Kayla's Cowboy, another Longview Romance by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about Nancy's books click on the cover above.

For any of you familiar with my Longview Romance series, you'll recall that Rob Chetwynd and Michelle Wilson were engaged. Or at least that's the impression Michelle had, not to mention all of Longview. So it was a shock when Rob came back from the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas married to someone else.  And that someone else was a dressage rider, not someone familiar with rodeo. Kayla Dunbarton had no idea of the hornet's nest she was going to encounter when she accompanied her new husband home to Longview, Alberta. 

Kayla's Cowboy tells the tale of how this wedding came to be and the events leading up to the nuptials. Not to mention the fall out afterwards.

Here's a short excerpt to tempt you. Kayla's first meeting with Rob which doesn't go so well:

She’d just finished taking the bridle apart and was dropping the bridoon bit and the curb into a pail of warm water when the curtained stall door opened a bit.

“Anybody here?” A male voice asked.

“Get out of there, Chetwynd,” another voice cautioned.

What the hell? Kayla pulled the door all the way open and fisted her hands on her hips. “What do you want?” she demanded. “Who the hell are you?”

“Aw, c’mon now, pretty lady. I was just wantin’ to say hello and admire your horse.” The tall cowboy pushed his hat back on his head and grinned down at her. His gaze swept her up and down, lingering on the swell of her breast below the gapping neck of her old sweatshirt.

“I asked what your name was,” she repeated. “And I don’t appreciate you just inviting yourself into my tack room. There was something interesting about the man, his jeans snugged against his lean hips, broad shoulders filling out his western shirt. There was some kind of advertising emblazoned all over the red shirt but she couldn’t make it all out. The cowboy just continued to grin at her in appreciation.

“I’m sorry, m’am. I’m Cody, Cody Butters and I apologize for my partner here, he’s a little short on manners.” The second man elbowed in front of his friend.

“Hell fire, man. She should know who I am,” the first man said belligerently.

Kayla’s temper flared and she glared over Cody’s shoulder at the cowboy. “I haven’t a clue who you are, and I could care less. Why don’t you go back under the rock you crawled out of?”

“He don’t mean no harm, m’am. He’s just a mite uncivilized, is all,” Cody intervened. This idiot, is Rob Chetwynd, the reigning Bull Riding Champion.”

“At your service,” Rob swept his hat off and made a deep bow.

Kayla sighed in exasperation. “What do you want? I have things to do.”

“Just wanted to say hello and say how much we enjoyed your riding,” Cody said with a meaningful glance at his friend.

“Actually, I wanted to see if your little behind was as cute out of the arena as in it,” Rob said, lifting one eyebrow.

“That’s enough.” Kayla grabbed a stable broom from the corner of the stall and smacked him with it. “Get out! Get out now, before I call security.”

“Now, now, there ain’t no call to do that.” Cody grabbed his friend by the back of his belt and started to drag him out of the stall.

“What’s going on here?” Anna demanded, coming to a halt with Wellington in tow.

“These two yahoos invited themselves into our tack room and made themselves very unwelcome,” Kayla told her, still brandishing the broom.

Cody turned and let go of Rob’s belt as Anna came up. “Man, that’s a nice piece of horse flesh,” he said, eyes running over the 17.3 hand gelding in appreciation.

“Yes, he is, and I’d thank you to not touch him and take your…companion…and leave.” Kayla glared at the two men. “Now.”

“Sorry, yeah. I gotta apologize for my friend here. He’s maybe had a bit too much celebratin’, if you catch my drift,” Cody said.

“That’s not excuse for being an ass,” Kayla shot back.

“Yes, m’am.” Cody ran his eyes over Wellington again, stopping when Anna stepped out from behind the big horse into his line of vision. Interest flashed across his face before he dragged Rob away.

“What was all that about?” Anna asked, her gaze on the red headed cowboy. “What did he say his name was?”

“Which one?” Kayla stripped the cooler off Wellington and picked up a brush from the tack box just inside the tack room door.

“The red headed one, not the other one,” Anna said folding the cooler up.

“I don’t know…Cam, Cale, Cody…maybe…why?” She glanced up from her work. “You can’t seriously be interested, can you?”

“Maybe,” Anna dragged the word out. “He seemed nice, I mean, nicer than his friend. And he sure filled out those jeans…” She winked at Kayla.

“Oh, you,” Kayla snorted. “You’d date the devil himself if he had a nice ass.”

Anna grinned. “Probably,” she agreed, chuckling.   

To Write or Not to Write by Nancy M Bell

 

To explore more of Nancy's books click on the cover above. 

I'm working on another installment of the A Longview Romance series. Storm's Refuge was the first book, which was followed by Come Hell or High Water and A Longview Wedding. Michelle is the heroine in the first three books and her life is turned upside down when her supposed fiance comes home from the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas married to someone else. 

Rob Chetwynd, the fiance in question, has played a role in the first three books, but this time I'm sharing how the impromptu Vegas wedding comes about. Kayla's Cowboy is the title and is told from Kayla's POV. How she meets Rob and how their relationship progresses is certainly a work in progress.  

I'm struggling with how to bring these two disparate characters together. Kayla is an accomplished dressage rider who is at the NFR to give a demonstration of her sport. Her sponsors have arranged the whole thing and have sent another horse and rider pair along as well. Kayla and Anna split the duties with one of them doing the riding and the other providing the commentary on a rotating basis. This is all okay until Anna's horse, Arizona, gets cast in the stall and unable to perform, which puts added  pressure on Kayla and Wellington. 

Anna's a bit of a party animal and she brings Rob and his pal into Kayla's orbit. She thinks the cocky, but admittedly sexy, cowboy is an adrenaline junkie for getting on rough stock not to mention enraged bulls.  But, things take some twists and turns and she is thrown into his company more and more. Somehow, the cockiness wears off and a more vulnerable side of Rob comes to the forefront.

He confesses that, while he and Michelle have been friends forever, and everyone in Longview expects them to get married, Rob isn't in love with Michelle that way. His mother is pushing him to get on with it, and Michelle is certainly unaware of his reservations, added to the pressure is the fact his late father's dying wish was that Rob and Michelle get married and combine the Wilson and Chetwynd  ranches. Rob isn't ready to settle down with Michelle and he sure as hell isn't ready to quit the rodeo road.

That's it so far, now I've just got to figure out how Kayla agrees to marry him. She noticing the chinks in his armour and as a woman who was raised by her aunt after her parents died, she realizes how Rob's cocky facade is just a front to hide the face he's fighting his own demons. 

So, to write or not to write, the dreaded writers block. I keep turning my characters this way and that and trying to figure out how they fit together. <sigh> 

I know this dilemma should help me deal with the Covid isolation blues, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be working. I'm into Covid Winter x 2 and not liking it at all. Hopefully, either Kayla or Rob will cosy up with my muse and help me out here.

Until next month, happy writing. Stay warm, stay safe and stave off the dreaded writer's block.

Nancy 

Christmas Memories by Nancy M Bell

 

To discover more about Storm and this Christmas tale as well as Nancy's other books click on the cover.

We always put the tree up on December 20th as that is my birthday. Mom and Dad never wanted to put the tree up earlier than that as we always had a real tree and they worried that it would dry out.

We had these really cool bubble lights that were all different colors but got really hot when you left them on too long. There was a fluffy white angel on top.

One Christmas Eve when we were still outside in the driveway just getting out of the car Wendy and I got a huge surprise.  There, coming down the Cooney’s driveway, who were our next door neighbors, was Santa Claus! 

 We both screamed and then bolted for the back door.  If Santa came while were still up and awake he wouldn’t leave us anything.  We tore through the back door into the kitchen and down the back hall to the bedroom.  With our wet snow boots and coats still on Wendy and I scrambled into bed and pulled the covers over our heads.  I had a harder time getting into bed as I had to climb up into the top bunk, but I made it.  Mom and Dad came in and tried to get us to take off our coats and boots and change into night clothes.  Wendy and I wouldn’t budge, we were pretending to be asleep so that Santa would leave our presents.  We were sure that he was coming to our house any moment because we KNEW he just next door and he hadn’t been to our house next.  He must have already been to Jo-anne and John Lee’s place because they lived on the other side of the Cooneys, so we had to be next.  Mom and Dad must have removed our boots after we were asleep because they were gone in the morning.  And Santa did leave our presents for us that year. 

Things changed in 1964, June was married and living on Homestead Ave with Butch and my brother Timmy was born in July.  So Christmas 1964 was a little different.  There was one more of us to track all over the city to visit my aunts.

Sometime in the 1960’s Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy and Cindy and Tammy-Lori moved to Toronto.  My Grandma and Grandpa Rafter moved from Constance Lake near Ottawa and bought a little store on Davis Lake, near Kinmount.  Every winter they would come to Toronto and stay with Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy, so now we had even more excitement and visiting on Christmas Eve.  We often went to Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy’s for New Year’s dinner.  The turkey dressing was always yucky, it had so much sage in it ( which Gramma Rafter LOVED) and sometimes sausage. Not my favorite part of the meal I’ll tell you.  There was always way too much to eat, tons of turkey and cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy.

 Our Christmas dinner at home was always large.  June and Butch and their sons Geoff, Peter and Terry would come. My Aunt Frances and Uncle Jim came on Christmas afternoon early and brought their sausage dog with them.  The first dog I remember was Sandy who was quite portly and smelled like DOG.  He would bite my dad if he tried to discipline us in front of him.  We liked Sandy.  Sandy would also dance with us, running around while we pranced around laughing.  Aunt Frances always gave us Avon for Christmas and her packages were always decorated with cool stuff. Uncle Jim is my mother’s only brother and he has one daughter Marilyn who lives in the States.  There would also be My Gramma and Grampa Pritchard who lived with us, Wendy and me and Timmy.  Mom would pull the big table with all the leaves in it out into the middle of our small living room and the table would stretch from the front window to the door to the kitchen.  It was set with these cool plates that we only used at Christmas, all pale yellow ,blue and pink around the edges with white roses in the centre.  Mom used her good silverware that Dad bought her one year for Christmas and a tablecloth that never seemed to escape the cranberries or the gravy. Our small house was full of the smell of turkey and gravy and boiling potatoes.  There never seemed to be enough room but somehow everyone managed to get seated at the table and Dad would carve the turkey. Wendy and I would fight over the drumsticks, although in later times Timmy always got one.

 Dad had this movie camera that required a bar of really bright lights in order to film anything.  In most of film from those years we all look like moles that have wandered into the sunlight.  Our faces are red (the lights were hot) and our eyes all squinted shut. Timmy running around with his diapers drooping off his butt.  Wendy always made sure her hair was combed and she looked presentable before going upstairs. Me, not so much. 

So much has changed since then. Places at the table hold different faces now, but the magic still holds us in hollow of its hand. Christmas Joy and Peace to you and yours, in this season and throughout the year.