The Wyoming Heir Interview

How exciting to have Luke Hayes the hero from The Wyoming Heir written by Naomi Rawlings a January 2014 release from Love Inspired Historical.

1. Luke Hayes, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

Nothing much interesting about me. I’m a rancher who loves my ranch and wants to get back to it. Instead I’m stuck out east in Valley Falls, New York, trying to untangle the mess my grandfather left me when he died. Unfortunately, there’s a feisty little mathematics teacher who thinks she knows just what I should do with my inheritance. Trouble, I tell ya. It’s nothing but trouble.

2.  What do you do for fun?

Have you ever hopped astride a horse and gone for a ride at sunset? With the wind in your hair, the sun slipping behind the mountain peaks, and miles of prairie grass in front of you? It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

3.  What do you put off doing because you dread it?

This, actually. As in coming east to claim my inheritance. You might think being handed a slew of money would make me want to claim it. But the truth is, I’ve got money enough to run my ranch in the Teton Valley, and these eastern folks are proving to be nothing but trouble.

4.  What are you afraid of most in life?

Well now, if I told you that, I might just give away half the story. But let’s say I haven’t always made the best decisions, and going back to face some of those wrongs would be mighty uncomfortable.

5.  What do you want out of life?

To work my ranch and to bring my sister back home before my ma dies of consumption. They need to see each other again one last time. And of course I want nothing to do with that mathematics teacher my sister is so close to. I already told you that woman is a heap of trouble!

(And just in case you happen to meet Miss Elizabeth Wells around town, I recommend you call her just that, a mathematics teacher. If you mention something so simple as ciphering, she just might bite your head off and eat it for breakfast.)

6.  What is the most important thing to you?

At the moment, collecting my money from New York and getting my sister back home where she belongs. My ma and Samantha sure do need to see each other again. Maybe if I told the mathematics teacher about Ma dying, she’d think a little more kindly about me taking Samantha out of school.

Maybe. Then again, I’m not sure that mathematics teacher has a kind thought in her head about me.

7.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

The way I responded after my twin brother, Blake, died. I was grieving mighty fierce and did some things I’m not very proud of.

8.  Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

No pet for me. I don’t even have a horse stuck in the east, but I sure am itching to get back west where I can have my cattle and horses and trail dogs again.

9. Can you tell us a little interesting tidbit about the time period you live in?

Though much of the west has been settled by 1893, the two valleys surrounding the Teton Mountains are largely uninhabited. There’s not even an actual town where I come from, though it seems like a few new settlers trickle in every year. And I have to say, I’d like to keep things that way. Nothing but the wide open prairie before me and the mountains at my back. Who needs a bunch of highfalutin city stuff when he can have prairie and mountains?