The Girl in the Window (5 page)

He was happy to see another of her rare smiles at the compliment.

Pleased, Beth looked around. “Thank you.”

Hands clean, he held one out to her and said, “Josh Randall.”

For a moment, she hesitated, and then she took the offered hand. “Elizabeth Winters. I owe you, Mr. Randall.”

“No, it’s just what neighbors do for each other, and it’s Josh.”

“Josh,” she said, trying it out. “All right, then it’s Beth, call me Liz or Bethie and I’ll shoot you.”

The small joke surprised her. It was a day of surprises.

He grinned. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“I can make you a sandwich instead,” she said, emboldened.

With a nod, Josh said, “I’ll take you up on that.”

Anything to stay in her company a little longer.

It wasn’t just a simple sandwich either, Josh discovered, although she put it together quickly enough and competently. Ham, hand-carved and thick, with rough Dijon mustard and romaine lettuce on home-made whole wheat bread. His mouth was seriously watering by the time she handed it to him.

The first bite was very nearly heaven. He groaned in appreciation.

Seeing the look in his eyes, the near reverence with which he savored the sandwich, and the moan, made Beth laugh again before she took a bite of her own.

Gesturing around him, he said, “You do all this yourself?”

She nodded.

The sheer physical presence of him seemed to fill the room.

Suddenly, she found herself trying to resist the urge to take him on a tour of the house.

It wasn’t finished yet. There were rooms, doors she hadn’t opened. He would ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

Panic fluttered lightly inside her.

Josh saw the sudden uneasiness in her eyes as alarm made her tighten and he sensed it would be wise to make his exit now, quickly, gently and easily, or risk losing the ground he’d made.

“I’ll just be going now,” he said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

Relieved and a little regretful because she’d enjoyed his company, Beth said, “Thank you for fixing the mower.”

“No problem, I was glad to help. If you need anything else, just ask.”

Beth watched him go out the door, caught it so that it wouldn’t bang – something her father had hated – and walk across the grass between the properties. She liked the way he moved, strong, confident.

She tried not to think about how good he’d looked or how kind he’d been.

A chill went over her. She wrapped her arms around herself, walked through the house and up the stairs.

For a moment she looked at the door at the end of the hall.

Her parent’s bedroom.

That door, like the one at the end of the hall, and the one to the cellar, was closed.

Some doors she just wasn’t ready to open.

The morning dawned still and quiet, but for the birds. The first burst of song to greet the day had passed and now they twittered to each other softly. It had rained steadily for the past two days, keeping them under cover and everyone inside. Now they were once again free.

So was Beth.

In the paddock the horse seemed to be waiting, his head up. His mane and tail flagged in the breeze as he looked toward her house, almost as if he expected her.

Or had missed her.

Beth stood in the window, uncertain whether he could truly see her or whether it was only her imagination.

Still, something in him called to her.

Horses were herd animals. So were people, although most wouldn’t admit it. They wouldn’t call the groups of their friends or associations herds, but that was what they were, she thought.

She supposed she was now the horse’s herd. As he was hers. And Josh Randall’s. 

With a sigh, she walked out of the room, snagging an apple from the fruit basket on the counter and tucking it into the pocket of her light sweater. The morning had dawned cool, but it would warm later as the sun burned off the last of the clouds and fog. That warm light pierced clouds and fog to bath the fields in shimmering gold.

Even so, she went barefoot, walking through the cold, wet grass. Her feet ached but there was also something freeing, something refreshing, about going without. For once, her feet weren’t trapped within shoes.

As always, she gathered grass as she went, and she walked slowly so she wouldn’t frighten or startle the horse more than she already did.

The horse stood, his ears and muscles twitching, watching her as she approached.

At the last moment his nerve broke and he charged away as she reached the fence.

Now she flinched only a little at the rejection. She hadn’t given up on him. Not yet. Ruth hadn’t give up on her.

Resolutely, she held out the sheaf of grass on her open palm.

The horse spun, danced uncertainly this way and that, before pacing around the paddock, circling her.

She loved watching him, loved watching the smooth, seemingly effortless way he moved, almost seeming to float above the ground so gracefully.

Was it her imagination that this time he’d come closer than he had before?

She didn’t move, held breathless.

Imagination or real?

Again, close, closer…or so she thought, before he wheeled about to pace the other way.

She didn’t move, tried not to breathe. She understood his fear. Her own had melted away.

As still as a statue and as patient, she waited.

Inside, observing from the kitchen window, Josh held himself immobile, too, breathless as he watched.

Slowly, carefully, he reached for his cell phone, glanced at it only long enough to find Russell’s number.

Against his ear he could hear as Russ’s phone rang and rang…

Josh’s gut churned.

They couldn’t lose this moment because Russ’s conscientiousness wouldn’t let him answer the phone while driving.

“Hello?” Russ’s voice was rough, impatient, tinged as always with an odd high note, like chalk on a blackboard, yet it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Whatever you do, I don’t care if you’re late, wherever you are, stop,” Josh said, his eyes locked on the slender figure by the paddock and the horse that paced within it. “We might have a breakthrough with the horse.”

It was always ‘the horse’, not the name. None of them dared become tied to it emotionally. If Josh couldn’t train it, then he’d have to sell it.

Russ started to speak, but Josh knew the other man would say something harsh and sensible, something that would break the magic of the moment outside with cold logic.

Sometimes you just had to have the magic.

He shut his phone and watched.

Outside, the horse paced around the paddock, mane and tail blowing as his movements and the breeze picked up.

The girl stood immobile, her arm braced on the rail. Josh had the sense she would wait forever if necessary.

A strange sense of tranquility settled over Beth, a feeling of peace. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, the horse trotted effortlessly, each leg, each hoof, reaching out in a steady syncopated rhythm. The sound of those hooves was everything and yet she could still hear the birdsong. It seemed she’d suddenly become patience.

She waited as the horse danced, first one way then the other.

A moment, a shift, she sensed something change and the balance tipped.

In almost mid-stride, the horse turned, stopped, and walked toward her almost wearily to lower his head to the offering in her palm.

He chuffed, blew and lipped at the grass.

By not so much as a hair did she move as he chewed, contentedly, at the small sheaf.

She allowed herself a smile.

Moving ever so slowly, she reached into the pocket of her sweater and drew out the apple.

The horse eyed her. His ears flicked, one then the other. Muscles jumped beneath his hide nervously.

The apple sat in the palm of her hand.

He hesitated, and then he took the apple, too, crunched it between his big teeth.

Very carefully, Beth reached out to stroke the silken soft muzzle, and then scrubbed lightly between his eyes.

For a moment, he accepted the caress. He blew out a breath.

Then he tossed his head.

It was enough for today, she’d pushed him as far to the boundaries of his trust as he would allow. She understood that, too.

“All right,” she said, softly.

His ears twitched forward at the sound of her voice.

“We’ll take it slow,” she said, and stepped carefully off the rail.

On her way back to the house, she glanced back once.

The horse stood, watching her.

Beth stepped through the back door, catching the screen door automatically so it wouldn’t slam.

She stood in the kitchen, irresolute.

If the horse could take that great a leap, could she?

Taking a breath, she walked up the stairs, looked at the doors at each end of the hall. All the others but those two stood open.

The one at the far end was closed.

One step at a time.

She walked down a hall that suddenly seemed much longer, as it once had, and laid a hand on that forbidden knob.

As a child this room had been off limits, except for certain occasions.

Remembering the courage of the horse, and holding onto that odd serenity she’d felt standing with him at the paddock, she turned the knob. Slowly, she opened the door.

Her heart hammered even so, she discovered.

The first thing that struck her was the smell.

It smelled like him.

It smelled like her father, like his skin, his body, the aftershave he’d used a faded undercurrent.

Everything in the room was unchanged from when she’d been a child.

The bed with its headboard of some dark wood, dull with age, scrollwork curling its edges, dominated the room. To one side her mother’s dresser was still scattered with the detritus of her mother’s life, with the purplish lipstick she’d always worn that had been so unsuitable for her coloring, along with the pins for the hair her mother had worn in a bun or French twist all her life.

Beth knew it was likely that her mother’s clothes still resided in the drawers, the closets, as did her father’s. Who, after all, would have gotten rid of them?

Not her father.

The bench where he’d put his shoes on in the morning and took them off at night still resided at the foot of the bed.

She looked out the high window at the back yard.

He’d died here in this room they told her.

They said there’d been a bottle of vodka on the nightstand, empty, and another beneath him.

She remembered that. He’d always liked clear alcohol to drink, gin or vodka over ice – on the rocks – it was easier to make people believe he was just having a glass of cold water. Or so he’d thought.

He had a rule, he never drank before noon. The sun had to be over the yardarm.

Her father been a man for rules. Lots of them. There had always been one for breaking, depending on his mood. As a child she’d broken lots of them.

A summons to this room had been a cause for terror. It meant she’d done something wrong.

She’d walked down that long hallway racking her brain for what she’d done this time, dreading the next moments.

Tall, coldly handsome with his dark hair and dark eyes, her father had waited for her, sitting on that bench.