Page 13 of The Boxer’s Belle

But for twenty-seven years, this room had served as a sanctuary, however meager.

She’d learned over the months which stairs were weak and likely to protest her weight. She skipped them and padded along the familiar path to the bedchamber that had once been hers.

The damage to this area had been superficial—smoke and soot—not structural. She claimed a seat in the familiar oak rocking chair. She’d always suspected it had once belonged to her mother. Whether true or not, as a girl, she’d dragged it to a place of pride beside the window. And beside the window it remained. This room, and very little else in her life, had endured as it once was.

She settled into the chair. Dreary rivulets of rain trailed along the glass, coaxed by gravity, into fleeting lines—impermanent poetry.

The panes framed the stables—her other refuge. That barn was perhaps the only part of Blackwood that had seen regular maintenance prior to the fire. Now, the building was empty, save for their old workhorse. The senior Weston was a dedicated caretaker and had never learned the meaning of “good enough.”

A heavy punching bag swayed back and forth from the rafters in the breeze. Though she was too far to see it through the drizzle, the red leather had faded over the years to a pinkish orange. If she concentrated, she could almost hear the familiar rhythm of West’s fists.

That brick-red barn, filled with soft, sweet-smelling hay, had been one of her favorite places in the world. Until the morning she’d had to pluck straw pieces free from her tangled hair, even as tears had blurred her vision. Allowing herself to claim the stables—and the boy who spent his days inside them—as a refuge had been the single greatest mistake of her life. She would be damned if she repeated it.

Bella dropped a foot to the floor and pushed back with a toe. The rocking chair groaned in protest but tipped back before creaking forward. The stale scent of charred wood still lingered around her. Soot danced, catching the light, as it fell from the joists above like snow.

Her old quilt, the one Effie taught her to stitch on, still lay spread across the bed—blackened in one corner. Bella hadn’t been able to bring herself to consign it to the rag bin.

Movement out the window caught her attention. An impossibly familiar form strode from the house, drawing her gaze. Dressed only in his shirtsleeves, West cut a powerful figure as he stalked toward the barn. Age had chiseled away any lingering softness of youth. Years in the ring had carved those broad shoulders—a master could have done no better. The rain pattered against the threadbare white linen of his shirt, leaving it clinging desperately to those thick arms.

Why could he not have grown uglier? Even his nose—broken more than once—lent an air of masculine strength and danger.

He approached the heavy bag, wrapping something around his hands—cotton strips, presumably. There had been a time when she had done that for him—when it was her responsibility to protect him in that small way. He deserved no such protection now.

One athletic arm reared back, tight to his side, before striking the bag. He was too far, the rain too loud—she couldn’t actually hear him—but the sound was familiar all the same. That satisfying, thick, heavy thump used to leave her burning and breathless. He’d trained her with that sound like a dog summoned at his master’s call.

Her fingers curled around the worn armrests, tightening as she released a restrained breath.

She had tried so hard to reconcile him over the last months. There was the boy who’d held her, worshiped her in her most vulnerable moments only to reject her the next morning. And there was the man whose rich tenor pierced the staggering darkness of her unconscious mind, anguished and pleading.

Memories of that night, the masquerade, had never fully returned to her despite the passing months. Instead, only brief flashes returned—most often of Draycott’s icy hand over her mouth, his thick flesh between her teeth, the vulgar copper of his blood pooling on her tongue.

Occasionally, she recalled her hand snapping up, reaching for her hairpin, only to be met with its absence.

But sometimes West appeared, clasping her hand between his warm, calloused ones. There was only one explanation—that man, the West of her injured mind, was a figment, a bizarre comfort conjured in a moment of despair and desperation. A false comfort, like the all-too-brief one he’d provided nearly a decade before.

The thought of West haunting her home… Months of never knowing whether she was speaking to the loving figment or the cruel memory… How was she to endure it?

Out the window, West had moved away from the heavy bag. Oh, good Lord. She’d forgotten about the iron bar he’d hung across the doorframe when he was not yet twenty. She rather suspected he’d done it with the aim of tormenting her—an aim he’d more than achieved.

He faced inside the stables, leaving her with only a blurry, rain-drenched silhouette. Entirely without her permission, her eyes traced the way those infuriating arms and shoulders shifted as he raised and lowered his chin to the bar. His pace was faster, more controlled, than he’d possessed in his youth. There was a rhythm to his motion now, and she could tell, even from this distance, that he probably wasn’t even out of breath. Seven, eight, nine—he surpassed the ten he’d achieved in his boyhood with ease.

While she’d appreciated the view in her adolescence, she hadn’t understood the difficulty inherent in the movement. She’d teased him once—when he could only complete six repetitions. West had growled—playful—and caught her about the middle before he lifted her to reach the bar. She hung there for a moment before trying to pull herself up the way she’d seen him do. Tightening her muscles, she merely swung a little. That was the moment it became readily apparent that his six were actually quite impressive.

When she’d demanded that he put her down, his powerful hands had encircled her waist. West held her steady as she dropped her hands to those wide shoulders—even broader now. Their gazes caught as she slid down, down, down, her front against his until her feet found the earth.

Long after they parted, West’s warmth lingered, etched along her skin. For months after, she’d recalled the way his gaze had darted to her lips and sent a flutter through her belly.

He’d rounded fifteen repetitions now with no sign of slowing his pace. That same tension fluttered in her center again, this time tinged with understanding and the knowledge of what those hands were capable of.

A soft sound interrupted Bella’s ogling—the steady thump of footsteps on the staircase intermixed with the occasional grumble of the worn wood.

In the months since the fire, no one had intruded upon Bella’s solitude here, but somehow, she knew who those delicate footfalls belonged to. She was unsurprised when Eliza, wild curls freshly styled, appeared in the open doorframe.

“So this is where you escape to.”

Bella merely raised a brow in response. The woman had been married to Ben for nearly a year—why on earth had she found it necessary to invade Bella’s sanctuary now?

“May I sit?” she asked, tipping her head toward the bed tucked in the opposite corner.