THE GUNSMITH'S GALLANTRY - Susan Page Davis - Free Book

Welcome back, Susan. Do you have a favorite genre to write? If so, what is it?
This is one area that keeps me from being focused. I love writing historicals. I love writing suspense. I love writing romance. I love writing mystery. So I keep writing different things. My favorites are ones that combine romance, history, and either mystery or suspense. The Ladies’ Shooting Club series has all of that.
If you didn’t live in the part of the country where you do, where would you live?

I just moved to Kentucky, so if I weren’t here, I’d probably be back in Maine, where I was born.
What foreign country would you like to visit and why?
I’d like to visit my daughter in England, especially if I could take the rest of the family along. I was there once, many years ago, and I loved it. The sense of history and heritage is overpowering.

Describe what you think would be the most romantic vacation you could take.
For me it would involve water and not having to put up tents or cook over a fire. A cruise, maybe?
James and I have been on two cruises, and I love them, too. Where would you like to set a story that you haven’t done yet?
I’m thinking of setting one here in Kentucky.
What is the main theme of this novel?
The Gunsmith’s Gallantry is about forgiveness and trust. Hiram not only has issues with the women in his life, he has trouble communicating. But he’s learning. It’s a huge step for him to take his best friend, Ethan, to task, but their friendship is stronger afterward. This and other events give him courage to trust Libby with his love. Isabel can’t trust her father, and Cyrus has a major lack of trust, not only with someone from his past, but he can’t trust his friends to help him.
Tell us about the story.

Hiram Dooley’s sister Gert is about to leave him to get married—if Sheriff Ethan Chapman would ever propose; his sister-in-law, Rose, thinks Hiram should marry her, since they’re both widowed; and the woman he truly loves, Libby Adams, is blind to his regard.

Schoolmarm Isabel Fennel has a different problem—a man claiming to be her uncle came to town…and then disappeared. She’s afraid her father may have killed him and buried him behind the barn. Hiram helps the sheriff end a brawl at Bitsy Shepard’s saloon, and a mysterious stranger claims to be heir to a mining claim. The mayhem continues when Cyrus Fennel shows up with a black eye and tries to sell his land.

Hiram and the sheriff, along with Libby and the other members of the Ladies’ Shooting Club, have their hands full trying to discover what’s behind the mysterious events in Fergus.

Sounds intriguing. Please give us the first page of the book.

“Wait, Hiram!”

The gunsmith paused on the board sidewalk and turned around.

Maitland Dostie left the doorway of his tiny office and shouted at him, waving a piece of paper. “Got a message for ya.”

Hiram arched his eyebrows and touched a hand to his chest in question.

The gray-haired telegraph operator smiled and clomped along the walk toward him, shaking his head. “Yes, you, Mr. Dooley. Just because you haven’t had a telegram in the last five years and more doesn’t mean you’ll never get one.”

Hiram swallowed down a lump of apprehension and reached a cautious hand for the paper. “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing. It was paid for on the other end.”

It still seemed he ought to give him something, but maybe that was only if a messenger boy brought the telegram around to the house. Hiram nodded. “Thanks. Where’s it from?”

“Whyn’t you look and see?”

Hiram wanted to say, “Because if it’s from Maine, it’s probably bad news.” His parents were getting along in years, and he couldn’t think of a reason anyone would part with enough hard cash to send him a telegram unless somebody’d up and died.

But Hiram rarely spent more words than he had to, and Dostie had already gotten more out of him than usual. Besides, if someone in the family had died, the telegraph operator would know it, and wouldn’t he look a little sadder if that were so? Hiram nodded and tucked the paper inside his vest, so it wouldn’t fly away in the cool May wind that whistled up off the Idaho prairie. He walked home, stepping a little faster than previously, certain that Dostie watched him.

At the path to his snug little house, between the jail and a vacant store building, he turned in and hurried to the back. Maybe he’d ought to look. If it was bad news, he’d have to tell his sister, Trudy. Undecided, he mounted the steps and opened the kitchen door. A spicy smell of baking welcomed him, along with Trudy’s smile.

“Just in time. I’m taking out the molasses cookies and putting in the dried apple pies.” She bent before the open oven.

The woodstove had warmed the kitchen to an almost uncomfortable level. Hiram hung his hat on its peg and headed for the water bucket and wash basin. No use trying to get cookies from Trudy unless he’d washed his hands.

“Did Zachary Harper pay you?”

“No, he says he’ll come by next week.”

“Hmpf.”

Hiram shrugged. Trudy got a little mama-bearish on his behalf when folks didn’t come forth with cash for his work on their firearms, but he knew Zach would pay him eventually. It wasn’t worth fussing over. As she peeled hot cookies off the baking sheet with a long, flat spatula, the soap shot out of his hand and skated across the clean floor. Thankful it hadn’t slid under the hot stove, he walked to the corner and bent to retrieve it. The paper in his vest crackled.

“Oh, I ’most forgot.” He corralled the soap and returned it to its dish. After a good rinsing, he dried his hands, fished out the folded yellow sheet of paper, and laid it on the table.

“What’s that?” She stopped with the narrow spatula in midair, a hot, floppy cookie drooping over its edges.

“Telegram.”

“What’s it say?”

He rescued the crumbling cookie and juggled it from one hand to the other. “Don’t know.”

I can't wait to read it. How can readers find you on the Internet?

Come visit me at http://www.susanpagedavis.com/

Susan, I really enjoyed this visit with you.
 
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