Holden

by Olivia Gaines

  “I did place my order with Tallulah for some soap and shampoo for my new missus,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, she got the order. We will have it ready for you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Holden. You sure are a lucky man,” Farmer said to him.

  “I am indeed,” Holden said as he waved to the man who always wore overalls. He hoped he didn’t plan to get married in them as well. The thought left his head as he drove down Main Street and turned on what he got Jamar to name Mulberry Street. Currently, he and Tallulah were the only residents on Mulberry. The cute little three-bedroom cottage was yellow with a bright red door, a small front porch, and large front window for his wife to look out of in the mornings.

  Tallulah’s house on Mulberry Street in Venture sold quickly, and many of the household items she gave to Janie and Ethan. She twisted Jack’s arm to build her an additional storage unit on the house for her purses and shoes, even though she would not be wearing them in Serenity. Her belly rounded more each month and sometimes a little hand print or foot print could be seen pressing against her flesh.

  As he drove down Mulberry, he spotted her on the front porch, wrapped in a blanket awaiting his arrival.

  “Good Lord, you are beautiful,” he told her as he climbed out of his truck.

  “You are just saying that to get in my pants,” she smiled back at him.

  “I don’t see you wearing any, Doc Cimoc,” he said with jest.

  “That’s not the only thing I’m not wearing,” she winked at him, giggling as he chased her into the house.

  “I can’t wait to see my treats,” he said to her, closing the front door. “There are five things I have been thinking about all day.”

  “Well, let’s start the countdown, Hubby,” she said, dropping the wrap to reveal her naked form, swollen with child.

  “One...,” Holden said as he moved in behind her, his arms wrapping around her enlarged waist, his hands resting on her belly. A gentle kiss was placed on her neck as her eyes closed, surrendering to his touch.

  Holden. My everything. Tallulah thought to herself as he lifted her from her feet to carry her down the hall to their bedroom.

  - Fin -

  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, Car
son! 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 dumber 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.

  “I tell you, Carson,” Ellis started. “I cannot remember a time in many years that a Royal hasn’t farmed this land. I encouraged Nellie to marry old Ben so she and her children would inherit this land...good land, solid land.”

  “Uncle Ellis, this soil is as dead as my parents. All of those genetically modified seeds you encouraged my father to buy from the bio-agricultural company grew super weeds which sapped all the moisture and nutrients from the soil. The more we treated the weeds, the more we toxified the ground. The rain washed it all away and there is not even topsoil left here. Nothing will grow,” he said with no emotion in his voice.

  “Yeah, but to sell off everything and just desert the place...just ain’t right,” Ellis said rubbing the six grey whiskers on his chin.

  “What isn’t right is me staying here another year, giving my best years to a piece of land that will bear no fruit. This belongs to all of the vultures who feasted at my father’s corpse. May it be a burden to them as well,” Carson told his uncle. With a tip of his hat, he went back into the old barn, walking the grounds once more, looking the place over. In his head, he told himself he was checking for left tools or items he may have missed. In his heart, he was closing a chapter full of childhood memories.

  Ellis had followed him into the barn.

  “If you needed help, all you had to do was ask,” the old man said to his nephew.

  The scenario and segue was more than perfect as Carson opened the stall, grabbing the leash and pulling out his father’s old hound dog. The animal was chronically depressed, even more so since his father’s death.

  “Here you go, Uncle Ellis,” he said handing him he leash.

  “What am I going to do with ole Roscoe?”

  “You said you wanted to help. Here. Help,” Carson said. “I am driving across the country and I have no need of him. You can help by taking him off my hands. I never liked the old hound and he never cared for me.”

  “Wait a dang gone minute!” Ellis exclaimed.

  “No, you wait a minute,” Carson said. “You have slinked around here for years with your bad ideas and half-ass advice. If you truly want to help, take the damned dog!”

  “I resent your callous and disrespectful tone with me, Carson!”

  Carson inhaled deeply, exhaling a gust of air and years of unspoken words that he unleashed on his Uncle.

  “And I resent you!” Carson said.

  Ellis took three steps back as if the words had struck him like a boot to his chest. “What have I ever done to you, Carson? I gave your parents solid advice so they could...”

  “...so they could what, Ellis? End up in an early grave like they did? It was your solid advice to Mama to loosen the rein on Sylvia, ‘let the girl have some fun before she settles down’ I think were your words. Look what happened to her. The new tractor Pops got that he had to take out a second mortgage on the farm to purchase was also your advice. The genetically modified seed purchase was also your idea not knowing that those seeds would be the only seeds you could use forever once you placed them in your soil. Seeds Dad was contractually obligated to buy for five years Ellis,” Carson yelled at the old man.

  “You can’t blame me for any of this, Carson. I gave them the best advice I knew when they asked for it...that’s all,” Ellis said.

  “No, you told them what you wanted them to hear so they could make a bad decision and you would end up with the farm. Is that why you came by to see if I would sell it to you for pennies on the dollar? If you ask me, you perpetrated this whole thing to get this farm!”

  “How dare you!” Ellis screamed, causing old Roscoe to bark loud.

  “How dare me? Get the hell out of my face you sour-lipped old goat. You want this land, you can have it, but you are going to have to buy it from the bank,” Carson said walking by his Uncle, nudging the old man with his shoulder.

  “Carson, don’t walk away and leave things like this between us,” Ellis called out.

  “I am walking away just as happy as a lark. You and that depressed ass dog can keep each other company, because you and me have nothing left to say to each other,” Carson said as he walked over to his truck. It wasn’t a new truck, but it was newer than the old Ford he’d driven since his high school days.

  The rental trailer was affixed to the rear of the truck pull loaded up with his bed, the china hutch and dining room table, six chairs, two arm chairs and an antique settee. He’d taken with him a set of pots, some cook pans and some of the dishes from the cabinet. The glasses were too worn to make the journey and he opted to let those stay. The old percolator would make the journey as well as some low country coffee bitter enough to wake Lazarus from an eternal slumber. The curtains were old fashioned, but he would need something at the windows since the Wyoming winters would be bitterly cold, or so he had been t
old. Only the basic farming tools that fit in the moving pod had been added to his limited possessions.

  His last stop before leaving South Carolina was to the bank. Two pieces of business needed to be handled, the first was to get his seeds from the safety deposit box. The second item on his agenda was to turn the house keys over to the bank manager.

  “Carson,” Bradley Talmidge called his name. “I sure hate things had to end like this. That farm has been in your family for four generations.”

  “Well, you side-lipped lying fart, if you had really been that concerned, you would have refused my father the loan. But you didn’t and here we are,” Carson said. “And here you are,” he told the red-faced banker as he tossed him the house keys that he failed to catch. With the box under his arm, Carson straightened himself to his full six-foot frame, square his shoulders and walked out of that bank. He had a date with destiny in Serenity, Wyoming.

  He picked up his cell phone as he merged on to I-26 headed towards Charleston. He would take it all the way to I-20 up through Atlanta and in a few days, he would be home in his new home.

  The numbers were programmed for Jamar Smalls in Serenity and his Cyndi. The phone rang several times before she answered.

  “Hello,” she said softly.

  “I am on the road headed towards Wyoming,” he told her.

  “You have closed everything out in South Carolina?”

  “I have, Cyndi. I spoke to Jamar in Serenity and my house arrived. He and the construction manager sent it over to the land I bought from him, and they will have it all set up by the time I get there,” he said with a smile. “I can’t wait to see you Cyndi.”

  “I can’t wait to be your wife, Carson,” she said.

  “I will see you soon,” he said gently.

  “I love you, Carson,” she said

  “I’m loving you back, Cyndi,” he told her and ended the call.

  He beeped his horn three time excited for the new phase of his life. He could not believe he had sold it all and given the farm back to the bank. It was his turn to manifest his own destiny. “Serenity, here I come!”