I don't deserve your love or your shine, but I want it because with you I can feel the sun. I don't want to go back to those shadows.

I love you,” he said fiercely. “ ’Tis not true that I kept a part of my heart locked away from you. You own all of it, lass. You’ve always owned it. I didn’t give it to you. You took it from the very start.

Ahh, you’re a man used to getting his own way.” “Always,” he said in a husky growl.

Never be afraid to tell me anything,” he whispered against her hair. “No matter how ashamed you might feel. I’ll never judge you, Rachel. I love you.

You’re my dream, Alaric McCabe. And I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment your horse dumped you at my cottage. I spent so much time being resentful and lamenting the circumstances of my life, but ’tis true that I wouldn’t change a single thing because then I would have never known your love.

There were worse things than death, as she'd discovered. Sometimes living took far more courage. Facing another day. Enduring. Those things took strength. Far more than dying.

Love made her patient. It made her hopeful.