She snapped out of her dazed lethargy, batting away the questions that buzzed at her like a swarm of painfully stinging wasps. Karl—he had been so angry—where had he been going?
She ran outside to look along the beach, her stomach twisting into knots as she saw that her foster-brother had accosted Ryan and Zorro halfway down the sand and a heated debate was going on, complete with waving arms and jabbing fingers.
Suddenly, there was a violent flurry of movement, and Nina was horrified to see the two men physically slugging it out, an excited Zorro darting in and out of their feet.
Leaping off the deck, she dashed towards the beach, screaming both their names. Karl half turned to look at her, and in that unguarded instant, Ryan viciously charged him, catching him midsection with his lowered shoulder and carrying him heavily down onto the sand where they rolled over and over, grappling and punching while Zorro growled and made lightning forays to nip at their flailing legs.
‘Stop it, you two! For God’s sake, stop it!’ Nina screamed, reaching them just as Ryan gained ascendancy, straddling the younger man and swinging a heavy fist, snapping Karl’s head sideways on the sand. As he lifted his fist again, Nina caught his arm with both hands, twisting it with all her strength to wrench him away from her foster-brother. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to kill him?’
‘No, just teach him a lesson he won’t forget,’ Ryan ground out, ripping his sleeve out of her grasp, falling back panting on the sand as he saw with bitter eyes that her horrified concern was all for his opponent.
Karl was sitting up, his hand going to a rapidly swelling mouth streaming with blood, and Nina automatically felt in her jeans pocket for the paint rag she always tucked there while she was working, making a pad out of it as she dropped to her knees.
‘You didn’t have to hit him so hard.’ She couldn’t look at Ryan—at her husband—the man she had promised to love, honour and keep and, yes—she recalled the words of the traditional ceremony with bittersweet clarity—even obey…and then had deserted, stolen from, blithely wiped his existence from her mind….
‘Get out of the way, Nina,’ Ryan threatened, rolling to his feet. ‘This is between me and him! We’re going to settle the score once and for all.’
The eye of the storm had moved relentlessly on, and now Nina was once more battered by an emotional hurricane. God, he was such a proud man. How he must have hated her for humiliating him!
‘I can’t,’ she said fiercely, still unable to look at him, concentrating on cradling Karl’s head and pressing the pad gently against his split mouth, already puffed up to twice its size. ‘Whatever’s the matter, violence isn’t the way to resolve it.’
It occurred to her that on past occasions Karl was quite capable of allowing himself to be beaten up if it meant causing more trouble for Ryan. He might think the temporary suffering worth the malicious opportunity to have Ryan charged with a serious assault. She couldn’t risk that happening, not if she wanted to salvage anything of her marriage. If the only way to protect Ryan from Karl’s malice was to protect Karl, then that was what she would do.
‘Ryan, he told me I’m your wife—what he’d done. But I won’t let you hurt him.’ She finally forced herself to look up at him, but he was already turning his back.
‘The hell with you, then. The hell with you both!’ he snarled, his words corrosive with bitterness, and she watched, shattered, as he walked away. She had expected him to stand his ground; she had never, ever expected him to simply give up. It wasn’t in his nature.
He should have been able to depend on her loyalty and instead he must think that she had given her first loyalty to Karl—would always favour the bonds of childhood over the vows of marriage. She scrambled up, intending to go after him, to explain—
A clumsy hand on her arm stopped her as Karl swayed to his feet, holding the pad against his mouth. ‘Wait—’
‘But I have to go to him.’ At least he was heading back to the house, she thought, watching the lean figure scale the bank with the little dog. Surely he must expect that Nina would follow—but only if she had decided that he was more important to her than the foster-brother who had betrayed them both.