The Girl in the Window (12 page)

Josh led his other trotter out of her stall.

Bella was a good horse, mild-tempered and fairly easy to work with. He patted her reassuringly.

“This first time we won’t try it on Fair,” he said. “You’ll need some practice before you do that because we’ll want to do it smooth and quick, so we don’t startle him. We’ll try it on Bella here. She’s pretty patient.”

Laughing wryly and sympathetically, Beth said, “She’ll need to be. No, there’s no need to traumatize poor Fair more than necessary. Hi, Bella.”

Bella eyed her with what Beth thought was a degree of skepticism.

Beth couldn’t blame her.

Pearly light lit the sky. The sun had yet to rise. It would be hot again today to judge by the haze. The fireflies had disappeared, but the birds were awake and chattering, a morning chorus of tweets and chirps as they greeted the coming morning. There was a magic to this hour that few people saw, and most didn’t notice, this awakening.

Beth slipped out her back door quietly.

In the house across the way the bathroom light hadn’t yet come on. Josh wasn’t up yet, which was good. This was something Beth had to do herself. For herself and for Fair.

She walked across the yards, the dew-laden grass icy cold against her feet as she gathered her offering to him.

In the paddock Fair watched, his head lifted a little warily until he saw who it was coming to greet him as the darkness slowly gave way to light.

Beth stepped up onto the rail, held out the grass, her palm flat.

For a moment it looked as if Fair would dart away, but then he blew out a breath and ambled over to take her gift.

She laughed breathlessly as she gently scrubbed between his eyes.

“All right, horse,” she said, softly. “Fair. Let’s see how this goes.”

Moving slowly, she stepped down from the rail, and over to the gate.

Josh wanted her to put the harness on Fair, but she didn’t know that she wanted the first time in the paddock with Fair to be about that.

Her heart was pounding with nervousness as she unlatched the heavy gate. It tried to swing further open, the weight of it dragged her, but she held on and pulled it shut behind her, grateful to hear it latch by itself.

Fair watched her as she turned to look at him, his head up, ears erect. He tossed his head a little.

She didn’t move, just looked at him sideways, her head tilted a little, and waited.

For a moment he studied her, blowing out a breath.

Taking a breath of her own, she stepped along the rail, and then stopped.

He took a step forward. Another. Looked at her out of one dark eye, then the other.

She was conscious of his hooves, and her own bare feet. Not of the size so much as the solidness of those hooves, of the power of his body, the mass of it.

He was also beautiful, as only a horse could be.

In that pink-tinged gray light the color of his coat had no bearing, it was only the graceful lines of him, the swing and sway of his mane, the play of the pale light over the muscles beneath his skin, the gleam of his great dark eyes.

As he drew closer, she held absolutely still, afraid even to breathe. Not afraid of him, but afraid of scaring him away.

He got close enough and blew out a breath, then snuffled at her shirt, lipped the ends of her hair.

Tentatively, she reached up to stroke his cheek, making sure he could see the movement. He only flinched a little, his hide twitching, and then he settled as she petted him.

Letting out her breath on a long sigh, Beth stepped closer, ran her hand down his sleek neck.

Fair moved a little restlessly. She understood that and stepped back, walked along the fence a little ways. After a moment, he fell in next to her, paced beside her.

She watched him from the corner of her eye and smiled a little.

Turning abruptly, she went the other way.

Fair’s head shot up, his ears lifted as he snorted in consternation.

Beth kept walking.

He trotted up to her, ears swiveling, his dark eye watching her.

She pivoted, turned toward him.

Fair danced away, head up, tail up, and she laughed.

A little startled by the sound, Fair eyed her warily.

Darting away, the duff of the paddock soft beneath her bare feet, she found him pacing her. She turned and he turned.

As a child, she hadn’t had many playmates, they’d lived too far out of town and she hadn’t wanted to bring her few friends from school to the gray house and the shadows that lived there.

She played with Fair, laughing as the horse mirrored her movements. His head tossed, mane lifting as she ran and he paced the length of the paddock with her. They danced as she darted this way or that, and he followed her movements.

Beth hadn’t wanted it to be about haltering him, reining him in, but about setting him free, and it was.

The soft, distant laughter in the morning silence drew Josh’s attention as he shaved. The sound was so unexpected at that hour when normally all he heard was the bright chatter of the birds. He looked out the window, over the glazed part, and his breath caught as he watched Beth and Fair play.

For a second he felt a small pang of envy, seeing her laugh so freely and easily. She was still so cautious with him.

Patience
. It would take patience, he knew.

Someday, he hoped, prayed, she’d be that easy with him.

To see her laugh like that, though, to watch her hair swing and sway as she danced with the horse, though, he couldn’t help but smile.

Seeing that, he knew there was hope.

One step at a time.

Beth heard the truck drive up and the doors slam as Russ and Will got out, but the knock at the back door was unexpected, as was finding Russ standing on her back stoop with a box cradled in his arms. Like most folk in the country, Russ didn’t use the front door. That was for ‘company’, the back door was for folks you knew.

He was grimmer than usual, almost angry as he carried the box inside and set it on the kitchen table.

It was clearly heavy.

“Damn people,” he said. “Saw this sitting by the side of the road. Thought it was trash. Picked it up because of that, can’t abide litter. People these days treat roads like a trash bin. As soon as I saw what was in it though I thought of you.”

There was a whimper from the box.

Beth’s breath caught.

She went to it, opened it.

At first all she saw was a bundle of fluffy dark fur, then black eyes blinked and a pink tongue popped out in a wide yawn.

Her heart melted in an instant.

“It’s a puppy,” she said breathlessly, reaching into the box and lifting the warm, wriggling, fuzzy thing out.

When she’d been a girl she’d always wanted a puppy, but had known better than to ask. Instead she’d played with other people’s dogs. Later there had been Ruth’s dog, a big old basset hound, and three or four cats of various feline temperaments, but she’d never had a pet of her own.

“Damn people,” Russ said, furious. “Damn right it’s a puppy. A puppy, not a wolf, though it does sort of look like one, doesn’t it, with that black and gray fur? What did they think was going to happen to the poor damn thing, leaving it beside the road like that? Didn’t want to leave it at a shelter? As if leaving it beside the road isn’t just as much a death sentence as taking it to the pound? Like as not it’s gonna get hit by a car or something before someone finds it. Damn people.”

It pained him. There was a good chance there had been more than one puppy in that box. He didn’t want to think what had happened to the others.

He shook his head and then lifted his chin in the dog’s direction.

“Gonna be big, though,” he said, “judging by the size of it and those feet. Don’t know what breed he is or if it matters. Living alone like you do, though, you need a dog.”

The sentiment caught her off guard.

Beth looked at Russ in astonishment, delighted both with the dog and his thoughtfulness.

Putting the puppy back in the box, she threw her arms around Russ’s neck and hugged him, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you.”

To her surprise he blushed crimson, his jaw tightened, and then he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well…”

With an embarrassed nod, he ducked out the door, quickly for him, a slow-moving man, to join Will in finishing the house painting.

Beth smiled. It had been such a kind thing to do. Both for her and the puppy.

The puppy swiped her chin with his tongue repeatedly, wriggling happily at being held.

By the size and weight of him there was no doubt he was going to be huge, but right at the moment he was a bouncing, happy puppy who wanted DOWN. So she put him down. His huge paws skittered all over the worn linoleum as he bounced around her feet and then charged fearlessly around the kitchen to smell everything.

She got a bowl down from the cupboard and filled it with water.

He raced over to see what it was, lapped up a lot, scattered more over the floor, and then raced off to explore again.

With a smile, she picked up the box to carry it out to the garage.

“Hey, puppy, want to go out? Go out, baby?”

The puppy bounced after her, tumbling down the steps as much as he scrambled down them.

At his size he was more than able to handle the bumps.

He followed her out to the garage until he saw a butterfly, and then he scrambled off after it. Leaped and tried to pounce on it. Growled at it and tried to catch it again as it fluttered away.

Beth had no fear for the butterfly, the puppy was too ungainly yet to actually catch it.

She remembered what Russ had said. The puppy wasn’t a wolf, but he looked like one.  He had upright ears and black fir tinged with gray and was probably some mix of wolfhound and Newfoundland or Labrador. Some big, black dog breed. He looked like nothing more than pictures she had seen of wolf pups.

Laughing, she went after him as he bounded away, scooped him back up before he hit the high weeds and disappeared among them before she set him down in safe territory again. He promptly took advantage of the moment to piddle.

“Good boy,” she said.

Better there than in the house.

She raided the garden while she was outside. Pulled some weeds and chased the puppy, laughing, picked some tomatoes, some peppers and chased the puppy.

Pick him up and put him down and he bounded off again to pounce on something else, growling ferociously.

“Silly bouncy dog, pouncing on everything,” she said. “I guess you have a name now. C’mon, Wolf.”

Clapping her hands, she hunkered down, and he bounded over to lick her face.

With a hand held up to cover her eyes from the sun she looked up at Russ and Will as they worked, perched on the scaffold beside the house.

The painting was almost done and the house looked amazingly different. It no longer loomed grimly or looked haunted, empty, and faded.

She was surprised to realize she was going to miss having Russ and Will around even though she knew she’d see them over at Josh’s, if just not as much. It had been good having company at meals, even if neither of them talked much. That had suited her as well.

Her eyes went to the house across the way, to the barn where Josh was probably working and to Fair in the paddock. She was getting good enough at putting the harness on Bella that it would soon be time to try it on Fair.

First, there was breakfast for the boys.

Western scrambled eggs, with sausage and fresh picked peppers, onions sautéed in butter and pepper jack cheese. Some fresh baked bread.

Some of the eggs and sausage she held aside for the puppy in lieu of dog food she didn’t yet have.