Welcome to the fourth stop of Sara Walter Elwood's Book Tour for Gambling on a Dream! There are several stops on this tour so please be sure to check all of the below listed stops in the coming days. Plus every stop that you leave a comment at gains you one entry to win an Amazon or Barnes & Noble $25 gift card. Until then, Sara shares with us...
Siblings…
Why I Love Writing These Incredible Relationships
Aside from the romantic relationship, I often include familial relationships in
my stories. Siblings are one of my favorites—and the hardest—to write.
I think this joy and
difficulty stem from the same personal source. We all know authors weave a lot
of themselves into their stories, even if she/he doesn’t even realize it. I
know this is true of my sibling storylines.
I was an only child
until I was age six, then my brother was born. I would have had a sister, who
would have been a year and a half younger than me, but she’d been stillborn
eight months into mom’s pregnancy. I remember fantasizing what having a sister
that close to my age would have been like. When my brother was born, I was
ecstatic. I loved that baby to pieces and couldn’t wait for him to grow up so
that we could play together. As children we had fun, but all too soon, I was
too old to play his games, and he discovered the last person he wanted to be
around was his bossy older sister. Then just as he entered his teenage years, I
went off to college and we never saw each other except for holidays. After
college, I married and moved two hours away from my hometown, while my brother
finished high school and went to college. After that we only saw each other
once or twice a year. Those brief meetings were usually full of meaningless
chatter and my brother and I quickly became strangers.
After he married and
moved to another state, he rarely came home. I think in the nine years he was
married, I’d only saw him twice. I didn’t even go to his wedding because I
couldn’t get leave from my job.
In September 2011, only
a few days after his thirty-fifth birthday, my brother was killed in a house
fire. I think I grieved him more for the relationship we didn’t have, then for
the one we did. I regret never reaching out to him, never getting to know him
better, and a million other things.
In Gambling On A Dream, both
my hero and heroine have complicated relationships with their siblings, but at
the end of the day, they are close to their brother/sisters. Despite never
fully having a relationship with my own brother, I make sure my characters
never live with the regrets that I have to.
Here’s a bit of the
Wyatt’s and Rachel’s relationship…
“We’ll be eating in a few
minutes. Why don’t you go get your sister? She hasn’t been out of her room all
day.” He didn’t miss the sadness in his mother’s voice or the pleading in her
faded denim eyes. “You’ve always been good with her.”
He left the kitchen and
headed down the hall to stop before the door across from his. He’d packed up
his dive of an apartment in Waco, sent his stuff to storage, and moved into his
parents’ home temporarily to help with Rachel, but he wanted a place of his
own.
He took a deep breath as
the day his parents brought Rachel home from the hospital drifted into his
mind. He and Audrey were only three, but they had both been excited to have a
real live baby in their midst. Audrey wanted to dress her up like her favorite
doll. He’d wanted someone else to play with, but to be honest, he’d been a
little disappointed she wasn’t a boy. He’d never dreamed he’d become her
protector. Although he loved his twin sister, and technically, was her older
brother too--if you can count a whole four and a half minutes as being
older--Rachel held a special place in his heart.
Sounds of his father
chatting with his mother from the kitchen brought him out of his thoughts, and
he knocked on his sister’s door. “Rach, Ma’s got dinner ready.”
“I’m not hungry.” Her
voice sounded muffled and distracted.
He looked to the ceiling
and sent a prayer to heaven to give him the strength and the knowledge to help
his baby sister. “I’m coming in.”
When she didn’t respond,
he turned the knob and entered the room. A modern-looking pine queen bed and
Rachel’s sophisticated styles had replaced the twin canopy beds and white girly
furniture. Everything that had been Audrey’s was long gone. After all, the few
times Rachel came home from her stints as an Army nurse, this was where she’d
come.
She sat huddled under an
old crocheted blanket in a stuffed chair and stared out the window. What he
could see of her face behind her short auburn hair was pale and splotched red,
as if she’d been crying. Her hands were curled into fists and tucked in close
to her body. Her prosthetic lower left leg sat in the corner with her crutches.
He let out a long breath
and sat on the edge of her unmade bed. When he glanced up, he noticed what had
her riveted outside the window. In the yard on the other side of the rail
fence, two young children played on a swing set while their father and mother
worked in the yard. A picture of the perfect family. He closed his eyes and
hung his head low.
God, how much more can she
take?
“All I ever wanted was a
family of my own.” Her voice rasped as if coming from her soul.
Yeah, me too. He swallowed hard, but his voice still came out sounding like a
frog’s croak. “Ladybug, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t know how to make
this better.”
She turned red-rimmed blue
eyes on him. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
He’d given her the
nickname when she was only a baby because, with her bright red hair, she
reminded him of a ladybug. For years, the whole family called her by the
nickname. He sniffed and swallowed again. Damn, his sinuses burned.
“Everyone thinks it’s
because of Audrey and Lance that I’m such a mess.”
“I know it has to be hard
seeing them…”
She shifted her shoulders
as if she shrugged, or maybe she took a deep breath. “The lieutenant colonel
who was killed in the attack wasn’t just my commander.”
From the report, he knew
Rachel had been attacked by an Afghani national who worked on the base where
she’d been deployed.
She and a doctor had been
working together late when the Afghani found them. He’d shot the lieutenant colonel
and Rachel while they were talking in his office. She’d taken a high-powered
bullet in the pelvis area and her lower left leg, which shattered the bone
beyond repair. The doctor had died from his wounds, and Rachel had been flown
to Landstuhl, Germany, where her leg had been amputated, her pelvis repaired,
and her uterus, where the bullet lodged, removed.
The terrorist had
committed suicide. His body had been found in his room along with the weapon
he’d used to kill the doctor and to shoot Rachel.
Wyatt moved off the bed
and kneeled beside her. He took her icy hands and held them. “You weren’t
working, were you?”
She sniffled and shook her
head. As she turned to look out the window again, she whispered, “Alex was my
fiancé. We planned to get married as soon as I could put in for promotion, but
we had to keep our relationship secret since he was my commanding officer until
then. No one can ever know about it. I’d never risk his name being dishonored.”
Which meant she would
never discuss it with her shrink at the VA hospital. The air went out of him,
and he bent his head over their joined hands. “Oh, God, Rach. I’m so sorry.”
“I wish I’d been killed
too,” she whispered in a faraway tone that sent an arctic shiver through him.
He squeezed her hand and
forced her to look at him by turning her head with his thumb under her chin.
“Don’t you ever say such a thing. We
love you. We need you here with us. You hear me? I need you.” He swallowed hard
and sniffed back the hot knot clogging his sinuses. “I understand how you feel.
But that isn’t the answer.”
She shook her head and
yanked her hand from his. “How could you know what I’m going through? You have
no idea what happened to me. What it was like to watch the man I love die.”
He glanced out the window
at the happy family. The little boy was Mason, the girl Katie. He was five
years old, and she was almost three. The same age his son would have been. He’d
met the family on several occasions since they moved into the recently built
home three months ago. “Dawn Madison and I were all but engaged while we worked
vice on the PD.” He met his sister’s gaze. “She took a bullet that was meant
for me and almost died.”
She huffed. “But she’s
still alive. Alex is dead.”
“True.” He averted his
gaze to his hands. “But I’ll never forgive her for what she did. She was five
months pregnant and lost the baby.”
“Wy, I’m so sorry.” She
took his hand and squeezed it.
He sniffed again, but he
couldn’t look up. “She lost our son simply because she wouldn’t take herself
off the case. The captain would’ve never allowed her on the sting if he’d
known. Hell, if I had known about the pregnancy, I would’ve had her taken off
the case.” He shook his head and wiped his nose with the back of his free hand.
“I know that isn’t the same as what happened to you. But there isn’t a day that
goes by I don’t wonder what my little boy would’ve grown into.” Or what life with Dawn would’ve been like.
“Why do bad things always
happen to good people?”
The only answer he had was
to take her into his arms and hold her as he closed his eyes against the tears
he wouldn’t dare let fall.
“I don’t know, Ladybug. I don’t know.”
~~~~~
Gambling On A Dream
Colton Gamblers Book 3 by Sara Walter Ellwood
June 9, 2015
With Everything At Stake…
It’s been years since Sheriff Dawn Madison said goodbye to Texas Ranger Wyatt McPherson. She’s closed the door on the heartache of her past. But when the sleepy town of Colton, Texas, is rocked by a series of shocking murders, Dawn has no choice but to trust the man who broke her heart if she wants to protect the ones she loves…
All Bets Are Off
Four years have passed. But Wyatt hasn’t forgotten the bold, Native American beauty who stole his heart . . . and broke it. Losing her and the life they had hoped to share left him an empty shell of himself. But if he wants to stop the deranged killer terrorizing the innocent kids of Colton, he’ll have to let Dawn back into his life. It’s a risk he’s willing to take, even if heartache is all he takes home…
Excerpt:
When the door closed with a resounding click behind her brother, Dawn pounded a fist onto the table with enough force to rattle their coffee mugs. “Dammit, who is he protecting?”
Wyatt glanced back at the door. Her older brother Talon had always had it rough, but no worse than Dawn and their younger brother. Sure, being one of Jock Blackwell’s ill-begotten sons wasn’t something he’d wish on a rabid coyote. However, Tom Madison had treated Talon like a son all his life, even giving him a third of his ranch when he retired.
Talon had changed, and not for the better. His problems didn’t come from how he was raised, or even the occasional bullying. He was a troublemaker, and nothing would have changed him.
He sat in the chair Talon had vacated. “Or the question could be what is he hiding?”
She ran her hands over her dark hair to the tight bun at the base of her skull. With jerky movements, she pulled out the band holding the twisted braid captive. As she ran her fingers through the long mass of raven silk, heat coursed through him at the memories of all that hair covering him like a blanket while they’d made love. When she bent over the table and scratched her scalp in pure frustration, all he could think about was her hair hanging down her back to brush and tickle his thighs as she rode him--her favorite position--to orgasm.
The erection was fast and furious and nearly had him groaning. Thank God, he was sitting. He forced his numbed mind to focus on the case.
“We have to find someone else who may have seen or knows something.” She glanced across the table at him and straightened. If there was ever the perfect picture of a beautiful Indian maiden, it was Dawn with her hair down. Had she ever had the stuff cut? He swallowed hard and shifted in his chair as his jeans strangled his cock. How long had it been since he’d had sex? He couldn’t remember, but refused to believe he hadn’t been with someone since Dawn.
With swift, practiced motions, she broke the trance he was under by daftly braiding her hair and wrapping it into a bagel-sized knot at the back of her head. She snapped the hair band over the bun.
He cleared his throat. “When are we talking to Chris’s friends?” His voice came out sounding a bit husky, even to his ears.
She stood, taking their coffee cups with her, and refilled them. After she dumped that god-awful crap pretending to be creamer into hers, she handed him a mug of black joe. Sipping her coffee from the extra-large, bright green mug he’d given to her for her thirtieth birthday, she returned to her chair.
“Hendricks and Kennedy are getting a list, but according to Julie, he didn’t have many friends in Colton.”
“How about Justin Vaughn? He’s always been a known dealer. Maybe he knows something.” He sipped his coffee.
She smiled, and he almost choked as he swallowed the hot, bitter brew. “Haven’t thought of him. We should talk to him. They’re about the same age. Vaughn’s working over at his uncle’s farm and garden market.”
He set his mug on the table and glanced at his watch. “I can’t today.”
“Hot date?”
Grinning, he stood. “No. I’m buying the Estrada Ranch.”
Her dark eyes widened. “Really? I heard Luis and Stella were thinking of moving to New Mexico, but I didn’t know it was a done deal. I figured it would go to either Jose or Mary,” she said, referring to the Estradas’ son and daughter. “How long has their place been up for sale? I haven’t seen a sign in their yard.”
He shrugged and reached for his hat where it sat on the edge of the table. “Luis and Stella told Mom and Dad they planned to sell the place a couple of weeks ago while playing Bingo at the firehouse. When they told me, I called the Estradas and made an offer. It never officially made it on the market. I’ve been looking for a small ranch.”
“We’ll be neighbors when you settle in there.” She cocked her head to the side. “I never knew you wanted to be a rancher.”
“You never cared about a lot of things I wanted.” His bitterness surprised even him.
She stood and picked up her mug, leaving his where it sat. As she headed for the door, she nodded toward it. “We have a policy around here. We clean up after ourselves. Something I seem to remember you have a hard time with.”
Purchase Links:
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gambling-on-a-dream-sara-w-ellwood/1120611668?ean=9781616507350
iTunes: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gambling-on-a-dream-sara-w-ellwood/1120611668?ean=9781616507350
About Sara:
Although Sara Walter Ellwood has long ago left the farm for the glamour of the big town, she draws on her experiences growing up on a small hobby farm in West Central Pennsylvania to write her contemporary westerns. She’s been married to her college sweetheart for over 20 years, and they have two teenagers and one very spoiled rescue cat named Penny. She longs to visit the places she writes about and jokes she’s a cowgirl at heart stuck in Pennsylvania suburbia. Sara Walter Ellwood is a multi-published and international Amazon bestselling author of the anthology set Cowboy Up. She also publishes paranormal romantic suspense under the pen name Cera duBois.
Author Links:
Website: http://www.sarawalterellwood.com
Gambling On A Secret, Book 1 and Gambling On A Heart, Book 2
For other links and book information check out my website page: https://sarawalterellwood.wordpress.com/the-colton-gamblers-contemporary-western-romance-suspense/
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The Cast of Crossing the Line
Ella
Lux
