The Girl in the Window (27 page)

“At the very least he has a concussion,” the doctor said. “We’re pretty sure some ribs are cracked and his femur is broken. That’s no light thing. We don’t know about internal injuries but he was wearing protective gear, so we can hope.”

Over the hours they learned that Josh’s protective gear had worked and that while his ribs were cracked they hadn’t done more damage.

His leg was another thing. It was tractioned, suspended.

They wheeled him into his hospital room, set up the bed and all the monitors and such. Each beeped steadily, reassuringly.

Beth tried to find a place on him that didn’t have a tube stuck in it and couldn’t.

Finally, she curled a hand around his wrist.

Russ took up position by the windows looking out while Will took over the chair on the other side of the bed. Dimly Beth remembered telling them to go home, over Tyler’s protests, until Beth had fretted that someone needed to feed Wolf, that the poor dog was alone at the house.

Laying her head down on the bed she never knew when sleep took her.

She dreamed of Matthew and Josh, and didn’t know she cried in her sleep when she did, weeping for Matt and for Josh, for the fear that still ran through her. In her dreams she saw the car as she’d seen the racetrack crash, saw the collision.

It was the dampness that pulled Josh out of the darkness, the coolness of Beth’s tears on the skin of his arm that drew him.

He woke slowly, to find himself full of tubes and wires, groggy and bewildered.

Beth was asleep in a chair by his bed, her head resting on the mattress by his arm, her fingers wrapped loosely around his arm.

Looking around, he found Will asleep in a nearby chair and Russ standing by the window, looking out.

“What happened?” His voice was a thin croak, little more than a whisper.

 Russ turned.

“There was a crash,” he said. “You were caught in the middle of it.”

Carefully, Josh freed his arm from Beth’s limp hand so he could stroke her hair.

There was something in Russ’s eyes, something that warned him.

“All right,” he said, “tell me. How bad was it?”

Very quietly, Russ said, “They had to put Chord down. He’s gone, Josh.”

Josh hadn’t expected it to be so complete, so disastrous.

It took a moment to absorb.

Chord had had so much promise. Josh’s heart wrenched at the thought of his loss. Now they would never know how good Chord would have been. Could have been. He remembered the months of Chord’s training, remembered the big bay stallion and how he’d raced his heart out. Their hopes for the big money had been in Fair, but Chord had surprised them. Now he’d never win the Little Brown Jug.

Josh couldn’t believe he was gone.

“Damn.” It was all Josh could say.

He grieved for the horse. For the promise in him that they’d almost missed.

“Yeah,” Russ said.

Josh did a quick self assessment.

All his parts seemed to be working, except the leg, but pain medications might be hiding something he didn’t know.

“How bad am I?”

“Doctors say you’ll be laid up about six weeks,” Russ said. “Concussion, cracked ribs, and the leg.”

Josh did the math, calculated the days.

“So I’ll be good to go for the Hambletonian,” Josh said. For Fair.

And there was still Adagio and Bella.

Russ nodded.  “With luck.”

Josh’s eyes went to the sleeping girl at his side, remembering her fears, knowing what he knew about her.

And he worried.

Something was different, but Josh couldn’t quite put his finger on it, he didn’t know what it was or how to define it. It just felt wrong. Beth felt wrong and she had ever since the accident. She always seemed little wired. She did everything right, she still hugged and kissed him, she had been a rock through his therapy, but there were times when she seemed pale and strained. He thought she’d lost weight, too. Every time he asked her about it, though, she assured him that nothing was wrong, she smiled and kissed him with all the love and passion he’d grown to love.

It had been sheer torture to watch another driver take Fair out onto the racetrack but it was the only thing he could do if they had any hope of getting Fair into the Hambletonian in August. Will had Adagio in hand for the Little Brown Jug.

His ribs were healing and with a little work he’d gotten into the jog cart even with a cast on his leg to take Fair around in practice and keep the rest of himself fit. His doctor would have had a fit if he knew. Josh still wanted to be the one who drove Fair across that finish line in the Meadowlands if he could. It would be tight and close. For six weeks his leg had been in the cast but that cast was gone now, and his therapy was almost over. He worked out daily, weight training on his arms, chest, shoulders, and his good leg.

For him therapy was done, in this next race he would be the one taking Fair out.

“So,” Russ said, eyeing him. “You sure you’ll be fit enough?”

Josh grinned. “I’m fit enough. I can’t wait. Adagio will be the test. If I can’t take him around we’ll have Patrick take Fair if he’s still free.”

They would be leaving later in the afternoon. That was what they’d been discussing, the race and everything they needed to do to prepare for it.

“Bye, love,” Beth said, with a smile that seemed a little strained, giving him a quick kiss and Russ a wave before she headed out the door to go to work.

She was putting in more hours lately. A lot more hours.

Frowning, his heart twisting a little, Josh watched her go. A trickle of fear went through him. Somehow it felt as if he was losing her, but he didn’t know how or what to do about it. How to stop it from happening.

Russ settled back against the counter in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hands, his eyes on Josh.

“Did you know Beth was engaged before?” Russ said almost idly, his tone slow and careful, his eyes on the door, too.

Turning, Josh looked at him. “No, I didn’t.”

For some reason the thought made his blood run cold.

It hadn’t come up, although he hadn’t mentioned his old girlfriends either. None of them had been Beth, and although he’d thought he’d loved one or two of them, he knew now that he hadn’t really known what love was until he met her.

And she was slipping away from him. He could sense it.

Russ’s eyes dropped to his coffee cup as he swirled the contents.

“Yeah,” he said, “I was talking to Mary, Ty’s mother, the other day.”

Surprised, Josh looked at him. “Were you?”

“She’s a nice woman,” Russ said. “Hardworking. She’s had it a little tough, raising a boy all by herself.”

Josh was astonished, it was the most his reticent trainer had ever told him about himself.

“I’m a widower,” Russ said. “Lost my wife when I was about your age. To cancer. After... I never thought I’d love someone again. Didn’t want to, until I met Mary.”

Ty’s mother.

Russ shrugged. “I kept busy. That’s why I kept telling you not to put it off. You never know when you wouldn’t have any more time.”

The older man’s eyes lifted to meet Josh’s.

“I wished I had had more time to say the words to Carole that I never said. And then one day she was gone.”

Russ paused, thoughfully.

“Maybe I’ll do better this time,” Russ said. “I’m sure gonna try.”

Russ took a breath, sighed. It wasn’t his nature to get into other people’s business, but he couldn’t avoid it now. This was important. Too important to stay silent.

Choosing his next words carefully, he said, “You know how it is in towns this small, everyone knows what’s going on, even if they don’t know the people who are in it.”

His eyes never shifted from his coffee cup once he started to talk.

“Both of them, Beth and her fiancée, were at college. Everyone says they were devoted to each other. They had plans, dreams, they were going to open up a bed and breakfast. He died, hit by a car, the driver drunk. It killed him instantly.  It was worse still for her, being there all alone, with no family of her own…but she held up they said. She held up. They all said how brave Beth was at the funeral, very brave. She scarcely shed a tear, but folks could tell how badly it had taken her.”

Josh looked once more at the door, all too conscious of the brace on his leg.

In his mind’s eye he could see the accident once again, but this time from Beth’s perspective.

Suddenly he wanted to call her back, to hold her and promise that it would be all right.

*****

It was an effort to do it, but Beth kept her mind clear and empty, despite the fear that constantly chattered in the back of her mind like an angry squirrel. Some days it seemed as if she was never not afraid, her nerves constantly on fire, her stomach in knots. She went through whole days that she couldn’t remember, and yet somehow everything had gotten done.

Her hands were locked tight around the steering wheel. So tight her fingers ached as she parked it.

Wolf laid his big head in her lap.

Releasing the wheel, she stroked him, finding solace in the gesture.

She was so scared. So scared.

She loved him, loved Josh, at times so fiercely it seemed she couldn’t contain it, and then she would picture the accident, the bikes and horses tumbling, the drivers disappearing in the melee as the legs of the horses kicked. Those that weren’t broken.

The sound of the bolt thudding into Chord’s head made her wince at the memory.

He’d been such a good horse. So beautiful, with such a great heart.

Everyone kept saying how lucky it had been that no one had been killed, even while Josh lay in a hospital bed. And Chord? He wasn’t a person, he didn’t count.

Except to her.

No one would tell her what had been done with him.

Her stomach was tied in knots.

She pressed her fingers to her lips.

Arriving at work was almost a relief. She threw herself into cooking, but couldn’t bear to go out into the common room and face the questions there.

Tyler was off, and that was a relief, too, or she’d have to hear the endless chatter about the races of the other horses. She wasn’t certain she could endure that.

Returning home that night, she pulled into the driveway past the paddock and up to the house.

For a moment she sat in the car.

She just wanted to go home. If only she knew where home was anymore. Once it had been in this house, with Josh, but now? She wasn’t sure anymore.

It wasn’t something they’d ever really spoken about, her coming to live here, it had just happened.

She hadn’t wanted to leave, and Josh hadn’t wanted her to go.

So she hadn’t.

Gradually more of her clothes had wound up here. One day Josh had mentioned that there were a couple of empty drawers in his dresser she could use if she wanted.

She smiled at the memory even as she pressed a hand over her fluttering stomach.

Russ and Will had pretty much taken over her house while she’d come to live in this one.

She laid her forehead against the steering wheel and wished she could weep, but she couldn’t, the tears were locked inside her.

The house was empty, Josh was still in the hospital, but she was used to coming home sometimes to an empty house if he was racing.

In the morning Tony and the boys would show up to do the chores, feed and milk the cows, and watch the house.

She forced herself to take a full breath, to fill her lungs, and then got out of the car.

Their bedroom smelled like them, like Josh’s soap and her perfume.