Dr. Strange Beard (Winston Brothers, #5)

by Penny Reid

But time, as they say, heals all wounds that aren’t affected by sepsis or gangrene.

Every girl has a thing, whether it be abs or beards or hands or jaws or eyes or muscular thighs or soft middles or red hair or hairy chests. You can’t help your thing, it just is. Love it. Own it. Thing it.

I preferred my guys quiet, thoughtful, and reflective, slow to anger and quick to theorizing. There wasn’t much that got my engine running like a good theory, amiright ladies?

Tall and bookish; thick glasses not thick necks; that was my bag.

All men are fugly as soon as they demonstrate an inability to carry on a conversation about issues that matter. Or if they don’t empty the dishwasher. Or if they poop with the bathroom door open.

“Why are you so anxious to build yourself a ceiling? Why don’t you build a rocket instead?”

“Wouldn’t it be great if folks everywhere were used to listening—really listening—to people who didn’t look like them? Instead of discounting a voice because it doesn’t come from a mouth and face that resembles theirs, what if they got used to valuing those voices? The only way people learn and change—I believe—is by practicing. So that means we need to give them more opportunities to practice listening. We need more voices like mine speaking to folks like Officer Strickland.”

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” RITA MAE BROWN

“Memory is a strange thing.” He pressed another kiss to the soft skin of my interior forearm. “An endless reminder of the past, revealing itself—as a cannon blast or a whisper—when you’re least prepared for it.”