β
If aught must be lost, βtwill be my honor for yours. If one must be forsaken, βtwill be my soul for yours. Should death come anon, βtwill be my life for yours. I am Given.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4))
β
The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
β
β
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
β
Daydreams were dangerous because they made her wish for things she could never have.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
The entire time I'm burning in Hell, I'll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I'd condemn myself again and again.
- Cian MacKeltar
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Spell of the Highlander (Highlander, #7))
β
While the Lord might insist that vengeance was His, no male Highlander of my acquaintance had ever thought it right that the Lord should be left to handle such things without assistance.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5))
β
To see the years touch ye gives me joy", he whispered, "for it means that ye live.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon
β
Just one time before I turn into the villain of this piece, just one time before I become the fourth and final Unseelie prince, I want to be her Highlander. And her hero.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Iced (Fever, #6))
β
The kiss....was not meant to seduce, it was meant to mark a woman's soul.
Chloe
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
Highland werewolves had a reputation for doing atrocious and highly unwarranted *things*, like wearing smoking jackets to the dinner table.
β
β
Gail Carriger (Soulless (Parasol Protectorate, #1))
β
For I had come back, and I dreamed once more in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath. "You are mine," it had said. "Mine. And I will not let you go.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2))
β
I am going to love you now, slow and sweet, but when you come, I'm going to f*** you the way I need to. The way I've been dreaming about since the moment I saw you.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.
β
β
William Saroyan (My Heart's in the Highlands)
β
A tall, straight-bodied, and by no means ill-favored young Highlander at close range is breath-taking.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
β
Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.
β
β
Karen Blixen (Out of Africa)
β
I care so much about everything that I care about nothing
β
β
William Saroyan (My Heart's in the Highlands)
β
Sometimes God makes better choices for us than we could have ever made for ourselves.
β
β
Jennifer Hudson Taylor (Highland Blessings (Highlands #1))
β
Don't you dare weep," he commanded.
"You've broken my heart."
"I'll fix it later.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
Bedevil the devil and devil be dammed. I fear no devil and bow to no man.
- Adam Black
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander, #1))
β
Every man has a weakness!β he patiently explained. βI'll find theirs, I promise you.β
βEvery man?β
βYes,β he answered emphatically.
...
βWhat is your weakness, Brodick?β she asked.
βYou.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
And there you have it...if I knew that I could only have a few nights in that man's arms or nothing, I would take those magic nights and use them to keep me warm for the rest of my life.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
β
Iβve often thought it unfair that women are expected to stay at home when thereβs a fight to be won. If a
woman has the strength to bear a child, she can swing a sword as well as any man.
β
β
Karen Hawkins (How to Abduct a Highland Lord (MacLean Curse, #1))
β
Highlanders make the truest friends-if only because they make the worst enemies.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6))
β
I don't want to hurt anyone" Laszlo fiddled with a button on his tux jacket. "Can't we convince the CIA that some of us are peaceful?"
"we'll have to try" Angus folded his arms across his broad chest. "And if they doona believe we're peaceful, then we'll have to kill the bastards."
Roman frowned, somehow their Highlander logic escaped him.
β
β
Kerrelyn Sparks (How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire (Love at Stake, #1))
β
As a matter of fact, she has refused to marry me.β
βSo when's the wedding?β Ramsey asked.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
Tell them, Gabrielle,β Adam urged impatiently.
Blinking, Gabby nodded. βI have one of the, erβ¦ fairies here with me ββ
βTuatha DΓ©,β Adam corrected irritably. βYouβre bloody well making me sound like Tinkerbell.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
β
β
Robert Burns
β
America Is A Gun
England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona's hand.
Germany, an oompah band.
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary, a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.
β
β
Brian Bilston
β
Valhalla on the right. Paradise regained on the left. Stuck between a Godiva truffle and a chocolate eclair. Between a rock and a very hard place. Two very hard places from the looks of it.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander, #1))
β
You're not falling for me, are you, Irish?"
-Adam to Gabrielle
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
I thought I could make out Jamie's Highland screech, but that was likely imagination; they all sounded equally demented.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone (Outlander, #7))
β
Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels."
Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother's nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had: "Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Highlander's Touch (Highlander, #3))
β
You have many flaws, he announced... βBut there was one flaw that made all the other imperfections pale in comparison.β
βWas?β she asked. βI don't have this flaw any longer?β
βNo, you don't.β
βPray tell,β she muttered in exasperation, βwhat was this terrible flaw?β
He grinned. βYou used to be English.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
Hard. Fast. Deep. When I'm done you'll know you're mine.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
What are you doing?"
"What I've wanted to do for a long time."
She couldn't move, couldn't think. She was lost in his dark eyes, and as he slowly lowered his head toward hers, she whispered, "Are you going to throttle me, then?"
He was laughing when he kissed her.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
Yesterday is skin on snake, to be shed many times.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Beyond the Highland Mist)
β
Coyotes have the gift of seldom being seen; they keep to the edge of vision and beyond, loping in and out of cover on the plains and highlands. And at night, when the whole world belongs to them, they parley at the river with the dogs, their higher, sharper voices full of authority and rebuke. They are an old council of clowns, and they are listened to.
β
β
N. Scott Momaday (House Made of Dawn)
β
I love you,β he said fiercely. β βTis not true that I kept a part of my heart locked away from you. You own all of it, lass. Youβve always owned it. I didnβt give it to you. You took it from the very start.
β
β
Maya Banks (Never Love a Highlander (McCabe Trilogy, #3))
β
Yesterday was a memory. Tomorrow was a hope. Today was another day to live and do one's best to love
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Into the Dreaming (Highlander, #8))
β
Let go of me or slow down," she demanded as she tried to keep pace with him.
He slowed down. "I swear to God, you try the patience of a saint."
"You aren't a saint, Brodick, no matter what your mother might have told you.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
My Heart's In The Highlands
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Chorus.-My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.
Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, &c.
β
β
Robert Burns
β
That's weak! You don't know what caring is... Caring is love. And love fights! Love doesn't look for the path of least resistance. Hell's bells, Roderick, if love was that easy everyone would have it. You're a coward!
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
β
The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.
I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.
From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.
β
β
Thich Nhat Hanh (No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life)
β
She's my baby girl, Quinn. I want love for her. Real love. The kind that makes a man crazy inside.
-Gibraltar to Quinn
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
β
All human males were as fascinated with cars as they were with breasts.
β
β
Anita Clenney
β
Let me know, Iain."
"Let you know what?"
"If you're going to keep her or not."
"And if I'm not?"
"Then I am.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
I kept it to remind me that although there is evil, there is sometimes beauty and light. You, Jillian. You were always my light.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
β
Dishonesty increases disorder exponentially. It's hard enough to communicate when you're telling the truth.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4))
β
She still hadn't caught on. Alec sighed. "Change your gown, Jamie, if that's your inclination. I prefer white. Now go and do my bidding. The hour grows late and we must be on our way."
He'd deliberately lengthened his speech, giving her time to react to his announcement. He thought he was being most considerate.
She thought he was demented.
Jamie was, at first, too stunned to do more than stare in horror at the warlord. When she finally gained her voice, she shouted, "It will be a frigid day in heaven before I marry you, milord, a frigid day indeed."
"You've just described the Highlands in winter, lass. And you will marry me."
"Never."
Exactly one hour later, Lady Jamison was wed to Alec Kincaid.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Bride (Lairds' FiancΓ©es, #1))
β
His heavy-lidded gaze reflected a languor that had nothing to do with having just awakened, and there was no doubt what was on his mind. But this is no safe cherry picker, Gwen thought, growing more concerned by the moment.
This man looks like a cherry tree chopper-downer.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4))
β
If she could have anything in the world, he'd asked her, what would it be?
She'd answered that one without hesitation: a best friend. She hastily added, a truly, seriously best friend; one that I couldn't wait to talk to first thing in the morning as soon as I woke up, and one that I still wanted to be talking to, right up to the last minute before I went to sleep.
He'd smiled faintly. You mean a soul mate, he'd thought but not said.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Spell of the Highlander (Highlander, #7))
β
I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant
β
β
William Saroyan (My Heart's in the Highlands)
β
Then you will simply have to see for yourself. Touch me, lass. Feel my ...sock." His silver gaze sizzled with challenge, as he unzipped his zipper.
Uh-uh." She shook her head for added emphasis.
Then find me a pair of trews that doona threaten to sever my manparts.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4))
β
You've been doing something bad since the moment you met me, lass.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come. . ." He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. "Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful, there on the stair, wi' your hair down and the shadow of your body with the light behind yeβ¦." He shook his head slowly. "I did think I should die, if I didna have ye," he said softly. "Just then.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon
β
He shrugged. "I was...thinking."
"About what?"
"The fires of purgatory."
She had to sit down. He wasn't making any sense now. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"Patrick told me he would walk through the fires of purgatory if he had to in order to please his wife."
She went over to the bed and sat down on the side. "And?" she prodded when he didn't continue.
He stripped out of his clothing and walked over to her. He pulled her to her feet and stared down to her.
"And I have only just realized I would do the same for you.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
Tis a well-known fact that a man is either skilled in matters of loving or matters of war. βTis obvious that fighting is your skill.
β
β
Maya Banks (In Bed with a Highlander (McCabe Trilogy, #1))
β
I wake up wating you. I fall asleep wanting you. I watch a magnificent sunrise and can think only of sharing it with you. I glimpse a piece of amver and see your eyes. Jillian, I've caught a disease, and the fever abates only when I'm near you.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2))
β
Ye gave me a child, mo nighean donn," he said softly, into the cloud of my hair. "We are together for always. She is safe; and we will live forever now, you and I." He kissed me, very lightly, and laid his head upon the pillow next to me. "Brianna," he whispered, in that odd Highland way that made the name his own.
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (Voyager (Outlander, #3))
β
In that moment, I finally figured out what kind of handsome he was. He was fiction-handsome. Romance novel handsome; but not the clean-cut (billionaire) alpha male or even the tattooed (billionaire) bad boy archetype. He was the Scottish highlander, Viking conqueror, bodice-ripper historical romance kind of handsome; an unshaven, lion wrestling, mountain man recluse, toss you over his shoulder and plunder your goodies kind of handsome. He was both scary and swoony. I wanted to braid his beard. I also wanted to run away.
β
β
Penny Reid (Beauty and the Mustache (Knitting in the City, #4; Winston Brothers, #0))
β
And I or you pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth.
β
β
Walt Whitman (Song of Myself)
β
Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Spell of the Highlander (Highlander, #7))
β
Said to Mairin;
"There's little decency to good loving" Maddie said. "If 'tis decent, it isn't much fun"!
β
β
Maya Banks (In Bed with a Highlander (McCabe Trilogy, #1))
β
Feelings, emotions - they are neither right nor wrong. They cannot be assigned a value. Feelings *are*. By labeling a feeling wrong, you force yourself to ignore that feeling. And what you most need is to feel it, let it burn through you, then get on with life.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Highlander's Touch (Highlander, #3))
β
He was sexual in a way that made women think of deeply repressed fantasies therapists and feminists alike would cringe to hear tell of.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
In prehistoric times, early man was bowled over by natural events: rain, thunder, lightning, the violent shaking and moving of the ground, mountains spewing deathly hot lava, the glow of the moon, the burning heat of the sun, the twinkling of the stars. Our human brain searched for an answer, and the conclusion was that it all must be caused by something greater than ourselves - this, of course, sprouted the earliest seeds of religion. This theory is certainly reflected in faery lore. In the beautiful sloping hills of Connemara in Ireland, for example, faeries were believed to have been just as beautiful, peaceful, and pleasant as the world around them. But in the Scottish Highlands, with their dark, brooding mountains and eerie highland lakes, villagers warned of deadly water-kelpies and spirit characters that packed a bit more punch.
β
β
Signe Pike (Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World)
β
Chloe-lass:
If I'm not here with you now, I'm beyond this life, for 'tis the only way I'll ever let you go.
...
I hoped I loved you well, sweet, for I know even now that you are my brightest shining star. I knew it the moment I saw you. Ah, lass, you so adore your artifacts. This thief covets but one priceless treasure: You.
Dageus
-In a letter
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
In a low whisper she was certain only her friend could
hear, she said, "I specifically remember we both promised never to drink from any man's goblet of wine. From the looks of you, Frances Catherine, I'm thinking you broke your word.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
Oh, for heaven's sake, she thought with droll exasperation, this certainly explains a lot. It's no wonder I haven't been able to keep my hands off the blasted man since the day I met him. He's an artifact! A Celtic one at that!
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
He looked as if he'd stepped straight off the cover of one of those romance novels she ordered from Amazon.com so she didn't have to be embarassed by some supercilious male clerk in the bookstore.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4))
β
What have you stuffed in your pants, MacKeltar?" she demanded.
"Nothing that wasn't God-given," he replied stiffly.
Gwen stared. "There's no way that's part of you. You must have gotten a sock or something stuck. Oh, my." She pried her gaze from his groin.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4))
β
Because I knew the moment I saw you,β he ground out savagely, her βI hate youβ still ringing in his ears, βthat in another lifeβa life where I didnβt become a dark sorcererβyou were my wife. I cherished you. I adored you. I loved you until the end of time, Jessica MacKeltar. But I doona get to have that life. So Iβll take you any fucking way I can get you. And Iβll not apologize for one moment of it
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Spell of the Highlander (Highlander, #7))
β
raking a hand through his hair, he forced his attention to the text she'd left on the coffee table, refusing to dwell on the disconcerting fact that a part of him had taken one look at the lass in such proximity to his bed and said simply: Mine
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
I'll stay away from you and you'll stay away from me. I'm already over this insignificant, puny, inconsequential attraction. I don't even remember kissing you."
They had reached the cluster of trees in front of the courtyard leading to Frances Catherine's cottage when she told him that outrageous lie.
"The hell you have forgotten," he muttered. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and forced her to turn around. Then he took hold of her chin and pushed her face up.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.
"Reminding you.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
Yet you told him you loved him?"
"Yes, I did."
Bridgid was clearly impressed. "You're more courageous than I am. The fear of being rejected pains me to even think about, yet you boldly told Brodick how you felt, even though he hadn't spoken his feelings."
"Actually, he told me I loved him.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. "Lass, I have never lied to you. I adore you and there have never been any other women from the future here. And these"- he flung a tampon in the air- "cleaning swabs, I cannot fathom why they upset you so greatly, but I assure you I have never let the maids use them."
Lisa's brow furrowed. No man could be so stupid. "Cleaning Swabs?"
He snatched up a gun and jerked the barrel in her direction, and an unwrapped tampon shot out. It was coated with black from the slow corrosion of the steel. She eyed it for a moment, bent, and plucked it from the floor. "You clean your guns with these?"
He lowered the gun. "Is that not the purpose for which they were designed? I vow I could not conceive of another."
Didn't you read the box?"
There were too many words I didn't understand!
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Highlander's Touch (Highlander, #3))
β
It had just been made excruciatingly clear to him that the human male brain and the human male cock couldn't both sustain sufficient amounts of blood to function at the same time. It was one or the other, and the human male apparently didn't get to choose which one.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
She liked a very particular kind of plot: the sort where the pirate kidnaps some virgin damsel, rapes her into loving him, and then dispatches lots of seamen while she polishes his cutlass. Or where the Highland clan leader kidnaps some virginal English Rose, rapes her into loving him, and then kills entire armies Sassenachs while she stuffs his haggis. Or where the Native American warrior kidnaps a virginal white settler, rapes her into loving him, and then kills a bunch of colonists while she whets his tomahawk. I hated to get Freudian on Linda, but her reading patterns suggested some interesting insight into why she is such a bitch.
β
β
Nicole Peeler (Tempest Rising (Jane True, #1))
β
I am the man you've needed all you life. I can give you whatever you wish before you even realize you are wishing for it. I can fill your every longing , heal your every wound, right your every wrong. You have enemies? Not with me at your side. You have hunger? I will find the most succulent, ripe morsel and feed you with my bare hands. You have pain? I will ease it. Bad dreams? I will chase them asunder. Regrets? I will go back and undo them. Command me, Beauty, and I am yours. -Adam Black
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander, #1))
β
...Mac, I want you to go back to the house and make sure the ladies don't get the idea to go searching as well. I told Eleanor not to, but you know the Mackenzie females."
Mac scowled."Hell, Hart, can't you find something easier for me to do? Go up against an army of assassins in my underwear, maybe?
β
β
Jennifer Ashley (The Duke's Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides, #4))
β
A few minutes later, she was once again riding her own horse. Deciding to take the lead, she nudged the mare into a trot, and as she passed Brodick and Ramsey, she called out, "You used trickery."
"Yes, I did," he admitted. "Are you angry with me?"
She laughed again. "I don't get angry. I get even."
Unbeknownst to her, she had just recited the Buchanan creed.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
Husband?" Averill's voice was growing shrill with worry as she asked, "Have you swooned?"
I'm a warrior, wife. Warriors do no' swoon," Kade growled, forcing away the faintness trying to lay claim to him.
Oh," she said, sounding doubtful. "It's just that your eyes were closed."
I was resting them," he snapped.
I see," she murmured, and for some reason that irritated the hell out of him.
β
β
Lynsay Sands (The Hellion and the Highlander (Devil of the Highlands, #3))
β
Holy cow,β Chloe said faintly.
βNo kidding,β Gwen breathed.
The sexy Fae prince flashed them a smile that was pure devilish charm, sexy and playful and mischievous, briefly catching the tip of his tongue between white teeth, before his lip curved, dark eyes sparkling gold.
Gabby groaned. She choked on it hastily, camouflaging it with a dry little cough. Her own private stash of eye candy had just been made available for public consumption and she didnβt like it one bit.
Apparently she wasnβt the only one.
βAre you thinking what Iβm thinking, Dageus?β Drustan said irritably.
βOch, aye,β Dageus said darkly. βYou liked him better invisible too?β
βOch, aye.β
βShould I curse him again?β
βOch, aye.β
Adam threw back his head and laughed, eyes sparkling with gold fire. βBloody hell, itβs good to be back,β he purred.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
You're English," he said. "And I will therefore make certain allowances for you. I realize you don't understand you shouldn't argue with me, and so I'll explain it to you. Don't argue with me."
Incredulous, she said, "That's it? 'Don't argue with me' is your explanation as to why I shouldn't argue with you?
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
As she lifted the glittering strand of diamonds from the box, a small slip of paper fell out. She caught it as it wafted toward the floor. Four words in ancient script, an arrogantly slanted scrawl.
Accept these, accept me.
Well, she thought, blinking, that was
certainly direct and to the point.
-Adam's note to Gabrielle
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
She smiled radiantly at the shield, pretending it was Dageus. The three simple words just didn't seem like enough. Love was so much larger than words.
"I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you more than chocolate. I love you more than the whole world is big." She paused, thinking, searching for a way to explain what she felt. "I love you more than artifacts. I love you so much it makes my toes curl just thinking about it."
Pushing her hair back from her face, she donned her most sincere expression. "I love you."
"You can have the confounded shield if you love it that much, lass," Dageus said, sounding utterly bewildered. Chloe felt all the blood drain from her face.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
β
I didn't sleep with Brodick," she blurted out. "I have no need for a priest."
"Yes, you did too."
"Alec, it isn't polite to contradict your elders."
"But, Mama..."
"Hush, sweetheart."
Gillian glared at Brodick. He could easily correct this horrid misunderstanding if he would only offer a quick explanation.
He wasn't inclined. He winked at her. "I didn't know a face could get that red," he remarked.
"Do explain," she demanded.
"Explain what?" he asked, feigning innocence.
She turned to Judith. "We were camping...and it isn't what it sounds like...I did sleep, and when I awakened...they were all there..."
"They?" Iain asked.
"His soldiers."
"You slept with his soldiers too?
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
That is not my car!β
βCorrection. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota. B.A.β
Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered. And though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway.
βOkay. You got me. Whatβs B.A.?β
βBefore. Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. I take care of what is mine. That Toyota wasnβt safe.β
Figured that arrogant beast would define himself as the dawning of an epoch.
βIβm not yours. It was too, and you canβt just go around stealing.β
βI didnβt, and I filled out the paperwork myself.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
Resonably neat and clean?" Adrienne said incredulously. "that man is flawless from head to toe! He makes David and the Greek gods and Pan seem all out of proportion. He is raw sex in a bottle, uncorked. And somebody should cork it! He's -accck! Bah!" Adrienne spluttered and stuttered as she belatedly realised her words. Lydia was laughing so hard tears misted her eyes.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning
β
Trouble follows you like a shadow, Gillian. You're prone to injuries. I swear to God, if a tree decided to fall right now, it would find your head to land on."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," she muttered. "I'll admit that I have had a run of bad fortune, butβ"
He wouldn't let her continue. "A run of bad fortune? Since I've known you, you've been beaten, stabbed and now shot with an arrow. If this keeps up, you'll be dead in another month
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
Papa, do you like my new friend?" Frances Catherine asked when they were halfway across the field.
"I surely do."
"Can I keep her?"
"For the love of...No, you can't keep her. She isn't a puppy. You can be her friend, though," he hastily added before his daughter could argue with him.
"Forever, papa?"
She 'd asked her father that question, but Judith answered her. "Forever," she shyly whispered.
Frances Catherine reached across her father's chest to take hold of Judith's hand. "Forever," she pledged.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
You were firing questions at me today, trying to get inside my head.
You asked if I believed in God.
I told you of course I do- I've always had a strong sense of self.
Your house is quiet now, you're sleeping upstairs and I'm alone with this blasted, idiotic book that purports to tally the sum of my life, and fact is, maybe I do.
But maybe, ka-lyrra, your God doesn't believe in me.
-- From The (Greatly Revised) Black Edition Of The O'Callaghan Book of the Sin Siriche Du
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (The Immortal Highlander (Highlander, #6))
β
Only after the words were spoken did she realize what she had said. "My sins are all your fault, Brodick, and if I have to go to purgatory, then by God, you're going with me. Ramsey, if you do not stop laughing,I swear I shall toss you over this cliff."
"Do you love him, lass?" Father asked.
"I do not," she answered emphatically.
"It isn't a requirement," Laggan pointed out.
"I should hope not," she cried.
"But it would make your life easier," he countered.
"Gillian, you will tell the truth," Brodick demanded.
He grabbed hold of her hand. She tried to pull back, but he wouldn't let go.
"I have told the truth. I don't love Ramsey, and if he doesn't stop laughing at me, the Sinclairs will soon be looking for a new laird."
"Not Ramsey," Laggan shouted so he could be heard over Ramsey's laughter. "I'm asking you if you love Brodick."
"Did you tell Father I love you? Who else did you tell?
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
She didn't have any intention of crying. The tears caught her by surprise. She knew she was behaving like a child, that she was being terribly foolish and emotional, but she didn't know how to stop herself.
"Judith?" His thumb brushed away one of the tears on her cheek. "Tell me why you're crying."
"There weren't any flowers. Iain, there should have been flowers."
Her voice had been so soft, he wasn't certain he understood her. "Flowers?" he asked.
"Where weren't there any flowers?"
He waited for her to explain, but she stubbornly remained silent. He squeezed her.
"In the chapel."
"What chapel?"
"The one you don't have," she answered.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))
β
What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that's the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.
β
β
Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1))
β
Are you going to keep her?"
"Yes."
"Does she know it?"
"Not yet."
Ramsey overheard the conversation and laughed heartily. "I assume you've considered all the problems, Brodick."
"I have."
"It won't be an easy life for her living withβ" Ramsey began. Brodick finished his sentence for him.
"Living with the Buchanan clan. I know, and I worry about her adjustment."
Ramsey grinned. "That's not what I was going to say. It won't be easy for her living with you. Rumor has it, you're a difficult man to be around."
Brodick didn't take offense. "Gillian's aware of my flaws."
"And she'll still have you?" Winslow asked.
"As a matter of fact, she has refused to marry me."
Knowing Brodick as well as they did, both Ramsey and Winslow began to laugh again.
"So when's the wedding?" Ramsey asked.
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire?
Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon.
β
β
James Joyce (Ulysses)
β
THE STOLEN CHILD
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
β
β
W.B. Yeats (Crossways)
β
He stood up and took a step toward her. "There has been a request for your hand in marriage."
"Is that why you kissed me? So you could take me home and then marry me to a man I don't love? Who is he?" she demanded, emotionally spent now and uncaring that tears were streaming down her face.
He started toward her.
"Don't you dare kiss me again," she ordered. "I can't think when you⦠Just don't," she stammered. "And as for the offer, I decline."
"You can't decline until you know who he is," he reasoned.
"All right. Tell me his name, and then I'll decline. You're going to praise him first though, aren't you?
That's what you always do to try to get me to agree," she ended, and even she could hear the heartbreak in her voice.
"No, I'm not going to praise him. He's riddled with flaws."
She stopped trying to run away. "He is?"
He slowly nodded. "I have it on good authority that he's stupid and arrogant and obstinate, or at least he was until he realized what a fool he has been."
"But that's what I said about⦠you."
"I love you, Bridgid. Will you marry me?
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
The baron reminds me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on who it is," Ramsey remarked.
"I swear my own father never talked to me the way Gillian's uncle just did."
"Your father died before you were old enough to know him."
"It was humiliating, damn it. He sure as certain wasn't what I expected. The way Gillian talked about him, I pictured a mild-mannered gentleman. She thinks he'sβ¦ gentle. Is the woman blind? How in God's name can she love such a crotchety oldβ¦"
Ramsey's head snapped up, and he suddenly burst into laughter, breaking Brodick's train of thought. "It's you."
"What?"
"Morgan⦠he reminds me of you. My God, Gillian married a man just like her uncle. Look at the baron and you'll see yourself in twenty years."
"Are you suggesting I'm going to become a belligerent, foul-tempered old man?"
"Hell, you're already belligerent and foul-tempered. No wonder she fell in love with you," he drawled
β
β
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
β
Can we get on with this?" Father Laggan cried out. "In the name of the Fatherβ¦"
"I'm inviting my aunt Millicent and uncle Herbert to come for a visit, Iain, and I'm not going through the council to get permission first."
"β¦ and of the Son," the priest continued in a much louder voice.
"She'll be wanting King John next," Duncan predicted.
"We can't allow that, lass," Owen muttered.
"Please join hands now and concentrate on this ceremony," Father Laggan shouted, trying to gain everyone's attention.
"I don't want King John to come here," Judith argued. She turned to frown at Owen for making such a shameful suggestion. "I want my aunt and uncle. I'm getting them, too." She turned and had to peek around Graham in order to look up at Iain. "Yes or no, Iain."
"We'll see. Graham, I'm marrying Judith, not you. Let go of her hand. Judith, move over here."
Father Laggan gave up trying to maintain order. He continued on with the ceremony. Iain was paying some attention. He immediately agreed to take Judith for his wife.She wasn't as cooperative. He felt a little sorry for the sweet woman. She looked thoroughly
confused.
"Judith, do you take Iain for your husband?"
She looked up at Iain before giving her answer. "We'll see."
"That won't do, lass. You've got to say I do," he advised.
"Do I?"
Iain smiled. "Your aunt and uncle will be welcomed here."
She smiled back.
....
Judith tried not to laugh. She turned her attention back to Father Laggan. "I will say I do,"
she told him. "Shouldn't we begin now?"
"The lass has trouble following along," Vincent remarked.
Father Laggan gave the final blessing while Judith argued with the elder about his rude comment. Her concentration was just fine, she told him quite vehemently.
She nagged an apology out of Vincent before giving the priest her attention again. "Patrick, would you go and get Frances Catherine? I would like her to stand by my side during the ceremony."
"You may kiss the bride," Father Laggan announced.
β
β
Julie Garwood (The Secret (Highlands' Lairds, #1))