“Love me?” Madeline asked with a faint smile. “It used to be love.” He brushed his lips over her closed eyelids. “Now there’s no word for it.” “You once told me that you thought love was a weakness.” “I was wrong,” he whispered, kissing the corners of her mouth. “I’ve discovered it’s my only strength.”

“She has to agree to have me. It could take some time, but I’m confident I can trick her into it.”

“He grinned, and right then it occurred to him that he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much with a woman in a very long time. If Annabelle Granger were a few inches taller, a hell of a lot more sophisticated, better organized, less bossy, and more inclined to worship at his feet, she’d have made a perfect wife.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Let me drop the belt-““No.” She held on when he would have pulled away. “Don’t. I like it.” Again, he lifted her face, and he smiled. “The tool belt turns you on.” “No.” She closed her eyes and thunked her forehead to his chest. “Little bit.”

“Marry me he said voice full of emotion. Be my soul mate my friend and my lover as long as we both live. Make babies with me that have curly hair and big brown eyes. Grow old with me and we’ll watch the sun set together in the evenings. And when I leave this world I’ll be happy knowing I was the best man I could be for having loved you.”

“We’ve been wed more than a month. Since it appears you mean to stay, I might as well give you leave to call me by my christian name. It is preferable, at any rate, to ‘clodpole.”

“If a castle gets destroyed, you just build a new one. If you wanted me to I’d build them over and over. Let’s build them together.”

“Love is total surrender, total acceptance and total commitment.”

“You will like her,” he persisted. “Egad, she’s after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm.””Voyons, do you think that is what I like?”

“She could not leave him hanging like this. “If you were hurt, I need to know.” It was a rule somewhere, in the good-guy handbook.”

“If she were here I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her. I would hold her so close she’d beg me to let her breathe. I’d kiss her so hard she’d plead for mercy. I’d unfasten her clothing and lie with her on that hard bed, and what was between us would be as far above the ordinary congress between man and woman as the stars are above their pale reflections in the lake below.”

“Ah, well.” He smiled-another one of those devastatingly intoxicating smiles that did unreasonable things to her body temperature and respiration.With a nod and a respectful, “Ma’am,” he left her in the middle of the room.Feeling like she’d been hit by a tank.”

“I’m not throwing you away! I’m setting you free.”

“We can do anything you like. Just be with me.”

“I’ve never heard of a man being so eager to confess to the parent of a girl he’s just ruined”