Indian Summer Love

By Rebecca Matthews

He was the ‘every man” that every woman wanted. He was part gentleman, part beast, and all animal. Educated and intelligent with a quick wit and unmistabkable sense of humor, he was so much more than he initially seemed. Behind that engaging smile and beneath the bronzed skin pulled taut over bulging, chiseled muscles, lay the determination of a man who was neither Indian nor white, but rather a melding of both. He was a man who knew what he wanted the instant he saw it, and hesitated at nothing to go after it. Fearless and unfaltering, he knew what to do when faced with dangerous foe or fem fatale.  His fiery passions, which could make his tomahawk yield a death blow faster than the blink of an eye, could also ignite into kind of heat that would make the most resilient woman melt in his arms. Yet, this bold and ruthless man had a touch as light as a feather when it fell on a woman’s skin. A touch that could hold her heart forever.

He was as strong as a bear, as fierce as a cougar, and as cunning as a fox, and knew this virgin land as thoroughly as he knew his own body. He could appear in an instant, as if out of thin air, and disappear with equal stealth. His footfalls were too soft to detect, but his kiss could ignite an inferno like flint to steel when the lips of the one he wanted.

Bethany Ashley was a multi-faceted woman. A forward-thinking woman who felt a restlessness deep within her soul for something more—more than just marrying, being a wife and mother and toiling from before daylight until well past dark caring for a home and family. There must be more to life, she believed. Convinced that she was destined for greater things left her yearning for more, so much more than what her life here on the frontier would ever be able eto offer. Or so she thought.

Beneath her attractive, composed exterior, which presented a calm resignation for what her life as a coming-of-age-girl in1840 held in store, churned an unseen volcano of desires and ambiltions that she could admit to no one, not even herself. Her troubled spirit longed for so much more out of life, and of love, than a man too tired for laughter, adventure...or passion, and dead before his time from the rigors of unending toil, and the dangers of forging a home out of the wilderness of the Ohio Valley.  There had to be more—more than fighting the constant threat of elements, predators, hunger, and disease that struck short the life of too many both young and old here in the unsettled settlements of those brave enough, or foolish enough, to try to carve a new home out of land that had belonged to rocks and trees, forests, and streams, the Redman and everything wild for far too long.

To find this untapped source of fulfillment, Beth knew she had to find a partner of equal enthusiasm and ability to strike out on their own to find new worlds, or create their own. She had seen how short and fleeting life could be, and she didn’t want to waste it being a slave to a cookstove, household chores, laundry, and the clamor of children. How could she ever find someone who shared her reluctance to accept the mundane, the status quo, to wander from the beaten path? Did anyone even exist who was willing to share a life of thrills, adventure, danger, and even effect changes that would go down in history. If only there were more to living, and more to loving than the hollow-eyed expressions she saw on the faces of those barely past their teens. There must be something, someone out there to make her journey through Life worthwhile. Who and what she didn’t know, but she did know she would rather die than never to try to find it at all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca Matthews
• Release date: Jan 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386961970

Rebecca Matthews

Author Bio Rebecca is a retired R.N. who has yearned to be an author since she was an adolescent. Her first novella, A Gentleman’s Game was published in print and digital in May of 2015.  Since then she has had multiple novellas published by Liquid Silver Publishing, and DreamBigPublishing, as well as many more self-published Indie books. Her books cover a wide variety of themes, locales, and characters. Several of her novels are contemporary, but her lifelong fascination with the South, specifically the Civil War, (the people not the politics) provides an exciting and colorful backdrop for her romance novels. Most of her stories are based in the South. Her characters are varied, colorful, and may even remind you of someone you know. Her plots are as broad as her imagination, themes are as unique as the people she writes about, and settings range from romantic antebellum Savannah, to raucous New Orleans, to the Smoky Mountains, San Francisco and small town mid-America, to name a few. She lives in sunny Florida with her husband of over thirty years and their cat and dog. She has two children, three grandchildren and considers herself very blessed to have spent thirty years working in a career she loves, and then to have realized her lifelong dream of becoming an author. She hasn’t yet decided on what her third career will be.