Torn in Texas

Written by Sandy Appleyard

Narrated by Sandy Appleyard

She returns home. He watches over her. Then they both find out the truth, amongst a killer…a day too late.

Years ago, I left Clarkstown with a sour puss on my face and better hopes for the future. But what I ended up with was extra baggage, in more ways than one, and even more reasons to leave. Now that I’m home, I’m not sure if Austin Walters looks at me with pity, hatred…or something else, as most of the town folk do. But when he figures out the real reason why I left, he looks at me in a different light. Even more importantly, he realizes more of what I need now that I’m back. And now I seem to look at him and everyone else differently, thanks to him.

Whinny has changed a lot. It’s too bad that my family and my hometown can’t see that. Never the thorn in anyone’s side, as she thought she was, Whinny left. But now she’s back, and she needs help. Mama always says that there’s no point existing if we can’t help each other. So, I do, regardless of the warnings and looks I get in the process. As I’ve told her many times before, Whinny is one of a kind. I just wish she’d believe it.

With a new baby arriving in the family, another wedding, and a renewed hope for Whinny, none of us realizes that a stranger from Whinny’s past is on his way to Clarkstown…with a gun in his hand and a score to settle.

HEA (Happily Ever After)

Ranch romance

Cowboy romance

Medium heat

Course language

Cliffhanger ending

• Language: English
• Publisher: Appleyard Enterprises
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990807114

Sandy Appleyard

Some have said that if you see me on the street (usually with a book in hand or a laptop fired up), I appear a cold, hard-fisted person. However, once we’ve spoken for five minutes or less, you’ll have laughed at least once. That is, provided you appreciate sarcastic, self-deprecating wit.My first short story was penned in middle school and I was hooked ever since.I graduated with honours from Humber College and began working as an Administrative Coordinator for a large, multinational corporation shortly afterward. Quickly learning that the corporate world, despite the love I had for my job, is a slow killer of creativity, I chose to quit during maternity leave in 2006.Difficulty thinking outside the box soon evaporated when I received something that didn’t come in one: my first child. While at home with the baby my imaginative energy got the better of me and my first memoir was written. It had been a dream of mine to write about my late father, who passed away from alcoholism in 1992, and it took me two years to compose a fifty-page manuscript, but I did it.After my second daughter was born in 2008 I had more fuel to write, and felt it necessary to voice the challenges and inherent gifts I acquired during my struggles with Scoliosis. Hence, my second memoir was born. The words flowed out of me with such ease I shocked myself.My love for words grew with each book I read and every word I wrote. I soon realized I had no more material to write non-fiction, which led me to take a stab at fiction. The next two books were such a revelation: it became more and more clear what my true calling was. The rest, as they say, is history!