Clayton," she said softly, her voice threaded with tears, "when Vanessa asked about my accomplishments tonight, I forgot to mention that I do have one. And it's--it's so splendid that it compensates for my lack of all the others." Stephen and Clayton grinned at each other, neither of them hearing the emotion that clogged her voice. "What splendid accomplishments is that, little one?" Clayton asked. Her shoulders hunched forward and began to shake. "I made you love me," she whispered brokenly. "Somehow, some way, I actually made you love me.

But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She'd been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them.

Because,” he said quietly as she stood up, “until you walked into it, this was an ordinary garden.” Puzzled, Elizabeth tipped her head. “What is it now?” “Heaven.

I've hurt you terribly my love, and I'll hunt you again during the next fifty years. And you are going to hurt me, Ian-never I hope as much as you are hurting me now. But if that's the way it has to be, then I'll endure it, because the only alternative is to live without you, and that is no life at all. And the difference is that I know it, and you don't... not yet.

Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else.

Nor is he man enough to make a woman of you.

Missing you?" she giggled incredulously. "I could cheerfully murder you." "I'd come back to haunt you," he threatened with a grin. "And that," she said, "is the only reason why I haven't tried.