A Weekend with the Blakemores (The Blakemore Files Book 8)

by Olivia Gaines

  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 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. The whole house smells like corn chips and pickles. I recently found out the smell was her feet. 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 scavengers 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. The stench from the pyorrhea from his rotting gums arrived often before he did and stayed long after he left. As far as Carson was concerned, he was a bag of stinky hot air with nothing of importance to add to the dialogue other than more stinky. 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 plot of dead 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 overlooked 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 droopy red eyes looked up at Carson as if begging him to shoot it, to take him out of his misery. The animal was chronically depressed, even more so since his father’s death.

  “Here you go, Uncle Ellis,” he said handing him the 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. His breath was having the same impact on Carson. “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 reins 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 picked out required him to take out a second mortgage on the farm to purchase the overly priced seed planter, was also your advice. The genetically modified seed purchases were 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 land!”

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

  “How dare me? Get the hell out of my face you sour-lipped, rotten gum, putrefied 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 j
ust 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 pod affixed to the rear of the truck pull was 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 told. 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, squared 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 in Serenity, Wyoming in his new home.

  The numbers were programmed in his phone 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’ve 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 times, 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!”

  -Fin-

  Welcome back to Serenity. Amazon: http://amzn.to/2gfl7Lr

  Excerpt Wyoming Nights

  1 Chapter One- Darkness

  The darkness held onto her throat like an assailant in a dimly lit alley. It pressed down on her chest, stealing the breaths that tethered her to this world. A world that no longer welcomed her presence. Cowardice had become a close companion to the nerves that seemed frayed on the edges but in the center were piles of mush. A life that had been so abundantly giving in the first 48 years of living; had been warm and wonderful. The last four were filled with a sour gloom that stunk up and darkened every room she entered.

  Death has a way of doing that to the living.

  It was a black evening with no moonlight anywhere when the minivan which held her husband George, her children George IV and Nathalie, and Joseph and Jack her grandbabies, slid off the side of the road. So many people told Darlene that it was a blessing from God that each one died on impact. By her accounting, that didn’t seem like much of a blessing. It felt more like a curse to have everyone you loved all die on the same day.

  In four years, she had never felt more alone than she did today. Her brothers, Roosevelt and James called often and stopped in when they could, and sadly most of her friends have given up on her two years ago. The neighbors, in the swanky neighborhood where she lived that she never spoke to, never spoke to her either.

  The doorbell rang and Darlene dragged herself from the bed still dressed in the same pajamas she put on three days before. Water had not touched her body nor had a comb touched her hair in the same said three days giving her an unusual odor of dirty bed sheets and sweaty sleep. The job that had taken so much time from her family, she quit three years ago. George’s insurance had paid off the mortgage and left more than enough for her to live off which is what she chose to do. If one could call what she was doing –living. Bare feet walked across the wooden floors leaving damp foot prints from sweaty soles as she made her way to the front door. The new anti-depressants Dr. Murphy had given her made her body produce more sweat than normal and everything around her smelled sour. It was perfect when one thought about it, because her outsides matched the insides of her soul.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I’m coming,” she grumbled as she trudged her way to the front door. The blinds were up and the sun was shining into the 5,500 square foot home where during the holidays it brimmed with decorations and family members. Now, it was a silent tomb with walls covered in photos of images of joy from years gone by. Thank heavens for the housekeeper that still came three times a week and often cooked her meals. It was the only way she ate actual food outside of her best friend Krysten who came and stayed on the weekends.

  Begrudgingly, she made it to the front door, peered through the side glass to spot non-other than Krysten standing on the landing. If she is here it must be Friday. Where had the rest of the week gone? She opened the front door to her long-time friend. Krysten was the only one who still bothered to come for a visit.

  “Gurl,” was the word used to start every sentence that began with Darlene when she wanted to make a point of something. “You smell like something nasty wore you out last night!” Her lip was upturned as she eyed the pajama clad Darlene.

  “I’m sorry, I am just getting up,” Darlene lied.

  Krysten already knew it was the furthest thing from the truth. She pointed at Darlene’s crotch.

  “Gurl,” she said with a disapproving scowl. “What have you been eating a seafood buffet? You need to go wash: wash your breath, wash your hair and especially...” she paused for effect. “...that sweaty ass that I can also smell from over here!”

  “You do know that some days I can barely stomach you,” Darlene said as she closed the front door.

  “And the way you smell right now I can barely stomach your stinking ass either,” she said while she pushed Darlene towards the bathroom to the shower. “You have to get showered, I have so much to tell you! I am going to start the shower, open this wine and we need to talk.”

  “Seriously Krysten, I feel like crap, maybe this weekend you don’t need to stay,” she whined.

  “Gurl, you can forget that. I have been busy and I have got some news to share with you that is going to twist your wig,” she said as she looked at Darlene’s hair. “...well twist it some more.”

  She reached inside her messenger bag and pulled out a stack of file folders filled with papers. The colored folders varied in thicknesses. The files were left on the granite countertops next to the greasy pizza box as she drug Darlene by the arm into the bedroom. Immediately she grabbed her nose as she flung open the drapes, pulled up the blinds and commenced to pulling the bedding to the floor.

  “Don’t make me undress you and throw you in that shower,” she said to Darlene.

  A spark ignited in the back of her fuzzy brain. “You’d like to see me naked wouldn’t you?”

  Krysten did not miss a step. “The way you smell, I am not that gay where I could overlo
ok the funk.”

  Darlene found herself trying to compose the beginning of a smile as she headed into the bathroom. She looked over her shoulder at her friend. Krysten was a fireplug of a woman, with deep cocoa skin, a low haircut and a penchant for men’s suits. She even liked to sport wing tips on her high heels or in loafer form. She was one of the best environmental lawyers in the country now that Darlene was no longer practicing law. Through the years, a few other attorneys took exception to the life choices of a counselor on the rise who made it perfectly clear to all who watched, that her personal life was personal. If anyone wanted to take an exception to it, she would gladly face off with them in a court of law for discrimination. As great as she was as an environmental lawyer, she was even better in civil suits. Darlene often teased her that she should start her own PI firm because each time she began to date someone new, she opened a file and investigated them thoroughly.

  The file folders!

  Darlene still had shampoo in her hair when she jumped out the shower and ran into the kitchen. Krysten was loading up the dirty bed linens when a soapy, towel clad Darlene pointed her finger at her friend and began yelling, “What are those folders for Krys? What wacky ass idea have you come up with this time?”

  The attempt at an innocent face was not working. The miming of surprise and pretending she had no idea what Darlene was talking about wasn’t working either.

  “Krys, what have you done?”

  She held up her hands in defense. “Before you get all up in arms, why don’t you get back in the shower and get up under your arms in the literal sense. I think you missed some spots.”

  Darlene’s lips were tight.

  Krysten made her way back to the kitchen to grab the bottle of wine from her bag so she could open it. She waved her hands like she was shooing geese. “I’m not hearing it. I am not talking to you until you smell human again, Darlene. Go on now. Git!”