Paula Altenburg Quotes

Wishing for something doesn’t mean you should have it, and saying something doesn’t necessarily make it true.

She pressed his amulet to her lips, then let it fall on its chain to rest between their two bodies. “We could leave here,” she said to him. “We could run away together.”He frowned at the stars, the bubble of peacefulness that had settled around them after their lovemaking now ruptured. “I run from nothing and no one.

She looked up at him with dark, tragic eyes, and again he was struck by the illusion of beauty and innocence she presented. Instinct had him wanting to reach for her, to take her in his arms and offer comfort. Then his ribs twitched with pain and he remembered she was not all that innocent, no matter what her mother believed about her or how she presented herself. He called to mind an image of his sister and her torn remains, and of the monstrosity she had died giving birth to, and any pity he might have felt for Airie fled.

Why should I mind?” She drummed her fingertips against his knee. “Because you got asked to play baseball, while I got a lecture on circumspection, Jezebels, and leading men into sin?” “Did you really?” He managed to sound annoyed, fascinated, and amused all at once.“It’s not funny.” “Of course it’s not.” He was quick to try and placate her. “But we can do something about those lectures real quick. All you have to do is marry me.”Coyote Bluff had too many secrets that weren’t hers to share. She couldn’t put him in that position. He was a federal marshal. And she’d seen what all the lies her father told had done to her mother. She’d died hating him.The last remnants of her earlier contentment vanished. “I like my independence.” “Then I guess you’ll have to get used to the lectures, Sheriff Jezebel,” he replied.

He leaned in and kissed her. The world didn’t stop dead on its axis. Nothing fell from the sky. It was a gentle meeting of flesh, not a melding of souls. Yet the taste of her lips was everything he remembered, and more. Without moving a muscle—without batting an eyelash—she managed to take ten years of simmering frustration and dissolve them as if they were nothing more than a spoonful of sugar in a pot of hot water.He straightened. A series of expressions tripped across her face in rapid succession. He caught shellshock, bemusement, and then a faint trace of…sadness.Definitely not one-sided. But not what he’d been looking for, either.

Why do you do this?” she asked.“Do what?”“Follow me around. Look at me as if you find me fascinating. Touch me, and say nice things to me. And then, you pull away as if you did nothing at all.” She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I’ve already agreed to tell you everything I know. There’s no need for these games.