BA Tortuga's Thousand Word Thursday Ficlet: On One Knee

“Christ on a pink sparkly crutch, cowboy? You drop your phone again?” The last time Finn had done that, it’d cost them two hundred dollars to get the damn thing replaced and God knew Finn’s whole life was on that phone.

“No, Benjamin. I didn’t.”

“Then what?” The sun was on the way to faded out and they still needed to get a move on. They had to feed critters and then they had to feed themselves and…

“Ain’t you never been proposed to before, honey? Ain’t you never had a man on his knees for you?”

“Just you, Finn.” Oh. Oh, damn. His heart did a little pitty-pat, and his voice was rough as a cob when he growled. “Get up, you idjit, ‘fore you get eat up with fire ants. They make you swell up.”

“You gotta say yes, first.”

“Do I?” Because he totally intended to. Yes and please and thank you, God, for cowboys that didn’t give up, no matter what.

“Yessir.”

“Okay then. I reckon I will. Yeah.”

The ring slipped on his finger, heavy and odd, but it fit just fine. “Good. Let’s go feed, huh?”

“Yeah. Then maybe I’ll cook you steaks.”

After all, it wasn’t every day a man said yes.

*****

After that, I think we all need a longer chunk of this author's writing. How about BA's latest M/M title?

ER doctor Dusty Lowry grew up in a conservative rural Texas family that has never quite forgiven him for staying in New Mexico after his stint in the Army. Paramedic Nate Miller, Dusty’s best friend since their early Army days, has a hippie momma, a tiny apartment, and is in lust with his buddy. When their other Army friend, Kyle, gets married, they start thinking about settling down. In fact, they both know what they want: each other. Too bad they’ve never shared that goofy little fact.

A trip to visit Dusty’s family in Texas changes everything, and Dusty and Nate aren’t sure where to go from there. Good thing they’re smart guys, and between a series of bombings that target first responders, their friend Kyle’s wife getting pregnant, and more than one bowl of guacamole, they begin to figure out how to have a relationship.

But as the bombings get closer to home, Nate and Dusty must navigate love and commitment before they lose their chance.

Buy at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and All Romance eBooks.

About BA Tortuga

Texan to the bone and an unrepentant Daddy's Girl, BA Tortuga spends her days with her basset hounds and her beloved wife, 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 Pinterest in the name of research. BA's personal saviors include her wife, 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 has heard the call of the high desert and lives in the Sandias. 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.

You can find BA Tortuga on her website, her blog, her Facebook page, her Facebook group, or on Twitter.

Charity Sip Blitz Review Set 8

Hey yah! Getting to a couple of my favorites! More goodies with a medical theme, and wow, no one has had the same idea yet.

On Call:Crossroads by PD Singer

Dr. Keith Hoyer has lost patients before but never like this, not at sixteen and not by intent. Certain that he could have prevented the tragedy with some word or deed that he left unsaid or undone, Keith is desperate for a way to redeem his failure.

If he's going to practice medicine in a Third World country, Keith's lover, veterinarian Dante James says, he needs time to sell the practice and brush up on diseases of goats. "Whither thou goest, I go," Dante tells Keith, but where will those words take them?
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This story stands alone just fine, even if it does have two others in the series. Keith's and Dante's work and private lives mix in such a way that I would hope doesn't happen all the time, but does make a good story. They tend to the bittersweet, someone's always getting hurt, and this time, killed, which sends Keith just a bit over the edge, and Dante has to reel him back with a reality check. They are a committed couple, and Keith gets to find out just how committed, when he proposes uprooting their lives in his grief. What happens next maybe qualifies as catching Keith in a vulnerable moment, but they are both utterly happy about it, and they turn all the condoms into cat toys.

The headlines lately have an ugly resemblance to the plot of this story, although I know the author didn't plan that, but it does have a ray of hope at the end for young gay men.

Disclaimer - I had to listen to Pam babble about writing Fire on the Mountain on the drive to and from work for months and she betas for me, so I’m probably bending over backwards to be picky. It's a wonderful story and I want to give it a 5 but she is a friend and I don't want to look like playing favorites. What do I do? Not review? Not rate? Help me out here.This is gonna be a bigger problem as I meet more authors.


You Don't Need a Doctor by Julia Talbot

When a gunshot victim comes into Alan's ER, he jokes that this guy doesn't need a doctor, he needs a veterinarian. As he keeps working, though, the patient seems to be getting less hairy and less hurt. All except for the bullet wound that's now festering badly. Alan is shocked when his patient seems to miraculously heal as soon as he removes the bullet. He's even more shocked when the guy turns up at his house later to offer a very personal thank you.

Can he figure out Shiloh's secret before it's too late?
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Thunk. Right into one of my issues. Although the story was almost over except for the wrap-up, so I got suckered into it, and it will be all spoilery if I tell you now. So I guess it just proves that you can slide a story past my known dislikes if you do it well enough. We the readers have a good laugh on the doctor, cause from that vantage point it's easier to see what's going on, all peeking through fingers at the giant revelation that's  going to startle only the hero.

A nice little romp.

You don't know what my issues are? Guess I should talk about those sometime. Not now. It would be a spoiler.



Some Good Doctoring by BA Tortuga

Working as a clinician in bull riding isn't easy, especially when ornery cowboys get up all in your face and give you a punch of your nose. Lucky for Jonesy, he has Cody Butler on his side, ready to not only wade in and keep him from being hit again, but to give him the best personal doctoring a man could ask for.

Featuring the men of the Roughstock world.
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"It was what cowboys did. They fucked hard and fought hard and called the people they loved 'baby'."

Guess that about sums it up for the story -- it's short, violent, sweet, and full of the little choppy sentences that wouldn't fit in with anybody but cowboys. It's very intense, very immediate, and very hot.



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