Guest Blogger Leah Braemel - Love In a Barn

When I sat down to write a western I just assumed there’d be sex in the fields, after all, I grew up in the country. But this was Texas. With prickly pears. And rattlesnakes. Yikes, they’re not exactly romantic. Hey, I thought, what about in the barn? Now I’ve been in my share of barns so I know there are a few drawbacks. But it has been a few years since I did any up-close-and-personal research in that regard. Luckily one of my critique partners just happens to breed Arabian BLUE horses. So I emailed Sue and asked her about some of the finer points of making love in a barn. Good thing my writing was done for the day because once I got her reply I couldn’t stop laughing. First of all, she reminded me “if they drop their pants anywhere near the hay, they'll be picking hay stems out of their cracks for hours. I promise....”

After I spent a few minutes snickering about just how Sue knew this little detail, I said to myself, “All right, I can work with that. If I put them in the tack room, we might be able to lessen the hay factor.” So I asked Sue if it was feasible to have Dillon lean Nikki over the side of a saddle and, um, do it that way. Her response?

“…leaning over it sideways, even the best of saddles is going to be pretty painful, and probably leave a lot of damage... Bruised boobies from the swell and cantle. Probably cuts/deep scrapes from the conches and even from the edges of the leather. Her belly would be bruised from the edge of the leather at the bottom of the jockey. It's thick, heavy leather - for a western saddle, even if it's well made and soft, it's not designed to be comfortable from that direction.”

Ouch. Okay, that’s not particularly romantic. Then I got to the next part of her email...

“If the saddles are on free standing racks/stands, if the sex is rough, they're likely to push it over. LOL. *ahem* OH! barn cats. if she has a barn cat, it will be rubbing between their legs. Dogs, goats, horses... everything will watch, or be staring eagerly at the door when they finally walk out.”

I must admit that I ended up laughing so hard I was bent over holding my stomach. For a writer, I was imagining all sorts of scenarios, however they’re not particularly romantic, LOL. Did I end up using her information? Yup. There is a scene in the barn involving a horse that sticks its head over the stall and a cat that winds its way between them. But you’ll just have to read Texas Tangle to get the details. ;) If I do say so myself, it’s turned out to be a pretty hot scene. And I’m not just talking about that ‘damned Texas heat’ either.

Thanks to her cheating ex-husband and her thieving brother, all horse breeder Nikki Kimball has left is a bruised heart, an overdrawn bank account and an empty home. When sex-on-legs Dillon Barnett and his brooding foster-brother Brett Anderson start showing more than just neighborly attention, Nikki is intrigued…and a little gun-shy.

Dillon and Brett have a history; back in high school, the two friends fought a bitter battle over Nikki. Now, ten years later, Brett still longs to be the man in Nikki’s life, but he’s determined to stand back and let Dillon win Nikki’s heart.

Society says Nikki must choose between the two men she loves. Is Nikki strong enough to break all the rules in order to find happiness?

If you want to know more about Leah, you find follow her on Twitter, or join her Facebook fanpage. You can read excerpts of Texas Tangle, and her other erotic romances, Private Property and Personal Protection, on her website or on her blog.