We’re excited to welcome Lacy Williams to the corral! She’s discussing her new release and has a giveaway for you!
“Are we fishing with marshmallows?”
“Did you hear Aunt Linda had to go to the doctor again?”
“Blood pressure?”
“My catfish was so big it broke the line–it was the granddaddy of the one Gramps caught!”
“Can we play cards yet?”
Hello! Lacy Williams here today to chat and I’ve just brought you a real-life conversation from around our dinner table when extended family gets together. (Names changed to protect the innocent).
I absolutely love big family get togethers. When I was a kid, there might be one Sunday lunch a month, or Thanksgiving, or “just because”–I loved the time together with my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-grandma and great aunt. I can barely remember gathering around a big ping pong table that was brought in so everyone would have a place to eat. Later, we changed to TV tables and criss-cross applesauce on the floor just so we could fit everyone in.
And the conversation usually goes about like what I’ve written above. Catching up with someone we haven’t seen in a while, news we haven’t heard yet. My youngest daughter is a nature lover and so is my grandpa (my only grand still living). They will chat about birdwatching or dogs or other animal stuff and it’s adorable.
And sometimes it’s difficult keeping track of the multiple conversations that start winding around the table! This family dinner feeling is something I tried to capture in my new release, A CONVENIENT HEART. The catch is, my bookish hero Jack is an orphan. Now an adult, but from a very broken family situation. He can’t remember a time when he sat down for family dinner.
Until it happens when my heroine’s extended family descends on the two of them. It was a fun scene to write and I loved capturing this confident man feeling very out of his element in this scene. I’ve shared it below if you’d like to read it.
Merritt had abandoned him.
At least, she’d excused herself to the kitchen to cook supper. He’d heard the clank of pans, the crackle of kindling taking hold in the stove. The two girls had gone with her. David and Nick had gone to settle the horses and wagon at the livery for the night.
Which left Jack in the room with her cousins Drew and Ed.
“Where did you say you were from?”
Drew had asked the question, but Ed’s intense gaze was a mirror of his brother’s.
“Here and there.” Jack still didn’t know what John-the-groom had written in his letters, didn’t know how much Merritt had told her cousins about her potential groom.
“What happened to your hat? Hey, Merry,” Drew called into the kitchen, “I’m not sure I can trust a guy without a hat!”
“Lost it,” Jack said cheerfully. “How far’s your ranch?”
It must be pretty far if they were staying the night in town. The oldest brother had mentioned staying in the bunkhouse of a rancher nearby. The girls would stay the night here with Merritt.
Drew stared at him.
It was Ed that answered. “About half a day’s ride.”
“How many cattle you run?”
If he could keep the conversation focused on the brothers, it’d make everything simpler.
“Almost a hundred head,” Drew answered. “You got family back home?”
Jack sat down on the sofa, crossing one ankle over his knee. “No family. Why do you want to know?”
Drew’s eyes narrowed. “Wondering whether you’re going to try to take Merritt away from her family.”
They’ll be your family in a few days. Merritt’s words from moments ago whispered through his mind.
They wouldn’t. He knew it.
And it seemed Drew wasn’t too keen on the idea of this match.
Merritt appeared in the kitchen doorway. The scent of frying ham had his mouth watering. The sounds of something sizzling on the stove were muted, as were the girls’ voices behind her.
“We’ll be staying in Calvin long enough for me to finish the school year,” she told her cousin primly. “Not that it’s your business.”
She set several tin coffee mugs on the table with a clank. The pot followed with a heavier clunk.
“You can pour, Ed,” she said. She pointed a finger at Drew. “Be nice.”
There’d been a flurry of introductions outside, and the young girl he thought was named Tillie skipped into the room, carrying a glass of milk. There’d been no mention of a mother. Was Drew widowed? Jack’s curiosity was piqued, despite knowing he should ignore those thoughts.
“What’re you doing, peanut?” Drew asked as she skirted him and then came to sit right next to Jack on the sofa.
“Merry asked me to come rescue Mr. Jack.” She took a sip of her milk and set her cup on the table too. She had a small milk mustache across her upper lip, and it made her look innocent somehow.
He felt another kick in his stomach. Had Dewey ever been as innocent as this girl seemed?
Her leg swung where her foot didn’t touch the floor. “What d’you need rescuin’ for, Mr. Jack?”
He glanced up to where Ed had turned his smile into his shoulder and Drew was staring at him. “I reckon I don’t.”
She tipped her head to one side. “Then how come Merry thinks so? She’s real smart, ya know? If she says you need rescuin’, ya prob’ly do.”
She said the words with such earnestness that he couldn’t argue. But Merritt was wrong. He didn’t need rescuing from these men. He could hold his own at a card table with men more dangerous than these. Men with loaded weapons in their laps. He wouldn’t be afraid of her family.
Tillie pointed toward a small pile of brown-wrapped packages in one corner of the room, half hidden behind the edge of the sofa. He hadn’t noticed them until now.
“Those’re our Christmas presents.” Tillie whispered so loudly that the sound carried across the room. “Merry always gets me a book, but this year I’m hopin’ for a dolly.”
His lips twitched with the urge to smile. “You’ll be as smart as your cousin if you read lots of books,” he said.
Nick and David stomped inside, complaining that the wind was turning colder. The added bodies and noise turned the attention off Jack and filled the room fair to bursting.
Soon enough, Jack found himself seated at the round table in one corner of Merritt’s kitchen, surrounded by the children, his knee pressed against Merritt’s.
“How come you haven’t decorated for Christmas?” Tillie asked, her mouth full.
“I supposed I haven’t had time this year,” Merritt said with a furtive glance at Jack. “I’ve been extra busy with the pageant.”
The family camaraderie was evident when Tillie spilled her cup of milk and David helped her mop it up. Jo rolled her eyes, but he also saw the girl sneak a piece of her biscuit onto Tillie’s plate when the girl complained of still being hungry.
Drew and Nick ribbed Ed about the wooden top he’d promised to craft his nephew for Christmas and promptly forgotten about.
Merritt was teased for keeping her mail-order beau a secret, but she took it with good-natured laughter, nudging his boot with her shoe beneath the table.
Jack knew every move to make at the poker table. How to present himself, how to hold his cards and arrange his chips to let his confidence shine through.
But in the middle of a family supper like this…he was completely out of his element…
What about you? Do you have a favorite memory of a big (or small) family dinner? Share in the comments and you’ll be entered to win a $15 Amazon gift card and a paperback copy of A Convenient Heart . These are to one winner.
Thanks for hanging out with me today!
-Lacy
ABOUT LACY’S NEW RELEASE:
Spinster schoolmarm Merritt Harding is done waiting for the future she’s always wanted. Which is why she answered a mail-order bride ad and is anticipating her groom’s arrival on the eve of Christmas. She’s about to get everything she’s dreamed of…
Except the Jack who steps off the train can’t be the same man who wrote her letters. That Jack was a steady, mild-mannered businessman. This Jack is an enigma with flashing eyes and a pirate’s smile. He’s too charming, too keen, too perfect to be real.
And too secretive. What exactly is he hiding?
Jack wasn’t looking for a bride, only an escape from the danger chasing him. But the longer he stays in the small Wyoming town, the more he wants to stay. How can he, when his intended doesn’t even know his real name?
This sweet historical romance is perfect for fans of the following tropes:
*Spinster schoolmarm
*Marriage of convenience
*Mistaken identity
*Swashbuckling hero
A Convenient Heart is available now!
PURCHASE A CONVENIENT HEART HERE!!
When you have a lot of kids (I have four amazing ones), some days are filled with squabbles and “I’m hungrys!” and running them to and from sports or piano lessons.
I can still remember being about twelve and realizing that I had visualized Frank and Joe Hardy as opposites when reading (countless) Hardy Boys books.
Ida needs a quiet Christmas at home to rest and find her footing again. But her boisterous family is anything but quiet and things only get worse when her U.S. Marshal brother brings home a prisoner for the holiday-the same outlaw that saved her life.
My new series starts with A TRAIL SO LONESOME. What it’s about:
Hello, P&P readers. Lacy Williams with you today asking a couple of questions: How far would you travel to be with your loved ones at Christmas? What are you willing to go through to get there?
