A few months ago a reader left a review of Line of the Ball that I haven't stopped thinking about. They liked the book, and they liked Julian and Mason. They also asked the one question the book never answers: how does a ranch hand from a small Texas town get good enough at polo, fast enough, to ride for Briarcliff?

It was a fair question. I went back and checked. Line of the Ball opens with Mason at the fence at Diamond Back, a man in a suit watching him ride, and by the end of the chapter he's packing for camp. The books take his horsemanship for granted. I always knew where it came from. I just never put it on the page.

So I wrote it down.

Stick & Ball opens in a grocery store in Rope Creek, Texas, where a fifteen-year-old boy with nowhere to sleep is trying to steal food. The man who catches him is Gus, who runs a struggling ranch a mile out of town. The first thing Gus does is feed him. Then he offers him a deal.

I'll let the book give you the deal in full. The short version is that there's a wild stallion in the far pen, and if Mason can ride him, he stays. Gus believes horses know what a man is before the man knows it himself. Mason spends two weeks finding out whether that's good news.

The answer to that reader's question surprised me a little when I finally wrote it. There's no polo in Stick & Ball. Nobody hands Mason a mallet. What he gets instead is years of the unglamorous work the sport is built on: breaking horses, reading them, shoeing them, and staying on when they'd rather you didn't. By the time Devon Fairfax finds him at the fence, Mason has spent half his life learning what most players pay for. Polo is played on horseback, and Mason was already the horseback part.

Writing it taught me something about Mason, too. I've spent three books with a man who gives everything to the people he loves and asks for very little in return. Stick & Ball showed me where that comes from. Gus has one rule about debts: what you owe, you pay forward. Mason has lived by it ever since.

It isn't all dust and bruises. Years later, grown and settled at Diamond Back, Mason meets a traveling farrier named Travis, and the book gets every bit as warm as the rest of the series.

The novella ends where Line of the Ball begins, at the fence, with a stranger saying his name. If you've read the series, you'll know that moment. If you haven't, it's a good place to start.

Stick & Ball is free, and you can only get it here: Get your copy

And if you're already caught up, Sudden Death, Book Three of the Windward Cup Dynasty, is out October 6. Preorder it on Amazon

To the reader who asked: thank you. You made the series better. And if there's a question my books haven't answered for you yet, tell me. I read every reply.

Yours,

 Elias

Queer love, every genre, always a happy ending.