Rising Waters Read online

  Sarah Todd

  Rising Waters

  Chloe Garner

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2019 Chloe Garner

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Covers by Christian, based on a design by Desiree DeOrto

  Published by A Horse Called Alpha

  Work by Chloe Garner

  Space Western

  -Sarah Todd

  -Sarah Todd: Rising Waters

  Science Fiction

  -Portal Jumpers

  -Portal Jumpers II: House of Midas

  -Portal Jumpers III: Battle of Earth

  Anadidd’na Universe

  -Rangers

  -Shaman

  -Psychic

  -Warrior

  -Dragonsword

  -Child

  -Gorgon

  -Book of Carter

  -Gypsy Becca: Death of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Dawn: Life of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Bella: Legacy of a Gypsy Queen

  Urban Fantasy

  -Hooligans

  Rising Waters

  Sarah was pretty sure it was all Kayla’s idea.

  The whole blasted thing.

  Lawrence was still a mess, young men runnin’ round everywhere, homeless and drunk, and weren’t nearly enough of the mine owners hirin’ ‘em up and shippin’ ‘em up into the mountains, for Sarah’s taste.

  She’d’a rounded the whole lot up, every last muddy, stinking one of ‘em and auctioned ‘em off like the plots themselves, if she’d had her druthers about it, but it weren’t her call and boy didn’t she know it.

  She’d moved into the Lawson estate, easy enough, with Gremlin and Dog, and she was livin’ in her old room again, with the rest of the Lawson clan out in the blow-up houses south of town, and it was good enough. Town was still a wreck, but at least the Lawson house felt like it always had.

  And then Kayla had pointed out that Jimmy was up there in the master suite all by his lonesome and why in hell hadn’t Sarah taken that up - only Kayla was much more subtle about the ask than Sarah woulda been - and Sarah might have just let it slip that it was cause they weren’t married.

  Actually, what she’d probably said was that it woulda been different, if’n they had been married, but they weren’t, and Sarah was going to damn well stay in her own home, even if it did share a roof with Jimmy Lawson, and Kayla’s eyes just went ding and from there, it was all her fault.

  She’d talked to the women in town, gettin’ a feel for how Lawrence weddings went, then she’d sent for supplies and shut down her shop for two weeks solid, wouldn’t open the door to nobody. What had come explodin’ out of that little dress shop were tulle and taffeta beyond Sarah’s ability to measure, decorations and invitations, little bitty cards with people’s names on ‘em, and a seating plan.

  A seating plan.

  Dumber than horse milk, telling a Lawrence family where to sit. They were damned well going to sit wherever the hell they felt like it, and like as not they’d never even see the little cards before they sat on em.

  But every time Sarah tried to complain about it, some new, bright-colored plan came spoolin’ out of Kayla’s mouth, and Sarah learned right quick to avoid any more conversations.

  One night at dinner, sittin’ more-or-less twenty feet away from Jimmy at the other end of the empty dining room table, Sarah had waggled her fork at him.

  “You know, though,” she said. He’d set his silverware down and raised his eyebrows at her. She waggled her fork again. “You know, you ain’t so much as proposed.”

  He dabbed his mouth superficially with his white-cloth napkin - the height of pretension; Elaine Lawson wouldn’t have heard of such a thing in her home; in her day, the cloth napkins had been maroon - and he stood.

  “I’ve told you how I feel about that,” his mouth twitched, “mockery of an accent in this house.”

  “And I told you, I don’t give a damn what you think about it,” she answered, wishing she were wearing her hat.

  He continued toward her, his fingers trailing along the white tablecloth behind him. He stopped just steps away from her.

  “The wedding is going to happen,” he said. “I told Kayla I proposed and you said yes.”

  He pulled a gremlin cigarette out of his pocket and took a moment to light it, watching her with veiled eyes before taking a drag and blowing smoke at the ceiling.

  “Liar,” she said. The corners of his mouth twitched.

  “I did propose,” he said. “And you did accept.”

  “Yeah, but I was in a dress, and you were in my room,” she said. “Don’t count.”

  “Do you want hobflowers?” he asked, his eyebrow coming up as he took another deep draw on the cigarette, holding his breath as he watched for her reaction. She felt the corners of her eyes tighten, and there was a flicker of amusement in his as he turned his head to the side and blew smoke away from the table. She hated hobflowers, and he knew it. That and it was one of the stupidest traditions the town of Lawrence had, seeing as it meant couples could only create an intention for the brief season that the hobflowers were around.

  He held out his hand, fingers limp below the palm, and she took the cigarette, setting it in the corner of her mouth and looking at him with defiant eyes. He chuckled.

  “Does it count here?” he’d asked.

  “Good a time as any,” she said, and he nodded, dropping one knee to the floor.

  “Marry me, Sarah Todd,” he said. She pulled air through the cigarette, the flavor of the gremlin leaves one of her chief pleasures in life, then put the cigarette back between her fingers and let her arm fall back onto the back of the chair.

  “I’m not changing my name,” she said, letting the accent fall away. He didn’t budge, but the little twitch there in his thin lips told her exactly what she’d already known. He wanted her to be Sarah Lawson. She shook her head.

  “I’m going to stay Sarah Todd,” she said. “I’ve been Sarah Todd a lot of years, and you aren’t going to change that.”

  “I will accept it,” he said, “but you have always been a Lawson. You know that.”

  She pursed her lips, glancing at the cigarette, but leaving it dangling behind the chair.

  “And I want a horse.”

  “You have a horse.”

  She nodded.

  “The biggest, whitest horse anyone has ever seen.”

  A flare to his nostrils, just for a moment, as he calculated that one out. Gremlin was a big, fine black horse, and he suited her better than any great white charger ever would, but a town like Lawrence didn’t have many white things. The red sand and unceasing wind made everything a dingy yellow that the sand didn’t bury outright. A white horse… She could see that he could see it.

  He nodded.

  “Very well.”

  “I ain’t wearin’ a dress,” Sarah Todd said, holding her hand up so he could take the cigarette back again as she turned to face the table once more.

  “That’s between you and Kayla,” he answered with humor in his voice.

  --------

  The dress was an event, unto itself.

  The town of Lawrence celebrated its hobflower season, the one when the tiny flowers grew everywhere the ground showed, and it came out in their very few rituals and ceremonies in the most obnoxious ways.

  One of ‘em was the dress.

  It was lavender, the color of the bulk of the hobflowers, and all the buttons down the back were the rainbow of colors that the stray hobflowers came up in. It was a show of wealth, it was, for the bride to wear as many colors as possible woven into a dress, and Kayla had outdone herself. Every button was a different color. Tiny, fingernail-sized bows dotted the front in yet more colors. The threads of the shoul
ders were each and every one of ‘em a different color again.

  “No,” Sarah said, seeing it. “I ain’t doin’ it, and you ain’t got the body big enough to make me.”

  “Wade said he’d give me a gun if I wanted,” Kayla answered, giddy. “It’s so pretty. I had no idea, when I started, that it was going to turn out like that.”

  Sarah had turned a dark eye on the woman. At least the other gowns she’d made and sold to the town had class and tact. This dress was a cloud on an imaginary planet, a world populated with faeries and pixies and magical dust.

  “I ain’t doin’ it.”

  Kayla giggled again, taking Sarah’s hand and twirling in front of her to grab at the other. Sarah resisted jerking it away.

  “This dress took me a lot of time,” Kayla nodded. “I wove sections of the fabric by hand. I had lots of time to think about the threat I was going to use to get you to use it.”

  “Better be good,” Sarah muttered.

  Kayla bounced on her toes once, goin’ to handle the gossamer sleeves with delicate fingers. As a rule Sarah didn’t trust folk with soft hands, but Kayla was mostly harmless.

  Weren’t no way she was getting Sarah in that dress.

  Kayla smiled, looking at the window, special tech from the coast that would change from transparent to opaque at any rate Kayla liked.

  “If you refuse to wear this dress for the wedding, I’m going to put it in the window every single day with a sign that says ‘Sarah Todd’s wedding dress’,” Kayla said, turning her beaming smile at Sarah. “People are all going to come up to you to talk to you about it. How beautiful it is. Colorful. Congratulate you. All of that.”

  Damn.

  Damn but damn, she was a tough woman.

  Sarah stared hard, trying to keep her jaw from working.

  She could shoot her.

  That was one option.

  Kayla’s red lips flared a wider smile and she petted the dress again.

  “It’s a wedding, Sarah. You only have to wear it for a couple of hours.”

  “And then I’m going to feed it to a fire,” Sarah said.

  “No,” Kayla said melodically. “If you do that, I’ll put a picture up on the wall and keep it there forever.”

  “What exactly you intend to do with a used weddin’ dress?” Sarah asked.

  “Save it for your daughters,” Kayla said innocently.

  There was an explosion of violence behind Sarah’s brain at the bare suggestion, and she turned on her boot heel to leave before she engaged any more with the petite woman.

  “Sarah?” Kayla had called out as she’d left. “Are you going to wear it?”

  “Yes, I’ll wear it,” Sarah answered without looking back.

  Damned woman.

  --------

  So the morning of the wedding, Sarah stood in Kayla’s dress shop there on the main strip, standing on an absurd little stool because Kayla insisted she needed it to work the hem, watching her reflection in a full-length mirror. Lise, Sunny, and Rhoda stood against a wall, sipping some sort of watered-down spirit out of glasses that were like to smash if you gripped ‘em too hard.

  Lise was angry.

  Sarah was pleased with this, though she wouldn’t have admitted it out loud because it would have meant fessin’ up to being a part of the woman’s petty politics. She’d had a line on Jimmy from long back, when they’d come, and he’d stopped sleeping with her when he’d taken up with Sarah again.

  Sunny was bored. She mostly looked at the ceiling and refused to talk to anyone unless someone asked her a specific question. Sarah still had no idea what Rich Lawson saw in her. Rhoda, though, glowed and chatted merrily with Kayla, talking about the new houses, the prospects of the town.

  “Oh, but he’s got big plans,” Kayla was saying.

  “Like what, though?” Rhoda asked. Kayla laughed, sticking pins in her mouth and stabbing them one by one into the dress before she answered.

  “Like he’d tell me,” she said. “If any of us know, it’s Sarah.”

  All four of them looked at Sarah, who was only barely staying up on the stool and in no mood to gossip.

  Not that she ever got the wind to gossip. She’d chew the fat with the men around town, but gossipin’ was a different thing, and it weren’t something she did with her time.

  “And if’n he did tell me, it’d be obvious I wouldn’t tell you, wouldn’t it?”

  Kayla laughed again, bringing out a tiny wind-up machine that stitched the fabric down below what Sarah could see. It was an antique, but town didn’t have power - just the Lawsons did - and everything Kayla did here would need to be mechanically driven.

  “You don’t fool us,” she said. “You’re excited about today.”

  “I ain’t excited about this dress,” Sarah said. “Are you done already?”

  “What would you get married in, if you got to choose?” Rhoda asked.

  Thomas’ betrothed wife. Thomas was the only one of the Lawson brothers that Sarah could stand, sometimes including Jimmy. Rhoda was intelligent and generous and witty and insightful and Sarah could find no reason to dislike her at all.

  Which was frustrating as hell.

  “Why dress up at all?” Sarah asked. “Not like nothing’s changing.”

  “Oh, it changes,” Sunny murmured.

  Everyone but Lise looked at her and Sunny shrugged, looking harder at the ceiling.

  There was a pause as it became apparent she had no intention of filling it, then Kayla bounced.

  “Everyone has to say something to give Sarah advice for married life,” she said, and Sarah tipped her head far enough that her hat would have fallen off, were she wearing one.

  “Ain’t a one of you I’d take nuptial advice from,” Sarah said.

  Four sets of eyes turned to look at her, Sunny intense and knowing, Lise scathing, and both Kayla and Rhoda curious.

  “I mean…” Kayla said. “Sure, some of us are… different.”

  “You mean that six months back I was sleeping with your fiancé?” Lise asked.

  “I mean I wouldn’t marry a one of your husbands, save Thomas, and he’d be a fool to have me,” Sarah said. “What good do any of you do me, tellin’ me what’s what?”

  Rhoda grinned.

  “And none of us would go toe-to-toe with Jimmy.”

  “You jerked him around like a varmint in a trap,” Sarah said, and Rhoda shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “You did that. He only put up with me because he was trying to con you.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  It was true.

  And it was also the only way in hell either she or Jimmy ever woulda figured to get together.

  “No advice,” Sarah said. “Drink up and get me out of here.”

  Kayla stood, a dozen pins pinched between her lips, and she went back to her sewing box, putting them all away.

  “You’re ready,” she said, spreading her arms. “You look beautiful.”

  Sarah avoided looking at the mirror. No sense in it. She already knew what was there.

  “Might still burn this cursed thing,” Sarah said.

  “Nope,” Kayla said. “I just got my picture. It will go on the wall, unless you give it back.”

  “It might get a little bit of wear,” Rhoda said. “I don’t expect Jimmy’s going to be careful taking it off.”

  Sarah closed her eyes, wantin’ more ‘n anything to pin the woman against the wall by her throat and tell her where the line had been, but knowin’ it were an overreaction. It only stung because she was embarrassed, and she was only embarrassed because it had been so many years since she’d been around folk that talked that way so openly.

  Sex and baby-makin’ was a mystic art in Lawrence, something practiced in smokes and vapors behind a thick, drawn curtain.

  “Be nice,” Kayla scolded, making it worse.

  “I’m done,” Sarah said.

  “No,” Kayla crowed. “I have to do your makeup.”

 
; --------

  All of town’d turned out.

  Sarah knew they would, on account of Jimmy bringin’ in enough food and booze to float them all home, and the boys livin’ in their shanty town were known to be starvin’.

  Jimmy had a new win in his back pocket, and he were flush, spending free to show off, to buy out the town before they saw it comin’.

  He’d told her as much, the night he’d proposed again, as he’d lay with his back propped against the foot-end post of her bed, fingers woven across his belly, looking up through the window at the moon.

  Everyone knew the Lawsons meant business. Knew they had a right to what they took. Jimmy was still an enemy to some of the homesteaders, though, an outside force no one knew what to make of.

  Putting the whole town behind him, marking the union between the Lawson clan and the town’s longstanding protector - Sarah Todd - was a powerful signal to those families that this is what was, and they’d got no power to change it.

  Jimmy weren’t a negotiator. What didn’t go with him tended to go under him instead. Not that Sarah had a reputation much different.

  She walked down the middle of the road - which’d normally be up to her ankles in dodgy mud, but Jimmy had had wagonload after wagonload of sand brought in in the previous days, and he’d shut down the street to anything but boots in the meantime - and she saw the group amassed at the far end of the street. There was a break in the standing crowd, one about three armspans wide that she was intended to walk down.

  Behind her, the Lawson women followed in their vibrant dresses, their hair up in various styles that mostly represented their home couture, carrying handfuls of colorful silks that Kayla took to represent the hobflowers.

  Just as useless, if you asked Sarah.

  Which no one did.

  Typical.

  She might have turned and gone back into the dress shop but for one thing: Jimmy stood at the near end of the aisle, one hand tucked behind his back, the other up on the bridle of easily the most beautiful horse Sarah had ever laid eyes on.

  A horse was a tool, like a shovel or a toilet. When you needed one, you didn’t want to get caught out, but there weren’t no sense getting attached to such a thing.