Dogs, Shoes, and Cowboys

Ideas are the fun part of writing, at least in my opinion! I like spinning and discarding, making character sketches, dreaming up motivations. This is where I focus on the reader--what does she want? What are her hopes and dreams? What makes her happy?

I sent my agent four ideas for "bigger" books, more commonly known as Single Title. She liked them all, and in a very nice compliment said, " I think your voice is one of your best assets, and it’s one that I think will translate to a very broad audience."

This is good news. I was quite worried about sending her an idea called Cupcake.

Brave Agent also writes, "Some people like cowboys, some people like shoes, some like dogs. What’s most important is that lighthearted, fun & sexy voice, which you already have."

With an enthusiastic agent who is not afraid of an author whose story seeds wander from shoes to dogs to cowboys, I can enjoy the process of creation. Plot, and more plot! I will attach a part of CUPCAKE here and look for signs of budding.

I did say some days would be ugly. But the garden always starts out hoping the gardener properly tends the soil first.

CUPCAKE
By Tina Sites Leonard

What Dr. Cami Peterson learned in early May was that everything she thought she knew no longer mattered. With no recommendations and no wedding ring on her finger, Cami quickly discovered upon moving into her mother's house in Stone Hollow, Texas, that "thirty" and "single" was tantamount to being ostracized, branded a slut, and left out of the weekly bingo game at Stella Findley's house.
Not that Cami really gave a damn about bingo. But she'd envisioned Stone Hollow to be a place of refuge, a place she desperately needed after her mother died. Grief-stricken at the sudden loss, she elected to move to the small town and fix up her small cottage as a way of healing.
Instead of healing, she found war declared upon her femininity, her womanhood, and goddamn it, probably her chocolate chip cookies, a la any good First Lady fisticuffs.
The real problem, Cami suspected, was none of those things. It was something far deeper, and more intangible. Mystical. Sexual and primal—and Cami admitted she had noticed the undercurrents when Jake Harding had come to welcome her to Stone Hollow.
Her mother had neglected to tell her about Jake Harding and the collective female possessiveness toward a man who appeared to own the town's population of women as his personal harem. Cami noticed that even the men nearly saluted Jake Harding when he strode into the viewing room at her mother's funeral.
"Striding is damnably annoying," Cami said, pulling at weeds in her mother's flower garden. The main presence in the garden was an overabundance of thick, deep-purple irises. There were way too many, and Cami intended to cut them back after this spring. They would probably grow more beautifully if they were separated and their leaves trimmed back. "He needs to be cut back."
The reason for her annoyance with Jake Harding—almost a sighed nickname when the women talked about him—was that he seemed to enjoy provoking animosity toward Cami with his constantly welcoming stance. If he would just leave her alone!
But in the tradition of good manners and chivalry, Jake was kind and tried to be helpful as she worked her way through her mother's things and assimilated herself to Stone Hollow. She had told him she didn't need any more help after a snide attack in the supermarket by a group of moms, all of whom had children with them. Cami had been taken unawares as she'd shopped for bananas and strawberries in a moment of self-reflective calm.
But when one of the mommies walked past, hissing, "Jake's too good for you," Cami had known the lace-edged, hydrangea-flowered hankie had been thrown down as a gauntlet. She was living amongst a tribe of women in a jungle known as sexual, and the only way to diminish the threat they perceived in her was, no doubt, to drive her from her mother's home and from the town.
Being different from the crowd in control was existing as a white swan in a pond of alligators, much like polishing her transcript in high school when she could have been drinking and having sex with pimply, grasping jocks, as every "normal" girl was doing.
She seemed to have a penchant for not existing within the comfort of the crowd. She had never pledged Tri-Delt, nor slept with a college TA as she compiled an impressive resume of doctoral letters after her name. In short, she lacked social skills of the sort which won a woman skirt power.
So, not being one for direct confrontation and yet not exactly a pansy, Cami had wheeled her basket over the woman's pedicured toe and continued blithely down the aisle, although just by telling a handsome man—a hunk, really-that she no longer required his services was a capitulation of sorts to the tribal warfare being waged upon her. The problem was, Jake Harding was a man born to make women drool and men respect. He was tall. Broad-shouldered. He smelled fabulous, whether he stopped by in the morning or in the evening after work. He wore jeans that showed his physique but which were confidently loose in the crotch.
In Jake's case, it was a natural assumption that he needed the extra material there. Just the thought of it brought a flush to Cami's cheeks and an embarrassing tightness to her nipples.
She was attracted to Jake. This was exactly what the Ladies of The Tribe feared, and which Cami was coming to understand. Every woman was fair game for Jake, and every man admired that—while keeping a tight eye on his own wife, daughter, or mother.
Yet Jake ignored the fact that Cami said she didn't need his assistance. It was almost as if those very words increased his solicitousness toward her, which, of course, was only exacerbating the animosity from the harem.
She settled her knees more comfortably on the gardening mat, wondering if she'd made a mistake in looking for connection to her mother's spirit by moving here.
And that's when she saw her bigger problem, sticking out from the overgrown bed of hawthorn bushes, pink azaleas, and deep-throated irises. Cami picked up the golden locket, wondering how anyone could have dropped something so lovely in her mother's garden. She opened it slowly and carefully, frowning at the pictures inside. One was of her mother—and the other of Jake Harding.

CUPCAKE
by Tina Sites Leonard
Synopsis

Dr. Cami Peterson believes that moving to Stone Hollow, Texas, after her mother's death will help her connect with the only family member she'd had. During her years of studying, she hadn't spent as much time with her mother as she'd wanted, though she had known that her mother was proud of her hard work. All she really knew was that her mother had moved to the small town three years ago, and seemed to enjoy living there.
But Stone Hollow doesn't turn out to be the refuge Cami thinks it will be. Her mother neglected to tell her about handsome Sheriff Jake Harding, who makes it his business to be the welcome wagon. His kindness to Cami is looked upon by the female residents of the town as threatening, as Cami is blond, single, and smart, and yet not savvy in the female game.
Nor is she all that experienced when it comes to men other than the requisite college sweetheart, but she does recognize that she is going to be another fallen heart for Jake. Sexually, he is a man who is hard to pass up, and yet, Cami can't see herself fitting into his hunkdom. His idea of womanhood is sheet-work, or at least, that's the impression she gets from the moms and other females who fawn on him.
This sexual tension—and self-discovery as Cami begins to realize that she lacks the conniving social skills needed to fit in—is disturbing, but more upsetting is the gold locket she finds in her mother's garden. The locket contains a picture of Jake and her mother.
In a drawer in the bedroom, Cami finds her mother's diary. This is closer than she'd ever expected to get to her mother, and she opens the black-bound diary with nervous fingers.
Cami discovers she is adopted, the daughter of her mother's deceased sister. Upset, she reads further, discovering that her mother and Jake had such a close friendship that he regarded her as a mother figure. This strikes a chord inside Cami, as she knows she didn't spend enough time with her mother. Apparently, Jake did.
To her shock, her mother writes that Jake would be a dream husband for Cami, but that Cami is too soft and too dreamy to live in Stone Hollow. Nor did her mother believe she could keep Jake when so many willing women adored him.
This conclusion bothers her. Jake Harding is the last man she would set eyes on in a marital sense. She would never feel comfortable with a man like him. Sexual repression is the result, perhaps, of being a nerd who pursued a doctorate in chemistry. It was a lonely, if intellectually gratifying, way of life.
Reading more, Cami discovers that her mother was a famous crime writer, though no one in the town knew it as she wrote under a pen name. Cami goes to a bookshelf in the parlor, finding title after title hidden behind the baby grand piano. Moreover, her mother's tales appear to be based on the town of Stone Hollow—with various groups bitingly disguised in her writing.
There are the Cupcake Queens, for instance, the gang of women who have been uncivil to Cami. In the journal, there are character sketches. Immediately, Cami recognizes Stella Findley, among others.
She also recognizes Sheriff Jake Harding.
Moreover, her mother also includes gossip in her notation. Cami learns that Stella is up to her eyeballs in hock, and that her fancy plantation house on the hill is in jeopardy. This is not so much a journal as it is a wise-eyed view of life in a small town and the key, perhaps, to Cami's survival.
The only thing her mother doesn't illuminate in the journal is how to deal with Jake. Learning that she is adopted has so shocked Cami that she skips over reading that her mother had a secret critique partner whom she thanks in her dedications. In fact, Cami is so startled by what she has learned about herself that she talks to Jake, feeling somewhat comfortable to do this knowing that her mother considered him a good friend.
Cami finds that Jake is the executor of her mother's will. Between the value of the cottage, and her mother's royalties, not to mention her own income, Cami is a woman of means. Jake also knew that she was adopted. He is so sympathetic and kind about this fact that Cami feels herself letting down her guard. She needs this comfort now, and he can be trusted, she knows, because her mother trusted him.
What Cami doesn't expect is the sensual journey Jake takes her on. Throwing caution to the wind in a moment of pained self-discovery, Cami lets Jake into her soul and he zeroes in on her weakness like a hungry lion. Everything that the Cupcake Queenies and other women sense about Jake is clearly obvious to Cami from the moment he undresses her.
He is deeply passionate, and insatiable. Never having seen herself as a woman men would want in such a sexually experimental way, Cami is drawn to the depth of Jake's desire for her.
In the morning, Cami knows that she has an education of a new kind. But her mother's written words haunt her. The Cupcake Queens, sensing a change in Cami's resolve, invite her to a welcoming luncheon. Cami goes to the teahouse, only to find a table laid for one, and a note with her name on it which reads Goodbye, Dr. Peterson.
Finding this to be a sophomoric stunt, Cami leaves, deciding to read her mother's journal more carefully, and some of her books. She is still reeling from discovering that her mother had such an extensive library, and that she'd won so many awards. Rereading the character notes, Cami easily recognizes Stella, and finds that Stella is most afraid of losing her house as it will expose her to ridicule.
Through an out-of-town realtor, Cami makes an anonymous bid for Stella's house. The offer is accepted, as Stella is glad to be able to say that a rich out-of-towner is buying her beautiful home so that she can move to something smaller.
When the closing goes through, Cami goes to the town council and proposes to turn the stately home into a private school for girls who are interested in an education primarily heavy in science and math.
This really upsets Stella—but Jake greatly approves of Cami's idea. He invites her out to his ranch and Cami goes, knowing full well the evening will be a sensual adventure. She has decided that it hurts no one if she indulges in these fantasies with the handsome sheriff. No one knows, after all. It is just one secret she is keeping among many.
But there is a greater secret which turns up the next day: Stella Findley is murdered and laid most embarrassingly to rest in the flower bed Cami's mother had so lovingly tended.
Unfortunately, Cami finds herself the target of suspicion. To satisfy questions of her whereabouts, Cami has to reveal that she was at Sheriff Harding's ranch the night before. The gossip and nastiness turns intense, and Cami remembers that her mother wrote that she was too soft to live in Stone Hollow.
As tempting as it is to turn from Jake, Cami remembers that her mother thought the two of them would be perfect for each other. She also knows, from her crash course in the cupcake jungle, that quitting is running and will only deepen the problem. Her dream of a girls' school in Stone Hollow would have to be forgotten.
And a selfish seed of survival blooms inside Cami: she is crazy about making love with Jake and she's not going to give up on it, no matter how much the women taunt her. In fact, she's not giving up anything, not her house, the school, or him.
If he decides to give up on her, fine. But she intends to keep making love with him in any adventurous position he determines. She will keep pushing for her school, and she will use her mother's journal to try to figure out who killed Stella.
Stella is a corpse which doesn't rest easy. Many people were afraid of her, and the power they thought her financial position brought her. Not to mention that she was the tiara of the queenies, so she commanded respect. She had loved Jake with all her soul, and never ceased trying to win him.
Win him back, Cami realizes, as she reads her mother's crime novels late one night. If her mother's words are true and not fiction, Jake and Stella had a torrid relationship which spanned three years. Stella wanted a wedding ring, and Jake wanted her. There was no compromise, and in the end, Stella ended up dead.
This is fiction, Cami reminds herself, her heart sinking. Jake wouldn't have hurt Stella. He is big and strong, but he is not capable of poisoning a woman and sending a shovel over and over into the soft earth of a flower garden to bury her.
Or is he? Suddenly, Cami knows that she has allowed their adventure to go on too long. Nothing good can come of the feelings which are growing in her heart for him. She has grown to love passion and desire, and the feel of him inside her.
When Cami accidentally discovers that Jake was her mother's critique partner for her crime novels, everything changes.