Shelter Mountain (Virgin River 2)

She shouldn’t know he was feeling that; it would scare her to death. He took a few deep breaths, composed himself. Then he tapped lightly on the door.

“Huh?” he heard her say, sounding startled.

“Just some towels,” he said.

“One second, okay?”

“Take your time.”

Momentarily she opened the door a tiny bit farther, her sweatshirt back in place.

“I forgot, I took all the bathroom stuff out,” he said. “You’ll need some towels. I’ll leave you alone now. Won’t bother you again.”

“Thank you. John.”

“No problem. Paige. Get some good rest.”

Paige pulled the bureau carefully, as quietly as possible, in front of the door. She really hoped John hadn’t heard that, but as close as she could figure out, the kitchen was right beneath this room. And—if the man meant her or Christopher any harm, he could have already delivered it, not to mention that a locked door and empty bedroom dresser couldn’t possibly keep him out.

As much as she’d have liked a hot soak in a tub, she felt too vulnerable to get naked. She couldn’t talk herself into the shower, either—she might not hear the doorknob rattle or Christopher call out to her—so she washed up in the sink and put on clean clothes. Then, leaving the bathroom light on, she lay carefully on the bed, on top of the covers. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, but after a little while she calmed down. She stared at the ceiling, the wood slats forming a perfect V over her head. What came to mind was that this was the third time in her life she’d lain in bed looking at such a ceiling.

The first time was in the house she grew up in—the beams were bare, pink insulation puffing out between them. The house was small, only two bedrooms, and already old when her parents moved in, but the neighborhood had been clean and quiet then, twenty years ago. Her mother moved her into the attic when she was nine; she shared her space with boxes of stored household goods pushed back against one wall. But it was her space, and she escaped to it whenever she could. From her bed she could hear her mother and father arguing. After her father’s death when she was eleven, she could hear her older brother, Bud, argue with their mother.

From what she had learned about domestic battery in the last few years, she should have expected to end up with an abuser, even though her father never hit her or her mother, and the worst she ever got from Bud was a shove or slug in the arm. But man, could the men in her family yell. So loud, so mad, she wondered why the windows didn’t crack. Demand, belittle, insult, accuse, sulk, punish with the meanest words. It was just a matter of degrees; abuse is abuse.

The next time she had found herself staring at a ceiling like this one was after she left home. She’d gone to beauty school after high school and stayed home with her mother, paying rent, until she was twenty-one. Then she and two girlfriends—also beauticians—rented half an old house. Paige had happily taken the attic bedroom, though it wasn’t even as large as her childhood room and most of the time she had to crouch to keep from hitting her head on the slanted walls.

Tears came to her eyes because she remembered those two years with Pat and Jeannie as the happiest in her life. Sometimes she missed them so much it made her ache. Three hairdressers, mostly broke after rent, food and clothes—it had seemed like heaven. When they couldn’t afford to go out, they’d buy popcorn and cheap wine and make a party of it at home, gossiping about women whose hair they cut and frosted, about boyfriends and sex, laughing till they couldn’t sit up straight.

Then Wes came into her life, a successful businessman, six years older. It was shocking to realize he’d been the age she was now—twenty-nine. Yet he’d seemed so worldly, mature. She’d been styling his hair for only a couple of months when he asked her out and took her to a restaurant so fine the hostesses were better dressed than she was. He drove a brand-new Grand Prix with cushy leather seats, darkly tinted windows. And he drove too fast, which at twenty-three didn’t seem dangerous. It was thrilling. Even though he yelled at and flipped off other drivers, it seemed his right—he was powerful. By her standards, rich.

He had a house already, which he didn’t even have to share with roommates. His career was trading stocks and commodities; an exhausting job that required brilliance and high energy. He wanted to go out every night, bought her things, pulled his wallet out of his pocket and said, I don’t know what you really want, what little thing would just make you cry it’s so perfect, so I want you to shop for yourself. Because you being happy is the only thing that matters to me in the world.” He’d peeled off a couple of bills and handed her two hundred dollars, a veritable fortune.

Pat and Jeannie didn’t like him, but there was hardly a mystery in that. He wasn’t all that nice to them. He treated them like wallpaper, furniture. Answered their questions with one word when he could. In fact, she couldn’t remember what they said about him when they tried to warn her off.

Then came the insanity of her life spiraling out of control that to this day seemed impossible: he’d hit her before they married, and she’d married him anyway. They’d been in his fancy car, parked, having an argument about where she was living—he thought she’d be better off at home with her mother rather than that old half a house in a questionable neighborhood with a couple of dykes. It got pretty nasty; she’d said her share of ugly things to him. He said something like, “I want you with your mother, not in some little whorehouse in the ghetto.”

Just who the fuck do you think you are, calling where I live a whorehouse?

How do you use that language with me?

You called my best friends dykes and whores and it’s my language you criticize?

I’m just thinking about your safety. You said you wanted to marry me someday, and I’d like you to still be around when that happens!

Well up yours, because I love living there and you can’t tell me what to do! And I’m not marrying anyone who can talk about my best friends like that!

There was more. More. She vaguely remembered calling him a bad name, like prick or asshole. He called her a bitch, a difficult bitch. In any case, they both contributed, she was sure of that.

He’d slapped her, open palm. Then he immediately broke down, collapsed, cried like a baby, said he wasn’t sure what had happened to him, but maybe it was because he’d never been in love like this before. It was wrong, he knew it was wrong to overreact that way, he was crazy, he was ashamed. But…he wanted to hold her in his arms every night, take care of her for the rest of her life, never lose her. He apologized for what he’d said about the roommates—maybe he was jealous of how loyal she was to them. In his mind he couldn’t see past her; there was no one in his life he valued like he valued her. He loved her so much it made him nuts, he said. She was the first person he’d ever felt that way about. Without her, he was nothing!

She believed him. But she never used profanity around him again.

She hadn’t told Pat and Jeannie because even though she was stupid about what was happening, she knew better than to risk their further disapproval. It only took her a couple of days to get over that slap. It wasn’t much of a slap. It didn’t take more than a month for her to almost forget it happened and trust him again; she thought him handsome, exciting, sexy. He was edgy and confident. Smart. Passive men couldn’t get the kind of success he had. She wasn’t attracted to passive men.

Then he said, “Paige, I don’t want to wait. I want us to get married as soon as you’re ready. A nice wedding—screw the cost, I can afford whatever you want. Ask Pat and Jeannie to stand up for us. And you can quit your job—you don’t have to work anymore.”

Her legs hurt; she was getting bunions. Fixing hair six days a week was no easy job, even though she had liked it. She’d often thought how much more she’d like it if she only had to do it about six hours a day, four days a week, but that seemed an impossible dream. She could barely make ends meet as it was, and her mother had been working two jobs since her father died. In her mother, she saw her future—alone, weak and worked to death. A picture of her surly roommates wearing pretty satin at her wedding, smiling, envious of her good fortune and the cushy life she’d have. And she’d said yes.

He hit her again on the honeymoon.

Over the next six years she’d tried everything—counseling, police, running away. He got out of jail right away, if they even bothered to take him in; he found her in hiding, and it just got worse. Even her pregnancy and Christopher’s arrival hadn’t stopped the abuse. She discovered by accident that there might be a little more to this equation—a certain chemistry that gave him such energy to work those long hours and wear himself out keeping track of her, the fits of euphoria, the skull-splitting temper—some white powder in a small vial. Cocaine? And he took something his personal trainer gave him, though he swore it wasn’t steroids. A lot of traders used amphetamines to keep up with the demands of the job. Cocaine users tended to be reed-thin, but Wes was proud of his body, his build, and worked hard on his muscles. A coke and steroid regimen, she realized, could make his temper hair-trigger short. She had no idea how much, how long. But she knew he was crazy.

This was her last chance. Through a shelter she’d met a woman who said she could help her get away, change her identity and flee. There was an underground for battered women and children in hopeless situations. If she and Christopher could just get to the first contact, they would be passed along from place to place, collecting new ID, names, histories and lives along the way. The upside was—it worked a lot. It was nearly foolproof when the woman followed instructions and the children were young enough. The downside was, it was illegal, and for life. Life like this, covered in bruises, afraid she’d be killed every day—or a life of being someone else, someone who isn’t hit?

She started squirreling away money from her grocery allowance and packed a bag that she hid with a contact from a shelter. She managed almost five hundred dollars and fully intended to get herself and Christopher out before another bad episode occurred. With the last beating, she knew she was nearly too late.

And here she was, looking at her third V-shaped ceiling. She knew she wouldn’t sleep; she’d hardly slept in six years. No worries about the drive—with so much adrenaline going on, she’d make it.

But then she woke up to sunlight and a regular thwacking noise outside. Someone was chopping wood. She sat up cautiously and smelled coffee. She had slept after all. And so had Christopher.

The dresser was still pushed against the door.

Two

Preacher barely slept. He spent half the night on the computer. It was like this little machine was invented for him, because he liked to look things up. He had been trying to get Jack to put the inventory and receipts on the computer, but Jack had a clipboard that was like an extension of his arm and wanted nothing to do with Preacher’s technology. It was slow, there being no cable hookup out here, but he was patient. And it got the job done.

The rest of the night was spent trying to catch some sleep, which eluded him completely. He got out of bed several times and looked out the back window to see if the little Honda was still there. He finally got up for the day at five, when it was still black as pitch outside. He went into the kitchen, started the coffee, laid a fresh fire. There was no sound from upstairs.

The rain had stopped, but it was overcast and chilly. He’d have liked to go ahead and split logs, work off some aggression, but Jack liked doing that, so he let it go. At six-thirty, Jack came into the bar, all smiles. This was the happiest man in Virgin River since he got married. It was as if he couldn’t stop grinning.

Preacher stood behind the bar with his coffee mug and lifted his chin in greeting to his best friend. “Hey,” Jack said. “Good rain.”