Midnight Rainbow by Linda Howard Page A

stare at him
with the remnants of terror in her dark eyes. Her lips trembled like a child's,
and there was something pleading in her gaze. He automatically started to
gather her into his arms, the way one would a frightened child, but before he
could do more than lift his hand, she dragged her gaze away from his with a
visible effort. He could see what it cost her in willpower, but somehow she
found the inner strength to still the trembling of her lips, and then her chin
lifted in that characteristic gesture.
                  "I'm all right," she managed to say.
Her voice was jerky, but she said the words, and in saying them, believed it.
She slowly sat up and pushed her hair away from her face. "I feel a little
bruised, but there's nothing bro—"
                  She stopped abruptly, staring at her bloody
hand and arm. "I'm all bloody," she said in a bewildered tone, and
her voice shook. She looked back at Grant, as if for confirmation. "I'm
all bloody," she said again, extending her wildly trembling hand for him
to see. "Grant , there's blood all over me!"
                  "It's the snake's blood," he said,
thinking to reassure her, but she stared at him with uncontrolled revulsion.
                  "Oh, God!"   she said in a thin, high voice, scrambling to her feet and staring down at herself.
Her black blouse was wet and sticky, and big reddish splotches stained her
khaki pants. Both her arms had blood smeared down them. Bile rose in her throat
as she remembered the wetness that had splashed her face. She raised exploring
fingers and found the horrible stickiness on her cheeks, as well as smeared in
her hair.
                  She began to shake even harder, and tears
dripped down her cheeks. "Get it off," she said, still in that high,
wavering voice of utter hysteria. "I have to get it off. There's blood all
over me, and it isn't mine. It's all over me; it's even in my hair… It's in my hair!"   she sobbed, plunging
for the stream. Cursing, Grant grabbed for her, but in her mad urgency to wash
the blood away she jerked free of him, stumbling over the body of the snake and
crashing to the ground. Before she could scramble away again, Grant pounced on
her, holding her in an almost painful grip while she fought and sobbed,
pleading and swearing at him all at once.
                  "Jane, stop it!" he said sharply.
"I'll get the blood off you. Just hold still and let me get our boots off,
okay?"
                  He had to hold her still with one arm and pull
her boots off with his free hand, but by the time he started to remove his own
boots she was crying so hard that she lay limply on
the ground. His face was grim as he looked at her. She'd stood up to so much
without turning a hair that he hadn't expected her to fall apart like this.
She'd been pulling herself together until she'd seen the blood on herself, and
that had evidently been more than she could bear. He jerked his boots off, then
turned to her and roughly undid her pants and pulled them off. Lifting her into
his arms as easily as he would have lifted a child, he climbed down the bank
and waded out into the stream, disregarding the fact that his own pants were
being soaked.
                  When the water reached the middle of his
calves, he stood her in the stream and bent to begin splashing water on her
legs, rubbing the blood stains from her flesh. Next, cupping water in his
palms, he washed her arms and hands clean, dripping the cooling water over her
and soaking her blouse. All the while he tended to her, she stood docile, with
silent tears still running down her face and making tracks in the blood smeared
across her cheeks.
                  "Everything's all right, honey," he
crooned soothingly to her, coaxing her to sit down in the stream so he could
wash the blood from her hair. She let him splash water on her head and face,
blinking her eyes to protect them from