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About the author:
She is frequently a Top 100 bestselling author in multiple genres, such as romance, western, military and mystery/suspense. She has written multiple series, including The Outsider, Walk the Right Road, The Wilde Brothers, Saved, The Friessens, and her two newest additions, Married in Montana, and her high-stakes suspense and sizzling, red-hot romance series, Kate and Walker, Deadly, Dangerous and Desired.
What inspired you to write your book?
My fans are the biggest inspiration for me to keep writing about The Friessens. This big family romance series began with The Forgotten Child, a bestselller selling more than 500,000 copies worldwide. The Friessen family made up of three brothers, and a cousin along with their families have become my most requested series. I love writing books about family, ones that celebrate, love, commitment, hope and flawed characters, ones we call all relate to.
Here is a short sample from the book:
Brad walked the ridge overlooking his land, taking in the browns and golds of the drying pasture to the tree line, where the forest thickened and thinned closer to the many outbuildings, big and small, on his ranch—a ranch that had been in his family for generations. This was Friessen land, and being the eldest son to Rodney Friessen, he had inherited everything. At the time, Brad had never questioned how only he, the eldest of three, could have all this. That was what happened in families: The eldest son inherited the earth. Was that not the saying?
His brother Jed, the youngest, had been left to set out on his own and had bought a piece of shit property in Snohomish County, where he had built something from nothing. Jed was pigheaded, at times so closed off that Brad wondered what he was thinking, but he loved him. He loved all his family. His father had retired down in Cancun, having bought a huge ranching operation on the Yucatan Peninsula with his brother Neil, a Harvard graduate who owned a multimillion-dollar resort. Brad, meanwhile, had been handed all of this, and at times he wondered whether he had earned any of it. Yes, he worked hard, but he’d never had to work to gain something, to create something.
He’d never considered himself fortunate or privileged. He’d never thought much of it until recently. Maybe it was age, becoming older and wiser. He smiled to himself, wondering, if it were possible, would he go back and change anything, trade in all the pain, the heartache…and the love he had now? No, he supposed he wouldn’t. All the choices he’d made, both good and bad, had brought him here. They had brought him Emily, their children, and a life filled with struggles. It had been a bumpy road, but he wouldn’t trade his family for anything. He had everything he could ever want.
Being a rancher, one could say, was in his blood. He didn’t want to do anything else. He was a part owner of his brother’s fancy resort in Cancun, but, as he’d said to Neil, as long as he didn’t have to take part in the daily operations, that was fine with him. There was one thing Brad understood and knew deep down that many people didn’t, something people struggled and searched for their entire lives. This was where he belonged, on this fertile rock in the Pacific Northwest, with his land. The only problem was that Angus Friessen, his grandfather, being old, Irish, and proud of it, had added an addendum on the property that it could only pass to the eldest son—not the daughter! What the man had been thinking was beyond Brad. Considering times had changed, it seemed over the top even to him.
He realized, as he took in the vast acreage, with a spectacular view of the pastures below, the grazing cattle, the field of hay, and his horses, that having a male heir was going to be a problem, as his son, his only son, had autism.
He took a deep breath, seeing his ranch hands and a dusty trail in the distance. He had to squint to see who was coming, but then, it was late afternoon. The kids would be home soon. It had to be the school bus pulling in. Trevor, Katy, and Becky, his youngest, would be racing down the driveway and turning their once quiet house into a lively affair for Emily. With only a few weeks left until the end of the school year, they needed to have a heart to heart about what was next for Trevor. Emily had already mentioned it four times. (Brad had heard her the first time, but she’d needed to repeat herself because he hadn’t replied.)
Trevor would be seventeen soon, and the girls were growing up fast, too. From Emily’s first marriage, Katy was a year younger than Trevor and was blond and slender, with a young lady’s figure that was turning the heads of a few young boys, who were calling all the time. It was giving Brad a few gray hairs as he considered, now, how to handle his girls. It was time he and Emily sat Katy down and laid out the rules for dating. Of course, he wouldn’t hesitate to put the fear of God into each and every one of those boys who came knocking. Becky, their little girl, was just entering her teenage years. He’d already noticed the change in attitude, as she was giving Emily more lip than before, testing her boundaries. He needed to have a chat with her, too.
Maybe that was why he’d spent the last week walking the ridgeline, looking over the property as he did his best to get his head on straight and figure out what was next. He felt for the first time that they were fast wading into the new and different territory of raising two teenage girls and a young autistic man. What to do? Tonight he’d take Emily aside and they’d make some decisions about what was next for their family.
And this land.
He took in the trail he’d climbed up and slung his rifle over his shoulder just as his cell phone rang. He reached for it from his back pocket and saw “Home” displayed there, smiling because Emily was probably wondering where he’d gone off to. “On my way,” he started.
“Dad!” Katy cried out in a tone that had the hair standing up on the back of his neck.
“Whoa, what’s going on?”
“It’s Trevor, Dad. Mom said to call you and get you back here. Someone hurt him…” She was starting to ramble on and heading toward hysterics, and he couldn’t understand a word she was saying.
“Katy, stop it, calm down. I’m heading back to the house.” He was running down the trail, sliding sideways in spots with the phone to his ear. “How bad is he hurt? Put your mom on!” He knew he was shouting, but he couldn’t do a damn thing, being this far from the house, and that made him furious.
“I can’t put Mom on. She has Trevor upstairs. She’s trying to stop the bleeding. It’s horrible, Dad.” He could hear the edge in her voice, and of course his head was going to some pretty bad places.
This was one of those times, as he broke the tree line, that he wanted to kick himself in the ass for not saddling a horse. “Did she call an ambulance?”
There was silence for a minute.
“Katy!” Brad yelled into the phone as he waved in the air to Cliff, who was on the tractor, but then thought better of it. He started running toward the house, pounding the ground, his rifle over his shoulder…. Click here to continue reading excerpt: http://bit.ly/22D2Wls
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