Read about Lane Scott, Katherine Garbera’s latest hero!

herchristmascowboy-300dpiLane Scott. Sometimes a character just sort of walks onto the page and you know that he needs a story.

That was what happened with Lane. Originally I thought he’d be the hero of The Cowboy’s Reluctant Bride, but Lane wasn’t ready for romance or a happy ending so soon after being injured in Afghanistan and his story had to wait. But Monty had his part to tell, his guilt to get over so he could find some happiness. And seeing Monty get his happy ending helped Lane.

He’s settled down in Marietta as much as he can. He uses it has his home base as he goes out in the world and proves to himself that being a double amputee isn’t going to hold him down. He does everything he could before, rides his horse and helps his older brother on the ranch, skis, rides in cycling races and he talks. Through this he’s gotten pretty darned good at showing the world he’s recovered. He’s back to the old Lane. But the old Lane is gone and it takes a special, shy woman from Marietta to make him realize that is finally home and finally ready to move on.

Christmas is a special time for most of us and in the fictional (it doesn’t feel fictional, does it?) town of Marietta it is magical. A place where miracles happen and where the season works its special magic.

Here’s a little snippet of Her Christmas Cowboy:

The house looked like something that should be on HGTV’s Christmas decorating show. Mrs. Danvers took the holidays to the extreme. She was inside making her famous French toast casserole, which Lane had to admit he was looking forward to.
As soon as they had all of the figures arranged Felicity took his hand, surprising him as she tugged him backward. He lost his balance and started to fall, reaching out and careening into her.
She grunted as she took the full force of his weight and her surprised gaze met his. They slipped on the snowy ground and sort of awkwardly fell to the ground, ending up next to each other.
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I just forgot,” she said. “I wanted to show you the best place to see the nativity.”
He was angry again. Not at Felicity. Never at her. But at himself and at his fate. He didn’t give into it often but today just felt like one of those days when he was having a hard time smiling and faking that he was okay.
He wasn’t okay.
He hated that a girl he liked couldn’t just grab his hand and pull him without him going over like a card house.
But this was his life.
She kept her eyes on him and he sensed she saw too much as always. He tried to fake a smile as hers faded and he knew that this wasn’t going to work out the way he wanted it to. She knew he wasn’t shaking this off.
“Lane—”
“Don’t. Don’t say anything else,” he said and felt a little mean about the way he’d said it.
“Hey, what are you two doing?” Mrs. Danvers yelled from the porch. “Brunch will be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“We’re making snow angels,” Felicity yelled back.
“You’re too close together,” her mom said.
“We don’t mind if the angels aren’t perfect, Mom,” Felicity said.
Then she flopped onto her back next to him and he followed suit. She took his hand in hers and he glanced over to see that she was facing him. “No one has to be perfect.”

***
I think I’m obsessed with snow at Christmas mainly because I grew up in Florida and the closest we came to snow was when my dad would leave the sprinklers on overnight and they would freeze so we had some nice looking icicles on Christmas morning.

I’ve always wanted that almost perfect Southern Living Christmas morning. But when my kids were little I realized that jumping in wrapping paper and eating sticky cinnamon rolls in the living room was my kind of perfect.

What does your holiday look like?

Mine’s sort of a mix between something that could grace a magazine spread and messy normal family stuff. Like when Coco and Lukey were little we used to move the Three Wise Men around the house so they could journey to the manger to see Jesus and my son added his Sam The Snowman figure to the mix since he thought that the snowman would like to see Jesus too. Now I always put the snowman out with the wise men…he sort of needs to be there.

Tell me something special about your holiday and I’ll entered you to win a Marietta Christmas prize pack…all three of my Scott Brothers Christmas Stories, A Book Girl’s Guide to Marietta, and a Cheryl’s Cookie Card!


auth_KathyGarbera

USA Today bestselling author Katherine Garbera is a two-time Maggie winner who has written more than 60 books. A Florida native who grew up to travel the globe, Katherine now makes her home in the Midlands of the UK with her husband, two children and a very spoiled miniature dachshund.

44 Comments

  1. My Christmas is pretty nearly always hot as I live in the south eastern Australian bush. It’s my favourite day of the year. When possible my grown up kids come home and our day is lazy and relaxed … after I finish cooking. I stsrt by msking a pavlova around 6.30am then move n to cooking everything else for our smorgasbord lunch, which usually happens around 2.00pm. Throughout the day I sing al g to cheesy Christmas carols. Bliss all round!

  2. Instead of the traditional Christmas dinner we have home cooked enchiladas, refried beans, TexMex rice, and guacamole. I also make homemade millionaires, toffee, peanut candy, fudge, etc. My daughter packages the goodies really pretty and we mail them to friends. My girls and I do a girls gift. We each pick something that’s special to us or that we like and gift it to each other. It’s a lot of fun!

  3. I just love Christmas. When I was a kid, we always had to put out our favorite ornaments and listen to Christmas music non stop for days. Because I was born the week of Christmas, my mom had a little stocking and a small ornament given to her, and we still have them and they always go on the tree.

  4. We celebrate Hanukkah instead of Christmas. One tradition is to have a family dinner that includes latkes (potato pancakes) and kugel (noodle casserole). When the kids were younger we had to have 4 menorahs, 1 for each kid so there were no fights about who’s turn it was to light the candles.

  5. We have a tradition of cooking beignets for breakfast on Christmas morning. I can’t wait to get our Christmas tree on the weekend after Thanksgiving. We decorate it as a family while listening to Christmas music.

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  6. My family never had any traditions and now that all of my sisters live out of town, it’s just me, my husband and my mom for Christmas at her house. She doesn’t even cook a meal anymore as we usually go to my in-law’s prior to going to her house.

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  7. Special about my holiday? A good friend invites me over on Christmas Eve for dinner with her and her husband’s family – over 60 people in all.

  8. I only live about 25 minutes away from my parents and brother, sister n law and their kids so I get to spend Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day with them. It is so much fun visiting, exchanging gifts and eating great food together.

  9. We have the traditional Christmas-family opens presents, kids play, women cook, men eat and then everyone but the kids are done in! We watch a football games, well, some of us while the others take a nap.
    Then we go in the evening to church.

    Fun day.

  10. I love western romances and Marietta sounds like the perfect little town to live in. My daughter lives next door and with her son and the 2 young granddaughters we have custody of we have a lot of fun playing Santa early Christmas morning then we start cooking up a traditional Christmas dinner from my parents and grandparents recipes. New and old recipes make the holiday so special and bring back happy memories!!!!

  11. We are going to have 2 little babies at our holidays this year. They are 1 month apart and one of them was born 2 months early. We are blessed that they are both healthy.

  12. On Christmas Eve we read from Luke 2 and sing through our book of Christmas songs before the kids go to bed. It’s the best part of Christmas for me

  13. I love spending time with family and friends through the holidays. I make sure, too, to take time for myself to enjoy the winter days. Reading is my escape. My preference is a cozy blanket, a warm beverage, and a hot romance!

  14. The family all comes here to open presents from us and each other and the family keeps getting bigger, all those presents and kids it’s fun but there is hardly room to wiggle

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  15. Time with my son. This is his senior year so time is precious. When he was small we made homemade cookies cut in holiday shapes with sprinkles.

    Until last year, we went yearly to the North Pole of Tx: a family along with friends and community decorate half their property in sacred and secular displays (think griswald) and offer free rides on their homemade trains to see it all along with free hot chocolate, santa’s pust office and santa or an elf to hand out candy on weekends starting after Thanjsgiving and continuing through dec. 23. A recording of the family readjng the Christmas story from the Bible plays on Tvs while visitors wait to ride.

    I put together our tree and atring lights. My son decorates and we reminesce Some, and I organize my army of nutcrackers (quit counting years ago at 100) around the house. This is done Sunday following Thanksgiving or as soon after as possible after. Our cat has her own smaller decorated tree she can bat around so she doesn’t climb and redecorate the big tree as much. She lives to sit under the lights on and on boxes under the bug tree.

    And if course, the season has to kick off with the Charlie Brown Christmas and Grinch (original animated cartoon), and season includes the tangerine Bear amd Nuttiest Nutcracker cartoons watched with my son.

  16. I always like to bake shortbread for Christmas and make a variety of different truffles to give away to friends

  17. The first Friday of December we would go pick out our tree then come home to homemade vegetable soup. My oldest son now has the same tradition.

  18. We always decorate the tree the first weekend of December and leave it up until Epiphany. We go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. We cook a special breakfast on Christmas morning after all the presents are opened. A personal tradition for me is to read Little Women every year before Christmas, because that’s when the story begins and I love it so. I watch the Nutcracker ballet with my Mom. So many to choose from, and all special to me.

  19. I love that! With my kids, I started the tradition of them getting new Christmas pjs on Christmas Eve. They haven’t figured out that they open pjs every Christmas Eve. The last couple of years, my mom has made the pjs. I think that makes it even more special. Then, we watch a movie, before it’s time for the kids to go to sleep.

  20. love reading about Marietta and most especially love reading your work!

    my tradition is always pj’s on christmas eve…. two years ago when I had my strokes the kids took over and bought everyone their PJs…. it was a riot to see the choices of the 24 and 25 year olds…. lets just say that they thought I was bad?

    Christmas eve is for us… christmas day is my whole family…. at my parents… all 54-60 of us depending on who shows….lol

  21. love reading your books!

    we celebrate Hanukkah instead, we do a family night the first night, now that the kids are older and on their own. Latkes and applesauce for food!

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