Shelter Mountain (Virgin River #2)(5)

“Thank you,” she said, and it was barely a sound.

He pulled the door closed. He heard her move the dead bolt, protecting herself. For the first time since coming to this little town, he wondered why that dead bolt had ever been installed.

He stood there a minute. It had taken him about five seconds to conclude someone—ninety-eight-percent chance a boyfriend or husband—had belted her in the face and she was on the run with her kid. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that stuff happened. It happened all the time. He just never understood what satisfaction a man could get out of hitting a woman. It made no sense to him. If you have a pretty young woman like that, you treat her right. Hold her safe against you and protect her.

He went to the bar, turned off the lights, checked the kitchen, leaving a light on in case she came downstairs, then went to his apartment behind the kitchen. He was only there a few minutes when it occurred to him that there were no longer clean towels up there—he’d emptied the bathroom and moved all his downstairs. He went to the bathroom, gathered up a stack of clean white towels and went back upstairs.

The door was open a crack, like maybe she’d already been down to the kitchen. He could see a glass of orange juice sitting on the bureau inside the door and it pleased him that she’d helped herself. Through that space of an inch, he saw her reflection in the bureau mirror. Her back faced the mirror and she had pulled her bulky sweatshirt up over her head and shoulders, trying to get a glimpse of her back and upper arms in the mirror. She was covered with bruises. Lots of big bruises on her back, one on her shoulder and upper arms.

Preacher was mesmerized. For a moment his eyes were locked on those purple splotches. “Aw, Jesus,” he whispered in a breath.

He quickly backed away from the slit in the door and got up against the wall outside, out of sight. It took him a moment to collect himself; he was stricken. Horrified. All he could think was, what kind of animal does something like that? His mouth hung open because he couldn’t imagine this. He was a warrior, a trained fighter, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t done that much damage to a man equal to him in size, in a fair fight.

Some instinct kicked in that told him he shouldn’t let on that he’d seen. She was already afraid of everything, including him. But there was also the reality that this wasn’t a woman who’d been smacked. She’d been pummeled. He didn’t even know the girl, yet all he wanted was to kill the son of a bitch who’d done that to her. After five or eleven months of beatings, then death for the sorry bastard.

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.