We all believe—or at least hope—that we’ll be able to do what is necessary to protect or even save who and what is important to us. And if you are anything like me, you also keep your fingers tightly crossed against having that hope and belief tested. 

The closest I’ve come to such a test was when the area where I live—basically the woods—had to be evacuated because of a very scary fire. Having lived in the area for a while, I of course had a plan regarding what would be loaded into the car and taken to safety. But when the time came to evacuate, did I follow that plan? Of course not. I took what was important to me, which turned out to be just my son (a grown ass man, but still), my dog, my grandmother’s paintings, and my computer along with the current book’s notes. So, in one afternoon, I discovered what was truly important to me. What turned out to be my backup plan.

Just as Laura Senske and Asher Halliday learn what is important to them in Swept Away by the Cowboy, the fourth book in my Grit and Grace series. Only it’s not a fire that has them making snap choices, but a flash flood, an all-too-common threat in the Texas Hill Country. They discover that their relationships with friends and family, and with each other, are what truly matter in their world.

Excerpt:

“How much farther?” she asked.

He smiled and looked at her. “Are you asking me if we’re there yet?”

She returned his smile with one befitting a rodeo queen. If he’d been walking, he would have tripped.

“I suppose I am.”

He got out his phone and brought up a map app. “Nearly.”

Her laugh was one of astonishment. “You have an app for that?”

Shrugging, he turned the screen toward her. “Just basic GPS.”

“And here I thought you knew where you were going.”

“I do. During the remodel, I rode, or drove, or flew over every bit of this ranch. I know where Alec took the bulls. But it never hurts to keep track of where we are.”

“So you never leave anything to chance?”

“Never. I always have a plan. You lose if you don’t have a plan.”

Directing her gaze ahead, she nodded slowly. “If only things always went according to plan.”

“That’s why you need a backup plan.”

She made a rude noise, but her small smile appeared genuine. Then she straightened in the saddle and pulled Misty up short. 

She pointed at something in front of them. “There.”

Asher shifted his gaze to where she pointed and spotted two bulls, one tall and black as night, with the distinct shoulder hump of a brahma, and the other thickly muscled and a tawny, cinnamon red. They were huddled together beneath a scraggly black hickory tree smack dab in the center of what was clearly a gully wash strewn with boulders of all sizes. Flash floods had thundered down this narrow space before.

Laura mused, “So much for them being smart enough to get to high ground.”

“You were right to come after them,” he said sincerely.

She glanced at him, her appreciation of his acknowledgement clear in the depths of her hazel eyes.

His chest tightened. 

A crack of thunder startled them all. Except for the bulls. The bulls didn’t give so much as a twitch of their thick hides.

“Whoa.” Laura tilted her head back and searched the thickening layer of clouds.

“It was pretty far off, but we shouldn’t dawdle.”

As if to punctuate his statement, the first fat drops of rain hit them.

Laura asked him, “You don’t have rain gear, do you?”

Asher shook his head. “I’ll be fine. You brought some?”

“I did.”

“Let’s get those big boys out of this gully and up onto that knoll there.” He pointed to the higher of the two granite knolls they were currently riding between. “Then you can put your rain gear on.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she answered brightly, but he didn’t fail to notice how tightly she gripped Misty’s reins.

He was seized with the urge to reassure her. “We found them. They’re okay. We’re going to be okay.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before he felt as much as heard a deep rumbling sound coming from somewhere up the gully. Misty pranced sideways, and even the unflappable Cedar shifted nervously. The bulls bellowed and began to back away from the tree.

Asher met Laura’s wide-eyed gaze. “We’ve got to move.”

About the Author.

Having never met an unhappy ending she couldn’t mentally “fix,” Leah Vale believes writing romance novels is the perfect job for her. A Pacific Northwest native with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington, she lives in Central Oregon, with a huge golden retriever who thinks he’s a lap dog. While having the chance to share her “happy endings from scratch” is a dream come true, dinner generally has to come premade from the store.