The Girl in the Window (11 page)

His ears flicked forward, his head came up.

Beth walked across the yards, bending gracefully to gather a couple handfuls of bright green grass. Her hair fell forward like a pale curtain to hide her face, but the sunlight on it made her hair glow as if it were lit from within. Her fingers tied the sheaf of grass together deftly and he imagined her as a girl making necklaces from daisies as some of the girls he’d known growing up had done.

The light was soft, giving the morning a touch of magic.

Josh’s heart lifted, with a small breath of hope, as he watched her walk to the fence.

Irresolute, he stood there for a moment, uncertain, afraid to go out and maybe frighten her away again.

Maybe he should give her a little more time.

*****

It had taken an act of almost astonishing courage for Beth to walk out of the house. She was embarrassed, almost ashamed, of how she had acted. Josh hadn’t done anything to deserve that, to be treated that way. He’d been nothing but kind and helpful.

After they’d taken her away, the system had put her into therapy. For a time she’d gone every week to that oddly institutional brick office building just outside of town. The interior had been carefully designed in soft colors of pale pink, soft mauve, and aqua. Colors intended to soothe, but instead somehow seemed false.

One day she’d come out and gotten in the truck, but Ruth hadn’t started it, she’d just sat there. She didn’t put the truck in gear, but had instead stared out the windshield thoughtfully.

She’d turned to look at Beth, her face homely and warm, a small wiry woman, a little frown of concern between her brows, clearly debating what it was she was about to say.

Then she’d waved a hand toward the office.

“Don’t let them define you, Beth. Don’t let what’s happened to you define you. Don’t let what happened to you be what you’re all about. You’re so many things, so much more than just this.”

She’d brushed Beth’s hair back, lightly, affectionately, tucked it behind her ear. In the short time Beth had been with her she’d received more hugs and gestures like these from Ruth than she could remember from either of her parents in her entire lifetime with them. Her most vivid memory was of her father putting her off his lap, telling her she was too big to sit on it any more.

“You’re a beautiful girl,” Ruth said, “with a good heart. Nothing against your parents, but I don’t know how they birthed you. You’re kind, smart, and creative. You can cook better than I can.”

She smiled a little, her tone teasing. “Your handwriting could use some work, though…”

Beth ducked her head, abashed, but grinned shyly back. As Ruth had intended.

Taking Beth’s chin, Ruth had lifted it to look her square in the eyes. “Keep this up. It’s not what happens to you, Beth, but what you do with it that matters. Don’t let them declare you ‘damaged’ and don’t you do it to yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just fine the way you are. Those folks in there? They’re like a doctor who cleans out a cut that got infected and that’s all. Cuts heal. So will you. It just takes time. Just don’t wear the labels anyone gives you. Make your own label for yourself, and call it Beth, or Elizabeth, or whatever you want, but make it yours.”

With a brisk nod, Ruth had then turned away, and started the car. “Now, that’s enough of that. Let’s go home.”

Her words had echoed inside Beth for days afterward and they’d come up to her at odd times now and again when she’d needed to remember them.

For a time she’d forgotten.

So she walked across the yards toward the horse wondering if Josh watched from the window of his house. And hoped he did.

Only she would define who she was, not fear and not pain. Neither would define her. She wouldn’t let them. Each step she took was a declaration of independence.

The horse watched her, his proud head up. He tossed it, charged away a little as if he chided her for her absence, and then he minced toward her. She held out the sheaf of grass to him.

Speaking of which, she couldn’t keep thinking of him as ‘the horse’ or ‘him’ and ‘he’, he had to have a name.

The horse tossed his head a little, turned it, but still came forward.

From the corner of her eye she saw Josh step to the rail, rest his arms on it the way he did.

This time Josh kept his distance and her heart hurt to see it. She wanted to say to him, come closer, I won’t bite, but she didn’t have the courage for that much, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Not quite. Not yet.

He wore a white shirt this morning against the early chill but with the sleeves rolled up.

There was something about the look of it that caught at her, an odd beauty to the way his arms looked, folded like that, something about the curve of muscle, the way the sun glinted gold from the hair on his arms. For a moment her heart just seemed to go still. Her throat was tight.

She was conscious of him looking at the horse, aware of Josh’s kind eyes, his firm mouth.

He was a handsome man, but more than that, he was a good one.

The horse took the grass from her palm, chewed it contentedly.

She scrubbed the space between his eyes with her palm. He seemed to like that.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

The question caught Josh off guard – just the fact that she’d spoken surprised him. He’d been trying to find something to say that didn’t sound stupid. He wanted to ask why she’d left so abruptly, but he couldn’t think of how to ask in a way that wouldn’t chase her off again.

“Fair Play,” he said, “out of Turnabout. I call him Fair. I bought him to race, harness racing, as a trotter. All you have to do is watch him to know he’d be good at it. You can see it in the way he moves, paces. He’s been trained, but something happened to him. I don’t know what and I can’t exactly go back to the folks that sold him to me and say, what the hell did you do to my horse when he was yours? We can’t even get a bridle on him without a fight and have just as much a fight to get it off. You’re the only one who’s gotten through to him.”

He looked at the horse.

“When he moves, though,” he said wistfully, “you can just see it, how good he’d be.”

Josh could picture those rare moments in his mind’s eye – the times Fair paced around the paddock. It was there in his blood, you couldn’t miss it.

“Racing is a dying sport,” he said, and a part of him grieved for that. Another part of him knew he was babbling, just talking. Anything to get her to stay, to keep her there, anything to keep her from running away from him again.

“It’s being killed by greed, as most things are these days. Once anyone could go to a racetrack like you could go to the movies or a ball game, put a few bucks down, have a little fun for a little while and anyone with the time and patience to train a horse could take their chances. They did it then for the love of it, for the love of the animals.”

Josh watched as Beth took an apple from the pocket of the light fluffy sweater she wore and he kept talking as she offered it to the horse.

She looked at him almost shyly, little glances from the corner of her eye.

It had been Josh’s grandfather who’d taught him about racing, had taken him and taught him how to handle the horses, the bike.

For a minute he remembered the old man sharply, his native heritage more clear in him than in Josh, the older man’s features sharper, his eyes and coloring darker, his black hair as straight and dark as pitch.

Surrounded by women, his grandfather had been his strongest male influence, and Josh had loved him fiercely. He missed him just as fiercely.

He’d been a good man, his grandfather, his word his bond. Josh only hoped he was half the man his grandfather had been.

“Then it became a business and as with all things when it becomes a business, when you stop doing it just for the love of it, but for the money too, in time the money part takes over. It stops being about raising up a horse that loves to run, trot or pace, of the beauty of the animal, of their gait, of watching those magnificent creatures trying to outrun each other. It stops being about the excitement, the joy of it, and it becomes about trophies and cups, of prizes, of bigger, better, faster horses. You see it all over in sports, but in life, too. In sports you get players who hold out for ridiculous amounts of money, of tickets that are so expensive most folks can’t afford anything but the nosebleed seats. A company gets started by someone who does something for the love of it, then they die or retire and it becomes about the business, about dividends and stockholders, it becomes about the money. The good people leave, the ones who did it for the love of it, and are replaced by the ones who do it for the money.”

It had already been changing when his grandfather had died.

He sighed and looked at Fair, at that incredible animal, at the glory of him.

“There are still some of us who do it for the love of it in pockets here and there. Russ wanted to give up on him, sell him again as he’d been sold before, but I thought we could save him. This time we would save him.”

For the first time Matt chanced a look at her.

She’d come back. Something had happened, but she’d come back.

“I want to see if we can get the harness on him,” he said, “or, actually, if you can.”

He was taking a risk, pushing her a little, but also trying to find a way to keep her here and involved.

“This time without a fight.”

It was also true. If Fair would let Beth harness him it would be easier than fighting him each time. Easier on all of them, and a step closer to racing him.

Beth looked at him, something like relief going through her.

She’d wondered what would happen next, if they’d just been working up to Fair being able to take the grass from Josh and then she wouldn’t be needed any more. She wouldn’t be wanted and she’d lose something else.

“I’ve never done that,” she said.

She’d never even been this near a horse, although she had always loved them, the grace and power of them, the beauty of them.

Something inside Josh eased, a tension he hadn’t really known was there.

“I can teach you.”

For a minute Beth looked at him, a little twinge of trepidation going through her, but there was anticipation, too.

There was kindness in Josh’s face – an openness. It was something in his eyes, in his expression. She had a sudden sharp desire to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, brush the thick tumble back from his forehead. As much to feel the texture of it as to touch him. She wasn’t even sure if that’s what he wanted, if he wanted the same things she did.

She was afraid and she wasn’t.

It was another step.

That’s all life was, Ruth would have said, another step. It was a matter of putting one foot in front of the other until you were through the hard patches as well as the soft. Keep moving forward, because back was gone. You couldn’t stay still or you would die inside where it mattered.

She’d been still for too long.

“All right,” she said.

Josh didn’t ask what had made her return.

He realized then that he didn’t need to know. Not then, not right at that moment. Someday she might tell him or he would learn the reason why she’d run, but right now it wasn’t what he needed.

What he needed was for her to keep coming back. A second chance.

“Not today, it’s still too soon,” he said. “And first we have to teach you how. We can start that today if you’d like.”

Beth looked at him, and smiled shyly. “I’d like that.”

His heart jolted at that rare smile, at the light in her blue eyes. Protective didn’t even begin to cover it, he just wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, keep her safe. There was that about her, and that core of strength, of courage, that lay beneath the fragility.

All he knew was that he wanted to make her smile that way more often.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay then. This way.”

He escorted her into the barn, took down the harness. He showed her how to hold it and then how it would go on the horse.

The first time she tried it on a hay bale and she laughed because she got it all tangled up, he knew it would be all right. The nervousness melted away, both his and hers.