Hero Interview for Maverick Heart by Loree Lough

» Posted on Jan 25, 2011 in Blog | Comments Off on Hero Interview for Maverick Heart by Loree Lough

This week I’m hosting Loree Lough with Maverick Heart, Ron and Janet Benrey with Little White Lies, and Patti Lacy with The Rhythm of Secrets. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (January 30th) evening.

For Maverick Heart (#2 in the Lone Star Legends series [Whitaker])
by Loree Lough

Interview with Dan Neville:

1. So, Dan, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I’m a recovering alcoholic. The actual addiction began after I nearly died in a cattle stampede. When I came out of a weeks-long coma, whiskey was the only thing to (almost) numb the pain. The physical pain, that is. The emotional stuff that led me down that path began long before the stampede, when my twin sister Daisy died.

2. What do you do for fun?

My specialty is horses. Yes, most wranglers say that, but in my case, it’s a rock-solid business. My quarter horses have helped keep the Lazy N afloat during some pretty tough economic times.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Cutting my hair. Few things irk me more than sitting in that barber’s chair, draped with a sheet, listening to the men folk of Eagle Pass gossip like a bunch of old hens.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

That I’ll never find peace from the guilt associated with Daisy’s death.

5. What do you want out of life?

A family of my own. Don’t get me wrong…I love every Neville on the ranch, but I envy my folks, my married cousins, too. Now, if you repeat this to any of the men of the family, I’ll pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about, because they’d rag at me forever…but it sure must be nice to come home to a loving wife who shares your hopes and dreams, and kids who think you’re the best thing since rock candy….

6. What is the most important thing to you?

My faith. I’m not one for spoutin’ verses or singin’ hymns, and I’m guilty of missing as many Sunday services as I attend—thanks to ranch work and seeing to little Reid—but I have a powerful love for the Lord. His promise to see me through this mess is just about all that’s holding me up right now.

7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?

Yes’m, I do read. The Good Book, of course, and novels written by that Dickens fellow. Here lately, I’ve been reading a brand new one called Treasure Island. Good story. Almost good enough to get my mind off my troubles.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I have a tendency to keep my cards a little too close to my vest. It’d be nice, at least once in a while, to speak my mind, any time and any place I please.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

No ma’am, I do not! Had a good dog when I was a boy, but he got into a scuffle with a coyote and I had to put him down before the hydrophobia killed him. A rabid coyote is responsible for Daisy’s death, too, so I tend to avoid critters that resemble dogs.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

Oh, that’s an easy one: I’d go back to that day when my ma told me to mind Daisy—she was a mite slow and part blind, so the folks often asked me to look after her. My Uncle Matt had made my cousins and me fishing poles, and we had a powerful hankerin’ to test ‘em out. So instead of staying home with her, I brought her with me to the river, where she mistook a coyote for a dog. She’d be alive today if I hadn’t been so selfish.