Recently Mr. Mawdsley’s donkey escaped from his stall, raced down the road, and somehow found his way into an enclosed pasture. Mr. Caird’s prized mare was innocently grazing when the ill-bred seducer had his way with her. Now it appears the mare has conceived, and a feud is raging between Caird, who demands financial compensation, and Mawdsley, who insists that had the pasture fencing been in better repair, the clandestine meeting would never have occurred. Worse still, it has been suggested that the mare is a shameless lightskirt and did not try nearly hard enough to preserve her virtue.

There isn’t going to be a ‘next lover,’” Grant said automatically, outraged by the idea. “I’m the only man she’s going to have.

His quiet certainty made the ground beneath my feet feel solid. Like someday everything might actually be okay.

I was a new person in the same world, which was a lot more difficult than being the same person in a new world.

I rarely dislike people for things they can't change, they usually give me sufficient cause to dislike them for other reasons.

God, it was good. Comforting and stimulating at the same time. Absolute world-class pheromones. I wished I could take his jacket home with me. Not him, just the jacket.

Hardy Cates," I said, coming into the room, "you behave, or I'll step on your tube." The nurse seemed taken aback by my unsympathetic bedside manner. But Hardy's gaze met mine in a moment of bright, hot voltage, and he relaxed, reassured in a way that cooing sympathy could never have done. "That only works if it's a breathing tube," he told me.