Spotlight & Giveaway: Forget Me Not Cowboy by Addison Fox

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Addison Fox to HJ!

Hi Addison and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Forget Me Not Cowboy!

 
Thanks so much for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Harper Allen left Rustlers Creek, Montana, over a decade ago and hasn’t looked back. She’s built a good life in Seattle’s tech industry, but recently started a new venture – a start up coffee company that’s doing exceptionally well – and her sister is anxious to take advantage of Harper’s ability to work anywhere to get her home for a bit.

Large animal vet, Gray McClain, has never really gotten over Harper. He knows all the reasons he ultimately sent her away, but having her back in Rustlers Creek means they keep seeing each other. And all those very good reasons don’t have quite the same teeth they had when they were young.

When an accident erases Gray’s memories of their earlier romance, Harper is forced to meet him where they both are. Today. As individuals who’ve spent more than a decade apart. She’s never stopped loving him, but she is amazed to realize that she’s a different person today than she was when she left Montana. Gray is, too.

And maybe, their ability to find their way back to each other can only come when they both look toward the future and stop looking to the past.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

This is just a silly little passage but it made me laugh when I wrote it and I enjoyed it in every editorial re-read of the book. One of the aspects of this whole series that I love is that my characters have a dynamic relationship with their family and friends. Harper’s friend, Charlotte, is pressing her to reconsider sex with Gray and while tempting, Harper can’t wait to dispense a bit of wisdom right back at Charlotte about her own friend/enemy, Chance.

“We had our good times. And besides,” Harper added lamely, even as she suspected her nose might be growing, “I don’t think that really matters all that much.”
“You’re right. You could have had endless monkey sex a decade ago and you’d still want more. He’s hot. You’re both healthy.” Charlotte screwed up her mouth before adding, “Mostly healthy, as soon as his head injury heals. Why not go for it?”
“You know, you’re very good at dispensing all this advice, and I’m so not touching the monkey sex comment. But if you were really serious, you could put your money where your mouth is and march your cute, sassy, jean-clad ass across the yard to the barn and offer the same to Chance Beaumont.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I absolutely loved writing this book and one of the most enjoyable aspects for me was the amnesia thread. I didn’t go into the book expecting to write an amnesia story but I HAD SO MUCH FUN!! I love the trope as a reader but never had a book where it organically fit into the story I was trying to tell. This is a reunion romance and the ability to play with what one of the characters remembered was the perfect foil as they fell back in love.
• I also wrote this book last fall which is a season I absolutely love. So as I wrote I had all the good smells in the house, a large mug of tea beside me and got to bundle back up in long sleeves after a very hot summer. I definitely think that some of those cozy feelings inside me were channeled into Harper and Gray as they navigated getting to know each other again!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

This is a reunion romance so their initial attraction happened in high school. They’re two years apart in age and worked together at the local vet. Gray is respectful of that age difference but he has a crush on her and Harper is learning to deal with the death of her mother, moving on with that grief while still in high school. He’s the attractive older classmate and she definitely has feelings for him. But more, she comes to appreciate that he doesn’t dwell on her mother’s death as the only thing they talk about. Instead, he talks to her about anything and everything.

What I loved about writing this book was that Harper and Gray’s specific love story was very much about how we develop intimacy with another person that, even while having sexual feelings, is also about the emotional intimacy that comes with a deep and fulfilling romantic partnership. It was fun to explore those aspects and really see these two people falling in love – or back into love now that Harper is back in Rustlers Creek.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

Just as with the first book in the series, THE COWBOY SAYS YES, both heroines (they’re sisters) are shaped by the death of their mother. It was touching to me to see how that momentous loss shaped how they chose to treat others.

Hadley, Harper’s sister, is channeling her feelings of loss into cooking and Harper and her father are the recipient of all that practice. This flashback scene – between Harper and Gray – wasn’t planned but once it was written I knew it was the perfect expression of how the two of them fell in love. It also helps us understand some of Gray’s backstory and the lack of food in his own home.

I definitely teared up writing this one!!

For all her increasing understanding that something was going on with Gray and his not eating, she obviously hadn’t held back the grimace.
“What’s wrong?”
“My sister. She’s started on her Christmas baking early.”
“You don’t like baking?”
“I love baking. But I don’t like gingerbread.” Pulling the offending cookies—beautifully decorated with white icing—out of her bag, she stared down at them.
And for the first time in her life, felt shame.
She had a bag full of food and he had none. And here she was, complaining about the cookies.
“Would you like to try one?”
“After you’ve given them such a glowing review?”
It was silly and stupid and in the midst of feeling like she had no idea what to say, she knew that he’d found the exact right thing to say.
His joke was something that gave them both dignity, and while she had never thought about that before, in that moment she understood it with stark clarity.
“Just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean they aren’t good. I just don’t like those fall flavors.”
Harper held the bag out to him and watched as he hesitated for the briefest moment before he took one. And then he bit in, taking a big bite of the rounded head, and Harper saw something else.
Something that looked a lot like relief.
“They’re delicious.”
“If you say so.”
“Come on. You’re not pumpkin spice obsessed like the rest of the world?”
“You mean that gross stuff they’re advertising you can put into your coffee?” She actually felt a small shudder run down her back. “No thank you.”
Gray held up the remaining leg of the gingerbread man. “It’s good.” He popped that last piece in his mouth and chewed. “Really good.”
She shoved the bag across the table. “Then you’re saving me from lying to my sister. I’ll tell her they’re delicious.”
“But you didn’t eat them?”
Now it was her turn to smile. “And now I don’t have to.”
And he didn’t have to go hungry, either.
It had become a game for her, each week what she could find in the house from her sister’s devotion to the twin arts of cooking and baking. If Gray knew her plans, he didn’t say anything. Instead, she always brought food to work and complained that “Hadley was trying something new out on her and her dad.” A few times she even managed to sneak extras for him to take home, when she knew it was something he liked.
In those meals she’d found a way to talk about all the things she didn’t have words for. How she felt the first time Hadley made one of their mom’s recipes. Or what she really thought about her dad’s protests that he wasn’t going to start dating again. Or even what she didn’t want to eat for Thanksgiving since it was the holiday that made her miss her mom the most, even more than Christmas, and wasn’t that weird?

Readers should read this book….

I hope readers come away from this book with the same sense of hope and optimism I felt in writing it. I loved these characters from the very first page. They are people who’ve been dealt several challenges in life, but they kept pushing forward and kept trying for the lives they wanted. They had bumps in that road (or major roadblocks!) but still kept moving forward. Still kept trying. And still believed that they could build good, happy lives.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I just finished the last round of edits on the third book in the Rustlers Creek series, ALWAYS HER COWBOY. Charlotte Wayne (Harper and Hadley’s best friend and also Hadley’s sister-in-law) and her lifelong nemesis, Chance Beaumont, are paired up to work on the annual Cattle Baron’s Ball.

They’ve always had feelings for each other (there’s a few sneak previews of their incendiary attraction in FORGET ME NOT COWBOY) and it was so much fun to play with their history and how quickly those feelings of antagonism and hate could turn so swiftly to attraction and love.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: I’d love to give away 5 sets of print copies of the first two books in the series – FORGET ME NOT COWBOY and the first book, THE COWBOY SAYS YES. Open to all readers.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What do you love about a reunion romance?

For me it’s that sense of rediscovery because no matter how much we love someone or how strong our memories, people do change. Finding the hero and heroine rediscover who one another is now, with the passage of time and new life experiences, is always a joy to read or to write.

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Forget Me Not Cowboy:

Harper fought the shot of excitement that sizzled in her veins as she caught sight of Gray and instead pasted on a careful and slightly disdainful expression as he and Chance Beaumont headed their way. The history between Charlotte and Chance was long and bordered on vaguely silly from time to time, but it was deep-seated and seemingly ageless.
And there was no reason to make more of this than necessary. Chance had only walked over to their table to goad her friend beyond all levels of sanity.
A feat, if she remembered correctly, he managed with a surprising degree of regularity.
Had that continued into adulthood?
Based on the sour look on Charlotte’s face, Harper could only assume yes.
Even if their byplay did give her a few moments to consider Gray without Charlotte’s laser focus.
“How are you doing, Harper?” Gray hitched a thumb at the other two members of their expanded party. “They’ll circle each other like dogs for the next ten minutes until Chance’s beer takes effect.”
Harper couldn’t hold back a smile as she took a sip of her own beer. “Is this your opinion as a qualified veterinarian?”
“Oh, most definitely,” Gray said in mock seriousness. “And a general observer for more years than I’d like to own.”
Harper leaned in closer before she even realized her body’s intention. “Do they do this often?”
“Best as I know, not as often as you might think. Charlotte’s been pretty busy with her business and Chance spends a lot of time at the ranch.”
“We can hear you talking about us,” Charlotte shot back across the table.
“Then you know how entertaining you both are,” Harper parried, unable to hide the smile at her friend’s clear discomfiture. Although the show had clearly gotten interesting, Harper was more than ready to leave the two of them to it. “We can get a fresh round for the table.”
That same intimacy she’d felt when she’d inadvertently leaned closer to Gray to watch the sparing match persisted, the crowded placement of the tables and the number of people in the Branded Mark on a Thursday night ensuring their bodies touched all the way to the bar.
It was . . . nice.
More than nice, actually.
When had she been out last? Really out, just for a fun evening with friends?
Because whatever else Gray was to her, he was a friend. Hadn’t their easy camaraderie and the innate way her body knew him when she’d leaned closer during Charlotte and Chance’s argument been proof of that?
Of course, you don’t want to sleep with your other friends, so maybe you need to figure out a different definition.
The thought was sly, swirling through her mind and shooting sparks through her nerve endings before Harper could check the impulse. Or consider the fact that the distinct notes of desire had settled in the wake of those sparks, heavy and low in the belly and between her thighs.
She did not need sparks with this man. Or that decidedly feminine pull of desire that she’d never been all that good at controlling around him. Carnal knowledge, that damnable voice whispered again through her mind.
And like Eve, Adam and the apple, once tasted, you could never go back.
Using all her mental availability to tamp down on those damnable feelings, she missed the happy laughter and quick shout to watch out when a large cowboy collided with her at the bar. Or perhaps better said, his elbow slammed into her eye socket, the move decidedly more painful for all the lack of attention she was paying.
“Hey!” Gray was on top of the guy immediately, his moves only stilled when the cowboy looked so mortified he could have punched himself.
“Ma’am. Oh no! I am so sorry, ma’am. Are you alright?”
Gray’s arm was around her shoulders, the gesture sweet and protective and more than a little territorial, her traitorous nerve endings acknowledged, clearly oblivious to the pain coursing through her left eye.
But with reality rapidly returning, she reached out and patted the guy on the arm. “You didn’t mean it. And you’re just out laughing with your friends. I need to watch more carefully where I’m going.”
One of the bartenders who’d observed the accident was already handing over a fresh towel wrapped with ice. Harper reached for it but was beaten by Gray’s long arm, stretching across the bar before he added a muttered thanks after her louder one.
And then she was being led to a far corner of the bar, away from the loud music and din of happy laughter.
“Sit down and hold this to your eye.”
“Gray, I’m fine. Really, I—”
He shut off her protests, taking her hand in his and lifting it higher so that the ice-filled towel fully covered the top of her face.
The cold did feel good, the area around her eye smarting from the cowboy’s elbow.
“Let me take a look at it.”
“Gray, I really am fine. I was raised in Big Sky Country. I can handle an accidental elbow from a deeply apologetic cowboy.”
“Let. Me. Look.”
She lowered the towel and allowed him to reach over, his fingers moving tentatively around her eye socket. After several light test probes and his continued questions she finally batted his arm away.
“I am fine, Gray McClain. Besides, you should be happy I’m even answering. It’s not like your usual patients give you affirmative answers to your questions.”
He finally smiled, the grim look vanishing from his face. “They’re usually better patients, too. With nary a whit of sarcasm when I do an exam.”
“Well, when I grow a tail, I’ll lose the sarcasm. How about that?”
He’d already craned his head around the back of where she sat, as if to investigate the possibility of that tail, when he seemed to catch himself. Since she realized her joke had given him a prime reason to look at her ass, Harper had to admit that the small alcove suddenly felt a lot smaller.
Darker.
And a hell of a lot more deserted.
He moved back into place next to her, his gaze firmly back on her eye as he made a few more tentative touches to her face, this time to the ring of bruising that was sure to radiate outward from the heart of the elbow jab.
“Do you have any sensitivity here?”
“No.”
“Any sensitivity to light?”
“Since it’s dark back here, I’ll tell you tomorrow after I go outside.”
“Harper, this isn’t funny. You could have something more serious. That was a big guy with a big elbow.”
She laid a hand over his, where his fingertips still pressed against her eye socket. “I’m quite sure I don’t have a detached retina, nor am I risking long-term blindness. But if it still hurts tomorrow, I’ll go to the doctor. Okay?”
As if he realized he’d pushed it too far, he nodded, his gaze caught on hers.
And as she stared into those blue depths, the warmth of his hand beneath her palm, her earlier words came back to haunt her.
Gray McClain wasn’t a friend.
Or he wasn’t in the traditional sense of the word.
Because she couldn’t think of a single other friend in her life that she wanted to touch. Kiss. Make love with.
Nope, she thought as she leaned into that hand as he shifted his hold to cradle her cheek.
There was no one on earth that fit that bill other than Gray.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Addison Fox welcomes you back to Rustlers Creek, where a handsome ranch vet’s long-ago love has finally returned, but soon he won’t remember all the years apart… or why he’s never been able to forget her.

Harper Allen has returned to Rustlers Creek but she’s not the heartbroken girl who left. After a successful career in Seattle, she’s back in her hometown to launch her coffee business with the help of her celebrity sister, the Cowgirl Gourmet. But Harper can’t escape handsome veterinarian Gray McClain, the man who broke her heart ten years ago and whose kisses still make her head spin.

Although Gray believed he knew what he was doing when he ended things with Harper, seeing her has made him question everything. He wanted more for her than a life with the son of a town drunk, but every moment with her is heaven. When a freak ranch accident causes Gray to lose some of his memory, he believes he’s spent the last decade with Harper, the woman he’s never stopped loving, instead of alone.

As Harper helps Gray return to health, she can’t deny she’s more in love with him than ever. But can she fight for the man of her dreams, even when he’s determined to let her go again? When it comes to choosing to forget or choosing to remember, Harper must show Gray she’ll always remember her cowboy.
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Meet the Author:

Addison Fox is a lifelong romance reader, always in search of her next happy-ever-after. Once she discovered she found as much joy writing about romance as she did reading it, she never looked back. Addison lives in New York with an apartment full of books, a laptop rarely out of reach and a wily beagle who keeps her running. You can reach her at www.addisonfox.com where she always loves to hear from readers.
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