“Speechless and very nearly panting, she fell back against the wall with a thump, knowing that if she lived to be ninety, she would still carry the searing mark of that kiss on her soul."At last," he murmured. "A way to shut you up." Christovao Santos (Chris), Sanctuary”

“Please. Put the gun down and we'll talk. A beautiful woman holding a small cannon plays hell with my concentration. Christovao (Chris) Santos, Sanctuary”

“Listen up, Nic," she said firmly, looking straight into his gray-blue eyes. "If you die on me out here, so help me I'll hold seances and pester you. I won't give you a moment's peace in the hereafter," she threatened in a fierce whisper. Gabrielle O'Hara, River of Dreams”

“What could I offer the local bad boy except my livelihood? Oh, I know. My body or my planes! Why didn't I think of that? Would you have preferred that I offer him my body, Nic, because I sure as hell wasn't going to sign over either of my planes!”

“Lleu is a hard lord,” said Huw, “He is killing Gronw without anger, without love, without mercy. He is hurt too much by the woman and the spear. Yet what is there when it is done? His pride. No spear. No friend.”Roger started at Huw. “You’re not so green as you’re grass-looking, are you?” he said. “Now you mention it, I have been thinking— That bloke Gronw was the only one with any real guts at the end.”“But none of them is all to blame,” said Huw. “It is only together they are destroying each other.”“That Blod-woman was pretty poor,” said Roger, “however you look at it.”“No,” said Huw. “She was made for her lord. Nobody is asking her if she wants him. It is bitter twisting to be shut up with a person you are not liking very much. I think she was longing for the time when she was flowers on the mountain, and it is making her cruel, as the rose is growing thorns.”

“What was that bit about fish sticks?” he asked, climbing back into the SUV.“Oh, pretty clever of her actually, though I thought it ridiculous at the time. Sometimes Mom gets paranoid, thinks people might be out to get her, out to get me.” I laughed nervously at how close that hit to home. “Anyway, one night she was really freaked out and came up with a code. If I was everkidnapped or something, she would say something about me liking fish sticks. If I said I wanted fish sticks, that meant I was in danger and needed help, no matter what else I’d said to her that I was fine.” “So by you saying you hate fish sticks…”“She knows I’m fine and she doesn’t need to further involve the police. Who says bipolar disorder can’t be useful?”

“There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good . . .” His voice trailed off in the middle of the sentence.Laura found herself caught in the intensity of his gaze and muttered the end of the rhyme. “. . . She was very, very good, and when she was bad . . .”Gabriel finished what he had started, grinning at his own wit. “. . .She was better.”Laura’s eyebrows arched as she hid a quick smile. “That’s not the way I learned it.”Gabriel picked up his fork and dug back into his salsa-spiced eggs. “If you’d been a boy, you would have.”