LOVE, CHERISH ME

Author: Rebecca Brandewyne ISBN: 044630039X 1983 HISTORICAL Publisher: WARNER
Time Period: America's in the 1800's

Storm was her name --- and her destiny. Born on a night when lightning flashed and thunder rolled, the raven-haired beauty was sixteen before the promise of her name became the path of her life. Born to wealth, the belle of five parishes, Storm Lesconflair was wagered away during a card game by her wastrel uncle to a middle-aged Texas rancher whom she barely knew. But fate intervened when, on her way to Texas to marry Gabriel North, the stagecoach on which she was traveling was held up, and she was taken captive by the outlaws who had set upon it. They, too, gambled her away at cards --- to a fierce, blue-eyed bounty hunter, a dark-skinned, half-breed gunslinger called "El Lobo" (the Wolf), who carried her off into the desert bluffs and high plains of West Texas. A man with a mysterious, shadowed past, he could kill in cold blood, then take her with fire and tenderness when he held her in his arms. But Gabriel North was not the kind of man to be cheated of his New Orleans bride by a half-breed Comanche drifter, and soon, he set out with his men, bent on tracking down Wolf and killing him --- and reclaiming Storm, no matter the cost!

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

I enjoyed LOVE, CHERISH ME, because it was story filled with love, trust, betrayal, learning to trust again and letting go of the past to embrace a future that holds the promise of being better than the past. I consider it to be a keeper, because it taught me a very valuable lesson, which is, not to judge people for the sins of their families, but judge them by the way they, themselves, are. I also enjoyed it because it dealt with a young woman who had her heart broken when as a young girl discovers that a man she thought she loved, doesn't return her affection and that she's been gambled away to a rancher. Then, while she's on her way from Louisiana to Texas, she gets abducted and her aging nurse, who's going with her, gets killed by a group of outlaws. Then, Storm, the heroine, gets gambled away and she ends up going to the hero, named El Lobo; and while they're together, he teachs her the ways of the Comanche Indians, and Storm's fiance, Gabriel North, is looking for her, then he finds her in California, shortly after she and El Lobo get into a fight and she takes their son and leaves.

She ends up working in a saloon and her employeer attempts to court her, and she rejects him; then Gabriel North appears one day and tries to get her to go back to his ranch with him. In the end, the hero takes her away from her unwanted second husband and they live long happy lives and raise three more children.

Stevie Seber