Chapter 7 #3
“It gets busy with tourists in the summer as well as the winter,” he commented.
“People come to see Yellowstone National Park, but there’s only so much lodging at the park.
West Yellowstone is the nearest town of any size, so it’s a hopping-off point for people to visit.
It’s also an angler’s paradise with the rivers so close. The fishing is great.”
“You know, I’ve never been fishing,” Savvie said.
His eyes widened. “Never been fishing? Didn’t your dad ever take you?”
Her jaw tightened. “I never knew my father.”
Hunter stopped walking. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t miss what I didn’t have. It was my mother and me for a long time.”
“And then she remarried?”
“Married for the first time,” Savvie corrected.
“And your stepfather never took you fishing?” Hunter asked gently.
Savvie shook her head. “I was fourteen when they married.” She turned and walked toward the barn.
Hunter fell in step beside her. “And you weren’t too happy about your mother’s choice. Tell me to shut up if I’m getting too personal.”
“It’s okay,” she said. Maybe if he knew about her past, he’d run the other way. She wouldn’t have to worry that he might kiss her, and she might let him. “He was okay at first. Mom was happy and thought herself in love.”
Hunter didn’t comment. He walked slowly, letting her tell the story with as much or as little detail as she wanted.
“When the honeymoon phase wore off, his true self shone through. Things weren’t going so well for him at his job.
So, he came home angry most evenings. Sometimes, he stopped at his favorite bar for drinks first. Mom worked as a clerk at a grocery store.
After being on her feet all day, she came home, cooked dinner and cleaned up after him. ”
Savvie remembered how tired she’d been and how she hadn’t smiled as much as she had that first year with Ralph.
Savvie had helped by cooking some nights and picking up after her stepfather, who couldn’t seem to carry an empty beer can from the end table beside his lounge chair to the trash can. Ever.
She’d cleaned up after him, not for him, but for her mother.
“The more dissatisfied he got with his job, the more he verbally abused my mother. Verbal abuse became physical abuse. I remember the first time he slapped her and the shock on her face. I was fifteen. I’d never seen a man slap a woman before. I was as stunned as my mother.”
“No man has the right to hit a woman,” Hunter said through gritted teeth.
“No man or woman has the right to physically or mentally abuse another.” She snorted softly. “Says the assassin. I must be a hypocrite.”
“You were following orders…doing your job.”
“Murdering people.” She stopped walking and turned to face Hunter. “By the time I was seventeen, my stepfather went past slapping to knocking my mother across the room. When I tried to stop him, he knocked me across the room as well.”
Hunter’s hands bunched into fists. “Why didn’t you and your mother get out?”
“Mom refused to leave him.” Savvie’s lip curled up on one side.
“When I was seventeen, I came home from my after-school job to find him punching my mother like a prizefighter. When she fell to the floor, he kicked her again and again. I yelled at him to stop. He didn’t.
When I jumped in front of him, he backhanded me so hard that he slammed me against the wall.
“My mother dragged herself up and told him to stop, but he went back to punching her. I walked into their bedroom, got the gun out of his nightstand and came back into the living room where he had my mother on the floor again, yelling at her and kicking her in the ribs.”
Savvie paused, her gaze on the ground in front of her. She lifted her chin and met Hunter’s glance. “I told him to stop. He didn’t. So, I shot him.”
“Oh, Savvie.” Hunter reached out.
She backed away. “I only winged him in the arm. He turned toward me, rage making his face red and the veins on his forehead stick out.” She’d never forget the pure evil in his face and eyes. She’d had nightmares for years with that face coming at her.
“He charged me like a bull. I shot him three more times. He didn’t fall until he reached me.
Then he dropped, taking me down with him.
I hit my head against the wall. I must have blacked out for a moment.
When I came to, I couldn’t breathe.” Savvie closed her eyes, reliving the panic she’d felt when she couldn’t catch her breath all those years ago.
“His weight was crushing my lungs. I fought to get out from under him. It took everything I had to move him enough to pull free. By the time I got to my feet, I was covered in his blood. He didn’t move. He was dead.”
She looked back at the ground as if seeing her stepfather’s lifeless body, the magnitude of what she’d done hitting her like a freight train.
“Your mother?” Hunter asked quietly.
“She was lying on the floor, staring at my stepfather. She could barely talk because she was in so much pain from the broken ribs he’d given her. I remember what she said.” Savvie stared into Hunter’s eyes, her brows pulled together in a frown.
He waited for her to continue.
She swallowed hard, her heart squeezing so tightly in her chest she couldn’t breathe. “He’s dead, isn’t he? When I nodded, her face turned white, and her eyes got really big. Then she said, What have you done?”