This month on my website and blog, I’m sharing a short snippet from the third book in the series. These are the new covers for anyone who hasn’t seen them yet. I love the font my designer used for the titles.
Snippet Set Up: Reece (Foley) Wilson was the youngest bull rider on Caulder McCutchen’s team. He appears in each book in the series. Caulder has taken the kid under his wing. Now it’s Christmas and four years after the second book, and Foley is spending the holiday at Caulder’s family ranch in the Snowy Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. The guys decided to do a practice bull ride.
Caulder and Velia have many family members visiting at Love House for Christmas. They never expected a new love to bloom between two of their guests. Velia’s three younger cousins, Torre, Natale, and Alba are in this scene. Natale recently turned eighteen.
If you haven’t met Velia and Caulder by now, how come? Haha, teasing!
Available at Amazon.
Let’s ride!
“Both you girls, step back,” said Caulder. “Pictures later. You don’t just come up here to take pictures. Did you ever see a bull bucking in the chute for crying out loud? A horn could take you out in a minute. Ask Velia all about it.”
Alba made a face and wrinkled her nose at Caulder. “Okay, bossy.”
Teenagers! He’d give her bossy later. Aiden stood beside Caulder when Foley eased down on the bull. He held tight to Foley’s vest. Torre came over to act as the front safety guy, ready to hold him back if the bull bucked in the chute while Foley rosined his rope.
“Come on, Foley,” said Caulder. “Like you told me on my last ride of the season, ‘you can do this.’”
“Got it.” Getting the bull rope rosined up, he tightened, wrapped, and secured it in his hand. “This feels damn good to be on a bull again with all y’all around.” Once the rope was how he wanted it, he glanced at Natale then nodded to the gate man. “Go!”
Caulder stepped back when the bull bucked out the gate. “Looking good!” This was like old times when Foley had been his teammate, but either way, he held his breath and said a silent prayer. “Come on, hold on, Foley. Hold on to that rage…”
The eight second buzzer rang. He loosened the rope on his hand. The crazy bull gave one last buck. Foley got hung up. He ended up running, or more like being dragged alongside the bull. Natale screamed from the sidelines. One of Aiden’s ranch hands followed with the horse and Jase rode another one.
Foley got his hand free on his own and fell back on his ass. Sitting in the sand, he removed his helmet, got up slowly, and slapped his chest with pride. A flashing smile lit his face as he held his helmet above his head. The first thing he did was seek out Natale.
“Yeah, baby, you did it!” She jumped up and down at the chute shoving her fists into the air.
Baby? Caulder glanced back and forth from Foley to Velia’s cousin. Their gaze stayed connected until Foley came out of the ring. She took two steps down at a time and ran to him the second her foot hit the ground. Caulder shook his head but cheered to himself. Those two reminded him of him and Velia back some years ago when this had all been new to her. Like Velia, Natale had it bad for a cowboy.
He went down the steps and to where they stood to break them up. “All right, all right, let me in here you two. Damn, Foley that was a good ride.” Caulder embraced them both and when he parted, he took both of their shoulders to bring them back together. “Carry on.” He winked at Natale and mussed up Foley’s hair like he was a kid.
Christmas at Love House: A Bittersweet Interlude #3.
Read a sample.
Thanks for stopping by today!
Here’s a short video showing how to wrap the tail of the bull rope in your hand. Remember, the bull is not standing there waiting for you to take care of business. One of your buddies is standing on the gate pulling the end of your rope tight between wraps. Sometimes, if the rider takes too much time, a judge sets a timer for, I think, sixty-seconds. If you don’t make it out of the chute, you forfeit the ride and points if you would’ve ridden the bull for eight-seconds. Haha, this excites me so much, I could talk about it forever!
Images: Dreamstime.com
It’ll soon be time to tell 2017 farewell, OR maybe to kick it in the behind and say, “Good riddance.” We aren’t there yet, though, so here we go with another #MFRWauthor 52-Week Blog Challenge theme in this blog hop.
Week 49: A Favorite Recipe
Today I’m choosing this recipe because it evokes happy memories.
The Pineapple Sheet Cake doesn’t have the texture of a regular cake. It’s more on the springy side. It’s made in a 15x10x1 inch pan—a cookie sheet type of pan. My boys never liked cream cheese, but they did like this recipe.
I looked online for a picture of the cake because I didn’t want to make one when I’m the only one here to eat it. Luckily, I found the recipe for “Pineapple Sheet Cake” at Taste of Home. However, my cooking time says 40 minutes where the online version says 35 minutes. Oh, and the online recipe calls for undrained pineapple where mine calls for drained. I don’t know if I wrote my recipe wrong, but I’m sure I followed what I had written. The comments on the recipe page are interesting. The page has some Test Kitchen Tips you might want to look at if you decide to make this cake. 🙂
Due to nut allergies, make sure everyone is aware of nuts in this product. I suppose the sprinkled nuts on top would be a giveaway. 0_o
Pineapple Sheet Cake Photo by and from Taste of Home.
This picture above looks like my homemade version. Perfect! Here you go:
Cake:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
1- 20 oz. can drained (undrained?) crushed pineapple.
1 cup chopped nuts
In a large bowl combine cake ingredients. Beat until smooth. Pour into a greased 15x10x1 inch baking pan. Cook 40 minutes. Check at 35 minutes as the online recipe says. It’s hard to tell when this cake is done because it is so springy. Pressing on it to test for the springiness, is usually how I checked for doneness.
Frosting:
1- 8 oz. cream cheese at room temperature
½ cup butter, softened.
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar (confectioners’ sugar)
½ cup chopped nuts to sprinkle over the top.
Combine ingredients until smooth. Spread over cooled cake and sprinkle nuts over the top. Enjoy.
YUM. My family enjoyed this recipe for many years. ❤
Not to bore you, but here’s a little backstory:
I’ve had this recipe for so long, I don’t remember who gave it to me. I used to make this on occasion for my family, but often, I’d make it ahead and take it to our cabin in Pennsylvania when I knew my husband’s family would be there.
In the beginning, we all stayed in the small cabin on nineteen acres of land in the Allegheny National Forest. When they got older, the kids slept upstairs in sleeping bags on the floor. The upstairs was not much more than a half-finished attic with pull down stairs. If Grandpa was there, he slept in his bed up there. One couple slept in the tiny bedroom in twin beds downstairs. A single family member slept on the pull-out sofa bed in the living room, and another couple slept in their camper. What fun we had back then!
@ snehitdesign at DespositPhoto
The picture above is what U.S. Route 62 looks like on the way. It isn’t fun in the winter or in the fog. The last time I visited the area was around 2006.
Meaty Macaroni Bake was another recipe my sister-in-law and I would make, which went a long way for three hard-working men, four growing boys, and one niece. My apologies for digressing, but I imagine many of our favorite recipes have a story or two, to go along with them.
After many years, and as all the kids grew older, my husband and I bought our own place on a couple acres a short walk away. We enjoyed having our own space, and two bedrooms. My ex-husband still has it along with the other nineteen acres with his brothers. No, the log house below is not what we had.
Book three, Christmas at Love House: A Bittersweet Interlude, takes place in this area with a log house like I would’ve loved. Hence, Love House. Love House got it’s name in book two. I’m not trying to promote this book to y’all. I’m only stating a fact that the area was the perfect place for this story.
This is a Blog Hop, and there are other authors participating. I can’t wait to check out their favorite recipes. Come along?
Many of us at Marketing for Romance Writers wanted this challenge to continue next year. I had a hard time thinking of topics myself, but a handful of other authors had a long list of ideas. I did suggest that we use one topic in particular over again. We’ll have to see if it gets added. 😉
Thanks for joining us today. Happy Cooking.
If I had chocolate on this day, it would be melted all over my fingers and lips because I’m a chocolate kind of girl. I have two sons who feel the same way.
Picture the Allegheny Mountains on a clear summer day. You can see mountain ridges upon mountain ridges, and the surroundings are always bathed in rich green mid summer.
Autumn makes you think you’re in a whole different area when the trees change color and everything looks like an artist’s palette. But, now we’re talking about my birthday month. This particular summer, our youngest son escorted us because, in our eyes, he was still too young to leave at home. He complained the entire trip. Our oldest son, nearly four years older, would drive up the next day.
No one mentioned my birthday. Okay, no big deal, I guess. I have this birthday every year on the same date. Couldn’t someone remember? We went about our typical first day at the cabin which meant three hours of cutting grass, dusting the furniture, and making sure there were no mouse droppings all over the kitchen counters. Remember, mountains and forests equal mice and other rodents.
On Saturday, our oldest son would arrive in his first, unpredictable car. Still, no one mentioned my birthday. One of our rituals, and necessities, was to go to town and buy groceries. Fine, I’d buy my own birthday cake—yellow with chocolate frosting. I didn’t need candles, but I sure needed the chocolate frosting.
Oh-no. They were out of cake!
I swore to remember this the next time one of these guys had a birthday. Well, it sounded good at the time. I’d never forget their birthday. At home, we put the food away and started lunch. Then our oldes son pulled in the driveway. When he got out I went to meet him, and when he turned to me, he handed me a big sheet cake brought all the way from Michigan and decorated especially for my birthday!
Was it chocolate frosting? No, but it was a beautifully decorated cake just for MOM, and even though the frosting wasn’t chocolate, the cake batter was. So, I had birthday wishes from my guys with candles and a chocolate cake. They all knew, including my husband, that he was bringing me a cake and they decided to keep it to themselves so I’d be surprised. To this day, I believe that was one of my most special birthdays.
This week’s prompt was to write a 400 word memoir piece using one of the following: wine, coffee, or chocolate. For more information and to read more pieces, visit Remember Red at Write on Edge.
Mary J. McCoy-Dressel 
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