WeWriWa: Back in the Saddle . . . Temptation’s Trail

While waiting for the results of BETA reads for my Texas-set romantic suspense, I started thinking about what to do next. I’d been looking ahead at ways to begin a “Cowboys and Lawmen” series set in Texas and came up with a half-dozen contemporary plotline options. Then I started waxing sentimental. Instead of looking ahead, maybe I should also be looking back to where my love of Texas westerns began . . . back to the book that started it all.

Back in the ’90s, I’d never attempted a series, but when I created Harmon Bass, a legendary tracker who answers a naïve young Eastern heiress’s call for help in the lawless Bend of Texas, I couldn’t walk away. She’d thought she’d hired the strapping, elegant hero depicted in her favorite dime novels. Imagine her surprise when confronted with a short, soft-spoken half-breed who went hatless and without a sidearm.

“There’s been some mistake,” she murmured faintly.

As she started to rise, his hand closed around her wrist. It wasn’t a painful or aggressive grasp, just a firm, controlling circle of rough, dry fingers. She stiffened all over as he spoke softly with a steel-threaded quiet.

“I’ve just ridden a hundred miles for the promise of pay. I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, I’m tired and right now I’m getting more than a little annoyed, so you just sit yourself back down.”

Amanda dropped into the chair without so much as a whimper to asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m the man you sent for.”

“How did you get that letter I posted in care of the Texas Rangers?”

“They sent it to me.” One corner of his mouth crooked up wryly as he tapped a dirty forefinger on the cover of her dime novel. “You wanted the heroic Harmon Bass bad enough to offer up a thousand dollars, and here I am to collect.”

(and the rest of the scene . . .)

She studied him candidly for a moment as the violent shock wore offer, returning her usual brash spirit. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t plan to offer up that money to just anyone and I don’t believe for a second that you’re Mr. Bass.”

His amusement had affected the rest of his mouth by then, shaping it into a small smile. “And why’s that, Miss Duncan?”

“If you can read, you’d know perfectly well that you are nothing like Harmon Bass.” She sized up his insignificant appearance with a clear eye and a cool word. “Why, you’re too young, not much more than twenty years old, you don’t carry a gun, you don’t dress like any gentleman I’ve ever seen, you let yourself be pushed around by a stranger, and you’re—you’re shor—you’re not tall.”

No, ma’am,” he claimed calmly in the face of her fierce blush, “tall, I’m not, but I can read, and I can tell the difference betwixt fact and fiction. Whether you like it or not, I’m the man you want. If you were counting on some steely-eyed, quick-fingered fool like the one in that there book and like our dear departed neighbor, then no, I’m not what you want. I’m no gun-handy hero, but in your letter, you said you needed a tracker, and ma’am, I’m the best there is.” He paused and said, softer still, “And I need the money.”

While re-reading the original five-books to which I’ve gotten the rights back, I’m researching ways to get them scanned into an editable format since I no longer have the original drafts, and doing one of my other favorite things—playing with cover concepts. I’m also digging up that Book 6 I’d started long, long ago when I had plotlines to bring the historical family up to present day. Suddenly, I have a ton of long-anticipated work to do that will more than fill the rest of 2021! Happy Trails, and Happy Writing, fellow Warriors!!

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