Heaven and Earth (6 page)

He’d never deluded himself that he qualified in that area. But if there was one thing he could do, it was swim. He had to admit he hadn’t expected them to be so evenly matched. He had a longer reach and a good seven inches on her in body length, but the woman had a powerful kick.

He picked up the pace, testingly, on the third length. She matched it. He found himself both challenged and amused. She was toying with him. He put on more speed and admitted it was a damn good thing she’d tossed his handicap back in his face.

The sonofabitch was like an eel, Ripley thought. When they shoved off for the final lap in tandem, she realized she’d seriously misjudged his abilities. Gathering herself, she poured it on, nipped past him by a quarter of a body length, felt her adrenaline kick in for that final push.

And was struck with shock and dazed admiration when he streamed by her and slapped the wall two strokes ahead.

Chest heaving, she surfaced, shoved back her goggles.
No one, not even Zack, could beat her at four lengths. It was demoralizing.

“So.” He panted, shoved his hair back. “Any time today good for you?”

The bastard hadn’t
even had the courtesy to rub it in. It only made the taste of defeat more sour. He’d been so, so damn pleasant about the whole thing. She began to wonder if he was on drugs. Surely no one could stay so even-tempered without chemical assistance.

She worked off part of her mad shoveling snow, soothed her bruised ego with some of Nell’s famous cinnamon buns. But it picked at her, a restless fingernail at a scab, throughout the day.

There were a number of calls to keep her busy: cars sliding off the road, a smashed window due to a poorly aimed snowball, and the usual variety of mischief that liberated kids could create on a snow day.

Still, it worried her mind and spoiled her mood.

In the station house, Zack listened to her muttered curses, watched her pour yet another cup of coffee. He was a patient man, and he knew his sister. He’d crossed paths with her several times that day on patrol and had recognized the signs of her temper brewing.

But since it hadn’t passed, he was going to have to poke it out of her.

Now seemed like a good time.

He was enjoying a coffee break of his own, with his feet propped up on the desk.

“Are you going to keep chewing on whatever’s got your goat, or spit it out?”

“Nothing’s got my goat.” She slurped at coffee, burned her tongue, cursed.

“You’ve been in a stew since you got back from the gym this morning.”

“I don’t stew. You stew.”

“I brood,” he corrected. “Which is a solitary and thoughtful process involving finding the solution to a conflict or situation. Stewing is stirring a bubbling pot until it boils over and spills on someone. As I’m the only one currently in harm’s way, I have a vested interest about the contents of this particular pot.”

She turned back to him with a dangerous sneer. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

“See.” He wagged his finger at her. “You’re trying to figure out how to take it out on me. Tell me who pissed you off, and we’ll go whip their asses together.”

He had a way about him, Ripley admitted, that could make her laugh in the worst of times. She walked over to the desk, sat on the edge. “Have you met this Booke character?”

“The big brain from New York? Yeah, I met him yesterday when he was out walking the village, getting his bearings. Seems nice enough.”

“Nice.” She snorted. “Do you know what he’s here for?”

Zack grunted an assent. She only had to mention MacAllister Booke for Zack to clue in to the source of her mad. “Rip, we deal with variations of this theme off and on all the time. We can’t live on Sisters and avoid it.”

“This is different.”

“Maybe it is.” He was frowning himself when he got up to replenish his coffee. “What happened with Nell last fall raises eyebrows. And not just because she came back, figuratively, from the dead, or that that bastard Remington
was exposed as someone who got his rocks off knocking her around during their marriage. Not even because he threatened to kill her once he tracked her here.”

“And stabbed you.” She said it quietly because she could still see the blood on his shirt, the way it had gleamed dark in the shadows of the forest.

“All of that made good press copy,” Zack continued. “A big, juicy scandal. But you add how it all went down—”

“We kept a lid on that.”

“As best we could,” he agreed.

He stopped beside her, touched her face. He knew she’d broken a promise to herself that night. Linking hands with Mia, using what she had inside her to save Nell, to save him.

“Enough got out,” he said quietly. “Rumor and speculation, and the babblings of a madman. Enough to build more, to spark interest. You had to expect something along these lines.”

“I expected the weirdos,” she admitted. “Maybe an increase in the gawking tourists, that sort of thing. This Booke is different. He’s the serious article, a kind of, I don’t know, crusader. And he’s got credentials. A lot of people may think he’s just another nutcase, but a lot won’t. Added to all that, Mia might get it into her head to talk to him. To cooperate with him.”

“Yeah, she might.” He didn’t want to add that he was all but sure Nell would as well. They’d already had a discussion about it. “It’s her choice, Rip. It doesn’t have to weigh on yours.”

She gave her coffee a disgusted look. “He won an hour from me.”

“What?”

“Sneaky sonofabitch conned me into a bet this morning. I lost, so I have to give him an hour with his voodoo crap.”

“Ouch. How’d you lose?”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” she muttered.

But he was already trying to work it out. “You didn’t go anywhere but the gym this morning, did you? I heard he picked up a membership there. Is that where you ran into him?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She pushed off the desk, paced. “Who’d have thought he could
move
like that? At a sprint, okay, I could see it because of his height advantage. But not at a hundred sixty foot freestyle.”

“A swim race?” Zack voiced his surprise. “He took you in a swim race?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. I was off my rhythm, that’s all.” She whirled back with a slanted look. “Was that a laugh I heard?”

“You bet. No wonder you’re stewing.”

“Just shut up. I don’t know what he thinks he can prove in an hour anyway. With his energy detectors and spirit sensors. It’s a waste of time.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. How much he take you by?”

“Shut up, Zack.”

She decided to
get it over with, the way you would a root canal. And she’d decided to walk, leaving Zack with the cruiser, because that postponed the getting-it-over-with stage just a little longer.

It was full dark when she made the turn to the yellow cottage, and the moon was new and black. Another three inches of snow had fallen since morning, but the clouds had passed by evening. The clear wash of sky and stars sucked out any hope of warmth in the air. The cold was
clean and sharp as a razor, slicing keenly against any exposed skin.

She walked fast, using her flashlight to guide the way.

She shook her head when she ran the beam over Mac’s Rover. He hadn’t bothered to dig it out. Typical Nutty Professor behavior, she decided. Ignoring the practical.

She stomped up to the door, pounded with a wool-covered fist.

He answered wearing a gray sweatshirt that had seen better days and jeans that looked equally well used. She caught the unmistakable scent of Nell’s beef-and-barley soup and quickly decided it was that, and that alone, that made her mouth water.

“Hi. Jesus, it’s freezing out there. Must be down around zero.” Even as he stepped back to let her in, he looked outside. “No car? You walked in this? Are you crazy?”

She studied the equipment jammed cheek by jowl into the tiny living room. “You live like this, and you ask if
I’m
crazy?”

“It’s too cold to be out for an evening stroll.” Instinctively, he took her gloved hands, rubbing them between his own.

“You get grabby, we’re on the clock.”

“Check the attitude.” His voice wasn’t mild and easygoing now, but hot as a bullet. It had her eyeing him speculatively. “Have you ever seen frostbite?”

“As a matter of fact—hey!” She yanked back when he pulled off her gloves to examine her fingers.

“I was with a group in Nepal a few years ago. One of the students got careless.” Ignoring her resistance, he wiggled her fingers. “He lost two of these.”

“I’m not careless.”

“Okay. Let me take your coat.”

She shrugged out of it, the neck scarf, the wool cap, the
insulated vest, piling each layer she peeled off into his arms. “I guess you’re not careless.” Then he glanced around, looking for a place to dump everything.

She couldn’t help it—she grinned. “The floor’s good enough.”

“No, we’ll just . . . the bed,” he remembered, and carted them out down the narrow path he’d made to the bedroom.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” she called out.

“Huh?”

“You’ve got every light on in this place.”

“I do?” He came out again. “I’m always forgetting to turn things off. I bought a quart of Nell’s soup today, I just nuked it. Do you want some?” He waited a beat, reading her perfectly. “Eating’s off the clock.”

“I’m not hungry,” she quickly responded, and felt a good sulk coming on.

“Okay, I’ll have it later so we can get started. Where did I put . . .” He patted his pockets, circled. “Oh, yeah.” And found his mini-recorder beside a monitor. “I want to get some basic personal data first, so we’ll just—”

He broke off again, brow furrowed. He’d piled old files, clippings, research books, photographs, and other tools on the sofa. Even the floor didn’t offer enough room for two people to sit.

“Tell you what, we’ll do this part in the kitchen.”

She shrugged her shoulders, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and followed him back. “I’m going to go ahead and eat, since it’s here.” He took down a bowl, then decided to take pity on her. “Why don’t you change your mind so I don’t feel rude eating in front of you?”

“Fine. Got a beer?”

“No, sorry. Got a pretty decent Merlot, though.”

“That’ll work.” She stood while he dumped soup in bowls, poured wine.

“Have a seat.”

He settled down across from her, got up immediately. “Damn it, one more minute. Go ahead and eat.”

Ripley picked up her spoon as he hurried back out. She heard muttering, papers rattling, and a small crash as something hit the floor.

He came back with a spiral notebook, two pencils, and a pair of metal-framed glasses. The minute he slipped them on, her stomach clutched.

Oh, man, she thought, an incredibly sexy geek.

“I’m going to take notes,” he explained. “Back up the tape. How’s the soup?”

“It’s Nell’s,” she said simply.

“Yeah.” He began to eat. “She saved my life the other night when I lost track of time. I found a container of chowder in the freezer and nearly broke down and cried. Your brother’s a lucky man. I met him yesterday.”

“So he said.” She began to relax, thinking that as long as he made small talk, the clock was ticking. “They’re great together.”

“I got that impression. How old are you?”

“What?”

“Your age—for the record.”

“I don’t know what the hell that has to do with anything. I turned thirty last month.”

“What day?”

“Fourteenth.”

“Sagittarius. You know the time of birth?”

“I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at the time.” She picked up her wine. “I think my mother said it was about eight at night, after sixteen hours of sweating in the Valley of the Shadow and so on. Why do you need that?”

“I’ll input the data and run an astrological chart. Give you a copy if you want.”

“That stuff’s totally bogus.”

“You’d be surprised. You were born on the island?”

“Yeah, at home—doctor and midwife in attendance.”

“Have you ever experienced any paranormal activity?”

She didn’t mind lying, but she hated the fact that it always made her throat feel tight. “Why would I?”