This week I’m hosting Patty Smith Hall with Hearts in Flight , Sandra Robbins with Dangerous Reunion, and Winnie Griggs with Second Chance Family. 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 (July 31st) evening.
Interview with the heroine for Sandra Robbins’s Dangerous Reunion:
Kate Michaels, tell me the most interesting thing about you. I’m the chief deputy sheriff on Ocracoke Island, a small barrier island twenty-five miles off the coast of North Carolina. To some people that may not seem like a very interesting detail in someone’s life, but to me it defines everything I do. The people who live on this tiny speck of land that is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Pamlico Sound on the other depend on me to keep them safe. I’ve followed in my father’s footsteps and taken on the job he worked at as long as I can remember.
What do you do for fun? Fun in my life revolves around activities on the island. The Ocracoke beaches have been voted the most beautiful in the nation, and our little island attracts thousands of tourists a year. I get pleasure from seeing the sights every day that people travel long distances to see. In addition to our beautiful beaches, we have a lot of history here. Ocracoke was once the headquarters of the infamous Blackbeard the Pirate, and he met his death in a battle just off shore. The site is visible from Springer’s Point, a 120 acre protected sanctuary of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust. Treasure seekers arrive on Ocracoke all the time looking for Blackbeard’s treasure which is still rumored to be buried somewhere on the island. We also have the oldest working lighthouse on the eastern seaboard, a cemetery where British soldiers whose ship was torpedoed by a German U boat during World War II are buried, and wild ponies who once roamed free on the island.
What do you put off doing because you dread it? That question made me realize something that I really haven’t thought of before. There are some nice men on the island who have asked me out over the last few years, but I can’t bring myself to accept an invitation. I was engaged when I was in college, and it ended badly. I don’t want to be involved in a relationship again, and I think it’s better if I don’t encourage a man by going out with him.
What are you afraid of most in life? My friends don’t think I’m afraid of anything. After all, I carry a gun. But they can’t see into my soul. Only I know how afraid I am of being hurt again. Brock Gentry broke my heart when he ended our engagement and left me to cope with a dying mother, a grieving father, and two younger sisters. I had just graduated from college when I had to shoulder family responsibilities that would have overwhelmed someone years older.
What do you want out of life? I want to do my job, protect the people on the island I love, and watch my sisters become the awesome women I know they can be. Betsy is now twenty-two and is a well-respected painter in the arts and crafts community of Ocracoke. Emma is ten years old and is a delightful young girl. I can hardly wait to see what she’ll accomplish in life.
What is the most important thing to you? My faith has gotten me through a lot of tough times. Even when my mother was dying of cancer, she never wavered in her faith. She passed that on to her three daughters. I try every day to make her proud of me and live the faith that was so important to her. She always said God made Ocracoke, and you could see Him in everything on the island. I believe that, too.
Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read? Of course I read my Bible every day, but I don’t have much time for reading other things. I try to keep up with the latest technologies that affect law enforcement. Since our island is only accessible by a two and half hour ferry ride from the mainland, it is essential that we are able to communicate with the outside world.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I tend to keep my feelings to myself and not allow people to know how I’m really feeling. Maybe that comes from being the symbol of authority to not only my family but to the residents of the island. Outside of my sisters, I only allow Treasury Wilkes, a woman who’s been like a second mother to me, and Lisa Wade, the dispatcher at our station, know how I feel. I would like to be more open with people.
Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet? I don’t have a pet, but there’s a six-toed Maltese cat that has adopted our family. My little sister Emma loves him, but he’s come to be a pest to other people. He loves to get into Treasury Wilkes’ garbage cans. Emma calls him Rascal, and that’s exactly what he is.
If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why? Our family has lived with a tragedy for years. Before my parents were married, my father was married to a woman on the mainland. When she died in childbirth, her sister kidnapped his son and disappeared. He searched for his son for years but could never find a trace of his sister-in-law or the baby. Before he died, he made me promise I wouldn’t give up looking for my brother. If I could go back in time, I would go back to that day nearly thirty years ago when my brother was taken so I could save him from being stolen from a family that wants to love him. I haven’t given up the search, and I know we’re going to find him.
