Fateful Waters Read online

  Fateful Waters

  by

  J. M. Anton

  Copyright © 2012 by J. M. Anton

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN: 9781476210773

  Library of Congress Control Number: Pending

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Preview: Another Chance at Mr. Right

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my frontline editors and proofreaders Sandy, Jody, Pat and Kellie Anton. A special thanks to Kellie for editing the German language inclusions. E-book formatting by Jody Kihara.

  I also want to thank my pre-publication readers for their support and evaluations.

  Thank you to the Office of Letters and Light, without whom this novel would still be on my to-do list.

  Foreword

  Fateful Waters was just an idea jotted down on scratch pads until I became aware of the 50,000-word challenge from the Office of Letters and Light. Known as NaNoWriMo, the work has to begin the first of November and be complete in word count by midnight on the last day of the month.

  This novel was my 2011 entry. It was one of many winners. Some will become bestsellers, and some will never see the light of day. I have chosen to test the e-book market with this story. I would love to hear from you when you finish it: http://jackieanton.com (blog) or e-mail: [email protected].

  Follow Melinda Potter and her friend and roommate, Alexandra Parker, across the country from their home on the shores of Lake Erie to the drought-stricken state of Texas. Melinda has a date with an online Romeo. Lexie, who is supposed exert a moderating influence on her impulsive friend, winds up in a hospital where she wakes to everyone calling her Mrs. Ross. She doesn’t have a clue how she got there, or who Mr. Ross is.

  1

  Alexandra reluctantly started on the trip to Decker’s place on a bright sunny afternoon. An hour north of Lubbock, the sun had gone into hiding behind some ominous black clouds. She felt the same sense of foreboding that she had experienced upon her first encounter with David Decker. She and Melinda had just checked into their shared suite when David appeared out of the blue. She knew that Melinda must have told him of their impending arrival. Lexie made the first designated turn on her route, piloting Melinda’s graduation gift onto a gravel road. The Escalade bit into the gravel and traveled the mile and a quarter without incident. Her written instructions and the GPS were in agreement so far. Another half-hour and she came to fork where she turned left onto a rutted dirt road, and that was when it started to rain. She slipped the large SUV into four-wheel drive and turned the wipers on low. All that accomplished was to make a mess of the accumulated dust on the windshield, but several squirts of the washer fluid cleared a small spot for her to see where she was going.

  Her mood was as dark as the clouds that had taken over a previously bright blue sky. Texas hadn’t looked much different to her when she exited the interstate upon their arrival, but she had been feeling ill and not paying much attention. Scenery blurred by at seventy miles an hour as they had traveled the homogenous interstate system that offered the same fast food joints, chain restaurants, and box stores from coast to coast. Lexie had opted to drive most of the trip. It was easier for her to control bouts of carsickness when she was in control of the vehicle and was required to concentrate on traffic and road signs. She’d only vaguely taken notice of the absence of green as they entered Oklahoma with its endless fields of grasshopper-like oil pumping rigs. Her perception of the Texas panhandle underwent a drastic change once she left the relative safety of the hotel parking lot in Lubbock to join Melinda and her heartthrob for dinner.

  She applied the breaks at another fork in the road in the road that was not on the instructions, or the GPS. So much for backup! The SUV skidded in the slime now covering the previously dry, dusty road. Lexie retrieved her phone from an inside pocket of her navy colored, leather, handbag. Disgusted, she laid it on the center console. Smart or not, the directional phone apps had not shed any light on her dilemma. She was really beginning to feel lousy, so she twisted of the cap on the antibiotic that she had just picked up at the drugstore. The prescription label said it was to be taken with food, but she was desperate to head of a recurrence of what sure felt like the flu, so she downed the pill with the remainder of a bottle of water she’d placed in the cup holder. Lexie picked up the small communication device, located Melinda’s name, and she poked the small screen much harder than required to connect to her friend. She wanted to scream! Why me Lord? Melinda didn’t have a clue how to direct her. While her friend checked with David, she slipped into her navy jacket. As the rain increased the heat of earlier began to cool, and she was experiencing a chill. Lexie switched from the air conditioner to the heater.

  She was sitting in the middle of a dirt road, in an increasing rain, and the surface was quickly becoming a quagmire. She hoped that Melinda, was writing down directions, and that was why she was taking so much time.

  Roommates since their freshman year at Ohio State, Alexandra Parker and Melinda Potter had become close friends. After nearly five years, their friendship had grown to the point they each knew the other’s personality quirks. Lexie knew Melinda well enough to be skeptical about the accuracy of the written directions that her friend had left for her when she went on ahead with David. Commonsense had dictated that she enter his ranch address in the GPS, just in case.

  Finally, Melinda was back on the phone, and in the nick of time. Lexie felt the Cadillac sinking into the softening road surface while she had been impatiently waiting for further directions.

  “Lexie? David says to take the left fork. He says that you are only about a mile form the house.”

  “A mile in this stuff might just as well be a hundred.”

  “Quit complaining, Lexie, just put the Escalade in four-wheel drive and you will be alright. See you in a bit.”

  Lexie didn’t answer her. Instead, she just threw her phone on the console. Aggravated with herself for agreeing to this trip, she rolled the vehicle forward. Mud flew and the vehicle fishtailed a little, but the tires found purchase. Less than a quarter of a mile crawled by until the road suddenly disappeared into a roaring creek. With nowhere to turn around, she began backing over her tracks. Progress was slow, as the small single wiper on the rear window made it difficult to navigate through the increasing downpour. She could hear Melinda’s voice in her mind David says, David says. She gave herself a mental shake, and concentrated on reverse driving.

  Back out on the dirt road, she made a decision to take the right fork. If her mind was functioning past her blinding headache, she recalled that back the way she had come the same previously dry cr
eek that flooded the left fork also ran under a culvert on the main dirt excuse for a road. By now, it too was probably washed out. The right fork rose on a very slight incline and promised higher ground. She was thinking that higher ground might keep her from drowning, but the mud was getting deeper. Lexie was worried about getting bogged down in the middle of nowhere. Most likely, any help she could summon from her friend could not reach her in time. She had the wipers up full force, and was driving even slower to avoid sliding off the edge. The right fork spilt again about a mile from the last divide. Once more she picked the option with the potential for higher elevation. She proceeded at a snail’s pace with her vehicle now in low gear as she squinted through the windshield into the growing monsoon. She followed a curve in the road, and a large shadow suddenly loomed in front of her. It occupied the center of the road. Lexie swerved to avoid what looked to be a large animal, and slid smack into the muck at the right side of the road.

  She felt the Escalade sink! Her temper broke the tenuous hold she had on it. She turned off the engine and barreled out the driver’s side door. So intent on venting her frustration on the huge cow that blocked the road, she forgot that she wearing her navy dress pumps. The cow was the recipient of the frustration she couldn’t vent on Melinda and her creepy Romeo. David Decker was attractive enough physically with his black wavy hair, cornflower blue eyes and an engaging smile, but there was something sinister about the man. Lexie sank in six inches of muck, and with the next step her shoes were buried in it.

  “Are you in a hurry to be hamburger? I could have run you over in this blinding rain! Now, look, you’ve killed the damned Cadillac.” The beast wouldn’t move out of the road. Pushing on its rump didn’t accomplish anything, nor did smacking it on the hip. That little bout of temper left her with a stinging hand. The white face was halter-less—it’s not a horse, she reminded herself—and she didn’t have a rope or even a belt. Now nearly knee-deep in slop, she stood there, hands on her hips, glaring at the cow. While she was assessing the situation, the cow let out a bellow. A small echo bounced back from a few feet away. Lexie spotted a small calf stuck in the mud. All that was visible was the head and a small portion of its back. The little one was sinking in a run-off of muck that had flowed from the slightly higher terrain behind it. Now the no rope or belt thing was a real dilemma. Improvising, she removed her navy jacket that had matched her now trashed slacks. Lexie waded closer to the calf, hoping she didn’t sink along with it. Keeping a wary eye on its watchful mother, she slipped the jacket around the calf’s neck and gave a tug. She managed to raise its head a little higher, but it was stuck and could not get any traction to assist in its rescue attempt. Giving a little stronger tug she lost her own traction. She was sitting on her butt in the mud, propping up the small creature’s head. Lexie was in danger of sinking in the muck along with the baby cow when the ghost riders just appeared from out of the storm.

  One minute, no one was around for miles, and then—poof—there they were. Maybe I am hallucinating? She was trying hard to focus, but her head was throbbing and she was beginning to shake uncontrollably. Through the veil of rain, one rider looked like a normal person as they rode closer. He sat astride a sorrel-colored cowpony with a white star, but that was about all that she could tell. From the belly down, both horses were thick with mud that had splashed higher up on the animals, and their riders’ legs were in much the same condition. Both horsemen wore black Stetsons and outback-type oilskin dusters. The dark cowboy was bigger than the other man, and was mounted on a large, coal-black stallion. It was he who brought forth the image of a ghost rider.

  “You need some help, little girl?”

  His voice was a low baritone, close to a bass, with a thick Texan drawl. She was feeling a bit weak from her trek through the mud and trying to free the calf. It was hard to decipher his words through the roaring in her ears and unrelenting rain. He repeated the question as he rode closer and dismounted.

  All she could say was, “He is drowning in the mud.”

  Without another word the dark rider caught a loop from the other cowboy’s rope, and replaced her jacket with the rope before he picked her up out of the mud. He unceremoniously deposited her by the side of her vehicle while he returned to the hapless calf. Gratefully, she leaned against the bogged-down Cadillac for support. Her head was beginning to swim, and a bone-shattering chill had over taken her, but Lexie realized that she was no longer shivering as she had been sitting in the run off with the newborn calf. This can’t be good, she thought. Maybe my body is shutting down? She watched the tall cowboy wade into the mud hole and lift the backend of the calf, while the rider on the sorrel backed his horse giving a steady tug on the rope. In no time, Momma cow and baby were on higher ground, and wandering back to their herd.

  Her mind registered that she was way overdue for her dinner invitation. She reached in the still open door for her phone. It was time to call Melinda and tell her to have dinner without her. The phone had fallen to the floor near the gas pedal when she had swerved, ditching the expensive SUV. She leaned in to retrieve it smearing mud on the light gray leather interior. Once she latched on to it, and righted her self in the driver side bucket seat, her efforts to manipulate the small phone with her muddy hands sent it right through her grip. Lexie watched in disbelief as her iPhone took a dive out the open door sinking into the muck. That’s the last straw! “I knew I should have just stayed in Lubbock,” she grumbled to the fast disappearing phone. It was now buried in the same muddy grave as her navy pumps.

  This is just terrific! I am supposed to be the stabilizing influence according to Melinda’s parents. It was they who had convinced her that she needed a break after the stress of finals. Mrs. Potter insisted that Lexie needed a rest to spring back from her run-down condition following a nasty bout of the flu, and Lexie’s mother had agreed with Linda Potter.

  Lexie’d been aware that Melinda’s e-mails to David Decker, and his to her had been getting pretty steamy. What she hadn’t known was that Melinda was planning on traveling to Texas after graduation to meet her internet dating service’s most recent match. Lexie was losing her tenuous hold on reality as she slid down into the mud against the side of the muck covered, once white Escalade, giving up the search for her phone and shoes. That was the last thing that she remembered clearly until she woke up in the hospital and everyone was calling her Mrs. Ross.

  Most of the herd was up closer to the ranch out of harm’s way for the moment, and they had been rounding up the inevitable strays when the forecasted rains hit. The remnants of tropical storms seldom made it this far north, but when they did, flash floods were inevitable. All the cattle were accounted for except the big Hereford cow ready to drop a late calf. They’d left the other hands to move the rounded up strays toward the relative safety of the ranch. Cutter, the owner of the outfit and his foreman, Jim Rodriguez, went in search of the old cow. They had a hunch where she would be, and under most circumstances it would not have worried them. She liked to drop her calves down near the water, but today it could prove deadly, if she sought an isolated spot near there to deliver.

  Cutter was exhausted having only returned from four days in Dallas late that morning, and had not even unpacked when he joined the rest of his crew to move the cattle away from potential flash flood areas.

  Riding in the midst of a torrential downpour and several inches of mud made for slow progress. By the time they approached the spot where they figured the expectant cow would seek solitude, the river was emitting an earsplitting roar. As they continued to scan the surroundings for their missing bovine a larger object entered Cutter’s peripheral. Jim saw it about the same time, and let loose with a string of cuss words that sizzled out into another cloudburst. A large vehicle was rounding the curve, and about to run down his pregnant Hereford. Too far away to holler a warning, they waited for the inevitable collision, but the driver swerved at the last moment and sunk that fancy rig to its rocker panels.

  Some days i
t paid unexpected dividends to battle the elements. Neither he nor Jim would ever forget watching the driver, dressed like one of those professional women on the TV, exit like she was ready for a fight, and round on Mamma cow. She was hollering at it and giving it a piece of her mind while trying to push it out of the road. She even smacked it on the rump. Mamma cow let out a threat of her own, and the little lady backed off. No. Cutter thought It wasn’t the cow’s threat that stopped her assault, but something else that had caught her attention. Both cattlemen knew what had distracted her was most likely a newborn calf. As they rode closer they watched as she pulled off her jacket, wrapped it around the calf’s neck, then sat or fell down beside it. She remained there, propping that small head above the mud, and sinking along with it!

  The mud-covered woman stared at him as if he was the headless horseman. He had to ask her twice if she needed some help. With Jim’s rope securely around the small critter to keep its head above the mud hole, he plucked the calf’s would-be rescuer out of the deepening mud and set her on her feet by her Cadillac. Then he went back to help Jim haul the newborn out of the mud. Jim took the calf up across his lap and rode a safe distance from the rising water before releasing it. The calf was none the worse for its experience, largely due to the little lady keeping its head elevated. Cutter turned around to check on her, and was amazed to see her sitting in the mud, her back propped against the side of her mud-splattered ride. She continued looking at him like he was the devil incarnate. He approached her slowly. Her up swept hairdo was falling down on one side. Soaking wet and covered with mud, he would be surprised if she weighed a hundred pounds, her soaked once white silk blouse clung to her petite form affording an enticing peek at a lacy bra that hid her pert breasts. Obviously chilled her nipples were puckered and erect. Cutter needed to get a grip, and stop ogling the stranded little woman with the mistrustful blue eyes.