Gwen Cassidy needed a man. Desperately. Failing that, she'd settle for a cigarette.

I'm sorry your pretty little world got all screwed up, but everybody's does, and you go on. It's how you go on that defines you.

Jericho Barrons just told me he loves me.

You and I more than anyone else in the universe are perfect for each other.

We have to save the world," I reminded him. He reached for me. "The world can wait. I can't.

The nerve. Threatening you and not being precise about it.

There was no lifeboat here in these deep, killing waters, not even a lighthouse, marking the way back to shore with its soft amber promise. There was only the storm of Barrons and the one I seemed to be, and if there were dark shapes moving in the waters beneath my feet that I should probably take a good hard look at and possibly reconsider trying to swim here, I didn’t care.