found their new landscapers, Rodney and Fernando, standing side by side. “You guys finished? Tammy, did you leave the check on the counter?”
“Here it is,” she offered retrieving the thirty-five dollar payment from the kitchen table.
“I have to tell you guys we need more professional work done on our lawn,” Louis announced sternly. “I’m afraid this will be your last job with us.”
Handing the check to her husband, Tammy frowned at his tone. “Louis!”
At once, Louis turned his head toward his wife and grimaced. Tammy cringed at his response. Lately, every mere hint of opposition was perceived as disrespect by him.
Rodney took an instant to notice the tension between the couple before he responded with a sneer that distracted the Goldsmiths and took them both by surprise. “Oh, how unfortunate.”
“Well, Rod, it looks like perfect timing after all,” Fernando added.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Louis demanded pulling his fists up to his sides as he still clenched the check.
“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
