Hello, all! I’m Cat Johnson, one of the authors lucky enough to have my story submission chosen for inclusion in Cowboy Lust. When the editor put out a call for hot cowboy shorts, I knew two things. First, I had to submit since cowboys are kind of my thing and second, I knew exactly what story I wanted to write.

I’d been waiting for an opportunity to spin a real life tale into fiction for a while. No, my real experience wasn’t quite like the finished fictional product you’ll read in my Cowboy Lust story, but it is still a pretty entertaining tale. It’s become what my friend and I now refer to as our Great Big Austin Adventure, and here it is…

It was March of 2011 and I was in Austin, TX attending the SxSW festival/trade show for business with a coworker of mine, who also happens to be an author. Now keep in mind, I’m a New Yorker. I’m used to the city that never sleeps, and taxi cabs everywhere, day and night. I never thought that when we took the twenty-minute taxi ride from our hotel in the middle of the city of Austin to the far-reaching outskirts where Rodeo Austin was being held, we wouldn’t be able to get back. But that’s how it turned out. As we were standing there in the dark waiting for a cab that never came, the sheriff  told us about the Japanese tourists who’d waited until 1am the night before for their taxi, which also never came. He’d eventually driven them to their hotel. The parking attendant told us no cab was coming to get us way out there when they could make more money staying in the city, which was teeming with people for SxSW, but if we wanted to wait for his shift to end at midnight, he’d drive us.

I was blown away the cab company wouldn’t have told me this in advance. More, that they’d swear up and down on the phone the cab was on its way but an hour later, it still wasn’t there. The sheriff suggested we walk the mile and a half to the bus station. He obviously didn’t want to play taxi again that night. The parking attendants said no, us walking in the middle of the night on the dark highway to wait at a deserted bus station was a very, very bad idea. They obviously didn’t want to be responsible for our deaths caused by bad advice.

In my frustration I turned to the sheriff and asked, “What do you suggest we do? Go back in, find ourselves a cowboy, and get him to drive us to the hotel?”

He nodded, and said perfectly seriously, “That’s not a bad idea.”

Long story short, the parking attendant handed us his phone, which had the numbers of every taxi company in the area in the contact list. He told us to call every single one and order a cab and if we were lucky, one might come. We did that, and lo and behold, one driver who wasn’t trolling the streets of Austin looking for fares, but had instead gone home for the night, got up off his couch and came to get us. Thank God he lived nearby.

But still, the erotic romance author in me couldn’t shake the story idea–What if ,while stranded at the rodeo, I had gone back inside and scooped myself a cowboy. What naughty shenanigans could that have led to?

That kernel of an idea led to the writing of “Ladies Love Country Boys”. It’s a fish out of water story, the fish being the heroine in Austin on business. Her rental car breaks down on the highway in front of the rodeo/fairgrounds. She goes inside to kill time while waiting for the tow truck and while there, finds a hot as hell cowboy to keep her busy.

I can tell you my heroine has a better time being stranded than I did, but my friend and I did come out of it with one hell of a war story… and a slightly altered perception of the  law enforcement personnel in Texas.

Cat