Sharpshooter in Petticoats – A Chance to Win!

Sharpshooter in Petticoats released January 1st.

It’s in bookstores NOW!

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Sharpshooter in Petticoats is my favorite one of the three, not because the others aren’t good, but because I’ve been building to a wild, chaotic, runaway, mayhem soaked conclusion for three books, and in a way…for NINE books. characters from Lassoed in Texas Trilogy and the Montana Marriages Series are in this final book.

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If you’ve read books #1 and #2 in the series, Doctor in Petticoats and Wrangler in Petticoats, then you’ll know I’ve been getting the oldest sister in the McClellen clan into deeper and deeper trouble in those earlier books. Finally it’s time for Mandy to have her happy ending.

And if there wasn’t a feuding family of backshooting murderers gunning for her, it’d be no problem because her no-account husband is dead and the hero has been around the edges of her life for years. Her being married to another man is quite an avalanche blocking the trail to true love, though.

But I won’t even beat around the bush here, Mandy’s husband, Sidney Grey,  is dead and gone. Shot by the men who are now harassing Mandy.

I know a lot of people wanted to WATCH Sidney die. And they wanted to watch him die slowly, maybe stake him to a fire ant hill or have him be nibbled to death by small predators. Better yet, have Mandy beat him to death for insulting her for the LAST TIME.

But nope. I needed him dead to start with so I just shot him between the end of book #2 and the beginning of book #3.  Being a writer is kind of fun. You get to solve all the world’s problems in your books. Of course I created the problems. And in real life, the people who are messing up your world usually just stay right there and keep making things hard.

But for a writer, it’s so clean, even though you have to abuse people you love to begin with to make everyone loathe the villain.

But I digress.

Here’s a little bit about Sharpshooter in Petticoats:

Mandy McClellen Grey, has become the focus of a feud thanks to her husband, who made this mess and then died. Far from home, Mandy, the best little rifle woman in the west, has resigned herself to a lonely life under siege rather than call for help and endanger her family.

Tom Linscott is fed up with waiting for Mandy who should have had the sense to come to him as soon as she finished burying her worthless husband. In fact he’d’ve come fast enough to dig the hole if she’d’ve sent for him. He goes to round up his little woman and buys into a heap of trouble from a whole clan of outlaws.

Between Mandy’s deadly skill with her rifle, her determination to not bring trouble down on someone she loves, and an ever growing crowd of varmints who want to bury everyone named Grey—and anyone who sides with them, Tom may not survive getting himself hitched.

And here is an excerpt from Sharpshooter in Petticoats:
 

“She stole my horse?” Tom’s voice rose to such a high pitch it hurt his ears

“I think she took out after the men who were shooting at us.” Wade stepped in front of Red. It was his brother-in-law’s way to draw a fist to his own face to protect someone else. He might even have thoughts of Tom’s soul, not wanting Tom to slug a parson.

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“You oughtta sign it, too.” Red handed Tom a piece of paper with a neatly written record of the marriage, signed by Red, Abby, and Mandy, all three. “But even if you don’t, you’re still married.”

Red said that as if he expected Tom to argue, but being married to Mandy, the little horse thief, suited him right down to the ground. Tom grabbed the paper and scrawled his name with a pen that barely scratched a line in nearly-dried ink. He thrust it toward Red.“It’s yours.” Red refused to take it.

Tom folded it roughly and jammed it into one pocket.

“Abby, tell me what went on around here. Sawyer, pack me some grub.”

Abby talked while Tom led his stallion to the barn.

When his sister paused to take a breath, Tom jerked his chin at the stallion. “Will you take care of him? Everyone else on this ranch is scared to get near him.”

Abby agreed and kept talking, letting him know all that had unfolded. She made a point of talking about the way Mandy handled her rifle. Tom had heard a similar story years ago from Belle Harden, who had met Mandy when she was a new bride.He’d asked too much of the black. He strode toward the corral where Tom’s second favorite horse was held. The most perfect colt to ever come out of his stallion, and that was saying something because his stallion bred true.

Tom stumbled to a halt when he reached the corral. A dozen horses grazed in the pen, none of them the one he wanted. “She stole my best horse?” Though it was no time for such a thing, Tom laughed. He had married himself one beauty of a woman.

“Borrowed, Tom. Not stole.” Red had tagged along to the corral.
Tom remembered well his plan to beat Red within an inch of his life. Right now time was too tight. “Which way did she go?”

Red pointed to a trail in the distance Tom could only see because he knew his land so well. “She asked me where I saw the men riding, the ones who shot up your house.”

“And you told her? Why would you do a stupid thing like that?”
Red shoved his face right up into Tom’s, which reminded Tom that Red wasn’t just a sky pilot—he was also a rancher who’d come out here and tamed a mighty mean stretch of a land. “I told her because it never occurred to me that a woman would abandon three children and a man she’d just married to go hunting a pack of killers. What kind of woman did you marry anyway? She’s acting crazy.”

Tom shrugged. He couldn’t really argue Red’s point, though arguing came real easy. “I married me the sharpest shooting woman in the West, I reckon.”

“That you did, Tom. I saw her in action.” Abby bridled Tom’s second choice for a horse while he saddled.

“I saw her, too.” Red shook his head in wonder. “I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that. Why do you want a woman who appears to have a taste for killing? What are you thinking to pick a woman like that?” Tom looked past Red and saw Red’s wife, sweet little Cassie Dawson, quietly tending all six children, both the Dawsons’ and Mandy’s—Tom caught that thought. They were his children now, too.

Tom’s temper would have crushed Cassie like a bug the first week of their marriage. Shrugging, Tom felt a little sheepish, but this was a man of God. It’d be wrong to lie.

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“Honest, Red, that’s what I like most about her.”

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http://www.maryconnealy.com/

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Mary Connealy

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Author of Romantic Comedy...with Cowboys including the bestselling Kincaid Brides Series
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