“Don’t worry,” Rodney replied. “Can we just have our payment please, Loui- Mr. Goldsmith?”
Handing him the payment, Louis said to him, “Look, I’ll refer you to some neighbors. Okay?”
Louis had no idea he would be pushed to the floor by both men once the check was out of his hand. The impact was so forceful that he flew back several feet before landing.
“Oh, God!” Tammy shouted. “Louis!”
The landscapers immediately shut the door behind them and revealed their guns. “Maybe you do have to worry,” Fernando derided in amusement.
Tammy rushed to her husband, who moaned in pain.
“Welcome to the world of Rodney Price and Fernando Torres,” Rodney announced in a cold manner. His eyes fired the glare of a hungry panther.
“Let’s get them to the hideaway, Rodney!”
Acknowledgements
All glory and honor to our LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who is our Way, Truth, and Life to our Father in Heaven. I am so thankful to Him for another opportunity to write and finally finish this novel.
I am thankful for my husband of eighteen years (Elder), our children (Elder II, Brendon, Dimitri and Tatiana), my parents (Milton and Cynthia), my brother, my sister, all four of my grandparents, my family, my friends, and my pastors (in Houston and in Atlanta).
I am also thankful for the years the LORD gave me with my grandfather, James Earl Carroll, Sr., and my aunt, Fannie Muriel Bernard Dalcour – both of whom went home to be with the Lord in 2012. With giggles and tears, I remember them both as I reflect on each of their personalities when developing characters in this and other novels.
As I have written in previous novels, I also want to begin this series acknowledging that there is no fiction on earth that can measure up to the awesome parables which Jesus spoke to teach us how to live. While I believe Wedding Vows Under Fire can entertain as well as minister to your heart, it is a secondary source of learning.
There is no encouraging, and assuring book to read like the Holy Bible. There is no saving book apart from God’s Word. So, if you put this novel down to pick the scriptures up, you’re on the right path. And while you do read this fiction, feel free to discern its content in light of The Word.
Lanette
Prologue
1971
Dinner could have been ready at that very moment or within another hour – close to seven o’clock. But time was no issue while hats and britches continued to sell like they were the only wear in Houston’s Fifth Ward. Sitting with Joseph Reyes, his new partner, behind a small table cluttered with only two types of saleable items, Nathaniel Taylor could only hope his wife would be willing to reheat dinner if he were to walk through the door again past nine o’clock. She didn’t seem to care that, only five months after he had pooled his extremely limited resources together with those few of his former market rival, a generous flow of income had actually begun to generate.
Reyes too had very little money to bring to the investment table of their new partnership. Along with his stylish hats and a colorful tablecloth knitted by his wife, Angelica, all he had were two old square tables to pull together with the one Taylor had used as a single proprietor selling brown polyester britches. Made weekly by both Reyes and his wife from their home in Houston’s urban Denver Harbor, the hats offered an attractive table display next to the britches sown by Taylor’s wife.
Neither man had been successful in the sale of his own product before joining their efforts. After competing for almost a year outside on a busy street corner where a church, a produce market, a school, a barber shop, and a well known yet hidden day bar-night club all existed, the men had decided to couple their homemade merchandise to sell at discount while still offering them at regular price per individual item.
Taylor had begun to realize that Reyes’ colorful decors, as well as his stylish hats, could definitely accent his own products. Although his britches offered no distinction in style, they were lain out in abundance and finally received well by many people in the community who wanted to buy a bargain couple of paints plus hats. The potential that the partnership offered didn’t quite come to mind previously until he realized that each of them was frequently asked for the other’s product.
“Tortilla?”
“What?” Taylor answered in the defensive tone in which he always addressed his partner, whom he rarely understood.
“Eat?” Reyes clarified himself as he held out one of those soft, delicious, flat, floured, pancake-like breads that Taylor recognized. “Comida!”
“What you mean telling me ‘Come here’?”
“Comida…”
“You come here, Man!”
Reyes gave up on his efforts. He stepped closer to practically force the tortilla into Taylor’s hand. His stern-faced, six-foot five inch partner couldn’t reject it.
“I have got to get this man’s wife over to the house and teach Geraldine how to make this,” Taylor thought to himself as he looked away.
“Good?” Reyes delightfully demanded in anticipation. The tanned pudgy Latino could only smile when he noticed Taylor look down at him with a blank expression.
“You got another one?” Taylor responded.
“Que?”
“Another one?”
“Eh?
“Eat?” Taylor sighed. “More food? I’m hongry.” He had surpassed hungry.
“Oh, si!” Reyes stood and smiled for so long until Taylor realized his request was heard unregistered.
Both men waited for further reply from the other.
“Gracias.”
“I wonder how that tastes,” Taylor mumbled knowing his new partner would not likely understand him had he spoken aloud again.
Always understanding each other while dividing the daily gross revenues at fifty percent each, the men often grew frustrated over the language barrier by the end of each day’s hard labor.
Reyes pointed toward the dull sun. “Vamanos, por favor.”
“Go home? Ready?”
“Home. Si. Vamanos a mi casa.” Reyes pointed at Taylor’s old pick-up truck.
“Let’s go,” Taylor responded as he well understood Reyes at that moment. The only one of the two with transportation, he daily drove Reyes to and from their same work location while carrying items in the back of the truck. Their homes were only a ten-minute drive apart – their work site being about a five minute drive from Taylor’s home.
A typical drive home from their nine-hour independent street-retail routine was usually quiet – especially on Saturdays, their busiest day of the week. During their ride home, both men often rested in silence – wiping sweat from their brows and awaiting the moments when they could bathe for bed after dinner. But, with both hats and britches almost out of stock, it was time to discuss replenishing their inventory.
Taylor stared down at the cardboard shoebox full of numerous coins, several single bills, five-dollar bills, and even some tens. He realized that some of that money had to be used for purchasing more materials and wondered how he could ever convey this to his partner. His mind wondered even further adrift concerning how Geraldine and Angelica could pull themselves away from daily household chores to hand-manufacture more inventory that they were going to urgently need. Taylor knew that, by the following day’s end, there would be nothing left to sell at the rate items