Nora Roberts - Dance Upon the Air

"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.

"It was just that I kept making mistakes, that was all. I thought that once I learned, everything would be fine again. But it only got worse, and I couldn't keep deluding myself. One night he dragged me upstairs by my hair. I had long hair then," she explained. "I thought he would kill me. I thought he would beat me and rape me, then kill me. He didn't. He didn't do any of those things. But I realized he could have, and I wouldn't have been able to stop him. I went to the police, but he's an influential man. He has connections. I had a few bruises, but nothing major. They didn't do anything."

Knowing that burned a hole through him. "They should have. They should've taken you to a shelter."

"As far as they were concerned, I was a rich, spoiled trophy wife causing trouble. It doesn't matter," she said wearily. "They could have taken me anywhere.

He'd have found me. I ran once, and he found me. And I paid for it. He made it clear to me, he made sure I understood one vital point: I belonged to him, and I would never get away. Wherever I went, he'd find me. He loved me."

It sent a violent chill through her to say it. She stopped, turned to face Zack. "His version of love, beyond rules, beyond bounds. Selfish, cold and obsessive and powerful. He would see me dead before he'd let me go. That's not an exaggeration."

"I believe you. But you got away."

"Because he thinks I'm dead." She told him, her voice clear and empty of emotion, what she had done to break the chains.

"Jesus Christ, Nell." He threw the ice bag to the ground. "It's a miracle you didn't kill yourself."