Please Welcome Paty Jager author of Spirit of the Sky

Contest!  

I’m giving away a $5 Amazon gift certificate to one lucky commenter on this post.

Blog Tour Contest! 

Each blog stop has a picture of an eagle in the post. Follow the tour and send me the number of different pictures you saw while following the tour. To learn where I’ll be go to my blog(http://www.patyjager.blogpsot.com) or website(http://www.patyjager.net) If there is more than one correct entry I’ll draw a winner on May 21^st  to receive a $25 gift certificate to either Barnes and Nobles or Amazon, a handmade custom ereader cover, and chocolate. Send your entry number to: patyjag@gmail.com by May 21^st.

Native American Romance

So far on this blog I’ve talked more about the history that I captured in Spirit of the Sky than I’ve talked about the romance between not only a Nez Perce and a cavalry office but also a spirit and a mortal.

Sa-qan, the Nez Perce spirit, who has watched over the Lake Nimiipuu for centuries in her bald eagle form has a strict code she has lived by. When she goes against that code to save her niece and is seen in human form by not only the Nez Perce child and her adoptive mother but by the cavalry lieutenant she struggles with her conscience and duty. And when the lieutenant shows compassion, something she’s rarely seen in a whiteman, it further clouds her thinking. As a spirit she’s experienced few emotions and when she begins to feel more than gratitude toward this mortal, it scares her and makes her curious. But she must always keep her duty to the Nimiipuu first in her heart.

Lieutenant Wade Watts managed to make it through the Civil War to find all his family had been taken from him during the war. With nothing to ground him, he hitched his military career to the cavalry in the Indian country and believed it would take the place of a family. And it did until the Nez Perce campaign. Watching men carryout orders to gun down innocent women, children, and old people in hopes to make the Nez Perce surrender and go peacefully to the reservation went against his conscience.  When he stopped a soldier from shooting a blonde haired, golden eyed woman who insisted she wasn’t a captive, he lost his heart to her and worked to discover a way to end the Army’s vengeful pursuit of the nontreaty Nez Perce.

When Sa-qan finally shows herself to Wade, he doesn’t know whether to laugh to cry. It confirms he’s not crazy, but then again, believing she’s a spirit, isn’t that crazy?

Excerpt of Spirit of the Sky

Wade peered into her half-closed eyes. “When this is over, say you’ll marry me.”

She hid her inner thoughts shuttered behind her pale lashes. Her body tensed in his arms once again. Why did asking her to marry him cool her ardor? Was she using him for folly to learn of the troops movements? The image of her worry when healing his wounds, her excitement when they met, said she cared for him. Yet, where was this brother she spoke of, and how did she always find him and remain unharmed through all of this when she clearly traveled through the middle of the skirmishes?

He grasped her arms and held her away from him to peer into her golden eyes in the growing moonlight. He blinked at the blinding light shimmering in their depths. Her skin heated under his hands.

Her soft lips opened to speak, and his randy body jerked to attention.

“I am not—” She licked her lips, her gaze dropped to below his face.

“You’re not what?” he asked it softly, willing her to look at him.

“I am not what you think.” Her eyes dimmed and her body slipped from his hands.

“What do I think?” He didn’t like the distance in her voice, her attitude, or the space she forced between them. Wade drew her back into his arms. The wholeness she built in him when he held her couldn’t be wrong.

“You believe me to be a Nimiipuu maiden.”

“No, you said you were a Nimiipuu, I believed you were a child captive.”

She pushed against his chest. The strength in her small arms surprised him. She shoved away and stood, her arms wrapped around her small frame.

He stood.

“You do not know me. I am not a captive. I am Nimiipuu. I will always be Nimiipuu.” Her fist pound on her chest. “My heart belongs to my people. If I give it to anyone or thing other than The People I will no longer exist. I am here to serve only the Nimiipuu. Not my own desires.”

Wade stretched his hands toward her, but she remained out of reach. He rubbed a hand over his mustache, watching her. Why would someone so young carry such a strong conviction for her people? And ignore her own happiness?

“One of the great things about people is we have the capacity to love more than one thing at a time.”

Her head slowly lifted, her chin pointed his direction, and the flames in her eyes shifted his feet backwards.

“The Creator put me upon this earth to watch the Lake Nimiipuu. I have spent many seasons watching the people and helping them prosper. Now your people wish to kill the reason I exist. I cannot allow this. And I cannot allow my emotions for you to get in the way. I will not put my greed before my people. I will not be like my father.” Smoke engulfed her body and she vanished.

Wade stared at the empty spot. What the hell? He rubbed his eyes and walked to the spot, waving his arms. The growing darkness had to have played tricks with his vision. What had she done to make the smoke? He searched behind him. The only way out. How did she get past him without him seeing her? His logical mind worked to sort out what he’d witnessed. Somewhere in his heart, an ache began and whispered Sa-qan had disappeared from his life. And damn if that didn’t hurt like hell.

Buy Link:

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=191&products_id=4850

Bio:

Wife, mother, grandmother, and the one who cleans pens and delivers the hay; award winning author Paty Jager and her husband currently ranch 350 acres when not dashing around visiting their children and grandchildren. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

She is a member of RWA, EPIC , and COWG. She’s had eleven books and a short story published so far and is venturing into the new world of self-publishing ebooks. 

Her contemporary Western, Perfectly Good Nanny won the 2008 Eppie for Best Contemporary Romance and Spirit of the Mountain, a historical paranormal set among the Nez Perce, garnered 1^st place in the paranormal category of the Lories Best Published Book Contest. Spirit of the Lake was a finalist in the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence.

You can learn more about her at her blog; www.patyjager.blogspot.com  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager and twitter;  @patyjag.