“Because she did love him, and not from afar, not with the moony dreaminess she’d used as a crutch for so many years, but with a deep, aching tenderness she felt might just kill her.”

“She’d vowed to be braver and take more risks, but this seemed out of her league. Because sometimes what you wanted the most was the one thing you were most afraid to get.”

“Dear God, she was getting turned on in the middle of a roadside emergency. This had to stop.”

“He’d never be the kind of man she deserved, whole and strong, not physically and mentally crippled.”

“And in that moment, he knew one thing. If it was possible to slay his dragons, he’d do it. For her.”

“Kiss after wet kiss, he devoured her, almost a full year of pent-up desireunleashing in one terrible flood.”

“The war had changed him, inside and out, in ways he could never have fathomed.”

“Do you picture long nights making love by the fire and talking about everything and anything under the sun, and do you have the feeling that of anyone in the world, he just gets you? Like no other person in the world ever can?”

“He was making up a story, and she was buying into his bullshit. That was a recipe for disaster”

“He wasn’t looking for a soulmate. That would require having a soul to share, and he’d sold his off long ago”

“Because she did love him, and not from afar, not with the moony dreaminess she’d used as a crutch for so many years, but with a deep, aching tenderness she felt might just kill her.”