As much as I love rugged cowboy heroes, I also have a soft spot in my heart for nerdy Texas heroes. Probably because I’ve been married to one for over 33 years. I’ve slowly transformed my computer nerd husband into a cowboy, though. Over the last few years, he’s started wearing boots and driving a truck, so I’m pretty sure he’s been a cowboy at heart all this time.
My latest release pays homage to all the cowboys out there who disguise themselves as nerdy academics. š
My story āĀ A Star in the WestĀ ā plays on the three wise men by bringing a trio of Harvard mathematics professors from the East to visit Baylor University in Texas. I love giving my characters names that reflect the theme of the story, and this one was no exception. Our heroine is namedĀ Stella Barrington, Stella, of course, meaning āstar.ā The three wise men from the east traveling from Harvard have names giving a nod to the gifts of the magi. ProfessorsĀ GoldsteinĀ (gold) andĀ MuirĀ (myrrh) accompany our hero, Frank Napier Stentz (Frank N. Stentz).
Frank is a genius-level mathematician and Stella is the daughter of a professor who runs her father’s home and sponsors a literary society on the Baylor campus.
Stella is a rather plain woman with a large nose and has been passed over by the marriageable men of Waco, Texas. She’s content to run her father’s home, certain that she was not meant to run a home of her own. She has enjoyed friendly correspondence with one of her father’s colleagues back east, never thinking he would actually travel to Texas. When he comes west seeking the possibility of courtship, she is certain he will be disappointed in her. Yet mathematicians see the world in a different way than most. This plays out in one of my favorite scenes in the story . . .
She dropped her chin and tugged her hand free of his hold. “Don’t lie to me, Frank. I know my face is far from beautiful.”
“I speak the truth, Stella.” He crooked a finger under her chin and gently tipped her face up for his inspection. “Your eyes shimmer with intelligence and kindness, your lips are evenly distributed across both cheeks when you smile, and your nose is perfectly centered in the oval of your face. You’ve been blessed with beautiful symmetry.”
She blinked at him, her brow furrowing slightly. “You find my face . . . symmetrical?”
Drat. He knew he’d bungle things. He might find geometric balance beautiful, but Goldstein had warned him that women preferred poetry to science. Too late to change streams now.
“Aristotle said that the chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and Socrates stated that measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over. It’s why humans are drawn to flowers and butterflies in nature, and columns and archways in architecture.” Maybe he should stop before he made this any worse.
He removed his hand from beneath her chin and dropped his gaze. “I’m making a hash of this, aren’t I?”
She didn’t answer right away, and her silence gnawed at him. He darted a glance in her direction, bracing for the worst, but instead of her features puckering in offense or sharpening in anger, they rounded in what looked to be . . . wonder?
“Mr. Stentz. I think that is finest compliment I’ve ever received.”
On a Midnight Clear is now available!
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | CHRISTIAN BOOK | BAKER BOOK HOUSE
When do you typically start reading Christmas stories?
The second collection is western through and through. This is a two-in-one novella collection that contains my story from The Christmas Heirloom,Ā “Gift of the Heart” along with a separate novella that carries on the legacy of my all-time best-selling Archer Brother series – “An Archer Family Christmas”.
