Kari Lynn Dell | Giving It Up For Love

The best writing advice I’ve ever gotten was from the incomparable Jennifer Crusie’s blog, Argh Ink. She said, paraphrasing, give the hero and heroine a dream, and then create a situation in which they can have their dreams or they can have each other, but not both. To find their happily-ever-after, one of them will have to be defeated—aka, give up their dream for love.

The key to making this a truly happily-ever-after is that of one of the dreams
is, in some way, a compromise, or in the case of my new book, a deal with the
devil. Signing on that dotted line will make that character less than the best
version of themselves.

In RECKLESS IN TEXAS, Violet Jacobs isn’t going anywhere. She’s an unmarried mother tied to the Texas Panhandle by her son—whose father also lives in their tiny hometown—and by her family’s small time rodeo stock contracting business. But she has big dreams, and she’s going to find a way to push Jacobs Livestock into the national limelight even if she has to drag the rest of the family along kicking and screaming…bless their hearts.

Joe Cassidy fell deeply, irrevocably in love when he was fifteen years old—with
the High Lonesome Ranch in Oregon. Trouble is, the ranch doesn’t belong to him.
But Joe has managed to stick for fifteen years, working as a bullfighter for
ill-tempered, unappreciative rodeo stock contractor, Dick Browning, and saving
every dime for the day that Dick finally recognizes his value and offers him a
share in the business.

Then Joe meets Violet, and sparks ensue, but it’s apparent to all that as soon
as his contract is up, Joe is headed back to Oregon and the High Lonesome. How
can he possibly walk away from the ground where his roots are buried?

I know the feeling.

I grew up on ranch in northern Montana, in a remote part of the state that—much
like Joe’s beloved high desert of eastern Oregon—is harsh and beautiful and
forever entwined in my heartstrings. I had to leave that ranch because the
economics of three siblings and one small cow/calf operation did not work out in
my favor. I was lucky enough to find another career—sports medicine—that I
loved, and it took me to some wonderful places. Texas. South Dakota. Oregon.

But no matter where I went, how long I stayed or the fact that I married a
Dakotan, the ranch was always home. A whiff in a grocery store aisle would
transport me, and I’d be skirting a bog on a cool evening, wild mint crushing
beneath my horse’s hooves. On a hot July day, the scent of sage would send me
into a spiral of yearning to ride across sun-baked pastures of native bunch
grass, wild roses and buck brush. And I could never look west without wanting to
paint in the jagged blue upthrust of the Rocky Mountains on the horizon.

Like RECKLESS IN TEXAS , my story has a happy ending. Eight years ago, my husband and I returned to work this ranch with my parents, and the good Lord and the cattle markets willing, I will wake to the sight of Chief Mountain out my window for the rest of my days. Yet even as I gaze across this familiar, irreplaceable landscape, or watch bald eagles wheeling overhead, there is still a tiny ache around my heart, a love that runs almost too deep to bear.

Sometimes, I feel bad for the hell I put Joe through. Regardless of the choice
he makes—Violet or the High Lonesome—a part of his heart will forever be broken.
I know, because I’ve shared his pain.

On the other hand, leaving our ranch meant finding my husband. Twenty-five years
and a whole lot of adventures later, I can confidently assure Joe that Violet’s
love will be more than worth the sacrifice, no matter where life takes them.

GIVEAWAY

What do you think about Kari Lynn's and Joe's sacrifice for love? One reader will get a copy of RECKLESS IN TEXAS