"Let Me Call You Sweetheart!" How A Hero's Actions Speak Louder than Words!

Well, let's just start HERE....

Bing Crosby singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart"....

 Ah.... Bing.... :) The whistling toward the end???? Oh my stars, be still my heart!!! Andy Griffith was a whistler... and he won my heart when I was about eleven years old...

So I had a prosaic and informative post ready for today but then my buddy Vince Mooney...

 the lot o' youse know who I'm talkin' about, the handsome fella pictured here....

 Well, Vince reminded me that it's like the HOME RUN DERBY for Major League Baseball for a romance writer to write a post on Valentine's Day... and since the aforementioned Vince and his revolutionary Rewards Per Page program took my writing to a whole new reader-pleasing level, I'm happy to grab his idea and run with it!

And speaking of baseball... spring training... the boys of summer.... PINSTRIPES!!!!

YES!!! GRATUITOUS JETER PIC!!!!

Oh.... sigh....

Okay, back to heroes. We love 'em. Sometimes because they do all the things we WISH we could get our husbands/boyfriends/fiances to do and sometimes because they're broken and we want to fix them.

(NOTE TO ALL WOMEN READING THIS: THEY ONLY GET FIXED IN FICTION. RUN. RUN FAST AND FIND SOMEONE SO TOTALLY WORTHY OF YOU AS TO BE YOUR BEST FRIEND FOREVER. DO NOT FOOL YOURSELF, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.)

(That was my Ruthy-lecture for the day) Please note that authors and books all have "live links" which means if you click on the highlighted names, they will take you away... but then come back and play!

In "The Lawman's Second Chance" the first book of my new "Kirkwood Lake" series, there are three very good reasons why Alex and Lisa shouldn't get together. Their names are Emma, Becky and Josh and they've already buried one mother... but as Alex comes to terms with his growing feelings, he realizes he's got a BIG DRAGON to slay... so one morning he calls her early, because she starts her day early... and he teases her about her favorite Mandisa song... and then he swings by the bakery on his way to the Fillmore New York State Police barracks, then drops off a box of fresh Danish pastries for Lisa and the garden center crew... just to make her smile. Ten minutes won him a lifetime.... Sweet payback, right? Nothin' on Wall Street's going to give you that kind of return!

In Debby Giusti's book, THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER, a serial killer is on the loose, and Special Agent Jamison Steele, US Army Criminal Investigation Division, is assigned to protect Michele Logan. Jamison keeps a vigilant watch, and when danger nears, he's willing to sacrifice his own well-being to ensure she's safe from harm. On a lighter note, Jamison has impeccable manners. He opens doors for Michele and stands when she enters the room. Realizing how much she loves flowers, he has a special surprise for her at the end of the story. In addition to a gorgeous bouquet of cut flowers, Jamison offers Michele an engagement ring along with his heart.

Mary Connealy is the grande dame of having men either grovel, work, romance or put themselves in peril to win the fair damsel's heart and her books sing with fun reparte, a total Mars/Venus showdown.... Here are a few of things her heroes did to show their love: (And just so youse know, she sent me FIVE TIMES THIS MANY but then I'd have to cut Julie, and if you've ever met Julie Lessman, you'd know I do not want to get on Julie's bad side... like, um... ever.)  :)

Clay McClellen butchered a pig Sophie shot. She would have had to do it herself otherwise. (Petticoat Ranch)

Tom Linscott chopped wood and plastered mud on Mandy McClellen's house when her no-account husband Sidney had gone to town. (Sharpshooter in Petticoats)

Silas Harden did the  morning chores on the first day of his employment and it touched Belle's heart but it couldn't really be called a sweetheart moment, just a man doing his job, but that was so rare in Belle's experience it was almost romantic. (The Husband Tree, a Ruthy favorite!!!)

Red Dawson, now there was a sweetheart. A picture of Cassie's ancestors had been torn up and he helped her put them back together. When she let all his chickens out he pretended like he wasn't upset because he didn't want to hurt her feelings.  (Montana Rose, another Ruthy top-pick!!!)

Notice a recurring theme? Most of these acts of love are classified under the "Acts of Service", one of the Five Love Languages.  And that's a whole other blog topic, but totally relevant for authors!

When times were tight and money non-existent, "Pa" Ingalls assured his wife that  the imprint of her pretty hand atop the cornbread was sweetening enough for him...
Now that's an "aww..." statement if ever I heard one!

 Tina Radcliffe employs a lovely hand with sacrificial love. When you read a Radcliffe novel, you're immersed in the depth of strong, selfless characters... Here's a snip from her upcoming release  Mending the Doctor's Heart, pre-order here... 

Her eyes flew open. "He sold the Land Rover."

"Yes. He did."

"Uncle Henry." She looked down at her uncle. "Why did he do this?"

"I believe he did it because he loves you, and because he understands your loss."

Moving into the sweetness and hardship of the American past, Janet Dean shares this picture-perfect sacrificial image from her newest Love Inspired Historical release "The Bride Wore Spurs"...

Hannah is emotionally numb with grief for her father, unable to get back to living. As she and her marriage of convenience husband pass a field of bluebonnets, Matt stops the buggy, hoping flowers might lift her spirits. He practically tows her into the field. She stands amongst all those flowers and says, "I love bluebonnets." Within minutes he fills her arms with the blooms, more than she can carry, gazing into the prettiest blue eyes he'd ever seen. Uneasy under his scrutiny, she challenges him to a race to the buggy. A race he lets her win or so he claims. For the first time, she smiles, a smile that reassures him she'll be okay, that he has his feisty wife back. He promises himself that he'll keep her smiling even if it means losing a race every day of his life. 

Matt spent no money... he merely seized a God-given moment and showed his compassion by taking the time to stop. How many men drive by "Scenic Overlook Ahead" signs every day, and never take the turn off to check out God's beauty... Janet brought that home to us with this poignant scene.

And then Julie Lessman continues our foray into yesteryear with this glimpse into her first published novel "A Passion Most Pure"...  Julie helps us see the tenderness in the bad boy hero and the longing in the 'girl next door' heroine, a personal favorite of mine:

Faith has loved Collin since she was a little girl with polio, filling journals with poems, dreams, and her innermost longings for the older boy who’d defended her from bullies. Despite deep attraction between the two, Collin is now her sister Charity’s beau instead, and in the midst of her struggle to put her feelings for him behind, he gives each of the family a present for Christmas. When Faith opens hers, her heart aches over the tenderness of his gift—a leather-bound journal with the inscription, "To Faith––a woman of faith. Collin. "It's a journal," he says, "for your poetry. Charity says you've written poetry for years.” Faith can do nothing but weep, painfully aware he’s been the center of any poetry she’s ever written. 

HOW ADORABLE IS THIS??????

Pam Hillman keeps us rooted in the past with this sweet scene from her newest release "Claiming Mariah"...

"In Claiming Mariah, a barn cat has kittens, and Mariah is trying to figure out how to get her hands on them. Slade comes in and fishes the kittens out from behind a jumble of harness. He wouldn't have even bothered with the kittens if it hadn't been for Mariah. But because she wanted to hold them, he did something special for her. Of course the converstion is peppered with more than just references to sweet, innocent darling little kittens!"

*Note to all: A Ruthy-Rule-of-Thumb is that you can almost never go wrong with puppies, kittens, foals, calves, injured songbirds or twinkle lights! And cute little kids who need a loving home???? BIG AWWW FACTOR UNLESS YOUR READERS DON'T LIKE KIDS... Luckily, mine do!

And we pull ourselves back into the present with this sweet note from Missy Tippens: 

I have what I think is a fun sweetheart moment right at the end of my upcoming release, Georgia Sweethearts. But if I tell you much about it, it would be a big spoiler! So I'll just say that my hero, pastor Daniel Foreman, arranges something that will protect the heroine, yarn shop owner Lilly Barnes. It shows he cares about her best interest, no matter what happens with them romantically. It makes for a fun scene when she finds out what he's done!

And we end on this beautiful farm-friendly, reader-pleasing note from Mia Ross as she wraps up her first Love Inspired series  with "A Place for Family"...

In A Place for Family, John Sawyer is the kind of guy who takes care of things. When Amanda Gardner's bankruptcy threatens to keep her from starting up a PR consulting business, he calmly hands over his credit card so she can purchase a website to get her company started. As a farmer, he doesn't have much, but he's more than willing to share everything he's got with her.

These experienced and successful authors epitomize the beauty of pure romance... The warmth and growing emotions that drive us to love and cherish one person, one hero (well.... USUALLY) all of our days.

COFFEE'S ON!!!! Come on inside, set a spell (This Yank loves talking Southern) and help yourself to some of the Black Forest Chocolate Chip Cake I made over in the YANKEE BELLE CAFE.... :)  

There's plenty to go around and if you leave a comment I'll put your name in the cat dish for this lovely Sack o' Romance!!!!

Clari Dees, Debby Giusti, Myra Johnson and me!!!