In Sterling Jackson Sr.’s reckoning, no rodeo except the NFR at Oklahoma City topped the San Francisco Cow Palace’s competition. Though he’d never qualified for the Grand National himself, his son seemed to ride for him. Before the National kicked off, the gaunt, silver-haired rancher would tour the city or its environs. Sterling might stop…
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 3 part 2
The musty scent of old hay thickened the air. “Mm.” Alison inhaled deeply. “Barns smell so good, Dad.” Scooping up another armful of hay from the cracked concrete floor, she tossed it above her head and danced underneath. Hay and dust particles floated around her, more visible because of the sunlight showering through one of…
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 3 part 1
“I love va-ca-tions! I love va-ca-tions!” Alison sang for the umpteenth time. Feeling as crimped as the new curls in her strawberry-blonde coiffure, Eileen turned to confront her daughter. “Alison, if you yell in this car once more—” The girl seemed to be weighing the punishment against the suspense of not knowing it. “If you…
Racing through the Seasons
Surrounded by the wilderness of northern Minnesota and southern Canada, I grew up as a child of absolutes. I could hardly have been anything else. Nature, and the One who moves her, is extremely orderly. By observing her, I gradually learned the rhythm of time, a march of the seasons mirroring the Creator’s immutability. I’m…
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 2 part 3. Plus: This Fall-en World
Since this last Chapter 2 segment of Chase is so small, below it I’m also posting another updated seasonal vignette originally published in 2020. Betty Rawlings looked across her Bible at the two boys devouring her gingersnaps. “It’s good to see that my reading didn’t affect your appetites.” She tousled Forrest’s hair, then smoothed it…
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 2 part 2
As Forrest and Tom daydream of their rodeo futures, the two boys share their hopes and heartaches.
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 2
Eileen insists that Harvey hide his rodeo past from their daughter, but now Alison is planning her future as a world-champion barrel racer with her cousin Jenny. Alison’s aunt and father wonder how the Austin family will ever reconcile the life Al dreams of with the one Eileen desires.
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 1 part 2
Even before watching her first rodeo, nine-year-old Alison Austin dreams of being a beautiful woman on a fast horse, little guessing what such dreams will cost her and those she learns to love.
Chase the Dream: Childhood Dreams, Chapter 1
Raised as a tomboy, I never intended to write romances. I never even read ‘em. Stocked by my cultured mother and paternal grandmother, the resort library contained no such pulp. My best friend and her family devoured precarious stacks of Harlequins® at her farm, but I despised the melodramatic cover art, writing and plot. Why…
Harvest of Memories
Crimson jewels my husband picked sit in white ice cream buckets on our kitchen table, facing me, challenging me. He pats me on the back, whispering sweet matrimonial-style nothings: “Honey, how about making fresh cranberry jelly?” I smile grimly and search for a recipe. I haven’t canned cranberries for years, not since my granny was…
Constance Colson-Clay 