Peggy, Thank you for exchanging blogs with me today. I’m
excited to be in an
anthology with so many talented authors.
When the subject was brought up, by the western romance
authors on the Amazon forum started by an avid western reader, that we should
make an anthology, I was ready to hop on board. Any time so many talented
writers put together a sampling of their work is has to turn out as a win/win.
Readers get great reads in one book and
authors can cross promote.
The only catch—I couldn’t think of what to write. Then the
very same avid reader who brought us together on the forum tossed out one of
her monthly challenges to write a paragraph or more using five words. Marshal,
Preacher, School Teacher,
Undertaker, and Baker.
I was in the middle of two other projects but the more I
thought about those words the opening for my short story, Bluffing the Marshal, came to me:
Nellie Preston stood at
the top of the family cellar gnawing her bottom lip. What would Pa do when he
discovered she had the preacher, school teacher, undertaker, and baker tied up
in the cellar? Even more important—she hoped kidnapping the men would not only
clear her brother’s name but show the handsome marshal she had the grit to be
married to a lawman.
By-the-book Marshal
Barkley should be charging down the road any minute. By now word would have
spread she’d taken the missing men.
Her sour stomach rivaled
the guilt eating away at her good sense. This had been a brash move to get the
marshal out of town, but her brother’s life and her future depended on his
arrival. She’d made the four men as comfortable as possible in the cellar.
She’d even explained why they were here, but they hadn’t taken kindly to being
kidnapped by Marcus Preston’s sister.
Dust plumed into the air
a mile down the road to town. Nellie squinted, staring at the dust, hoping the
marshal came alone. He’d be harder to convince if he brought a posse and his
deputy. They’d say she was just like her brother—a no-good-killer.
She picked up the rifle
leaning against the cellar door and prayed her parents and the younger kids
didn’t come home early from visiting their grandparents two counties over. She
wanted Marcus out of jail and things back to normal by the time Pa came home.
Marcus was her twin, and she loved him dearly, but he did tend to get in fixes
that most young men knew better to stay away from.
Pa always said of the
two; she had the brains and Marcus had the muscle.
Some of her agitation
fled when she spotted one horse and rider running hell bent up their lane.
Marshal Tate Barkley had come by himself.
She smiled. He probably
figured he didn’t need a posse to bring in one young woman.
Nellie cocked the gun and
waited.
~*~
I have several books that have lawmen in them. The first
book of my Halsey Series, Marshal in
Petticoats has an accident prone young woman who is made marshal and the
second book in the series, Outlaw in
Petticoats has the two main characters ending up in law enforcement by the
end of the book. All five of the Halsey Series books are available in an ebook
box set.
You
can read about or purchase the Halsey Brothers Series box set at:
With sixteen published books,
four novellas, and two anthologies, award-winning author, Paty Jager is never at a loss for story ideas and characters in her
head. Her rural life in central and eastern Oregon, and interests in local
history and the world around her, keeps the mystery and romance ideas flowing.
She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.
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