Spotlight & Giveaway: The Cowboy’s Christmas Homecoming by Sinclair Jayne

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sinclair Jayne to HJ!

Hi Sinclair and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Cowboy’s Christmas Homecoming!

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

The Cowboy’s Christmas Homecoming is a reunion romance between two former high school sweethearts. Rohan Telford is a rancher’s son who’s served for years in Special Forces and as he heads home after an honorable discharge, he’s wondering how he can build a role for himself at his family’s ranch since he’s so changed. Rohan is charged with doing a favor for his fallen team leader, which pits him against his childhood sweetheart, Virginia (Gin) Lane, whom he never quite stopped loving, though she hasn’t begun to forgive him.
 

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

“Don’t run,” he whispered, her hair tickling his lips. “We’ve both been running.”
She was still in his arms, her heart slamming against his forearm.
“I said friends,” he reiterated, wanting her to be clear as to his intentions. “We need that. We had that once. I want that again. A lot of time and changes since we were eighteen, and you and Lucas are too important to me. I don’t want to be selfish and risk messing up again.”
“What are you saying?” Her voice was a puff of air in the night.
“I want to regain your trust. I want to be your friend. I want you to know you can always count on me. And I want to figure out my place at the ranch and with my family. And I want to work on all of that with you by my side. I want to learn how to work with Lucas, gain his trust, be a support for him and you.”
He felt like he was holding his breath waiting for her answer. The tension in her body eased.
“Rohan, that sounds so…so perfect, but I’m not sure how we get there?” She turned in his arms. Worry and hope tugged at her expression.
“Together.”

What inspired this book?

My hero Rohan Telford surprised me as I wrote him because I had seen him (and alluded to him in other books) as a golden boy, firmly ensconced in his family’s heart. I saw him coming home with the swagger of hero who knew what he wanted and knew his place. But as I wrote him in his opening scene driving into town, there was heaviness and sense of loss and dislocation that fascinated me, so I went with it. I was a little worried that the story would be too dark, so I added a stray dog that crawls out of the woods, which helped Rohan connect to Ginny’s son, and through Lucas, Rohan finds a way back to Ginny’s heart.

I wrote this book as part of a strongly connected series where five men who serve together in Special Forces, travel to Marietta, Montana to carry out different tasks for their fallen commanding office, hometown hero Jace McBride. What I wanted to explore was the concept of transformation. I am always in awe of how so many people can rebuild their lives and find new meaning after accidents, trauma, injury, loss and addiction. I wanted to show vets reintegrating into a community, that was not necessarily their own, with a goal that kick starts their transformation, and then watch the strength and magic happen as they find purpose, community, brotherhood and love.

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

My hero Rohan Telford surprised me as I wrote him because I had seen him (and alluded to him in other books) as a golden boy, firmly ensconced in his family’s heart. I saw him coming home with the swagger of hero who knew what he wanted and knew his place. But as I wrote him in his opening scene driving into town, there was heaviness and sense of loss and dislocation that fascinated me, so I went with it. I was a little worried that the story would be too dark, so I added a stray dog that crawls out of the woods, which helped Rohan connect to Ginny’s son, and through Lucas, Rohan finds a way back to Ginny’s heart.

I was a little worried that Virginia (Gin but Ginny to Rohan) would be too negative, and I thought I’d have to brighten her up more, and yet I found that by showing her emotional and financial struggles, her grief and exhaustion, she felt authentic. I have a friend who is a single mom of a special needs child, and I see how hard she works and tries every day even when she wants to lay down and cry. I felt like this story was a shout out to her strength and determination and also a bit of wish fulfillment that someday soon, she’ll find love again.

What was your favorite scene to write?

One of my favorite scenes to write is towards the end of the book when Ginny’s defenses start to crumble. She has held herself so tightly throughout the book. She’s focused on being strong for her son, fulfilling her father’s legacy and protecting her heart, and in this scene, she finally starts to trust that Rohan won’t let her down this time.

Gin was surprised that Lucas had already turned off the trainset that ran around the tree. He pointed out the spot to her, where he and Rohan were going to put the lake and add in the bridge.
“That will be really beautiful,” she said. “Something new.”
“I told Rohan that Grandpa and I added something new each year,” Lucas reminded her. “The tradition continues.”
“Yes, it does. Time for your reading.”
“What about dessert?”
Dessert. She’d forgotten. She’d made brownies this morning for the ornament decorating but had saved a few for dessert tonight and Lucas’s lunch tomorrow.
“I’ll bring you a brownie and a glass of milk, but go read at your desk first.”
He nodded. Gin returned to the kitchen. The coffee was brewing and smelled heavenly. She’d started skimping on a few things, but her coffee beans were not one of them. She grabbed three plates, cut a small brownie for herself and a bigger piece each for Lucas and Rohan.
She brought Lucas’s to him with milk and then took the two other desserts into the living room, expecting to see Rohan sitting on the couch.
Instead, he was sprawled out taking up the entire couch and fast asleep. She stared at him, finally drinking in her fill, noticing the things that were so familiar—the long, feathery lashes; high cheekbones; strong, square jaw; golden-brown hair springing back from his forehead. And the things that were different—his body was longer, more muscled, his facial expression more shuttered. He smiled less, and while his vivid green eyes were still beautiful, they were haunted in a way they hadn’t been.
He was a man.
Question was, what was she going to do with him?
Her smartwatch buzzed with a text. She reached into her pocket for her phone, but it wasn’t there. Instead she pulled out the star anise. She looked at the intricate spice. A little touch of magic. She felt the ghost of a smile start in her chest and climb up to her lips. Finding Rohan and forgiveness for them both felt magical.
Then she read the text on her watch, frowning as she scrolled.
Gin. Family and work issues. I can’t teach the class the first week of the school holiday. Rohan’s free. Sorry. He taught me everything I know with my dad. You’ll be in good hands—Boone.
Was the universe plotting against her? Or were Rohan and Boone colluding?
If so, Rohan had better come through. Gin gently laid a blanket over him.

What was the most difficult scene to write?

The hardest scene to write was the first scene that introduces Virginia Lane and her son Lucas, who has Asperger’s. Gin has recently lost her father and is now burdened by debt as her father—a perennial giver and community organizer, has cashed out some of his retirement and remortgaged their house in order to buy another house to donate it to a non profit serving teens in Marietta. Gin now has two mortgages and feels obligated to see her father’s legacy through:

Virginia Lane swallowed a sigh—she’d been doing too much of that lately. She rolled up one of the garage doors of the junk-filled house that her father had enthusiastically purchased with the intention of donating to the nonprofit Harry’s House.
‘It will be Harry’s House Annex,’ he’d announced. ‘A place and a program specifically for teens.’
Gin pulled her parka closer around her body and surveyed the challenge she faced this Friday after Thanksgiving morning.
She’d been dreading this moment. Delay and hide. It seemed to be her mantra now. Just getting out of bed, parenting her son and getting through each day teaching her two sixth-grade language arts and social studies block classes every day since late September sucked all her energy.
“Mess. Big mess,” her twelve-year-old son Lucas flatly intoned in a massive understatement and promptly returned to the travails of Bilbo Baggins.
If only she too could lose herself in fantasy although Bilbo’s long, perilous, no doubt chilly quest with no comfortable hot-jetted bath at the end of the day played no part in her fantasies. What did?
Gin regarded the stacked chairs, tables, boxes, and things she couldn’t identify. The spurt of resentment was as hot as it was unwelcome.
Her father was dead.
This, this…junk-filled garage and junk-filled small ranch house on a large lot with a shop at the back had been her father’s retirement plan. His legacy. He had devoted over forty years to the high school students of Marietta, Montana, as a vocational education teacher and career and college counselor, and in his retirement, he had intended to devote more time to Marietta’s youth—help to launch them into the world.
Her father had sacrificed his comfort and financial security to serve.
She balled her fists in her gloves and squared her shoulders. Her father deserved her best. With his love, help and encouragement, she’d picked herself up. Made a comfortable life for herself and her son. Now it was her time to honor her father’s wishes and memory.
She dragged her gaze away from the monumental mess…Lucas needed her, and her father deserved her best, so she had to keep it together.
Feeling ironic, she practiced her smile. Her father had often commented that she no longer smiled, and that even during a ‘bad day’—not that her father had ever had one that she could tell—a smile would lift her spirits.
She’d been too busy surviving to think about smiling, and she’d blithely told him that she’d ‘put it on the list.’
Her to-do list was likely a mile long by now, and it was long past time to get started.
“Do you think we’ll find any Tegenaria domesticas hiding?” Lucas asked.
I hope not.
Why oh why when Lucas finally had started to speak at nearly four had he focused on spiders? Her father had been thrilled, saying maybe he’d be an arachnologist. The spider fascination had remained, but numbers and mechanical things had been added to his obsessions.
“Spiders usually die off before winter.” She spoke with her teacher voice, although science had never been her thing. Words were, though she’d known, even at Lucas’s age, she couldn’t make a living with poetry. But it hadn’t stopped her from imagining herself bathed in sunlight with her journal out, braving the elements, or curled up … writing poetry about love.
She cringed at the memory.
Time to rise up.
“Tarantulas have longer life spans,” she remembered, “but they aren’t stalking around Montana.”
“In winter spiders enter a diapause phase. They can produce a chemical like antifreeze so that they can stay alive in winter. If the spiderlings hatch, they winter in the egg sacs to keep warm. I bet we find spiderlings in all this junk.”
Years and years of language and speech therapy had paid off.
And just like that, a bad day got worse.
“Then it’s good we have gloves on.” Gin shoved away her snark, fear of spiders and strove to sound more cheerful.
“We’ll need to find a place to put them so we can save them.” Lucas actually looked up from his book.

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

The Cowboy’s Christmas Homecoming is definitely on brand with me. It’s my second Christmas book set in Marietta, Montana, and the Telfords are my third Marietta ranching family. It also features my favorite trope—reunion romance. I have written fifteen books set in Marietta, Montana (A Tule Publishing created town).

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

I hope that readers can see the magic of a Marietta, Montana Christmas, but also see how powerful personal transformations are possible if someone is willing to take that first step and then another.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

Right now I am finishing revisions on book 5 in my Montana Coyote Cowboy series—The Cowboy’s Claim. I have two more in my Montana Coyote Cowboy series that come out next year: The Cowboy’s Charm and The Cowboy’s Claim. In December I am going to start writing the first book in a new series called Southern Love Spells that will have a touch of magical realism, which will definitely be new to me as an author, but I’m excited to research and jump in.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Winner will receive one ebook copy of THE COWBOY’S CHRISTMAS HOMECOMING plus one additional ebook of the winner’s choice from Tule Publishing.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I love the Christmas season because of the lights, the music, the focus on giving and celebrating. I also feel like because it’s the end of a year, the holidays are a wonderful time to reflect on our lives and perhaps commit to a change we’d like to make.
I strongly believe in the power of transformation, and I’m curious to know if there are any readers out there who either have new personal goals for themselves in the new year, or if they have been inspired by a healthy transformation in the life of a family member, friend, or colleague.

 
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Excerpt from The Cowboy’s Christmas Homecoming:

Prologue
The sirocco was threatening to kick back up. The hairs on Rohan Telford’s arms and the back of his neck rose as if in challenge to Mother Nature’s threat. They could all feel it—his brothers molded from duty, sweat, blood, respect and devotion to a guiding light, now extinguished. They all needed to be someplace else, and the window to leave was closing. But no one hurried this process.
Wolf—their new team leader—was solemn. He carefully folded up each slip of paper, his head bowed, lips tight, expression tense, as if the task were a difficult one. A bullet of resentment shot through Rohan. Wolf wasn’t receiving orders from beyond the grave to carry out the final wishes of their fallen team leader, Jace McBride.
Jace had been the best leader, the best friend, the best everything that Rohan had been honored to serve with. Jace had been the best man Rohan had ever met with the exception of his father. He shut down his dark ruminations about home, not allowing his expression to change or his weight to shift. All his brothers were grieving, and he didn’t want to reveal his own pain and doubt. Agony rolled over him with the power of the two-ton one-hundred-percent rank bulls he used to ride on the junior rodeo circuit.
Home.
Not anymore. He’d lost that privilege. Shut out his family and tossed away the love and respect of the woman, who’d been his one and only. And now Jace, the leader, the dreamer, the glue that held them all together was gone.
Jace had been in the process of mustering out.
That had shocked all of them. Left them adrift. But even in the process of leaving them, Jace wanted to lead. He’d planned to return to his hometown of Marietta, Montana—also Rohan’s hometown, the place he’d been avoiding each time he’d re-enlisted and avoided taking leave. Jace had had plans—for himself, but also for all of them. Jace had still envisioned a future, whereas Rohan had been lost in the now. Next mission. Next target.
Jace had wanted to help his mom, dad and sister bring their small family ranch back to profitability. He had wanted his brothers to join him in Marietta. They would stay together. Create a business. Work the land. Build new lives. Have each other’s backs. Rohan suspected that some of the men had been on board with Jace’s plan. Or halfway there. Jace was charismatic and persuasive. And Rohan, with a thriving ranch to return to, should he wish, should have been a slam dunk.
But he couldn’t imagine returning to Marietta. He was too different. His family was too different. They were happy. His two brothers married with children. His sister, finished with college and bottomed out from her thwarted music career as a once up-and-coming rock star, now worked with his mom breeding and training cutting horses. What did he have to offer?
Nothing.
He’d told Jace he couldn’t go home. He hadn’t told him why. But Jace had looked him in the eye and said, ‘You can always go home. You, Rohan Telford, will go home.’ That had been the day he’d led the mission Cross should have.
Rohan’s shriveled heart squeezed painfully.
Jace had always had to have the last word.
Wolf held Jace’s battered helmet in both hands and murmured something. A prayer? Too late for that. Blood spatter remained on the helmet. Wolf had refused to clean it.
“Each of you will pick one task,” Wolf’s deep voice resonated, his Texas Hill Country twang mostly under control. “You will complete this task in Jace’s name, no matter how many challenges fate throws at you. You will honor Jace, his memory. His intentions. And your brothers.”
Everyone kept their heads lowered except Cross. His freaky eyes that looked like lightning shattering storm clouds focused on the helmet—probably imagining it should have been his empty helmet, his blood. Cross had never missed an extraction, and he hadn’t shared what had gone wrong.
“No discussing the task until it’s complete,” Wolf intoned. “No switches. No help. No shirking. We owe it to Jace.”
“Jace,” all his brothers murmured as if they were in church. Jace had been an Amen for all of them in different ways.
“We’ve all put our paperwork in to muster out at different points this year. We will meet in Marietta next Memorial Day at Jace’s grave for his final send-off. Our brother’s spirit must be at peace. Do not let him down.”
Wolf’s intense navy-blue gaze skewered them all, one by one, until each man—Remy Cross, Ryder Lea, Huck Jones, Calhoun Miller and him—met that dark stare that drilled into their souls.
“Yes, sir. Coyote Cowboys until the end,” they all stated, voices firm, not betraying the pain they were in.
The choosing began. Wolf palmed the helmet. Huck had held it initially, but his hands had been shaking too violently. Rohan wanted to comfort Huck. He’d been with Jace when he’d been hit multiple times. Huck had done his best. Kept the enemy off them. Managed to get Jace to an emergency extraction and help, but it had been too late. Not his fault. They all knew it, but Huck—the best with emergency battlefield first aid Rohan had ever worked with—would likely never forgive or forget.
But Rohan stayed put. He’d never known how to solace himself much less anyone else after his colossal life screw-up years ago.
He watched each brother step forward and pluck out a piece of paper. By an unspoken agreement, no one looked at the paper right away. Maybe the tension was too taut. Rohan’s limbs felt like molten lead. It was hard to breathe. Impossible to focus. Maybe Jace had been right. It was time to go home. But how? He was so far from the man-child he’d been—full of dreams and swagger, confident of his place in the world and the girl-woman at his side.
No. He couldn’t go home. She might still be there.
The longing that tore through him was visceral, and he looked down, almost expecting to see blood, bone, torn tissue. No, he couldn’t see Ginny again. Not ever. He wouldn’t be able to walk away a second time. He’d hurt her worse than a man should ever hurt a woman.
He dragged in a breath through his nose, pressing his lips tight. Returning to Marietta and flying under the radar enough so that his family didn’t know he was there would be an impossible task. Maybe Cross—the ghost—could do it. But maybe the task would be…no. He shut down speculation. He shut down hope. He’d mastered shutting down everything but the mission years ago.
This was just another mission.
Two slips of paper remained.
Random or fate?
Mocking his question, Rohan picked the folded paper on the left. It burned like a flame in his palm. Calhoun took the last slip.
“We honor Jace as he would honor one of us,” Wolf said.
“Jace McBride,” they said as if any of Jace’s favorite beer—the Montana-based Moose Drool that Rohan’s younger brother Boone had air-flighted to them at some exorbitant cost—remained in the empties, grouped in one corner of the airport hangar.
His brothers-in-arms one by one unfolded their slips of paper. The air snarled with tension and grief, but no one spoke or broke expression. No one knew what had been on Jace’s list except Wolf and maybe Huck, whom Jace had told about the list and where to find it when he realized he wasn’t going to make it back to base that last time.
Rohan tried to read the room, divine what he and his brothers were up against. He couldn’t imagine what Jace had felt he’d needed to make amends for. He knew the McBride family—he’d gone to school with Jace’s younger sister, Willow, but he hadn’t met Jace until he’d moved over to Special Forces eight years ago. That’s when he’d become a member of the Coyote Cowboys—a slam that they’d all taken as a compliment. Growing up ranch in the American west. Even though Rohan didn’t feel like he could fit back in Marietta or at the Telford Family Ranch that his father had saved and dragged into the twenty-first century, he was a cowboy to his soul. His younger brother Boone had taken his place ranching alongside their larger-than-life father.
His fault. Bitterness soured Rohan’s mouth. Boone had grown into a good, strong, ranching family man. He deserved the place by their father’s side. He’d earned it, all of it—the ranch, his wife, his children, a legacy to hand down. Unlikely the ranch could support two sons, one of them with a growing family. Rohan in a burst of selfishness had squandered his birthright and dreams and shot his life onto a new trajectory.
Stop stalling.
Rohan unfolded the slip of paper as if it were an artistic origami swan, deserving his complete concentration. His emotions and tension soared, but he reeled them back in—until he saw the words written in Wolf’s distinctive tight, upright, all-caps writing. It took him a moment to absorb the enormity of the words. What the task would force him to do. Him. Not Jace.
The paper fluttered to the concrete. Instinct slammed his boot over the scrap.
Carrying out Jace’s wish was the last thing he was suited to do. He couldn’t. He’d wreaked enough pain on the Lane family. But then he looked up and saw Wolf lancing him with those intensely dark blues that saw through to the soul he’d once had—not the shredded one. One by one his brothers all looked at him, and Rohan realized that he’d been running from himself and his selfish, callous words and actions for years.
He was out of options.
Time to give, not take. What would Jace do? His brothers had often teased Jace about his goodness, his altruistic nature that put them all to shame. They even wore those stretchy neon WWJD bracelets for a time as if Jace had been their own personal Jesus. Sang the Depeche Mode song from the Eighties to tease him.
“You good?” Wolf asked the question his brothers’ gazes all asked.
Rohan was anything but good.
He retrieved the paper and jammed it deep into the pocket of his dress uniform.
“I will not fail Jace—or any of you.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

She’s the one who got away, but now that this cowboy’s home for Christmas, does he have a second chance with his first love?

After years in special forces, soldier Rohan Telford has exchanged his helmet and flak jacket for his Stetson and heads home to Marietta, Montana to try to regain his place working his family’s thriving cattle ranch. He has one final task to carry out for his fallen team leader. Unfortunately, it involves facing the woman he loved but left. Rohan’s never forgotten Ginny, but she’s never forgiven him.

Following the death of her father, single mother and teacher Virginia ‘Ginny’ Lane has never felt less like celebrating the holidays. Still grieving, she’s determined to fulfill her father’s legacy and corral local volunteers to help her open the Harry’s House Annex, a teen center. She’s short on Christmas spirit and that’s before her ex–high school sweetheart Rohan Telford saunters up like twelve years and a messy break up never happened.

Virginia only remembers the bad, but Rohan’s determined to remind her of how good they still are.

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Meet the Author:

Sinclair Sawhney is a former journalist and middle school teacher who holds a BA in Political Science and K-8 teaching certificate from the University of California, Irvine and a MS in Education with an emphasis in teaching writing from the University of Washington. She has worked as Senior Editor with Tule Publishing for over seven years. Writing as Sinclair Jayne she’s published fifteen short contemporary romances with Tule Publishing with another four books being released in 2021. Married for over twenty-four years, she has two children, and when she isn’t writing or editing, she and her husband, Deepak, are hosting wine tastings of their pinot noir and pinot noir rose at their vineyard Roshni, which is a Hindi word for light-filled, located in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Shaandaar!
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