From Villain to Hero by Peggy L. Henderson

by: Peggy L Henderson

I have a new release coming out this month, the third book in my western/time travel romance series, Second Chances. The book is titled Diamond in the Dust.  I put off writing this book, pushing it back to write two other books in two different series between Book 2 and Book 3 because, frankly, writing this one scared me to death. Why? 

First of all, I don't like writing in a contemporary setting, and this story calls for the hero to come from the old west of 1872 to modern times. Reason #2: It was "suggested" to me when I was nearly two-thirds done writing the second book, Ain't No Angel, that I write the "bad guy" in that book as the hero in another book. Ooookaaay....how to turn a guy with vindictive motives into someone likable, with a slow progression from his old self to someone the reader can root for,  and give him his own story and HEA? 

Well, the returns so far from my beta readers and my editor have been quite encouraging, some even saying this is my best book to date. Well, we'll see. It's definitely one of the most emotionally-charged books I've ever written, and with the most broken hero I've ever come up with. 

Here's a short excerpt from Diamond in the Dust:

“Mr. McFarlain . . . Gabe,” the reverend’s voice called from behind him. Gabe cursed under his breath. Sweat beaded his forehead, and one of the cuts above his eye stung. Damn, the air was hot and dry here. He coughed, and caught his breath. Looking ahead, there appeared to be nothing but desert as far as the eye could see. Footsteps crunched close behind him, and Gabe stopped to turn.

“Ain’t you through with your meddling, Reverend?” he said heatedly.

Reverend Johnson came rushing up to him, his face flushed and looking winded. The old man’s eyes clouded with concern for the first time. He stopped in front of Gabe, and looked straight up at him.

“My meddling, Mr. McFarlain, has prevented you from ruining your brother’s life, a man who has done nothing but good things for you. I will concede that I may have overstepped my bounds when I sent you here. I’ve never sent anyone to another time without an explicit task that they’ve agreed to complete. I had no choice, however. It was the only way to right a wrong, and reunite Laney with Tyler.”

“Then send me back to where I belong.”

Gabe ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He clenched his jaw, the anger in him ready to boil over hotter than the sun beating down on him. All his life, he’d had to scrape and fight for everything, like a stray mongrel, on the streets of every dusty town where Cora and he had moved.

Nothing had ever come to him the easy way. Even now, the reverend was telling him that he’d returned Laney to Tyler, just like that, but the old man couldn’t do anything to send him back to where he belonged. He had no idea where to go or what to do, but for the moment, he allowed his anger to guide him.

“It’s your turn to come to a decision, Mr. McFarlain,” the reverend continued. “Remain here and allow me to help you learn to live in this time, or, as Miss Bartlett has kindly suggested, you will be incarcerated as a mentally ill person.”

“This don’t concern her.” Gabe’s voice lowered menacingly. The last thing he wanted was for Morgan to get involved with this preacher.  “I don’t want anything from you, old man,” he added. “You’ve meddled with my life enough. I’ve done everything on my own for as long as I can remember. I’ll get along just fine without you.”

“I urge you to reconsider, Mr. McFarlain,” the reverend said, his eyes wide. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Gabe advanced on the reverend. “I said I don’t want anything from you. Unless you can send me back to where I belong, get out of my sight, or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Fighting off a wave of dizziness, Gabe turned on his heels, and headed briskly in the direction that led out of this town. 

Reverend Johnson is in the business of granting second chances to those deserving a new start, even if it means bending the rules of time travel on occasion. In Gabe McFarlain’s case, he may have gone too far . . .

Abandoned by his father, and raised in a whorehouse, Gabe has grown bitter to the world. Fueled by revenge and hatred, his actions leave him facing the hangman’s noose. Accepting certain death, he wakes up in a time and place that is as foreign to him as the tender touch of the woman who rescues him.

Down to earth and level-headed, Morgan Bartlett isn’t afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve. All she wants is independence from her overbearing mother, and the freedom to shape her own destiny. When she aids a badly beaten man along the side of the road, she may have found more than a dusty cowboy down on his luck.

Morgan’s unshakable belief that Gabe is a good man slowly chisels away the walls he’s built around himself. As he comes to terms with living in the future, he must decide if losing his heart is worth more than holding on to the life he’s led in the past.

Peggy L Henderson is a laboratory technologist by night, and best-selling western historical and time travel romance author of the Yellowstone Romance Series, Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series, and Teton Romance Trilogy. When she’s not writing about Yellowstone, the Tetons, or the old west, she’s out hiking the trails, spending time with her family and pets, or catching up on much-needed sleep. She is happily married to her high school sweetheart. Along with her husband and two sons, she makes her home in Southern California.

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New Release - Ain't No Angel

Peggy L Henderson

I have a new release this week, so I’m using my posting day to share the blurb and a short excerpt.

Ain’t No Angel (Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series, Book 2)

Delaney Goodman has been running from her painful past all her life.  Dreams of working with horses have long been replaced with the reality of doing anything to make ends meet.  About to hit rock bottom, she accepts a stranger’s proposition, even if it sounds too good to be true. She figures she has nothing, not even her dignity, to lose.  She awakens in an unfamiliar setting - and century - and quickly discovers that she will need more than her charm to complete the task assigned to her.

On the surface, Tyler Monroe has everything going for him -  good looks, the respect of his friends and neighbors, and a thriving horse ranch.  However, his past holds deep wounds with thick emotional scars. When a brazen, beautiful woman arrives in town, Tyler makes an impulsive decision that will cause him to question everything he knows. 

Tyler is unlike any man Laney has ever met.  Laney is exactly the kind of woman Tyler wants to avoid. As the attraction between them grows, questions arise that stretch the boundaries of trust for both.  The secrets that threaten to tear them apart could be exactly what Tyler and Laney need to bring them together.

Excerpt:

Laney watched, mesmerized. Tyler seemed to know a split second before the horse wanted to slow down or turn in the other direction, and with the way he stepped forward or turned, or moved his hands, communicated to the animal what he wanted it to do. Her feet carried her to the edge of the pen without even thinking.

He’s a nineteenth century horse whisperer.

She’d heard of these training methods, where the trainer gained a horse’s trust simply by using the animal’s own body language to communicate. She had no idea this sort of thing was done in the old west.

“Miss Laney, Nice to . . . ah, see you again.”

Startled at the voice, Laney glanced to her right. Gabe McFarlain strode up to her, and rested his arm on the fence. Where had he come from all of a sudden? He smiled broadly, while his eyes lingered on her neckline. Laney’s hand involuntarily darted to where she’d left her dress unbuttoned. A quick glance down confirmed that she wasn’t showing off anything that was best kept covered in this day and age. At least she was reasonably sure that she covered up enough.

“Gabe,” she said curtly, then turned her attention back to Tyler and the horse. If he had noticed her, he hadn’t let on. His sole focus was on the animal running in circles around him. He suddenly stopped, and stood quiet, his hands at his side, and the horse immediately stopped as well, and turned toward him. Rather than moving in the animals’ direction, Tyler turned his shoulder away from the horse. To Laney’s amazement, the colt moved toward Tyler, and followed him around the pen.

“Looks like that one’s ready for you to get on his back,” Gabe shouted next to her.

Tyler glanced up. His eyes settled on Laney. Her mouth went dry. His dark stare was unnerving. Abruptly, he focused his attention back to the horse, and gave the animal a pat on the forehead. The colt lowered its head. Tyler adjusted the cinch around the horse’s belly, moving the saddle back and forth with exaggerated motion.

He’s desensitizing the horse to the movement.

The colt stepped nervously to the side, and Laney could hear soft murmurs from Tyler. Inexplicable chills raced down her spine, and warmth rushed through her as the sultry tone of his voice carried to her from the pen. She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining him whisper words to her in that deep, seductive tone.

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Mustang - Symbol of the American West

By: Peggy L. Henderson

Early forms of wild horses roamed the North American plains for millions of years. Ancenstors of the modern genus Equus migrated over the Bering Land Bridge into Asia and Europe, and the horse died out completely in North America about 10,000-12,000 years ago. This may have been due to climate change, or impact from human hunters.

Horses were re-introduced to North America by Spanish Conquistdors, starting with Columbus. He imported horses to the West Indies in 1493. When Cortes reached the  mainland in 1519, he brought domesticated horses with him.

The first mustangs on the North American plains are descendant from Iberian horses that were brought to Mexico and Flordia. They were mostly of Andalusian, Barb, and Arab ancestry. Some of these horses escaped into the wild, or were captured by Native Americans. From there, they spread quickly throughout the western United States.

The plains Indians quickly adopted the horses as a primary means of transportation, and they replaced dogs to pull travois. By becoming horsemen, the Indians had a great advantage in warfare with other tribes, used horses in trade, and for hunting bison.

Some horses that belonged to ranchers, settlers, and explorers in the 1800’s escaped to mix their genes with the early Spanish-descended wild horses. Ranchers also commonly released their stock in winter to forage on their own, and recaptured them in the spring, which by then usually included a few wild mustangs.

By 1900, there were an estimated 2 million free-roaming horses in the United States. This number has been greatly reduced, as horses were being captured by the military and for slaughter.

In 1971, the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was passed by Congress to protect certain established wild herds. Mustangs were officially recognized as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” These herds are managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The feral population is now estimated at around 33,000 horses and 4700 burros, with more than half of these in Nevada. The BLM holds annual roundups and adoption of wild Mustangs to qualified individuals who must meet certain criteria.

Mustangs have many outstanding characteristics. They tend to have a sensible disposition, agility, alertness, and hardiness. They range in size from 13.3 hand to 15 hands, and tend to have a very smooth gait, a high endurance level, and strong hooves. Mustangs that live in colder climates are shaggy and small, and desert mustangs can survive on remarkably small amounts of food and water.

In my book, Come Home to Me, Jake Owens, a wagon train scout, rides a mustang.

 

Here is a brief excerpt:

Jake reined in his mare, and patted her on the neck. The stout little mustang had to be the best trained horse he’d ever sat on.  A subtle shift of his seat backwards, and she stopped. If he leaned forward, she stepped out. A slight turn of his shoulders in either direction, and her body followed. At least the reverend had supplied him with a good mount, if nothing else. He’d almost forgotten the exhilarating feeling of sitting astride a horse, galloping across open country.

His eyes scanned far off into the distance. Open country was right.  After leaving the Missouri River a few hours ago, the wagon train made its way west, first through sandy marshlands as they moved away from the river and onto the uneven, rolling hills they entered now. In the distance, the hills blended into steeply ridged sandy bluffs. Tall grasses swayed in tune with the wind as far as the eye could see. At least there was food here for the livestock. That might not be the case the further west they traveled.

Details about the wagon trains along the Oregon Trail, information he’d thought long forgotten from many history classes, seemed to come back to him now as if someone had implanted a computer chip in his brain. This land was foreign to him, but he hoped to get a better feel for it once they entered more familiar territory further west in Wyoming, or what would someday be Wyoming.

 Judging by the map the reverend had given him, Jake guessed they were within an hour from a water source called Papillion Creek. Hopefully, the wagon master would agree to stop there for the night. They hadn’t covered much ground today, and after what happened earlier, Frank Wilson was not going to be his buddy on this trip. Jake wanted to get to Oregon as fast as possible, too, probably faster than the wagon master, but he couldn’t afford to be careless. The reverend had made it pretty clear that the safety of these people rested on Jake’s shoulders. He ran his hand through his hair. Dried grit and sand scraped against his scalp from the muddy Missouri.

 Getting all the wagons across the wide river had been an exhausting undertaking. Jake absently rotated his shoulders, the muscles in his arms sore and tight. They hadn’t lost any cattle as near as he could tell during the crossing. Three men had volunteered to help him get the cattle and mules through the river. Two of the men were bachelors, without families to worry about.

Elijah Edwards heartily shook his hand once the entire train was safely across the river and the mules and oxen were hitched to their wagons. Beaming brightly, he had slapped Jake on the back, congratulating him on a job well done, and that he had great confidence that this trek to Oregon would go off without any trouble. He had invited Jake to eat supper at his wagon that night. His wife, Harriet Edwards, had shot her husband a look of outrage. Just to irritate the woman further, Jake wanted to accept the invitation, but he wasn’t going to stand up Rachel a second time.