"Zack. " Ripley turned her head so that her cheek rested on his hair. "Did it ever occur to you that she's afraid to divorce him?"
"Yeah. " His stomach did a quick, nasty pitch. "I came around to that about three o'clock in the morning. If it's true, I've got plenty of feelings to punch into that bag. But it doesn't change what is. She's married, she didn't tell me. She doesn't trust me enough to be there for her, whatever it takes. "
He reached up, closed his hand around hers.
That's how Nell saw them when she opened the door, holding on to each other. And she saw the beam of blame shoot out of Ripley's eyes even as the shutters came down on Zack's.
"I need to speak with you. Alone. Please. "
Instinctively Ripley tightened her grip, but Zack gave her hand a squeeze. "Ripley was just heading out on patrol. "
"Yeah, sure, toss me out just when it's getting good. " She was shrugging into her jacket, contemplating that this was what it felt like when people said you could cut the tension with a knife, when Betsy poked her head in the door.
"Sheriff-Hi, Nell, Ripley. Sheriff, Bill and Ed Sutter are starting to mix it up out in from of the hotel. It looks like it could get messy. "
"I'll take care of it. "
"No. " Zack got up at Ripley's statement. "We'll take care of it. "
The Sutter brothers vacillated between staunch family loyally and hating each other like poison. Since they were both bullheaded and built like the same animal, he thought it best not to let Ripley get into a two-on-one situation. He gave Nell a brief glance as he walked outside. "You'll have to wait. "
So cold, she thought, rubbing her arms. It was hard to accept ice from a man who had such warmth. He wasn't going to make this easy. Oddly enough, even after the worst of it the evening before, she'd convinced herself that he would.
He would let her talk. He would sympathize, understand, hold her.
Standing alone in the station house, Nell watched that little fantasy crack in two and disappear.
Here she was, swallowing her pride, risking her peace of mind and well-being, and all he could do was spare her a single icy look.
Well, then, maybe she should just let bad enough alone.
Stung, she pulled open the door. Two steps out and she could not only see the commotion up the street, she could hear it. Freezing in place, she hugged herself and watched it play out.
One big man with short-cropped hair belly-slammed another big man with short-cropped hair. Curses were flying. An interested crowd was gathering at a safe distance, and some of them appeared to be taking sides by hooting and calling out names.
Zack and Ripley were already wading in, muscling the men apart. Nell couldn't hear what they were saying, but while it quieted the crowd, it didn't appear to have much impact on the Sutter brothers.
They were all but snapping at each other's faces.
Nell cringed, closed in when she saw the first fist strike. There was a lot of shouting now, and she heard it like the pounding of the surf. A lot of motion that seemed lost in a fast blur.
Zack had one man's arm, Ripley the other's. Both had their handcuffs out. Bumping, shoving. Curses and clipped warnings.
Then one brother swung viciously at the other, missed his mark and plowed his fist into Zack's face.
She watched Zack's head snap back, heard the crowd gasp as one voice. Everyone went so still, it seemed like a film stopped in a freeze-frame.
She was already rushing across the street as motion and voices started again.
"Well, goddamn it, Ed, you're under arrest. " Zack snapped the cuffs in place as Ripley did the same. "And for good measure, the same goes for you, Bill.
Couple of hotheaded peckerbrains. You people go on about your business now," he ordered as he muscled Ed around.
He caught sight of Nell, standing on the sidewalk like a deer caught in the headlights, and cursed again.
"Come on, Sheriff, you know I wasn't aiming at you. "
"Doesn't matter a damn to me who you were aiming at. " Not when he tasted blood in his mouth. "You just assaulted an officer. "
"He started it. "
"Like hell," Bill shot back as Ripley walked him briskly along. "But I'm sure as hell going to finish it when I get the chance. "
"You and what army?"
"Just shut up," Ripley ordere'd. "Couple of forty-year-old delinquents. "
"Ed's the one who punched him. What're you hauling me in for?"
"You're a damn public nuisance. If the two of you want to butt heads, do it in the privacy of one of your homes and keep it off the streets. "
"You're not going to put us in jail. " Calmer now as he saw his fate, Ed turned his head to appeal. "Come on now, Zack, you know my wife'll skin me if you lock me up. It was just family business, after all. "
"Not when it's on my street, and not when it involves my goddamn face. " His jaw throbbed like a bitch. He marched Ed straight into the station house and back to one of the two tiny holding cells. "You're going to have some time to cool off before I get around to calling your wife. Whether she cares enough to come down and make your bail is up to her. "
"Same goes," Ripley told Bill cheerfully as she uncuffed him and nudged him into a cell.
Once the cell doors were shut and locked, she dusted her hands. "I'll write up the report. I type slower than you do. I'll call the wives, too, though I suspect they'll hear about this before I even start on the paperwork. "
"Yeah. " Disgusted, Zack swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and smeared blood.
"You're going to want some ice on that jaw. Lip, too. Ed Sutler's got a fist the size of Idaho. Hey, Nell, why don't you take our hero to your place and give him some ice?"
Unaware that she'd come in, Zack turned slowly and stared at Nell as she stood in the open doorway.
"Yes. All right. "
"There's ice in the back. I can take care of it. "
"You'd be better off putting some distance between yourself and Ed," Ripley advised. "Until you're sure you're not going to unlock that cell and punch him back. "
"Maybe. "
His eyes weren't cold anymore, Nell noted. They were hot green glass. She moistened her lips. "Ice'll help keep the swelling down. And. . . some rosemary tea might help the ache. "
"Fine. Great. " His head was already ringing, why not finish it off? "Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fine, for both of them," he snapped at Ripley. "Or twenty days. They don't like the sound of that, fill out a formal arrest warrant, and they can deal with the court. "
"Yes, sir. " Ripley beamed as Zack stalked out.
Wasn't this great? she thought. The whole thing had really brightened her mood.
They walked to the cottage in silence. Nell no longer knew what to say or how to say it. This furiously angry man was every bit as much a stranger as the
icy cold one had been. There was no doubt in her mind that he didn't particularly want to deal with her right now. She knew just how long it could take to regain equilibrium after a blow to the face.
Still, he'd taken a fist at short range, and other than the head, and temper snap, he'd had little reaction.
People were always saying someone was tougher than he looked. It seemed to be true about Zachariah Todd.
She opened the cottage door and, still saying nothing, walked back to the kitchen and began to make an ice pack out of a plastic bag wrapped in a thin cloth.
"Appreciate it. I'll get the dishcloth back to you. "
She'd already lifted the kettle to make tea. She blinked at him. "Where are you going?"
"To walk off what I can of this mad. "
Seeing no choice, she set the kettle down again. "I'll go with you. "
"You don't want to be with me right now, and I don't want to be with you. "
It was quite a discovery to learn that there were times a slap was preferable to words. "That can't be helped. We have things to talk about, and the longer it's put off the harder it'll be. "
She opened the kitchen door, waited. "Let's try the woods. We can consider it neutral territory. "
He hadn't bothered with a jacket, and the rain that had swept in the night before had left cool temperatures in its wake. He didn't seem to mind. She glanced up at him as they headed into her little wedge of forest.
"That ice isn't going to do any good if you don't use it. "
He pressed it to his aching jaw and felt mildly ridiculous.
"In the summer when I came here I wondered what it would be like to walk through the trees in autumn, with all the color and the first bites of cold. I'd missed the cold, the change of seasons, when I lived in California. "
She let out a little breath, drew one in. "I lived in California for three years. Los Angeles primarily, though we spent a lot of time in the house in Monterey. I preferred it there, but I learned not to let him know that or he'd have found ways to cancel trips north. He liked to find little ways to punish me. "
"You married him. "
"I did. He was handsome and romantic and clever and rich. I thought, Why, here comes my prince and we'll live happily ever after. I was dazzled and flattered and in love. He worked very hard to make me fall in love with him. There's no point in going into all the details. You've guessed some of them anyway. He was cruel, in little ways, in big ones. He made me feel small. Small, smaller, smallest, until I all but disappeared. When he hit me. . . the first time it was a shock. No one had ever hit me before. I should've left, right that minute. Or tried. He would never have let me, but I should've tried. But I'd only been married a few months, and somehow he made me feel I'd deserved it. For being stupid. Or clumsy. Or forgetful. For all manner of things. He trained me like a dog. I'm not proud of that. "
"Did you get help?"
It was so quiet in the woods. She could hear, in that quiet, every step she and Zack took over the ground already strewn with fallen leaves.
"Not at first. I knew about abuse, intellectually. I'd read articles, stories. But that didn't apply to me. I wasn't part of that cycle. I'd come from a good, stable home. I'd married an intelligent, successful man. I lived in a big, beautiful house. I had servants. "
She slipped a hand into her pocket. She'd made a magic bag for courage, and had tied it with seven careful knots. Letting her fingers worry it helped calm her nerves.