Dollyflods

By Sarah M. Anderson

"A dollyflod spring is dessert after a Brussels sprouts winter!" That's what my Grans said every year as we planted dollyflods--what everyone else called daffodils. Some winters are a little more bitter than others, she said, but that just makes the spring all the more sweet.

In this short contemporary story from award-winning author Sarah M. Anderson, we're reminded that even in times of darkness and loss, there's still hope.

Content warning: This short story includes daffodils, the loss of a grandparent, and growing up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah M. Anderson
• Release date: Mar 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781941097632

Sarah M. Anderson

I spent my childhood wandering through the woods behind our house, pretending to be an Indian. Later, when I fully discovered horses, it prompted my mother the history teacher to put anything and everything about the High Plains tribes into my hands. This infatuation lasted for over a decade. At some point, I got away from Indians. My mother blames boys. I discovered Victorian novels and didn't look back - not for almost two decades. I got a Bachelor's of Arts in English from Truman State University and a Master's of Arts in English from The Ohio State University. And through it all, I knew I wanted to write novels. I just had no idea how to do it. It took a caffeine-fueled car trip with my 92-year-old grandmother and two-year-old son in July of 2007 to awaken my Muse. That story would become my first book as I figured out how, exactly, one writes a novel. Let's just say the learning curve was steep. One character led to another, and before long, I found my characters out in South Dakota, among the Lakota Sioux tribe. Modern-day cowboys, who are the Indians - without planning it this way, I find myself writing about the people and places that held my imagination throughout my childhood. In 2010, I sold my first novel, the award-winning Indian Princess, to Stacy Boyd of Harlequin Desire. The book will be released in 2012. Stay tuned for more updates! I live in Illinois with my husband, son, Jake the Three-Legged Wonder Wiener dog, and Gater the Four-Legged Mutt. I am a writer and editor at Mark Twain Media, Inc., an educational publishing company. I am a member of Romance Writers of America, the Chicago-North RWA, Women Writing the West, and the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. When not chasing my son around or tweaking my books, I attempt to read, knit, and occasionally complete a home improvement project in my historical 1895 Queen Anne house. Sarah loves to hear from readers via her email: [e-mail]

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Dollyflods Copyright © 2020 by Sarah M. Anderson

Cover design by Sarah M. Anderson

Layout by www.formatting4U.com

All rights reserved. Except in use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the copyright holders. For questions, comments, or permissions, please contact Maggie Chase at [e-mail].

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Digital ISBN: 978-1-9410976-3-2

Other Books by Sarah M. Anderson

Men of the White Sandy

The Medicine Man

The Rancher

The Shadow

The Medic

The Sheriff

The Wannabe Cowboy

Lawyers in Love

A Man of His Word

A Man of Privilege

A Man of Distinction

Pride and Pregnancy

The Boltons

Straddling the Line

Bringing Home the Bachelor

Expecting a Bolton Baby

Little Secrets: Claiming His Pregnant Bride

Rich, Rugged Ranchers

A Real Cowboy

The Texas Cattleman’s Club

What a Rancher Wants

His Lost and Found Family

A Surprise for the Sheikh

Dynasties: The Newports

Claimed by the Cowboy

Rodeo Dreamers

Rodeo Dreams

One Rodeo Season

Crushing on the Cowboy

The First Family of Rodeo

His Best Friend’s Sister

His Enemy’s Daughter

His for One Night

The Beaumont Heirs

Not the Boss’s Baby

Seduced by the Cowboy

A Beaumont Christmas Wedding

His Son, Her Secret

Falling for Her Fake Fiancé

His Illegitimate Heir

Rich Rancher for Christmas

Billionaire’s Baby Promise

Billionaires and Babies

The Nanny Plan

His Forever Family

Twins for the Billionaire

Seduction on His Terms

Holiday Novellas

The Christmas Pony

NotMyFirstRodeo.com

Something About a Cowboy

Roping a Rancher

Writing as Maggie Chase

The Jeweled Ladies: The Mistress Series

His Topaz

Their Emerald

Her Ebony

His Sapphire

His Crown Jewel

The Jeweled Ladies: The Rogues Series

His Diamond

Their Amethyst

Dedication

To Gram, who danced alone on New Year’s Eve to Glenn Miller;

To Mom and her aunt, who used jellybeans as lipstick;

To my toddler self, who couldn’t say daffodils and somehow came up with dollyflods instead;

And to everyone who is holding on for a little burst of hope in a dark time right now. Hold on a little longer. The dark times won’t last forever and when they end, the spring will be that much sweeter.

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Table of Contents

Dollyflods

Excerpts of Other Books by Sarah M. Anderson

Eleanore Gray

The Christmas Pony

Men of the White Sandy

The Medicine Man

The Rancher

The Shadow

The Medic

The Sheriff

The Wannabe Cowboy

About The Author

Dollyflods

Dollyflods are the Good Lord’s gift, like chocolate chip cookies. With her helmet of blue hair safely tucked beneath a wide straw hat Momma had given her for her birthday once, Grans fished out another bulb out of the mud-coated bucket she kept close to her side and kept going. She always kept going. A dollyflod spring is dessert after a Brussels sprouts winter!

I didn’t know what she meant. I can remember not liking Brussels sprouts, and I must have figured it meant dollyflods were just yellow chocolate chip cookies. I couldn’t have been more than three, but even today I can remember that taste, like old onions mixed with dirt. Grans told that story every fall as we planted next spring’s dollyflods, dirt smudged on her cheeks. She got a big kick out of it, her chest heaving with joy as she plunked another bulb into the ground, sprinkled it with fertilizer, and mounded dirt on top with the same spade her Hubert had gotten her on her first Mother’s Day, all the way back in 1934.

Grans planted dollyflods every year. Her gardens erupted into sudden flurries of yellows, oranges, whites, and pinks; dollyflods with heads no bigger than a nickel and dollyflods with trumpets the size of a baseball; simple dollyflods with one graceful head on a long, elegant stem, and robust dollyflods with more frills than a petticoat. Every year, another hybrid would come out, and she dug up another small patch of ever-dwindling yard.

People came from four towns over to see her gardens when they were in full bloom every May. Once, a reporter came all the way out from the Springfield Register and wrote a story about The Bulb Lady. In the picture that went with it, you can just see my head peeking out from behind the profusion of flowers, holding Grans’ hand. Momma said it was her