Free From This Day Forward: Multicultural Romance by Cassandra Black Page A

couldn’t wait to lay eyes on her friend, and to tell her she’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask Alonzo out. It would be good to see her friend; she was looking forward to catching up.

Chapter 11
     
    Later that night, when Alonzo returned to the home he inhabited on the eastern front of the vineyard, he studied himself in the mirror.
     
    No; he was not as young as he used to be. He remembered the younger, stronger, head-strong Italian with wide-eyed dreams of becoming a championship boxer. He’d made great strides in the small region of his own country, becoming known as the spirited, young fighter to watch. But his father had different plans for him.  He was only fifteen when his old man sent for him to come to America. 
     
    He remembered he didn’t want to leave Galonias Harbour, knowing he’d be leaving behind comrades he’d known all of his life. They watched out for and protected each other. And he was making his way up the ranks in a sport he loved, which would mean nothing in America. He’d have to start all over.
     
    And there was Marissa.
     
    He’d fancied her since he was a boy, though she seemed to have eyes for anybody but him. He believed that was one of the things he loved most about her, though. Unlike the other village girls, Marissa didn’t pay much attention to him.  But be believed she would come around in time just the same. After all, their fathers had already paired them as future husband and wife.
     
    He reflected fondly on his father …
     
    Vincent Thornton had not been a wealthy man back then, but he’d worked enough doing odd jobs to finally send for his only child to come to America. It was what his late wife always wanted:  the dream of America for their family, and it had finally come true, God rest her soul.
     
    Coming to America changed Alonzo’s world. He was no longer the young man everyone knew and looked up to in Galonias; he was now just the new kid from a little village in Italy. When he and his father were finally able to afford a permanent place to live, their apartment was on a block filled with migrant families who worked the vineyards for wealthy owners in Bordeaux and the surrounding Napa County valleys. Alonzo went to school during the week and worked alongside his father on the vineyard on the weekends.
     
    There was no time for play; and there was certainly no time for pursing a boxing career.
     
    Three years after Alonzo’s arrival to America, his father had finally saved enough money to buy a small parcel of land bordering the vineyard they worked on. As a result of that purchase from an old widow, their lives changed forever. While digging the well on their property, they hit a vein of black gold -- oil -- that made their father a wealthy man. 
     
    Not long after that, Vincent Thornton outright bought the vineyard he, his son, and most of his friends, had worked as field hands.
     
    Alonzo was promptly sent off to college to study business and finance so he could be prepared to run the vineyard they now owned. 
     
    Though Alonzo dated a few women in college, Marissa was always at the front of his mind.  A few months after graduating and returning to the vineyard, he sent for his future wife to come to America.
     
    But Marissa had a mind of her own and a flirtatious manner.  Her eyes had wandered as a young lady in Italy, and they continued to wander after she became Mrs. Alonzo Thornton in America.
     
    Alonzo sighed as he thought about his then-young wife and her leaving his side.
     
    He’d lost her too soon, and during the process, he’d lost his courage to get attached to anything, and anyone, that he adored.  He’d lost his friends when he was a boy; he’d lost boxing; and he’d lost his wife.  After she left, he decided it was better not to get attached to anything at all -- except his son, Umberto, whom he adored.
     
    So over the years, he’d remained alone, not getting attached to anything but hard work. 
     
    But after