Shelter Mountain. Robyn Carr

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.”

      “Jack,” he said. “Listen. I did something…”

      Jack shrugged out of his jacket