“Her heart leapt, which made no sense at all. This was not to be an affair of the heart. There would be affection certainly, but nothing more. Apparently her heart wasn't aware of her plans. Odd, she'd never known it to be rebellious before.”

“The lift of her heart she'd felt on the outcrop she now felt again, and it wasn't just love. She'd felt love before, known its depths when her mother died.This was something rarer. Happiness, Laurel thought, that must be what this is.”

“She loved him, and her heart was breaking. If she had known how much it hurt to love someone, she never would have given away her heart. But it wasn't a question of giving as much as falling.”

“Later, her first intense, serious love affair, yes then she'd lost something more tangible, if undefinable: her heart? her independence? her control of, definition of, self? That first true loss, the furious bafflement of it. And never again quite so assured, confident.”

“and then he looked her full in the face, and her heart leapt and sank, as the eyes the dangerous blue of the summer sky before a storm gazed back into hers.”

“Housework would never be her crowning achievement, the life's work for which she'd be known.”