When Judge Ed Casias gave second homeowner C.C. Coburn the lowdown on court proceedings and even suggested she tour the jail, Coburn's friends in her hometown in Australia were amazed at how accessible law enforcement officers are here. Especially when it means taking time out of their day to help create a Harlequin romance.

Coburn interviewed Casias, toured the jail with help from Captain Eric Bourgerie and Deputy Ron Hochmuth, and picked Keystone Ski Patrol Craig Simson's brain about avalanches. Then she set about writing her first book for Harlequin, titled “Colorado Christmas.”

The romance explores the power of how opposites attract: Judge Becky McBride is an uptight, ambitious judge hoping to get out of her small mountain town and step into the big time in Denver. The hero, Will O'Malley, is an unemployed, somewhat aimless ex-ski movie actor, who wants to save a cluster of historic shacks no one else seems to care about.

Coburn began setting her story in a town that looks like Breckenridge, with a similar sense of community, mountains and Victorian buildings.

“But then some of the minor characters took over, and the town and some of its characters became what you might call ‘eccentric,' which just drove the strait-laced Judge Becky to distraction and helped ‘up' her external conflict,” Coburn said. “But at the heart of the story, the town is a place that's desperately trying to preserve its history and heritage in the face of rampant development.”

Author's story

Coburn and her husband live in Australia for part of the year, and in Breckenridge during winter and summer months. They bought their second home in 2003, after falling in love with Breckenridge's history and “real town” atmosphere.

“I love the casual attitude of Breck,” she said. “No one gives a darn about how you dress or how much money you have. The locals are very friendly and down to earth, and people will talk to you on the chairlifts — which I can't say for a lot of other resorts ... I couldn't imagine wanting to have a holiday home anywhere else in the world.”

Coburn wrote her first book about 20 years ago, when her doctor told her to rest for six weeks, after she broke her toe — and was “heavily” pregnant. A plot had been churning in her head for a very long time, but she had never started it, thinking she didn't have enough story for an entire book. Six weeks later, she had a new baby boy and a 120,000-word manuscript — an action/adventure based on illegal drug trade in Queensland, the state in which she lives. It was in this story that Coburn realized she enjoyed writing romance.

While raising three kids, Coburn earned two undergraduate degrees, and she's currently completing a master's in writing.

She landed a contract with Harlequin when Paula Eykelhof, an executive editor from Harlequin in Toronto, attended a romance writers' conference in Australia. Coburn was on the committee and hit it off with Eykelhof. When she pitched “Colorado Christmas” to Eykelhof, the editor thought it sounded like a fit for the American Romance line. It then took Coburn two years to hone the manuscript, followed by another eight months of further revisions. The book debuted this month and garnered a top pick review from Romantic Times magazine.

Oddly enough, Coburn doesn't consider herself romantic — in fact, she forgot her own wedding anniversary last Monday, until her husband, who was drawing hearts on her copy of the Summit Daily News, reminded her.

But she likes the challenge of putting two characters together, giving them separate goals, motivations and conflicts, and seeing how they handle them, she said. She tends to fly by the seat of her pants, not plotting much.

“I enjoy having my characters tell me their story as I write it,” she said. “Funny how it all works out in the end.”

She also loves the variety of sub-genres in romance, from historical to vampire, chaste to erotica and romantic comedy to deeply emotional tearjerkers.

Her next book, “The Sheriff and the Baby,” is darker and more intriguing. It features the law-enforcing brother of Will, the hero in “Colorado Christmas.” For more insight into the law, she interviewed Sheriff John Minor, “who patiently answered all my nosey questions,” she said.