Jamar stated the obvious, “Whoever she was is going to really miss you. Can you cook, too?”
“I can cook,” Holden said.
“You are never going back to Yahoo, Georgia,” Jamar said. “You are home. You are among your people!” He said it in grand fashion as he walked about the room with his arms in the air as if he were making a majestic proclamation to all the citizens of Serenity.
A month later, Holden agreed with him. Each night he was physically exhausted from working so hard. Breakfast and meals in the bunkhouse with Jack and Jamar were like being home with his brothers. The weekends he spent fishing with the guys or making soaps and inventory for the store. Soon, he would be making twice as much as he had been when he made his weekly rounds. Only this money he didn’t have to split with his family. One family stopped through Serenity, and even though the store was not open, he sold a case of soap and two bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
Daniel, gearing up for hunting season, encouraged each of them to get a license so they would have enough meat to last them all year. Holden was not one for hunting, but he visited Cassandra’s sanctuary, to check on the goat for making some cheese, only to be nearly attacked by the woman. It was one place he swore he would never go back to visit. Had his parents and family not been in Venture, it was also a place he would have sworn he would never go back to visit either. He no longer missed it.
The same couldn’t be said for the residents of Venture.
Chapter Seventeen – Blown Fuse
Tallulah stood in the large picture window of her living room, staring out at the street. It had been a month and no word from Holden. He’s not coming back. Holden is not coming back. Her hand absently rubbed her belly as she looked down at her swollen feet.
He would rub these for me until I felt better.
Car doors could be heard slamming and she looked up to see a group of women, led by Jacquetta. A few were parents of her patients; one or two others she didn’t know. All of them were walking toward her front door. Panic struck her as she ran over to check the locks on the door. She went back to the window to find 12 angry women standing in front of the window, glowering at her.
Jacquetta spoke first, “You come out of there right now, Doc!”
“No,” she said to the women. Three times in her life she had been surrounded by groups of mean girls who had either beat her up or ripped her clothes from her body. She most definitely wasn’t going outside for them to do it to her as an adult on her own front porch. “I am not coming outside to a mob. Get off my property or I will call the Sheriff!”
“Call whoever you want, but you need to get your ass on a plane and go and get our Holden,” Jacquetta said.
“Whaaaa?” she responded, sounding like her brother.
Mrs. McGillicutty spoke up. “If you were no good at the sex with him, I can give you some pointers, dear,” she told Tallulah. Her old hands were moving toward her face indicating something needed to go in Tallulah’s mouth for her to suck on.
Tallulah frowned at the nasty minded old woman.
Another middle-aged woman spoke up, “He would stop by and bring me fresh eggs each week.”
“He brought me shampoo,” said another.
“No matter how busy he was, he would also stop and share a word or two with me,” an older gray-haired woman said.
“And I miss my Wednesday luncheons and tea with my friend,” Jacquetta said. “I want him back. So you are going to take your butt to the airport, get on a plane, and bring our man home!”
“Yeah! We want our man back,” the women all yelled.
“But what if he doesn’t want to come back?” Tallulah asked sadly.
“Then you aren’t the woman we think you are, Doc Strom,” Jacquetta said.
“I will see what I can do,” Tallulah responded. The women left her front porch, feeling vindicated for taking a stand. She was not. She called Janie to locate the whereabouts of Holden Cimoc.
Two days later, she was on a plane to Cody, Wyoming. In a small economy rental car, she drove west on I-80, looking for a blip on a map that didn’t quite exist. Several large trucks carrying lumber with partially put together prefab homes were going in the same direction. As a matter of fact, they were going to the same place she was, Serenity.
She entered the Double D General store to find a black lady stocking shelves with teas, soaps, and other products she recognized.
“Excuse me,” Tallulah whispered. “I am looking for Holden Cimoc.”
Darlene looked up at the woman. Her mouth wide. “You are not what I expected,” she said to Tallulah. “I was honestly expecting some little petite blonde with big boobs.”
Tallulah knitted her brows. “Excuse me?” She stood in the store holding a purse that Darlene knew from experience cost a thousand dollars on the low end. The shoes the lady wore were another two hundred and the shades she wore were easily five hundred dollars. The woman was classy, to say the least.
“I’m Dr. Tallulah Strom and I’m looking for Holden Cimoc,” she told Darlene. “I was told he was contracted to work here.”
“Ah! Tallulah Strom,” Darlene said. “The heartbreaker herself.”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but I don’t know you,” Tallulah said.
“I am Darlene Hill Wilstrom. Sheriff Hill is my brother,” she said.
“Well, fuck me sideways,” Tallulah took off her airs and got real with Darlene in less than three seconds. “I went out on one date with your brother. We had dinner. I found him boring and saw no need for a second date. I never kissed him nor did I sleep with him. If he thought there was something more between us, then he was wrong.”
“And Holden?” Darlene asked.
“With Holden, I was stupid. I was so worried about my clients and what the community thought about us being together, that I didn’t stop to think about how much I loved being with him. I love him and I am here to get my man,” she said.
“You may have some trouble with that. He has found a home here with people who appreciate and have grown to love him,” she told Tallulah.
“So if he wants to stay, I guess you and I will need to get to know each other so I can have a friend in wherever this place is...,” Tallulah said looking around the country store.
“You would be willing to stay here in Serenity?” Darlene asked, her eyes going over all the expensive items the woman wore, including the designer pea coat.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get him back,” she told Darlene.
“You just want him back? Nothing else?”
“No, I want a life with the man that I love,” she said with her shoulders squared. “He is my everything.”
“Come with me,” Darlene said. Standing on the porch of the Double D, she pointed down the street. “It’s lunch time. He’s at the bunkhouse having chow with the men. I doubt if they’re going to give you any privacy to speak with him alone.”
“What I have to say, I don’t care who hears it,” Tallulah said.
“Great, because I’m coming with you,” Darlene said. She used her phone to call Daniel, giving him a play-by-play as they walked across the street.
Darlene entered the bunkhouse first. Jamar stood up.
“I’m sorry, Darlene, but you know the rules. No women are allowed in the bunkhouse, not even you,” Jamar said.
“I know, but Holden has a visitor,” she said.
Tallulah stepped around her to look about the room for her man. Holden rose slowly from the table.
“Tallulah? What are you doing here?”
“I came to bring you home...to our home...I miss you. I want you to come back, Holden,” she told him.
“This is my home now. I’m happy here,” he told her. “I am not coming back to Georgia.”
She walked toward him, her high heels clicking on the wood floor. Each step mirrored the beating of her heart.
“Okee-dokee,” she told him.
‘Okee-dokee what?” he said.
; “If this is where you are staying, then this is where I shall stay as well,” she told him. “My life is with you. I want to be with you.”
“No,” he told her point blank.
“No?”
“No. You put me through hell. I had to leave the only home I’ve ever known, move clear across the continent and start over. You kicked me out, handed me my stuff in a garbage bag, Tallulah, then made it seem like I was the one who broke your heart,” he said to her.
“Shall I mention the fire crotch I found in your bed? And, I might add, you showed up at my house drunk, made out with a garden gnome, and broke out my front window with Mr. Tuddlestrom. What you did after that is why you had to leave town, not because of me,” she said.
“What did he do after making out with a garden gnome?” Jack wanted to know.
“Whydahell was he making out with a garden gnome is what I want to know?” Jamar said.
“Guys, I was drunk, okay. I don’t drink. I have no tolerance for alcohol,” he told them.
Tallulah wasn’t listening to them; she was looking at the differences in her man. “You cut your hair,” she said as she moved closer to him. A tentative hand reached out to touch his face. “I miss you so much it hurts, Holden.”
Try as he might to not give in, her touch felt like home. His eyes closed at the softness of her touch reminding him how much he’d missed the quiet moments with her. The intimacy of reading together at night. The joy of holding her as they fell to sleep.
“I am so sorry for hurting you. I love you, Holden, and I want us to be a family,” she said to him.
“It’s not that simple, Tallulah,” he said. “I will always be younger than you. I will always be white and I will always have a touch of OCD. Those things I can’t change to fit into your mold of what you think is the socially perfect man. It is just not that simple.”
“It is that simple,” she said as she reached inside of her purse, pulling out a small black box. “Will you marry me, Holden Cimoc?”
“What?” he said, his cheeks getting red. Jamar was snapping pictures with his phone as Jack sat there rubbing the stubble on his chin, watching the beautiful woman fight for her man.
“I am asking you to marry me, be my husband, my man, my lover, my love... my everything,” she said.
Holden bit on his bottom lip. I want to say yes. I really want to.
“You are willing to move to Serenity and start over out here with me? Leave your fancy car, fancy house, private practice with your grant funding and all of that to marry me and live in the middle of nowhere?” he asked her to make sure.
“I love you with completely with all that is in me, Holden Cimoc, and if this is what you want to do so you can be happy, I will do it,” Tallulah said.
“But can you be happy here?”
“Hell, if I had my way I would only leave the house to go through the drive thru, but I can build a practice I guess, or do research. All I know is that what I need to be happy is my everything. You are my everything,” she said to him. “Will you marry me Holden?”
“Yes,” he said laughing. “I have never stopped loving you; as much as you get on my damned nerves, I love you with everything in me. I always have. I’ve bought a piece of land here and I ordered a prefab pretty yellow house with a red door that should be arriving any day now. Tallulah, I need you to understand that I don’t want to be locked up in the house all the time, either. I have book club on Wednesday night with Daniel...you will meet him. I fish on the weekends with the fellas, or I am making soap with Ms. Darlene. Friday game night twice a month is at her house. I have a social life. I have friends, Tallulah, and I love it here.”
“Then we will learn to love it here, too,” she said. “Plus a yellow house just came in two pieces on a truck. Is that is where the three of us are going live?”
“Who is three?” Jamar asked.
Tallulah opened her pea coat to show him the pooch of her belly. Everyone’s mouth dropped open, including Holden’s.
“You’re going to be a father, Holden.”
He started laughing as his hands touched the pooch of her belly.
“Me! A dad!” His hands caressed her belly. “Oh wow! I am going to be somebody’s daddy!”
Jamar said loudly, “Great, now we need a pediatrician. We have a doctor or a dentist, one of them coming out next month, but we aren’t prepared for kids.”
Holden reached inside of his shirt, pulling out a chain. The ruby ring he had given her hung about his neck on a silver serpentine necklace. He removed it, sliding it back onto her finger. His arm about her shoulder, he turned Tallulah to face the small group.
“Guys, I would like for you to meet my...,” he looked at Tallulah, his eyes brimming with love. “...my everything. This is Dr. Tallulah Strom, a pediatrician and the newest resident of Serenity, Wyoming.”
“Not until you get married,” Jamar said. “No fiancés, baby mamas, or girlfriends allowed. Only wives in Serenity!”
“Fine,” Holden said. “We’re headed to Cody. Be back in a few days,” he said with a smile. His arm around her shoulder, he walked out of the door with his bride-to-be. On the makeshift sidewalk, he turned to face her.
“I have never been happier to see anyone in my life,” he told her pulling her into his arms, squeezing her so tightly, she could barely breathe.
“I was so afraid you would reject me,” she said. “We still have to go back to Venture to sell my house, close down my practice, and move my things out here.”
“We will get to all of that, but first, I need to make you my wife, then catch up on some much needed loving,” he told her.
“You sure about this...me moving out, us living here,” she said.
“I have never been surer of anything in my life, Tallulah Cimoc,” he said. “I like the sound of that.”
“I do too, Holden,” she said as she squeezed him back in his embrace. “I love you. I am excited about building a new life with you.”
“And I love you, Tallulah. Plus, I am going to be somebody’s Daddy,” he said to her again.
Tallulah wasn’t certain about living in a town smaller than the one she was currently living in, but this was where Holden was, which meant it was where she was going to be as well. They were going to be a family. A new life would be lived in Serenity, Wyoming with friends.
Wednesday book club.
Friday game nights.
Friends.
“I am going to love it here, too,” she said.
“Let’s get to Cody and get married,” Holden said as he lifted her into his arms. His Tallulah. His love. A new life.
It had all been worth it.
“Welcome to Serenity, Tallulah.”
Epilogue
Jack sat in the chair watching it all unfold. The sweetness, the romance, the baby reveal was all touching, but he still didn’t trust women. They were all out to get something from a man until they broke him down to a shell of a nothing. Holden was broken when he arrived, and then she comes waltzing her happy pregnant ass in, thinking that would make everything alright.
It wasn’t alright.
It wasn’t alright at all.
He missed the evenings in bunkhouse with him, Jamar, and Holden, talking business and closing out the day. Now Holden went home in the evenings to his cute little house, with his cute little wife. The first snows were falling and now he was tasked with flying into Billings to pick up some woman for Farmer, who had arrived last month full of emotions. All of them were broken.
“I really appreciate you doing this for me, Jack,” he said. “She has some things she is going to bring with her from Idaho Falls and I am really excited to see my lady. Our wedding is set for when you get back and life is going to be pretty dang amazing.”
“I just hope she isn’t a chatter box,” Jack mumbled.
“She isn’t, but she is a darn good conversationalist, pretty well versed on farming and organic living. I’m a lucky man,” Farmer said with a grin.
Next there would be children.
He shuddered as he loaded up, ready to roll out. Jamar waved him down.
“Hey Jack, you be careful. I hear a storm may be rolling in tomorrow,” he told him.
“I will be. Thanks for your concern, mother hen,” Jack grumbled.
“Hey, I am my brother’s keeper,” Jamar told him.
Jack nodded his agreement and took off down the makeshift runway, pulling on the stick, getting the Cessna in the air. Farmer stood close by the runway watching the plane fly away. Tomorrow Jack would return with his lady and his life would start over.
That is what he loved about Serenity, a man had a chance to start over and build a dream from the sweat of his brow. He had watched Holden do it with his new wife. The dentist had arrived and opened a barber shop to supplement his business and from what he understood, a few more men were on their way out in the springtime as well.
By then he would have fresh seeds in the ground and new veggies to feed the townspeople. He’d already turned the soil, adding nutrients to the ground to prepare it for spring planting. He had his own seeds. None of those GMO’s his father had been forced to use. It was a fresh start. He was happy.
“Hey Farmer, you okay?” Holden asked him.
“Yes, thank you. I am getting married on Sunday,” he said with a smile. “I am going to be I guess the second groom of Serenity, since you were the first.”
“I never thought about it like that,” Holden said. “I guess I was,” he said with a smile. “Well, let me know if you need anything, okay?”
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