The Struggle is Real Week 6: Oops, I Did it Again

 

Did you ever play Dodge Ball?  I won’t say I have fond memories of it. I was pretty good at the “dodging” aspect but throwing and actually hitting something wasn’t in my skill set.  So yep, I was one of those always chosen last.

Anyway, some weeks it feels like I am back there in Miss Teeboone’s gym class at Virgil I Grissom elementary school dodging those flying balls.  Some weeks life flings stuff your way with all the aggression of a pre-pubescent boy who is still angry you beat him in last week’s spelling bee.  

Yes, that’s where I have been.  Dodging all sorts of missiles, or so it seems.  Bills-still sorting out the issue with FILs electricity bill. Caregiving--some weeks are just "those" weeks.  Family--always something, let's just leave it at that.  Puppy training, aka exhausting myself so hyper puppy will be less hyper LOL.  And work.  Lots and lots of work.  As I have said before, some weeks ya gotta go where the money is.  So that, unfortunately, has had to be my main focus.  

I did manage to eek in a few piddly writing moments, just to touch base with my characters once or twice.  But once again I did not meet the daily goal I had set for myself, even though it was fairly small. 

Is it just me, or did 2023 come in like a tidal wave?  It just hasn’t let up even once.  And it has yet to allow me to come up for air. 

I guess if it was easy we wouldn’t call it “pushing yourself”.  But I am not giving up.  Writing has been my balm, my comfort, my therapy for far too many years for me to let life keep pushing it out of my reach.  

But, my friends, the struggle is real.  

And it continues.  

Leave me a comment either here or on FB to let me know how you did this week.

 

Friday Friends: Kim Turner with Wylder Hearts

Available December 2, 2020!

 Caleb Holt is the man to see for a good horse. Abuse an animal and he'll teach the lesson that goes with it. When he lands on top of a woman in the midst of a brawl and snags a passionate kiss, he sparks a fire he never expected. But it doesn't take the cowboy long to learn a lesson of his own… sometimes love comes with a price. 

Seamstress Laurel Adams is embarrassed by Caleb's stolen kiss. Though she is determined to raise her son alone, she wonders at the ease of falling for the handsome horseman. But when the husband who abandoned her returns, there is only one choice to make—the one that breaks her heart into tiny pieces.

                                                                         ~*~
  

The businessman bolted forward and swung a fist that made contact with his chin, leaving him off balance and staggering backward. Trying to avoid the crowd that had collected, he bobbled and went down, expecting to hit the ground. But the impact never came. Instead he landed softly to a shrill feminine scream, and the greenest eyes he’d ever beheld.

Time simply froze, the world around him a haze as he found himself mesmerized by the beauty of the woman beneath him. It had been a damn long time since he was in such a position as this.

Unable to move with the crowd about them, he apologized, allowing a slight smile to curl his lips, though he knew he should get back to the fight. He reached to tip his hat and realized he’d lost it. The feel of her bosom pressed between them stirred up a thing or two. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.”

“I’m quite all right.” She pushed to rise, but the crowd surrounding them was thick.

“Actually, I was apologizing for this.” Caleb bent to kiss her, slow and searing, her lips plump and tender, holding him there a moment longer than needed. He held her surprised green-eyed gaze a moment more and then he was back to the fight.

Wylder Hearts will be released on December 2, 2020.  Pre-order here. For more information on Kim's other books visit her website or blog 

Kim Turner writes western historical romance, and discovered her passion of writing at the age of eight by writing poems, short stories and journals. Kim graduated from Clayton State University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing and holds a Master’s Degree in Adult Education from Central Michigan University. Working as a registered nurse Educator/Quality Analyst for over twenty-seven years, she enjoys studying the medical treatments of the old west as well as keeping up with the latest western movies and television. While she loves reading anything from highlanders to pirates, she claims to have an unquenchable thirst for the American Cowboy when choosing her reads. Kim lives south of Atlanta with her husband and calls her greatest accomplishment the birth of one daughter and the adoption of another from China-neither of which came easy. Kim is a member of Romance Writers of American and Georgia Romance Writers and calls her critique group from Southside Scribes the best thing that ever happened to her writing, that and a pretty wonderful group of beta readers. Kim’s debut novel SAWYER’S ROSE was a 2014 Maggie Finalist and a 2015 Golden Heart Finalist!

Kim’s Motto: It’s All About A Cowboy and the Woman He Loves.

Welcome to The Wylder West...

 

Throwback Thursday: Wild Texas Wind

Another fun blast from the past for Throwback Thursday, this time from my first historical western, Wild Texas Wind...


All Raz Colt wants is land, a quiet peaceable existence and to put his life as a hired gun in the past. When the chance to earn a sizable fortune by rescuing a kidnapped heiress comes his way, he seizes the opportunity. Trouble is, the heiress doesn't want to be rescued. Offsetting Arden O'Hara's beauty is a rattlesnake personality and shrewish temper. Despite her claim that she faked the kidnapping so her fiance would ride to her rescue, Raz knows someone is out to kill her. And if anyone gets the pleasure of wringing her lovely neck, it's going to be him.

Arden O'Hara is desperate to go home. Her fiance was supposed to ride to her rescue, proving it's her---and not her father's money--- he loves. Instead an arrogant stranger, with weapons strapped gun-fighter low and a decided lack of sympathy for her situation, shows up spouting a ridiculous tale about someone trying to kill her. It's infuriating when Raz Colt's claims prove true after not one but several attempts are made on her life. She has no idea who this fast gun with the deadly aim is, or why he makes her feel as wild and untamed as the Texas wind. But like it or not, if anyone is capable of getting her home alive, it's Raz Colt.

~~~

Arden couldn’t be certain the exact moment she realized the approaching rider was watching her. But the chill crawling up her spine was the doing of the man lying unconscious beneath her. He’d deliberately tried to frighten her.

And for the moment, she was stuck. Her chin hovered mere inches from his chest. No matter how she struggled she couldn’t free her hair from beneath his dead weight.

“Wake up.” She tried to squirm free, to kick him—anything. She reached awkwardly around to slap at his cheek, but to no avail. He didn’t stir. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest assured her she hadn’t killed him.

The rider moved closer, slowing his pace to take in the scene before him. It was too late to play dead. She had a funny feeling it wouldn’t have done much good anyway.

The metal of the .44 grew warm against her palm, but her hand, pinned awkwardly between her body and the man she lie upon, was numb and tingly from lack of circulation. The rider stopped a few feet away and dismounted. He walked closer, then stopped, studying her with a smug expression. When the corners of his mouth turned up, she had the oddest feeling he considered himself the cat to her mouse. Every instinct screamed the truth. This was the killer.

In one grand attempt to remain alive, she rolled to one side, ignoring the sting of her scalp, and freed her arm. Cocking the hammer with her thumb, she trained the gun on him. “Don’t come any cl—”

A hand on the back of her neck slammed her face down on the ground. Her finger was squeezed tight against the trigger as he—the arrogant ass she’d been unable to rouse a moment ago—closed his hand over hers. Three shots rang out almost simultaneously, the kick from the gun lurching her arm as it fired. Something warm buzzed past her ear, like the hum of a bumble bee but much too fast and much too hot. She opened her mouth to scream but inhaled a mouthful of dust and dirt instead.

Silence reigned for only a second before he rolled off her, one hand pressed to his head where she’d struck him. “Son of a bitch.”

Sputtering, Arden sat up and wiped an arm across her mouth. The rider lay slumped at an odd angle in the dirt. She turned to the suddenly-conscious stranger “You killed him.”

He stood, hand still on his head. “You’re welcome.” With a motion of his finger, he wordlessly told her to stay put. Gun in hand, he approached the dead man, then nudged him with the toe of his boot. He bent to press two fingers to the side of the man’s neck. “He’s dead.”

“So I gathered.” She noted the precision of the two holes, one square in the chest, the other right between the eyes. Either would have been a lethal shot. Another chill slithered down her spine despite the sun’s merciless heat. Who was this man with such deadly aim?

“Do you know him?”

The sight of the corpse, already taking on a chalky hue, began to sour her empty stomach. She drew her knees up to her chin, shaking her head in answer to his question. “Do you?”

He glanced down at the man’s face, cocked his head as if considering. “By reputation only. At least I think it’s him.” He rose, reloaded, and holstered the .44. with a smooth motion that told her he did it often and without thought.