A Rainbow in Paradise

A RAINBOW IN PARADISE

Book Five

In the Rainbow Rock Series

SUSAN AYLWORTH

Copyright 1999 by Susan Aylworth

Originally published in hardback by Avalon
Books.

Smashwords Edition

Following the story, you will find discussion
questions for book clubs and reading groups plus an excerpt from
The Trouble with Rainbows
, Book Six in the Rainbow Rock
series.

For John and Amy,

Emma and Vaughn;

For Paul and Carly,

Adelaide and Sadie;

And always, for Roger

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter
One

Chapter
Two

Chapter
Three

Chapter
Four

Chapter
Five

Chapter
Six

Chapter
Seven

Chapter
Eight

Chapter
Nine

Chapter
Ten

Discussion
Questions

Preview
of Book Six

Chapter One

Eden plucked a tissue from
the box on the corner dressing table and delicately blotted her
forehead, hoping her makeup wasn't running. She glanced at the
kitchen clock and took a deep breath. It was not yet 10:00, and
already the July sun was turning the high desert into an oven.

Outside, people milled about in the shade of
the dooryard sycamores, chatting and laughing while a piano and
viola tuned in discordant harmony. Most of the citizens of Rainbow
Rock, Arizona—not to mention three generations of McAllisters—were
here today, creating a scene of happy chaos. "Almost ready?"
someone called from the front room.

Eden opened the door to the master bedroom
and looked to her lifelong friend. "Almost ready?" she asked, and
Sarah happily nodded. Eden turned back out, passing the nod to
Alexa McAllister, who waited at the door.

Alexa said, "Places everyone," and the din
diminished.

Moments later, the music began, Pachelbel's
"Canon in D." The crowd in the front yard stilled, taking their
seats, and the summer air filled with magic.

Eden entered the bedroom where Sarah was
still dressing. "Sure you're ready for this?" she asked.

"Positive." Sarah nodded. "I've never been so
happy."

"I'm glad. You deserve it." Eden blinked back
tears as she went to her dearest friend, clasping her in a warm
hug. Certainly she had never seen Sarah look happier, or lovelier.
The ivory satin of her simple gown made her warm complexion glow
and the wreath of yellow rosebuds and baby's breath gave her the
look of a red-haired Celtic queen.

"Check my sash before you go?" Sarah
asked.

"Sure. Turn around." The sash was the one
concession Sarah had made to lavishness. Its deep lavender blue
matched the moiré taffeta of Eden's gown. "You're perfect," Eden
said as she fluffed the bow.

"Then you'd better get started," Sarah said
with a twinkle. "I've got a bridegroom waiting."

"Lucky you!" she said, and then she raised a
hand in a gentle salute. "True blue," she said.

"Through and through," Sarah answered,
raising her own hand in answer as both women completed the high
five and blinked back tears. Their childhood pledge of friendship
had never held more meaning than it did for both of them now.

Eden sniffled, flashed another smile at the
bride, picked up her bouquet and hurried into the living room.
There she paused just long enough to give Wiley Richards, Sarah's
father, a fond kiss on the cheek.

"Hey!" Wiley said, grinning warmly and
grabbing for her hand, but she winked at him and moved on. As she
reached the doorway, the musical cue changed, a bit of a Mozart
concerto. The groom's party, including the minister, would be
stepping up onto the porch from the other end about now, she knew.
Then the music changed again, the "Wedding March," and Eden began
her sedate procession onto the front porch of the McAllister family
home, the home that would now be Sarah's.

Just before she stepped outside, she was
struck by an odd sensation, a sense almost of... She hunted for a
word, but couldn't think of anything that described her feeling. It
was almost as if this happy change in Sarah's life signaled an
important change for herself as well.
But how can that be
?
she asked herself. Then, chalking it up to borrowed bridal jitters,
she stepped out the front door.

* * * * *

"Here they come," the bridegroom whispered,
his voice ripe with anticipation, and Logan turned toward the door.
He fidgeted uneasily in the heat, adjusting his tie and patting
once again the coat pocket that held the rings. He'd attended
enough of these shindigs to know how things were supposed to go
from here, but he still felt uncomfortable in his new role. He'd
never been a member of the wedding before. He wouldn't have been in
this one for anybody but Chris McAllister. Chris was the first
belagaana
, the first non-Navajo, he had ever called friend,
and the only one to whom he owed this kind of loyalty. He looked
up, expecting to see Chris's bride.

But the woman who came through the door
wasn't the pretty, red-haired veterinarian Chris was marrying. This
woman was a fantasy, a raven-haired confection in lavender blue.
Logan started with a shock of...

Recognition? How can that be
? He
didn't know this woman. Oh, he'd glimpsed her before, during rough
introductions when Chris's sister- in-law had brought her in from
the airport a couple of hours earlier, but he hadn't really seen
her even then. He saw her now. He hardly saw anything else.

She floated toward him, the lavender taffeta
drifting about her like soft blue-violet clouds around the sun.
Hair as black as a moonless night tumbled down her back in rich
profusion. He was Navajo, so he’d seen plenty of black hair, but
he'd never seen hair so black on a woman so fair. She looked up at
him just then and beamed a welcoming smile.

Blue. As blue as the desert sky in
midsummer, as blue as the treasured turquoise
. He'd never seen
eyes so blue, especially not smiling at him. He shivered. It was
the Fourth of July and hot enough to bake cookies on the
floorboards, but he shivered when she looked at him. Then, as she
neared, he caught her scent—warm and rich, earthy and achingly
familiar. Logan swallowed hard and tried not to stare as she walked
up beside him and stopped, almost close enough to touch. He longed
to reach out just to touch her. Instead, he managed a stiff smile,
swallowed again, and forced his eyes back to the doorway.

* * * * *

Eden trembled despite the summer heat.
Who's that
? she asked herself, barely able to avoid staring
at the man next to Sarah's tall, blond cowboy. She tried to
remember what Sarah had told her about the best man.

Best man. Talk about a perfect title! With
the possible exception of the groom and his two handsome brothers,
there wasn't a man in all of Rainbow Rock that fit the description
better. She tried to think whether she knew one in Phoenix, or for
that matter, whether she'd ever met anyone who better filled her
qualifications for a "best man."

He was tall, better than six feet, and
powerfully built. His hair was thick and black, fashionably short
but long enough to show a hint of a wave over his broad, high
forehead, and his eyes were nearly as black as his hair. Prominent
cheekbones, a chiseled profile, and a deeply burnished tone to his
complexion testified to his native ancestry. Then she remembered.
Sarah had often spoken of a man called Logan Redhorse, an attorney
for the Navajo nation who was Chris's best friend. She had extolled
the man's stellar qualities, but without the faintest hint that he
was designed to be a cover model. Either Sarah had been too
love-struck with Chris to notice another man, or she was clearly
holding out. This guy was
gorgeous
!

Eden risked another glance and found Logan
watching her, flushed warm with embarrassment at being caught
staring, then saw him smile in response.
Whoa! Can he smile!
She saw so much warmth and promise in that smile, almost as if...
Her breath caught in her throat. She blinked her eyes, looking away
to break the spell, then trembled again, wondering if her knees
would hold out through the entire ceremony. Yet even when she
looked at him again, she still had the odd sensation that somehow,
she knew this man.

Or will
know him
? Her knees
started to give way, and Reverend Phelps caught her elbow. "Are you
all right?" he whispered.

Eden forced a smile, nodding at him as she
steadied herself. "It's the heat," she whispered. The audience
stood, and Eden turned her eyes toward the door where Sarah was
entering on her father's arm, her heart still in her throat.
Sternly, she reminded herself to remember the moment. She was here
for Sarah's wedding, after all, not for...

Again she tried to identify the odd sensation
that floated about her, almost as if it had come to sweep her away.
There wasn't a term for it—not one she was ready to accept,
anyway—yet the word destiny echoed in her head as she watched Sarah
prepare to take her vows.

* * * * *

"May I have the rings?" the minister asked as
planned, and Logan managed to deliver them both without fumbling or
dropping anything. That surprised him. He'd been so busy trying not
to stare at the woman beside Sarah, or drown in her sweet
fragrance, that he'd almost lost track of where they were in the
ceremony.

Somewhere in the background, the minister's
voice was talking about the symbolism of a circle that has no
beginning and no end. Logan knew circles. The People knew circles.
Even their traditional homes were built in the pattern of the
circle, finding harmony in the shape of the natural world. One day
his people would build a ceremonial hogan for him and then there'd
be another wedding, a different kind of wedding, an
'iigeh
.

With a start, he realized that the time must
be coming soon. He was older than his
belagaana
friend,
almost twenty-nine now. His father's friends from various clans had
almost given up on introducing their eligible daughters and nieces.
Perhaps it was time he gave the matter some thought. He had always
known
how
he would be married—in a new hogan with loomed
rugs beneath his feet and a holy man of the People to offer him the
sacred blue corn- meal and sprinkle precious pollen over him and
his bride. All he didn't know was when—or who. He had often
pictured her, a woman with a tangle of midnight black hair—

He broke the thought, staring wide-eyed at
the woman on the other side of the bridal couple. She was
incomparably lovely and the black hair fit his image, but she was
belagaana
—other, alien, not of the People. And yet she
looked so... He paused, trying to identify the odd sensation that
had been coursing through him since she had appeared, a vision in
lavender blue. And then the word occurred to him. She looked
right
, so right.

Right
?
A
belagaana
woman
? He was getting his signals crossed somewhere. He
reined in his wayward thoughts long enough to watch as Chris
presented a ring to his new bride.

* * * * *

Eden felt a small stab of envy as Chris
removed Sarah's custom-made circlet of diamonds and amethysts,
slipped on the band that marked their mutual commitment, and
replaced the engagement ring. Older than Sarah, Eden would be
thirty in October. Here she was, watching Sarah take her second
husband, while Eden herself had never married.

She paused just long enough to wonder why
not. It was a familiar thought, one she had considered often
lately. She'd had boyfriends, of course, even some who wanted to
pursue the relationship, but she'd never known anyone who inspired
her enough to make her want to take that long trip down the aisle,
the one Sarah was making today. When well-meaning friends asked why
she hadn't married, she usually answered with a quip about how
tough it was to find good help these days.

With a twinge of guilt, she remembered one
potential husband, a man she had really come to care about, who had
accused her of deliberately distancing him. When he'd said it, she
had known he was right, and she'd pondered that thought long enough
to recognize that her own parents' rather odd relationship had made
her leery of commitments. Then there was Sarah's first
marriage—

She stopped that thought, unwilling to dwell
on anything sad, not on this lovely day when Sarah was finally
finding the happiness she deserved.