(MSRP: 2.0000)
Lin Li has no memory of a time before she loved SunLee. He is an old-fashioned sort of man, practicing tai chi and communing with the river creatures as in times of old. She knows he is promised to another, still, she secretly shares his dawns. She wishes to stop time and stay forever on the leaf-spattered trail where their lives entwine.
The day approaches when the mighty Yangtze River’s current will still, and the finest things in her life must end. Her love for SunLee, like the unimaginable beauty of the Yangtze lotus, will fall away to no more than myth.
Sorrow brings her the last of the baiji. The magic of the white river dolphin offers her a lyrical world of love, but perhaps, not her one love...
44 Pages, Sweet
Excerpt:
A hand grasped her own. She looked up to meet the sharp gaze of SunLee. He drew her toward him. Her long hair floated out free all around her, a dark halo hiding her body beneath the surface.
Very slowly, he chanted, “White crane sings to the baiji. Tell me, baiji of dreams, stay you here in this world, in this form?” His wide eyes and hushed tone betrayed his fear.
As if a cold wave had touched her face, Lin shook her head and snatched her hand away. “I, Liu Lin have lived in the same village as my fathers, and as your fathers, all of my life. Do you not even recognize a neighbor? Do you think I am a spirit from some far shore?”
The tall man squatted there on the edge of the sandbar. He studied her carefully. Finally, he nodded. “Lin,” he said clearly. “My morning companion.”
She started.
“Neighbor, yes,” he agreed in tones both soft and deep, “and more. I know you. You stood high on the cliff, reaching out, the dawn I saw the young baiji, yet the foreigners saw only a porpoise. That young baiji I left here in these shallows. They damaged his fin, and he cannot hunt. I have been bringing him fish.”
Oh, ah. She could hardly blame him for imagining her something mystical, with her long hair floating out wide around her, and the rest of her floating, her creamy flesh no doubt standing out in the dark water and…
