The Girl in the Window (15 page)

Suddenly she was her nine-year-old self fighting the evil schoolyard bullies as she had when she was a child, facing them down alone.

No one was going to frighten her or intimidate her anymore.

She was terrified for her dog, for Fair, but not for herself.

The horse milled around behind her, but she wasn’t afraid of him, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, it was the boys who concerned her.

She faced them, seeing a pack form and set the wooden rake in her hands.

They were a bunch of drunken kids, at least one of them fairly well off to judge by the expensive truck, out for a joyride in Daddy’s pick-em-up.

It was there in their eyes, the viciousness she’d seen in her father sometimes, the hate and the anger, meanness seeking expression. Looking for a target…

Tossing her hair back, she looked at them, saw the calculation in their eyes, in the way their bodies set, even in the darkness.

It was going to get ugly, she could feel it in the air, see it on their faces.

She looked at them as she’d looked at the bully on the playground.

You can knock me down
, she’d said to that one then, her hands clenched at her sides,
but I’ll keep getting up. No matter how many times you knock me down, I’ll get back up.

She had.

It had been hopeless, but still she’d tried, had fought. She’d lost then, but she had won, too. He’d never bothered her again.

She couldn’t defend herself at home then, but she could here. Here she could fight.

As she could face these boys.

“I can’t take you all,” she said firmly, “but I can take one of you and bring down a serious case of whoop ass on him before the rest of you take me down. I’ll visit some serious hurt on one of you. Who wants to go first?”

They’d hurt her dog, terrified Fair, just out of meanness. No, even worse, out of boredom.

She’d seen the expensive truck, heard its motor rumble as she stood there, its headlights spearing into the darkness, the backwash of that light illuminating the paddock.

They’d done it because they could, because they were rich and bored and because Daddy would get them out of it.

“Come on, tough guys,” she said. “Come and get me. Surely you can take me? I dare you. Or wasn’t your tae-kwan-do classes enough?”

There was a place in town, on the Square, that taught karate to those who had enough money to afford it. For all the talk that the martial arts were a philosophy, she’d found that the mindset of bullies trumped it.

One of them flinched, but automatically tried to take a stance.

Suddenly, all the lights around the paddock and yard flashed on. Beth could see each face clearly as Josh came out of the house at a dead run wearing nothing but jeans.

Josh was stunned.

The sound of the barking had awakened him, but the sound of Beth’s voice, the alarm in it, had galvanized him.

A glance out the window as he pulled on his jeans confirmed it as he saw her running through the darkness, her nightgown flashing white in the harsh glow of the headlights. It fluttered around her ankles as she ran, and that image had him racing for the door. He’d had just enough of a look to see the drunken boys, the big black pickup half in the ditch by his front fence.

Then he’d heard the puppy yelp.

Wolf.

He pictured the fluffy puppy too easily and cringed inside at the thought of what had made him cry out like that.

Fury flashed through him.

Snatching up the phone as he went past the counter where he’d left it, he hit speed dial for 911 even as he went through the front door, snapping off instructions as they answered and he ran past the barn.

They were closing on her, drunk enough and mean enough to do serious damage.

With a snap of his wrist he sent his cell phone spinning into the darkness as he jumped for and vaulted the fence.

Furious, enraged, he snatched the rake out of Beth’s hands to put himself between her, Fair, and the drunken boys. He couldn’t see the puppy.

If they hadn’t been boys – although the older two had to be either eighteen or close enough to it, and so old enough to know better, the biggest one obviously the ringleader – he would have beaten the crap out of them.

He could have, even four against one.

Growing up he’d been small until he hit a growth spurt at thirteen and shot up in height. Even so, in the years before he’d been bullied a lot until he joined the Golden Gloves.

He knew kids like these, had known them then and later, football players when school was in session, their size giving them a confidence they hadn’t earned. He remembered them from when he’d played football himself, the smallest guy on the team. But the most determined. He’d earned his letter as some of the others hadn’t.

It was the youngest one, a skinny kid who reminded him too much of himself at that age, young, impressionable, that gave him pause even in the face of the eldest’s sneer. That older kid needed a taste of what he dished out and Josh was big enough to do it now, but that younger one… That was a different story. What would it teach him?

Just because he could beat them, Josh didn’t need to. It would be enough with that older one to make him back down, to give that arrogant rich kid’s pride a good kick, make him realize there were people bigger and tougher than he was.

He looked at the eldest two.

“You’re good with puppies and women, do you think you can take me?” he said in disgust.

Beth thought she’d never seen anything like it in her life.

For the first time someone was fighting for her.

Josh glared at the boys, magnificent in his fury, his lean body taut with anger.

Looking at him standing there, so calm, sure, and so furious, but in control, she found she wasn’t afraid anymore. She thought she’d never seen anything so incredible, pride just swelled inside her. In a corner of her mind she was conscious of how beautiful he looked in the harsh white light, of the way his firmly muscled body looked, wearing only jeans, his feet bare.

Both of the bigger boys bristled. One of the two younger ones looked scared. The other looked ashamed.

As they looked at Josh, though, at the rake held firmly in his hands, at his muscled body and the calm, certain look in his eyes, the two eldest suddenly wilted, backed off.

“Take off,” Josh snapped. “I called the sheriff, he’s on his way.”

That was what did it. One of the boys swore softly. Fear and horror were laced through his voice.

“My dad’s going to kill me,” he said.

The others suddenly looked panicked. The one broke and ran.

That was all it took. The others broke and fled.

Josh tossed the rake after them, turned and yanked Beth into the safety of his arms.

In all his life he’d never been so scared as that moment when she’d put herself between his horse and those boys. Drunk and mean, they’d been capable of anything.

In that moment, he’d also known she understood those boys might kill her by accident, out of spite, or fear, or anger, but she’d still done it. Had stood and faced them down.

She’d been beautiful, impressive and completely insane.

He understood then how much danger she’d faced and, knowing what he knew of her, he thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful, so courageous.

There was nothing, nothing, more important to him than she was.

In that moment, holding her close, he knew just how much in love with her he was, as delicate, desperate and fragile as she was.

He clasped her to him, cupped a hand around her head.

In all his life he had never seen anything so incredible, so brave and so incredibly stupid. That thought echoed through him.

Threading his fingers through her soft hair, he held her against him as the truck peeled away with a screech of tires.

He was incredibly conscious of her body beneath the thin white cotton of her nightgown, of her cheek against the bare skin of his chest, but he was also aware of the life in his arms, of the woman in them. Of the precious gift she was and he held her all the more tightly.

“Wolf!” she cried and broke away to carefully gather the broken body of the puppy in her arms.

She turned to look at Josh as her face crumpled and tears glimmered, bright in the lights.

In the distance Josh heard the sound of a siren as he gathered her close again. Her and Wolf, the fluffy puppy hair so soft against the bare skin of his chest.

“He’s still alive, he’s still breathing,” she said.

As in many small towns, the courthouse was large and ornate in comparison to the rest of the town, with massive Corinthian columns. The building faced out over the town green with its bandstand where once upon a time politicians had stumped and fireworks had been set off on the summer holidays. The town had only one main street, called Main, which split to circle the green the locals called the Square. Few politicians stumped there now and the fireworks had been moved out to the County Fairgrounds where it was safer. Attempts had been made to bring bands back to the bandstand – really a large pavilion – but after a while those efforts had died out for lack of attendance. With the advent of the big box stores out by the interstate highway, the town was dying by slow degrees. If you looked hard you could see the name of the old department store that had once been the mainstay of the town in the darker patches on the wood of the old boarded-up storefront, but soon that would be gone as well.

The town council had found just enough money in the budget to pay for the flowers that decorated the light posts around the Square in an attempt to attract businesses to the now-empty shops that lined it. Those flowers were maintained by one of the women’s clubs.

The Square still boasted the one remaining decent hardware store. Not one of those big bright ones out by the highway with the rest, but the old style, close and dark kind where the owner could find things the big box stores didn’t stock.

The main building of the courthouse was an impressive gray edifice in the colonial style with its classic Greek elements, a pediment above the entry with its depiction of the founding fathers, the veranda faced with those Corinthian pillars. The building was constantly in need of repair and there was always work of some kind going on to fix it. Years before enough money had been found in the budget to add on a newer section at the back, so now only the courtrooms were still in use in main courthouse itself.

Beth knew one of those courtrooms well.

One indelible memory – of the day when she’d been taken her away from her parents.

They’d led her to one of the offices in the new section, had asked her to tell why she had the bruises, the marks of whippings. They’d touched the welts and scars. A nurse had treated them.

There had been a hearing of some kind, before a judge. Her parents hadn’t attended. And then they’d driven her away to that other place. Before Ruth.

Inside the courthouse the halls were narrow and crowded with folks seated on benches awaiting their turn before the judge, but Josh had his arm around Beth’s waist. She was conscious of his strength, his steadiness. She needed it. Memories crowded.

Even as they stood waiting for the arraignment, Wolf was in surgery at the vet’s and she wasn’t there with him, she was here. They were needed to identify the boys who’d hurt him.

A bailiff led them into the courtroom, to find all of the boys in orange jumpsuits.

It hadn’t been hard to find them, to catch them, that late at night. Few cars were on the road at that hour, much less one like that big, black monster. The sheriff had taken off after them in his county car, lights flashing.

The richer kids looked only a little scared as they were led out in handcuffs. They were also confident, almost cocky, certain that Daddy – whoever he was – would get them off.

Beth was stunned by the look on the face of one of the younger ones. The one who’d looked ashamed the night before.

He wasn’t like the others and he was so young, so scared, trying to man up, but the fear was in his eyes as they led him down the hall. His momma half stood as he went by and she reached out, trying to call her boy back, to undo what he’d done. It was clear that he’d been trying to fit in with the others.