Sunday Snippet: The Begin Again and Keep Writing Edition

Good Sunday morning, mes amies. It’s kinda cloudy here in the city and the forecast is calling for rain and cooler temperatures for the coming week, which is okay. We need the rain and we could sure use the cooler temps. So garden cleanup and writing and then more writing will be the order of the week.

There will be mowing for Husband and we have a few chores around this house that need to be done before we head to the lake again. Two houses can be hard sometimes and that is not, I repeat not a complaint. Merely an observation. We remind our kids, who also have two houses, that the lake cottage is a gift from the universe that you use when it fits into your life and you don’t feel guilty if you can’t be there every weekend in the summer. You go when you can and you tend to what needs tending while you’re there and when you’re not there, you remember to grateful that you have a lake cottage waiting for you. It’s taken a lot of years for Husband and I to get to that point in our lake-cottage-owning, and to be fair, it’s easier now that he’s retired and I work from home to go up anytime we like. We don’t have to wait for weekends. Still, sometimes we need to be here, so this week, we are.

That said, I will be spending mornings writing on book 1 in the new Doyles of Windstar Ranch series as well as meeting pal Connie at the gym for a swim at least two days. Right now, I’m just finishing an editing gig and don’t have another one booked until after I get back from a girly trip to Wisconsin (thanks, Sis!). That’s coming up next week, so I’ll share some of what we do/see up there here on the blog.

The begin again thing? Promotion. The Rancher’s Christmas Wife, book 4 in the Juniper Falls Ranch series is coming out in November, and it’s time to start shouting it from the rooftops. So… to that end…you get a real snippet today! Try to remain calm. You’ll find the blurb, cover, and snippet below my gratitude for the week. Please enjoy and if you’d like an ARC for reading and reviewing, drop me a request in the comments, and I’ll see that you get one. I’d sure appreciate it!

Gratitude for This Week: kineseo tape for my bum knee; bike riding; a lovely lunch with my sweet neighbor ladies; Husband’s colonoscopy showed no issues; an evening of hearing Son play with the Mission Hills Band at a fun charity event. 

Stay well, keep speaking out, always choose kindness, and most of all, mes amis, stay grateful!

The Rancher’s Christmas Wife

Glass artist Zoey Eaton returns to Marietta with a plan.

Find her ex.
Get the closure she never found.
Finally move on.

Running into rugged rancher Levi Mitchell at the grocery store wasn’t part of the plan—especially when one playful exchange over a jar of capers reminds her exactly why walking away was never as easy as she’d pretended.

Levi has spent years rebuilding his life and raising his young, adopted daughter who means everything to him. Seeing Zoey again stirs feelings he buried long ago, but risking his heart is one thing. Risking his little girl’s is another, especially when her Christmas wish to Santa is a mom.

The chemistry between them burns hotter than ever, but old wounds don’t disappear just because Christmas lights twinkle throughout Marietta. Zoey wants a second chance to prove she’s no longer the woman who left. Levi isn’t sure he can trust her—not when losing her once nearly destroyed him.

As the holidays draw them together, they’ll have to decide if love deserves one more chance…or if some hearts are meant to stay broken.

Excerpt

Levi sat on a rather spindly gilt chair next to the dressing rooms in the little girl’s section of Carr’s Department Store in the Bozeman mall, wishing he was at least a foot shorter—or better yet, somewhere else entirely. He’d never actually taken Zelda shopping anywhere but Target or maybe to the feed store in the spring when it was time to buy chicks. This kind of shopping was Marisole’s bailiwick. Except for when they went into Marietta Western Wear for her riding boots—a store that smelled like leather and sandalwood and carried the kind of clothing he preferred. But Zelda had insisted he take her to the mall for a new Christmas dress—a red one that twirled. So here he was pinning on a smile as his six-year-old daughter floated out of the dressing room.

“Zip me, Papa.” She turned her tiny back to him, and he pulled up the zipper on a dress that shouted Christmas. A green-and-red plaid skirt and a red velvet top that was warm under his fingers. After he tied the plaid sash in a rather uneven bow around her waist, she said, “Now watch.” Zelda stepped away and spun around, slowly at first and then a second time a little faster. The skirt, made of some rustling fabric, belled out around her skinny legs.

“It’s a twirler all right,” he said as he squirmed on the slick seat of the chair, praying to whatever heavenly entity was in charge of little girls’ dresses that this was The One. Zelda had already tried on and abandoned at least five others.

“It’s perfect.” She clasped her hands in front of her as she gazed in the three-way mirror next to the dressing cubicles. The delighted look in her silver-blue eyes made his heart smile.

He cleared his throat and stood up. “It looks beautiful, honey. Go put your jeans back on and pass the dress out to me. We’ll pay for it and head out. Wanna stop for some hot chocolate on the way home?”

Zel frowned at him. “Nope. We have to go to the grown-up men’s a-apartment … er, department. Abuela said you need a Christmas sweater.”

He’d rather hoped she’d forgotten about that in the excitement over the dress, but no such luck. “Okay. Men’s department next. Scoot, go change.”

They paid for the dress, which the young cashier wrapped carefully in tissue paper and tucked into a string-handled bag. She asked Zelda if she wanted to carry it, but the child declined saying, “No, I’m too little for a bag that big. It’ll scooch on the floor and ruin my dress. Papa, will you carry it?”

The cashier chuckled. “Your granddaughter’s adorable,” she said, handing him the bag.

Zelda’s brows came together and she made a scoffing sound. “He’s not my grandpa, he’s my dad,” she informed the young woman with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

The spots of gray in his four-day-old scruff and at his temples were foolers apparently, although this was the first time anyone had ever mistaken him for Zel’s grandfather. Hell’s bells, he was just shy of forty—nowhere near grandpa territory. Not yet. Not for a long damn time, because he’d already decided Zelda wouldn’t even be dating until she was at least sixteen and able to drive both an automatic and a stick shift car. He merely gave the red-cheeked cashier a nod.

So there is your peek at The Rancher’s Christmas Wife–yeah, he’s a hot single dad. Remember, if you’d like an ARC to read and review, drop me a note in the comments below and I’ll see that you get one. Thanks always for your support!