by Ruth Wind
And when they were spent, they were both so worn from the long day that they simply curled together.
"We can't keep doing this," Juliet said thickly, her head nestled against his chest.
"I know." He pressed a kiss to her hair.
But they would. He'd finally understood a simple truth about Juliet Rousseau. It wasn't only her feelings about the rape that were buried, it was her feelings about everything. He held her, quietly, and thought about the things she'd said about her mother. "I think you need to tell your mother what happened to you, Juliet."
"Why?"
"Because I think you need to confess it to her."
"Confess? Like a sin?"
"No," he said quietly, brushing hair from her forehead. "Like a sorrow."
"She won't understand."
"It doesn't matter. It's not for her. It's for you."
Her hand moved on his chest, slow and easy, as if she was drawing comfort from the feeling of his skin. "I'll think about it."
"Will you also consider a support group?"
She was very quiet for a long stretch. "I don't know. We'll see."
They fell asleep, naked and exhausted, in each other's arms.
* * *
After breakfast, Juliet went to see Desi at the jail. If possible, Desi looked even worse, her skin the color of gruel, her hair unbrushed. Juliet hugged her, tightly. "Don't give up on me, Desi. Josh talked to the judge yesterday and he thinks you can be out tomorrow morning."
Desi nodded dully. "I had so many dreams last night. That mountain lion is haunting me. I swear I heard him last night."
"Do you want me to call somebody?"
She shook her head. "No, there's nothing they can do until he shows up somewhere. I just hate that he's in pain for so long. There was a lot of blood out at the ranch."
"Is there anything you want? Anything I can do?"
Desi roused herself to give Juliet a wan smile. "Just watch out for my dogs."
"That I can do." She paused. "Desi, can I talk about something kind of frivolous?"
"Please," she said, sipping the latte Juliet had brought to her.
"I broke up with Scott."
"You did? When?"
"Right after I met Josh." She bit her lip. "The thing is, I just can't seem to get to my feelings. Not any of them. I mean, I think I was very attracted to Josh and that's what made me realize that Scott and I were just drifting. But then Josh kisses me and I can feel things while his hands are on me, but the minute I move away, it's like a wall snaps into place."
"I'm glad you broke up with Scott, first of all. I never liked him. He was too uptight."
Juliet smiled. "I know."
"And Josh—well, if I were to pick any man in the world for you, I couldn't do better than him. But you're going to have to do your healing work or nothing is ever going to be okay again."
Juliet took a breath and confessed her secret. "I don't know how."
"Just be with it," Desi said. A little color came back into her cheeks as she counseled her sister. "When you're afraid, just be afraid. When you're mad, be mad. You don't always have to be the good girl."
The advice held a stinging rightness. Juliet nodded. "I'll try."
"That's all anyone can do."
* * *
Chapter 15
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Josh drove her home in the late afternoon, at Juliet's request. After her conversation with Desi, Juliet knew that her instinct to stay alone and face her mostly insubstantial fears was a good one. If all went well, Desi would get out of jail tomorrow morning—this would be a chance for Juliet to spend one night alone in the mountains.
It worried her a little that there was more snow in the forecast, but there were plenty of supplies, and she wouldn't even technically be alone, after all; the dogs would be with her. Josh went through the cabin with her, made sure she understood how the various things worked, and he carried in several armloads of firewood for her, not listening when she protested that she knew how to do it. "I know you do. It doesn't hurt to take some help, either."
At last, he paused at the front door. "You don't have to do this," he said. "There's nothing to prove."
Juliet nodded. "Yes, there is. I need to prove to myself that I'm not going to be afraid forever."
He seemed as if he would say something else, then just shrugged. "Okay. Call me if you need me."
* * *
As the mountain darkness enveloped the cabin, Juliet determined to keep herself busy. She boiled pasta and grated cheddar for macaroni and cheese while she listened to Celtic tunes on her MP3 player. While the macaroni and cheese baked, she tidied up the cabin, which took all of six minutes, since they had not been there the past couple of days. The fire was going nicely in the potbellied stove, and she had already piled up her nest of pillows and quilts so she could read after dinner.
One of the dogs went outside, then another, then the last one, but Juliet didn't fret. The blackness of the uncurtained windows was bothersome, as always, and Juliet wondered with some annoyance why Desi had never made any curtains.
Well, aside from the fact that you didn't technically need them since there were no neighbors, save for the odd bear.
And the views were spectacular.
Still, at night, it was creepy to know anyone else could see inside and she couldn't see out.
Anyone else being who, exactly? a voice in her mind asked. The odd werewolf, the rapist who had followed her from California to here to rape her again in the high mountains in an isolated cabin that no one knew existed?
Something like that. Vampires, rapists, crazed serial killers.
She rolled her eyes at the absurdity of her thoughts and wished she could turn on the television for company. That was how she got through the loneliness and fear back home—she turned on the television and let the chatter and advertisements and constant, on-demand companionship blunt the terror she felt, the sense of her own isolation, even in the midst of a big city. She had done it as a child, too, taken refuge in the world of game shows, soap operas, movie of the week. Her mother had disapproved, but it kept Juliet out of her hair, so she looked the other way.
The bell on the stove dinged and Juliet took out a small, beautiful casserole, the top lightly browned. As if she called them, the dogs all reappeared, sitting politely along an imaginary line Desi had drawn for them as if to say, "Are we not the best dogs you've ever seen?"
Juliet chuckled. "You are great dogs and I will have some treats for you in a little while."
She set the table and ate supper, reading the novel she'd started before Desi's arrest. It was enjoyable enough. The wind started to blow outside, and a little while after that, it started to snow lightly. The silence was vast, apart from the wind that blasted against the window panes every so often. When she'd finished her macaroni and cheese, she gave the waiting dogs the leftovers and they took them politely, delicately, as Desi had taught them.
Desi. Juliet carried the dishes to the sink and thought about her sister. And the one thing Juliet was most afraid of was that Desi really had killed Claude. Her blood on his clothes. The inconclusive ballistics report, the fury Desi had been feeling.
Be with whatever you're feeling.
Juliet's eye twitched as she thought of other things: Desi's desire to kill Juliet's rapist, the fact that Desi could not account for her whereabouts that night.
A night Juliet had spent alone, now that she thought about it. The difference had been that she hadn't realized she was alone. She thought she'd only be by herself for a few hours, and she had dogs to protect herself.
She and the dogs padded over to the stove and settled into the nest. Juliet pulled the quilts around herself, propped up against the wall with pillows, and stared into the fire, dancing yellow and orange against the gloom.
Desi had always been unlike other women. She was stronger, tougher, smarter. She strode through the world like some ancient goddess, the hunter Diana with her dogs. She'd been bo
lder, fiercer than her sisters, traveling boldly, learning things like how to hunt and fire a rifle. She'd gone to the Peace Corps, moved to the mountains, started a sanctuary for wolves.
Unlike anyone else.
Juliet's throat felt tight as she imagined the disaster awaiting Desi if it turned out she really had killed a worthless scumbag of a man, a charmer and a user who'd taken advantage of entirely too many women over the years.
No.
She didn't, in her heart, believe Desi had done it. Which meant someone else had. Which meant Juliet just had to find out who. In the morning, she would go talk to the girlfriend, and see about any other girlfriends who might have something to share. The one thing Juliet was good at was talking to women, even hostile women. Why hadn't she thought of this before?
Because she'd been too busy being afraid, focusing on fear and all the terrible things that could happen instead of all the good. She thought of Glory's faith, the angels who had protected her through a dark time, the angels that had brought her home safely to her father.
Where had her own faith gone? Juliet wondered now. Had it been so fragile it could be demolished by a single person with an evil agenda?
Her cell phone rang, and startled one of the dogs, who barked wildly for a minute. Juliet laughed and rubbed his head. "It's okay, silly. It's just a phone." She flipped it open and said, "Hello?"
"Hi, Juliet." It was Josh, his voice like dark toffee.
She let the sound of her smile enter her voice. "Hey, Josh. What's up?"
"I was just thinking about you and thought I'd give you a call."
"Yeah? Were you worrying?"
"No."
"Good." She twisted a piece of hair around her index finger, leaning back more comfortably on the pillows. "Because you really don't need to. I'm having some pretty deep thoughts up here."
"Am I interrupting?"
"No, actually," she said in a more serious tone. "You're part of what I'm thinking about."
"You're thinking about my parts?"
Juliet laughed. "I am. Big, juicy parts."
"Me, too."
A softness of silence fell between them. The fire crackled and the wind blew and the dogs snored. In her mind was his angled face, his thick dark hair. "I was thinking, honestly, about how safe I feel around you. I don't know that I've ever had that feeling before, with anyone, and it's kind of weird."
"Is it bad to feel safe?"
"No. I'm just not used to it."
"Well, you make me feel the opposite of safe, Juliet. I've been pretty well protected, and you slammed right by my walls. Like they weren't even there. I'm worried about that."
"Worried why?"
"Because you have a whole life in L.A., not here. Because you're a city girl and that's who screwed up my life last time. Because my daughter thinks you hung the moon and she doesn't need to get hurt again and I don't know how to protect her from it."
"The truth is, Josh, you can't." Juliet rubbed her foot along the back of a dog. "The world isn't safe. Not for any of us."
"I know. But you can cut the risks."
"Maybe." Juliet paused. "I am a girly girl, by the way, not a city girl. There's a difference."
He chuckled, the sound low and warm. "I stand corrected." He fell silent again, and Juliet was surprised by how much she liked knowing he was there, just on the other end of the phone. "It's not all that easy for me to talk about feelings, Juliet, but you're not like anyone I've ever met. It's like you smell right or something."
"I know what you mean," she said, and realized that she'd been breaking up with Scott in her mind within minutes of meeting Josh. The look of him, the sound of him—even, yes, the smell of him. But it was something deeper than physical, something unnamable, a recognition. "I felt like—" She realized she'd been about to say something really stupid and halted. "Never mind."
"Come on, be dopey with me, huh? If the girl doesn't start, the guy can never go there."
"Okay. I felt like I'd known you before," she said.
"Good," Josh said. "Me, too."
In the distance, a wolf howled, and then another. The dogs, apparently comatose up to that moment, sat up, ears pricked to alertness. Another round of howling went up, a series of yips and yowls that made the hair on Juliet's neck rise.
"Hold on," she said, and put the phone down to her chest, dancing over to the window to see if there was an animal in view.
"Sorry," she said, coming back on. "The wolves are going nuts up there."
"Might be an animal," Josh said.
"What kind of an animal?"
"I don't know. A bear. A deer. A mountain lion. It is the mountains, you know."
"A bear? Yikes."
"If it worries you, give Alex a call, see if he's seen anything."
"Good idea, thank you." She paused. "I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow, then, all right?"
Tecumseh jumped up and padded over to the window, where he went absolutely still, then growled at something he saw.
"Uh-oh."
Tecumseh bolted for the dog door in the back of the kitchen. Juliet didn't hesitate—she dropped the phone and ran for the door, trying to get there before Tecumseh bolted through. "Damn it!"
Desi would never forgive her if something happened to these dogs. She was seconds too late—jamming her index finger in the process, eating dog fur as she slammed into the door. "Damn!" she cried.
The other two dogs, alerted, leapt to their feet, nails skittering on the floor as they, too, bolted for the dog door to see what the commotion was all about. Tecumseh followed on Sitting Bull's heels before she could stop him. She managed to tackle Crazy Horse before he got out, yelling "no!" as authoritatively as she could manage. Before he got out, she flipped the lock—then felt immediately guilty. What if they needed to retreat by coming back inside?
But while the other two were easily wolves when it came to the hunt, Crazy Horse was more of a dog, and she didn't want him hurt.
In the distance, the wolves howled and cried in an eerie cacophony of sound. Closer in, she didn't hear the other dogs, but Crazy Horse dashed for the window and whined, a low, eerie sound that made the hair on her neck stand up. "Come on, baby," she said, taking him by the collar and leading him into the bathroom. He wasn't happy about it when she closed the door, barking in protest, but she needed to think about what to do.
Back in the living room, she turned off the lights and peered out the window. The dogs were nowhere in view. The night was cloudy, and very dark—impossible to see anything.
Something yipped, a sound like an animal in pain. One of the dogs. Damn! Juliet instinctively ran for the cabinet where Desi kept the guns. The only thing left was a handgun, but there was a box of bullets right beside it, and when she looked at it, it looked like it had bullets in it.
From her cell phone on the floor came a tinny voice. "Juliet! What's going on?"
She dove for the phone, picked it up. "Josh, it's okay. There's an animal out there, the dogs are freaking out. How do I shoot a gun if I need to?"
"Holy Mother of God," he breathed. "What kind of gun?"
"Handgun, pistol. I don't know. It's heavy. It has bullets in it."
Another pained animal sound, and Juliet whirled around, wishing she had x-ray vision to see what was out there. A bear? A coyote?
"I'm here. I've gotta do something." Without waiting for an answer, she dashed for the dog door and flung the lock open, whistling for Sitting Bull and Tecumseh. Sitting Bull bolted through, and Juliet saw immediately that he had blood on his face. He howled, and in answer, Crazy Horse cried out in the bathroom.
"Oh, baby," she sobbed, reaching for the big dog. He whined, and came over to her, and she could see he'd been cut, and blood was soaking into the fur above his eye, but the actual cut didn't seem dire.
"Come on. You, too." She opened the door to the bathroom, and Crazy Horse bolted out, running past her with a frantic, fierce bark, a charge she would never have expected from him, and he was
out the dog door in three seconds.
"No!" she cried. "No! Crazy Horse! Wait!"
But he was gone, and the house was suddenly silent. She swallowed and stood still, peering into the yard. A break in the clouds allowed the faintest of moonlight to spill through, illuminating the shape of the dogs, and—maybe a coyote?
The animal cried out, the unmistakable, ragged, pained cry of a mountain lion. It gave a warning cry, low and long, and Juliet felt tears spring to her eyes, tears of fear, of empathy, of horror and a weird, sharp relief of understanding.
The dogs and the lion were intimately connected to her sister. Juliet desperately needed to do the right thing. What would Desi do right now?
The lion was desperately injured and in pain. It had been carrying a bullet around for days, and had to be half mad with pain by now. The dogs were only protecting their pack, the house, Juliet. They had to be her first priority—she couldn't let anything happen to them. Desi had lost enough.
She looked at the gun, remembering her sister's instructions about the safety, and she saw that it was on. She switched it off. Held the cold, heavy weight of it in her right hand. Her heart was pounding as she went to the door of the cabin and pulled it open the slightest bit.
The mountain lion bawled out a miserable cry, and she wished, desperately for another answer. "I don't want him to die," she said. "I hate this." Tears filled her eyes, her throat, her heart.
Juliet thought of her sister, tracking the poor beast all night long, tirelessly, all through the dark, snowy forest, cold, hungry, smarting, putting herself in danger to either save or put the animal out of pain. She pulled the door open and stepped on to the porch. The lion made a loud, agonizing sound, and she saw him on the ground, unmoving, as if he were dying.
The dogs howled, as if warning her or sending out a call to the other wolves, to the pack that no doubt paced restlessly in the runs at the sanctuary. They were so close to the dying mountain lion that she couldn't take a chance on firing from this distance.
