Part of Your World

Only six days until Part of Your World releases! I’m so excited to share my next western fairy tale with you.

I thought I’d whet your appetite by sharing a short excerpt. Enjoy!

Zane piloted his newly refurbished catboat through slightly choppy waters, grinning as the mainsheet swelled with the wind and sped him along the Galveston coast. Manning the tiller from a bench in the stern of the boat, he laughed aloud at the thrill of racing across the Gulf at speeds rivaling a galloping horse. Better than a horse, for a boat didn’t tire. As long as the wind blew, the boat ran. And how he loved it!

Freedom. Complete and utter freedom. No matchmaking mama trying to tie him down, no father glaring in thinly veiled disappointment, no meticulous mentor evaluating his every measurement. Just a man and the sea.

And a song?

A woman’s voice carried on the wind. A sweet, pleading call. Heartfelt and beautiful. Zane adjusted the tiller to steer the bow more into the wind, feathering the sail to forfeit power and slow the boat. He scanned the shoreline, seeking the source of the song, like a sailor falling prey to a mythical siren. Something about that voice stirred his soul and set his heart to pounding an irregular rhythm.

“Wondrous Sov’reign of the sea,
Jesus, Savior, pilot me!”

A hymn? Even more intrigued, Zane urged his boat nearer the shore. There. She stood on a rocky outcropping. A woman dressed in dark blue, arms open and raised, hair whipping about in the wind. Red hair? It was hard to tell from this distance, but it seemed to absorb the sunlight and catch fire.

His hand grew lax on the tiller, his attention riveted not only by the music but by the passionate woman in the throes of worship. . .

. . . She repeated the final phrase, taking liberties with the notes like an opera diva, elongating some, trilling others, rising in a crescendo as she turned the music skyward, climbing up instead of down the scale until she hit a note of such purity, he rose from his seat, wanting to climb with her. The climactic tone rang through the air, raising gooseflesh on his arms. Slowly her arms lowered, and a change came over her. A stillness. Like a startled rabbit. She’d seen him. He felt the connection between them, even though he couldn’t make out her features from this distance.

He stood there, watching her as she watched him, neither of them moving, the moment fraught with meaning too heavy to set aside. Then the wind gusted from a different direction, rocking the boat and whipping the long, horizontal pole supporting the bottom of the sail violently over the cockpit. Zane tried to duck, but it was too late. The wooden boom crashed into the side of his skull and launched him overboard.

Which fairy tale tropes are your favorite in romance novels?