Sarah McCarty: Promises Linger

Sarah McCarty ~ Promises Linger (Promises 1)
From: Ellora’s Cave

And I wonder sometimes
And I know I’m unkind
But I need you to turn to
When I act so blind
And I need you to turn to
When I lose control
You’re my guardian angel
Who keeps out the cold
Elton John ~ I Need You To Turn To

First off! Personal memo from Teddypig to Ellora’s Cave: Why the hell have you not updated the dang covers of the Promises Series that is in my opinion one of the absolute gems of your back catalog? What is with that? Can we have non-poser non-tacky covers for 2009 please?

Wow, I think I am gonna label these last few weeks our season of The Bipolar Winds. From the fear of watching the economy hit the fucking skids and my boss getting fired, just in time for the holidays mind you he has very young kids, to the high’s of Obama’s victory, to the utter lowest low of Prop (Hate) 8, to the reflections of Veteran’s Day and all the memories that stirs, to the shock of watching Jane step right smack dab into a big old pile of crap.

I have had enough people! I need my escape! I need my comfort reads and I need them now!

Nothing spells escape like a good and in this case flawless Historical Western Romance and that means Sarah McCarty. See, to me a real Western Romance is universal in essence and it can even be sorta contemporary like say that Jane Fonda movie Comes A Horseman. You can almost but not quite tell in the movie that it might be contemporary but it is just too timeless a love story to really be dependent on the actual year it is set in. That is what keys me into a good Western Romance story is that it could be set in any time period and I would still enjoy it.

Elizabeth Coyote walks into the town bar and proceeds to hold her newlywed husband at gunpoint, takes all his money and demands a rather public and immediate divorce. This sets off a well planned chain of events that ends with her leaving the bar with the much surprised Asa MacIntyre in tow to become her new husband. The rest of the book consists of them learning more about each other and falling in love. Which is the perfect setup for a comfort read in my opinion.

The characters are pitch perfect. Elizabeth the heroine is hot headed and strong willed but not stupid. She finds pride in her home and her ranch. Asa our hero on the other hand has a wild and woolly past but is obviously ready to settle down and immediately sets his mind to winning Elizabeth’s heart right and proper. To me a good Western Romance should also have this intangible sense of space. A sense that two people are truely dependent on each other on the edge of a vast untamed wilderness. Much like those old Little House On The Prairie books. The warmth of that flame of companionship is what they cling to in a hard place of isolation exposed to the elements. In Comes A Horseman you get this visually and in Promises Linger you get this in the powerful telling of a simple Romance. McCarty’s writing style is almost plain by nature, stripped down and leisurely in pace and pretty much straight forward in the telling but loaded with all the strengths I love in good Western Romance.

From page 113
Two days later, Asa sat in the study, going over the books for the hundredth time, but the facts didn’t change. The ranch was on the edge of bankruptcy, that much was clear. What was a surprise was that someone had clearly had a hand in putting it on the edge. Every time a bank note came due, there’d been a disaster with the cattle. A well had been poisoned. Rustlers had struck. Cattle had been driven off. Hands couldn’t be hired. It had been going on for the last year, not just the last few months. Someone wanted the Rocking C to go under. If he wanted to pull the place out of bankruptcy, he was going to have to smoke out the sneaky, yellow-bellied S.O.B and show him the error of his ways. He was in the process of making a list of suspects when the knock came at the door.
He closed the account books and pinched the bridge of his nose. No doubt it was Elizabeth coming to deliver her rules. While most women would be thrilled he’d given them time, Elizabeth was appalled. It was hard to miss. The last couple of days, she’d been as skittish as a newborn deer. If he had a penny for every I-don’t-understand-you glance she’d sent his way, the Rocking C would be solvent. Every courtesy he’d extended, like sleeping in another room, seemed to give birth to more confusion until he’d thought the woman would explode, she’d gotten herself so worked up.
God help him, he was beginning to suspect that Old Sam’s statement in the bar that “Coyote Bill brought Elizabeth up rough” hadn’t referred to a lack of dresses. The woman’s distrust of men and any kindness they extended went bone deep. Asa had a feeling Brent’s part in Elizabeth’s distrust was more along the line of confirming rather than creating. He placed his pen on the desk top, checked to make sure no incriminating notes were lying about, and called for her to enter. Last thing he wanted was for her to start worrying he couldn’t pull the Rocking C out of this mess.
The door opened and she sailed in, head high, shoulders back, a sure sign she was ready to fight. She nodded her head. “Mr. MacIntyre.”
She was using his full name again. He wondered if she knew how it made his blood heat. When she said it all prim and proper like that, he wanted to lay her down and kiss her until she admitted he was Asa, her husband, someone she cared about.
“I thought we’d settled on you calling me Asa?”
She wrung her hands, seemed to realize what she was doing, and stopped. “I’m sorry. This whole marriage is taking some getting used to.”
He relaxed into the high-backed chair. The stuffed leather seat welcomed his weight like a lover. Taking over the Rocking C did have its compensations. “In time, we’ll get used to each other.”
From the look she sent him, he guessed she didn’t agree. She licked her lips. “I’ve come to a decision.”
“You sure you took enough time?”
“Two days was plenty.”
“Let’s hear it then.”
“You’ve been very considerate in keeping your distance.”
He smiled, hearing it put like that. Sounded like he was a real gentleman, instead of being drowned in work, spending twelve hours a day eking as much out of the daylight as he could before coming home and dropping exhausted into the spare bed, only to repeat the same procedure the next day. “Thank you.”
Her hands commenced to clench and unclench in the folds in her skirt. “But I don’t feel that’s the best way for us to proceed.”
She had his attention now. “You don’t?”
“No.” If her fingers picked up any more speed, she was going to spend an hour pressing that skirt.
“What do you suggest?”
Her gaze seemed to lock on a point just to the right of his shoulder. “I’m well aware men have needs that need to be met regularly.”
“You are?”
“Please, don’t make fun of me, Mr. MacIntyre. This is a very embarrassing subject and I’m doing my best to get through it.”
“My apologies.”
“I can’t see where refusing you my bed will accomplish anything except to increase tension between us.”
“You can’t?”
If looks could kill, he’d be dead. “No. I cannot.”
“Because I have these needs?”
“Exactly.” She was viewing him with a bit more favor now. “While I’m aware a man doesn’t exercise all his needs with his wife—”
“He doesn’t?”
She looked down her nose at him. “I may not be experienced, Mr. MacIntyre, but I have a good working knowledge of how the world works.”
“I’m beginning to see that.” At least, he was beginning to see how she thought his world worked.
“As I was saying, while I understand you won’t be faithful in body to me for the duration of our marriage, I’d like to make it a term of our ‘courtship’ that, for one month, you confine your needs to my person.”
“You would?”
As her chin tipped higher, the look down her nose took longer. “Yes, I would.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why a month?”
Her face abandoned pink for a bright red hue. “My reasons are private.”
“Well,” he drawled, “Seeing as how I’m giving up all those other women, I feel I got a right to know the why of it.”
“It’s only for a month.”
He pretended to consider it. He sighed and looked regretful. He bit back a smile as her hands stopped their desperate clenching. When she spoke, her voice was perfectly precise. “If you must know, I’d like the opportunity to get to know your preferences.”
“I get the feeling you’re not talking about how I take my coffee.”
“No. I’m not.”
He waved her to a chair. “You sure you don’t want to sit down?”
“I’m fine.”
He rose from the chair and came around the side of the desk. He was pretty sure it wasn’t his imagination that she seemed to hold herself so still, it appeared she’d stopped breathing. He hitched his hip on the corner of the desk. “Let me get this straight. As part of our courting, you expect me to come to your bed and educate you in precisely how I like my loving?”
Her nod was stiff. A bare jerk of her chin.
“And I’m to keep my attentions confined to you?”
Another jerk.
“After the month, however, I’m free to sport where I want with no complaints from you?”
This time, she managed a hoarse whisper. “Yes.”
“Well, now, that’s darned generous of you.”
“I’m trying to be reasonable.”
No, Asa thought, she was being clever as a cat and just as practical. She was planning on holding him with sex unless he missed his guess. Failing that, she was planning on relegating him to the role of scoundrel, insuring that he never got a chance to hurt her. Her cleverness made him smile. He wasn’t going along with her plan, but he could work with it. “How often?”
“What?”
“How often am I allowed to come to your bed?”
The total look of dismay on her face clued him to the fact she hadn’t thought of that. She rallied though. “I’d think that would depend on the frequency of your needs.”
Every time she referred to his needs in that prissy tone of voice, he wanted to laugh and kiss her at the same time. “Well now,” he drawled, “needs are funny critters. A man doesn’t rightly know when they might sneak up on him.”
“You don’t know how often…?” She waved her hand between them in a descriptive arc. This time, her dismay showed clearly on her face. He nearly burst a gut holding in his laughter. She was so sweet to tease. As if he was going to let her get away with neatly stashing him into a single corner of her life.
“Nope.”

I honestly do not read Western Romance for new reinventions of the format or shocking Jerry Springer inspired situations. I just am not the type of reader that enjoys Contemporary Western stories of white trash tawdry drunken sex scenes and drug addictions and family scandals from say a Lorelei James.

I read Westerns for comfort and for maybe a glimpse of a more simpler time and way of life.

Yes, I know that Cowboy Westerns as a rule were fantasy when they first showed up in those old newspaper tales long long ago and they were just as fake when Zane Grey made them a known commodity in pop culture. But I love seeing a smart author take those tired old props and give them a new voice and a new flavor (Which in this case is some spicy but tasteful erotic sex scenes) while respecting their traditional appeal.

So about the other eBooks in the Promises Series. Well, how do you follow up perfection? I must admit that I tend to always get drawn back to Promises Linger since I think it is the best example and most powerful read of the three eBooks. Promises Keep I felt was as successful and just as memorable as the first book but it could have ended a little sooner with a little less will they, won’t they, back and forth, dragging on. Remember, I like more simplicity and straight forwardness in a Western. I think of it as a chance to really see the author work with silences and inflections between two people.

The third eBook Promises Prevail was a strong story but I just never really liked Jenna as much as the other two heroines. It felt like the difference between say the Little House On The Prairie books and the TV series. Same concept but not the same tone. But I still think all of them are worth reading since I tend to be nit picky and all that.

So thank you Sarah McCarty for the chance of escaping into a really comfortable eBook. Grade A for a perfect example. I so needed some of your quiet talent to smooth over some rough times.