Knocking on Zack's front door was one of the hardest things Nell had ever done. She'd spent so much time stepping back from anger. Now she would have to face it, head on. And with little defense. This was a turmoil she'd caused, and only she could resolve it.
She walked to the front of the house because it seemed more formal than strolling across the beach and up the stairs to the back. Before she knocked, she rubbed her fingers over the turquoise stone she'd slipped into her pocket to aid her verbal communication.
Though she wasn't convinced such things worked, she didn't see how it could make her situation any worse.
She lifted her hand, cursed herself as she lowered it again. There was an old rocker on the front porch, and a pot of geraniums that were frost-burned and pathetic. She wished she'd seen them before the weather had turned so she could have urged Zack to carry them inside.
And she was stalling.
She squared her shoulders, knocked.
Was torn between relief and despair when no one answered.
Just as she'd given up and turned away, the door swung open.
Ripley stood in leggings cropped just below the knee and a T-shirt marked with a vee of sweat between her breasts. She gave Nell one long, cool stare, then leaned on the doorjamb.
"Wasn't sure I heard anyone knock. I was lifting, and had the music up. "
"I was hoping to talk to Zack. "
"Yeah, I figured. You pissed him off good. It takes work to do that. Me, I've had years of practice, but you must have an innate talent for it. "
Nell slipped her hand in her pocket, fingered the stone. She would have to get through the shield to get to the target. "I know he's angry with me, and he has a right to be. Don't I have a right to apologize?"
"Sure, but if you do it with choking little sobs and flutters, you're going to piss me off. I'm a lot meaner than Zack. "
"I don't intend to cry and flutter. " Nell's own temper bubbled up as she stepped forward. "And I don't think Zack would appreciate you getting in the middle of this. I know I don't. "
"Good for you. " Satisfied, Ripley shifted to let Nell in. "He's up on the back deck, brooding through his telescope and drinking a beer. But before you go up and say whatever you have to say to him, I'm going to tell you something. He could've looked into your background, picked the pieces apart. I would have. But he's got standards, personal standards, so he didn't. "
The guilt that had settled on her since he'd walked out her door took on more weight. "He would've considered that rude. "
"Right. I don't mind being rude. So you square this with him, or deal with me. "
"Understood. "
"I like you, and I respect someone who takes care of business. But when you mess with a Todd, you don't get off free. Fair warning. "
Ripley turned toward the stairs leading to the second floor. "Help yourself to a beer on the way through the kitchen. I've got to finish my reps. "
Nell skipped the beer, though she'd have relished a tall glass of ice water to ease the burn in her throat. She walked through the comfortably untidy living room, through the equally untidy kitchen, and took the outside steps up to the deck.
He sat in a big chair faded to gray by the weather, a bottle of Sam Adams nestled between his thighs and his scope tilted starward.
He knew she was there but didn't acknowledge her. The scent of her was peaches and nerves.
"You're angry with me, and I deserve it. But you're too fair not to listen. "
"I might work my way up to fair by tomorrow. You'd be smarter to wait. "
"I'll risk it. " She wondered if he knew how much it meant-how much he meant-that she would risk it. "I lied. I've lied often and I've lied well, and I'd do it again. The choice was between honesty and survival. For me, it still is, so I'm not going to tell you everything you need to know. Everything you deserve to know. I'm sorry. "
"If two people don't trust each other, they've got no business being together. "
"That's easy for you to say, Zack. "
When he shifted his gaze from the stars to hers, and the heat of it scorched her, she stepped closer. Her heart throbbed. She didn't fear that he would strike her. But she did fear that he'd never want to touch her again.
"No, damn it, it is easy for you. You've got your place here. You've always had it, and you don't have to question it, or fight for it. "
"If I've got a place," he said in careful, measured tones, "I've had to earn it. The same as anyone. "
"That's different, because you started on a foundation, a solid one, and built from there. These past few months I've been working to earn a place here. I have earned it. But it's different. "
"Okay, maybe it is. But you and I started on the same ground, Nell, when it comes to what we were making together. "
Were making, she thought. Not are making. If this was his line she could stand where she was, keep on her side of it, or take the first step over.
It wasn't any harder, she decided, than driving off a cliff.
"I was with a man, for three years, I was with a man who hurt me. Not just the slaps and the shoves. Those kinds of bruises don't last. But others do. "
She had to let out a little breath to ease the pressure in her chest. "He systematically chipped away at my confidence, my self-esteem, my courage and my choices, and he did it so skillfully they were gone before I realized what was happening. It's not easy to rebuild those things, and I'm still working on it. Coming here, just walking over here tonight took everything I've managed to store up. I shouldn't have gotten involved with you, and I didn't intend to. But something about being here, and about being with you, made me feel normal again. "
"That's the start of a fine speech. Why don't you sit down and just talk to me. "
"I did what I had to do to get away from him. I'm not going to apologize for it. "
"I'm not asking you to. "
"I'm not going into the details. " She turned away, leaned on the rail and stared out at the night-dark sea. "I'll tell you it was like living in a pit that got deeper and deeper and colder and colder. Whenever I tried to crawl out, he was right there. "
"But you found a way. "
"I won't go back. Whatever I have to do, wherever I have to run, I won't go back. So I've lied, and deceived. I've broken the law. And I've hurt you. " She turned back. "The only thing I'm sorry for is the last. "
She said it defiantly, almost furiously as she stood with her back to the rail
and her hands in white-knuckled fists.
Terror and courage, he thought, dragging at each other inside her. "Did you think I wouldn't understand?"
"Zack. " She lifted her hands, dropped them. "I still don't understand. I wasn't a doormat when I met him, I wasn't a victim waiting to be exploited. I came from a solid, steady family, as functional as any family manages to be. I was educated, independent, helping to run a business. There'd been men in my life before, nothing really serious, but normal, healthy relationships. Then there I was, manipulated and abused. And trapped. "
Oh, baby, he thought, as he had when she'd fallen to pieces in the cafe kitchen. "Why are you still blaming yourself for it?"
The question broke her rhythm. For a moment she could only stare at him, baffled. "I don't know. " She walked over to sit in the chair beside him.
"It'd be a good next step to stop doing that. " He said it easily, taking a sip of his beer. There was still temper inside him, dregs of it for Nell, but a new and ripe well of it for the man-the faceless, nameless entity-who'd scarred her.
He thought he might work that off later by pounding the hell out of Ripley's punching bag.
"Why don't you tell me about your family?" he suggested and offered her the beer. "You know my mother can't cook worth a damn and my father likes to take snapshots with his new toy. You know they grew up here on the island, got married, and had a couple of kids. And you've had personal acquaintance with my sister. "
"My father was in the Army. He was a lieutenant colonel. "
"An Army brat. " Since she shook her head at the beer, he took another pull himself. "Saw some of the world, didn't you?"
"Yeah, we moved around a lot. He always liked getting new orders. Something new to handle, I suppose. He was a good man, very steady, with a wonderful, warm laugh. He liked old Marx Brothers movies and Reese's peanut butter cups. Oh, God. "
Grief caught her by the throat, choked off her voice, dug raw wounds in her stomach.
"He's been gone so long, I don't know how it could seem like yesterday. "
"When you love somebody, it's always there. I still think about my grandmother now and again. " He took Nell's hand, held it loosely. "When I do, I can smell her. Lavender water and peppermint. She died when I was fourteen. "
How was it he could understand, and so exactly? That, she thought, was the magic of him. "My father was killed in the Gulf War. I thought he was invincible. He'd always seemed to be. Everyone said he was a good soldier, but I remember he was a good father.
He would always listen if I needed to tell him something. He was honest and fair, and had this code of honor, a personal one that meant more than all the rules and regulations. He. . . God. " She turned her head to study Zack's face. "It just hit me, how much you're like him. He would have approved of you, Sheriff Todd. "
"I'm sorry I never got the chance to meet him. " He turned the scope toward her. "Why don't you take a look, see what you can find up there?"
She lowered her head toward the viewer, scanned the stars. "You've forgiven me. "
"Let's say we've made some progress. "