Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to have BA Tortuga here today talking about a book we read years ago and still love today, Latigo. Welcome, BA.
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Hey y’all. I’m BA Tortuga – writer of rednecks and cowboys and down home folks that manage to fall in love. It’s my thing. Latigo is a rerelease from years ago and it’s still the story that is home for me.
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Latigo Excerpt
Will laughed. “My pop used to take me all the way up to Ruidoso or Elephant Butte to go fishing. He had a thing for trout. Now me? I like a nice bass. They fight like crazy.” He grinned over at Dean, struggling against the sudden, strong urge to invite himself along.
“Shit, yeah. But I tell you what, some butter and lemon and cook it over the fire… sheer heaven.” Dean gave him a sideways look. “You got something set up in Tulsa already, Ace? ’Cause Gypsy’s needing a rider, and God knows another pair of hands on the steering wheel for a piece wouldn’t hurt.”
“Yeah? Because Tulsa’s nice and all, but I wasn’t hankering to stay there.” Wow. Maybe his damned luck was on the way to changing.
“It’s the same six dollars a day whether there’s one or ten, and fishing’s better with someone to jaw with.” Dean nodded, then winked. “Besides, Oklahoma’s no damned place to be stranded, Ace. I mean, to be so close to heaven and just miss it by one state?”
He had to laugh at that. “Yeah. Oklahoma’s, well… there’s a reason the South, the West, and the Midwest all refuse to claim it. That’s really decent of you, Dean.” It was, and he meant it, and he’d do whatever he could to earn it.
“No problem. You a roper by trade?”
“Yeah. I did team roping right out of the gate, but my partner decided to go back and go to college. Then I did calf roping a bit. Now I just do the bareback competitions.” He laughed ruefully, thinking it was no wonder he never made any prize money anymore. Bronc riding wasn’t his strongest event.
“Bareback’s a hard row to hoe. Good money in it if you win, but the competition’s rougher than hell.” Dean finished his Coke and shook his head, tongue swiping the drops of soda off the salt-and-pepper mustache. “Calf roping is my main thing now. The only thing I won’t do anymore is the bulls. That’ll kill a man, sure as shit.”
Oh yeah. He knew that one. “Damned good money there. But I’m lucky. I’m really too damned tall to ride them. Else I’d probably be fool enough to try.” He laughed, sucking down his own Coke.
“Yeah. I got six months in traction that tells about being all kinds of fool.” The George Strait CD stopped, and Alan Jackson came on. “It’s fixin’ to be time to eat, and Sadie needs her walk. You reckon you can drive after? We could bunk down in Enid. There’s a KOA there.”
“Sure. Sounds good, and I was just about to need some roadside relief myself.” Maybe his luck really was changing. Just maybe.
They headed down the road, then stopped at a little rest stop. Dean pulled a loaf of bread and some bologna and cheese out for a quick sandwich before they headed straight on through Tulsa, the Dodge purring down the highway.
He was damned lucky he stumbled on the man, and he figured Dean looked like the salt-of-the-earth type. Because bass fishing with a fine man like that was a heck of a lot better than grease and wood chips. Yeah. Definitely looking up.
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Much love, y’all.
BA Tortuga
Latigo
Official blurb:
Being a hard-core rodeo cowboy means getting by with little money and less of a future. But for two hardscrabble rodeo riders, that might change….
Dean’s been around the rodeo circuit long enough to know when a new kid is down on his luck. Giving young Will a ride to the next event is just the neighborly thing to do, passing on some of the kindness strangers have shown him over the years. Who’d expect Will to be such good company? So good in fact, that Dean figures he might just keep Will around—especially since Will feels the same.
Traveling from rodeo to rodeo, enjoying all the fringe benefits they can, is a dream come true for Dean and Will. Troubles with Dean’s family and Will’s stubborn pride separate them for a while, but they always come back together when the chips are down. These two cowboys are a match made in heaven—now they just need to convince everyone else to let them live the life they love and find their future together.
Latigo first published by Torquere Press, July, 2005.
Bits of Leather first published by Torquere Press, July 2007.
Dreamspinner Press: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/latigo-by-ba-tortuga-9589-b
About the Author
Texan to the bone and an unrepentant Daddy’s Girl, BA Tortuga spends her days with her basset hounds and her beloved wife, texting her sisters, and eating Mexican food. When she’s not doing that, she’s writing. She spends her days off watching rodeo, knitting and surfing Pinterest in the name of research. BA’s personal saviors include her wife, Julia Talbot, her best friend, Sean Michael, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Really good coffee.
Having written everything from fist-fighting rednecks to hard-core cowboys to werewolves, BA does her damnedest to tell the stories of her heart, which was raised in Northeast Texas, but has heard the call of the high desert and lives in the Sandias. With books ranging from hard-hitting GLBT romance, to fiery menages, to the most traditional of love stories, BA refuses to be pigeon-holed by anyone but the voices in her head.
You can find BA at:
His future depends on bringing the smuggler to justice. His heart demands to join him.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 