When I first included Leaning Bear in this series I believe his first scenes were bickering with Wyatt. The strong willed Cheyenne meets the short tempered brother of Dawson McCade, whom he calls friend. I find those scenes so funny...even as Dawson is rescuing Wyatt from where he was left near beaten to death he and Leaning Bear have exchanges that make me laugh.
But the magical thing is that when writers say the characters write themselves...Leaning Bear did just that.
In Dawson's story we find the two friends protecting each other time and again but in that we find while Leaning Bear is not a McCade he is still without a doubt Dawson's brother.
And in Dawson's Haven both Leaning Bear and Dawson are wrongly accused of murder. And as we follow them we read their fight and struggle to prove themselves innocent of all charges...
And as this story transpired when I was writing I had to be careful that Leaning Bear didn't take over as sometimes secondary characters will try to do. But he kept on until I had fallen hard for the Cheyenne medicine and yes...he is getting a story.
Paint the Sky will follow Evan's Ransom with a story that will be the first to be labeled:
A McCades of Cheyenne Novel: Paint the Sky
And I am excited for Leaning Bear who will get his happily ever after, one unique as far as the other stories have gone.
Leaning Bear will fall hard for Alli, a school teacher sent to work with the children on the reservation. That task in itself should send the woman on the run but it intrigues Leaning Bear that she stays. But the true romance begins as Leaning Bear escapes from the reservation to a small retreat in the woods where he can be alone and he one days discovers Alli is at the small creek painting.
We discover in Dawson's Haven at the trial that Leaning Bear can draw beautifully. So he begins meeting this woman at times to sit and watch her paint...only she scolds herself that she can never get the colors of the sky just right. Thus her Cheyenne nic name from our Medicine Man....Paint the Sky.
I won't give up the story here but I promise this first McCade novel will make you swoon a time or two. Isn't forbidden love sometimes the best?
