WeWriWa: Nothing to Give . . . Temptation’s Trail

When asked who their favorite character is from all the books they’re written, most writers will hesitate to commit to one above all others. But me, naw! I know who my favorite is—one I enjoyed so much, I wrote a five-book series just so I could bring him back again and again in a strong secondary role. Harmon Bass is a half-Apache tracker from the unforgiving wilds of West Texas – a dime novel legend who makes Eastern heiress, Amanda Duncan’s imagination (and heart!) run wild. Until she discovers the man she’s hired to find her missing brother, falls “short” of her expectations. Until, unexpectedly, they find a kindred soul in one another. Amanda knows she’s found her forever love. Harm needs more convincing . . .

He didn’t owe her anything else. Once she paid up, there was no reason for him to stick around, no reason for him to care one way or another what she did. Let her pretend her brother was some saint who couldn’t be tempted by the greed that was a part of every man’s soul. That wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t up to him to help her grow up. The man was dead. Now she could go home and get on with her fancy life and brush him off like the dust of Texas.
So why couldn’t he shake off her look of desolation?
Because he knew all about being lonely and alone, and he couldn’t bear the thought of Amanda being adrift like that.
(…and a bit more)
There were so few people who could touch upon what little softness was left inside him. Somehow, the silly little eastern girl had become one of them. He’d seen the look in her eyes back at the stream, that look that promised heart and soul, and it quite plainly had scared him to death. He couldn’t come close to giving her what she wanted from him. He had nothing left to give. He’d turned away from those things fourteen years ago, forging his future in sweat and pain in the way of the Apache. He’d been taught that a display of gentleness was unmanly, that to hunger for a woman showed a lack of self-discipline, which was a despised flaw. A man went about with men and did not crave the company of a female. 
The way he craved Amanda’s.

All five books – TEMPTATION’S TRAIL, TEXAS DESTINY ,  WILD TEXAS BRIDE, TEXAS RENEGADE and SWEET TEXAS DREAMS, books that earned me a Career Achievement award – have been long out of print. Good news is – I have the rights back and can get them back into readers’ hands . . . after I send them off to be torn down, rescanned, and formatted into usable files (I typed the originals from handwritten drafts in the early 1990s to submit the manuscripts!). Good thing there are companies that anticipate the need for such work. Now, to decide which I want to go with . . . and while I wait, it’ll be NEW cover time!! But then there’s nothing like visiting the Wild West while it’s 9-degrees outside and the car is an ice-encased igloo!
What’s up with you in your writing? Can’t wait to find out . . .

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