The more I write, the more I appreciate the team of family, friends, and professionals who help make it happen. I owe you all a Texas-sized thank you.
To Don, more than anyone, for making it possible for me to write at all. Thank you for your encouragement, your help with laundry and dishes, and for not complaining about all the frozen pizza and ranch dressing we’ve eaten in the past year.
To my children, Jessica, Drew, Dene, Jillian, and Janae. You guys motivate me more than you know, because I realize someday (far in the distant future), I won’t be around to talk to you anymore … but my books will.
To Marci and D’arci for telling me I’m doing it right and for walking arm in arm as we battle our family’s version of depression. Lynda Turner called it a beast, and I simply call it Satan. But Satan’s a dork. And God is bigger. And we’re winning the battle. Oorah.
To Mom and Dad for instilling in my heart a love of West Texas. For hauling my siblings and me to the ranch year after year in the old, blue station wagon, for teaching us the difference between cottontails and jackrabbits, and for showing us how a family—even an imperfect one—can love each other deeply.
To Sudona Lombard for reading an early draft of Jilted and talking me down off the ledge.
To Linda Wise for proofing the galleys of all three books. Honestly, by that point, I’d read the manuscripts so many times, I couldn’t even see the words. Thank you for being my eyes.
To my church family for falling in love with Clyde and Lynda, JohnScott and Fawn, and Dodd and Ruthie. You guys have been a tremendous support and have made this journey even more fun.
To John Boren for loaning me Picnic Hollow and offering to keep it a secret that Clyde and Lynda couldn’t actually have hiked there. I’ll always consider it an honor to have experienced the satisfaction of standing in the shadow of all those names.
To Ann Montgomery-Moran for advice regarding the legalities of Clyde’s registered sex-offender status, Neil’s threat of a restraining order, and Hoby’s abandonment. You saved me much embarrassment, though I could have avoided a timely rewrite had I contacted you six months earlier. I live and learn.
To John Corp for explaining the basics of wind-farm procedures, the dangers involved for workers, and all the details that brought the turbines up close and personal. I regret not finding a good spot for one of my characters to use a turbine for target practice. That was my favorite detail from all that you told me, so maybe I can use that tidbit in another book someday.
To James M. Childers, PhD, for walking me through the stages of crime scene investigation and allowing me to pick your brain … where I was surprised to find a mother animal scavenging human body parts for her pups, a waterlogged corpse floating to the surface of a lake … and Boy Scouts. I can’t make this stuff up.
To my agent, Jessica Kirkland. Thank you for watching the news that day at the lake house. Those two headlines (the car in the lake and the tornado in the small town) supplied me with Jilted’s basic plot skeleton (pun intended). And as always, thank you for talking me through the jumble of ideas in my head and helping me figure out my crazy, messed-up characters.
To my developmental editor, Jamie Chavez, not only for cleaning up my story line until it became a sensible plot, but also for teaching me countless secrets of the craft of writing, all while boosting my spirits and counseling me through writer angst. You make an excellent therapist.
To Ingrid Beck, Nick Lee, Helen Macdonald, and Susan Murdock, for turning a mess of typewritten pages into a book. To the marketing people, Lisa Beech, Darren Terpstra, Karla Colonnieves, and Jeane Wynn, who helped put Jilted in front of readers. To the copyeditor, Jennifer Lonas, for going over the manuscript with a magnifying glass and remembering miniscule details across all three books. To the cover designer, Amy Konyndyk, for bringing the wind fields to life. And to the folks at David C Cook for taking a chance on a series from a debut author. I will forever be grateful.