Val Love Quotes

Oricum - era de preferat iadul cu o femeie deşteaptă decât paradisul cu una proastă.

- Vreau să-ţi intru în sânge, pricepi?

I know you all have families who love you so if you want to leave–. (Acheron) We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want to. You and Val fought to save my sister when no one else would have bothered. I haven’t forgotten it. (Vane) And I haven’t forgotten what the Dark-Hunters did for me and Maggie. (Wren) Yeah, we’re family. Psychotic, bizarre and a hodgepodge of personalities that should probably never be blended, but here we are. Now let’s go kick some ass. (Fury)

Loss is like a wind, it either carries you to a new destination or it traps you in an ocean of stagnation. You must quickly learn how to navigate the sail, for stagnation is death.

I love Val. I love my job and my New York. I have no doubts that they were the right choices for me. And at the same time, I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.

The mindset of loss of a loved one is to understand that the loss will never be undone. You must live with it, like it or not. But, to live well, you must turn that loss into something positive. That way, you can become the best version of yourself; scarred, flawed and unstoppable

You didn't think I really liked you? Do you think I really like you now?" He turned toward her, uncertainty in his face."You did go quite a lot of effort to be having this conversation, but... I don't want to read too much of what I hope into that." Val stretched out beside him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. "What do you hope?" He pulled her close, hands careful not to touch her wounds as they wrapped around her. "I hope that you feel for me as I do for you," he said, his voice like a sigh against her throat. And how is that?" she asked, her lips so close to his jaw that she could taste the salt of his skin when she moved them. You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that." She smiled and let her eyes drift closed. They lay there together, under the bridge, city lights burning outside the windows like a sky full of falling stars, as they slid off into sleep

The hardest thing about being a grown up is realizing there are no magic formulas to release the ones we love from pain. Maybe that's why I enjoy computer games so much; you get to be God.

Marry me,” I said. I sounded as astonished as she looked, but it felt right. It was right. When I spoke again, my voice went from surprised to insistent. “Be my wife, Val. Be the woman who wakes up in this bed with me every morning for the rest of our lives. Fight with me how Robin and Alan do. Make love to me. Have my children.” Her eyes popped so wide that I laughed and said, “You know, eventually, someday.

If this was love, it felt different than she'd imagined it would, walking a thin line between passion and terror. It was Romeo and Juliet. It was Wuthering Heights. And Val was left petrified from the boiling intensity of it.

In entirety, valentine is a FUCKING DAY, rather than the sanctity of its literal meaning.

If she was going to die she wanted to go out with chocolate in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.

Cherish simple things such as family, friends and love, because great things appear simple from far away. Place your simple things in the best light; there's enough sunshine for all of them

You’re the only redeeming quality I have in her eyes.” “Oh, that’s not true. She loves you. She bragged about you all day.” “She bragged about me being able to snag a woman like you. So, really, she was still just bragging about you.” “Well.” Val chuckled. “I suppose that really is one of your best qualities. But you do have others. Plenty of them. And some of them are even redeeming.

[the sheep] sidled up beside him and bumped him lovingly with its head. Val looked at it sadly. "I am sorry, you ugly creature," he said. "I have not used my magic in a long time, and I am very out of practice.

Everything she knew about him rushed through her mind like a tidal wave.

Just as hate can follow you through your life, love can lead you.

Know that time is a balm that slowly heals all wound. You'll heal, you'll learn to live with the scars, you'll love again and you won't be the same, nor would you want to

It's not what you have, but whom you love that makes life worth living.

This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each. Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error,a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime. There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled;it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself,I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in the newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful. If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all. Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love: To Gaylene deceased To Ray deceased To Francy permanent psychosis To Kathy permanent brain damage To Jim deceased To Val massive permanent brain damage To Nancy permanent psychosis To Joanne permanent brain damage To Maren deceased To Nick deceased To Terry deceased To Dennis deceased To Phil permanent pancreatic damage To Sue permanent vascular damage To Jerri permanent psychosis and vascular damage . . . and so forth. In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.

Nervousness made her feel nauseous, almost like she had two hearts frantically beating in her chest, instead of one.

Nothing consoles you for the loss of someone you love. You absorb it into you. You move forward but you move in a different way.’ She

Thorns with rose petals, beauty with imperfection, softness of insensibility, pain of love; duality of human nature

There is nothing unrealistic about the love that one man feels for another

Nothing can resist a person who is nonresistant... When you overcome negative with positive...hate with love... Evil with good. You've turn a loss to a win... You have become profound.

It is only with the heart that one can see, hear and feel clearly. Think of an image, music or movie that moves you. Things that we truly love touch our heart before our head analyzes them away. Once we think we understand them, they disappear... It is because simple things in life are invisible, inaudible and insensible to an analytical mind and an undiscerning heart. Let your heart hear the music -- be moved by images, people and places... for that makes you more alive than others.

Dogs are masters of creating emotionally safe space just by being themselves. ... it is as if something deep within our souls resonates with their energy, their unwavering unconditional love and unbridled joy to be in our presence, their undivided loyalty, and complete trust in us. Dogs make us feel special, and teach us by example to relish simple pleasures and live totally in the moment. They teach us there is only now and only who you are, who you are with, and what you are doing right then–and what could be better than to sniff the wind and be in the company of those you love?

No more shall you go bookless, Mrs. Crumb. From this day henceforth you have free run of my library with my compliments." She stared. "I-" He grinned, looking not a little wicked. "Have you looked at my books? Glanced at my titles? Fondled my spines?

She tried to think of the right thing to say - something that would make him leave her alone. If she said she could defend herself he'd want her to prove it. But if she said she couldn't defend herself, then he'd take her out there to learn. This is so messed up.

The joy of success lies in the process or journey -- not so much on the destination, because one destination opens the door for another. It's like the beauty of watching a blossoming flower ... a bird taking flight for the first time or a child taking the first step ... Enjoy your process today as I am.

Her gaze shifted away. "I don't remember my dreams anymore." It was like she was confessing a dirty secret. And maybe it was, because even though he hated the dreams, each time he had them, he was with his parents again. Hearing their laughter. Watching them live. But when he woke up they were really gone.

I pressed a kiss to Anna’s forehead. I just couldn’t stop loving on her. “I love you,” Dante said quietly, almost hesitantly. I smiled. “Do you hear, Anna? Your daddy loves you.” Dante touched my cheek, bringing my attention to him and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant, even if it’s true. I love you, Val.

And she arched, screaming, the lightning blazing from her center, sparking through her limbs, flying out her fingertips. She was incandescent. He fell atop her, heavy and male, pulling her legs up around his narrow hips, and ground down into her, once, twice. His cock jerked within her and she could feel every muscle in his body tense. He groaned into her ear like a man dying and then fell senseless and limp. And as she followed him into exhausted slumber she heard his single word: Mine.

He attacked her throat and she was so startled by the sudden move that she squeaked. He was laving her with his tongue, openmouthed, and she moaned, arching, wondering wildly if this was the same man who wore pink silk coats and black velvet bows. This seemed so base, so animal. Not at all like the effete aristocrat she thought she knew.

The calmness was fracturing, tendrils of fear seeping through her mind like ivy. Once the fear consumed her, she'd run.

true love wasn’t about gazing into each other’s eyes. It was about standing shoulder to shoulder, facing in the same direction.

Art is always an exchange, like love, whose giving and taking can be a complex and wounding matter, according to Michelangelo. Ali Smith, Artful

Learn to live, love and laugh....And to enjoy a good story when there is one to be heard.

The habit of loving is definitely one to be cultivated.

Learn to live, love and laugh . . . and to enjoy a good story when there's one to be heard.

Boy do I pray about that often-the idea of needing some physical thing more than the unity of the spirit, more than the principles of mind, soul, life, truth, Love

Tu corazón va más deprisa que el vals.

There were things one could do, things so terrible, Val was certain they could make someone stop loving you. She was equally certain that she had done some of these things, and as desperate as she was to be proven otherwise, she was equally afraid that she was right. That she had become as awful as the rest of the world seemed to think she was. That she was unlovable.

Roses have thorns,’ we whine. When thorns of life entwine. Simple things can bring solace to heart-Things everyone take for granted-Like tending beds of fragile roses-with heart full of scars

The duke brought her hand to his mouth and, his azure eyes glittering in the candlelight, pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. And then the edge of his teeth. She felt the warm softness of his lips, the prickle of against tender skin, and a sort of shock seemed to go straight through the center of her body. He let her go and her wrist felt the cold of night. "Séraphine. The burning one. I should've known.

Oh," said her husband, sounding deeply pleased at something he'd read in his letter. "What?" Bridget sat up, inadvertently spilling several drops of honey on her breast. Sadly, she succumbed to her husband's fondness for nudity soon after their marriage. Valentine glanced up, but his gaze was immediately drawn to the honey slowly dripping down her breast. "Val..." Bridget moved to scoop the honey up with her finger. His hand darted out, catching hers. "Oh, don't," he breathed, leaning over her, forcing her flat on her back. He bent, closing his azure eyes, and licked her breast almost reverently. She shuddered. "It's the middle of the day," she whispered. His eyes opened, wicked and amused. "I know. Your favorite." She smiled up at him, threading her fingers through his golden hair. "I love you." "And I love you," he murmured against her lips, before taking her mouth hard and possessively. Their letters fell to the floor, abandoned, but Bridget didn't care at all. She was with her true love and the world outside could wait.

If only this mist would clear, it would be a lovely day," she said faintly. "And if only the clouds would thicken up it would be a miserable day," Mr. Allen contributed from behind the paper. "It is what it is.

Fine. At least I’ll go out doing what I love: being an absolute fuckwit making the worst possible choice.” “No,” Val says, her voice solemn. “Being an absolute fuckwit making the worst possible choice in the best possible company.

Two relationships in the past six years, both of which she’d hung on to long past the sell-by date. They reminded her of a poem she’d once read about love being a kite you couldn’t let go of till somebody gave you something better to do. Although

Trees surrounded them from all sides, casting long inky shadows that would, at another time, have been scary. But there was no point in being scared of what might be lurking in the shadows when the biggest bad, of all big bads, was gazing at her intently.

She smiled at him, and Val felt his heart trip on the next few beats. Good God, she was lovely. Just sitting here outside the Rooster, cradling her mug in her hands. A little dusty, a little tired, but in her warm, earthy dark-eyed way, she was beautiful.

Sitting there with Val's warm little body against my side and his silky-soft hair against my cheek, I felt happy and peaceful. Before this I had loved Val because he was Ronnie's son, but now I loved him for himself... and I knew there would be no more trouble. He would feel miserable at times--that could not be helped--but he would let me comfort him. And I saw how foolish I had been to fuss and worry about "the right approach" because of course "the right approach" to all our fellow creatures is just to love them.

all. I had a cup of coffee with Ann Cleeves at the picnic table—’ she gestured beyond the containers to where a basic picnic table sat near the edge of the cliff. ‘She was researching locations for one of her Vera books. Lovely woman, but she didn’t get inside.

To sit back and watch is no longer possible. It never was, it turned out. I step onto the pristine grass. It feels like an invasion, but a voice inside reminds me to loosen up. I don't pretend that I knew him before, but he's always with me now. We're weaving in between trees, careful not to disturb, on a mission. We mean no trouble. There are so many of us, the lonely souls. All of us who helped build this. Those who will watch it grow. Those we've lost. We march on together. Climbing, falling, soaring. Trying to get closer to the center of everything. Closer to ourselves. Closer to each other. Closer to something true.

The Biden's have another belief as well:" If you have to ask, it's too late." When someone is in need, when they're hurting, when they're overwhelmed, you don't wait until they tell you they need your help. You give it before they have to ask. So when Neilia died and Joe was left with two young boys, trying to father them and get through his own grief, all while juggling the new hectic life of a senator, Val didn't ask if there was something she could do. She moved in. And for three years, through her own career ambitions, through her courtship and eventual marriage to her husband, Jack, she lived with Joe and the boys and made sure they had the love and support they needed to keep going.

Everyone thinks themselves unique when they fall in love. The truth is, we all lose ourselves in the same way. Whether it takes hours or days or weeks, we all find ourselves in a place of wonder and urgency, where we believe nobody has ever been before to quite the same degree. If everyone felt like this, our script goes, the world would come to a grinding, grinning halt.

There's no difficulty that love cannot conquer... no door love cannot open... No wall enough love will not bring down... only if we could love enough When love, skill, a talent or gift work together... we create a masterpiece Love someone with your skill, your talent or our gift... Make someone's life easier... Make someone happy today... Create your masterpiece today

How can she stand up there so tall as she’s telling us how her mother beat her and her father molested her when she was a little girl? How is it possible for her to look so proud? How is she not being consumed by shame? She should be disintegrating before our eyes. She should be struck by lightning, and God’s big, angry, booming voice should be shaking the room with “How dare you? I told you never to tell.” But that’s not her God, she says. Her God is loving and kind and wants what’s best for her. Her God loves peace and serenity and forgiveness. Her God doesn’t make her keep secrets. I thought I knew God all my life, but maybe it was some other guy the whole time. I want this God. I want Val’s God. I want a God who doesn’t make me jump through hoops and hate myself to earn his love.

And then he saw her burning eyes. They gazed at him calmly and he saw in them benediction. He fell to his knees before her, pressing his face to her purple-velvet-clad-belly. "Séraphine, Séraphine, Séraphine. O most beloved of women, most fiery of saints, never leave me, please. I'll erect columns of white marble to you, build gardens of delight for you, cause ships to sail and warriors to rise for you, if you'll only remain by my side." She smiled down at him and cupped his cheeks. "Valentine, do you love me?" Ah, God, it was like a shot to the gut. He squeezed tight his eyes. To come so close and lose her because of this. "If I were able I would love you as no man has ever loved a woman since the beginning of time." She knelt then to face him and whispered, "But you are able." He clutched her. He wouldn't let her go, no, not even when she realized... "Séraphine, my darling, burning one, do you not remember? I told you, so long ago now, that I lacked that part. I cannot-" "But you can, Valentine." She touched a finger to his cheek and then showed it to him. He blinked. Her finger was wet. His eyes were wet. She smiled at him, his burning Séraphine, and it was as if the night sky were ablaze. "You love me." "I love you," he said in wonder, and felt his chest fill with warmth. "I love you." "And I love you," she whispered, her hands cupping his face. So he kissed her until she was limp and pliable and so very hot against him, and then he purred into her ear, "Does that mean you'll become my duchess, darling Bridget Crumb?" And when she sighed back, "Oh, yes, Val," he picked her up and carried her off to have his wicked, wicked way with her. Because he might have a heart now but some things weren't ever going to change.

Her eyes widened and her mouth formed an anguished O. He had to admit, there was real pleasure in seeing her pay the price for her bitching and whining and moaning. She’d called men like him misogynists. That was the opposite of what they were. Men like him, they loved women. They understood the kind of life that suited women best. They knew what women really wanted. Proper women didn’t want to be out there in the world, having to shout the odds all the time. They wanted to build homes, take care of families, make their mark and exercise their power inside the home. Being women, not fake men. After

We cannot take leave of the aquatic plants without briefly mentioning the life of the most romantic of them all: the legendary Val­lisneria, an Hydrocharad whose nuptials form the most tragic episode in the love-history of the flowers. The Vallisneria is a rather insignificant herb, possess­ing none of the strange grace of the Water-lily or of certain submersed comas. But it seems as though nature had delighted in giving it a beautiful idea. The whole existence of the little plant is spent at the bottom of the water, in a sort of half-slumber, until the moment of the wedding-hour in which it aspires to a new life. Then the female flower slowly uncoils the long spiral of its peduncle, rises, emerges and floats and blossoms on the sur­face of the pond. From a neighbouring stem, the male flowers, which see it through the sunlit water, soar in their turn, full of hope, towards the one that rocks, that awaits them, that calls them to a magic world. But, when they have come half-way, they feel themselves suddenly held back: their stalk, the very source of their life, is too short; they will never reach the abode of light, the only spot in which the union of the stamens and the pistil can be achieved! .

We talk about ‘gut instinct’ or ‘feminine intuition’ and often dismiss them. We say they’re unscientific, they’re not something you can take into the witness box and make a case out of. But more often than not, these hunches are reliable indicators. They’re conclusions we draw based on experience, readings of human behaviour we trust because we’ve seen them before. Of course prejudice can creep in and skew our responses, but we shouldn’t ignore those moments when our hackles rise or our spines shiver. They’re just as valuable as those moments of instant attraction that so often lead us into love affairs …

Nights with bright pivots, departure, matter, uniquely voice, uniquely naked each day. Upon your breasts of still current, upon your legs ofharshness and water, upon the permanence and pride of your naked hair, I want to lie, my love, the tears now cast into the raucous basket where they gather, I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable of destroyed silver, alone with a tip of your snowy breast.   It is not now possible, at times, to win except by falling, it is not now possible, between two people, to tremble, to touch the river’s flower: man fibers come like needles, transactions, fragments, families of repulsive coral, tempests and hard passages through carpets of winter.   Between lips and lips there are cities of great ash and moist crest, drops of when and how, indefinite traffic: between lips and lips, as if along a coast of sand and glass, the wind passes.   That is why you are endless, gather me up as if you were all solemnity, all nocturnal like a zone, until you merge with the lines of time.   Advance in sweetness, come to my side until the digital leaves of the violins have become silent, until the moss takes root in the thunder, until from the throbbing of hand and hand the roots come down.   VALS Yo toco el odio como pecho diurno, yo sin cesar, de ropa en ropa, vengo durmiendo lejos.

What’s this?” He pulled out a folder filled with shiny silver discs. “A whole television show with your name on it! Should we put the lights down low and watch?” Merlin pursed his lips. “Quite fun, in places, that one. I do like the dragon. But, well, they had a tendency to make it seem as if Arthur and Merlin could be love interests, only to pull out at the last possible second.” Val quirked an eyebrow, a double entendre no doubt simmering behind that smirk. When he spoke, it was more frustration than amusement. Ugh, why would anyone do that?” “It was called queerbaiting, Merlin said, the word like a stone in his shoe. “And sadly it was common in that age.” Val made a disgusted face and a retching sound to go with it. Merlin had to agree.

My 1979 Top 40 In no particular order, this is the forty-track rotation I listened to when I was researching, prepping and writing 1979. They were all released in the late 1970s, though not all in 1979 itself. But then, like Allie, we all listen to tunes from our past . . . I hope it gets you in the mood for reading! ‘Picture This’ – Blondie ‘Lovely Day’ – Bill Withers ‘Automatic Lover’ – Dee D. Jackson ‘Brass in Pocket’ – The Pretenders ‘It’s a Heartache’ – Bonnie Tyler ‘Wild West Hero’ – Electric Light Orchestra ‘Because the Night’ – Patti Smith ‘Into the Valley’ – The Skids ‘YMCA’ – Village People ‘Like Clockwork’ – Boomtown Rats ‘Stayin’ Alive’ – Bee Gees ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ – Althea & Donna ‘No More Heroes’ – The Stranglers ‘Take a Chance on Me’ – Abba ‘Werewolves of London’ – Warren Zevon ‘Psycho Killer’ – Talking Heads ‘Kiss You All Over’ – Exile ‘Top of the Pops’ – Rezillos ‘Heroes’ – David Bowie ‘Don’t Hang Up’ – 10cc ‘English Civil War’ – The Clash ‘2-4-6-8-Motorway’ – Tom Robinson Band ‘Rebel Rebel’ – David Bowie ‘Glad to be Gay’ – Tom Robinson Band

This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.” She regarded him where he lay. “Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.” She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back. “You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him. “The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.” “You would drift off while I’m confiding?” “I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.” “I am unused to this friendly napping.” “You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?” “We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.” But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back. “Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly. “Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day. God

Do we need to talk about my kissing you a year ago? I’ve behaved myself for two weeks, Ellen, and hope by action I have reassured you where words would not.” Silence or the summer evening equivalent of it, with crickets chirping, the occasional squeal of a passing bat, and the breeze riffling through the woods nearby. “Ellen?” Val withdrew his hand, which Ellen had been holding for some minutes, and slid his arm around her waist, urging her closer. “A woman gone silent unnerves a man. Talk to me, sweetheart. I would not offend you, but neither will I fare well continuing the pretense we are strangers.” He felt the tension in her, the stiffness against his side, and regretted it. In the past two weeks, he’d all but convinced himself he was recalling a dream of her not a real kiss, and then he’d catch her smiling at Day and Phil or joking with Darius, and the clench in his vitals would assure him that kiss had been very, very real. At least for him. For him, that kiss had been a work of sheer art. “My husband seldom used my name. I was my dear, or my lady, or occasionally, dear wife. I was not Ellen, and I was most assuredly not his sweetheart. And to you I am the next thing to a stranger.” Val’s left hand, the one she’d just held for such long, lovely moments between her own, drifted up to trace slow patterns on her back. “We’re strangers who kissed. Passionately, if memory serves.” “But on only one occasion and that nearly a year ago.” “Should I have written? I did not think to see you again, nor you me, I’m guessing.” Now he wished he’d written, though it would hardly have been proper, even to a widow. That hand Valentine considered so damaged continued its easy caresses on Ellen’s back, intent on stealing the starch from her spine and the resolve from her best intentions. And she must have liked his touch, because the longer he stroked his hand over her back, the more she relaxed and leaned against him. “I did not think to see you again,” Ellen admitted. “It would have been much easier had you kept to your place in my memory and imagination. But here you are.” “Here we are.” Haunting a woman’s imagination had to be a good thing for a man whose own dreams had turned to nightmares. “Sitting on the porch in the moonlight, trying to sort out a single kiss from months ago.” “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Ellen said, her head coming to rest on Val’s shoulder as if the weight of truth were a wearying thing. “But I’m lonely and sometimes a little desperate, and it seemed safe, to steal a kiss from a handsome stranger.” “It was safe,” Val assured her, seeing the matter from her perspective. In the year since he’d seen Ellen FitzEngle, he’d hardly been celibate. He wasn’t a profligate Philistine, but neither was he a monk. There had been an older maid in Nick’s household, some professional ladies up in York, the rare trip upstairs at David’s brothel, and the frequent occasion of self-gratification. But he surmised Ellen, despite the privileges of widowhood, had not been kissed or cuddled or swived or flirted with in all those days and weeks and months. “And now?” Ellen pressed. “You show up on my porch after dark and think perhaps it’s still safe, and here I am, doing not one thing to dissuade you.” “You are safe with me, Ellen.” He punctuated the sentiment with a kiss to her temple then rested his cheek where his lips had been. “I am a gentleman, if nothing else. I might try to steal a kiss, but you can stop me with a word from even that at any time. The question is, how safe do you want to be?” “Shame

Life is about juggling obligations, Valerie. You need to study smarter, not harder.

Fear blossomed within her - not like a flower, but like blood welling from a gunshot wound, spreading throughout her entire body.

val-ue: something desirable and of worth, created through exchange or effort

I love your outfit. The guys won’t know what to make of you.” “They’ll make nothing of her. She’s our teammate,” Val snapped. To

before, the single time they’d made love. He’d focused on her, giving to her, never asking for anything in return. And she had taken, because she’d been too weak, too needy to do anything else. Val didn’t want that now. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, savoring the texture of his skin, then gripping his biceps, she guided him up her body. He paused. “Tell me what you need. I can…” “Shh.” Val went to work on his clothes, pulling the t-shirt over his head, unbuttoning his jeans, easing denim and underwear down his thighs. He sprang free, and she held him, one hand on his shaft, the other cradling from underneath. “I’m not a victim,” she whispered. “I know you’re not.” “I don’t want pity.

But even so, You LOVE me! .." (Psalm 73:23 TLB)

When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son." (Hosea 11:1)

The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you.." (Deuteronomy 7:7,8)   God

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)   Human

.. that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height; to know the love of Christ.." (Ephesians 3:17-19)   How

În loc să se lase cuprinși de Iubirea lui Dumnezeu și să poarte un război împotriva eului lor, zeloții se războiesc cu alți oameni, stârnind val după val de spaimă. Privind întreaga lume cu ochi încețoșați de frică, nu-i de mirare că văd o mulțime de lucruri de care să se teamă. Oriunde este vreun cutremur, vreo secetă sau orice altă nenorocire, o iau ca pe un semn al mâniei lui Dumnezeu - de parcă Allah n-ar spune deschis: Mila Mea întrece mânia Mea. Mereu nemulțumiți pentru una sau alta, par să se-aștepte ca Dumnezeu Atotputernicul să le țină partea și să încuviințeze răzbunările lor jalnice. Viața lor e o neîntreruptă amărăciune și dușmănie, resimt o nemulțumire atât de mare, încât îi urmează oriunde se duc, precum un nor negru, întunecându-le și trecutul, și viitorul. Când e vorba de credință, se întâmplă să nu fii în stare să vezi pădurea din pricina copacilor. Religia în întregul ei e mult mai măreață și mai adâncă decât suma părților care o alcătuiesc. Regulile răzlețe trebuie tălmăcite în lumina întregului. Iar întregul e ascuns în miez.

Je hebt uiteindelijk je begeerte lief en niet het begeerde.' Het kwam er veel plechtiger uit dan bedoeld. Meteen had hij spijt het te hebben gezegd. Simon wist dat het waar was, maar wist ook dat het aanmatigend was om te zeggen dat het waar was. Lizzie fronste. Zij vroeg of hij het nog eens wilde zeggen. Toen zei ze: 'Nou, dat vind ik niet. Ik hou gewoon van jou.

En áls er dan ergens in moest worden berust, dan toch in de wetenschap dat zij eendrachtig waren in hun rouw; dat zij eindelijk van elkaar wisten dat zij niet treurden om de afloop en het scheiden, maar al hadden getreurd vanaf het eerste begin. Die synchroniciteit was troostend.

Een misplaatst gevoel voor goede smaak weerhield hem ervan te zeggen dat hij haar had gemist en haar zou blijven missen. Maar er waren momenten dat de goede smaak maar even de andere kant op moest kijken. ‘Ik jou ook,’ antwoordde Lizzie.

Leb das Leben, das du verdienst, Val. Lebe für uns beide. Lebe und schaue nie zurück.

We feel spirit every time we love, every time we forgive, every time scorn is overwhelmed by empathy and bitterness overcome by compassion.

Life doesn’t have to provide you any options at all. It can easily define your course from the outset and keep you in check through all manner of rough and subtle mechanics. To have even one year when you’re presented with choices that can alter your circumstances, your character, your course—that’s by the grace of God alone. And it shouldn’t come without a price. I love Val.

Pharinet, despite what I know of Val and whatever I might of you, I will always love you both. You are strange creatures, and always have been. That is no doubt part of the attraction.

Val leaned forward and dipped his head, looking her in the eye. ‘You are my family now. Or you will be soon. As a duke, my father is used to having his own way in all things. He wouldn’t have respected anything less than a full show of strength.

Oh, well, the dead. They are never gone. They are around us everywhere.” He made a comprehensive gesture, and Val found herself following the line of his hand, as if she could see spirits drifting through the air. “When one of them comes unexpectedly to mind, you think you are just calling up a memory. But in fact, they are stroking your cheek, whispering in your ear, reminding you how much they love you.

I love Val. I love my job and my New York. I have no doubt that they were the right choices for me. And at the same time, I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.

You made me love you. You were a shit mother, but I loved you anyway. Then you betrayed me. Treated me as if I were nothing to you.

She looked up at Val. “God, can you imagine if I could get my hair to change color on its own?” “I love it when you call me God.” Val laughed when she punched his side.

Then she heard a masculine chuckle behind her. Bridget froze, ice sliding down her spine. The sound could be nothing else, not the wind or a creaky house or even a mouse in the walls. She turned, pushing the panel shut with her shoulder, and palming the portrait as she did so. The Duke of Montgomery, all golden hair and sharp blue eyes, and wearing a purple velvet suit, smiled at her from the armchair in the far corner of the room. "A lovely woman in my bed, what a fetching surprise." He cocked his head, a corner of his beautiful mouth curving cruelly. "Tell me, Mrs. Crumb, what are you looking for?

For a moment all was silence, save for her breathing. Triumph raced through Bridget's chest. At last! Then she heard a masculine chuckle behind her. Bridget froze, ice sliding down her spine. The sound could be nothing else, not the wind or a creaky house or even a mouse in the walls. She turned, pushing the panel shut with her shoulder, and palming the portrait as she did so. The Duke of Montgomery, all golden hair and sharp blue eyes, and wearing a purple velvet suit, smiled at her from the armchair in the far corner of the room. "A lovely woman in my bed, what a fetching surprise." He cocked his head, a corner of his beautiful mouth curving cruelly. "Tell me, Mrs. Crumb, what are you looking for?

Love never fails" (1 Corinthians 13:8)   Love

to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge ..." (Ephesians 3:19)   We

Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved,  he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised  to those who love Him." (James 1:12)   James

St. Just watched this scene, one like many stored in his memory of his half brothers casually teasing their mother, assuming she’d be there to tease when next they got around to paying a call. It made him a little crazy to see the same thing yet again today, so he turned to go. “Devlin St. Just!” The duchess’s voice had the whiplash quality to it again, and Val grimaced at him in sympathy. Devlin turned and prepared for the usual lecture on his duty to look after his little brothers, but the duchess simply opened her arms to him. He went to her and cautiously leaned in for a hug. “You are not a perfect soldier,” she whispered, “but you are a perfect son, and I love you.” Her embrace was fierce, and in his arms, she did not feel like an older woman. She felt like a mother trying to get through to her pigheaded offspring. “Good-bye,” he said, “I love you, too.” She stepped back, her smile radiant. “Look after each other.” She shook her finger at them both. “I have my hands full with your father and your featherbrained sisters. I can’t be fretting about grown men.” “Yes, Your Grace,” they said in unison, exchanging a smile. She let them go. She was still beaming from the front steps when they trotted down the drive. ***

Not feeling so good, princess?” Val asked again, grinning sympathetically. He slung an arm around St. Just’s shoulders and squeezed hard. “Are you ready to swear off women? Move back to Surrey? Take holy orders?” “Please do not mention the church,” St. Just said, sidling out of his brother’s grip. “Nor the exponents thereof.” “So what was Winnie’s reason for running off?” Val asked, pouring a mug of tea, adding cream and sugar, and putting it in his brother’s hand. “She wanted to make Emmie feel as scared and anxious and upset as Winnie will feel when Emmie runs off to Cumbria without her.” Val gave a low whistle. “There’s a genius to her logic, and diabolical determination.” “Diabolical determination,” St. Just said, but there was a hint of pride in just those two words. “Just like any soldier when dedicated to a worthy cause.” “Music is a worthy cause,” Val pronounced, turning on his heel and leaving. “So,” St. Just muttered to the empty kitchen, “is true love.” ***

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How funny do you think it feels not to be able to play the piano when it’s all I’ve done of worth in the past twenty-some years? I did not excel at school, and I can’t point to an illustrious career like my brother, the former cavalry officer. I haven’t Westhaven’s head for business. I wasn’t a jolly good time like Bart or a charmer like Vic. But, by God, I could play the piano.” “And you can build stone walls and referee between Day and Phil and keep an eye on Nick Haddonfield when he hares all over the Home Counties,” Darius retorted. “Do you think one activity defines you?” “I’m like a whore, Darius, in that, yes, the one activity, in my case playing the piano, defines me.” Val heard weariness in his own voice. “When Dev was driven mad by nightmares, I played for him so he couldn’t hear the battles anymore. When his little Winnie was scared witless by all the changes in her life, I played for her and taught her a few things to play for herself. When Victor was so sick, I’d play for him, and he’d stop coughing for a little while. It’s how I let people know they matter to me, Darius, and now…” Darius got up and crossed the room, then lowered himself to sit beside Val in the shifting candlelight. “Now all this playing for others has left you one-handed, angry, and beating yourself up.” Not beating himself up, precisely, but feeling beaten up. “The piano is the way I have a soul, Dare. It’s always there for me, always able to say the things I can’t, always worth somebody’s notice, even if they don’t know they notice. It has never let me down, never ridiculed me before others, never taken a sudden notion not to know who I am or what I want. As mistresses go, the piano has been loyal, predictable, and lovely.” “You

Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice carried straight into the darkest corners of the hall and straight into Ellen’s heart. “There is a slight misprint on tonight’s program. We offer for our finale tonight my own debut effort, which is listed on the program as Little Summer Symphony. It should read, Little Weldon Summer Symphony, and the dedication was left out, as well, so I offer it to you now. “Ellen, I know you are with me tonight, seated with my parents and our friends, though I cannot see you. I can feel you, though, here.” He tapped the tip of the baton over his heart. “I can always feel you there, and hope I always will. Like its creator, this work is not perfect, but it is full of joy, gratitude, and love, because of you. Ladies and gentlemen, I dedicate this work to the woman who showed me what it means to be loved and love in return: Ellen, Baroness Roxbury, whom I hope soon to convince to be my lady wife. These modest tunes and all I have of value, Ellen, are dedicated to you.” He turned in the ensuing beats of silence, raised his baton, and let the music begin. Ellen was in tears before the first movement concluded. The piece began modestly, like an old-fashioned sonata di chiesa, the long slow introduction standing alone as its own movement. Two flutes began it, playing about each other like two butterflies on a sunbeam, but then broadening, the melody shifting from sweet to tender to sorrowful. She heard in it grief and such unbearable, unresolved longing, she wanted to grab Val’s arm to make the notes stop bombarding her aching heart. But the second movement marched up right behind that opening, full of lovely, laughing melodies, like flowers bobbing in a summer breeze. This movement was full of song and sunshine; it got the toes tapping and left all manner of pretty themes humming around in the memory. My gardens, Ellen thought. My beautiful sunny gardens, and Marmalade and birds singing and the Belmont brothers laughing and racing around. The third movement was tranquil, like the sunshine on the still surface of the pond, like the peace after lovemaking. The third movement was napping entwined in the hammock, and strolling home hand in hand in the moonlight. She loved the third movement the best so far, until it romped into a little drinking song, that soon got away from itself and became a fourth movement full of the ebullient joy of creation at its most abundant and beautiful. The joy of falling in love, Ellen thought, clutching her handkerchief hard. The joy of being in love and being loved the way you need to be. Ah, it was too much, and it was just perfect as the music came to a stunning, joyous conclusion.