Gosford, Texas, five miles, the sign read.
Tucker Richmond eyed the barren landscape and laughed. “More like godforsaken, if you ask me.”
A hazy recollection hit like the ground rising up after a bad toss from a rank bull.
Godforsaken. His bruised and battered memory replayed the moment; sweet, feminine laughter accompanied by the music of birdsong and a kiss as brief as the rippling of a swiftly moving stream.
Then, fast as it came, it disappeared.
All but the phantom ache of a broken heart.
He laid his hand atop his chest, reassured by the measured beating he felt there. “Still alive, old buddy,” he told himself. “Head as empty as a rain barrel in a drought, but still alive.”
The exit came up fast, but not as a surprise. He’d been heading for it for days—-even before he’d left home, it seemed. Toward a girl named Shea Osborne. A ranch named the Busted Heart. Memories of a life no longer his.
He bore to the right.
This is the opening page of Married in :08 (that’s eight seconds, for all you city slickers). It’s the first of the cowboy books, or cowgirl books, I guess I should say, as the series is titled The Cowgirls of Gosford.
Tucker is a rodeo man, a bull rider who’s sidelined for the time being as he recovers from the accident that took away his memory. He travels from Oklahoma to Gosford, Texas to find Shea Osborne, the girl his parents say was the love of his life. He doesn’t expect to find a beautiful woman who has moved on from her childish fancies of love to raise twin five year-olds who look suspiciously like him.
This is the writer’s lot: we find stories and characters we fall in love with. Sometimes the writing goes well and editors fall in love with those stories and characters, sometimes something is missing.
My goal is to finding the missing parts, one word at a time. I know I can do it because I love writing, I love Shea and Tucker, and I believe in happy endings. I hope you'll stick with me because you do, too.
Happy writing!
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