“Noted. Next year. We go on vacation,” Eduardo said. “It should be, what is the word...ah...Yes....hellafun!”
“No it won’t,” Saxton said into the line. “It won’t be fun at all!”
“Sí, it will be time of our life. Call me to let me know when,” Eduardo said.
“I know a few other things I would like to call you,” he mumbled.
The line was quiet as Eduardo collected his thoughts before saying the one thing he’s actually called to tell Saxton Blakemore.
“I would like it, if you would call me friend,” Eduardo said.
“Fine friend! I don’t want to go on vacation with you. People were trying to kill you!” Saxton said.
“Oh Bah! People have spent the last three years trying to kill you and you are still here. This is exciting,” he said pausing for a moment. “Blakemore, are you poor now that you work at the ranch? Do I need to pay for this holiday for us?”
“No I am not poor asshole, I can pay for me and my wife,” Saxton said.
“Bueno, I was thinking Fiji, possibly the Philippines, but there are few people I need to kill in Kuala Lumpur, we could stop there,” he said with a laugh.
“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Saxton said. “Good night and goodbye.”
“Goodnight Blakemore,” he said hanging up the phone.
Odessa sat in the middle of bed watching her husband who had started to pace the floor. His forehead was crinkled. His lips were moving but no words were coming out.
“Saxton?”
“Would you believe he is jealous of our vacation with Victorio? He now wants the four of us to go on holiday,” Saxton said. “He’s got a few people to kill in Kuala Lumpur...he actually said that to me!”
Odessa opened her pajama top, throwing it on the floor. Leaning back on her shoulders, she lifted her hips to shimmy down the pajama bottoms. She was nude in the bed, rolling to her side.
“Say goodnight Mr. Blakemore,” she whispered.
“What?” he said looking at her with a frown. All thoughts of Eduardo Delgado left his head as he moved back to the bed. A smile covered his face as the idea of spending the night in her arms fueled him to end the day on a very positive note.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Blakemore,” he 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 babies, 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.
-Fin-
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Farmer Takes a Wife - Chapter 1- Digging Up the Past
The droplets of rain pierced beneath 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 the 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 sacred sign of prosperity. As much as Carson warned his father about going into business with the giant agri-farm 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. The only one Ben Royal was calling was on the Lord for salvation.
The Lord answered on a quiet morning in late May. Chanticleer, the old rooster, had given up crowing from the fence and instead hitched a ride on the back of Ms. Sally, an old sow full of worms. The old hog lumbered about with Chanticleer on her back, crowing sporadically, while Mr. Toodles, the young tomcat ambled along beside them, searching for something to eat. The three of them represented everything which was wrong on the Royal farm– that some shit just didn’t belong together. Even on this rainy morning, the threesome was down to two as they made their rounds in the rain. Mr. Toodles, not really one for getting damp, opted to remain inside of the barn, getting wet only by licking himself. Ben Royal got a kick out of seeing this each morning as he sat in his big living room chair looking out over his land.
That morning, 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 the guy; 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. They’d met in an online chat room for lonely hearts wishing to starting over. 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 new life. Somewhere new with new scenery. In his head, he could see his new start.
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 make a dent in the sizeable debt he would inherit from his father’s bad decisions. 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, she squirrelled away money in a separate account in her maiden name to make sure her children had a future outside of Royal Farms.
His sister, Sylvia, had run off with a traveling salesman with big teeth and a penis so big it hung in his pants like an elephant trunk. Each time he walked, it appeared as if his pants screamed for relief from the torture of housing the long monster. Ben threatened to cut off the salesman’s wiener if he didn’t leave his Sylvia alone, but many women had tried it and survived; Sylvia wanted to be the last one to ever have it, so she ran away with Big Tooth Big Penis Man as Ben’s mother called him. Several years back when word arrived of Sylvia’s death, it had been too much for Nellie Royal’s heart. The sadness of her daughter’s dream had come true. Sylvia was the last to have the Big Tooth man’s love gun. They died, stuck together in the garage of a neighbor’s home, asphyxiated on carbon monoxide. Ben Royal’s wish had also come true because the coroner had to cut off Big Teeth’s big trunk to get them apart. Sylvia’s death broke Nellie’s spirit, her heart, and her desire to live. Quietly, as the family slept, she drove herself to Charleston, driving non-stop through the night and 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 under her maiden name at the small bank she grew up using in Greenville.
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 local bank when he’d just turned 18 years of age. It was the perfect time t
o do it since at the same time, his father had 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 a rainy Saturday afternoon in the family plot. The ground was too saturated, so Ben Royal floated back up the following morning in the next deluge of rainfall. Mr. Millworth, the mortician who gave him a deal on the last coffin in the store, a cheap pink one, called him Sunday morning, upset and crying.
“Carson, I think I just saw your daddy floating down Johns Street,” Mr. Millworth told him. “That pink casket is busted up on the side and your daddy’s hand is hanging out like he’s waving at all the houses as he floats on by.”
With some effort and a better coffin on the house from Mr. Millworth, on Sunday, Ben buried his father again. This time, he placed heavy rocks on top of the coffin to keep the old bastard down. He also buried him a lot deeper this time around.
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 predators 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.
A Weekend with the Blakemores (The Blakemore Files Book 8) Page 15