The Birth of Kasota Springs

I got the story idea for The Troubled Texan from following a horrific mass murder trial in California. Given my experience in the legal field, I wondered how the plaintiff’s attorney handled months, even years, of being in the head of a murderer. And what if she settles in a small town under an alias without knowing that her long-lost classmate and former professional football player was the sheriff? It doesn’t take her long to recognize the sexy, hard-nosed, hunk when he stops her for a traffic violation. But a small town isn’t big enough for the both of them...or is it just right? They both have secrets and deep seeded ones they’re not ready to share...not yet!

When I decided to bring Maressa to Texas, I had to pick a town for her to live. And after I completed The Tycoon and the Texan, I knew I wasn’t finished with Granny Johnson’s and Lola Ruth Hicks’s stories. (It might have been because I had a Granny Johnson, my mother’s name was Ruth and my mother-in-law’s maiden name was Lola Hicks Pennington, all gone to Heaven.)

Granny Johnson and McCall Johnson, the heroine of The Tycoon and the Texan, are co-owners of Jacks Bluff Ranch. Jacks Bluff is just outside of Kasota Springs, which first appeared in an anthology I was in with Jodi Thomas, Linda Broday, and DeWanna Pace—all Texas gals living in the same town—called Give Me a Cowboy. The four of us returned to Kasota Springs for A Texas Christmas, an anthology of four stories that took place on the same snowy night. So what better place to revisit than Kasota Springs and the family lineage we had created?

Give Me a Cowboy is about a four day rodeo in the Texas Panhandle. One major problem we hit was that the first rodeo in Texas was in Pecos and the panhandle didn’t have one until much later. While driving along I-40, I noticed a railroad water-crossing...Kasota. Add Springs and it was the perfect name for a town. So, we wrote two anthologies that took place in Kasota Springs, Texas.

Well, plenty of decisions had to be made to develop this town. Who was the sheriff? Name of the saloon, the weather each day, and many more things that we needed to know to cover four stories taking place over four days!

The thing I had to face was I love the bull riding, but since it was a renegade event and there were only a few regular events, I had to think, so I selected wild cow milking because I thought it’d be easy to write! Wrong! This ended up, with research, a fun event and if you read Give Me a Cowboy you’ll remember it began to rain and my team ended up being my hero and heroine!

Research is really one of my favorite parts of writing, so I found out that the wild cow milking event was added because the ranches had to haul the mama cows with the calves for the calf roping event, so they decided to do something with the bawling mamas who weren’t all that happy being apart from their babies. So, our heroes and heroines won all of their events and of course the cowboy roped the heroine, but I will say the heroines probably didn’t run too fast. In Linda’s and my stories we had a mother and daughter team...the LeDoux women and they were like boot stoops and hardtack. In The Troubled Texan you’ll briefly meet Mesa LeDoux, fifth generation Kasotan and part owner of the Jacks Bluff Ranch. I am working on the next book in the series and more descendants of the founders of the small town of Kasota Springs will appear along with folks from The Troubled Texan. And, of course, you can expect some new characters moving to Kasota Springs, Texas.

Watch for Book #3 of my Kasota Springs Romance Series from Kensington, "Out of the Texas Night."

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