Cowboy ala Cart for the AUG80K 2024 (since I didn't succeed last year) and to finish it for NoMo' NaNoWriMo.

Character Profiles

Meredith DuBois – Younger Fraternal twin Meri is determined and willful, but naïve and impulsive. She wants to be a chef and open her own café in honor of her Aunt Layne. All she wants is for herself, her sister and her cousin to get out of Veil Falls. Chasing her dreams of becoming a chef is more important to her than anything, even the man she married. She puts up a strong front but inside she is still the scared little girl who barely escaped her sister's fate. Moving home, she and her husband will struggle to repair their marriage and find a clue to the events that destroyed her family so many years earlier. She wants to keep hating her parents but she what she discovers makes that impossible. Child of Louis and Miranda DuBois, sister of Charlene. Looks like Louis's family with hazel eyes and light brown hair.

Charlene DuBois – Older Fraternal twin Char, is jaded and distrustful but loyal and protective to a fault. After her police chief father allowed her molester to escape, she closed herself off to everyone except her sister and cousin. After high school, she joined the Navy to escape home, but years later she is drawn back to Veil Falls when her sister discovers their mother's journal and clues about the man who destroyed her life and her parents' involvement in his escape and disappearance. She is facing the sad truth that every belief that kept her going is based on a lie. Looks Hispanic/Bolivian like Miranda.

Colt King – Texas Cowboy who is on his way to becoming the World Cutting Horse Champion with his horse Sinner Sam I Am. He wasn't planning on having his cookie addicted horse, Sinner Sam I Am, finding him the woman of his dreams in Chef Meri DuBois. Or on marrying her a few days later in true Las Vegas style. He also didn't know leaving her two weeks later to compete would mean they would be separated for months. Chasing points for the world cutting horse championship may cost him more than he's willing to lose, especially when Meri refuses to come to his family's Lazy K Ranch after developing gravid diabetes. When she goes home to Veil Falls, Colorado, Colt has no choice but to follow. There, he finds a journal page under a drawer that reveals more than he ever suspected about Meri's past and the source of her hatred for her home town.

Cody King – Older brother of Colt King, He doesn't have his brother's skill, but he shares his passion and loyalty for family and ranch life. Helping his brother keep up on his training is easy and figuring out the buried truth in a secretive mountain town isn't. Cody's playful nature causes hostility with some, but he is just a good-natured cowboy who is more worldly than he seems after a tour in the military and working part time as a deputy sheriff.

Katrina "Trina" DuBois – Cousin of Char and Meri, she loves them as the only siblings she has ever had. Having been molested by the same monster that assaulted her cousin Charlene, Trina became a wild child to hide her pain. When her mother is murdered, she falls into a deep depression. The twins force their parents to take Trina in until graduation. She goes on to nursing school and gets therapy. When she returns to Veil Falls, she purposely stirs the pot to cause uneasiness with those who let her molester escape and her mother's murder be passed off as an overdose. They say the truth will set you free, but for Trina it will just bind the chains of her past she has tried so hard to escape tighter and bring her face to face with the man who loved her and abandoned her after the worst evening of her life.

Hank Richmond – son of the mayor Arnold and Katherine Richmond, and brother of school socialite queen Heather Richmond. Drama isn't the only thing his sister is addicted to. He has been carrying the secrets of his family and town since he was 11. He loves and lost a girl, who might be his half-sister, a possibility that he only learns the night after her mother is killed. His father and the late police chief did many things to protect the secrets of the community but what his mother and her friends did is far more shocking. 

What really happened all those years ago? Is it murder if the victim was a monster? Is a murderer still stalking and killing in Veil Falls?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello lovelies, 

During the last August80K writing challenge I barely made 67K, so this year I am trying to do better, in spite of my migraines. NoMo'NaNo will see me finishing this story (and hopefully, The Western Queen.)
We shall see but hold on to your saddle, it's going to be a rough ride. 

M.M.