How Cowboys say "I Love You" By Connie Vines #How Cowboys say I Love You, #Cowboy Romance, #Sexy Cowboys

For some, it's the cowboy hat and boots, a sexy smile, or how they look in tight jeans. Romance novels often portray them as mysterious and confident with a bad-boy streak. In movies, they are rugged, hard-working heroes who ride off into the sunset at the end of the day.

Who hasn’t done a little dream walking about the cowboys of yesteryear driving cattle across the plains, a lawman with a silver star pinned to his shirt, or today's rodeo cowboy, or the cattle rancher down the road and sighed? There’s something about a man in boots, denim, and a cowboy hat that makes a woman’s heart increase speed and her mouth dry, isn't there?

🤠  🐴

Is it their manners, sense of justice, or the fact they take off their hats and say, “Thank you, Ma’am”? 

Or is it the swagger of the rodeo cowboy after he picks himself up off the ground?  The easy way a rancher leans over the corral fence taking stock of his herd, with one foot resting on a rail.

There’s something about cowboys.

A cowboy doffs his hat and opens a door. They respect women. 

When I lived in the Texas panhandle, I often heard the old saying: "Texas is hell on women and horses."

Fathers still teach their sons the way of the old West and remind them there was a time when women were few and far between.  And it's still a privilege to have a female to cater to and cherish. 

🥰💕

So, how does a woman know if a Cowboy is in love?

• An invitation to a Barn Dance.
• He Cooks dinner.
• Buys you a pair of cowgirl boots. 
•  A gift of  Turquoise jewelry.
•  Or the old-fashioned way.  He gets down on one keen and proposes.

Why not snuggle under the covers with one of my Cowboys?

Lynx Maddox

Brede Kristsensen

With a dangerous reputation for taking chances and tempting fate, Lynx Maddox has one goal in life -- to win the coveted Sliver Buckle Rodeo Championship. 

But when he sets eyes on lovely Rachel Scott, he becomes determined to capture her heart as well.

"A worthy addition to anyone's book collection"  Under the Covers Book 

 

"A rare find. A must-read!" Book Museum

"Instant Action/Sizzling Attraction!  This book kept pages turning, and a box of tissues close at hand."

Trouble is something hard-edged rancher, Brede Kristensen, knows all about.  A widower with a rambunctious young daughter,  a ranch to run, and an ornery cook who has just run off. Yet, amid a violent storm, he finds an injured woman. 

A woman who can't recall her name or her past. But Brede vows to protect her from harm. 

What he hadn't bargained for was her laughter and gentleness finding a way into the lonely corners of his heart.

https://bookswelove.net/vines-connie/

LYNX

Brede

MY Website and social links

My Blog

Wishing you a holiday season filled with warmth,  joy, and gingerbread kisses!

(Remember, BWL ebooks are still on sale)

Connie

How hot is hot?

We complain about the cold in winter; we complain about the heat in summer. But how hot is hot? Like all good answers, “it depends.”

For example, hot in Vancouver is not hot in Texas. And hot in Texas is positively cool in comparison to Death Valley, California, where a world record temperature of 134 degrees was observed in 1913. (This temperature was matched on the 13^th of September 2012, in El Aziza, Libya.)

Surprisingly, humans can survive incredibly hot weather. It is noted that at 130 degrees F, survival time begins to decrease drastically, but it is estimated that people can survive temperatures of even 150 degrees, in dry conditions, for short periods of time, with adequate hydration. The Dallol Depression, also known as the Danakil Depression, a desert area in Ethiopia, is covered with sulphurous springs, lakes of boiling lava and an active volcano that spits out hot magma. The Afar people, who inhabit this place, eke out an existence herding camels and mining salt, in temperatures that regularly reach 122 degrees F.

The Earth itself is in a long cooling off period, known as the Quartenary Ice Age, which began 2.6 million years ago. Within it are periods of cooling temperatures lasting 100,000 years, interspersed with warmer cycles known as Interglacial periods. We live in once such Interglacial period, known as the Holocene, which began about 11,700 years ago.

Many scientists argue that the rapid industrialization of the past couple of hundred years has brought about an abnormal phenomenon known as global warming, caused by trapping man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

So how hot is hot? As far as I’m concerned, as a resident of Calgary, Canada, hot is never hot enough. We’ve had record heat this summer, but I’m not complaining—never-ending summer is what I dream of!

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of The Yoga Zapper (www.yogazapper.com) published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)

Road Tripping USA Part Ten by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

www.joandonaldsonyarmey.com

 

 

Author’s Note

I belong to Angels Abreast, a breast cancer survivor dragon boat race team in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Every four years the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission IBCPC) holds an international festival somewhere in the world. In the spring of 2013, my team received a notice that the IBCPC had chosen Sarasota, Florida, USA, to hold the next festival in October 2014.
     We decided to attend and while the other members were going to fly down, tour around some of the sites and head home I wanted to see more of the country and meet some of the people. My husband, Mike, and I drove from our small acreage at Port Alberni, British Columbia, on the Pacific Ocean, to Sarasota, Florida on the Atlantic Ocean.
     Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the people I would meet nor the beautiful places I would see nor the adventures I would have on our ten week, 18,758km (11656 mile) journey. On the thirteenth day of every month in 2016 I will post a part of my trip that describes some of the excellent scenery, shows the generosity and friendliness of the people, and explains some of the history of the country. The people of the USA have much to be proud of.

Road Tripping USA Part Ten

We drove to Langtry, Texas, and stopped at the Judge Roy Bean Saloon and Museum. Roy Bean owned a store when he was appointed as Justice of the Peace of the Pecos County to combat the lawlessness of the area. He moved his court to Langtry and set up a tent saloon. He later built a wooden saloon which he named the Jersey Lilly after famous English actress, Lillie Langtry. She was his idol and he composed many letters to her inviting her to his town, which he claimed he named after her.
     Judge Roy Bean dispatched his own version of the law and was known as the ‘Law West of the Pecos’. Although he was also known as the ‘Hanging Judge’ there is conflicting information about that. Some say there is no evidence that he ever sentenced anyone to hang and others state that he sentenced two men to hang, one of whom escaped. His bar, or the front verandah, was his courtroom and his customers usually acted as a jury. He had one law book, his own idea of frontier justice, and a six gun to back his decisions.
     Lillie Langtry was born Emilie Le Breton on October 13, 1853, in Jersey, England. She married Edward Langtry in 1874. Her beauty won her many acclaims and she became a stage actress in 1881. She later formed her own production company. She toured the UK and went to the United States on tour in 1883. After many such trips, Lilly, as the American's spelled her name, became an American citizen in 1897. She died in Monaco on February 12, 1929. She did get to Langtry, Texas, in 1904, but it was a few months after Judge Roy Bean's death.  
     The buildings- the billiards hall, the saloon, and the opera hall- are all original and well preserved. We walked into the saloon and I bellied up to the bar. In the Opera House was a bed and some other furniture.
     Beside the museum is the Cactus Garden Interpretive Trail. We wandered the path through the different cacti reading their names and descriptions of their uses. I learned that the fruit and flowers of the Spanish Dagger are edible and the fiber is used for string, and that candy is made out of the Eagles Claw. It was a lovely walk through the garden and across a man-made dry river.
     Langtry is just a few houses near the museum and a post office. I bought a post card and mailed it to mom.
     We were on the eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Dessert and we drove through this desert over the next week as we went through southwestern Texas and into New Mexico and Arizona. The desert also goes south into Mexico. It covers 139,769 sq. miles (362,000 sq. km) and is the third largest desert on the Western hemisphere, and second only to the Great Basin in North America.

     At Marathon we headed south and passed a sign stating we had entered the Big Bend National Park. However, the headquarters were still 28 miles (45km) away and the campground 20 miles (32km) past that on the Rio Grande. We drove through a tunnel and finally reached the campground after dark.

     Big Bend National Park is named for the big curve in the Rio Grande. It covers 800,000 acres (323,760ha) of desert and mountains, and includes 118 miles (190km) of the Rio Grande. It is the largest protected area of the Chihuahuan desert in the U.S.
     In the shower/laundry room the next morning, I talked with a woman who said she and her husband had been in the park for five days and were planning on staying for a couple more. They had been RVers for a year, travelling around the countryside. She told me about some of the hiking trails in the park. She said to watch for the trinkets that were beside the hiking trails for people to buy. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about but I figured I would find out.
     Mike and I walked to the boat launch and Mike put his foot in the Rio Grande. We drove to the Rio Grande Village nature trail. Mike wasn’t sure how far he could get but we set out. Just as we crossed the bridge over a pond we met four people who had just finished the trail.
     “Is the trail worth going on?” I asked.
     “Oh, yes,” one of the men said.
     “Is it hard?”
     “Going around the bottom of the hill is okay but it is a steep climb to the top.”
     The other man wore a jacket with the name Jasper on it. Mike saw it and asked. “Are you from Jasper, Alberta?”
     “No. We’re from London, Ontario. We’re Canadians.”
     “We’re Canadians from Vancouver Island.”
      The man said they came down to Texas every fall to spend the winter with their friends in San Antonio. He asked us what we were doing. Mike said we had gone to an international breast cancer dragon boat survivor festival in Sarasota.
     “Oh,” one of the women said. “One of our friends in London belongs to a breast cancer survivor dragon boat team and she was at Sarasota.”
     I asked the name of the team was but they couldn’t remember.
     We started hiking along the trail and we hadn't gone very far when we found some hiking sticks, and scorpions, road runners, necklaces, ocotillos, roosters, and other items made out of beads and copper wire in a group by the trail. There was a piece of cardboard beside them with the prices on it and a plea for donations to support their school.
     These were the trinkets the woman in the laundromat had been talking about. They were left there by Mexicans who came across the river.
     It was on the honour system to pay and there was a container to leave the money. Mike and I each bought a hiking stick. Mike's had a bird and a cactus painted on it and mine had a snake. We carried on and found three more wayside trinket sites. We climbed up to a magnificent overlook where we could see Mexico across the Rio Grande. There were beautiful canyon rock walls and a town way in the distance. Donkeys grazed just on the other side of the river. Interpretive signs told about the border and the wild animals in the area.
     We descended and then I decided to walk around the hill. On the way I found a sign for a river spur trail. I strolled along it towards the river. On the way I saw bowl-like depressions in slabs of rock. I had talked with the woman in the store when we registered the night before and she told me that they had been notched by the natives centuries ago and every time they came through they used them to grind their grain into flour.
     On our way back to our camper, we met two women heading out on the trail. I told them to watch for the hiking sticks and trinkets. One of them said she thought it was against the law to buy stuff from illegal aliens.
     We headed to the Boquillas Crossing Port of Entry. There was a building at the Port of Entry but the crossing was closed. A man was doing some work on the building so I went and talked to him. He explained that anyone wanting to go to Mexico could walk down to the river. The Mexicans on the other side would come across in boats to pick them up and take them to the town we had seen across the river where they could shop or relax.
     “Many people just go across to chill and say they have been there,” he said.
     There is no guard at the crossing. There are cameras set up and it is monitored in El Paso. Inside the building is a kiosk where anyone wanting to cross could scan their passport. El Paso checks the passport and can keep track by camera when the tourists return.
     The man told me that for hundreds of years the Mexicans had been crossing the river into the US on a bridge at this crossing and no one said anything about it. Then the border patrol decided it wasn't right so they demolished the bridge. But, because they knew the crossings would continue anyway, they gave the Mexicans some green aluminum boats. Those boats are the ones they pick up tourists in.
     On the way to the Boquillas Canyon overlook we saw a sign that said: Purchase or possession of items obtained from Mexican Nationals is illegal.
     We weren’t sure if that meant the items at the trinket sites or if we bought something from them in person.
     From the overlook we could see the river below and a tall rock face in the distance on the Mexican side. There are more trinkets-necklaces, anklets, tea towels, hiking sticks. We looked down on three Mexicans on the other side of the river who were watching us through binoculars. They had a small fire going and one of those green boats sat on the river bank. Mike liked a rock with crystals embedded in it and he bought it. He held the money in the air before putting it in the jar then picked up the rock and showed them. He waved and they waved back.

     We had our oil changed in Alpine and then left on the Texas Mountain Trail. The scenery was wide open spaces, grass, cows, some cacti, some bush, and hills in the distance.

     We drove into Valentine. It has a population of 217 people and no services. Mike saw a sign for a library and he stopped. I still had some of my books so I went in to see if I could donate them to the library. The librarian was very friendly and told me about the founding of the Kay Johnson Library.
     "Kay and her husband owned a ranch near here and she always wanted to do something for Valentine but never got to it before she passed away. So her daughter, and her husband, from Austin Texas bought this old house, fixed it up, and started the library in Kay Johnson's name."
     She took me on a tour showing me the different rooms.
     "Each room has a different type of book: mysteries, romances, children's. There is even one for hard covers. All the books have been donated and anyone can borrow a book."
     "I am a mystery writer," I said. "I have copies of my three novels in the camper. Would you be interested in a set?"
     "Oh, yes." she said. "That would be wonderful."
     I came back and signed them. I gave them to her, then signed the guest book. The place is not advertised but tourists do stop in. A couple from Sweden had signed the book a few days before me.
     The West Texas Valentine's Day celebrations are held in Valentine on Valentine's Day, hosted by the Big Bend Brewing Company from Alpine, Texas. A building in the town has been renovated to hold the party. There are usually three bands, lots of food to eat, and a dance. People come from all over the area to celebrate.
     Valentine began as a station on the Southern Pacific Railroad. There are two stories as to how it received its name. One is that it was founded on Valentine's Day. The other is that it was named after John Valentine, a stockholder in the railroad. The population grew to 600 but when diesel engines were introduced in 1950 the roundhouse was closed. The crew change point was moved in 1984 and the population slowly dwindled.

     We decided we wanted Mexican food for lunch. We saw a sign for Chuy's Restaurant in Van Horne and stopped there. While we waited for our food we were told the story of a Monday night in 1987 when John Madden stopped in to watch Monday night football on their television. During his career Madden was an NFL football player, a super bowl winning coach, and a football commentator on television. He liked the food of this restaurant so much he mentioned it in articles he wrote for magazines. On one of his television shows he called it the "All Madden Haul (sic) of Fame". Madden had been coming to Chuy's for many years and had his own director’s chair with his name on it.

     Mike ordered Quesadillas and I had Flautas, which is shredded beef in corn tortillas. The food was delicious but I don't think we will be back every year.
     As we continued north we are in the Guadeloupe Mountains. Guadeloupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at 8749 ft. (2667m).

Road Tripping USA Part Nine

www.joandonaldsonyarmey.com

Author’s Note

I belong to Angels Abreast, a breast cancer survivor dragon boat race team in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Every four years the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission IBCPC) holds an international festival somewhere in the world. In the spring of 2013, my team received a notice that the IBCPC had chosen Sarasota, Florida, USA, to hold the next festival in October 2014.
     We decided to attend and while the other members were going to fly down, tour around some of the sites and head home I wanted to see more of the country and meet some of the people. My husband, Mike, and I drove from our small acreage at Port Alberni, British Columbia, on the Pacific Ocean, to Sarasota, Florida on the Atlantic Ocean.
     Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the people I would meet nor the beautiful places I would see nor the adventures I would have on our ten week, 18,758km (11656 mile) journey. On the thirteenth day of every month in 2016 I will post a part of my trip that describes some of the excellent scenery, shows the generosity and friendliness of the people, and explains some of the history of the country. The people of the USA have much to be proud of.

Road Tripping USA Part Nine
After leaving New Orleans we passed through La Flourish Parish, Terrebonne Parish, Assumption Parish, Iberia Parish and entered Vermilion Parish. In Abbeville we stopped at the tourist information where I learned that Parish is the name for ‘county’ in Louisiana. It dates back to the Napoleonic Code when France controlled this area. Louisiana is the only state that uses the word.
     Acadians are descendants of French colonists who settled Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, Canada. During the Great Expulsion, 1755 to 1764, the British deported the Acadians to the thirteen colonies. In Louisiana, they became known as Cajuns taken from les Cadiens. Vermilion Parish has the most Cajun people in the state who trace their origins back to Nova Scotia. The woman I talked to in the tourist info told me she had gone to Nova Scotia during the summer to trace her family name there.
     She also told me that when Hurricane Katrina went through, it hit New Orleans and much of the eastern part of the state and missed this area. About a month later Hurricane Rita came and that is when Abbeville was damaged. They were still working to recover.
     The morning was windy and cool. The clouds made it seem darker than it was so I didn’t realize the time. I woke at 8:30. On our drive we passed through a lot of marshland and saw small fields that looked like they were deliberately flooded. In one place we saw a man in a small aluminium boat out in the middle of one of those fields.
     The day remained dull and overcast. At 12:00 noon it was 40F (9C). We only stopped to have lunch. There were signs telling us that we were on a Hurricane Evacuation Route. Because of the time change and the time of year, it was getting dark early. We were stopping at around 4:00-4:30pm. So our days were getting shorter.
     We entered Lake Charles from the south and pulled into a Walmart. Mike wanted some authentic Cajun music so he went shopping. While in the store he asked one woman if there were any good restaurants where we could try Cajun food. She told him any restaurant in town would do. He asked another woman and she gave him a list of a few places she liked or had heard were good. Mike came back out with a CD, a bag of groceries, and papers describing some tourist attractions in the area. He showed me his list of restaurants but I didn’t feel like driving to any of them for supper.
     I went through the pamphlets and found some places to visit within a short distance of the city: an alligator refuge, a rum distillery, which Mike was interested in, and a scenic bridge. I said let's go see them before we left in the morning. I also found an advertisement for a restaurant called Cajun Kitchen. We had seen signs along the road so we thought after we looked at those attractions, which were east of Lake Charles we would return to the city and have lunch there.
Mike’s Story
     I listened to the CD I had bought but it wasn't what I was looking for so I went back in the store. I talked with a young man about music. The young woman, Angelle, who I had talked with earlier came over and the two apparently were a couple. As we chatted I told them about what we were doing and how we were travelling.
     Justin, the young man, told his girlfriend that when he got old he wanted to be just like me.
     “Why?” I asked, surprised.
     “I don't want to be afraid to talk with people when I get older. I want to meet people, I want to do things.”
     Justin advised me on a couple of CDs to buy. The young woman asked me if my wife and I had tried one of the restaurants. I said no. Justin said that he and Angelle would cook us a real Cajun meal if we wanted to go to his apartment the next evening. He didn't get off work until 9:00pm so it would be late.
     “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I protested.
     “I understand that we are strangers and you might be fearful of us,” Justin said.
     “No,” I said. “We have a saying that ‘Strangers are just friends we haven't met yet’.”
     I went to the motorhome and asked Joan. She thought it was so nice of them to offer that she hated to turn them down when they were willing to go through all that effort.
     “It’s going to be pretty late,” I told her.
     “We’ve met so many nice people on our trip,” she said. “Let's change our plans for tomorrow and do it. We could talk with them and get to know them.”
     I went back in and gave them some money to pay for the ingredients for the meal. They agreed to meet us the next evening at 9:00pm in the parking lot.

     The next day It was cool and overcast day. We went to the Bayou Rum Distillery in Lacassine. This is the largest privately owned rum distillery in the United States. They use 100% Louisiana unrefined cane sugar and molasses. The tour had already started so we watched a video about sugar cane harvesting and the making of rum. Cane has to be processed within two days of picking it. At the distillery it is processed in 18 hours.

     We bellied up to the tasting bar and sampled the three different types of rum they produced: gold, silver and Satsuma orange infused rum which was first bottled in 2014. I bought two bottles of the new Satsuma rum and Mike picked up a bag of sugar cane sticks. When he looked at them in the camper he saw that they were a product of, and packaged in, Hawaii.
     Mike and I drove to the Gator Chateau on Rue de L’Acadie. This is home to orphaned baby and rescued mature alligators. They are looked after until they are able to be released back into the wild. When I walked in the woman asked me if I wanted to hold an alligator and I said yes. She picked one up from the heated glass container and gave it to me. It was warm and soft and squirmy. I had to hold it tight. She took a picture of me and then returned the alligator to the box. I asked about alligator feeding and she said that they are hibernating.
     We saw a sign for boudin, a Cajun dish, and decided to try it. We turned off the highway and went into a small restaurant beside a service station. As we entered the restaurant I saw a sign that rice field crawfish were out of season. Those were the fields under water that we had seen and the man in the aluminium had been checking on his crawfish.
     We each ordered boudin, which we found out was made from rice and pork rolled into a ball and deep fried. We enjoyed ours so much that Mike ordered more. I asked about the alligator balls advertised but I was told that they were out of season.
     Mike and I drove to the historic Lorrain Bridge on Lorrain Road near Hayes. The original Lorrain Bridge was built in the early 1900s as a draw bridge over the Bayou Lacassine. It was closed in 1998 for safety reasons. It was rebuilt (not as a drawbridge) and opened again in 2004. It is 209ft (63.7m) in length.
     We drove along the Bayou for a ways just enjoying being in the peaceful scenery and quiet area. A Bayou is the name for a creek or river that flows so slowly that it doesn’t appear to be moving at all. They are usually found in flat or low-lying areas. It can also refer to a marshy lake or wetland.
     We met Justin and Angelle and followed them to their apartment. They had purchased the ingredients and began preparing the meal. Angelle cut the vegetables up while Justin did the cooking. Mike had told him that I can’t tolerate spicy food so he modified the ingredients for me. We’d sample one dish while he made the next and we talked.
     Justin told us he wanted to start a restaurant in Dallas, Texas, and we told him to let us know when that happened and we would come to it. Angelle was raised back in the Bayou and had moved to town to get a job at Walmart. That was where they met. We told them that I was a writer and Mike was retired but had worked in the oil patch in Alberta for many years. We had five children and seven grandchildren.
     It was a relaxed, enjoyable evening that lasted until about 1:30 in the morning. As we were leaving they gave us a container of Creole spices and a jar of jam from Texas. I gave them copies of my books.
     It was as if we were destined to meet that young couple. When we’d driven into Lake Charles the first evening we asked Lola for a Walmart. She gave us a few to pick from. We selected one but as we were driving to it we passed a different one. I told Mike, let’s just stop here. It was the one Justine and Angelle worked at.

     In Texas, we passed through Burnet and turn onto a narrow road to the Longhorn State Park. At the Long Horn Caverns I booked to take the next tour. While waiting I went to the former administration building that was built by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), which was a public relief program operated by a government agency to find work for unemployed, unmarried men. The administration building is used for exhibits but was empty when I went through it. I climbed the steps to look out over the area. Behind the visitor’s center is a trailhead and I strolled the Backbone Ridge Trail, turned onto the 3 Minute Loop and then returned on the Loop D trail through the bush of the area.

     I visited the observation tower that had two sets of circular metal stairs to the top. From there I had a panoramic view of the Texas landscape.
     The tour of the caverns is a 1½ mile (2.4km) round trip. When these caves were discovered, the CCC hired a number of men to clear all the debris--rocks, mud, dirt--from them so they could be opened to the public. They used that debris to make the road to the caverns. The grand staircase at the entrance was built by the CCC.
     The guide told us some of the cavern’s history. This was a Confederate stronghold during the Civil War. They manufactured gunpowder here using the bat guano. Sam Bass was an outlaw who hid out here and the entrance is named after him. During the 1920s, the cave was used as a speakeasy and dancehall by the nearby residents. It was used as a bomb shelter during the Cold War and supplies that could last for months were stocked here.
     A young woman was captured and taken into the cave. Three Texas Rangers repelled down to rescue her. She married one of the rangers and they lived in Burnet.
     There is the Crystal City, which is a room full of calcite crystals, and a waterfall that isn't really a waterfall. It is called that because of its formation from dripping water. There are small bats, some only about the size of a thumb, in the cave. They are independent and like to sleep alone. We could see some of them hanging onto the wall.
     The cave started as limestone then turned to dolomite the further we went. When we reached the far end we were 135ft (41m) underground.