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Category: Romance
Description: Waspy Yale lawyer Sarah Livingstone, on a training run with her Shih Tzu, collides with Indian sculptor Jimmy Zah and his big Lab, Joe. The dogs have a furious dust-up. Annoyed when a hysterical Sarah accuses him of letting Joe run free on a public path, Jimmy retorts that she's trespassing on his Pima Reservation. A few days later Jimmy rescues Sarah and Yo Yo from the waters of a fast-moving canal. Despite their inauspicious beginning, they learn they're both training to run in the New York Marathon. Slowly their relationship builds around the goal of the marathon. When they begin to realize they're falling in love, Sarah's parents come to town. Her mother is appalled to find her daughter serious about an American Indian. Sarah wavers. Uneasy now, she backs away. Jimmy is offended and heartbroken. He breaks off with her, sure now their cultures are too different for her to overcome. From Phoenix to an Indian Pow Wow, Navajo and Pima Reservations, to the New York Marathon, Jimmy and Sarah wrestle with the difficulties of an interracial relationship.
eBook Publisher: Treble Heart Books, 2006
eBookwise Release Date: December 2006

5 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [323 KB]
Words: 72367
Reading time: 206-289 min.

She could hear Jimmy pounding behind her and laughed with the sheer exuberance of running as fast as she could in the rapidly cooling evening.

Abruptly she felt a sharp cramp in her right shin. She fell onto the track with the sudden constriction of the muscle. "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" she moaned, struggled up and hopped over to the grassy infield. She fell on the ground and dug her fingers into the hard, knotted lump in her leg.

Jimmy was on his knees beside her. "Bad cramp, huh?" He pushed her fingers away and wrapped his hands around her calf, gently undulating the pressure. "Flex your foot, move it around in a circle. That's good. Breathe deep. I know it hurts. Try pressing your finger under your nose on your upper lip."

She groaned. "Huh?"

"I know. Sounds funny, but that's an important pressure point. It sometimes helps. Then it'll be gone in a minute. I shouldn't have let you work so hard tonight. I don't know where my head was, racing like that."

"Well, it's hardly your fault." A sudden whimper escaped her throat. "I just want to roll around on the ground and screech. I've never had a cramp like this."

"We've been sweating a lot. It's an electrolyte imbalance, potassium deficit. Drink a lot of fruit juice and water when you get home. When you can walk I've got a thermos over by the gate."

The pain began to ease as the muscle smoothed out under Jimmy's massaging. Sarah's attention left the residual pain in her leg and she became intensely conscious of his hands, darker fingers against her skin, his rough, sculptor's hands gentle and sure, sending shock waves through her body. His black hair hung over his face and tentatively she reached out to touch it.

He looked up in that instant and the look that passed over his face, through his black eyes, made her breath catch.

Fat drops of rain, warm as tears, splashed on their overheated skin as a bluish zigzag of lightning cut through the now darkening sky. The answering split of thunder Sarah scarcely heard. She felt her mouth say his name. "Jimmy..."