woostify domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/latestwordpress/lonestar.a1professionals.net_public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131New romantic fiction from Donnaldson Brown <\/p>\n
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Excerpt from Because I Loved You, used with permission from the author.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n October 16, 2016<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Caleb McGrath<\/u> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is a cool, blustery morning. Caleb McGrath boards a train at Grand Central Station heading north to Wassaic, New York, the last stop on the Harlem River line. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The week before, Caleb saw his brother, Hank, for the first time in forty-two years. Caleb knew Hank had his own well of secrets. It turns out he\u2019d been keeping one of Caleb\u2019s, as well. One Caleb didn\u2019t even know he had. They are a burden, secrets. Sooner or later we have to leave this world. The fewer secrets we carry, the less bound we are to it. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sitting upright on the hard, creaking seat, the dog-eared and yellowing diaries and sketchbooks Hank gave him heavy in his lap, he watches the city give way to low-rise suburban houses, clapboard or stucco, and small businesses. Gyms and hair salons, auto repair and lawn mower sales give way to thickets of trees, already yellow and orange, and an occasional bloom of red. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There\u2019s no station at Wassaic. Just a platform, not even benches. Though still unaccustomed to it, Caleb\u2019s grateful he brought his cane. Something to lean on as he waits and watches the last passenger bounce down the platform steps with her overstuffed knapsack and ukulele and hop into a squat yellow Fiat that barely stops before scampering out and south on Route 22. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps she\u2019s changed her mind. Perhaps she\u2019s not coming. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Naples, Texas <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n August 1972 <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Leni O\u2019Hare <\/span><\/span><\/u><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her mother\u2019s native tongue snaps and spews, skimming after her across the dry goatweed and brush. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMadeleine O\u2019Hare! Come back here. Reviens! A cet instant! \u00c9coutes-moi! Arr\u00eates! Arr\u00eates!\u201d<\/em> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But she and Foggy are gone. Galloping beneath the dove-gray sky to the far rise in a frantic waltz\u2014one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. She imagines clods of dirt and grass from her dappled mare\u2019s hooves, like one of Foy\u2019s fastballs, lodging in their mother\u2019s throat. That would shut her up. No more talk of selling Leni\u2019s prized mare. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the top of the rise, Leni glares back at the patchwork of paddocks circling their barn, like pieces of the stupid quilt Maman makes her work on week after week, scraps of their old clothes and dishtowels, nothing wasted, everything to be used and reused until it\u2019s shreds. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mad all over again, she gives Foggy more rein, urges her on. The mare stretches her neck and lengthens her stride. The saddlebags with grain for Foggy, and the few clothes and whatever else she could grab, jostle behind her. The tall switchgrass passes beneath them like rushing water. Faster and faster, over the crest of the small hill and down toward the river. But even by the river, with the beating of Foggy\u2019s hooves across the dry ground, her mother\u2019s shouts seem still trapped between her ears. \u201cDieu to vois<\/em>. Remember that! God sees you!\u201d Leni tightens her legs around her mare as they jump ditches and dodge one hawthorn bush, then another, desperate to shed her mother\u2019s curses, because she\u2019ll be as wide and open as this Texas chaparral. Infinite, maybe. Not pockmarked and scarred by her mother\u2019s curses, like Evan Holt\u2019s face since he came back from Da Nang with shrapnel from his navel to the crown of his head, and now Marguerite\u2014perfect, buxom Marguerite with their mother\u2019s dark curls and her always starched blouses and smoothly pressed skirts\u2014won\u2019t marry him like she\u2019d promised. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Beyond the bend, across the Old Tram Road, the river widens into a small marsh. Leni pulls Foggy up to a jog, then a walk. Sweat lathers the mare\u2019s neck, runs down Leni\u2019s neck and back, too. They are both puffing hard. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n With the reins loose now, resting on Foggy\u2019s neck, the mare picks her way lightly over the dry grasses. Leaves and twigs crunch beneath her hooves as they follow the river north. Exciting to be on her own. And away\u2014finally\u2014from her foolish mother, in her homemade hats, lace-up shoes, and white socks, insisting Leni give up her horse and barrel racing as though she\u2019d ever be prim and prissy and boy crazy like her sister. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The river winds calmly here, especially lazy now since there\u2019s hardly been any rain since spring. Dry as a turkey\u2019s gullet, her daddy says. The air, though, is moist and thick today. Foggy\u2019s ears spin forward, watching a jackrabbit dash out from a cluster of cottonwood trees and weave into the tall grass. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There used to be more people here between the creeks, back when most folks were farming. But the small farms with one or two dairy cows and a few pigs and laying hens gave way to ranches raising beef cattle for the feedlots in Midland or stockyards in St. Louis. The McGraths run the biggest ranch. Her daddy says Mr. McGrath\u2019s been buying up land for more than thirty years to run his cattle on, and he\u2019s got himself wells pumping out oil from here to Oklahoma, too. Leni sees him on occasion at a rodeo or the feed store. He\u2019s built like a tree stump. His older son, Hank Junior, looks just like him\u2014dark-haired and thick all over. Only he\u2019ll smile on occasion. At girls, mostly. The younger son, Caleb, is in Foy\u2019s grade at Pewitt High, a year ahead of Leni. They\u2019ll be seniors this year. Caleb\u2019s built like a sapling, tall and smooth. He keeps to himself mostly, from what Leni can tell. Like her. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Caleb McGrath <\/span><\/span><\/u><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cal had finished his chores and was waiting out the worst of the August heat in his room, tinkering with the miniature ham radio he kept tucked inside his desk drawer in case someone\u2014namely his father\u2014were to barge in. Hank Senior strictly forbade the radio enterprise. Cal figured it was more because he couldn\u2019t understand it than because a ham radio was illegal to operate. Cal built a small one anyway. Using sardine tins for the transmitter and transceiver, hammering the tin lids into shape. Scouring ads in the back of Popular Mechanics, he sent away for the coils and tiny transponders, paying with money he earned giving roping lessons to the ranch hands\u2019 kids and anyone else who\u2019d ask. The radio operated at about two watts, enough to tune into Mexican operators at night and north into some of Oklahoma most days. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The back door off the kitchen slapped shut. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMolly!\u201d his father\u2019s shout ricocheted through the newly-remodeled kitchen and across the open dining room where the heels of his boots struck the stone floor like matches on flint. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cal\u2019s mother was tall and slender. She wore her hair, which was the pale brown color of winter wheat, in a short bob. Her fingers would often flutter up and smooth stray strands behind her ears. She was a native to Texas and ranching, but she would fit right in in the suburbs of Dallas or any southern city. There was an elegance about her, and grit. She stood eye to eye with her husband, and had a look\u2014with those pale green eyes\u2014that was about the only thing that could stop him, tightly coiled and ready to spring as he was, in his tracks. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s that boy?\u201d Cal heard his father growl, his ire up. Nothing new about that. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe one you named?\u201d his mother replied, likely extracting a cigarette from the pocket of the small scalloped apron she wore, over her customary cigarette slacks. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n