Roots Never Die

Excerpt - Chapter 1: Fifty

SAMANTHA PARKER LAID wide awake. A light shower played a soothing symphony on the metal roof of the cabin perched on the western slope of the Continental Divide. The warmth of her lover lying beside her warded off the damp, cool night air. With one arm and leg draped over his masculine frame and her head resting on his chest, she could hear his heartbeat as his chest gently rose and fell to his shallow breathing as he slept.

     It still felt like a dream, to be there… with him again, after so many years.

     A branch began drumming against the metal roof as the wind and rain intensified. She was glad the horses were safely housed for the night. For an instant, a flash of lightning penetrated their safe haven revealing his aged yet still handsome face. A collection of age lines stood testament to his daily exposure to the sun and dust. The heavy rain beating against the window jostled the memory of how she had come full circle. Samantha smiled to herself as she clearly recalled the day her presumptuously successful and fulfilling life was disrupted by the candid observation of a total stranger.

     That day would forever change her life.

Excerpt - Chapter 3: The Cowboy

CONNER WHELAN, STILL wearing his dingy cowboy hat, well-worn chaps and dusty boots from a long day of ranch work, sashayed up to the counter. “Hi Patti. My book come in?”

     Patti Smith, owner of the Once Upon a Time bookstore, smiled coyly as she produced the book from under the counter. “Yesterday.”

     Connor shook his head. Was she going to ask him out yet again? “What do I owe you?”

     Patti leaned over the counter, purposely showing more of her cleavage, as she batted her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him through sparkling pink eyeglass frames. “Why do you buy these books? You planning on hanging up your spurs and going into sales?”

     He just smiled. She knew buying these books had nothing to do with sales. Patti was easy on the eyes for her age, maybe five years older than him, with long obviously died bleach blond hair and a nice figure. But all that make-up and sparkly outfits didn’t fit his idea of a real woman.

     “That’ll be $16.29,” she said.

     As he pulled a twenty from his money roll, held together by a rubber band, Patti glanced at the photo of the author on the back cover. “She never seems to age. I need to know what face cream she’s using!”

     “Ha, me too,” chuckled Connor.

     Patti’s smile broadened as she shook her head.  “You’re a mystery, Connor Whelan.”  How long have you been coming to my store? Nearly twenty years - never buying anything but her books.”

     “What? You think I’d enjoy one of those Westerns written by some drug-store cowboy?” he said, pointing to a few she had on display.

     “No, I suppose not.” Patti slipped the book into a paper bag. “You know, you should write a book. Tell it like it really is out there.”

     Connor nodded. “Who knows, maybe I will.”

     “Ha! Sure, you will.” Patti snickered. She leaned over the counter again, enveloping him in her cheap perfume as she held the book just out of his reach. “You ever going to tell me the story behind those books… that woman?” she hissed.

     “Maybe I’ll write about it in my book. Don’t want a spoiler now do you?”

     Patti cackled like an old hen that had just laid an egg as she handed him the bag. “You take care now, Connor Whelan. One of these days you’ll ask me out. You’ve dated just about every other skirt west of the divide.”

     “See ya around, Patti.”

    

     

Excerpt - Chapter 8: First Visit

     With no time to get another pair of reins from the barn’s dressing/tack stall at the far end of the complex, he made a mad dash for the tack vendor he noticed earlier near the tunnel entrance.

     By the time he reached the tack store, he heard over the loudspeaker that a few riders had already completed their course. Out of breath, he quickly grabbed a set of reins. There was only one attendant with her back to him as she showed a customer a variety of saddle pads.

    “I’m sorry to interrupt but it’s an emergency!” he shouted from the register. “My horse broke her reins, and I need to make my class!”

     “Oh, my!” said the young woman attendant, turning to the woman. “Do you mind?”

     The woman backed away waving her hands frantically toward the register.

     “Cash or card?” said the attendant.

     Hank panicked. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t have either on me. I was in the tunnel and my horse spooked…

     “Here take them and come back later to pay,” she said.

     Hank grasped the reins. “Thanks!” he shouted over his shoulder as he bolted toward the tunnel.

     It wasn’t Jasmine’s best go round, dropping one rail and taking a corner wide, but it proved to be a tight and tough course for all the horse and rider teams. He placed third - still in the money.

     After taking care of his mount and changing into street clothes, he returned to the tack shop. Luckily, the same attendant was still there. In his frantic state earlier, he hadn’t noticed how good looking she was, filling out her tight jeans and fitted red sweater in just the right places. She had long dark hair pulled back off her tan face with red horseshoe berets. He had to chuckle to himself noticing her matching red Western boots. Quite the little cowgirl, he thought.

     “I’m back,” he said to her back as she straightened a display rack of halters.

     She reeled around on her shit-kicking heels. “Oh my God, I’m so glad you came back,” she spouted in one breath. “I would have had to balance the register with my own cash, which is in short supply at the moment.” 

    Then she smiled. Not coy, sexy or fake, a genuine smile that lit up her smokey gray eyes.     

     “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said, with a teeth-grinning smile. What was wrong with him. That was goofy. He never smiled like that. “How much do I owe you?” he said, composing himself.

     “The receipt’s right here,” she said, returning his smile as she stepped up to the cash register. “Nineteen dollars and fifteen cents.”

     As Hank handed her a twenty, he studied her full lips, dark hair and contrasting grey eyes closer. She moved with eagerness and purpose.

     “How did it go…your class?” she said beaming as she handed him his change.

     “We took third.”

     “Congratulations! I saw you ride English. What kind of class was it?”

     “Jumping.”

     “Oh, wow. I love watching it on TV. I never miss any of the Olympic Equestrian events. So exciting. I’d love to learn to jump someday.”

     “You live in Denver?” he said.

     “Golden, just south of South Tabletop Mountain.”

     “I’m in Boulder, northwest of you about forty-five minutes,” said Hank. “Maybe you’d like to come out for some lessons. I work and teach at Foothills Farm. We have an indoor riding arena.”

     “Fancy,” she said, with a raise of her eyebrows. “Sounds wonderful, but as I mentioned I’m a little low on cash at the moment.”

     “How about an introductory lesson on the house?”

     “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss,” said Samantha.

     “Is that a yes?”

     “Sure,” she replied, gleefully.

     

 

Excerpt - Chapter 7: Summer of 72

Now Available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and Audible

       The small assisted-living room held the few belongings her Uncle Joe had chosen to surround himself with during his final years…and perhaps now, his final days.  As she waited for him to return from lunch, she studied the old photographs carefully hung and placed around the room.  They were a visual testament to the viability of the ‘American Dream’ in the early 20th Century.

     One stood out in particularly. On his dresser was a yellowed print taken from his mother’s passport issued in Hamrun, Malta on September 26, 1925. His mother, the grandmother Samantha never knew,  stood proud with her hand resting on the shoulder of her five-year-old son, Joseph, prior to their treacherous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean together.  From what her father had told her, how could her grandmother know then how much responsibility would eventually fall upon her son’s slender shoulders in the years to come?

    

                                                     

         

 

Remember me in the family tree; my name, my days, my strife. Then I’ll ride upon the wings of time and live an endless life. – Linda Goetsch

Excerpt -  Chapter 9: The Equestrian

      Together they led the horses to the meadow where they hobbled all but Sally so they could graze in the deep lush grass for the night. Connor said Sally could be trusted to not run off.

     When they returned to camp, Connor explained, “I’ll be sleeping between the horses and camp each night with Spot, just in case we have a visitor.”

     “Thanks,” she said.

     Connor carried a bed roll and a flashlight in one hand and his heavy Western saddle in the other. Samantha followed him with a saddle pad to a large cottonwood. He pointed for her to set the pad down on the ground beside the tree. He set the saddle down on the pad, leaning it against the trunk of the tree with its sheepskin lining exposed. Connor rolled out his bed roll and sat down with his back resting against the saddle with Spot curled up beside him.

     Samantha knelt on one knee and patted Spot on the head. “Good boy, you keep a lookout too, okay?”

     Spot smiled back with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, his tail wagging.

    “He likes you. He doesn’t take to many people,” said Connor.

     Samantha took that as an invite and sat down on the edge of the sleeping bag Indian style. “Might have something to do with the steak bones I’ve been giving him,” she grinned.

     “Yeah! I saw you give him another one tonight. But he knows who he can trust. No better judge of character than animals.”

     “That’s so true. Glad I passed the Spot test.”

     Connor studied the clear star-studded sky above. A third-quarter moon allowed Samantha to read his expression as he turned to her with an easy smile.

     “You did good today. Surprised the hell out of me charging into that stampede like that. That took a lot of guts.”

     “For a girl you mean?”

     “Yeah, I suppose. I’ve never known a girl like you. Most of the women I’ve known would have been too worried about breaking a nail or messing up their hair,” he chuckled.

     “So, I’m a girl and the others are women,” she observed.

     “Yes. No. Well. You’re…” he sputtered.

     “I’m what?”

     “Look, you’re still a teenager… and you’re staff. So don’t get any ideas. I don’t date staff.”

     “Well, how presumptuous of you. What makes you think I want to date you? Find yourself irresistible, do you?”

     “Hardly. I’ve noticed how you look at me. I know that look.”

     “Really? Do I have that look now?”

     “Yes,” he snorted.

     Samantha blushed and laughed. “How old are you anyway?”

     “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”

     “Well?”

     “Twenty-four.”

     “You old dog, you!” she teased.

     Connor just laughed quietly in response and turned his focus to the horses illuminated by the moonlight with a faraway look in his eyes. Following a long silence he said, “Wish we could be more like them. No baggage, just living in the moment.”

     Samantha turned her gaze to the horses as well. “Right. No worries besides where their next meal is coming from.”

     “Simple creatures,” said Connor. “Yet so trusting and forgiving...”

      “And with so much heart,” Samantha finished. “They’re angels on earth. No wonder people imagine them with wings. And when a horse is running full out under you, you can fly too.”

     When Samantha turned toward Connor, she found him studying her with an approving smile and perhaps even a glint of affection in his eyes. She returned his smile and stood up. “Good night, Connor.” 

     “Good night, Samantha.”

     Samantha’s smile deepened as she walked toward her tent. In the same day, he had called her Sammie and Samantha for the first time. Somehow that seemed important, but she wasn’t sure why.

Mostly set on the western slope of Colorado.

Photo of my  grandmother, Mary Abel, and my Uncle Joe prior to their journey across the Atlantic as imigrants. Joseph went on to carry the burden as head of the household after my grandfather died. Joseph  nearly lost his life during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII as told in Chapter 10 in Roots Never Die.  

 Hanging on the wall next to his bed was a photograph of Andrew, in his early twenties she guessed, with his six younger siblings as teenagers standing out front of an old two-story row-houses rental in the then Maltese section of Detroit. Cork Town. Samantha was shocked to see her uncle with a full head of curly hair, resembling a young Frank Sinatra.  As far back as she could remember he was nearly bald. His premature baldness was no doubt the result of being thrust into the role as head of the household at the age of nineteen. Little did she know then about his near-death experience in World War II. On his dressor sat a model tank beside a purple heart encased in a blue velvet box. Samantha picked up the box to examine it closer.

     “Battle of the Bulge,” said Claire. 

     “Right…” Samantha vaguely recalled bits and pieces of a story she’d heard numerous versions of the years at funerals and weddings that he fought in World War II, but she vividly recall the day she had accidentally entered his room while visiting her aunt and uncle’s summer lake-house as a child.  She found him struggling to pull his pants on over a scared and disfigured leg and hip; the image permanently etched in her memory. He had always walked with a limp, but Samantha had never given it much thought.

       From the dresser, her attention was drawn to a shelving unit sitting opposite a well-worn corduroy chair, where a television would normally sit. The shelves held a special collection of objects that had earned their place amongst the treasures of his life. Samantha could imagine him sitting there for hours on end reflecting upon them, reminders of a life well lived, but she imagined not a life without its share of pain and suffering. She studied the mementos one by one, trying to piece together the man she had known only from snapshots in time, at annual Christmas parties as a girl and later at weddings, family reunions and funerals. Suddenly, she felt compelled to know the story behind each and every one of them.

SAMANTHA PARKER is a best-selling author and motivational speaker who is hiding from her past in her success. Feeling responsible for the tragic loss of her only son in a riding accident, she becomes burdened with guilt, leaving her passion for horses behind as well as her marriage.

Ten years later, on her fiftieth birthday, the candid observation of a total stranger starts Samantha down a path of discovery. In the process of researching her family's history, she rediscovers herself, reconnects with her daughters, revives her passion for horses and rekindles a lost love. Mostly set on the Western Slope of Colorado, this epic saga spans a century, two continents and the limitless boundaries of love and family.