And you're not the kind of girl I want." Surely he couldn't mean the fact that I was Mexican. From what I knew of Hardy, there wasn't a bit of prejudice in him. He never used racist words, never looked down on someone for things they couldn't help. "What kind do you want?" I asked with difficulty. "Someone I can leave without looking back.

It’s a risk I’m willing to take. This happens once in a lifetime. You meet someone and have this crazy reaction … you touch her skin and it’s the best skin you’ve ever felt, and no perfume on earth could be better than her smell, and you know you could never be bored with her because she’s interesting even when she’s doing nothing. Even without knowing everything about her, you get her. You know who she is, and it works for you on every level.

No marriage stays in the same pattern forever. It is both the best feature of marriage and the worst, that it inevitably changes.

A butterfly symbolized acceptance of each new phase in life. To keep faith as everything around you changed.

Only you could love such a vile, selfish peacock, Evie.

As it turned out, Welcome was where I lost everything, and gained everything. Welcome was the place where my life was guided from one track to another, ending me to places I'd never thought of going.

The worst part about loving someone, Merripen, is that there will al­ways be things you can't protect her from. Things be­yond your control. You finally realize there is something worse than dying . . . and that is having something hap­pen to her. You have to live with that fear always. But you have to take the bad part, if you want the good part." Kev looked at him bleakly. "What's the good part?" A smile touched Cam's lips. "All the rest of it is the good part," he said, and went.