7 x 7: WIP excerpt - Thanks to Gilli Allan!

Recently, I was tagged by the talented and lovely Gilli Allan to take part in a 7x7 excerpt challenge. I haven't been able to nominate anyone else, as most of my writer friends have already taken part, so I'm pretty well going this alone, alas.

Anyway... Here are the rules: Go to Page 7, 70, or 170 of a current Work in Progress or recently published work and choose either the first complete paragraph or 7 lines of dialogue to share. I've fudged this a little and gone with seven paragraphs, a...