Brush Off the Dust for a First Meet

By Courtney Pierce

I don’t normally write spicy romance. So when I incorporated a sparky first meet in Indigo Lake, the second book of the Dushane Sisters Trilogy, I piled on unexpected complications. The result was good clean fun, especially for me.

I write for the Baby Boomer set, of which I’m a card-carrying member. My characters have rich histories, and as a result, they drag a boatload of emotional baggage into whatever they do and say. That’s no more apparent than with my protagonist Olivia Novak, the central star of the Dushane Sisters Trilogy. She’s a widow, having suffered the loss of her husband of 35 years to a hit-and-run car accident. On the surface, she's the pinnacle of success as a best-selling romance author, but inside she’s an emotional wreck. She spends every spare minute searching for the culprit who killed her husband, and then some. Then after the death of her mother, she finds a manuscript for a murder mystery among the papers in the safe. Of course, she and her two sisters get it published. And when it becomes a bestseller, royalties spell trouble.

Olivia and her two sisters get sued for their mother’s book by a money-grubbing distant relative. Enter Woody Rainey, the small-town lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of his mother. He’s about to find out that this lawsuit is no slam dunk.

Given that Olivia has infinite patience (Not!), she storms into Woody’s office in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire with her sisters and a therapy dog in tow.  Little does she know that her life is about to change.

Here’s the first moment of discomfort from Woody’s point of view:

Olivia crossed her legs, trying too hard to act relaxed. Woody knew body language, and this

woman was wound tight.

“Why on earth didn’t you contact us before sending that threatening email to my publisher?” Olivia said. “We aren’t difficult to find—obviously—since you appear to know all about us.”

She was good. The way she cocked her head to the side made her appear genuine, her lips genuine, hint of cool smile genuine. At this moment, Woody viewed himself as a fraud.

“Going forward was at the insistence of my client.” He spread his hands in surrender. “That course wouldn’t have been my personal choice.” 

The dog trotted to him and sniffed his suit jacket. Woody assumed the dog had been dispatched for cross-examination. A team effort.

"Speaking of which, I couldn’t help but notice you have the same last name as your client.” Olive picked up his name plate and turned it to face him. “How are you related?”

“She’s my mother.”

“Ah . . . ” Olivia nodded. “No conflict of interest there.”

Woody's no longer convinced he's the smartest one in the room. The cat-and-mouse volley continues until Olivia makes an offer that Woody’s unable to refuse.

Olivia fingered Woody’s business cards in a hand-forged pewter dish. She picked one from the stack and flicked the corner with her fingernail. “After we check in to our hotel, do you want to meet us for a drink, maybe dinner, to continue our discussion?”

The situation wasn’t at all what Woody had envisioned when these women walked through his front door. He stood and rubbed his chin.

The fun part of writing this first meet is that neither Olivia nor Woody have any clue they ‘re going to fall in love.

The dinner goes well . . . too well. When Woody returns home that night, he realizes that Olivia has embedded herself in his bachelor heart. But the pull of chemistry that develops between them overrides their ability to resist. Suddenly Cupid’s frying pan to the head becomes more painful than the lawsuit.

That fourth scotch had been a serious lapse in judgment. After leaving Wolfe’s Tavern at nine, Woody climbed the steps to his colonial, his striped necktie hanging in two exhausted strands from his collar. The key fought with his fingers as he tried to match the notches in the lock.

The sisters had worn him out, especially one of them: Olivia. Unable to stop himself, he’d kissed her on the cheek before he left. A second lapse in judgment. He knew better than to get emotionally involved, to waver his focus on the matter at hand. She’d returned the gesture with a tight embrace. No conflict of interest there, he recalled of Olivia’s warning when he’d met her. Her citrusy fragrance lingered on his shirt, opening all his senses.

Under fuzzy aim to the closet, his white shirt made the rim shot into the laundry basket. Compelled by a force he didn’t understand, he pulled the white shirt from the laundry basket and wadded it into a tight ball. A whoosh of sweet lemon . . . with a hint of spice . . . ginger.

A series of emotional twists and turns now come into play: Woody needs to take a side between his elderly mother and Olivia in the lawsuit; Olivia is in a fight to protect her dead mother’s reputation; Woody is afraid his secure routine is being turned upside down; Olivia is afraid of betraying her dead husband’s memory; and Olivia fears upsetting the relationship with her two sisters.

But love conquers all. And, yes indeed, that first sleepover plays on their collective fears. The initial coupling doesn't turn out to be the cathartic experience one hopes for, but it forces Woody and Olivia to look at themselves in the mirror. 

There’s so much material for an author to work with when writing about new relationships of older characters. An iceberg of life experiences can ground the love boat. But that’s why readers cheer them on. A deeper meaning lies beneath a consoling hug, a deep kiss, and the importance of just holding each other.

No matter how old we are, childlike emotions and desperate needs of the heart surface when it comes to falling in love. Suddenly, nothing makes sense. And just like when we fell in love for the very first time, we internally hyperventilate with a thumping heart.

And it hurts so good.

Photo: Micah Brooks

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Kalispell, Montana with her husband, stepdaughter, and their brainiac cat, Princeton. Courtney writes for the baby boomer audience. She spent 28 years as an executive in the entertainment industry and used her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. She studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com 

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Coming in 2020!

When Aubrey Cenderon moves to Montana after the death of her father, the peace and quiet of Big Sky Country becomes complicated with a knock on the door from the sheriff. An injured grizzly bear is on the loose and must be eliminated before it kills again. The sheriff's insistence that she buy a gun for protection will present Aubrey with some serious soul-searching, because the grizzly-on-the-run is hunting for her too . . . for a different reason.

Tugging Heartstrings

By Courtney Pierce

I can tell when an author has personal experience with the pain and conflict they write about. I dive into a book—my own or someone else’s—with a load of cargo that sticks and prickles in my skin like emotional Velcro. Experiences with love, loss, betrayal, divorce, and death give us fuel to connect with like-minded characters. That’s why I pump my protagonists full of emotions based on my own experiences. And I have an animal (usually a dog or cat) in the mix to act as the lightning rod of sensitivity.

Animals react with all their senses. They perk their ears to listen, sniff the air for trouble, hood their eyes in anger, and make all kinds of noises as if they’re having a conversation. The droop of a dog’s tail in disappointment squeezes my heart. A vigorous wag of loyalty makes me smile. These gestures only magnify the sentiment at the center of a story.

What really draws me like a magnet is the moment when a character falls in love, especially if the hook-up is unexpected. It can be a world-rocker if the character has been previously hurt to their core. The world opens with the ability to trust after having been betrayed. Promises of “I’ll never ever do that to you” and “Shhh . . . just hold me” hint that anything’s possible.

In turn, when a character unexpectedly loses the love of their life through no fault of their own, I can be reduced to tears. My mind races to all the words that will never be said. Their hopes and dreams won’t be fulfilled. The pain of ripped separation is sometimes more than I can bear. .. . but I keep reading.

Heartstrings get plucked by the simplest of things—a glance, a snub, an unfair snark. Insecurities ignite a whole host of emotions. Dialogue can be only a word or two to start a rapid heartbeat. That moment comes exactly at the 50% mark in my latest book Indigo Legacy. When my character, widow Olivia Novack, spills her insecurities to Woody, her fiancé, in a chapter titled The Conversation, the history of her former 32-year marriage comes out. This glimpse of dialogue took an inordinate amount of time to get the exchange just right. I didn’t have to dig too deep within myself to strike oil.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Adam was the only man I’d ever been with, besides you,” Olivia said.

“Seriously?” Woody said.

She threw him a sideways glance. “Okay, let’s qualify that. A real relationship, not relations I had before Adam. College doesn’t count.”

Woody nodded. “An important technicality. Keep going. Nothing you’ve said, so far, spooks me.”

“I made a terrible, unforgivable mistake with Adam. The worst kind.”

“Did you have an affair?”

“God no. Worse.”

“What then?”

The question hovered for a few seconds as Olivia’s chest tightened. “I took him for granted. Assumed he’d always be there. We became a pair of old shoes, like the ones you keep around because they were your favorites once. It had become solid-gold boredom. After Adam died, I regretted every wasted day that I didn’t touch him, didn’t say that I loved him, or didn’t whisper a sexy surprise in his ear.” She turned and met the endless blue in Woody’s eyes. They were glass. “He didn’t do any of those things for me, either. I was slowly starving to death, and I didn’t know why. I would’ve thanked the stars if he’d ever come up behind me and nuzzled my neck for no reason, turned off the stove and planted a kiss on me, held me just because, or left me a note as a reminder that he loved me. But he didn’t. I was so lonely in his company, and anything I tried ended up making me more frustrated. You won’t waste any days, will you?”

“No, Liv, I won’t. I’m so sorry.”

“You asked for full disclosure, so I’m giving it to you. Little gestures mean everything to keep a long-standing marriage from disintegrating. I love it when your eyes tell me a secret from across a room, one only we know between us. My emotional clock resets when you grab my hand and say, ‘Let’s go.’ The cop and perp stuff we played in New York was amazing. Almost like sex . . . almost.” She dabbed the outer corners of her eyes. “I love you whether you do that stuff or not.” She glanced at him. “But it would be better if we both promised to make the investment.”

Woody pulled her forward to a hungry kiss. He ate her up like in a pie-eating contest, and then pulled away. “I take it back,” he said. “You are a romantic, and you’re doing a lousy job of trying to talk me out of marriage.”

She took his cue to lighten the mood. Deep-dish conversation required small spoons. “Then here’s a request for you after we’re married . . . ”

Woody spread his hands. “Give me all you’ve got.”

“No show-off burping. Guys do that.” Olivia tried, without success, to not smirk. “And sports on TV can’t be an all-day affair.”

From the glint in his eyes, the baton had been passed. “We have to watch the Olympics, Liv—nonnegotiable—summer and winter. I promise to burp super quietly only every two years.”

“Does that mean they’re loud the rest of the time?”

“Not around you.”

I love writing dialogue, the Yin and Yang unveils personal conflict and scrapiness. It's what characters say to each other - or to themselves - that touches my heart. And if I squeeze a balm of humor over the scene, it will all be okay. A huge revelation is delivered at the end of the above scene that sends the second half of the book into high gear. No spoilers.

And, yes, Olivia Novack gets her second chance at love, along with all those little gestures of affection she dreamed about . . . but I make her endure quite a bit of pain for the reward.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her husband. stepdaughter, and their brainiac cat, Princeton. Courtney writes for the baby boomer audience. By day, she is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Audiobook now Available!

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and

windtreepress.com 

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Available Now!
Book 3 of the
Dushane Sisters
Trilogy

The Dushane Sisters Trilogy concludes with Indigo Legacy, available now. There's love in the air for Olivia and Woody, but will family intrigue get in the way? Ride along for the wild trip that starts in a New York auction house and peaks in a mansion on Boston's Beacon Hill. 

The Dushane sisters finally get to the truth about their mother.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Senior Tween

by Courtney Pierce

No one’s ever prepared for what can – and does – happen within a seven-year stretch of life. The big wave hits all at once, like that big ole freight train barreling toward me that I completely missed. Let’s take just 2016 to present: Divorced, single woman at fifty-eight. Then I meet the man of my dreams and became a new bride, a first-time mom to an eleven-year-old stepdaughter, career woman, and an author desperate to get my sixth book out the door.

Any one of these life events could be unpacked to fill an entire article, but with retirement close enough to touch, my falling in love is downright cathartic. Becoming a blushing bride at fifty-eight? Before we were married, the clock rolled back to adolescent butterflies in anticipation of a text, a phone call, or a surprise knock on the door. There’s something anti-aging about mutually desperate hugs with someone you love. In our case, we had to drop the baggage on the floor to wrap ourselves around each other.

Okay . . . hands down . . . the bride category wins my life-event vote!

This time around was purely about being a soulmate, a partner, a lover, and a best friend. The burn of climbing the corporate ladder of my youth becomes the yearn for my calves to ache on a climb of a mountain trail. Then we’ll bed down near a stream and roll out that sleeping bag for two. We don’t have to rack our brains on what to do to keep warm.

Mother Nature isn’t such a cruel parent after all. She allows us humans to fall madly in love without the driver of fertility hormones. Relationships are genuine when you’re knocking on the door of sixty (and beyond). That last 25% of life is for being private, open, charitable, and selfish. Sure, the mirror isn’t so kind in the light of day, but the dark holds its own expert plastic surgery. Flaws seem to magically disappear when only fingertips, hopes, and dreams are involved.

The only thing we can’t say is, “We have our whole lives ahead of us.” With that realization comes a sense of urgency for anything and everything, a hunger that can’t be satisfied. My husband and I have thrown out the rule book when it comes to starting over. At the end of the traditional career, our retirement will be a series of long steps on a climb fueled by impatience.

For me, writing will move up several notches above work to tuck under the title of wife.  Call me old-fashioned, but my life map gains clarity from there. Commitment is my energy for being an author. My husband has the security of knowing I’m by his side to support what he wants to accomplish. I know he's rooting for me too. He and I are a bit like When Harry Met Sally, so different but in lock-step at the same time. We came into the marriage with our roots buried deep in experience, the good and no-so-good.

My preconceived notions of what I wanted from life went out the window when I met this man. All my conventions were challenged. I didn’t marry for financial gain, position, or success by association. Those criteria were stripped away, eclipsed by a physical and psychological pull to someone who could complete my missing parts. Luckily, we fit together like two puzzle pieces.

On our honeymoon we camped in the Goat Rocks on Mt. Rainier. My husband leaned into me, with my hips in his grip, and whispered, “Shhhh . . . Do you see that?” His breath breezed my neck, and the passion behind his words made me shiver. He pointed to an elk, unafraid as it grazed along the stream. No matter how little, such gestures mean everything.

I’m coming up the one-year-married mark in June, which will officially ends my status as a

Photo: Overgram on Pinterest

bride. I step up to the title of wife because I'm a keeper, and so is he. What doesn’t end with the anniversary is my inner bride, the one that will keep me going to the end of my life. He walks through the door in the evening and I fill with light, a light so bright that it blinds my heart.

“Honey, I’m so tired, but I love you so much,” he says, and tosses his keys in a dish.

“Not too tired,” I say, “because I want my kiss and a hug.”

“We won’t have to do this too much longer, I promise.”

“Can't we flip to the next chapter, like in a book?”

And so it goes, this dance of dialogue about the future. My wise mother says, "Don't wish your life away". But it’s so close that we can reach out and touch it. I liken this period in life to a senior tween: we’re too old to be bossed around, but too young to talk back.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her new family. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

The Dushane Sisters Trilogy concludes with Indigo Legacy, due out in summer, 2018. There's love in the air for Olivia and Woody, but will their family history get in the way? Ride along for the wild trip that starts in a New York auction house and peaks in a mansion on Boston's Beacon Hill. Will the Dushane sisters finally get the answers they've been seeking about their mother.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."