Where
are you from? I was born on my parent’s homestead about an hour
outside Sweetwater, Kansas. It wasn’t even a town back then. Just a
feed and seed lumber mill and general store. Nothing changed until
the train was deciding on towns to make their stops in. Now things
are booming.
Tell
us a bit about Macgregor’s Mail Order Bride.
Not much to tell besides what the name tells you. I was well over
thirty and my brothers thought I needed a woman’s influence to
soften me. Said I was too set in my ways. Too hard and I liked the
idea of having young children around the place again. After all, my
brothers will soon wed, I’m sure, and I could use a wife. Company
for my old age so Jamie helped me find this type of newspaper where
women put in ads looking for husbands. Not many single women left in
Sweetwater so I had to look farther away. Mavis Miller sounded like a
good choice. She was a widow who had lost a child and I needed a
woman able to have children. Can’t say it was more than that
although she did seem to have a head on her shoulders. I don’t hold
back my words and couldn’t have married a stupid person. No, Mavis
seemed capable and still had a lot of good years in her. Although
Emily, her best friend who accompanied her to the ranch was very
attractive and smart as well. Things worked out as they were meant
to. I don’t have any complaints. I’m sure no one does.
What
did you think the first time you saw Emily Johnston? Like I just
said. She was attractive and very loyal to Mavis. Tried to smooth
things over between Mavis and I as we learned more about one another.
It isn’t that Mavis is lovely and dresses like a city wife but we
had trouble, um, communicating. I needed Emily’s help to decipher
what Mavis was telling me. How to win her for my wife.
What was
your second thought? That
perhaps I had chosen the wrong women to be
my wife but what could I do? I had written to Mavis and she seemed to
want to be
married again. Start another family with me and live out her days on
the ranch.
Did
you feel it was love at first sight? No, but Emily seemed special
from the beginning. I was too set on Mavis getting to know me enough
to marry me and ignored all the other signs there was more going on
inside me. I don’t usually swerve from a set path once I choose
one. I was doggedly following the original plan out of ignorance.
What
do you like most about Emily? Her loyalty although if she had
been less so it would have been so much easier on me. Maybe pushed me
into knowing what I wanted sooner. Learned what Mavis wanted sooner,
as well.
How
would you describe her? Beautiful. Both in appearance and in her
heart. She’s been so hurt and then to take the step to change her
whole life to help another find happiness. I couldn’t do it. I
couldn’t give up everything I know to travel to another state
simply to help another. She is perfect.
How
would Emily describe you? Not in so many pretty words I’m sure.
I’m cantankerous, set in my way, bossy – I know this because
Emily has accused me of them and I agree. I also agree she is the
only one who can talk me out of doing anything once I set my mind to
it.
What
made you choose ranching as a career? I was left to raise three
younger brothers and they all had big ideas of what they wanted to
become. Architect, lawyer and newspaper publisher. Only Jamie loved
the ranch as much as I did but I wanted him to have a choice so I
sent him on to university, too. As my father taught me, you have to
love the land to be a good rancher. I loved it so it wasn’t a
hardship to stay on while the others went their own ways.
What
is your biggest fear? That I’d lose Emily. The West isn’t the
safest place and for women. No doctors to speak of and so many
dangers. I don’t know how I’d go on without her. Not now that
I’ve found her.
How
do you relax? My wife has talked me into playing the piano again.
My father taught all us boys to play but he stopped the day my mother
passed. I always thought he died of a broken heart because he just
wasn’t the same after. I feared that may happen to me but having
Emily at my side is more than worth any pain I’d feel if she were
taken from me.
Who
is your favorite fictional character? I liked Captain Nemo in
that new Jules Vern book. Emily and I read it together and I liked
the way he ran things. Had to be pretty smart to design such a thing.
What
is the best piece of advice you ever received? From my brother
Jamie when he and I were at loggerheads over my fiancée. He would
move out rather than live without Mavis. I know he loves the ranch as
much as I do so it made me realize that I loved Emily more than the
ranch, more than anything. I should have made sure she knew it.
Thanks
for taking time to talk with us, Mac. Now we'd like to spend some
time with Susan.
What
movies or books have had an impact on your career as a writer?
I’ve always read since I was young so no one author made more of an
imprint than another. It merely fed my need to set words to paper to
tell the stories I hadn’t heard before. Of men and women who find
each other in that precise time in that precise way. My stories must
end happily-ever-after even if there is tragedy along the way.
What
event in your private life were you able to bring to this story and
how do you feel it impacted the novel? A loss early in life can
make or break a person. How that person reacts to the loss is the
difference of living with or through it. I make the most of my life
and want others to do so as well.
Tell
us a bit about your publisher. An internet friend was being
published by The Wild Rose Press so I looked them up to see what they
may be interested in my list of finished books. I found that they
would help self-publishers with any part of a book they wanted. I
contacted RJ and she ‘walked’ me through it. I am pleased with
the process and promptness.
What
book[s] currently rest on your TBR pile? The Lawless Series
by Rosanne Bitner. She is published by Sourcebooks and directly with
Amazon.
Lastly,
what's up next and when can we expect to see it on the shelves?
I will be finishing publishing the other three books of the
Sweetwater series and then working on the edits sent back by Literary
Wanderlust for Montana Lineman. That one should be released prior to
the end of 2020.
Macgregor's
Mail Order Bride is available at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509230289/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_KTqcEbAF0P1DV
Where can
our visitors learn more about you and your work?
Please feel free to contact me at: http://authorsusanpayne.com
Susan
brought along an excerpt for us:
“Mac,
I’m glad that Emily has been married because she’s going to have
to be lead on this one.”
“She
hasn’t.” At Jamie’s questioning look, Mac repeated a little
louder, “She hasn’t been married.” Mac said almost sadly,
“It’s complicated but Emily is a virgin.”
“So
basically, you’re both going into this blind,” Jamie said just as
sadly. “You may as well be a virgin for all the experience you’ve
had.”
“What
makes you so much of an expert? Miss Lily’s isn’t all that fancy
of a place. It’s still a lot of one hour visits to my thinking,”
Mac grouched.
“When
I was in San Francisco for college, I lived with a very modern
thinking woman a few years older than me. She had a wild imagination
and broadened my tastes in food and drink and everything else. There
wasn’t a surface in that house we didn’t make love on, there
wasn’t a position that two people could get into that we didn’t
try, and then the sex toys and lubricants ….”
“Stop,”
yelled Mac. “I don’t think I can take hearing about all of that
let alone remember to do all of it.”
“I’m
not saying you should. You just have to do what you and Emily feel
comfortable doing. I will add that since you’re both virgins....”
At Mac’s look of denial, he said, “Both practically virgins, you
may want to ensure that she ‘enjoy’ herself by using your mouth.
It’s very enlightening, I’ve found.”
“You
mean,” pointing downward, “down there?” Mac was making sure he
understood before he made a terrible blunder.
“Exactly.
Well, here goes the anatomy class and once I say this we will never
speak of it again, right?” At Mac’s nod, Jamie disclosed some
very personal secrets of a woman’s body. Knowledge he had taken
years to learn and techniques he practiced to perfection.
Mac
was somewhat stunned when Jamie finally asked, “Do you understand?
Did I go too fast for you?”
His
eyes glassed over from too much information, Mac sat staring out the
window. He felt foolish in his ignorance of what actually occurred or
could occur between a man and a woman. How he understood his body
more as well. Why he sought to be close to Emily, why he wanted to
take her to his body and never let her go, why he felt alive whenever
she was near him. Everything that Jamie had told him, Mac could see
himself and Emily doing. Doing all those wonderous things to and
with one another.
Jamie
stood and on the way past his big brother patted him on the shoulder
saying, “It’ll be all right. The human race has continued for
thousands of years so there must be some instinctive mating rituals
that will come out once you’ve started.”
For
a morale booster it wasn’t very strong but Mac hoped Jamie was
right.
