Meet Rube Gautier, the star of Legacy of Ruby's Ranch by Rhonda Frankhouser

Granny Rube wasn't always a granny, y'all. She was once a dreamer...

In Legacy of Ruby's Ranch, Book 3 of the award-winning Ruby's Ranch Series, we go back two generations to interview the original matriarch of Ruby's Ranch, the young and impetuous Rube Gautier. 

After WWII and the devastation of the Dust Bowl, Rube tells us what life had in store for her before she became one of the most formidable ranchers of her time.

Rube Gautier is the only child of Cyrene and Samuel Gautier. She was born into a village of people who believed duty and responsibility reigned above all else, but all she wants is to leave home and start her own ranch in the Kern River Valley.

Rube does her best to accept her fate but dreams both haunt and tantalize her. Will she follow the teachings of the legacy or follow the tall, sexy cowboy who promises to make her dreams come true? Let’s ask Rube.

What is your relationship status?

She paused considering the question. “As far as my parents are concerned, I’ve been in a relationship since I was promised to Gabriel, but the thought of arranged marriages is so arcane. I just want to live my own life and fall in love.” She smiled, coyly. “I’d be interested in learning more about that gorgeous cowboy, Mac Adams. The whole, strong, silent, war hero thing he has going, keeps me up at night. If you know what I mean?”

When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

“I see a stubborn, passionate woman who looks particularly like her mother when she pulls her hair back into a clip. Someone who knows exactly what she wants but can’t break Papa’s heart to get it.”

Copyright to photographer

What is people’s first impression of you?

She pinched her face into a frown and glanced away, “You know, I’ve never really thought of it, but I guess they might call me cranky and willful, when really I’m curious and hopeful. The few who matter can see my fun, flirty side.”

Name three of your favorite things.

“I have way more than three favorite things, but I have to say, riding my beautiful, Cremello mare, Twilight in the breaking dawn; smelling gingerbread cookies baking in Momma’s oven; and the adorable crooked smile Mac flashes when he’s trying to flirt. Have mercy.”

Name three things that tick you off.

“Being told what to do. I really hate that!  Also, being under the rule of ancient tradition and being forced into a relationship not of my choosing. I think it’s about time all of these things are challenged.”

What is your best memory to date?

A wide smile spread across her lips and her eyes lit. “Riding the high plains with Papa, rounding up our prized herd. Things were so simple when I was younger. More recently, I’d have to say the vision of Mac galloping toward me on the plateau. The commanding way he handled the most stubborn stud on the ranch, made me feel wicked things I’ve never felt before.”

What are you most afraid of?

“I’m afraid something bad will happen if I go against tradition. If I lost someone I loved because of my own selfish needs, it would break me.”

What would you like it to say on your tombstone?

“Interesting question. I’m not sure,” she pushed the glass in front of her away and leaned on the table. “Maybe - Here lies the passionate woman who loved hard, never gave up on her dreams, and always made her family proud.”

Now on to something lighter, what is your favorite drink?

“Without question, country sweet tea served in one of Momma’s mason jars. Sweet nectar of life.”

What is your favorite food?

“Fried chicken and biscuits and of course, Gingerbread cookies made from our family recipe.”

What was your first impression of Mac?

“He’s shy, and funny, and full of truth and honor. Wicked sexy. When I first saw him, he seemed so familiar. He’s the most confidant person I know, and he knows exactly what he wants. I admire that about him.” A blush came to her face. “He gives me hope for a different kind of life.”

A little Mac motivation ~ Copyright to photographer

If we could only hear your voice (but not see you) what characteristic would identify you?

“Probably determination. I don’t appreciate unanswered questions and vague explanations. I’ll pursue the truth ‘til the bitter end, even if it hurts me.”

What would you most like to forget?

“I would like to forget the look on Papa’s face when I told him I didn’t want anything to do with the family legacy. Disappointing him will surely be the most devastating thing to ever happen to me. At least I hope things won’t get worse than that.”

What is your most prized possession?

“Well, a horse is definitely not a possession, but Twilight is my most prized gift. She has brought me through many tumultuous times, given me confidence and unconditional love, and she'll be the key to my happily-ever-after. I just have a feeling.”

Gorgeous Cremello  ~ Copyright to photographer

Thank you to Rube Gautier for sharing a few thoughts before her story releases August 21, 2019. Be sure to read her granddaughter's story, 2017 RONE Finalist, Return to Ruby's Ranch, and her daughter's story, Escape from Ruby's Ranch. 

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Best Damn Banana Pudding Recipe by Rhonda Frankhouser

Happy June, everyone! I'm buried in 2nd round edits on Book 3 of my Ruby's Ranch Series, Legacy of Ruby's Ranch, sooooooo, I thought I'd leave you all with a quick and delicious family recipe for a fabulous summer treat. Banana Pudding!!! It's not fancy but it's a family favorite. 

I know it's naughty and we're all perpetually on a diet, but when I want to calm down, reminisce and bring a smile to my man's face, I make this. It works every time. There's always tomorrow for healthy eating.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 ripe but not rotting bananas
• 2 large packages of instant (yes, instant) Jello vanilla pudding
• Half and half (use in place of regular milk required on the box recipe)
• Whipped cream (lots)
• 1 box of Nilla wafers

1. Layer the bottom of a clear cake pan with wafers (Sometimes I make individual servings in Mason jars or use a beautiful trifle dish to look prettier).
2. Wedge slivers of two bananas to cover the wafers.
3. Mix one packet of pudding with Half n Half and cover wafers and bananas (Trust me on this-delish).
4. Layer with whipped cream.
5. Repeat the first 4 steps with another layer of each ingredient so you have one huge, gooey, delicious banana lasagna.
6. Crumble the top with crushed Nilla wafers and refrigerate until set. A couple hours.

Enjoy!!!

Wanna send my amazing father-in-law in Cali some Happy Father's Day love and blow a Happy Father's Day kiss to my sweet dad, who's playing guitars and riding broncs in heaven. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I push through these edits. Have I mentioned, it's not my favorite part of being a writer??? 

But isn't my new cover beeee-U-T-full???

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The Flavors of a Country Childhood by Rhonda Frankhouser

Smells and flavors bring back as many memories as old pictures....or music.

💞

When I pondered what home really means to me, I immediately thought of food. I was raised on a farm by good southern folks who wielded the mystical powers of the cast iron skillet and bacon grease. Between their masterful culinary skills and fresh garden bounty, we never went without a delicious meal.

I can recall the fine stitching of my grandmother's apron and still taste the Juicy Fruit gum she shared as we cooked together. I remember how everyone gathered in the kitchen, laughing over steaming pots of heaven boiling on the stove; mason jars of sweet tea in every hand. Fresh cut okra, squash and onions frying together in a hot-buttered skillet. Home made ice cream being cranked by hand on the back porch. And let's not forget the perfectly browned biscuits and corn bread sitting on the counter with grandma's cheese cloth rags over the top to keep off the flies. Oh God, I miss it! And I miss all those beautiful human beings who raised me in that kitchen.

Thankfully, I did learn how to cook those savory specialties, keeping some of our family traditions alive. Chicken 'n dumplings, chicken fried steak, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, to name a few. Who knew soaking fresh snapped green beans in broth before cooking was the secret to winning over the next generation of vegetable haters. Half 'n half in the banana pudding, instead of milk, naughty, yes, but yum. A dollop of mayonnaise is the miracle in my mashed potatoes, but don't tell my kids. Meat loaf to die for and my grandmother's delicious crispy cornbread and special recipe lemon vanilla home made ice cream, makes my mouth water just thinking about it. 

I'm proud to be the matriarch of the family now, not because I make the rules or offer some godfather like counsel, but because I can still roll a mean biscuit and make lump free sausage gravy. I consider it a true blessing that I was raised before technology took over the world. Before microwave ovens zapped the life out of food and cell phones numbed the minds of the future. I'm glad I lived in a time before families forgot how to look one another in the eye and truly communicate.

What foods do you remember from your childhood? Special traditions? If not food, what? Our family played guitars and dominoes. Let's reminiscence together? We need to remember the simpler things. And we need to pass those precious traditions on to the next generation before they are lost forever!!!

Thanks for listening, Rhonda

Rhonda's award-winning Ruby's Ranch Series, earned a finalist honor in the Uncaged Book Review Raven Awards, a 2nd Runner Up in the prestigious InD'Tale Magazine RONE awards and a Books and Benches, Reviewers Top Pic ~ Books of Distinction award.  Her follow up Shadowing Souls Series and Let Yourself Believe Series, have captured the attention of both romance and mainstream readers alike. Though originally a California girl, Rhonda now writes full time from her lovely Atlanta Georgia home.

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Cricket Raised Me by Rhonda Frankhouser

Photo credit to owner

Okay, I admit it - I'm a junkie. Country everything is my drug. Music, clothes, food, animals, gardening. The whole farm lifestyle was cool to me even before Chip and Joanna Gaines made it cool for everyone else. I love it all but there was one special thing about being raised in the country that I'll never forget. Travel with me through a cherished memory.

As the youngest in my family, I spent many years as the only child on our little farm in central California. I had faithful dogs and prolific rabbits, temperamental chickens and a few stray cats to keep the mice from coming in the house, but my savior was a beautiful, steady-riding Appaloosa mare named Cricket.

I'm just gonna say it, Cricket raised me. Sounds odd, but she showed more patience with me than any human in my life. She taught me perseverance and respect. How to take care of others and how to communicate without using words. She taught me what a true friendship should be; honoring and loving unconditionally.

Picture a scrawny, towheaded kid following a twelve hundred pound horse around a fruit tree pasture, talking away like the mare would actually respond. She'd perk her soft, fuzzy ears at the right times and nibble at my face and hair to cheer me up. She was the absolute best listener a little, chatty girl could have. We were inseparable, Cricket and I, and every day she was the first 'person' I wanted to see when I woke up.

My biggest obstacle at three foot nothing and sixty pounds was trying to figure out how I was ever going to get on her back without help. But Cricket knew the answer. When it was time to ride, she'd dip her head into the rope halter, then saunter under a low lying branch and nicker. I finally figured out what she was trying to get me to do. I'd climb the tree and edge my way along the branch until I could safely climb aboard. She was a genius, right?

Cricket glided beneath me when we rode, careful not to knock me off. She'd look both ways before crossing a street and never move a muscle until she felt my small hand grasp a handful of mane to hang on. She was my security blanket. Her unique, calming scent cured many ails throughout those tumultuous teens. I'd stain her shining coat with huge monster tears while she held me in the curve of her neck. Consoling. Patient. Quiet and kind.

I owe my writing career to my sweet Cricket as she endured hours and hours of my amateur storytelling. She'd nicker and bob her head, encouraging me to continue. Looking back I'm sure it was just one kind, intuitive animal bonding with another, but I'll always be thankful for that special horse and the unconditional love and friendship she gave to me.

Did you have a horse growing up? A special friend? Maybe a dog or cat that understood you better than any other being on Earth? Tell me your story.

Thanks for listening. Rhonda

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Birth of a Blogger

I'm shy but assertive...is that possible?

I Promise to Only Tell my Story Once...

Write an intro blog? About myself? Oh, this could be interesting. Or worse yet, not interesting at all, but I’ll do my very best not to bore you to tears. Let’s see, me in a nutshell. Avid reader, cancer survivor, non-wicked stepmother of 3, married to my knight-in-shining-armor (finally), animal advocate, 2 time hole-in-oner, country music fan, John Denver groupie, pizza hound, & lover of the HEA.
 

I was born and raised on a small family farm in Bakersfield, California. Bakersfield is known for hot, hot summers, bad air quality, great Mexican and Basque food, and the Bakersfield Sound’s very own Buck Owens and Meryl Haggard. Nashville of the West! Here's some other fun, quirky facts about my hometown. Thanks to my friend, Beth Cheatwood, for posting this on FB .

 

My grandparents were adventurers. My parents were members of the real Children of the Dustbowl, Grapes of Wrath migration to California from Alabama and Texas back in the late 1930s. At age 16, they fell in love and married only miles from where they first met at the Weedpatch (farm labor) Camp. My mother, the oldest of six girls, suffered at the hands of an abusive, alcoholic father. My father, the second oldest of six children, rescued her from that desperate situation to form the first true love story I’d witness in my life.

Vision of the Dustbowl, photo from article
http://informationgreatdepression.weebly.com/the-dust-bowl-a-short-summary.html

I’m the youngest of three children, the baby. Sounds awesome, unless you’re the child left to do all the farm chores, and there were a lot. I complained then, but now I treasure those memories and all the things I learned along the way. My early morning riding sessions with Dad and the long hours of learning the family recipes in our little kitchen with Mom. Those were the good times. My parents were among the generation of geniuses who did everything themselves. No tradesman ever visited our home. If something needed to be done, they figured it out themselves.

~Things I took for granted when I was young~

' Eating fruits and vegetables straight from the garden
' Watching shooting stars laying on a blanket with my dogs
' Riding my horse Cricket in the foothills
' Reading to my animals
' Christmas Eve sleepovers with all my family
' Watching my dad play guitar as my mom sang along
' Family volleyball, badminton & softball games (they got crazy)
' Mom’s cooking
' Dad’s homemade ice-cream
' My dog Sam

Me trying to ride our ornery boy, Jobo.

I was the first of my family to earn a college degree. Philosophy and French Literature. Yeah, I know, why? I was lucky enough to study what I wanted to learn, rather than what would get me a good job. My plan was to attend law school and make my parents proud, but cancer sidelined that dream. Thank goodness it did. In an odd sort of way, cancer saved me. My recovery was comprised of moving to the Sierra Nevada mountains and writing out the pain and fear I’d buried inside. I spent hours on warm, flat rocks in Yosemite Valley, just breathing and feeling and writing as though my pen performed some sort of emotional exorcism, shredding through notebook after notebook. It was the first time in my life that I felt truly connected, spiritually. Journaling is the answer - just saying.

Yosemite Valley - where Bill and I were married in 2005!

Life took me in many strange directions from stock broker to hospice worker, but the writing bug continued to grow. I never planned to become a writer or write romance, but IMO every good book needs a powerful, blissful, lustful love story, so I’m excited with the way my career is going so far. Naturally, I pull story ideas from my own life, growing up in the country with horses, and dogs and various other critters that kept me company. It’s fun to put my characters through things I’d never be able to endure and see them win out in the end.



My first novel, Our Last Day, was never meant to be anything but a cathartic story, filtering my own fears of death and dying to figure out how I might have handled my own closures and goodbyes if things had gone differently with my diagnosis. Turned out a writer friend of mine demanded I submit it to agents, just to see what would happen. I got three interests and a contract within a month of sending out the query. So, I became a writer writer, not just a closet writer. Publication in 2019! 

But that was only the beginning of my journey. I could write, but I knew nothing of the craft and discipline of writing. I didn’t know there was such a thing as head hopping or how writing in a passive voice could put a reader to sleep. I had no idea that the editing process would feel like I was dissecting my very own child. Writing a synopsis nearly put me off writing for good.  Stephen King’s, On Writing, Anne Lamont’s, Bird by Bird and Julia Cameron’s, The Artist’s Way, kept me from tossing my laptop over a cliff. A heartfelt thank goes to all three of them, along with many others who supported me along the way.   

My first published novel with SoulMate Publishing came in November 2016, with Return to Ruby’s Ranch – Book 1 of the Ruby’s Ranch series. It’s a western romantic mystery set in the Kern River Valley in California. The series covers the lives and loves of each strong matriarch in the family. Book 2 - Escape from Ruby’s Ranch, was published in July of 2018. Book 3 – Legacy of Ruby’s Ranch is currently under the pen. I love, love these unique, troubled, passionate women. Oh, and their cowboys are pretty yummy too.

Health Nut Café, my first venture into paranormal romance, was published in December 2017. It’s not the creepy cool kind of paranormal we saw in JK Rowlings world, but a super fun, thought provoking love story written around the idea of soulmates. It’s the book-love of my life, so far, so I can’t wait to delve back into the crazy lives of Jonathan and Becca.



Dutch, Ruby and Geddy - my writing assistants.

As of April 2018, my own knight-in-shining-armor, handsome husband Bill and I moved 2200 miles away from our hometown to stunning northeast Georgia. The country of blue skies, thick green trees, cicadas singing you to sleep, crazy Georgia Bulldog fans and sweet tea at every restaurant. We love the southern charm and welcoming people and lots of new adventures. After almost fourteen years working in hospice care, I am now writing full time. When I’m not writing, I’m fussing over my three gorgeous furbabies, 2 pug sisters, Geddy and Ruby and our freaked-out-by-thunder, 115 pound Labrador named Dutch. Golfing with my KISA. Exploring the beautiful South and thinking up the next mystery to be solved by a handsome cowboy and his lady love.



Our new home in Georgia - my writing sunroom is on the far right! 



Me and my gorgeous KISA cowboy, Bill



I want to thank the awesome group at Cowboy Kisses and also the lovely, Julie Cerniglia Lence, for inviting me to participate. If you have questions, subjects you’d like me to cover or would just like to chat, drop me a note at www.rhondafrankhouserbooks.com!

 



Enjoy one of my favorite family recipes!

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