AUTUMN'S ON THE WAY! BY CHERYL PIERSON

When I was growing up, I remember looking forward to the first day of school each year. “Back then” we didn’t start back to school in the fall until after Labor Day. In Oklahoma, it was still hot as blue blazes in September, but at least, the evenings and nights were cooling off. I dreaded seeing summer end, but by September, I was feeling the pull to go back to school, see my friends—and I’d never admit it—start learning again!

Jane Carroll, my best friend, and I playing in the sandbox. I was 8 and Jane was 9.

By the time October rolled around, things had definitely become more “fall-like” and the sun had taken on the “autumn slant” as the days grew shorter, as well. My mom used to take note of the seasonal changes very keenly, and I remember her saying, “Well, fall is here.” There was no need to explain—it was in the coolness of the air, the more orange tint of the sun, the shorter days.

Of course, to a child, “fall” meant that Halloween was coming! Back in those days, it was still safe to go door-to-door with friends, all of us together in the crisp night air, a giggling mass of energy all dressed in our finery (most of us with homemade costumes, not store-bought) and those little plastic pumpkins with the handles to carry our “loot” home in. “TRICK OR TREAT!” we’d call out at each door, and our neighbors would always pretend they thought they were giving candy to princesses and pirates, superheroes and witches.

November brought Thanksgiving—a time when we’d usually go to my grandparents’ houses. I was the “lucky” one of all my cousins (and I had 40+ cousins!) because in the small town of Calera, Oklahoma, I had my dad’s parents who lived at one end of town, and my mom’s parents who lived at the other end. Cousins, aunts, and uncles from both sides also lived there, so many of my cousins from both sides of the family went to school with each other and knew one another as friends and fellow sports teammates. Those were simpler times—we could walk all over town without fear of any foul play, and I had grandparents at each end of town, so no matter which cousins I was with, we had somewhere to walk to.

The town of Calera, Oklahoma, year unknown. It was a water stop for trains and was called Cale Switch or Cale Station, but when the railroad wanted to rename it Sterrett, the people insisted on a compromise–and Calera was born. This is the main street of the town–much more lively than it was when we kids were walking it back in the mid-late 60’s and early 70’s.


The big treat was stopping in at the one and only “grocery store”—more like an Old West mercantile store—that was about at the halfway mark through town. It had a glass case with bologna and ham inside and a big slicer that the store owner, Petey, would use to cut your lunchmeat. Then, he’d wrap it in freezer paper and tie it up with twine. Petey’s store also had one of those big chest-type coolers with a sliding top, filled with ice and bottled pop. That was back when a bottle of pop was ten cents or so—and a candy bar could be had for a few pennies more.

There’s nothing like family and Thanksgiving dinner all together to bring “Autumn Fever” to the highest level. Doesn’t Thanksgiving just speak to us of autumn? By that time of the year, even in Oklahoma, the leaves have turned some beautiful rich colors of gold, red, orange, and brown and drifted from the trees. The winds have become colder and more cutting (and that’s saying something here in Oklahoma!) and of course there’s that “fall smell” in the air. And probably that’s one of the things I love most about autumn—the smell. There is nothing like the feeling of being tucked up inside four strong walls with food to eat, a fire going in the fireplace, and a good book to read. And did I mention a dog’s head on my lap? But celebrating fall took on a whole new meaning when we moved to West Virginia. I had never seen colors on the trees like what we saw there--such a wonderful display of nature--and it happens every year!

Rick Burgess is an excellent professional photographer who is a good friend–he specializes in pictures of the natural beauty of “Wild, Wonderful West Virginia” and this is one that was taken at Plum Orchard Lake in the fall. Isn’t it gorgeous? See the link below if you would like to see more of Rick’s wonderful art!


I know a lot of people will think this is strange, but I’ve never been a coffee or hot tea drinker. Yet, in the fall, I DO want something warm to drink—and this is it. This drink is very easy to make and keep on hand—and I haven’t tried making it with any artificial sweetener yet, but this year I’m going to do just that instead of using sugar and see how it turns out. This “friendship tea” is also good to make and give as a gift in a pretty container (that’s how I got it in the very beginning, and I have been so glad someone did that for me so many years ago!)

FRIENDSHIP TEA
This wonderful drink is ready in 5 minutes, and makes 4 cups of the instant mix.

Ingredients:
1 -1 1⁄2cup sugar (or less, to taste)
2 cups instant Tang orange drink
1⁄2cup sweetened iced tea mix powder
1(1/4 ounce) envelope unsweetened lemonade mix
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1⁄2teaspoon ground cloves (or you can also put in whole cloves if you like)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients well and store in an airtight container.
To use, fill a mug with boiling water and stir in 2-3 teaspoons of mix, to taste.
If all you can find is presweetened lemonade, then use the amount of dry mix needed for a 2 -quart pitcher according to the package instructions and leave out the sugar.

This recipe has been around for many years, but this iteration of it came from GENIUS KITCHEN and is close to the one I’ve had in my recipe box for all this time.

I have to admit, by Christmas I’m certainly missing fall, and “Autumn Fever” takes on a new meaning—I want it BACK! As sad as I was to see summer end, that’s how I feel when the winter ice and snow comes—I’m immediately nostalgic for fall!
What do you do in the autumn months? Are you glad to see them come and herald summer’s end? I do read a lot, as I’m sure many of us do here at P&P. Please share any good books you’ve read so we can all build our reading list!

Right now, I'm reading one of Sabrina Jeffries's regency stories--BEWARE A SCOT'S REVENGE--all her stories are sooo darn good you can't go wrong. Next on my list is a wonderful "re-read"-- NOBODY'S DARLING by Teresa Medeiros. Here's the blurb--I know it's wonderful because I read it a good while back but want to enjoy it again!

He always gets his lady…
Billy Darling doesn’t enjoy being a wanted man until the day a duke’s prim and proper granddaughter comes marching into the Tumbleweed Saloon and points her derringer at his heart. Lucky for him, she's a mighty poor shot.

She always gets her man…
Instead of killing him, Esmerelda Fine hires him to find her runaway brother. Billy knows he should turn down her offer. He should resist her charms. But he doesn't. Because there comes a time in every man's life when he's got nothing left to lose...but his heart.

I’d love to hear your childhood memories of fall--and I do hope you’ll try this wonderful “friendship tea” recipe when those autumn winds begin to blow—it’s a sure cure for AUTUMN FEVER!

Story Telling From Childhood Memories by Sarah J. McNeal May #BlogABookScene

My last three Wilding stories take place in 1958. The world including the United States was a very different place from what it is now. Of course, I was a kid then and life seemed simple and good. We didn’t have a TV then except for the occasional find my mother dug up, so my sister and I didn’t watch the news and probably wouldn’t have watched the news even if we had a TV. We were kids; what did we care about the affairs of the world? Mostly I spent a lot of time in the school playground which was next to our house hanging upside-down from the monkey bars asking God to send me a sign that he saw me.

Pink Cadillac 1958

I do recall the automobiles all had these huge fins protruding from the back. In fact, the automobiles were all huge and had eight cylinder engines. They looked like lumbering dinosaurs even on the Interstate highways that were just being built. Remember the Edsel? The Edsel’s design was so unappealing it was discontinued the following year.

The middle class had arrived and the average yearly income was a whapping $3, 851. Keep in mind also that most moms did not work outside the home in those days, so that was the entire household income. I can’t even imagine it.

The primary world leaders were:

United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower

(Construction on the Interstate, or “emergency interstate” began in 1958)

United Kingdom: Prime Minister - Harold Macmillan 

France:  Charles de Gaulle 

Krushchev and his famous shoe pounding as he hollered, "We will bury you!"

Russia/ Soviet Union: First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Nikita Khrushchev (I remember Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table of a United Nations meeting. How funny was that?)   

Canada: Prime Minister John Diefenbaker

China: Chairman of the People's Republic of China - Mao Zedong  (China entered their great famine in 1958 which lasted until 1961. An astounding 30 million people died through a combination of natural disasters and poor planning.)

Technology by the United States:

The Microchip co-invented by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductors later developed and marketed in US by Intel

US Nuclear Submarine " Nautilus " passes under Ice Cap at North Pole

The US Military says it will be possible with satellites orbiting the earth to make detailed maps from space—and we can’t forget the “race for space” between the United States and Russia which began October 4, 1957 when Russia launched the first satellite to orbit Earth, Sputnik. On April 12, 1961, Russia also put a Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit around the Earth. For a while America dragged behind the Russians, but quickly superseded them and began the first space exploration when Apollo missions were sent to the moon and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Inventions Invented by Inventors in the United States ( or attributed to First Use ) 
Computer Modem USA 
Remote Control USA, Zennith Corporation 

Eisenhower initiated the construction of the “emergency highways” now known as the Interstate Highways to ensure movement of military and supplies across the great expanse of America due to the threat of the “Cold War” between the United States and Russia. 

Popular Films

The Bridge on the River Kwai

South Pacific

Gigi

King Creole

Vertigo

Buddy Holly and the Crickets

Popular Singers

Elvis Presley

Billie Holiday

Ricky Nelson

Frank Sinatra

The Everly Brothers

Ella Fitzgerald

Jerry Lee Lewis

Popular Songs:

“Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly and The Crickets

“Volare” by Domenico Modugno

“Don’t”, “Hard Headed Woman”, and “King Creole” by Elvis Pressly

“It’s Only Make Believe” by Conway Twitty

“Witch Doctor” by David Seville

“All I Have To Do Is Dream” by the Everly Brothers

“Oh Lonesome Me” by Don Gibson

“To Know Him Is To Love Him” by The Teddy Bears

Popular TV Programs

Candid Camera

The Ed Sullivan Show

Come Dancing

The Jack Benny Show

Most of us remember the toys from 1958:

Hula Hoops

Play-Doh

Match Book Cars

Gumby

The last three Wilding stories take place in 1956, 1957, and 1958 with Banjo’s twin sons, Kit and Hank Wilding and their cousin, Kyle Red Sky.  Hank Wilding was the frowning rancher who had sworn off of love in HOME FOR THE HEART. Hank’s twin, Kit Wilding, has war fatigue (PTSD in modern lingo) after World War II, has married the woman he’s always loved and has won the mayoral election for Hazard, Wyoming before everything goes wrong in IT’S ONLY MAKE BELIEVE. In the final story, I DREAM OF YOU, (submitted to Fire Star Press, imprint of Prairie Rose Publications), The Wildings’ cousin, Kyle Red Sky, the Lakota spiritual advisor with special psychic abilities and gas station owner and operator has met the woman he loves in a dream. But when she arrives in Hazard, she brings with her a secret and a deadly past.

The most difficult element to include in the 1950’s era wasn’t what to include, but rather what NOT to include—most significantly, cell phones. We’ve become so used to having the ability to connect with the world no matter where we are, I had to keep in mind the limitations having only land lines to depend upon in emergencies. There were no Interstate Highways with high speed limits to allow for rapid, unimpeded mobility, and no computers to rapidly find answers to questions or receive up to the minute news.

I tried to avoid too much interjection of period information, but still maintain a true 1950’s reality. There was an occasional mention of a popular song, a famous personality, and all phone calls required someone to go to the phone to make that call or answer the phone. Kyle’s gas station was run with a bay and standard equipment of the day. HE pumped the gas--none of this pump your own gas stuff, nd a free oil check and windshield wash was always offered with that gas. When he gave someone a soda, it was in a glass bottle and maintained in a horizontal cooler filled with circulating ice water.

Since 1950’s stories are not all that popular at present, I didn’t want to bring in constant reminders of the era, just the subtle elements. I called the stories “contemporary” rather than shine that big neon sign that said, “Looky, it’s my 1950’s stories!”  I am going to be interested in how readers respond to Kyle’s story when it publishes because I have had such a growing affection for Kyle through most of the  Wilding stories and now he was in leading up to his own story. He has become so near and dear to me. Also, since it is the last story in the Wilding series, I wanted it to be a memorable story. I hope I accomplished that goal.

Do any of you write stories from the 1950’s? If so, how did you handle the promotion for them? Did you call them 1950 era stories or contemporary stories? Why do you think this era is not as popular as earlier historical fiction?

HOME FOR THE HEART

Blurb:

Lucy Thoroughgood has gone and done it now—fallen in love with Hank Wilding, a man she’s known all her life. He’s content with friendship, but Lucy’s heart has flown the coop and she knows she’s in love with the determined bachelor. When she visits him with a proposition—to let the orphans she cares for learn to ride his horses during the summer—he surprises her with one of his own. She must accompany him to the dancing lessons he’s signed up for.

Secretly pleased, she hopes that perhaps this arrangement might lead to more than friendship. But Hank’s loved hard and lost, with his engagement to one of the popular town girls going south two years earlier. He’s sworn to never lose his heart to another—including Miss Lucy Thoroughgood.

A teenage orphan, Chayton, could be the key to thawing Hank’s heart—but danger follows the embittered boy. Will Hank be able to give Chayton the home he yearns for—or will the boy’s past bring only sorrow to those he cares for? When a Lakota premonition becomes reality, Lucy’s life hangs in the balance. Will Hank have the chance to let Lucy know how wrong he was? 

Excerpt:

The crowd grew silent. Tension filled the air with nervous energy. Hank stepped forward with his hands raised. “Now listen to some sense, mister. I don’t care what you took from the house. You’re welcome to whatever you stole as long as you let go of the boy. He hasn’t done anything to hurt you. You let me have the old man and the boy, and I won’t try to stop you from leaving.”

A hollow laugh bellowed from the man. “Like you could stop me anyway. I’m the one with the gun. This boy belongs to me. He’s my son and he’s going with me just in case anybody gets any ideas of comin’ after me…sorta like an insurance policy you might say.” He squeezed Chayton’s neck with his arm so tight Hank thought the boy might pass out from lack of air. “He better learn to mind me though.”

So this is Stephen Grier. Hank glanced at Chayton. The kid is scared out of his mind. He forced himself to remain calm and to speak with quiet authority. “Turn him loose, Grier, or I swear to God I will hunt you down and end your miserable life.”

“You best back off Mister High and Mighty. Now I’m taking this boy, and these here goods what I found, and I might even take this broken down old man with me if you don’t shut your trap.” He pointed the gun at Hank just as Merrilee pulled up in Hank’s blue pick-up truck. The crowd gasped in unison.

There was no time to lose. Hank knew he had to do something or Grier was going to get Chayton. No matter what happened, Hank couldn’t allow him to do that. When Grier’s attention slipped from him to the truck, Hank knew it might be the only moment he had to act. He rushed forward toward Grier. A scream rang out from somewhere behind him. Grier turned Chayton lose and set the sights of the gun on Hank. Just as he pulled the trigger and a shot rang out, a blur of yellow flew across Hank’s vision between him and Grier. Oh God, Lucy!

IT’S ONLY MAKE BELIEVE

Blurb:

Beautiful June Wingate’s perfect marriage is in shambles—and she hasn’t even left the wedding reception! When she overhears two gossips discussing the real reason Kit Wilding married her, June believes there must be some truth to it—after all, things have happened just the way they said. Is her marriage only make believe? Trust is hard for June to accept, and now, her faith in her husband has been broken—along with her fragile heart.

Kit Wilding has loved June since the moment he laid eyes on her—a vision in pink that he couldn’t get out of his mind. Now that he’s married her, he can’t understand the changes that have suddenly turned her secretive and distant. How can he make things right between them when he doesn’t know what he’s up against?

But the tables are turned when June’s father, a pillar of the community, is accused of a crime that brings shame on the Wingate family—along with prison time. Kit Wilding’s not the kind of man to give up easily, but with his budding political career at stake, will he be able to hold his marriage together? Or will he be forced to admit IT’S ONLY MAKE BELIEVE…

Excerpt:

Kit stood, relaxed his stance and reached for her, but she stepped back. He lowered his voice as if he were calming a rambunctious horse. “Listen, I know how some things were tough for you at home. You told me your parents weren’t the warmest or most loving people on the planet. You don’t have much reason to believe what people say, but—”

“Don’t.” June shrunk deeper into her dressing gown avoiding Kit’s attempt to touch her. “Please, don’t bring up all that. I know my trust level isn’t much, but what they said made sense. You wanted to be mayor and my family’s standing in the community and their campaign contribution certainly made a difference. All you had to do was marry me to win the election.”

Kit shook his head. “Not everything that could be true is really true. Surely you have more faith in me than that. It hurts me to think you believe their gossip. Surely you can’t think I’m the kind of man to lie or take advantage of a woman’s love in such a way or you wouldn’t have agreed to marry me. You’re not the kind of woman to take guff from anyone.” He straightened his spine. “And just so you know, I did not accept campaign funds from your father, or any other businessman in town. It put me at a distinct disadvantage to my opponent, but I won’t be obliged to anyone who might compromise my values.”

“I’ve never had a reason to doubt you—not until now anyway.” June looked him dead in the eye. “Just this past summer at the charity ball you wanted to break up with me. You said I made you worry too much about my safety that you couldn’t bear to see me take chances. But you must have really meant was that you ceased to love me and wanted nothing further to do with me—until the city council told you they wanted a married man for their mayor.” She shrugged off his hand when he tried to draw her to him. “So you suddenly decided you couldn’t live without me, proposed, and wanted to marry me sooner rather than later. How very convenient, Kit. As soon as the word was out that you were marrying Albert Wingate’s daughter, you won the election by a landslide. Of course you must have felt honorable enough to follow through with our marriage, but that’s not the kind of marriage I thought I was going to have.”

And my last Wilding story:

I DREAM OF YOU

A Dream…A Kiss… And Deadly Secrets

Blurb:

Kyle Red Sky dreamed of the woman with fire in her hair, but when she comes to town, something dark and dangerous follows her. He wants to help her, but she is reclusive, avoids men, and the scarf she always wears around her neck tells him she harbors a dark secret.

Mia Beckett is a survivor. Finally, she has found sanctuary in a small western town far from danger where no one knows her or her past and she intends to keep it that way. But she can’t forget the man she saw once in a dream who told her the paths they walked were destined to meet. However, when she meets Kyle Red Sky and realizes he is the man from her dream, she knows, if the dream becomes a reality, he may die.

Excerpt:

Kyle kicked open the door of his mother’s former dress shop despite the sign that read, “No Men Allowed.” The raging fire upstairs in the private quarters made this an emergency, certainly enough to ignore that sign. Smoke began to fill the shop as he raced up the stairs calling out the name of the new shop owner. “Miss Beckett! Miss Mia Beckett, where are you?”

As he reached the landing of the second floor, he heard someone cough nearby. With the wet blanket wrapped around him he rushed toward the direction of the cough until he found the woman lying on the floor almost unconscious from smoke inhalation. As soon as he removed the wet blanket he wore and wrapped her in its protective layer, he scooped her up in his arms to carry her away from the flames and smoke. The scarf she wore fell away from her neck and her head lolled back against his chest to reveal a thin, straight scar that ran all the way across her throat from her left ear to her right. It wasn’t an old scar, most likely it was no more than two or three months in the past. She attempted to raise a hand as if to cover her throat and replace the silk scarf. He’d always seen her wear a scarf of some description or another around her neck since her arrival in town. Now he knew all those scarves were not her unique sense of fashion, but her desire to hide the scar. She was a woman attempting to keep a secret.

Sarah J. McNeal is a multi-published author who writes diverse stories filled with heart. She is a retired ER and Critical Care nurse who lives in North Carolina with her four-legged children, Lily, the Golden Retriever and Liberty, the cat. Besides her devotion to writing, she also has a great love of music and plays several instruments including violin, bagpipes, guitar and harmonica. Her books and short stories may be found at Prairie Rose Publications and its imprints Painted Pony Books, and Fire Star Press and Sundown Press. She welcomes you to her website and social media:

Website 

My Amazon Author’s Page

Facebook

Twitter

The Wildings

Fantasy and Dreams Blog

Sweethearts of the West

Prairie Rose Publications Blog

Memories Make Stories by Sarah J. McNeal

My greatest asset as a writer is my memories. It is from my memories of my grandparents and their conversations about their lives that I was able to build a foundation for my historical stories. From them and my parents I learned a wealth of knowledge about how a household was run without modern conveniences, what they did to earn a living in those difficult economic  times. I also learned what they did for entertainment in a time before anything with a screen existed and even radios and telephones were a rarity. Hard to even imagine, isn’t it?

My Paternal Grandparents, Matilda & William McNeal

My grandfather McNeal was a post Civil War baby, born in 1867. He had a well with a hand pump beside the kitchen porch. He bought a little red school house with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. He paid for it outright, no mortgage. A coal burning potbellied stove sat in the living room and heated the whole house. In the beginning, it had no electricity or plumbing. By the time I came along, he had a sink with running water and electric lights. I don’t remember him having an electric stove. He had an outhouse. Because his eyesight became bad in his elder years, he had a rope from the house to the outhouse. My grandfather and grandmother were both scholars with certifications for teaching, but my grandfather earned the greater portion on his income from painting houses. He had no horse or automobile, so he walked everywhere, in every kind of weather, even bitter winters in Numidia, Pennsylvania. My grandmother did not work outside of home in order to raise their three sons and take care of the household. She, however fought for women’s suffrage and was definitely her own person from all accounts. I never had a chance to meet her. She and my two uncles had all died before I was born. He died when I was just six years old, but I remember him and that little house vividly. I wrote my time travel story, THE VIOLIN, based on these memories and what memories my father shared with me about his years growing up and about his brothers and parents.

The Man in the Cover is my Uncle John McNeal for whom THE VIOLIN was written

THE VIOLIN

Can the heart live inside a violin case? Can a message reach across time?

Genevieve Beaumont is haunted by dreams of a drowning man she is helpless to save. When she buys a violin and discovers news clippings and pictures of its owner who died from downing inside the case, she realizes he is the man in her dreams.

She travels to the little town where he died 90 years before to investigate who he was and how he came to drown that day. Little does she know how her own life will be tangled in the mystery…until she steps through the threshold of time to 1927.

Excerpt:

She heard him take in a slow breath before he spoke to her in a more relaxed, quiet tone. "I beg your pardon, miss, I didn't mean to curse. What's your name?" The younger man’s voice soothed her as he knelt beside the couch where she lay. He wrung out a cloth in the bowl of water beside his knee, folded it, and applied it to Genevieve's brow.

"My name is Genevieve Beaumont. I was just standing at the window and now…I'm here." She lifted a shaky hand to her brow. "My head is pounding."

"You bumped your head when you fainted. Is that a French name?"  He lifted a quizzical brow and smiled.

She lifted her eyes and got a good, close-up look at him then. Her heart almost stopped beating in her chest. She sucked in a deep breath. What was happening to her? How could any of this be possible? The man holding the cool cloth to her head was the man in the pictures she found in the violin case!

She would not have guessed he had auburn hair, or that his eyes were such a vivid, bottle green. He wore a collarless, khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled up and suspenders instead of a belt held up his tan, canvas trousers. Oh, but he was handsome—so much more than his pictures ever allowed. She didn't have time to admire the young man's good looks because her mind swirled round and round with the unfathomable implications of her situation.

Buy Link:   AMAZON

My earliest memories of my maternal grandmother are from the time when she lived in an old Victorian house on a farm. She had a big green coal burning stove that heated the kitchen, which was huge, and their hot water from a tank on the side. The bedrooms upstairs had fancy iron grates in the floors that could be opened or closed to heat the rooms above stairs. I also recall all the chores my grandmother performed cooking on that stove, cleaning, washing clothes and hanging them on the line, ironing with an iron she heated on the stove, and looking after the chickens and the baby chicks. She was busy all day long, yet she enjoyed sewing, quilting with her friends, knitting, and crocheting—and she considered all that fun. She also went to visit her friends on Sundays which was a treat because they traded goods with one another, the same the women on the frontier did. Visiting was a pleasure, a comfort, and a news exchange.

I used much of what my grandmother did in several stories including “A Christmas Visitor” in the new Christmas anthology, SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS. My only regret is I didn’t ask my grandparents more. There is so much more I wish I knew.

 SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS is an anthology of sweet historical western romances that take place in the state of Texas written by veteran western romance writers: Stacey Coverstone, Sarah J. McNeal, Cheryl Pierson, and Marie Piper.

(my contribution) A Christmas Visitor

Prairie Rose Publications

Releases November 2, 2017

Buy Link:  Sweet Texas Christmas

He left her…Now he’s back…But not for long…

Sterling Thoroughgood was Matilda Barton’s first and only love, but he left her three years ago to seek his fortune in Wyoming. And now he’s come back with a puzzle box as a gift with a secret inside. But as far as Matilda’s concerned, it’s three years too late.

Is love lost forever or does the mysterious puzzle box hold the key to happiness?

Excerpt:

“Don’t you even think about stepping up on this porch, Sterling Alexander Thoroughgood, or I’ll shoot a hole in you big enough for a team of horses to jump through.” The woman wearing a faded blue calico dress aimed the shotgun straight at his heart…and sometimes his liver since she wasn’t holding the shotgun all that steady.

Sterling raised his hands in the air. His bare hands were practically numb from the cold. He glanced up at the slate gray sky. Snow’s comin’. Then he grinned at the woman holding the shotgun. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Matilda.”

She dipped the shotgun for just a moment, but raised it again as if on a second thought. “What do you want here after being gone for three years? Did you break some hearts up in Wyoming? Maybe you have some fathers and brothers gunning for you and you thought you’d come running back here to hide.”

Well, there it was. He’d hurt her when he left and she wasn’t about to let him forget it.

Buy Link:  Sweet Texas Christmas

Sarah J. McNeal is a multi-published author who writes diverse stories filled with heart. She is a retired ER and Critical Care nurse who lives in North Carolina with her four-legged children, Lily, the Golden Retriever and Liberty, the cat. Besides her devotion to writing, she also has a great love of music and plays several instruments including violin, bagpipes, guitar and harmonica. Her books and short stories may be found at Prairie Rose Publications and its imprints Painted Pony Books, and Fire Star Press and Sundown Press. She welcomes you to her website and social media:

Website 

My Amazon Author’s Page

Facebook

Twitter

The Wildings

Fantasy and Dreams Blog

Sweethearts of the West

Prairie Rose Publications Blog