You got used to running things on your own." "What could he do about it when he's in Iraq and the car breaks down in Kansas?" Beckett gave her a long, quiet look. "I'm not in Iraq." "No, and it has to be said, I'm not in Kansas anymore." She lifted her hands, then let them fall. "It's not that I've forgotten how to be a couple, but that my experience in being part of one is different from yours. Maybe from most people's. And I've been on my own a long time." "Now you're not. I'm not fighting a war, and I'm right here." Needed to be here, he realized, with her.

In the summer of 80, Silhouette bought my first book.

Justin turned to give her one of his cool, unsmiling looks. Butterflies fluttered in her throat. She'd be very careful, Serena decided, as if she were walking through a minefield. "What are you thinking?" "About bombs," she answered blandly, "deadly camoflaged bombs." She gave him a quick,innocent grin. "Are we going to eat soon? I'm starving.

I was just trying to get his attention!" the man protested at the top of his lungs. "If he'da listened, I wouldn'ta had to bash him.

I never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish.

Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You’re not ready for it, but if you’re lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you’d planned.

Potholes and bumps? Welcome to the world. Every road gas them. They're there to be navigated, avoided, driven over, or through to the other side. Don't keep driving into the pothole.