Levi's gaze sought out Miss Spencer. Eden. All she had to do was smile to release those little frissons of lightning in him. As that thought crossed his mind, she glanced up, and Levi realized he was wrong. She didn't have to smile. All she had to do was look at him. Heaven help him. He was in bad.

Perhaps he felt a touch of gratitude too for the fact that they had each other, for better or worse. They might be facing the worse right now, but the fact that they could lean on each other in the midst of it moved it into the better category.

Helping a woman make biscuits should not make a fellow this happy. But when the woman was the fellow's wife, and she smiled at him as if he were the noblest hero of her acquaintance--well, it couldn't be helped.

Lessons taught from love bring wisdom. Lessons spawned from fear and pain often come with cynicism and bitterness attached, which can cloud the truth.

I had a long talk with my husband last night,' Abigail explained, 'and he made me realize that I have to choose which voices to believe. I can believe the ones that tell me I'm not good enough or brave enough or pretty enough and let them skew my perception of events, or I can push aside that clamor and seek out the voice that tells me I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Was that love? If so, he couldn't fathom why poets waxed on about it being such a blissful state. As far as he could tell, it was about as blissful as riding an unbroke horse, a bone-rattling endeavor where one held on for dear life, unable to recognize if he was making progress until either the horse quit buckin' or the ground smacked him in the face.

Tremors hit, quaking her hard enough for him to feel them. He wrapped his arms around her and bent his face close to hers. He might not understand what was going on in her head, but a mighty squall was battering her hull, and if he couldn't figure out how to shelter her from it, he aimed to be her anchor until it passed.

Love stayed. Even when things became messy and unpleasant, love stayed.