Blood of the Rainbow by Shelia Chapman Page A

closer. She didn’t want it to end. Jared’s lips were full of passion as he covered her mouth with his again. The entire length of his body pressing against hers filled her with longing.
    Jared stiffened and ended the kiss. He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her a few inches from his body. He closed his eyes, drawing in a slow, deep breath, speaking in a soft groan. “Sara, do you have any idea, how much restraint… I’m having to use right now? You’re dangerous! You’re too loveable and kissable. I’ve never needed anyone like this before. It’s as if I need you to breathe. You’re my air Sara.” He kissed her again, with equal passion. Sara felt as if her body would spontaneously combust. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t speak. All she could do was burn under his hot, moist lips as her body ached for him.
    When they finally came up for air, Sara felt dazed, dizzy, as if she would pass out. How could she have known a kiss would affect so many of her senses at the same time? She swayed. Jared grabbed her shoulders, steadying her, his eyes filled with concern. “Sara – are you all right?”
    Sara’s heart was still pounding; she drew in a calming breath and waited for her head to stop spinning. “I’m all right, but I think I should sit down.”
    Jared wrapped one arm around her waist, quickly opening his saddlebag and took out a multicolored blanket. He led her under a giant cypress tree. Holding one corner of the blanket, he flung it open, spreading it over the ground. Jared took Sara’s hand as they knelt on the blanket and then sat down. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest. “Feeling better now?”
    Sara nodded. She breathed in deeply, filling her senses with his masculine smell, a mingling of his scent and cologne. She reached down and ran her hand over the raised designs on the blanket, it was soft, and the raised fibers tickled her palm. She smiled. “This is beautiful. Is it…?”
    “…Real?” Jared smiled, whispering through her hair. “Yes, it’s very real. My mother made it and gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. I’ve got another one with a wolf baying at the moon that my grandmother made and gave me the last Christmas she lived. She was always making me little gifts like that. My Navajo room is full of all kinds of beads. I’ve got more dream catchers than the sandman,” he laughed. Jared sighed, pressing his lips to her temple, “And she even laughs at my corny jokes,” he mused.
    There was a burning question in Sara’s mind. She wondered if Jared’s family could be as prejudiced as her mother. Kaye believed you should marry your own kind . That had two qualifications; one, you had to be white, and two, come from Crooked Creek, or another small, hick town. It would be Sara’s luck to find someone like Jared, and then find out his family hated her, because she was white. If Jared’s family turned out to be as prejudiced as Kaye, the Thundercloud’s wouldn’t accept a ‘nobody’ like Sara. Afraid of the answer, she almost backed out, blurting her question at the last minute as if it used her last breath of life.
    “Jared, do you think your family will like me?” Jared mulled her question over for a few seconds; Sara mistaking his hesitation for doubt. Her tone darkened. “They probably wouldn’t….”
    “I wouldn’t be so sure of that Sara. I think they’re going to love you, especially after they’ve heard you sing. I’ll teach you some of the old native songs before we visit them, so you can impress Granddad.”
    “Does your entire family live in Arizona?”
    “They do now. It used to just be Granddad, on my father’s side, but then my parents moved to Arizona when Granddad had a stroke. We used to live in El Dorado, Texas. They’ve been back in Arizona, for about three or four years now.”
    “In that case, how did you end up in Louisiana?”
    Jared sighed, apparently trying to avoid a painful