Welcome to Serenity

by Olivia Gaines

  “Lord help us,” Jack said.

  “He will provide as my Gigi always reminds me. There is a cool park ranger who lives about 15 miles away up by the river, which by the way, has some really good fishing. His name is Daniel Wilstrom,” Jamar added. “He is heading out of town in a few weeks to get married. The woman is back east, I think he said – either Georgia or Virginia, one of the two. He’s good people.”

  “I look forward to meeting him,” Jack said. “Come lend me a hand with groceries and show me where I’ll be sleeping.” He stopped in the middle of the street to look back at his plane. The plane and one flatbed semi-tractor with trailer was all he left his home with and the Kinson name. It was all he had to work with and he would use what he had to build what he wanted. He wanted to be someone who mattered to another person. Deep down, he wanted a woman of his own to love him as he was, not a version of what she would mold him to be. Most of all, he wanted a good night’s sleep.

  “Good enough,” Jamar.

  “Serenity, huh?” Jack said as he looked around the start of the start of the small town. I can use some serenity in my life.

  “Serenity,” Jamar repeated.

  “I think I’m going to like it here,” Jack said.

  - Fin –

  Excerpt Holden – Book 2

  The wedding of Ethan Strom and Janie Cimoc took place one Saturday afternoon at the Greater Mount Zion Baptist church. Naturally, the ceremony was officiated by the Reverend Doctor Henry Strom, who was also the groom’s father. It was a small intimate ceremony of family and friends, but Holden could not keep his eyes off of his newly acquired brother-in-law’s sister, Tallulah Strom, a pediatrician with legs that went on forever, a smile that could stop a beating heart and eyes that could make a blind man want to see. Initially, Holden believed it to be an infatuation. By the end of the reception, he knew it to be more.

  Alice Cimoc, the mother of the bride was beyond emotional as she watched her oldest child walk down the aisle. The first time she met Ethan, she didn’t quite like him. The second time she met him in the same day, she appreciated his sense of humor as well as the playfulness he brought out in her Janie. She often worried about her second oldest, Holden. Only two years younger than Janie, he had a touch of OCD, which usually drove any woman he dated insane and left him single quite often. He was an odd young man, but so was his father. Alice was convinced the right woman would smooth out his rough edges, giving balance to the man.

  Holden was beginning to think the right woman for him was Tallulah Strom. Her brother didn’t share his sentiment, but he didn’t care what Ethan thought. Besides, his hands were full with Janie, a new bookstore, and a new life. Holden wanted a new life, too. He wanted it with the good doctor. Goals. A man had to have goals. Holden Cimoc’s new goal was to woo and win Tallulah Strom—starting today.

  Henry Strom didn’t like what he was seeing. No matter where his daughter went, the greasy haired Cimoc man was always somewhere staring at her. Henry eyed the young man with interest before approaching him at the reception. The whole family was a curious oddity of hippies who seemed to want to transition into the twentieth century because the twenty-first century seemed to be beyond them.

  “Enjoying the view?” Henry Strom asked.

  “It was a nice ceremony, Reverend. My sister has never looked lovelier and Ethan makes her happy,” Holden said to the man.

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I have my eye on your daughter, sir. In a year, I am hoping that it will be the two of us on that dance floor and you shaking my hand,” Holden said boastfully.

  Henry stood still, eyeing him. Holden stood at nearly six feet tall. Piercing blue eyes that seem to take in everything around him. Strawberry blond hair pulled into a ponytail and tied off with a strip of leather, Birkenstocks on his feet, a jacket that looked like it came straight off the rack at Goodwill, and a smile as bright as the sun. The only thing that stopped Henry from laughing at the young man was the determination in his eyes.

  “How old are you Holden...is that your name?”

  “Yes, Sir,” he said. “I am 27. A certified master electrician, an independent contractor; I have no children, nor do I have any debt, police records, or felonies.”

  The laughter was so loud, half the room turned around to look at them. Especially Tallulah, who had noticed Holden watching her all afternoon. There was something about him which piqued her interest, but she would never... not even for fun.

  “I like you, Holden,” Henry said.

  “That’s good to know, sir, especially considering this time next year, I am going to be your son-in-law,” Holden said with a smile. “I do like to fish a bit as well.”

  “Good to know,” Henry responded. “I’m curious though, Holden. How do you think you are going to win a woman like my daughter? You two seem to have nothing in common.”

  Holden turned to face the Reverend head on. Holden stood toe to toe with Henry just as he had with Ethan when they spoke about Ethan dating his sister. He wasn’t afraid of Ethan and he definitely wasn’t afraid of the father.

  “That is the beautiful thing about relationships, Reverend. Too many people base them on commonalities. To me, in order for people to grow, they have to grow together by learning something new, not only about each other, but about life. I have lived a different life. My views on the world are refreshing to the structured life your daughter has led. My take on relationships is unlike anything I am certain she has ever experienced and I will show her how to enjoy life,” Holden said with confidence.

  “You don’t think she enjoys life?”

  “I think,” Holden said as he looked back at Tallulah, “she has worked hard to achieve a goal that I don’t believe she wants anymore.”

  Henry looked over at his daughter. A minute ago she was smiling. Now she sat in a corner, nursing a cup of punch that she had not wanted but was given. Is he seeing something that we have missed in our own child?

  “Interesting,” Henry said. “What is your plan, future son-in-law?”

  “I am going to take care of her. She takes care of everything and everyone else...I am going to take care of your daughter in a way that is going to make you proud to call me son-in-law,” Holden said to her father. “Excuse me, Sir. I have some sadness to brush away in our girl.”

  There was no response from Henry as he watched the young hippie walk over to his daughter. Holden’s back was rigid and his target was set as he zoned in on his prey. Hester Strom, Henry’s wife, walked over to her husband.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Waiting for the train to wreck,” he said.

  “Honey, I think Janie’s brother has a thing for Tallulah. Do you see how he looks at her?”

  “Oh he has a thing for her alright. He just told me he was going to be my son-in- law by this time next year,” Henry said.

  “Isn’t he still in high school?”

  “No, the other one, Jem, he is in high school,” he told her. “Meg is in college. There is one more right...the one that Tallulah had to make the house call for...what is his name?”

  Henry pointed at the boy picking the shrimp out of the salad bowl. “Johnny, that one is the youngest.”

  “Lawd Hammercy,” Hester said. “Child, get your hands outta that salad bowl!”

  Hester shook her head as Janie scolded her father, who had pulled out his bong to fire one up in the church basement. Hester looked at Alice, Janie’s mother, who appeared to have made her dress that morning but failed to put on undergarments under the pale pink dress. Each time she twirled, the visual of her butt crack shone through the thin material.

  Hester’s hands were permanently clutched to her pearls the entire afternoon.

  “Henry, I don’t know if I can handle these people. They are so different,” Hester said. Jem, the next to the youngest was questioning the guests on extra-terrestrial life forms being stored in the souls of shrimp, which is why Johnny had been collecting the cooked babi
es, to return them to their masters. “I really think that youngest one there is special...and not in a good way. Why is he throwing the shrimp in the air asking them to fly and be free?

  “Lawd Hammercy,” Hester said again. “Child, stop throwing that shrimp!”

  Henry’s eyes were on Holden. The young man had reached his destination. His hand was extended and Tallulah accepted his request to dance. Confidence covered him as he led her onto the makeshift dance floor, hand in hand, pulling her behind him. Holden looked up, searching the room for Henry. He made eye contact with the good Reverend Doctor Strom and winked.

  “Well, slap my bottom and call me Susie,” Henry said. Holden took his daughter into his arms, whispered something in her ear, and he saw it. The very same thing Holden had said to him a minute ago, Henry physically witnessed her releasing something she was holding and leaned into his shoulder. Tallulah’s eyes were closed as the young man maneuvered her around the floor.

  “I’ll be darned,” Henry said.

  Excerpt Farmer Takes a Wife – Book 3

  Chapter 1- Digging Up the Past

  The droplets of rain pierced the dry earth like tiny wet daggers seeking a home in the soil. Under the layer of cracked dirt, seedlings rumbled, searching for the tiny dabs of moisture which were long weeks overdue. Late May was odd because no rain had come and the red strawberries that typically dotted the landscape had yet to make an appearance. Watering, irrigation and daily prayers had not been enough for the seedling to hatch and Farmer Royal would soon be ruined if the rains didn’t come soon.

  The first droplet was followed by several more and then a torrent of others that saturated Royal Farm. The water was a blessing from heaven in more ways than one. The sizeable debt owed by Carson Royal’s father had mortgaged the farm beyond recovery. Even if the late budding harvest were to come in, the fruit would be below average in size and debts would still be owed to the seed company for seedlings which were more of a burden than a blessing. As much as Carson warned his father about going into business with the big company, Ben Royal wanted to be in the big leagues. He had only succeeded in placing the fourth generation farm into big debt. The debtors were calling. The seed company was calling. Ben Royal was calling on the Lord for salvation.

  The Lord answered on a quiet morning in May. Ben was found looking as if he were sleeping in his living room chair as more rain came down, washing away the last of the fields. The crops were gone. The fields were washed out and the land was under water. The Royal family farm was ruined. A matter of days was all that was needed to let the banks and everyone else who had their hands out asking for money to come calling.

  “Maybe it’s a blessing, Carson,” Cynthia Kleene told him over the phone. “You have wanted to get out from under the weight of the debt; maybe this is a sign.”

  “Maybe,” he said solemnly. “I just don’t know how to do much else other than farm.”

  “It doesn’t mean you can’t still farm. You can just do it somewhere else. Somewhere fresh. Get a new start,” Cynthia encouraged.

  “Possibly, but where can a black farmer from South Carolina buy land and start over? I just can’t see my way through this one, Cyndi,” Carson told her.

  “I heard about this place in Wyoming called Serene or something like that. It is all the buzz out this way. Some young black man is starting a town like in the Old West. He’s looking for a farmer. There’s a website and everything where you talk to him; you can even buy as many acres as you can afford to start out,” she told him.

  “Yeah, but what’s the catch?”

  “I think the only catch is that you have to grow food for the town,” she told him. “Plus, Farmer, it will bring you closer to me.”

  Three years he and Cynthia had been talking online or over the phone after meeting in an online chat room on Star Wars. He never had enough spare funds to buy a ticket to Idaho Falls to go see her, nor did he have enough funds to purchase her a ticket to come to him, but he wanted a life with her. He wanted a life.

  A little farm with only about 5 to 10 acres of good land to grow just enough crops to feed himself and a few families. The money he’d saved up wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent in the sizeable debt. Trying to make payments to save the equipment, the house, or even the land would be the equivalent of giving a whale a Tic-Tac. His mother, God rest her soul, had given up on Ben Royal years ago. Each month, under her maiden name and a former account held by her mother, she squirrelled away money, in both accounts to make sure her children had a future outside of Royal Farms.

  His sister, Sylvia, had run off with a traveling salesman several years back, and when word arrived of her death, it had been too much for Nellie Royal’s heart. The death of her daughter broke her spirit, her heart, and her desire to live. Quietly, as the family slept, she drove herself to Charleston, driving non-stop through the night off a bridge into a deep body of water in her old Chevy. She left Carson a note telling him where he could find the money and under what names.

  The money was all he had left of his family. That and a crate load of seeds his grandfather had given him as a boy for him to start his own farm. Carson had locked the seeds in a safety deposit box at the bank when he’d just turned 18 years of age. It was the perfect time to do it since at the same time, his father climbed in bed with the biotech agricultural company who claimed to help sustain farmers. Instead, they sustained a chokehold on seeds that produced weeds that could only be killed by products the same company manufactured. The super weeds which popped up all over the farm also gained a chokehold in the soil, robbing it of the needed nutrients to nourish the plants. The moisture in the soil was soaked up like a chamois in a puddle of water. Each year, the crop yields were smaller. Each year, the soil became bitterer. This year, the earth gave up on them.

  Carson was giving up on the land which he loved. He buried his father on Saturday in the family plot. On Monday, the creditors began calling. By Friday, the bank was beginning foreclosure proceedings. It only took two months to sell off everything in the home with the exception of his grandmother’s china, a few trinkets, and other personal items he held on to. The vultures circled overhead trying to pick away at his bones as he sold off farming equipment for less than its value, but he was not going to be gutted by anyone. The only saving grace, and the two things which kept him from also driving in a large pool of water, was two nightly conversations.

  One conversation was online with a Jamar Smalls in Serenity, Wyoming. The other was to his Cyndi.

  “I’m going to do it, Cyndi,” he said.

  “Do what, Carson?”

  “I’m going to purchase some land in Serenity, bring my seedlings, and start over. I’m going to grow food for the town of Serenity,” he said with joy in his voice.

  “That’s wonderful, Carson! How soon are you coming out?”

  “I have been talking to the young man out there and I am going to purchase about 20 acres to start. I’m scared because I am buying this land sight unseen. He has sent me photos and everything. There is a contractor on site there who is building the town, but he suggested that I do like one of the other residents and order myself a prefab home, just to get started; other than that I would have to live in the bunkhouse with the other men. I don’t want to do that. Cyndi. I ordered a pre-fabricated house today,” Carson told her.

  “Why not stay in the bunkhouse until you can get settled? You have to buy equipment and all that stuff to farm the land, right?”

  “Yes, but if I stay in the bunkhouse, it will be months before I can send for you so we can get married. I want to marry you, Cyndi. Will you be my wife?”

  The line was quiet as Cynthia Kleene listened to the even sound of his breathing through the line. Three years. They had spoken to each other every day for three years. She knew Carson Royal better than she knew the most of the people she had lived next door to for years. There was nothing to hold her in Idaho Falls. Her school teaching job was boring her to tears. Each year the students got d
umber and the parents got younger.

  “I will,” she answered softly.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” Carson asked her, thinking he had misheard.

  “I said I will marry you, Carson Royal,” she said louder.

  “Whoo-hooo!” he yelled in the phone.

  “Six months max, Cyndi. I need six months to clear out everything here, get packed, drive out to Serenity, set up shop, till the soil, spike in some nutrients to the dirt, and set up your new home. Then I will send for you or drive to Idaho Falls to collect you,” Carson said with a smile.

  “That sounds good. I won’t renew my contract with the school for the fall term,” she said with joy in her voice. “Carson, are you serious? We really are going to do this?”

  “Yes ma’am we are. The only thing is, I don’t think there are any families in Serenity yet, but when the kids come, you can open a small school or something. Right now, however, I don’t know about any jobs, but when I get there I can scout around and see,” he said.

  “I don’t have any debt really,” she told him. “My car is older than I am. I am renting the carriage house from old Mrs. Markham. So...”

  “So?”

  “We shall work alongside each other to build this farm,” she told him.

  “Cyndi, I love you,” Carson said softly.

  “I love you too, Carson Royal,” she said back.

  “Good night,” he whispered.

  “Good night,” Cyndi responded.

  The vultures circled around the door of Royal Farms up until the day the last tractor and unwanted pitchfork was sold. Family members who only showed up for bar-b-ques and free food were on hand the week of Carson’s departure. Especially his Uncle Ellis, his mother’s oldest brother, who always had something to say after the fact. As far as Carson was concerned, he was a bag of hot air with nothing of importance to add to the dialogue. Ellis hadn’t been any help after Nellie died and Carson didn’t see him being of any assistance now.