Depths of Lake

  DEPTHS

  Of

  LAKE

  KEARY TAYLOR

  Copyright © 2014 Keary Taylor

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

  First Digital Edition: October 2014

  Cover Design by Keary Taylor

  Cover Images by Shutterstock

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Taylor, Keary, 1987-

  Depths of Lake : a novel / by Keary Taylor. – 1st ed.

  ALSO BY KEARY TAYLOR

  THE McCAIN SAGA

  Ever After Drake

  Moments of Julian

  Depths of Lake

  Playing it Kale (January 20, 2014)

  What I Didn’t Say

  FALL OF ANGELS

  Branded

  Forsaken

  Vindicated

  Afterlife: the novelette companion to Vindicated

  THE EDEN TRILOGY

  The Bane

  The Human

  The Eve

  The Raid: an Eden short story

  The Ashes: an Eden prequel

  CONNECT WITH KEARY ONLINE AT

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  KEARYTAYLOR.COM

  Keep up to date on everything Keary Taylor. Sign up for The Keary Post mailing list HERE.

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Also by Keary Taylor

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About Keary Taylor

  CHAPTER ONE

  The red, white, and blue run through my veins; guess that’s why I came out with hair red like fire at sunset.

  Dad served in the Marines for twenty-five years. We moved around. I bounced from school to school until my junior year. Then we stopped when he retired. He died three years ago when an old piece of shrapnel dislodged into his brainstem.

  Last year I met Cal. I fell in love. He asked me to marry him.

  And then on his last tour, he was killed.

  The red, white, and blue runs though my veins, but it has a tendency of ripping my heart out.

  The morning is chilly and damp, just like it is every spring morning in Duvall, Washington. Dew collects on my boots, turning the soft leather dark. I reach the pole in front of the house and attach the well-worn fabric to the line. A soft breeze catches it as I start hoisting it up. The American flag waves over my head, just as it does every morning, when either Mom or I put it up in Dad’s honor. And then one of us takes it down every night.

  I watch it wave for a minute and there’s a dull ache in my chest. It’s always there.

  I love this country. Always have, always will. But the cost of protecting it has caused me more than a fair share of pain.

  A nicker from the barn draws my eyes away from the flag.

  The gravel of our driveway crunches under my feet as I cross from our house to the barn. The smell of hay and grain and horses hangs heavy in the air. It’s a scent that triggers a lot of memories and feelings.

  The giant sliding door screeches as I push it open and excited whinnies bid me good morning.

  We have ten stalls total. Two of them are for our own horses. The rest are for horses I train and work with. The young, the out of control, the ones in need of just a little polishing. I take them all.

  I was born while Dad was stationed in Quantico, VA. We lived there for the first five years of my life. Then we left for eight years, spending time in California and Georgia. When we came back to Virginia, I was thirteen and I saw a flyer for horse riding lessons. What thirteen-year-old girl doesn’t want to learn to ride a horse?

  I climbed into the saddle and had never felt more at home.

  Every waking moment I wasn’t at school or doing homework, I was on that horse. Her name was Misty. And I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my life.

  Then two days after I turned fifteen, my parents dropped the bomb on me that Dad was officially retiring and we were settling in Washington State, where he was born.

  I was angry for all of fifteen seconds. We were moving, again, and I was going to have to leave my four-legged best friend behind.

  But we weren’t moving just to another tiny, rented house. They’d just bought a fifty-two acre ranch in need of resurrection.

  And here we are. Twelve years later.

  I’m a whole lot more experienced on the back of a horse. The ranch is on its feet.

  But Dad’s gone. It’s just me and Mom now. We don’t have a whole lot of money, but we pay the bills and we get by, working sixty-hour weeks.

  “Morning, Trooper,” I say to the black and white yearling in the first stall. I take a wide flake of hay and swing it into his feeder. I check his water. It’s mostly full. He tries nibbling my arm as I stroke his neck.

  A week ago, he wouldn’t let me within ten feet of him.

  “Trapper,” I say to Trooper’s cousin in the next stall. I give him a flake as well, one that is extra wide, as well as a scoop of oats. Trapper is thin and refusing to put on weight. He’s a responsive horse, but I worry about his health. If I don’t see progress in the next two weeks, I’m recommending a visit from the vet, Dr. Wyze. I hope he doesn’t have worms or something. That could be disastrous.

  I work my way down the line until I get to the two last stalls.

  “Hey, Radio,” I coo to my horse. He’s a buckskin gelding, sixteen hands tall, with the creamiest body and black as night feet and mane. He was the first colt we ever had, after we bred a mare a friend had given us. We didn’t really know what we were doing back then, but oh I was excited for my first very own foal. I was sixteen, about to start my junior year of high school. That mare grew big and round, and the vet told us the baby should come any day.

  We waited. And waited.

  And grew concerned.

  The baby wasn’t coming. The vet said we’d have to do something about it soon. I slept in the barn every night, waiting for that foal to come. One night, I was growing tired, barely able to keep my eyes open. So I turned the radio on to keep me awake.

  And two minutes later, there he was.

  I scratch between his ears and press a kiss to his soft, velvet nose when he sniffs at me.

  Radio fed, I turn to the stall across from his.

  Sir Devil.

  That’s not his real name. His real name is Sir Golden Touch, and his owners are as pretentious as his name. But he’s a devil of a horse, mean as a school-yard bully, and big as Goliath. They spent a small fortune on his breeding and now can’t even get a halter on him.

  I had to go out to their property and get him in the trailer myself. I got kicked once and my feet stomped on three times before we got him
loaded in the trailer. He kicked the hell out of it.

  Thankfully money was not an issue, and the owners replaced my old beater with a brand new one as an apology.

  There are a few perks to working with wealthy clients.

  Sir Devil flares his nostrils and stomps a foot as I feed him and check his water. I don’t take my eyes off of him while I’m in his stall. He’ll charge the second I look away.

  Just as I finish off the morning feedings, the twins come charging in.

  Chico, the handsomely dressed Boston terrier, jumps up on me, his little paws leaving muddy footprints on my jeans. He starts licking my legs and his little rear end wiggles back and forth in furious happiness. He was given to us because his old owners couldn’t handle his energy or jumpiness. He just needed some space to roam. He’s a great dog now.

  Bear lumbers in behind Chico, huge and hairy, and very muddy right now. He’s a gentle giant of a Bernese mountain dog. I got him as a puppy for my twenty-first birthday. Some people want to go out for drinks and to party. I just wanted someone who’d love me unconditionally. Bear does exactly that.

  While Bear is the giant, Chico is the boss, and Bear goes wherever Chico goes.

  “Come on, guys,” I call to the dogs and start for Mom’s garden.

  The garden lies directly behind the house, huge and sprawling. It’s just the two of us, so Mom has learned to be an expert in canning to deal with the excess. We have at least a year’s worth of food stored in the cold storage area of the garage just behind the garden.

  I grab the scarecrow that blew over last night and hammer it back into the ground. It sinks down in with little effort. The rainy spring has made the ground soft and slippery.

  Inside, I can hear Mom getting breakfast ready. She’ll have none of that processed cereal stuff that “all tastes like cardboard.” It’s fresh fruit and oatmeal every day for us. Prepared exactly how Dad used to like it.

  He’s been gone now for three years, and other than the two months right after it occurred, you’d never know it happened where Mom is concerned. She’s a rock of kindness and strength, and that didn’t change when her husband of twenty-eight years died. She carried on with a smile and dirt under her fingernails to get done what needed to be done.

  I try to be like her, I really do.

  But I don’t know if I’ll ever have her strength.

  Suddenly, the back door swings open and Mom’s face pokes out the door.

  “I can see it in your eyes that you’re thinking about it, but you get in here and eat something before you go work a minute more.”

  Her own eyes, green and vivid as an emerald, tell me she’s not kidding around. I am expected inside right now.

  Stuffing my hands deep into the pockets of my camo jacket, I cross the yard to the back door. Leaving my muddy boots and the muddy dogs on the porch, I step inside and sit at the table.

  There’s a smell in the kitchen that doesn’t belong. Like flowers. As Mom finishes getting our food ready, my eyes sweep the kitchen.

  There, in the garbage in the corner, is a dozen roses.

  Shit.

  But I don’t say anything to Mom. They’re in the trash for a reason, and because they’re there, it means that Mom’s trying to protect me.

  She sets a bowl on the table, hands me a spoon, and starts talking about something she watched on the news. Minimal engagement is required.

  I’m Riley James and I’m twenty-six years old now. I’ve lived outside of my parents’ home for a grand total of fourteen months. And I keep coming back.

  Some might call it a failure to launch.

  But my duty is here, taking care of the mother that took care of me. Taking care of the land my father fought to protect. And there’s no place I’d rather be.

  ____

  Breakfast. Rotating horses between the pasture and the arena. Mucking stalls. Rotating horses again.

  The sun rises up high in the sky, burning through the morning clouds. I grab a bottle of canned pears and a slice of Mom’s homemade bread for lunch, eating on the fence while I watch Sir Devil run himself crazy in the pasture.

  “I’m headed into town,” Mom calls from behind me. I look over my shoulder and see her digging through her purse, looking for keys. She heads for the garage. “Gonna get some feed for the chickens and some more rat killer. Did you notice them in the barn this morning?”

  I shake my head. “I did find a dead one in Sir Devil’s stall three days ago. It was pretty flat by that point.”

  Mom wrinkles her nose. “Well, I don’t want it becoming a problem, so I thought we’d get on it before it became one. I’m also stopping by the grocery store. Want me to pick anything up for you?”

  “You going into Woodinville?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “Whatever’s fine.” I hop down from the fence and start for the house to wash out the jar.

  “Okay,” she says, her hand on the door to the garage. She’s got to speak loud over the wide expanse. “Love you, Honey.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” I say as I walk inside.

  The air grows humid that afternoon as the sun beats down on the wet earth. It’s the last day of April, and we’ve had a wet one. The forecast is sunny and warm the next few days, but it’s supposed to pour on Wednesday.

  If the rain had continued much longer this week we would have had flooding issues. That’s the problem of being right at the base of a mountain in Washington. The back of our property butts up to the Cascade Mountains. We get snow pretty often in the winter, where most of the area around us doesn’t.

  I lunge Trooper in the arena for twenty minutes until he’s good and warmed up. I walk him over to the tack room and tie him up. We work on getting a blanket and a saddle on him for about an hour and by the time we’re through, he’s let me do up both cinches.

  This is huge progress.

  He gets a good brushing when he’s done and I take him to his stall. Trapper gets the same workout, but the condensed version. I don’t want to overexert him, considering his condition.

  Next up is Lady. She’s tiny and adorable. Her coloring is similar to Radio’s, but her cream is a bit darker than his. She’s a POA, a Pony of America. She’s a bit overweight. Her owners let her out to pasture every day, and fed her hay, and gave her oats twice a day. The owners have three young daughters who are dying to ride her, but she’s strong-willed and needs a firm hand.

  Once I’m done training her, I’ll start giving the girls riding lessons.

  It isn’t something I do often. I’m not a people person, and I’m horrible about telling people what to do. Horses are simple. I know how to listen to them, and I know how to make them do what I want them to do. People are different. They’re harder.

  But it’s really hard to say no to such adorable little girls who just want to learn to ride a horse.

  So I’m trying extra hard with Lady.

  I let Chico and Bear follow us everywhere as I work with her. They know to keep away from her feet, they’ve both been stepped on before, but they race around us, then they watch from the fence. They’re my constant companions. And they’re great for teaching a horse to not be freaked out by distraction.

  Finally, when it’s six o’clock, just before Mom returns home and we’ll make some dinner with whatever she just bought, I take a few stolen minutes and lead Radio out of his stall. He nibbles the back of my shirt as we head for the tack room. I don’t bother tying him up to the hitching post; he’ll stand still for me.

  The leather of my saddle is worn and soft. My fingers rub over the tooling in the back, carved there by my dad’s unpracticed hands. There’s an infinity symbol, with our names inside each loop. It isn’t exactly pretty or perfect, by my eyes got teary all the same when he gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday.

  After cinching Radio up, I slip his bridle on, the bit sliding into his mouth. I loop the reins over the horn and hoist myself up into the saddle. My boots slide into the stirrups, and I direct Radio t
o the arena.

  I’m grateful the ground is starting to dry up. Our covered practice area is good sized, but the moisture in the air combined with the horse smells and dust is enough to choke you. It also feels oddly like heaven.

  I let Radio walk around the outskirts of the arena to warm up. The next loop he trots. The next loop he lopes, and the final one I let him all out sprint.

  He moves beneath me, powerful and strong. Our rhythms sync and we know how to move together. A horse is a beast of muscle and speed, and you can’t help but feel powerful too when you’re on the back of one.

  I run Radio through some exercises, take him over the jumps, we do poles, practice backing up.

  I did riding groups when I was younger, competed in events. We did okay, won once, and got pretty good. I don’t have anything that I’m practicing for anymore; Radio and I don’t do anything more exotic and exciting than going on mountain trail rides. But it’s in my blood to practice, to keep the both of us in top shape.

  So we ride nearly every day.

  I’ve sprinted Radio hard around the arena, the final burst of energy before I cool him down, so when we slow, we’re both windswept and breathing hard. I pull his reins, signaling for him to take it down to a walk.

  It’s when we loop around to face the house again that I see him.

  There is a man standing on the far edge of the arena. His forearms are against the panel, he stands relaxed and observant. He’s a big guy. Even from this distance I can see the width of his arms, the broadness of his shoulders. He’s tall, too. I’d make a guess at six foot three or four.

  He wears worn out jeans and a faded gray jacket. He’s wearing aviator sunglasses.

  But it’s obvious he’s watching me. And I haven’t a clue as to who he is.

  Radio walks casually and without fear. He’s used to new people stopping by James Ranch. Clients come and go.

  “Can I help you?” I call when we get closer. I was right, he’s a big, tall guy.

  He stands up straight, and there’s something in his expression that I can’t peg as sadness or dread or regret. And I don’t know why it’s there.