After
twenty-seven years of marriage and service to his country, Gavin McIntyre
returns from what he hopes will be his last deployment before either reaching
the highest attainable enlisted rank in the Marine Corps or retiring. But what
he returns to leaves him flat aback with a busted mast and broken rudder. His
wife is a no show for the homecoming. Using the ages old adage of improvise,
adapt, and overcome, he makes his way home only to discover, she hasn’t simply
forgotten to pick him up from the bus, she’s gone. In her wake, Gavin finds his
home set up boot camp style and twenty dollars in the cookie jar, but any
evidence he’s ever had a wife or five children with her is deplete.
Pregnant
at sixteen and married to a marine in a less than romantic ceremony courtesy of
the local Justice, Raylyn McIntyre has spent almost three decades playing the
dutiful patriotic wife, catering to the whims of the military. She’s lost track
of how many places she’s lived, how many deployments she’s endured, and how
many tears she’s shed. But most of all, she’s lost track of herself. With a
husband who’s so wrapped up in saving the world he can’t see he’s losing his
family, Ray resorts to the one tactic he might understand…a full frontal attack
with extreme prejudice, which proves to get Gavin’s waning attention.
Nothing
good ever comes easy, though, and just when her choice of battle plan seems to
be working, tragedy befalls their family. As Ray and Gavin struggle to find
center, they also struggle with the notion that forgiveness of self is often
the only path to forgiveness of another, and that path is not only bumpy but
filled with pitfalls.
#1
The only
thing in the front room was his well-worn American Leather recliner Ray had
purchased from Cabot House as his welcome home gift two years ago and his
fifty-two inch flat screen which still hung on the opposite wall. Everything
else was gone. No rugs, no couch with Ray’s sewing basket sitting at the end,
no family portraits on the walls. Gone. It was all gone.
Stark
realization raced through Gavin’s veins as a ball of ice formed in the pit of
his gut. His wife wasn’t just UA.
Ray had
left him.
With his
mouth hanging open, Gavin spun a couple of circles. How had he missed this?
Things were fine the last time he talked to her. Weren’t they? She seemed fine.
She was her usual chipper self, all happy news, no tears. He could hear the
smile in her voice.
How had
they gone from that to this?
“Hey, I
don’t have all day,” the driver’s voice snipped from the doorway. Still in a
daze, Gavin turned to stare at him. “Kind of a big house for just you and your
chair, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,
it is,” Gavin ground out.
“Look, I
can see you’re having one of those days, but I need my money. I got other
fares.”
“Right.”
Sliding his pack off his shoulder, Gavin let it hit the slick hardwood floor,
which was usually polished to a fine hue but now lay dull and dusty, with a
hollow thump. How long had she been gone?
Gavin
made his way down the hall which led to the kitchen and dining area to find
those rooms in the same condition as the front room, nearly empty. Where their
heirloom oak table which would seat twelve in a pinch used to sit was a fold
out card table and one metal chair. The kitchen counters were bare save his
Bulldog DI cookie jar which was set in the middle of the island with a note
tucked beneath. Snatching it up, Gavin scanned it with one thought in mind.
Maybe it would reveal Ray’s whereabouts.
Your Oreos are inside along with
forty bucks to cover your cab.
Born
and raised in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, Denisea Kampe was spinning
tales before she could even spell and once her sixth grade creative writing
teacher encouraged her by leaving a most prophetic comment on one of her
assignments, the wheels of destiny were set in motion. But those wheels would
need greased again and again as her writing would take a back seat to life and
her jobs of mom and wife many times over before she’d finally see her dream of
becoming a published writer come to fruition in 2010. Denisea is a military
wife who’s traveled the world over. She’s lived in four states and Okinawa
Japan and held more drivers’ licenses than she can count. Her nest is empty save
one furry and quite mischievous Siberian Husky and one spoiled rotten Rat
Terrier mix. Denisea takes much of her inspiration for her heroes from the
marines she’s lived around since marrying her very own fairy tale prince in
dusty cammies. Coining the term realmantica, she strives to produce quality
romance in a realistic setting. Her genre of choice is contemporary romance and
when she’s not writing, she enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on,
trips to the museum, taking field research trips, crafting, and sewing. Her
works include One Tear, The Executive Officer’s Wife, Private Pirouette, and the Slower
Lower series. Denisea loves
to hear from her readers and can be found at deniseakampe.blogspot.com
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Before
I get started on my topic of discussion today, I’d like to thank Melissa for
hosting me today and allowing me to give you all a glimpse of who I am as a
writer as well as a person and a glimpse of my latest release For His Country.
I’d also like to thank each of you for spending a few minutes with me today.
One
of the most frequently asked questions of me concerning my career is about
research; how much I do, where I do it, and what it entails. I was doing an
interview for another blog for my blitz and when they asked me this question in
regards to For His Country, the first thing that came to mind was, that’s easy, I live it every day.
And
it’s true. I literally live the life that most of my characters live because
like my characters, I am married to a Marine. Normally when I answer the
question so simply, the next thing people tend to ask is how much of me goes
into each book? Then…Is there a character who I’ve fashioned after my own life?
Are there other wives who are side characters? How much of what I write is
true? How many of the events have I lived through personally?
In
other words, a simple answer normally opens the door for a barrage of
inquiries.
That
reaction is fitting since there really isn’t anything simple about living this
life anyway. And unless someone has lived it and understands it, they tend to
be immensely curious about it. So, I thought I’d gab a bit about my life as a
wife and how that influences and shapes my stories and characters.
MarshFox
and I have been married for seventeen years. We met while he was an instructor
at a base in Missouri and he literally swept me off my feet. It was a whirlwind
courtship and we were married within six months of knowing each other. A year
later I found myself boarding a plane to move to Okinawa, Japan. My travels
were pretty contained up until that point, the furthest away I’d been from home
being Ohio where a couple of uncles live. Wow! What a life changing experience.
It was that year I also began to figure out life in the fleet was an entirely
different animal than life at the school house. Life in the fleet meant
extended periods of time away from each other, but at the time in the late 90s
the world was a fairly quiet place and it wasn’t all that dangerous to go out
on manuevers.
Three
years later we moved back stateside to Virginia and it wasn’t even a year later
all hell broke loose when a few terrorists thought to tear our nation down to
its very foundation and my life as a wife was forever shifted left. Extended
periods of time were a walk in the park compared to deployment after deployment
after deployment. It got the point he was gone more than he was home. In less
than ten years, I think we’ve seen all the Corps has to offer in the way of
families being torn apart at the seams whether it be by divorce due to the
stress and strain of separation or through the loss of a spouse to combat. In
those same ten years, I saw my husband a total of four and those weren’t in any
way consecutively, that was cumulatively. He actually did three one-year tours,
two of those back to back.
I’m
not saying there haven’t been good times, there have been. Plenty of good times
to be honest. I’ve seen and done things I never dreamed of. I’ve lived places
I’d never have seen otherwise. I’ve tried food I’d never have heard of any
other way. I’ve made lifelong friends who I “catch up” with regularly through
letters, email, and the wonder that is social media. I’ve dipped my toes on the
Pacific and the Atlantic. I’ve seen the Appalachians and the Rockies. I’ve seen
the Great Plains and the prairie lands.
But
through all the good times, the separations eventually hit you and leave a
mark. There was never a time MarshFox and I stopped loving each other, but
there did come a time it became evident we didn’t really know each other
anymore. That’s one of the hefty price tags separations hang around your neck
like a noose. It’s what happened to Gavin and Ray in For His Country. After
years and years of deployments Ray figures out not only does she not know her
husband anymore, she really didn’t know herself either. What does one do when
you realize you love your spouse with all your heart, but you have no idea who
that spouse is? Dating seems a feasible fix…
Yes,
it’d seem like the simple answer, I live
the life, would suffice to the answer the research question, but truth be
told living the life is a lot more complicated than that. And so it’s the
minutes, days, weeks, and years spent following a Marine around the world which
have been my research bed and gives me the inspiration for my stories and my
characters.
Again,
thank you SO much for giving me a few minutes of your time today. Don’t forget
to enter the Rafflecopter and check out the information below about my latest
release, For His Country.
Denisea
Kampe
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