Tour: Texas Heart Series by Lisa Mondello (Guest Post/Giveaway)

Good morning lovelies! Please give a warm welcome to romance author Lisa Mondello who we are happy have back at RBtWBC, but this time she is joining us on tour with her new eBook series, Texas Hearts! 

Reunion Stories by Lisa Mondello

Thank you for having me as a guest blogger today.  To thank you all for coming, I’m giving away a copy of Nothing But Trouble to one lucky commenter today.  So don’t be shy.  Leave a comment for a chance to win.

My favorite stories to write are reunion stories.   I’ve written several.  My first was THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT, book 2 of my Fate with a Helping Hand series.  The second was HER HEART FOR THE ASKING, book 1 of my Texas Hearts series.  There’s something about old loves meeting up and falling in love all over again that tugs at me.

It’s not just romance novel reunions I’m drawn to.  I’m a sucker for stories about siblings reuniting after years apart or parents being reunited with their long lost child.  I sob when I see Youtube videos of soldiers coming home and surprising their wife or children.  I bawled just the other day watching a dog go ballistic when a soldier returned home after 8 months overseas.  He was so happy to see his buddy!  I just love reunions.

As a writer, plotting out a reunion story is fun.  I think it makes it easier for me and the reader to get right into the story.  For one thing, there is already a built in conflict right from the first meeting.  In Her Heart for the Asking, the friction starts right with the opening line.  You know immediately that Mandy Morgan is not happy to see Beau Gentry.  You just don’t know why.  Or what happened.  And the further you read into the page, the more you want to know.

That makes it fun for me as the author and as a reader.  There’s already a history there, a connection that creates tension because you know they want to be together but you also know that “something” drove them apart.  Learning about that and how they resolve it is half the fun.  The falling in love again is the other half!

What’s your favorite reunion story?  Do you have one of your own to share? 

To find out more about Lisa and the Texas Heart Series visit her Website. You can also connect with Lisa on FaceBook and Twitter! 

Mandy Morgan swore she’d never step foot in Texas again after Beau Gentry left her for life on the rodeo circuit eight years before. But now her uncle’s heart is failing and she has to convince him that surgery will save his life. She never dreamed the first thing she’d see when she stepped off the plane would be her biggest nightmare...the one man she’d never stopped loving.Beau Gentry had the fever for two things: the rodeo and Mandy Morgan. But for Beau, loving Mandy was complicated by his father’s vendetta against her uncle. This led him to make the hardest decision of his life and he can still see the bitterness and hurt on Mandy’s face. All these years it has killed him to think Mandy had forgotten him and moved as far away as possible from him. But now they’re back in Texas, and he’s going to do all he can to win back her love.

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Ever since Mitch Broader set foot in Texas, he dreamed of owning his own ranch. Now that he’s bought a share in the Double T Ranch, he’s one step closer to the dream. Then his past greets him in the form of a baby basket, complete with infant and birth certificate naming him as the father. He can’t change diapers and work toward his dream at the same time.
When Sara Lightfoot, “Miss Hollywood” in Mitch’s eyes, rescues him with her particular knack for handling his precocious son, he hires her on the spot as a temporary nanny. No matter how much Sara’s dark eyes and warm heart make this bachelor think of settling down and making their arrangement permanent, she’s made it perfectly clear she has other plans that don’t include him or his dreams.
Sara Lightfoot never thought she’d return to her home on the reservation. Now she plans to reclaim the life she left by going back to the reservation as a Native American storyteller, teaching the Apache children stories of their culture. She didn’t expect Mitch Broader’s sexy smile or job offer as a live-in nanny to derail those plans. After all she’s been through to come home, can she open up her heart once again to love?

As a top-notch cutting horse trainer, Cody Gentry was riding high until he lost his eyesight after a freak chemical accident. Unable to see the hand in front of his face, never mind the horse or cattle he trained, he knows his life is over and slips deep into depression. His whole future hinges on the success of an eye surgery that could give him his old life back.When guide dog trainer, Lyssa McElhannon, arrives on his ranch like Florence Nightingale coming to save him, he wants no part of her or her guide dog. But something about Lyssa’s musical laugh coupled with her tenacity digs under his skin and won't let go. Having been blind most of her life, Lyssa understands the paralyzing fear Cody feels after losing his vision. But she refuses to let the stubborn cowboy waste his life away sitting in a chair when she knows first-hand that a good guide dog can change his world. She just needs one month to prove it to him.Falling in love with Cody was not part of Lyssa’s plan, nor was having him open her eyes to see that there was a whole lot of living she’d been missing out on.

Excerpt for Her Heart for the Asking:

"What are you doing here?" Mandy Morgan asked, dropping her too-heavy overnight case on the sun-roasted tarmac. After a grueling forty-eight hour work stint and a five-hour flight from Philadelphia, she stood wilting under the brutal Texas sun, facing her biggest nightmare.

Beau Gentry.

She groaned inwardly, drinking Beau in with her eyes as if she hadn't had a drop of water in months. Eight years was more like it. If she were eight years smarter, she would be moving her aching feet as fast as she could in the opposite direction. But all she could do was stare at eyes so bright they rivaled the blazing sun. At lips so kissable she'd spent the better part of her adult life trying to wipe the memory clean from her mind.

She had expected Beau would have aged some. When she allowed herself to think about him at all, she reminded herself. The faint lines etched in the corners of his sleepy gray-blue eyes gave a hint of maturity, but most probably caused by long days in the cruel sun.

She fought the urge to take a closer look at his ruggedly handsome features, but failed. How could he have gotten better looking after being abused by every bronc-busting horse on the rodeo circuit? His angular jaw, strong and determined, was shaded with beard growth that was probably a day old, maybe more. Mandy suspected if Beau grew a full beard, it would grow in thick and be the smooth texture of his almost black head of hair. She forced aside past memories that gave her such knowledge with renewed irritation.

The man didn't even have the decency to have a crooked nose. What should have been bent and awkward from being broken a few too many times was instead long and straight, shaped perfectly between high cheek bones most women would swoon over, or kill to have themselves. But on Beau Gentry, it was just one thousand percent robust cowboy.

Damn him.

"I'm your ride out to the Double T," Beau said, gripping the edge of his white straw cowboy hat and tipping it in a cordial gesture.

She ground the heels of her low pumps into the soft tar to contain her growing irritation. Did he think she was an idiot? "No way."

"'Fraid so," he said, his expression slightly askew.

"Hank didn't mention anything about you coming to get me when I spoke to him on the phone."

"I suspect he thought you would have found some excuse not to come if you knew I was picking you up."

"He would have been right. Why didn't one of the hands come get me?"

Settling his hand at the base of his neck, Beau replied, "You're looking at him. As of three weeks ago I am one of the ranch hands at the Double T."