Sarah Todd

by Chloe Garner

  She thought of the ridiculous dinners, the staff running around. Lise.

  “Maybe if it were just the boys,” she said. “But I don’t want to be one of them.”

  “You won’t,” he said. “Even if that’s what I wanted, it could never happen.”

  “It’s what everyone’s going to see,” she said. “It’s what they’re going to expect.”

  He shook his head.

  “No.”

  She waited, then, coaxing more, “No?”

  “No,” he said. “You aren’t going to be one of them because they won’t be there.”

  “What?”

  “I’m moving all of them out into the houses we built for the investors. We’ll get better accommodations built as we get to it, but they’ll be fine there, for now. Do them good to be that much closer to town. Actually get to know the place again.”

  “There isn’t a single one of them who’s going to take that without an argument.”

  “Thomas will,” Jimmy said. “He doesn’t like being in the same house with the rest of us, as it is.”

  Sarah blinked at him and he smiled.

  “Let me worry about them. I don’t care what they think. It’s my house, and we’ll find something else for them when the time comes.”

  “They’re Lawsons,” Sarah said. “And I’m not. That matters. They’re going to see me as interfering.”

  There was a gentle concern, one that made the base of her neck tingle. She’d never seen that expression from him before.

  “You don’t have to,” he said, “but you’ll be a Lawson the second you say you are. One I trust more than any of them.”

  She lay her head down on her pillow with a sigh.

  “Jimmy...”

  From where she was, she could only see one of his eyes, half of his face. Just inches away from her.

  “You’re Sarah Todd. I get it. I’m just telling you. You’re one of us, whenever you say you are.”

  His palm found the curve of her face and she closed her eyes.

  “Come home with me,” he said, his voice soft. It wasn’t an order. It was a question, a request. Somehow, that was harder to say no to.

  She thought of her years in that house, how happy she’d been, how safe she’d felt with Jimmy and Elaine watching out for her. She didn’t need to feel safe; she was plenty of force unto herself and no one needed to take care of her, but it had been a good place.

  “I want my old room,” she said. He laughed.

  “You hear how absurd that is?”

  She opened her eyes and waited and he shook his head helplessly.

  “It’s yours,” he said. “Anything you want.”

  “And get rid of the staff,” she said.

  “All of them?” he asked. “You don’t want someone to cook and someone to clean?”

  “That’s fine, but we don’t need a butler and a serving staff.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “All right,” she echoed.

  What had she just agreed to?

  What had just happened?

  Jimmy shook his head.

  “Thomas and Rhoda are going to be unlivable.”

  “Kayla, too,” Sarah said.

  “We’re gonna give ‘em hell, though,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Sarah agreed. “They aren’t going to see us coming.”

  She certainly hadn’t.

  ––—

  They lay in bed for perhaps another hour, but it wasn’t in either of their natures to spend an entire afternoon as unproductively as that, so they got up and dressed, parting ways at the door.

  Jimmy was going to have to walk home, but Sarah hardly felt bad leaving him. He deserved it.

  “Don’t forget,” he said. “Don’t come back here tonight. There won’t be anything left.”

  “If I want to come back here and sleep on the floor, I will,” Sarah said, tacking Gremlin and swinging up into the saddle as Jimmy stood at the road, leaning on the fence to watch her.

  “Then I’ll have to make sure they take they door off, too.”

  Sarah looked up at the porch and then back at Jimmy.

  “You touch that door, you’ll have my whip to answer to.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered quietly with a smile, then started off toward the Lawson house.

  Her house.

  Strange.

  She rode through the vagrant camp making announcements, then spent the rest of the day at Granger’s shop taking information from men who were interested in working up in the mountains for the new claim owners. More than one of them asked about the process for registering a claim for themselves, and she told them that she wouldn’t reserve a claim for people who didn’t have the means to exploit it. As the mine owners started paying, though, she could see the flood of new prospectors coming. The cycle was starting back up, writ large, and Jimmy was going to have to do something dramatic to keep all of them from starving or turning to claim jumping when the new claims turned up as dry as they were before.

  Pete had known what he was doing. There was a little bit of gold up there, and some precious stones with market value, if you knew where to look and how, but prospecting had never been more than a hobby to him, a game that he kept at because it was in his blood. These men would be looking at their little plots of land to support them, and Sarah knew, statistically, just how unlikely that was.

  All the same, she’d block off the claims and she’d collect the dues for protection.

  Business was business.

  As it got closer to dinner time, Kayla came in the front door, approaching Sarah with a certain enthusiasm.

  “Is it true?” the woman asked. Sarah raised an eyebrow as she finished taking the information from the next man in line. She waved the rest of them away.

  “Come back in an hour,” she said, waving at Granger and walking out onto the walkway with Kayla.

  “Did you know?” Sarah asked.

  “Know what?” Kayla answered. “It was the dress, wasn’t it?”

  “That Rhoda and Thomas are together.”

  “What?” Kayla asked. “No, you’ve got it wrong. They were together, for a long time, but they broke up before I met Wade. I never even met her.”

  “You didn’t know?” Sarah asked, watching Kayla carefully. She might have underestimated the woman before, and she didn’t want to let that happen now, when it was important.

  “Know what?” Kayla asked again, more emphatically. “You have to tell me what he said.”

  “What do you know?” Sarah asked. Kayla grinned.

  “He’s kicking everyone out of the house because you’re moving in, and that you’re going to marry him.”

  Sarah grimaced, adjusting her hat.

  “Freer with that than I’d like,” she said.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Kayla asked. “He wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”

  “True enough,” Sarah said.

  “I do feel bad for Rhoda,” Kayla said. “She’s nice enough.”

  “She’s with Thomas,” Sarah said again. Kayla shook her head.

  “No, I told you, apparently she and Jimmy started writing, and he stole her, if you can count it like that.”

  Sarah sighed and stopped walking, turning to look Kayla in the face.

  “I ain’t gonna say it again. She came here for Thomas.”

  “Jimmy stole her that quickly?” Kayla asked. No way that was guile. No way.

  “No. Thomas and Rhoda hatched a plan to try to make me jealous,” Sarah said. “And apparently Jimmy went along with it.”

  Kayla started to speak then stopped, closing her mouth and frowning. She started and stopped again, then shook her head.

  “She’s been sleeping in Jimmy’s room and everything,” she said. “I can’t picture Thomas going along with that.”

  Sarah laughed.

  “I don’t think he knew what he was getting into. Rhoda went for it.”

  Kayla looked at her oddly.

/>   “And you went along with it?”

  Sarah swallowed, looking away.

  “Didn’t find out until this morning. Jimmy made some valid points.”

  “It’s real then,” Kayla said after a pause. “It’s really going to happen.”

  “What?” Sarah asked. The seriousness of Kayla’s tone confused her.

  “They all say...” Kayla stopped, flushing. Sarah’s eyebrows shot up.

  “What do they all say?”

  Kayla covered her cheeks with her palms.

  “I shouldn’t say.”

  “You’re gonna,” Sarah warned. “What do they all say?”

  “You don’t care anyway,” Kayla backpedaled. “They all say you don’t care.”

  “So then there’s no problem, you tellin’ me,” Sarah said.

  Kayla looked at her balefully, but Sarah was unyielding. Kayla sighed.

  “Rich said once that you and Jimmy were like a dog chasing his tail. Attached, but not like he’s ever going to catch it.”

  “A dog,” Sarah said flatly. Kayla covered her eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have said.”

  “Jimmy know this?”

  “What doesn’t he know?” Kayla asked, then snapped her hands away from her face. “No one says it in front of him. Just... He knows everything.”

  “He does, at that,” Sarah said. “Well, they’d best get used to the idea.”

  “No one is rooting against you,” Kayla said, then tipped her head back and forth. “Well, no one you’d think isn’t rooting against you.”

  “You mean Lise,” Sarah said. Kayla shrugged.

  “She doesn’t get along with anyone.”

  “Well, you’re all gettin’ kicked out of your home on account of me,” Sarah said. “I’d only expect a certain amount of dark feelin’s on account of that.”

  Kayla grimaced skeptically.

  “Truth? I can’t wait. I hate being in a house with all of them. I was hoping, when we left Intec, that they’d all have different houses here, and then there was just the one...”

  Sarah tried to imagine living with the entire family in the one house, knowing that her aversion to the idea was why Jimmy had split them all up, but easily seeing why it would be hard, no matter who she was. Kayla took her hand and pressed it, odd, even foreign to Sarah, that touch that was more personal, more intentional than just a simple handshake.

  “I’m happy for you,” Kayla said. “And you were beautiful yesterday. You should let me make you another dress or two. Ones that you’d wear more often.”

  “Would have to do for ridin’,” Sarah said, shocked that her first reaction hadn’t been dismissive.

  Kayla nodded quickly.

  “There are some amazing styles. I’ve been doing some research from my books, and... I think I’d like to try to design my own style. Just for Lawrence.” She pressed her lips, her eyes sparkling. “Maybe put together a line. Something that, you know, maybe you could only get in Lawrence, that people would come here to get. You’d be walking down a road in Intec and someone would say ‘isn’t that a Kayla design?’ and you say ‘yes, I went all the way to Lawrence to get it’. You know?”

  Sarah smiled helplessly.

  “Maybe so.”

  Kayla grinned.

  “You’ll see.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “I would love it if you showed up Jimmy for dreaming big.”

  Kayla looked away quickly, then grinned at the walkway.

  “I will,” she said. “You watch.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “I need to get back to Granger’s. Thank you.”

  Kayla looked shy for a moment, then nodded.

  “Lawrence is better off with the two of you together. Things are going to be better, from here. I can feel it.”

  “I ain’t in the business of trustin’ feelin’s, but that’s how it’s always been, times past.”

  “I always know,” Kayla said. “Mama always said I had the best gut she’d ever seen.”

  Sarah looked at her with wordless bemusement, and Kayla laughed, skipping away. As she passed the tavern, she turned, still going backwards.

  “Did you hear? They said the train is going to start running every day, now. There’s too much going on, now, for them to be here any less.”

  “No,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “No, I hadn’t heard that.”

  Been a long time since the train ran reg’lar.

  Back then, the Lawsons ran things.

  Now there was Sarah Todd.

  THE END

  ..................

  YOU’VE REACHED THE END OF Sarah Todd. I hope you enjoyed the ride. Some retailers or devices may redirect you from this point to help you go find other books you already own or that you might want to buy, but if you check out the next pages, I’ve got links for my other work and the opportunity to sign up to be the first to hear when the sequel to Sarah Todd becomes available.

  Once more, I’m so grateful for readers like you who invest their time in my stories, and I wish you happy reading for the future!

  Chloe

  MORE FICTION BY CHLOE GARNER

  ..................

  Urban Fantasy

  IN THE SAM AND SAM Series an evasive Samantha joins Sam and Jason as they travel the country hunting that which would otherwise hunt people. As they work together and grow their skills they soon find they’re players in a game they didn’t even realize existed.

  -Rangers

  -Shaman

  -Psychic

  -Warrior

  -Dragonsword

  Isobel crosses paths with our main story in an upcoming novel, but her story is so much more than that. Historical fiction paranormal is hard to write, but when a story wants out who am I to argue?

  -Isobel

  The Book of Carter is a four part series centered on the man who frankly needs little help centering things on himself. Samantha’s teacher in all things demonic, Aspen Carter keeps the demons of New York City in line with his bright smile and winning personality. Or whatever the opposite of that is. And a sword.

  -Book of Carter

  The Gypsy Queen series travels with a Makkai Gypsy tribe that uses their gift in crystal magic to defend human kind from evil, whatever form that takes. Bella’s tribe is one of the best, but being good doesn’t make life any easier.

  -Gypsy Becca: Death of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Dawn: Life of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Bella: Legacy of a Gypsy Queen

  Science Fiction

  Following Cassie, an analyst and former jumper at the Air Force’s portal base in Kansas we chase foreign terrestrial (you know, space alien) Jessie to other planets. This is about as sci-fi as it gets, with a side helping of military politics.

  -Portal Jumpers

  -Portal Jumpers II: House of Midas

  Thriller (as Mindy Saturn)

  Whether it’s infiltrating the mob or challenging a drug lord, His Dark Mistress is keeping her hands on the strings that keep the bad people of the world good enough for now.

  -His Dark Mistress

  -The King of Miami

  Novellas and more

  You can get access to short stories, novellas, and more for free when you sign up for Chloe’s newsletter.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ..................

  I’M CHLOE AND I AM the conduit between my dreaming self and the paper (well, keyboard, since we live in the future). I write paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, and whatever else goes bump in the night, I also write mystery/thriller as Mindy Saturn. When I’m not writing I steeplechase miniature horses and participate in ice cream eating contests. Not really, but I do tend to make things up for a living.

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erested in my writing about writing? Feel free to check out my website.