Hello Gemma! Thank
you so much for visiting Written Butterfly with me today! It’s such a pleasure to chat with you. So tell me…
Q) Is this book part
of a series? If so, can you tell us
about it?
Yes! Wild Flowers is book two in the Triple Diamond series,
which is set on the Triple Diamond Ranch in Wolf Creek, Montana. The first book
in this series, The Lovin’ Is Easy
was actually meant to be a short, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have the
opportunity to expand, so it’s now a four book series, with each story set in a
different season. This one is fall and let me tell you, Montana is beautiful in the fall. (She says, from
having spent too many hours on Pinterest and never having gone…)
I have to say though, living in the modern day is great!
When I first started expanding this series, I actually found a real estate
website for luxury ranches in Montana. It had these half hour video tours of
the grounds and homes – it wasn’t quite as good as going myself, but it was a
close second! It’s just been so much fun creating this setting and telling
stories there.
Q) What do you think is your strongest asset
as a writer? …what is your weakest factor as a writer?
I’d have to
say that my strongest asset is probably my ability to just get it done.
Programs like National Novel Writing Month or writing sprints/word count goals
are really effective for me, because I write fast and once it’s on the page I
can fix it. That being said, my weakness is also writing fast. It’s really important
for me to write comprehensive synopsis and outlines to follow while I’m
writing, or I’ll end up with a full-length book that doesn’t say a whole hell
of a lot of anything.
Q) Do you plan all
your characters out before you start a story or do they develop as you write?
I think every character develops as the story unfolds. I
come from a background in journalism and it’s been very effective for character
creation, with interviews and research and I love going into a story with a
strong grasp on my characters. That being said, the characters get tested, they
get challenged, they come upon unusual circumstances and, just like people,
they change and are changed by those events.
It’s particularly interesting, too, to write romantic
character development for ménage romances. The dynamic is going to be very
different than a more traditional type of partnership and exploring those
unique approaches to communication and trust has been a lot of fun and very
educational.
Q) Do you want each book to stand on
its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between
each book?
I love writing series! Every time I try to write a
stand alone book, it ends up developing into a series. I’ve always loved
reading them too, so I think that has a lot to do with it. For me, it’s fun to
see characters or places from previous books and to get that sort of outside
interaction. It’s easy to accidentally isolate our heroes and heroines because
we do want them to be alone together, but we don’t want them to be alone in the
world and creating that larger series setting can really help give them a solid
place.
So yes! The Triple Diamond series is interconnected
between the (what will be) four books in the series. I have a few stand alone
short stories, but I think it’s a little different. I have two recently
released titles I’ll be republishing and they’re both part of series as well
and I’m actually thinking of expanding one across time, so yes, huge series
fan!
Q) What are your
upcoming projects?
I’m working on such
a fun project right now, but I’m quite at the point where I can spill the
beans. Suffice to say, it has
dukes, friends to lovers tropes and bacchanalian, hedonistic festivities with
1800s circus themes! I have fun.
That’s in early
stages though. Right now, Wild Flowers
is out this week and book three in the Triple Diamond Series, Most Wanted is coming out early next
year. I’m also planning to republish two of my recently unpublished
works, so fun things!
Blurb
When it comes to the two very tempting search-and-rescue survivalists, Lily
Hollis is all about getting in touch with nature…
Five years have passed since her fiancé’s death and Lily Hollis has had enough.
She’s done with the self-pity and the guilt and putting the brakes on her own
life. She’s going to visit her sister, Madison, in Wolf Creek, Montana and
she’s going to finish her master’s research, finally graduating, like she never
did all those years ago.
But Wolf Creek holds temptation, specifically in the form of
the very sexy, very dangerous Dec McCormick and Micah Ellison, two
search-and-rescue specialists who run a survival camp near her sister’s ranch.
When they suggest she stay with them to complete her fieldwork, Lily is shocked
to find herself agreeing. After all, she hasn’t wanted a man in a very long
time and now she finds herself wanting two.
Which is…complicated. Because, while some of the folks in
Wolf Creek don’t mind unorthodox relationships, Dec and Micah are clear from
the start that it doesn’t appeal to them. It’s a shame Lily’s fool heart can’t
seem to get the idea, because the more time she spends with the two men, the
more she finds herself caring—that is, until one damning question could bring
everything to a crashing halt.
Lily knows deep down that there’s more to whatever’s between
them, but the question is, can she ever get Dec and Micah to believe it—and
what might the future hold if they do?
Excerpt
“We’ve got a scent!”
Axel was trying hard not to get too far ahead of Micah to
see, and Micah did his best to keep pace, following the large and very
determined golden retriever down a steep incline, clenching his thighs and
lowering his center of gravity to avoid sliding on the wet, fallen leaves that
coated the Clark Mountain Range of Glacier National Park, at the edge of the
Montana–Canada border. Axel, on his four legs, was doing a much better job
holding his grip on the ground, but Micah had no desire to go sliding off the
edge of the mountain and into the depths of the canyons below, so he whistled a
command and the dog slowed enough for Micah to catch up.
Still, they kept an admirable pace and quickly came to a
plateau of flat ground. High above, at the top of the ridge, Micah heard his
partner Dec—Deckard McCormick—approaching with Rosie, Axel’s sister. Rosie
kicked up a pile of leaves on the approach, clearly picking up on the same
scent Axel had.
“Anything down there?” Dec shouted, the sound catching and
echoing off the many flat walls of the mountain range.
“I think I saw a cave,” Micah called back, straining to look
around the corner of a large boulder that jutted forth from the ground and
mountainside. “Give me a second. I’ll let you know whether or not to come down.”
Dec gave the affirmative then Micah crouched low to peer
around the edge of the boulder.
Oh, shit.
That wasn’t just a boulder. That was the edge of the fucking
mountain, looking down over a sheer two hundred foot drop to the canyon below.
For a fleeting, horrible second, vertigo caught his senses and nearly dragged
him to his knees, making the sky and the high trees waver and tilt.
But Micah put a steadying hand on the rock wall and took a
deep breath, settling the sky firmly above him and the ground firmly below. He
commanded Axel to stay put—not that he needed to. Axel was a damn smart dog and
knew better than to go canyon jumping. Then Micah lay flat on his stomach, damn
near hanging over the edge of the mountain, to look around the boulder’s protruding
side.
There was definitely a cave on the other side, a yawning,
darkened mouth, gaping right over the valley. The question was—was there anyone
in it?
“Hello,” he called, his breath labored and caught, what with
his stomach pressed against the ground. And he was still pressed against the
ground. He had to keep reminding himself of that. The stones and wet leaves
that rasped against his forearms, giving a slight fall chill in the mountains,
were all real. For this moment, at least, he wasn’t plummeting toward certain
death below.
"Is there anyone in the cave?” A pause. The silence was
weighty, colored by the sounds of raptors flying overhead and wind rippling
through the trees that towered high above the ground, giving Micah a very odd
sense of perspective as to exactly how far up in the sky he was.
Oh, about ten thousand feet…
But now was just about the worst time to calculate the
distance it would take to kill a grown man, so he focused his attention on the
solid ground and his mission and called out again. “This is Lewis and Clark
County Search and Rescue Agent Micah Ellison, I repeat, is there anyone in the
cave?”
A sound. It was barely even a real sound and if he hadn’t
been trained by the very best to determine the difference between human and
nature, he might not have heard it. But there it was, a whimper catching on the
wind, the softest, shuddering inhalation of a very terrified child.
Chloe Robinson. Female. African American. Six years old and
approximately thirty-nine inches tall. Last seen Tuesday, October Eight. Amber
alert issued Wednesday, October Nine.
She’d been gone a week. In the world of search and rescue, a
week was no better than a month was no better than a year. It was true what
they said about forty-eight hours. Truer still when the Montana mountain
ranges, of which there were many, were known for being unforgiving and
merciless. Micah knew all about that first-hand.
But there was no denying the signs of life coming from the
other side of the boulder. After nearly a decade of doing this job, Micah knew
the sound of a frightened child all too well and unless the universe played
some pretty hairy tricks, the girl on the other side of that sheer drop down to
the valley was Chloe Robinson.
“Chloe,” he called out, hoping the sound would carry and not
get lost on the wind, as any calls he made toward Dec and the team undoubtedly
would. “Chloe Robinson.”
The sound of her fearful whimpering increased and when he
called her name again, this time she answered him. Thank fuck for small
victories.
“How do you know my name?”
But that was the way of kids, wasn’t it? Find them hidden in
a darkened cave in the middle of a mountain range and they want to know how you
know their name.
“Your mom and dad told me,” Micah replied. “See, they’ve
been missing you and they sent me and my partner Dec out to see if we could
find you with our dogs, Axel and Rosie. Do you like dogs, Chloe?”
A small sniff echoed across the gap, then, “I have a dog…at
home. Her name is Daisy.”
Micah sighed in relief. Good, she was talking, which meant she wasn’t too
dehydrated to function or too badly injured. He hoped.
“Well, Chloe, I’d really like to get you back home to Daisy,
okay?” he said. “Now, I’m going to talk to my partner, but I’ll be right back…”
“No!” she shouted the word before he even finished his
sentence. “Stay. Don’t leave. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
Micah nodded and as carefully as he could, reached for the
radio on his utility belt.
“Okay, I’m not leaving,” he said. “But I’m going to talk to
him over the radio, okay? I just want to let him know that I found you, all
right?”
She sniffled but agreed and Micah brought the radio to his
mouth, doing his damnedest to think about Chloe, the brave as all hell
six-year-old in the cave, and not the freaking mountainous drop right below his
face.
“Dec,” he radioed over. “She’s here.” The radio crackled in
and out, then cut out completely, plunging the mountain’s edge into silence
that suddenly felt a whole hell of a lot colder and lonelier than it had a
minute ago.
Or maybe that was just the clouds rolling in overhead. For
fuck’s sake.
Okay, okay. He’d dealt with hairier situations than this and
he was damn well going to get that girl out of the cave if it was his last act
on earth and all that. He sent up a prayer to as many of his gods as he could
remember in the moment then called back to the little girl.
“Just you and me now, Chloe, okay?” he said. “Now, I’m going
to hook my belaying chord to a tree on this side of the gap then I’m coming
over to you. You can talk to me. I can hear you.”
He stood and stepped a foot in from the edge of the cliff,
allowing himself one deep breath before walking over to the thick oak tree
growing sideways out of the mountain. He tested a branch with his weight,
finding it thick and sturdy, before tossing the end of the rope around it and
securing the knot that he had been tying since he was about Chloe’s age. He
tugged on the end attached to his security belt and, satisfied, returned to the
edge of the mountain.
“How did you end up here, Chloe?” Don’t look down, Micah.
“I got lost,” Chloe said, only a slight sniffle to her
voice. Christ, this six-year-old little girl has bigger balls than I do. “I hid
in the cave and fell asleep then there was a huge lightning storm. I woke up
when all the rocks crashed.”
On closer inspection, Micah could tell that a big section of
the mountain had broken free, creating the gap between him and the cave where
Chloe was hidden. She’d walked into the cave and hadn’t been able to walk out,
unless she was some sort of New Age Jesus.
“Well, you’re very brave, Chloe,” he said, testing the rope
one more time. “I’m coming over now, okay?” And before she could answer him, he
began the slow, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other walk across the large yawning
mouth of the valley. He didn’t dare lift his feet, but rather scraped them
along the mountain’s edge, making rock and dust crumble, and he gritted his
teeth to keep from following their path with his eyes.
He’d been working for Lewis and Clark County Search and
Rescue Team for nearly six years and he never got over that feeling of being
suspended over the incredibly far valley below. Even two decades later,
memories still plagued him, very nearly paralyzing a man who was otherwise
incredibly good at his job.
But before Micah could give in to any of those fears or
panics, his feet touched down on the other side, grounding him against the dirt
and mossy leaves, and there he was, at the entrance to the cave.
“Chloe,” he called, his voice soft and gentle. “It’s me,
Micah. Do you want to come out of there now?”
She emerged, her movements slow and wary. Her clothes were
dirty and her hair had all manner of sticks and leaves tangled in the curls,
but she appeared otherwise unharmed, and Micah let out a low breath of relief.
“You did a good job hiding here, honey,” he said. “Now, I’d like to bring you
home to your mom and dad, okay?”
She nodded and sniffled. “Okay.” It seemed that the bravery
that had gotten her so far was just about tapped out. Well, fine, she was
allowed to be a kid again. It was no longer her responsibility to get home
safely.
“Okay,” he repeated. “Now, I’m going to hook you into this
harness, then we’re going to slowly walk across that gap. My dog, Axel, he’s on
the other side, waiting to meet you.”
She nodded and, before either of them got the chance to
freak the fuck out about trekking across that massive drop again, Micah had her
hooked into the front section of the harness built for rescue missions just
like this one, and he was scooting them alongside the mountain’s sheer face,
shuffling his feet and trying to keep breathing.
Then, mercifully, they were back on solid freaking ground,
both inhaling more breath than necessary. Micah slowly, carefully, stood and
picked Chloe up, hoisting her onto his hip. He unhooked the harness from the
tree and whistled for Axel to follow before beginning the trek back up the hill
to where their point camp was located.
It only took a few minutes. Axel kept a good pace and Chloe
weighed about as much as a couch cushion, and before he knew it, the blue tent
from their rescue rendezvous camp loomed into sight. A brief, weighty silence
stretched across the mountain. Then all hell broke loose.
Her mother screamed then both of Chloe’s parents were
sprinting toward them, Police Chief Cade Easton and two of his deputies hot on
their heels. Mr. Robinson took Chloe from Micah’s arms and both of her parents
were hugging her and touching her and making sure she was still in one piece.
Micah tried to fade back, but Chloe grabbed the arm of his windbreaker.
“Thank you, Mr. Micah,” she whispered, her bright eyes
shining. Her parents both looked up at him with the same glowing adoration.
“Thank you, Micah,” Mrs. Robinson said, as Mr. Robinson
stuck out his hand and shook it hard, before bringing Micah in for a bear hug.
Then they were gone, carrying Chloe over to the medic tent, and Micah stepped
back to watch them walk off into the distance. He should have been relieved.
They hadn’t expected such a happy ending for Chloe and they’d been lucky, more
than lucky.
But still, the ache in his chest didn’t dissipate and he
knew it was no longer fear that made him feel so heavy and forlorn. Axel
whimpered at his side, and Micah dug into one of his pockets to give the dog a
treat. He loved Axel and Rosie and the other search dogs they kept at the Black
Reef Survival Camp, but dogs were a poor substitute for family, for parents,
for children, for people who loved a person unconditionally. Well, dogs were
what he was going to get, a truth he’d come to terms with a long time ago.
Family wasn’t in the cards for him, not the kind of family Chloe Robinson had.
No, Axel and Rosie, they were what he got, so he’d damn well better be happy
about it.
“Hey there, Superman,” Dec said, coming up behind him, Rosie
hot on his heels. “Or should I say Spider-Man? That was some gravity-defying
shit you did down there.”
And Dec McCormick. Of course. He counted as Micah’s business
partner, search partner, family and best friend, all rolled into one
not-giving-a-damn package of good-old-boy humor and charm. Dec was one of the
few people in the world who knew just how much Micah hated heights, but, as
with most things, he played to the lighter side of the situation.
“I can’t be out-balled by a six-year-old,” Micah said,
suddenly feeling very weary. He followed Dec away from the camp and toward
their cabin a little way down the mountain. If Cade needed them to give
statements, he knew where to find them.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Dec said. “Come on, let’s get a
beer.”
Micah nodded, but glanced back up at the Robinson family one
more time. Growing older with a houseful of dogs and their business and Dec
McCormick by his side definitely wasn’t the worst life a guy could have.
Author Bio
In her free time, she loves to travel, and spent a semester abroad living in a
14th-century castle in the Netherlands. When not exploring the world, she likes
dreaming up stories, eating spicy food, driving fast cars, and talking to
strangers. She recently moved to Nashville with a cute redheaded cat and a cute
redheaded boy.
Find her on:
Gemma Snow loves high heat, high adventures and high expectations for her
heroes! Her stories are set in the past and present, from the glittering
streets of Paris to cowboy-rich Triple Diamond Ranch in Wolf Creek, Montana.