Patricia Rice > Quotes

“I did not have any magnificent jewels to give you, but I hoped you would understand that I would give you the world if I could.”
― Patricia Rice, The Wicked Wyckerly

“Cade applied the cool vinegar water to Lily's head when the fever grew stronger. When she began to sweat and toss restlessly, he peeled her gown from her shoulders and bathed her shoulders and breasts. She quieted with his touch, and he continued the soothing motion until she felt cooler again. When he was certain that she slept peacefully, Cade stripped off his clothes and joined her beneath the covers. They hadn't been together like this for so long. He pulled her into the curve of his body and rested his hand protectively on her swelling belly. His child grew there, and he protected what was his. He had so very little, he would fight for what he had. Exhausted,”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Leaving Travis to find his own way out, Lily went to the small satchel with her few possessions and removed the flute that Cade had given her. It was a little more worn now, the polish developing a patina from use, and Lily regarded it with satisfaction. It had taken hours of practice, but she was learning its use. Sitting on the opposite side of Cade from his father, she began to play. El Caballo frowned. Music was not woman's work or something to be taken lightly, but Lily knew she played well. Even the man in the bed thought so; he began to stir. Cade's eyes opened and sought Lily. The opaque depths that had once kept everyone out softened as he watched her with the flute.”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“That's why you were so starved for passion that you'd even take a renegade like me. And now you've got your chance to get Roy's father back and you mean to set me aside." Lily balled her fists into knots on top of the bedclothes. "Don't talk to me like that, Cade. You have no right. What we did was your choice. You never asked my opinion on the matter. And now Travis is here and could take Roy away if he wanted. I'll be damned if Roy goes anywhere without me." "And I'll be damned if you go anywhere without me." Cade said it quietly, but the threat was still there as he pulled away from the wall. Flinging back the covers, Lily leapt for the long-barreled Kentucky rifle Jim had always kept beside the bed. Grabbing it, she held it steady to her shoulder. "Not one foot closer, Cade. You had your way last night. It's my turn." "You're my wife, Lily. Do you expect me to sleep out there," he nodded toward the window, "while you sleep in your lonely bed? Or do you entertain some expectations of sleeping with your friend Travis?" "Get out, Cade. I don't have to listen to that. For once, you have to listen to me. When Travis is gone, we'll talk about what we've done, but not a moment sooner. I'm not ready to be a wife again, Cade. You should have asked me that the first time." "You were ready enough to take what I had to offer." The barrel of the rifle was pressed against his chest and Cade grabbed it, twisting it out of her hands. "I'll not let him have you without a fight." The”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“What in hell would you know of ladies?" Travis asked, disgruntled by the exchange. Cade raised his head, much as a buffalo might when aroused to danger. "My mother was a lady. What about yours?" Before Lily could do anything unladylike like slinging the plate she had in her hand, Ephraim put a halt to the bickering. "I don't think either of you is impressing anybody." He turned to his daughter. "Lily, I think it's about time you started making some choices before somebody gets killed. If you've got your heart set on staying here instead of coming home with me, you have to settle on one man and get it over with—unless you like watching grown men behave like young bucks and challenging each other." Lily sent her father a furious look. "I could just tell the lot of them to get the hell out and leave me alone, and that includes you, too. I'm sick to death of men telling me what to do." Cade”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“She was doing it again. She was crawling down his collar and the back of his shirt and getting under his skin. Nobody else ever got close enough to disturb his equilibrium. Only Lily had the unmitigated gall to assume they were equals. "I'm”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“I'm trying to move ahead, Cade," she whispered to the window. "I didn't want to marry again. I didn't want another man taking away my choices. But it's happening all over again, and I don't like it. Can you understand that, Cade? Can you understand how I feel?" His hands captured her shoulders and pulled her around. His face loomed over hers as he spoke. "Give us time, Lily. We can make it work. Living without anyone else is an awful lonely business." He”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Are we staying here like this all day?" Lily could feel the lower part of him stirring again. She didn't think she had the strength to repeat their performances. Cade swung her back against the rug and leaned over her. "All day and all night for as long as we can. You have made me wait forever." Lily”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“He'll be fine with us. You can't worry about him all the time." Cade rode up behind Lily, catching her expression and partially interpreting it correctly. "He's so young." Lily turned her head up to meet his gaze. "He's all I've got, Cade. I've got a right to worry." "I'll take care of him as well as you take care of Serena. No man can say better than that." "I know that." Sighing, she turned and waved Roy off as he cantered after Abraham.”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“They woke together, the stirring of one causing an equal reaction in the other. Lily thought maybe this was what it meant to be man and wife in every sense. Cade's dark hand lay splayed across her pale abdomen as if safeguarding their child, and his large body curled protectively around hers. She felt more secure than she ever had in her life. Perhaps this was what love was all about. She had certainly never expected to find a man who would hold her and love her as Cade had last night even when she was at her ugliest. Any man who did that had to care for her to some degree. That was all she needed to feed her hopes. If he could truly care for her above and beyond what they had in bed, she would do everything within her power to make him happy.”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“We need a national Forgive the Ignorant Day,”
― Patricia Rice, Sapphire Nights

“You and Cade are a pair if I ever saw one, Lily. What in hell were you planning to do if I hadn't been here?" "Did you think I was all alone, Ralph?" Lily looked up with the best imitation of sweetness that she could arrange. At his sardonic look, she pointed toward the window. "I think right about now you'll see Travis riding in from the field. That bell you heard clamoring earlier wasn't for dinner. If I'm not mistaken, you'll soon see men galloping in over the prairie, and they're not expecting dinner, either. And you'll have to believe me on the rest because you'll not ever see them, but up in that stand of trees are at least two Indians who would have been down here in seconds if I'd hung that red rag there out the window." Lily smiled at Ralph's astonished look. "Cade just doesn't believe I can take care of myself. What do you think, Ralph?" Langton picked up his rifle and started for the door. "I think I'll be going home and making similar arrangements. Maybe we better figure out some smoke signals so we can warn each other." "Two puffs of black smoke every minute, and my men will be there, Ralph," Lily replied calmly. Slamming his hat on his head, Langton gave her a long look and stalked out.”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Cade why does your father think we mean to stay here?" Cade swung around. "Because this is my home." Lily felt a flutter of fear at the hardness in his dark eyes. "But he will help us to return to my land when all this is over?" "I will not let you lose your land." Cade reached for the door. Setting her jaw, Lily forced herself to inquire, "I asked if we would be returning to my land?" Cade looked down at his hand on the door latch. "I have waited twenty years to claim this place. I am in no hurry to leave." With that, he walked out. Shattered, Lily stared at the doorway long after he had passed through it. What had she thought she was doing when she married this man? Hiring a permanent foreman? Why hadn't it occurred to her that he would have a life of his own—one that didn't necessarily require her? And why did she find that possibility so frightening? Refusing”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Which side are you on, Cade?" she asked quietly. Unwilling to answer the implications in that question, Cade gave the simple truth. "Mine." His”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Damn you, you Indian bastard! You're not leaving me to tell Lily of your death. You're going to get up and walk out of here if it's the last thing I do." But”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Cade read the satisfaction in Lily's eyes as she gazed around her, felt the relaxation in her body as she discovered home almost as good as she remembered it, and recognized the bitterness of defeat along with his relief at her happiness. This would never be his land as his grandfather's would, but Lily had given him something he had sought all his life and craved more than he craved land—acceptance. He had thought to mold her to his way of thinking, but he had come too close to losing her to ignore her wishes any longer. If she could be happy nowhere but here, then here they would stay. Cade”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“He had done it. He had taken her. Now all he had to do was keep her. *”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“They have a piano in town," Cade said. He'd stood outside Clark's barn any number of times, listening to the intertwining of notes, contemplating making such a joyful noise. The player hadn't been expert, but he'd never heard anything like it before. Apparently this was news to Lily. She looked up at Cade with something akin to excitement burning in the pale blue of her eyes. "Really? Why didn't anyone tell me?" Then she shut up and her gaze drifted to the pasture beyond the trees. Her husband had known. He could see that suspicion forming on her face. "I suppose that's what they do in town on Saturday nights," she murmured. "Jim told me it was too rowdy to stay after dark." "The other women stay," Cade said without inflection. Lily had never been close to her sisters, but she had grown up in a household of females and missed the feminine discussions and laughter and shared secrets. Juanita couldn't fill that need entirely; she had been too damaged by her past. Lily didn't know much about the town ladies, but there was no reason she couldn't meet them somehow, if she put her mind to it. "I wish I could hear the piano," Lily said. Actually, she wished she had a right to play the piano, but that was beyond her ability to speak. "I'll take you in if you wish to go." Lily surprised herself by saying, "I would like that, thank you. I don't think Juanita would mind watching Serena, and my father can look after Roy. Do they have other instruments besides the piano?" Cade stroked the flute as he gazed on the woman sitting boldly in the grass before him. He had never met anyone quite like her before. She was white and female, which should put her completely out of bounds for any conversation at all. But she was his boss, and as such, there had to be a certain amount of communication. She wore trousers like a man, and to a certain extent she spoke like a man, but he couldn't treat her with the same deference as Ralph Langton or with the scorn he felt for the ignorant farmhands he worked with. If she had been a whore, he could have had certain expectations, but she was a lady. How the hell should he treat a lady who wore pants? "Fiddles, sometimes," he responded while he struggled with the problem. "Is there dancing?" she asked anxiously. It was then that Cade realized that this woman didn't see categories as other people did. She saw people through the eyes of a child, as they related to her. It was rather amusing to realize that he had been avoiding her to keep from offending her ladylike sensibilities, when she was more likely offended by his avoidance than his presence. That's what he got for assuming all white women were alike. "They dance," he agreed. Cade”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Lily kept Serena's chubby body curled tightly against her own and prayed as she had prayed every night since Cade's departure. She had been furious with him at first. Then she had felt rejected, as if she were of no account in his life. Cade had never said anything to contradict her fears. But then she had begun to remember little things—the kitten in his lap, the flute on her pillow, his pain in setting Roy's leg, the fierce passion of his lovemaking—and she had to wonder if these weren't Cade's way of showing how he felt. A sliver of hope had entered Lily's heart then, and she had nourished it in the days since, hoping to block out the growing fear when there was no sign of Cade even after the battle was won. Lily”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Cade was enjoying looking at her. Her hair had the sheen of gold in the moonlight. He wished she would let it blow free instead of bound in that braid that never quite held all the silky tendrils in place. She was small-bosomed and slender-waisted, but in the revealing denims, he could see that her curves were in all the right places. Her skin glowed golden from exposure to the sun, but he suspected that beneath her billowing shirt she was as pale as the moonlight. It wasn't a thought he should dwell on. "I don't dance," Lily informed him pointedly. Even though he had known she would draw a line somewhere, Cade acknowledged disappointment that it had come so soon. "Neither do I." At his sudden gruffness, Lily hastened to explain. "I never really learned. I was always playing the piano for my sisters and their friends. I... Well, I married young. Jim doesn't dance." Cade smiled then, a genuine smile. He rose to his feet with a grace that belied his size and offered his large hand to help her do the same. "You had best sleep tonight if you are to stay awake tomorrow." His hand was brown and callused, but gentle. Lily was quite aware that what she had just done was utterly insane, but she didn't care. Her soul longed for music and this man had just offered it to her. Releasing”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“With Lily's last words still ringing in his ears, Cade maneuvered his gelding through the dense thicket of trees in the direction of his father's camp. Her words had torn through him as no other's could, and he knew the injury inflicted would be slow to heal. He wanted Lily's respect, not her hatred. He was accustomed to hatred. He had learned to live with it. But not from Lily. He wasn't certain what to expect from a wife, but he wanted it to be more than he'd received in the past. He knew he was running away from the problem, but he hoped he was running in the direction of a solution. The”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“If she allowed herself to admit it, being held in the security of Cade's arms against the formidable strength of his hard chest was as good as lying in bed and pampering herself. His closeness was a source of comfort, and his calm assurance had the benefit of pushing all her fears into a box where she didn't have to confront them. It was foolish to put herself and her family into a man's hands without question, but she had been foolish from the first moment she had seen this man with a kitten in his lap. She couldn't fight it now when she was so weak. "Do”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“JOIN HERE”
― Patricia Rice, Notorious Atherton

“Before they slept, Lily felt Cade's hand slide to her side and test her growing roundness. Sleepily, she murmured, "He is larger than Roy at this stage, I think. I am getting fat already." "You'll never be fat. You are beautiful. I want to hold both of you." Cade adjusted her so she lay contentedly against his side. He had called her beautiful. No one had ever called her that before. Smiling, Lily finally drifted off to sleep. Cade”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Rounding up cattle!" Cade had Lily in a state halfway to fury by the time Travis ambled in. As a tin cup flew across the room, Cade ducked and Travis jumped out of the way, letting it slam against a far wall with a satisfying crunch. Travis lifted an inquiring eyebrow and caught the next cup that flew at him and set it on the table. "I don't suppose the two of you ever thought of sitting down at the table and discussing things rationally, did you?" "Look who's talking!" Shoving her straying hair back from her face, Lily looked scathingly at the mud stains on Travis's shirt. "Just tell me what happened out there and don't give me a cock-and-bull story about rounding up cattle. Something's happened or El Monstruo over there wouldn't be grinning all over himself." Travis shrugged and took the mug Juanita handed him. "Can't rightly tell you more than that. I've been up visiting with the Indians myself." Juanita retrieved his mug and dumped the contents over his head. Travis howled, and Roy—sitting quietly on the hearth—finally gave in to mirth. Serena, not to be left out, giggled and pulled herself into Travis's lap, patting her small hands against his wet shirt and making smacking sounds. Looking around at the bedlam that was his home, Cade pulled Lily against his side and kissed her soundly before she could offer any protest. "I'll wager they're married before the baby comes." "I'll wager she kills him before then." Lily poked a fingernail into Cade's side to indicate the threat worked for both of them. "You'll not do it," Cade declared boldly. "If you did, who would you have to..." he whispered the rest of the sentence so little ears couldn't hear. As it was, the whispered words singed Lily to her toes and made her cheeks redden. It was obvious she wouldn’t get anything sensible out of him any time soon, but he would regret making her wait. In the meantime, she turned her mouth up for a kiss, bit Cade's lip, stepped on his toe, and sidestepped his grab as she sashayed out the door in search of their belated supper.”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Travis grinned and gave her an admiring look. "I wish I'd been there to see you grow that big with Roy. A woman never looks better than when she's carrying a man's child." That”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“When she bent to set another pitcher beside Travis, and he absently reached out to hug her hips, Cade's composure cracked. Lily gasped in surprise as Travis's hand was ripped from her side and then Travis himself was hauled from his chair and shoved toward the door. Ollie leapt up, knocking his own chair over as he attempted to interfere, but Cade grabbed his collar with his spare hand and shoved him in the same direction as Travis. Both men came up swinging, but Cade already had the door open, and with the kick of his boot and a block from his shoulder, he shoved them out into the pouring rain and slammed the door after them. Roy came to the door of his cubicle to investigate the commotion. Lily stared at Cade's calm features for a second, then in an explosion of rage, slammed out of the room in the direction of her chambers. Cade pointed his finger at Roy, sending him scurrying back to bed. Tankard in hand, Ephraim looked up from the table at the young giant standing in the room's center, water streaming from his soaked clothing as he visibly forced his fists to unclench in the sudden emptiness of the room. The older man shook his head and took a sip of his steaming drink. "You certainly do know how to empty a room," Ephraim commented to the house at large. Surveying the havoc he had wreaked, the overturned chairs and spilled plates, the tracks of mud across clean planked floors, the condemning silence of closed doors, Cade reached for a plate and the hot stew kept warming by the fire for him. Without a word, he filled his plate, sat down across from the old man, and began to eat. Ephraim raised his shaggy eyebrows, took a drink, and hid his grin in his cup. It didn't seem like the rest of his company was going to return any too soon. It looked like he'd better learn to get along with this one. Generously,”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Cade knew what he was thinking was impossible. He knew all the odds were against him. But remembering the passion they had shared, he couldn't quench the one thin flame of hope rising within him. Here was the answer to his quest—in this one lonely young widow with a desire as hot as his own and eyes that didn't see the color of his skin. He didn't know if he could do this to her. She deserved a great deal more than he could offer, but he couldn't squelch the hope. He had to have something to make life worth the trouble of living. Unconsciously,”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“Cade, this is foolish. I look like a beached whale. Allow me some decency." Instead, Cade flung the covers to the floor and straddled her legs, leaning over to rest his ear against her stomach. "I think he speaks Apache, but I can't understand a word he says." Lily laughed softly and tried to push him away.”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily

“paddock. Before Lily could reach the horses, Cade was behind her, catching her waist and holding her kicking to his side. Always aware of his greater strength, he spread his legs and braced himself so he could pull her up against his chest where neither of them could harm the other. Lily's head jerked angrily, and her long braid swung from her shoulder and down her back as she glared at him, face to face. "If you ride, you must take someone with you." "Says who? You're not my boss. Put me down, Cade. I'm a grown woman. I can go anywhere I want." "Jim was a grown man, and he lost his life out there alone. Promise me you will go nowhere without company." "And if I don't?" Here was an area where she could defy him, and Lily faced him triumphantly. The fact that Cade held her so close his belt buckle pressed into her stomach did not go unnoticed, but she was too angry to react differently. "I will have Abraham follow you around all day. If you want to pay one of the men to watch over you, then defy me in this." And Abraham would do anything Cade told him. Wriggling, Lily escaped his grasp and spat, "I hate you," before retreating indignantly to the house. The”
― Patricia Rice, Texas Lily