Lacey Took a Holiday

By Lazarus Barnhill

Lacey Took a Holiday is the story of a desperate act of love and the cascade of irrevocable changes it begins. Lacey, the most unlikely heroine, has been betrayed and abused by the men in her life. Andy has lost everyone he ever loved tragically. This 1920's mountaintop romance breaks every rule.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indigo Sea Press
• Release date: Dec 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9781935171119

Lazarus Barnhill

Laz is a native of Oklahoma who has lived all over the south. He holds three degrees, including a Doctorate in Spiritual Development. He has been obsessed with writing since he was a boy. A father of three and grandfather of two, he resides in North Carolina with his wife of 35 years and an irritating cat, Jessie, who is for sale cheap.

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Copyright 2008 By Lazarus Barnhill

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Lacey Took a Holiday

by

Lazarus M. Barnhill

Beckoning Books

Published by Second Wind Publishing

Kernersville

Beckoning Books

Second Wind Publishing, LLC

931-B South Main Street, Box 145

Kernersville, NC 27284

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and events are either a product of the author’s imagination, fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any event, locale or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright  2008 by Lazarus M. Barnhill

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any format.

First Beckoning Books edition published September, 2008.

Beckoning Books, Running Angel, and all production design are trademarks of Second Wind Publishing, used under license.

For information regarding bulk purchases of this book, digital purchase and special discounts, please contact the publisher at www.secondwindpublishing.com

Cover design by Tracy Beltran

Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-935171-11-9

To Natalie M.

Thanks for the inspiration.

—Laz Barnhill

1

She woke realizing she had been sleeping in a bed smaller and softer than the one in which she made her living, and that she was wearing the sort of flannel nightgown she hadn’t worn since she was a little girl.

The pleasant embraces of the bed and the gown and the soft cotton sheets were quickly overwhelmed by dull pain in her stomach. As she pulled her knees toward her chin and rolled onto her side, she saw a pale light revealing a doorway to another room. There a man sat at a table, his back to her. She knew for certain then that she wasn’t at the saloon and she wondered where she was.

She pushed the covers back and slowly sat up on the side of the bed. As her feet descended and her head rose, the room began to turn rapidly. She looked down, cradling her forehead in her hands, a throbbing pain behind her eyes. This much, at least, was familiar to her. The pain in her stomach and head, and the nausea and bed spins, and the trembling hands always came when she had gone too long without a drink.

Still she managed to get to her feet, bent over with one hand on her stomach and other on her forehead. Taking small steps, she walked unsteadily toward the dim light. She bumped against the doorframe and rested there for a second or two before she continued.

Lifting her face a little to one side, she decided she was walking into a kitchen. The light was a lamp, kerosene turned up not too brightly, sitting on a small table. The wooden floor creaked as she shuffled into the kitchen and the man turned toward her, leaning away from the table on the back legs of his chair.

She did not recognize him. Surely not. She would’ve remembered his face—lean and sharp-eyed, crowned with a shock of thick brown hair. She took him at once to be someone who knew precisely what he intended to do at every moment. And she sensed as well he was a farmer. Most of her customers were textile mill workers or from the stone quarries. When a farmer came around he stood out immediately.

They stared at each other. She was waiting for some explanation of who he was and where she was. And he just seemed to be waiting.

As she started to speak, she became aware of the terrible taste in her mouth. Her voice was a harsh rasp. Have you got anything to drink?

There was the slightest hesitation before he responded, his voice sure and clear. Fresh out.

Her eyes darted around the little kitchen, some part of her hoping he was deceiving her, that she would see a friendly bottle. Instead her gaze fixed on an oval mirror, just large enough to reflect her appearance: her long, dark hair tangled, her face puffy and ashen, her shoulders stooped and bent forward, one hand not quite still upon the stomach she could see protruding slightly beneath the flannel gown. She felt her knees giving way and leaned against the back of another chair at the table.

I better sit down.

He watched her silently as she crept around the chair as if it were a precipice and slowly sat down on it. He closed the book lying on the table and leaned forward until his chair rested on all four legs.

You sure you’re ready to be up? He spoke with quiet, precise words.

She wanted to speak, to ask him all the obvious questions he should be answering without being asked. The words would not put themselves together. Slowly she lowered her head until it rested solidly on the table. I think I’m going to spit up.

Spit up what, darlin’? Nothing left in your stomach but bile. Whatever else was there you upchucked on the floorboard of my truck on the way up here.

She sighed and closed her eyes. There was the scraping sound of him pushing his chair back. She didn’t look, but felt him pick her up with a single, effortless motion, her head resting against his chest. Then she felt him putting her back in the same bed she had crawled out of and pulling the covers up around her neck. He brushed the disheveled hair out of her eyes with delicate motions and kissed her on the forehead.

It’s burning its way out of you, Lacey, he said. Tomorrow you’ll feel some better.

She rolled away from him and pulled her knees against her stomach. At least he knew her name.

The second time she woke up in the wonderful little bed she knew immediately she was better. Her head still ached, but the bed was no longer trying to throw her onto the floor. And the dull pain in her stomach had become mostly nausea, brought on, she thought, by the strong aroma of frying bacon.

She opened her eyes. The bedroom, which was scarcely larger than the bed, was full of morning light. Apart from the bed the only furniture in the room was a small, white chest of drawers. Above the foot of the bed was a dress she recognized as hers. It was hanging on a peg that, like all the walls, was painted an altogether dainty yellow.

Turning onto her side as she had the night before, she could see the kitchen table and hear the sounds of frying grease and of someone moving about. There was also a strange scraping sound coming from the other direction. She rolled onto her other side and raised up with her elbow beneath her. Pushing aside the thin curtains, she looked out the tiny, square window. She could see a shed a few yards away with a long-roofed overhang supported by creosote posts. And beneath the shelter was a dusty Model T truck with no sideboards.

So, she muttered, he does have a truck.

Again there was the scraping sound from just outside the window, but she could not see the source. Nothing was moving from the far left side of her view, where twin ruts made by the truck disappeared behind a tall stand of timber, to the far right, where the ground sloped downhill.  She could barely make out the shape of a larger outbuilding—maybe a barn. But what was the scraping?

Suddenly there was a rushing noise, like the sound she had heard as a child when a covey of quail took flight. The baying roar of a dog erupted only inches from her. The dog, immediately running at full speed, appeared from beneath her window only momentarily as it raced toward the shape of the distant barn. It was a white and brindle hound, its ears trailing frantically behind it.

The dog had startled her. It must’ve been digging just outside the bedroom. She laughed and caught her breath.

There seemed to be nothing threatening about this place where Lacey had found herself, apart from the absolute mystery of it. She wondered if perhaps Curly were behind her being here. Several times in the last few months he had commented that she was drinking too much.  She contemplated the possibility that he had packed her off while she was drunk so she could dry out for a while. Before though, when drinking had been a problem, he had taken her away himself for a day or two in the middle of the week. What day was it, anyway?

Pushing back the cotton sheets and the intricately stitched quilt, she put her feet on the floor again and, somewhat unsteadily, stood up. She straightened and stretched and made her way slowing into the kitchen.

She could tell from his movements that the man—the same one who had been sitting at the table the night before—was scrambling eggs. He glanced over his shoulder at her and a hint of a smile flashed across his face.

So you survived sobering up, he said. Not everybody does. He was scraping eggs onto a plate. Would say, ‘Good morning,’ to you but— he glanced out the kitchen window—must be nearly eight o’clock by now. I’ve burned half the day and the only thing I’ve done that I was supposed to do was milk the cow. But I do have some breakfast here for you.

A wave of nausea rolled through her as she smelled the food and thought about eating. Oh, I’m sick.

Here, he responded quickly, pulling a chair out for her. Sit here and drink this.

He poured a mug half full of coffee and the rest of the way full of milk and set it in front of her.

I take a little sugar with mine.

He shook his head. You won’t need it, rich as that milk is. It’s mostly cream.

Lacey’s hand shook so she could not grasp the cup without spilling the coffee.

The brief smile appeared again and he said, Why don’t you try it with two hands?

As she lifted the coffee to her lips, she wondered if she would throw it right back up. It did stay down, though, and for an instant her nausea seemed to ease.

Now eat a piece of this, he was saying. He set a plate before her with the fluffiest cornbread she had ever seen and cut a thick piece in two and lathered it with half-melted butter. As she reached out for it with a trembling hand, he said, Wait. He poured a spoonful of what she realized was honey over the buttered surface. It seemed to her to take forever. Now.

Either it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted or she had never been this hungry before. It was a flavor unlike any she had experienced, even when Curly had taken her to the continental kitchen in Charleston.

Lord, this is good, she said. She took another drink and reached for a second piece of bread.

It’s real sweet cornbread, he explained, and sourwood honey.

Sourwood?

He nodded. Yeah, sourwood honey. There’s a hive here on the mountain. He poured himself a cup of black coffee and sat down in the opposite chair. All the sugar—the honey, the cornbread, the cream in the coffee—it all helps to draw the alcohol out of you. Another piece or two of bread and you’ll be ready for some real breakfast.

Lacey gobbled down her second piece of cornbread. The more settled her stomach felt, the hungrier she became.

She tilted her head toward the stranger and studied his face. He wasn’t that old, she thought, not yet thirty. Although with farmers, their faces weathered, it was sometimes difficult to know. He had the lean, sturdy look of a man who was constantly busy, and she noticed again the perceptive quality in his expression.

It seemed to bother him when she watched him so closely. He got up and went back to the stove. As he mounded eggs and bacon on a plate for her, she looked around the kitchen. There was a cleanness and a neatness belying a woman oversight.

When he sat the plate before her and picked up her empty mug, she asked, Did Curly put you up to this?

He filled the cup with coffee and cream and set it down. I guess I don’t know any ‘Curly.’

She gave him a cynical smile and crossed her legs. She meant to do it provocatively, but the cotton nightgown was so full that only her foot, resting on her knee, protruded.

Sure you do, she said. You can’t miss him. A big fellow, about six-four or five. Big belly on him.

Oh! Two-Ton, the man said with a grin. Real stout boy with lots of dark hair on top of his head. Yeah, I know who you’re talking about.

So her being there wasn’t Curly’s idea? Who was this guy?

No, Mr. Curly didn’t put me up to anything. In fact he took real exception to me walking out with you the other evening. Took right much persuasion before he saw things my way.

She tore another piece of cornbread in half. Wait a minute, rooster. You’re saying that Curly didn’t want you to take me out of the saloon, but you talked him into it?

There was the little grin. Something like that.

She shook her head. Nobody ever talked Curly into anything. Who are you? she asked. And where the hell am I?

He seemed to have the habit of waiting a moment before answering direct questions, and when he did this time there was something like the slightest bit of embarrassment in this voice. Andy. My name is Andy Warren. He blew across the top of his coffee mug. You still don’t remember me?

Darlin’, I never saw you before.

Well, you never saw me when you were sober, he said. This is the third time we met. I first saw you about four or five months ago. I was coming back from Little Washington and stopped off in Draper. Thought I’d have some late supper and your saloon was the only place open. Come to think of it, the place is named ‘Curly’s,’ isn’t it? That was the first time we were together.

Well, ‘together?’ Do you mean we just spoke or do you mean—

No, I mean we were together.

Oh.

And you don’t remember me, or the name you called me?

Lacey shook her head.

He took a drink. So, he said slowly, I came through a couple months ago and I was with you again. . . . And you were even drunker that time. But you did call me by the same name. I guess maybe it’s something you call all your—customers.

When men went to bed with her, what did she call them to their faces? What?

The stranger didn’t speak right away.

Reviews for Lacey Took a Holiday

[sheiladeeth_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Good-hearted farmer falls in love with fallen woman and offers a new life. It’s been written a hundred times before, but not like this. Here the farmer’s as wounded as the woman he loves. The woman’s the one with a care (albeit fairly distant) for church and its trimmings, while the country farmer finds no solace there. Bad guys might be good. Good guys might sin. And the demon drink’s no more evil than any other human failing.The characters feel genuinely real and conflicted in this tale. Miscommunications are a side-effect of honest care, not defined by the plot. And simple solutions are too complex for real emotion. The dialog’s peppered with genuine humor and fun. The tragedy’s seasoned with hope. And the future beckons in a story that’s quick and easy to read, pleasing to digest, and enjoyably different and real. America just after WWI has never seemed so vivid or so real.Disclosure: I bought a copy of this a while ago and it languished on my to-read shelf. I’m just sorry I didn’t lift it down sooner, because it’s a really good book!