The Girl in the Window (9 page)

Looking back over her shoulder, she could see the first coat of paint on the walls of the house. It was already so changed, brighter than the dull worn paint and yet softer than the cold gray it had been. The primary color was a pale moss, so it almost blended into the fields and the grass. It still looked unfinished but you could see the good bones of the house start to come out.

It looked less haunted, less like the tattered ghost of a home.

She turned back to the horse.

He tossed his head, charged across the paddock as if to chide her for her inattention.

Laughing, she moved across the grass, climbed up on the fence rail. The horse paced toward her almost eagerly, and then he paused. His ears twitched.

She didn’t have to turn her head, she knew who it was who stood there.

Josh.

She could almost sense his presence behind her, as if he radiated some kind of special magnetic field.

From the corner of her vision she could see him there behind and to one side of her with his hands in his pockets, wearing work clothes, the thin t-shirts he favored against the promised heat of the day, and a pair of jeans.

She smiled as her heart lifted and twisted at the same time.

He looked very good, the t-shirt revealing rather than concealing the strong muscles of his arms and chest, his lean, taut abs, the jeans a little loose on his hips. The look suited him.

The horse hesitated, looking from one to the other of them.

She looked back at it, steadily, as Josh came closer.

Beth kept her eyes on the horse, intensely aware of Josh’s presence at her back. He didn’t crowd her, but she knew he was there.

The horse snorted, tossed its head, eyed them and then the promised treat held out on her outstretched palm.

Her throat was tight, her pulse pounded. Beth almost willed the horse to take what she offered.

After a moment it took a step, another and stretched its neck a little to take the sheaf of the fresh, green grass from her palm.

It eyed Josh warily as it chewed.

Josh could smell her over the scent of horse and hay.

The breeze carried the faint scent of her shampoo, or the soap she used, something. Josh breathed it in, a sudden, shocking rush of need flashing through him as hard and fast as a summer storm. Even so, he somehow retained enough self-control and awareness to keep his concentration on the horse as well as the girl.

It glanced at him sideways in much the same way she did, both of them from the corners of their eyes. Both were nervous. The horse’s hide twitched, and he snorted. Beth was wound as tightly as an old watch. He didn’t know why any more than he knew why the horse was so afraid. There was more to the story of both of them than he knew.

The horse moved forward a step, then two.

Beth was as intensely aware of Josh as she was of the horse. She knew how important this was, that Josh had been giving them time, but this was his horse.

Her heart rate picked up at his closeness. A kind of panic hit her. She fought it with near desperation.

With an effort, she kept herself still.

As conscious of Josh as she was of the horse, Beth reached into her pocket for the apple she had tucked in there and held it out even as Josh joined her at the rail, his movements slow, steady, measured. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body radiate against her skin, as soft as a caress.

Slowly, carefully, the horse reached his great head forward to take the treat from her palm.

In the next instant, Beth was moving away. She wasn’t conscious of the making the decision to go.

She couldn’t handle it. Memories rushed through her, and with it the pain she’d kept at bay for so long.

It was too soon. She’d thought she could but she couldn’t. She’d thought she could stand the closeness, but she’d been wrong.

Her breath short, she was almost running when she hit the back door and darted inside the house.

For a moment, she simply stood inside the kitchen trying to resolve the sheer terror and pain that seemed as if they were drowning her.

She couldn’t breathe as panic flooded her.

It was too much, too soon.

She wanted to weep with want, with need, with fear.

Breathless, she stood in the kitchen panting, blinking back tears, fighting the urge to weep.

She fought a solitary battle for control, her breath shuddering in her chest, trying not to cry for fear of what might happen once she started. Bowing her head, she fought back the tears and wished for a shoulder to cry on, but there was none.

The only one who might have was out there by the paddock.

It was as if she were drawn down the hall and into her old bedroom, drawn to the window there.

Josh was gone.

She closed her eyes and tears slid down her cheeks. Each breath was half a sob.

It was too soon.

She’d been standing right here when they came to bring her the news, here it was she had stood as the words had fallen, each word striking her like stones.

Tears fell like rain as they hadn’t that day. She’d been dry-eyed at first, dry-eyed as they had spoken to her, the sheriffs’ in their crisp formal uniforms. One had his hat in his hands, circling the brim with them nervously. There had been sympathy in his eyes. Sorrow.

At first she’d been dry-eyed because she couldn’t believe the terrible things they were saying, it couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be right, it couldn’t be real.

Some part of her had almost expected it, had believed – even as she’d hoped and prayed otherwise – that she didn’t deserve to be happy. That something could and would go wrong.

Then something had.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Beth choked back the great wracking sobs.

It had been real.

Sweet Matthew
.

Just the thought of him twisted her heart painfully, the memory of his face fading over time as she’d forced herself not to think of him. Not to long for him.

She missed him so much.

For once in her life things had seemed to be going right.

The first she’d known about the house had been when the lawyers finally found her. It had seemed like a blessing after all the years of struggling to get through college, to find the way to pay for it, working two jobs sometimes to afford it.

She’d only met her parents once after they’d taken her, just before they released her from foster care.

It had been a mistake on everyone’s part. They’d been strangers to her, her parents, cold, distant people she didn’t know who just as clearly didn’t know her. Nothing had been eased or changed by her mother’s death a few years later either. Her father had accepted her presence at the funeral as if it were only right, but hardly welcome. Mourners had been few. Beth had felt like a stranger among these people who’d known her parents but not known her. She hadn’t bothered to introduce herself, there was no one there she wanted to know.

The woman in the coffin had barely resembled the woman she remembered as her mother.

But there had been Matt and Ruth to help her through it.

Sweet, kind Matt, holding her hand, his strong fingers threaded through hers.

Closing her eyes, she remembered him, remembered the beautiful man he had been. That was something he’d never been able to believe, just how beautiful he was to her from the first moment she saw him. Maybe others hadn’t seen it – some said he was plain – but she had. He‘d been so beautiful to her with his thick dark hair, his soft brown eyes, his broad friendly face, and his smile.

That smile had lit up her life, lifted her spirits when they were down. He’d had the most beautiful smile, so bright, so real. She had loved his smile.

He’d been there for her as she struggled to balance school and work, their rare time together in the face of both their schedules precious.

She’d loved him so much.

The pain in her chest was like this enormous weight. It burned like fire, like acid, curling around her heart.

Matt.

They’d met in college. She‘d been taking a culinary management class and he’d been attending with an eye toward running a kitchen at a hotel or country club, juggling classes in hotel management and accounting.

Cooking was the one thing she’d known, that she’d been sure of, thanks to Ruth. It was something she’d been good at and Ruth had fostered that talent.

The times she’d spent with her foster mother in her kitchen had been some of the best of her life. Seeing the anticipation on the faces of the other kids, Ruth’s own and those of the other foster kids, had opened something up inside her.

It was something she could do.

Ruth had been so happy when Beth had met Matt, had found someone who could love her.

She smiled shakily at that memory, leaning back against the wall of her old bedroom as she remembered.

At first she couldn’t understand it, couldn’t understand this man who was being so nice to her, and then it had frightened her. She liked it, but she didn’t understand it.

So, she’d run to Ruth and found her, not surprisingly, in the kitchen.

Beth remembered it so vividly.

The counters had been filled with the preparations for dinner, vegetables waiting to be chopped, Ruth dredging veal in flour. The kitchen had smelled like the fresh herbs Ruth had added to the flour.

One look at her was all it had taken, but Ruth had said nothing, just nodded at the knife.

Without a word Beth had set to dicing the vegetables, the familiar action, the familiar smells calming, almost as soothing as Ruth’s presence.

“What’s wrong?” Ruth had said, as she dropped the floured veal into the hot pan, and the scent of sizzling cooked meat had surrounded them.

Beth’s mouth had watered.

For a minute, Beth had just chopped the onions and garlic for the sauce.

“There’s this…boy…man,” she’d said, and glanced at Ruth.

Ruth had laid a hand over hers and smiled. “Tell me about him.”

A widow, Ruth still told stories of the husband who had died so suddenly. Even he hadn’t known he’d had cancer. It just took him one day.

Ruth had filled the void with not only her own children, but those like Beth.

To her surprise, Beth had found herself smiling at just the thought of Matt.

“He’s…nice. Kind,” she’d said softly, and suddenly she’d been also terrified.

Even her own family hadn’t been nice to her. They hadn’t liked her. They’d sent her away.

“I don’t know what to do,” she’d blurted. “I’m so afraid.”

She’d had dates, but she’d always been uncertain, unsure. It had felt like she was walking a tightrope. With Matt, it didn’t, and somehow that felt even more frightening. There had been something reassuring about that tightrope, about knowing she could fall. If she made a mistake, it was just how she was.

With Matt, she couldn’t make mistakes. She didn’t want to lose him or his friendship.

“Oh, baby,” Ruth had said, pulling her into a quick hug before cupping Beth’s face in her hands. “Just be, Beth. Just be, and it’ll be fine, baby. It’ll be fine. Take it one day at a time, and it will be fine.”

It
was
fine, one day at a time.

Then had come the heart attack, and Ruth had been gone.

It had been so sudden, so unexpected. All the signs had been missed, they said. Ruth had complained of being tired and gone up to bed.

She hadn’t awakened.

Beth’s anchor, the one person she had been able to go to, was no longer there.

Matt, though, was.

Somehow, with his help, she’d gotten through it, through the funeral, the reassigning of the other children, her family dispersing. A great emptiness had opened where Ruth had once been, and with her had gone their family.