Series: Top of the Leader Board, Book 1
Length: 55,116 words
Genres: Contemporary, M/F, Cowboys & Western, Erotic, Romance
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King of the cowboys, Ace gets whatever what he wants. Kitty is strong, independent, and madly in love, but will they go all the way?
Ace is a record-breaking all-around champion bull rider. He’s used to being the boss, and he knows what he wants. When he meets reporter Kitty at a black tie event, he knows he wants her, and he’s hoping she feels the same about him.
Kitty loves Ace’s strength, and his old-fashioned gentlemanly ways, which are rare in her world. She’s used to war zones and petty tyrants. Ace wants to protect her, and she’s willing to let him. To a point. She still has a job to do, though, and when danger strikes too close to home, Ace comes to the rescue. Will Ace be able to keep Kitty safe, and by his side?
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Texas Barbecue Versus the World
by BA Tortuga
Howdy y’all!
Most of y’all probably know I’m from Texas. East Texas for my young years, then more than 20 years in the Austin area. Barbecue is a state hobby.
Hell, if it weren’t for football, it would be the state obsession.
Thankfully, my new home in New Mexico has a Rudy’s, which is a Texas chain, so I can get my fix. I was never one to wait in line at Franklin’s in Austin. I was way more likely to go to the Salt Lick up in Round Rock than to haul my butt down to the original. Still. I know that BBQ is beef, not pork, that it’s smoked with a dry rub, not basted with a ton of sauce, and that it comes with a pack of white bread, not sweet corn muffin.
So, in the new book, Ace and Kitty, Ace takes Kitty to have Texas barbecue in the little town his ranch lies outside. I find East Texas barbecue a little less spicy than Austin style, but the idea is the same, and it tickled me to see it through the eyes of someone new, even if she was fictional. Kitty is a reporter from the Midwest and living in New York, and a tiny town Texas joint like the place Ace takes her is a whole new world.
The best barbecue is the kind where you smell like smoke when you leave the restaurant because the pit is right there inside. Brisket. Extra lean. Oh, some folks like the fatty stuff, but give me the burnt ends. Uhn. I’ll take it on bread with sauce or in a taco or sliced on a platter. Maybe some smoked turkey, too, though that’s more my wife’s thing than mine.
Barbecue is one of those Texas things that creeps into every story I write because it’s so much a part of life there. Every cowboy and redneck has a smoker or a grill with a pile of wood chips in a box in their backyard. Everyone has a recipe for a dry rub. I love it, and so does my hero, Ace.
My heroine, Kitty, is more than willing to become an adopted Texas daughter and learn to love the smoked meat. Here’s a dry rub recipe!
Ingredients
3 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 teaspoons mustard powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons chili or ancho powder
1 teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder
Much love y’all
BA
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“Well, I hope so.” He patted her leg, which was not quite asleep. When he pulled into a barbecue place called Outlaws, she was ready to move a little.
“Oh, that’s a happy-making smell.” She pulled down the visor, flipped up the vanity mirror. “Do I look okay?”
“You look amazing. I could have you for dessert.” Ace hopped out and came around to open her door. “Of course, they have amazing peach cobbler.”
She chuckled, let him help her down. The tiny little things like that made her smile, made her happy.
Tucking her arm into his, he led her inside, where it was all neon and smoked meat.
Everyone seemed to know him, and some recognized her, with that odd blink and twist of the head. Ace didn’t seem to be bothered, so Kitty shrugged it off too, and let him lead her to a little table for two.
She settled in, ordered a Coke, and took one of the rolls they brought over.
Ace grinned. “So, what was the best part of Dubai?”
“We didn’t see much. I was interviewing a man who helps dissidents leave China.” She explained how they’d been picked up as soon as they’d hit the ground, blindfolded and taken on a six-hour trip to God knew where.
It had been a wild trip.
“Ah. Well, damn, if I’d known you liked blindfolds…”
She looked at Ace, genteelly flipped him off.
He chuckled, grabbing her hand across the table. “Now, is that any way to treat a man who’s going to introduce you to the best barbecue ever?”
“I suppose—if it’s really the best…” They laughed together, fingers twining.
“It’s pretty darned good.” Ace ordered them a little of everything, it seemed, from brisket to turkey to sausage.
Texan to the bone and an unrepentant Daddy's Girl, BA Tortuga spends her days with her basset hounds, getting tattooed, texting her sisters, and eating Mexican food. When she's not doing that, she's writing. She spends her days off watching rodeo, knitting and surfing porn sites in the name of research. BA's personal saviors include her partner, Julia Talbot, her best friend, Sean Michael, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Really good coffee.
Having written everything from fist-fighting rednecks to hard-core cowboys to werewolves, BA does her damnedest to tell the stories of her heart, which was raised in Northeast Texas, but is feeling the Colorado mountains calling. With books ranging from hard-hitting GLBT romance, to fiery menages, to the most traditional of love stories, BA refuses to be pigeon-holed by anyone but the voices in her head.
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