From Writing to Gardening: The "Blessings" of Abundance

In my spare time, when I’m not working or writing (which lately seems to be work), my family and I are growing a garden. Like many projects around our place, the garden has gotten much, much larger than I ever envisioned. In fact, I believe we could probably feed our entire neighborhood. If you’ve ever grown a garden, then you know that vegetables have a bad habit of ripening all at once. (Next year I plan to plant one seed per day to avoid this thoughtlessness on the part of my plants.) The net effect is that I’ve eaten and frozen broccoli to the point I don’t think I can look at another stalk anytime soon. Kale is my new best friend because it keeps doing its thing for weeks and weeks without bolting. Bonus: it’s good for you too. The problem now is cucumbers.

Over the past two days, Harvey and I have canned 24 quarts of dill pickles. We’ve had sliced cucumbers for lunch and dinner. And… We haven’t even made a dent in what’s coming in the door. Don’t get me wrong. I like pickles. However, our household can only consume so many pickles in a year. Now we face the inevitable question: what can we do with all these cucumbers? You see, our two rows (80 foot long rows!) of cucumbers have just gotten cranked. So I decided to find out if there were any non-food related things for which cucumbers could be used. Turns out, there’s quite a lot. Here’s some of the things I plan on trying: 1. Ant control – I checked three different web sites that recommend spreading cucumber peelings, the bitterer the better, around the places where you believe ants might be entering your home. I’m going to assume for cucumber usage purposes that the little pests are entering via the entire circumference of my house. With generously peeled peelings, I believe I can use about 352 cucumbers for this project. 2. Reduce swelling – we all know the cucumber slices on the eyes trick from all those spa scenes in chick flicks. I like this idea, but there are two problems: my son and husband aren’t keen on a spa day, and this isn’t going to use nearly enough cucumber. However, curing eye swelling is just one trick. Apparently cucumbers are good at dealing with another “swelling”: cellulite. Again, my expert web sites recommend rubbing slices of cucumber on cellulite to help tighten skin. If rubbing works…why not a bath? That should use bushels of cucumbers, and I might be able to fit back into my skinny swimsuit. 3. Cucumber will clean stainless steel sinks and faucets. What do you know, I have a stainless steel kitchen sink…and dishwasher…and cookware. Yep, mass cucumber usage here. 4. Squeak eliminator – toss out the WD40 and rub a cucumber slice on that noisy hinge. I wonder if it works on knee joints? 5. Shoe polish – I don’t see much mileage in this one. I think I’m down to about two pairs of shoes that actually need polishing. 6. Sunburn relief – if you don’t have aloe, use cucumber. Now, I might be able to use this since I’m fair-complexioned, but hubby and the kid have that olive insta-tan skin…damn them.

There are several more uses along with plenty of reasons to consume cucumber. It boosts your energy, cures a hangover, gets rid of bad breath, and lowers blood pressure. I think it might be able to bring about world peace too, but I haven’t seen that use…yet. There is one thing that gardening does add, whether it's cucumbers or the other vegetables we have coming on: it's a wonderful stress reliever and a great way to take a break from spending so much time in front of the computer either writing or promoting my books. Check out my website at www.laurabrowningbooks.com I've got a series out that I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Paper or Virtual? How I Make the Choice Between Print and Digital Formats

I've read a couple of articles this year discussing the leveling off of e-reader sales, and I've heard plenty of people say they just have to feel a book in their hand, be able to turn the pages. It always seems to me in the articles sounding the slump in sales of digital readers that there's a certain amount of an I-told-you-so attitude to it, as if digital and print formats cannot peacefully co-exist. So, here's my personal take on it as a writer whose books appear in both digital and print formats, and as a voracious reader of fiction and nonfiction.

There's room for both. However, I have my personal preferences when it comes to my own reading. When it comes to reading for my own enjoyment, give me my Nook or my phone any day of the week. I can carry around a whole freaking library in my purse. Do you know how amazing that is to me? Not only can I carry around a whole freaking library, but I don't have to listen to reading snobs comment on what I choose to read. So you want to read the latest critically acclaimed piece of literary fiction? That's fantastic. I want to read hot sex scenes and stories that I know are going to have a happy ending.

I spend all day teaching writing and literature. Before I began teaching, I spent all day writing television news stories, most of which were heart-wrenchingly depressing. When I'm done working, I don't want to read more serious writing. I want dessert. I want candy. I want cake. So give me a fun, sexy, fast read that is pure entertainment.

And give it to me on my tablet, please.

When it comes to serious reading, such as literature that I am going to have to discuss, or textbooks, I would prefer to have them in print. Now, if you're a book purist, please skip the next few sentences. The reason I like them in print is because I write, highlight, and add sticky notes all over the pages. I have attempted to do this with digital books, but it's just not the same. For the latter half of my masters degree studies, I participated in a Nook program in which all  my books were downloaded to my tablet. Don't get me wrong. It saved me a TON of money, but I just couldn't get comfortable with electronically highlighting and writing notes. It just didn't feel right. I like my reference books in print as well. I think it's easier to use my Chicago Manual of Style or my APA manual when I can flip through the contents and the index and quickly turn to the page I need.

What got me thinking about this is that my publisher, Kensington, is putting the digital version of Special Delivery on sale for just 99 cents from December 27, 2015 through the end of January. This is a great deal--more than 75% off retail price. What makes it even better is it's the first book in my series, Mountain Meadow Homecomings. Although the book is not specifically tied to the Christmas season, it does take place around this time of year, so now is a great time to get it, if you haven't already.

The sale ends just in time for the release of book two in the series, Lost & Found Love, on February 2, 2016. This story is so much more than a romance. It's also about finding family and the redeeming qualities of love. I am really excited about this second book in the Mountain Meadow Homecomings series. I hope you will be too.

The best thing of all is that whether you enjoy digital or print... this series is available in both formats. Sorry, though, it's only the digital version of Special Delivery that you'll be able to pick up for 99 cents. However you choose to read, I hope you'll enjoy Mountain Meadow and all the folks who live there.

Finding Home for Christmas

I’m going to be spending Christmas away from my husband for the first time in twenty-four years this year. My mother is ill, so my son and I will be visiting and helping her over the holidays. Work and home responsibilities (animals…did I mention animals?) mean my husband will have to stay on our farm. Plus, I know he will want to see the new grandson and his very first Christmas. I’ll miss that, but I’m making a trade-off.

We have never been one of those families that fill a quarter of the room with presents, and as my husband reminded me, we can celebrate Christmas anytime we choose. Still, we become attached to that idea of being home for this particular holiday.

Thinking about that reminded me of the one other Christmas where I really felt I wasn’t home.

Sixteen years old, I was living with a family in Switzerland, thousands of miles from everything that was familiar to me. Their traditions weren’t my traditions. To top it all off, I had just recently had my cast removed after tearing ligaments in my ankle. I had had to undergo surgery within a week of arriving in my new temporary country. Homesickness had also arrived in a big way.

There are things I remember, like how fascinated and somewhat frightened I was by the fact my Swiss family actually burned candles on their tree. Nevertheless, it was beautiful. They also opened presents on Christmas Eve. While it was pretty cool to be able to open gifts early, it was a bit of a letdown Christmas morning. Santa was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there’d been St. Nicholas, but he’d come and gone weeks earlier on December 6^th.

All in all, it was a culture shock, and—Swiss or American—we were supposed to be celebrating the same holiday. The real comfort was in going to church. Despite the fact that it was darn cold inside that big sanctuary, the tunes were the same ones I had grown up with.

I remind myself of that now. Christmas will be different this year, but there is always something to be pulled out of it that can help give us a feeling of home, even when we are far away from the ones we love the most.

Another Mother's Day...Oh My!

Happy Mother’s Day. Today I have the privilege of being able to look at Mother’s Day from a new perspective. The cynic in me says this is another one of our trumped up days designed to generate business for card companies, florists, jewelers, restaurants, etc. The reality is every day is mother’s day, but there are special ones that stand out.

Uncle Jacob with the new addition

My daughter-in-law celebrates one of those today. Her first. Her son won’t be a week old until tomorrow. Like all of us when we were new mothers, she is, or will be, going through the overwhelmed, self-doubting, exhausted phases of parenting (I’m still waiting for that to stop—just kidding). There is nothing like a baby to blow up your entire existence. Many times what you imagined, dreamed, pictured, envisioned, planned, or scheduled gets tossed out the window. I remember reading an article while I was pregnant about an exhausted new mom who said, “I just want things to get back to normal.”

Normal, as defined by your existence as a single woman, then a married woman is gone forever. The author of the article sagely informed the new mom that she would have to find a “new” normal. Well, that’s not exactly true. There is no more normal. That’s the truism. Every day will be different. Some of those days will be wonderful, and they will stand out in your memory. Some of those days will be terrible. Those, too, have a way of standing out in your memory. Some will just be—days.

The biggest thing to know is despite all the books that can tell new moms how to insert tab A into slot B, there really is no owners’ manual on how YOU should parent YOUR baby or what is best for you and your family. Those decisions are yours to make, and you don’t really need to justify them to anyone, including your own mom.

I am lucky in having a mother who took the time to make sure each one of her four kids got attention, but not so much that we couldn’t function. Part of that might have been juggling four kids to raise, I don’t know. What I do know is that every one of us turned out to be very distinct individuals with very different personalities. We had the freedom to grow into thinking, caring adults who found our own paths in life. To me, that’s what being a parent is all about. It’s not smothering your child with too much attention. It’s not tossing your kid out when things get tough (although, yes, there are times that’s tempting). It’s knowing when to hold them close as well as when to give them that push, like the proverbial mama bird pushing babies out of the nest.

My mother is my greatest cheerleader (still). That is one of the best parts of being a mom. Whether they’re your kids by birth or by choice, you get to be in the corner for your kids cheering them on and praying like hell they don’t make some of the same mistakes you did growing up.

So, Happy Mother’s Day. 

Tuesday, my new book, Special Delivery releases. The heroine is a new mom. Please remember, this is fiction where babies don't spit up, howl, or poop all over the new swing. That's the wonderful aspect of writing fiction. I can ignore some of those realities of being a new parent.

The Place to go in Mountain Meadow

Mountain Meadow’s nerve center is the Mountain Meadow General Store, better known as Tarpley’s to the locals. In Special Delivery, it’s where Jake first sees Holly, after all.

Like Mountain Meadow, Tarpley’s isn’t an actual store. It is a composite that draws upon many stores I’ve visited over the years. I’ll start with the one from my childhood: the Prospect Store in Prospect, Kentucky.

When I was a kid, I made the trek down the highway along with my brothers or some of my older neighbors to what was then the only store in Prospect. That’s certainly not the case anymore as this area grew into a well-to-do suburb or Louisville with shopping centers, McMansions and some real mansions too. However, back in the dark ages, it was a small grocery with wooden floors, narrow aisles, and a really great candy display.

My friends and I would walk along the highway, pump our arms to get truck drivers to blow their air horns, and collect returnable soft drink bottles people had tossed out their windows. At three cents each in a day when penny candy was really a penny, every bottle collected was a huge bonus to whatever allowance we had to spend. Mr. Snowden would take our returns, hand us the change, and we’d promptly spend it again for whatever sweet treats were making our mouths water.

The Prospect Store had a meat counter in the back, and I remember stopping to look at the cow tongues and thinking, “Ew, how could anyone eat that?”

The original store’s no longer there. It’s a Marathon gas station now with a modern convenience store in its place. I guess that’s progress, but it sure is a loss in pure character.

The second store I had in mind when I imagined Tarpley’s is one in Danville, Virginia called Midtown Market. It reminds me somewhat of the Prospect Store with its crowded aisles and wood floors. It’s got a great meat counter and some of the best chicken salad around, bar none.

During my years of working in television and visiting and living in the South, I have also been inside any number of small groceries across the region. I quickly discovered a few things about them. 1) There’s usually a group of older guys who hang around out front during summer or inside during colder weather telling bullshit stories and drinking either soft drinks or coffee. Some stores even give them a place to sit and do that. 2) If you need to know where something or someone is, the store owners are the people to talk to. Just be prepared to share some of your own life story with them. 3) Never go into a small country store thinking that you’re going to grab something quick and get on home. Sharing some of the yarn-telling by either dishing out your own BS or listening to someone else’s is part of the charm.

Tarpley’s and real stores like it are the South’s way of reminding us to slow down and take the time to say hello. I hate to see them disappear only to be replaced by lookalike convenience stores that just don’t have that same character. I guess one of the sad effects of the pervasiveness of technology and big corporations is we are losing our sense of regionalism.

So Tarpley’s is a salute to places like Midtown and the Prospect Store. Thanks, Mr. Snowden, for leaving me with some rich childhood memories.

Hey, and don’t forget—Special Delivery releases in three weeks! Click here for buy links where you can pre-order.

What's with book trailers?

Check out this short book trailer for my upcoming release of Special Delivery...
Special Delivery

I decided to play around a little bit with Animoto. I'm still not completely sold on the idea of book trailers, although I have heard from some authors who absolutely adore them.

This is a shorty...just 30 seconds long, and you know, that's okay with me. As a former TV news producer, :30 is a lot of time. The average television commercial is just :30. I have seen book trailers come in around 2:00 to 2:30 minutes long. Way tooooo long.

So I may play around with this, but I have to say, I'd like to see some hard data that these things increase visibility and sales because to do one right, it would require a lot more investment of time and money than it might well be worth.

Life's Little Blessings

As I sit here at the computer this Christmas Eve, unable to really concentrate on serious writing, bored with reading, and unwilling to do anymore work around the house, I have spent some time thinking back on 2014, only a week away from coming to an end.

It has been a year filled with change for our family.

My husband lost his job in February. While it has forced us to live on my income as a teacher and the royalties I make as a writer (not yet where I wish them to be!), I considered it to be a blessing. For the past six years, he had worked at a job far enough from our home that he had to live there during the week and was only home for weekends. Maintaining a family life long distance is never easy. It also brings with it enough increased expenses in maintaining a second household (even though his lodgings were rent-free) that I often questioned whether we were really better off.

Adjusting our lifestyle to such a cut in income has had its ups and downs, sometimes like the most insane roller coaster ride you can ever imagine. Yet each time that I have grown concerned that we couldn’t possibly make it through a month, somehow we did. Royalty checks, big and small, arrived just in the nick of time, or my husband picked up some freelance work that helped to tide us over. A litter of puppies brought in additional income.

We planted a garden, then added a watermelon and cantaloupe patch in a different location on our mini-farm. Plentiful rain and moderate temperatures provided us with an abundance of fresh vegetables and incredibly flavorful melons. A neighbor killed and butchered one of his steers and brought us a box of beef. Just before Thanksgiving, my husband expressed the wish that he could add a deer ham to our smoker, and less than an hour later we were hauling an eight point buck home in the back of our truck.

In May, I earned my masters in education. Thanks to a gift from two very good friends, we had gas money so we could attend commencement in Virginia Beach. The pomp and ceremony had a wonderful bonus effect: my son, who was not at all excited about his own upcoming high school graduation ceremony, suddenly looked forward to the event. The smile on his face after that ceremony will live in my memory forever. School was not the easy academic ride for him that it had been for me and his father.

With the change in his employment, my husband decided to take a hard look at what he wanted to do. He had already completed a course in fixing small engines, which—to my thinking—paid for itself when he was able to fix our riding lawnmower himself.  He is now back in school and has completed his first semester of a very fine gunsmithing program.

My career as a writer has continued to grow and expand this year. I had a book release under a different pen name in July, which has done very well. My next release as Laura Browning, Special Delivery, will come out May 12, 2015, and is already available for pre-order.

Just this week, my husband finally secured a part-time job that he can fit around his schedule as a student and as the coach of a high school fencing team. My son has matured during this year, now holding down two part-time jobs as he continues to explore what he would like to do for a career.

In all, though this year has been filled with tremendous change, it has also been filled with such timely blessings, I can’t help but believe in the divine hand of providence at work. Through the many adventures and misadventures during my life, I have always felt I must have a very special guardian angel. Now I am sure of it.

I don’t wear my faith on my sleeve. Maybe that’s a function of being a Lutheran, maybe it’s just my personality. However, I have spent many moments this year thanking God for his assistance in so many little ways. So this holiday season, when we think about the miracle of faith embodied in the birth of God’s son, remember that miracles occur every day in many little ways. It might be the garden blessed with good weather or a timely gift from a friend. It might even be that longer than usual wait in a checkout line that put you two cars behind the impaired driver instead of right next to him when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed.

As Walt Whitman says, “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”

So as 2014 winds down and 2015 begins, remember to look for the best in every situation. Find those little blessings that can brighten your day and help you brighten the day of someone else. 

Love Will Bring You Home

Welcome to Mountain Meadow, Virginia -- home of some hot guys, some nosy church ladies, and the newest residents, Holly Morgan and her little brother. Oh yeah, and Holly's soon-to-be-born baby.

Special Delivery kicks off my new series: Mountain Meadow Homecomings with Kensington's Lyrical Press imprint.

I can't wait for you to meet Holly and the hunky cop who helps her out, Jake Allred.

Special Delivery will release May 12, 2015. It's available for pre-order now from Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. I hope you will love all the folks of Mountain Meadow as much as I do!

How far would you go to help Family?

Broken Heart, book 4 in my series about the Barlow-Barrett family brings at least part of the family together. Stacey gets help from all of her brothers when she finally decides to stand up for what she wants. How families function, or don't, is a theme that runs through this series. Here they are, a family that could buy and sell most of us several times over, but few of them seem to have happy lives.

In book 2, Balancing Act, the hero and heroine are both people devoted to family. Seth has stepped up to run the family business, and Tessa will do whatever she has to in order to protect her younger brother, even if the price is her shot at love and happiness.

How far would you go to help family? Leave me a response and I'll enter you into next week's drawing for an e-book copy of Balancing Act. Remember, I'll be drawing each book in the series...10/20 will be Remember Me, and on 10/27, I'll draw two winners of the newest release, Broken Heart.

This week's winner of Bittersweet is Dawn. Congratulations!

Do You Need Money for Happiness?

When I was a kid, there were plenty of times that I thought,"Everything would be great if only we were rich." It was usually those moments when I wanted something I couldn't have, or I would have to save my money to get what I did want. As an adult, I can appreciate those lessons my parents taught me about learning to work hard for what I want in life. So thanks, Mom and Dad for making me save for six years to get that pony.

Over the years, I have met enough people with money to realize that having wealth isn't a free ticket to a life of infinite happiness. Just look at the news that hits the Internet every day, and anyone can see that. Sure, that person pulling in millions might not be wondering if there will be enough money to put gas in the car until the next paycheck, or if they have enough food in the freezer to cover what they can't buy fresh in groceries, but there are some problems that transcend a family's net worth.

The four books (so far) in the Barlow Barretts' series touch on some of those issues. Anna, in Bittersweet, struggled with the issue of never feeling as though she fit in. Seth, in Balancing Act, struggles with living up to his role as the eldest son--when  his heart's in a different place. In Remember Me, Brandon discovers how life in the limelight can turn ugly, and in this latest book, Stacey faces some of the biggest challenges of all. She's done her best to be the perfect Barlow-Barrett, but it's not enough. Even worse, she faces domestic violence in a marriage that's unraveling.

Broken Heart was a tough book to write, but as I started exploring exactly what kind of story Stacey might have to tell, it occurred to me that the way she'd led her life was simply too good to be true. Nobody had a life as perfect as hers seemed to be, unless they were a Barbie and Ken doll in one of my childhood games.Since I pretty much write by the seat of my pants, it surprised me what issues began to emerge in Stacey's life.

I have to thank my editor, Dianne, for making me go back and rewrite Jace, Stacey's husband. He's not a likable character, and there are people who will feel he doesn't get all that he deserves, but he has a story not unlike Stacey's. Like her, Jace's life has been all about keeping up appearances. It's his reaction when he can no longer do that that becomes the problem.

You know, I'd like everyone to have a chance to get in on this series from the beginning, so this week I'm offering readers a chance to get a copy of Bittersweet, book 1 in the series. All you have to do is leave a comment on whether you think having money makes life hard or easier. I'll draw a winner and announce it next Sunday when I'll do the same with book two, and so on. Pass the word.

Secondary Characters: Adding Substance to Your Storytelling

Coming from a background in journalism, particularly broadcast journalism, boiling my writing down to basics is second nature. So when I first contemplated the idea of writing a full-length novel, it was a little daunting. How could I possibly write something so long that focused on two characters? Okay, you’re probably asking yourself why I would focus only on two characters. Well…when I looked at submission guidelines for various publishers, the line “secondary characters should be kept to a minimum” or something similar kept popping up. Now for someone who’s kind of a minimalist to begin with, my brain said: hero and heroine on a desert island. No other humans. Okay…ready, set, write. Wrong.

Life isn’t like that. And even in the fictitious world of romance, we need secondary characters because they serve some very important purposes. First and foremost, they help show us more about our main characters. One of the ways in which a writer uses indirect characterization is to reveal a character through what others say about that character and by how the hero and heroine interact with each other and the secondary characters. Does that mean you need a cast of thousands? No, but I think as writers, we also need to give more credit to our readers and what they can and can’t keep straight.

The second way in which secondary characters become useful is in providing additional conflict through subplots. In writing a short story, writers should keep storylines on an extremely narrow focus—few characters, no subplots—but a novel needs more. If as writers, we don’t include subplots, it’s like slapping the burgers and dogs from the 4th of July cookout on the table with no buns, no condiments, and no side dishes. Personally, I like my diet a little varied.

Finally, those secondary characters that pop into stories can end up demanding a story of their own. In the case of Winning Heart, the contemporary romance I have releasing today from Lyrical Press, two of those secondary characters evolved into a secondary romance within the frame of the same novel. (For you bargain seekers—woo hoo! Winning Heart turns into a two for one deal.) Another secondary character ended up getting his own story, Bittersweet, which will come out in December.
So, don’t kiss off those secondary characters. There are a few of them worth taking the time to develop, so when you serve up your writing for readers to consumer, they not only get the entrée, they also get a full course meal.

I invite you to leave a comment, but more importantly, check out the link to Winning Heart today because all this week, it’s 30% off. That’s an incredible deal for a full-length read!

How I met the hero of Winning Heart

I met Nelson Anderson not too long after Wynter O’Reilly started to work for him. I had gone out with a friend to take a look at a horse one of his amateur owners had for sale. The owner was focused on the hunter ring, but her mount had a mentality much better suited to eventing. Since the owner was on a business trip, Nelson agreed to meet us.

“I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t offer to ride him for you.” He gestured to his cane. “I’m afraid those days are over. Thomas, our trainer, has one of the stable girls getting the gelding ready. We can put another rider up unless you just want to go ahead and get a feel for him?”

My friend grabbed her hard hat from the back seat of her truck. “I’d just as soon see how he works without someone else warming him up first.”

Nelson nodded, the sun glinting off some of the silver in his hair. I wondered why a man as young as he was already had gray streaks through his dark head, but one glance at the cane on which he leaned was reminder enough. As a former journalist, I kept up with area news and remembered his story.

“Laura? Is that you?” I turned at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Wynter? I haven’t seen you in ages. What are…?”

“I work here.” Her glance shifted uneasily to the man behind me. “I was just getting ready to walk the gelding out to the ring. You could come with me and we’ll catch up while your friend talks to Mr. Anderson.”

I studied her from narrowed eyes. I knew she’d disappeared from the Southards and got the distinct feeling she didn’t want Nelson Anderson to know her background. I turned to my host.

“Wynter and I are acquainted. I hope you don’t mind…”

He nodded his head slightly, without smiling. “Not at all. Wynter’s one of our newer employees and a very hard worker.”

I smiled. “Yes. She’s always been that.”

As we drew away from them, I glanced sideways at Wynter. “What are you doing here? Does your mom know?”

Wynter shook her head. “Please. Don’t say anything to her. I’ll get in touch with her soon, I promise. I just… You know Mr. Southard pulled my scholarship.”

“Slime ball.”

“Tell me about it. But you’ll never guess. I’ve gotten into Duke on my own, and I just started classes.”

“That’s great! How’s it going so far?”

“Pretty well.”

As we halted next to the arena, I glanced back at Nelson and my friend whose pace was necessarily slower to accommodate Anderson’s limp. “How’s your boss?”

I was surprised to see Wynter blush. “He’s okay.” She shifted nervously, her glance once more on Anderson. Ahh…a bit of a crush. “I gotta go. I still gotta finish shovelin’ shit.”

“Picking stalls,” I murmured automatically.

“Yeah. Whatever. Listen, You won’t say anything to my mom, will you?”

I shook my head. “That’s your job.”

She handed me the reins and darted back for the barn, with a quick nod to my friend and Anderson.

After horse and rider were in the ring, Anderson glanced at me from his dark blue eyes. “If you don’t mind my asking…how do you know Wynter?”

I laughed. “Fox hunting. The Southards kept the poor kid hopping seven days a week.”

I sensed a certain stiffness in Anderson’s manner. “The Southards are friends of yours?”

I arched a brow. “I’m a writer and a journalist who barely scrapes together a hunt subscription each year. Payton Southard and his wife barely know I breathe. I like it that way.”

He relaxed. “Wynter’s told me enough to know she was lucky to get out of there.”

“She was. I hate she lost her scholarship in the process because she’s brilliant and driven, but getting away from that family’s probably one of the best things that’s happened to her.”

He glanced over his shoulder, and I saw the way he tracked Wynter as she rolled the wheel barrow from the barn to the manure pile. His hand clenched on the head of his cane until his knuckles shown white.

“She’s a great young woman,” I murmured. “All she needs is just a few things to go her way for a change.”

He nodded.

I turned back to the ring. Wow, there was already a lot of tension between those two. They just didn’t know about it.

I’m so glad I got to tell their story. You can find it July 4th: Winning Heart from Lyrical Press.