When Austin meets Jenny, sparks fly. A fleeting essence haunts his dreams, invades his day-time fantasies. Bewitched, he pursues her. Equally attracted to the handsome, well-bred engineer, Jenny and Austin tumble amorously into lust/love. They elope!
On honeymoon, Austin learns of his bride's mixed racial ancestry. For decades, her tribe and his extended family have been in legal warfare over disputed land claims, an impediment to his rise in the family business. His bride easily "passes" as Anglo. He will not give up the girl he loves. And she will never know he didn't know before he put a ring on her finger, setting the tone for their marriage. Dark clouds hang over Austin: his mother's secret, a vindictive woman from his past; Vietnam.
In the first year, a treasured son is born.
Climbing the corporate ladder moves the family far from legal disputes. A rising star, he travels extensively. Austin's fidelity in doubt, rootless and wounded, Jenny returns to Indian Lake in the throes of the Native American Movement, stroking a native spirit she has suppressed. Humbled and desperately lonely, Austin will pay the price to keep her in his bed. Trust restored, they move into her dream home, where Jenny comes into her own, birthing "Creations" a shop featuring Native American crafts. She and her son take part in Seneca traditions on reservations. The long-lost journal of an early settler come into Jenny's possession. Emersed in troubles of her own, she sets the journal aside, until the apparition appears during visits to Indian Lake.
His authority severely challenged, Austin resists growing pains of the marriage, leading to divisive power struggles. The ways this loving couple navigates expectations/disappointments inevitable in a long union will confound, inspire, capture readers, turning pages to the end.
BOOK TWO of the series We WALK in FOOTPRINTS tells the intimate love story of Austin and Jenny progeny of two opposing interests.
