“My mouth fell open, and I swear, I got chills. He’d actually done it. He’d told his mom no. Somewhere along the line, Will Killian had grown a mother-proof spine.”

“He’d had enough knifes planted in his spine to make a stegosaurus envious.’ – Aiden”

“Remembered pain tightened his mouth into a grim line. The weeks he’d spent looking for her had left permanent scars on his heart.”

“Gideon went still. All his pleasure at having her there abruptly vanished.His mother? Silas had told her about his mother?That blasted old fool. When Gideon got his hands on him, he’d yank his beard out.”

“He’d set his mouth in a feral line that could have tipped toward kindness or to cruelty in a second.”

“Watching Joel sip his iced tea and listen to stories of my childhood, the ones my mom told at all of the family gatherings, I felt my heart warm. He’d been there too. And as she spoke in scattered memory he was probably filling in the small details that had been lost and forgotten in time by everyone else.”