes.”

“As Michael pondered how shallow he had been, he was struck by another thought. It wasn't simply that he hadn't gone deep enough. It was rather that he had grown accustomed to wading in pools that had no depth to begin with. A turn toward holiness would be a turn toward a different life altogether - to a life where different things mattered than had mattered in the past. Did he desire such a life? He knew that of all the questions, this was the most important.”