Heaven and Earth (14 page)

“You bought a bottle of fancy wine and spent an evening snuggled up to Mia.”

“Where the hell do you get this?” Flustered, he dragged his hands through his hair. “I went to Mia’s for dinner, though that’s completely my business. She’s one of the main reasons I’m here. That’s a professional interest.
However, I also happen to like her very much. I didn’t sleep with her, don’t intend to sleep with her.”

“Fine.” Because she’d started feeling like a fool even before he’d released her, she turned to her locker. “It’s your business, like you said.”

“You’re jealous.” He paused a moment, as if to gather his wits. Or his temper. “After I get over being seriously pissed off, I might find that flattering.”

She whirled back. “I’m not jealous.”

“Replay that little scene,” he suggested, jerking a thumb toward the gym. “See what you come up with. Now, I’m going to go soak my head. I suggest you do the same.”

He strode out, sending the swinging door slapping.

Eight

There was one
thing Ripley hated more than feeling guilty. It was feeling ashamed. It took her a while to get there, as her temper wasn’t of the flash-and-fade variety.

She wallowed in anger, enjoyed the way it bubbled and churned inside her and kept clear, rational thinking at bay.

She rode on that blissful annoyance most of the day, and it felt good. It felt just. The energy it gave her had her whipping through a backlog of paperwork at the station house and taking Zack’s turn at cleaning the premises. She did her patrol on foot, then, still raring to go, volunteered to take her brother’s cruise shift.

She drove all over the island, looking for trouble. Hoping for it.

When trouble didn’t cooperate, she spent an hour at home, beating the hell out of her punching bag.

Then common sense began to trickle through. She hated when that happened. That trickle opened a crack, and through the crack she was able to view her own behavior with distressing clarity.

She’d been stupid and that was hard to swallow. She’d
been wrong and that was a bigger, nastier gulp. Feeling like an idiot made her depressed, so she skulked down to the kitchen when no one was around and ate three of Nell’s brownies.

She could hardly believe she’d worked herself up into that sort of a
state
over a man in the first place. Not that it had been jealousy, she thought, contemplating a fourth brownie. He was completely wrong about that. But she had overreacted, big time.

And she, she decided as the feeling of stupidity began to slide toward the first sticky edge of guilt, had treated him shabbily.

She’d teased him. She had no respect for women who used sex as a weapon, or a bribe. Or a reward, for that matter. But she’d used it as bait and punishment.

That shamed her.

Replaying her actions in the gym drove her to brownie number four.

Even if he had been interested in Mia, which she was now convinced he hadn’t been, he was a free agent. A couple of lip locks with her didn’t make them exclusive, or oblige him to fidelity.

Though she firmly believed that if you were nibbling on one cookie, you finished it off before you picked up another.

But that was neither here nor there.

The best thing to do, she thought, rubbing her now slightly unsettled stomach, was nothing. Stay out of his way, nip any personal connection in the bud, though it was probably a little late for the bud stage, she admitted.

They would just pretend nothing had ever happened—which, of course, it shouldn’t have.

She crept back up to her bedroom, closed herself in, and
decided it would be wise to avoid all human contact for the next eight hours.

Sleep didn’t come easily, but she put that down to overdosing on chocolate and deemed it fair punishment for her crimes.

The dreams, when they came, seemed harsher than she deserved.

The winter beach was deserted. Solitude weighed like chains around her heart. The moon was full, ripely white so that its light washed over the shore and sea. It seemed you could all but count every grain of sand that glittered in that beam.

The sound of the surf drummed in her ears, a constant sound that reminded her she was alone. Would always be alone.

She flung up her hands, called out in pain, in fury. The wind answered, and spun those sparkling grains of sand. Faster. Faster.

Power sliced through her, a blade so cold it burned hot. The storm she called roared and built until it blocked the light of that pure white moon.

“Why do you do this?”

She turned in the torrent and looked at her lost sister. Golden hair shimmered, blue eyes were dark with sorrow.

“For justice.” She needed to believe that. “For you.”

“No.” The one who had been Air didn’t reach out but stood quiet, hands folded at her waist. “For vengeance. For hate. We were never meant to use what we are for blood.”

“He spilled yours first.”

“And should my weakness, my fears, excuse yours?”

“Weak?” Magic dark boiled inside her. “I am stronger now than ever I was. I have no fears.”

“You are alone. The one you loved sacrificed.”

And she could see, like a dream within the dream, the
man who had held her heart. She watched him, watched again, as he was struck down, taken from her and their children by the bitter edge of her own actions.

The tears that swam into her eyes burned like acid.

“He should have stayed away.”

“He loved you.”

“I am beyond love now.”

Air turned over her hands, hands that gleamed as white as that blinding moonlight. “There is no life without love, and no hope. I broke the first link between us, and lacked the courage to forge it back again. Now you break the second. Find your compassion, make your amends. The chain grows weak.”

“I would change nothing.”

“Our sister will be put to the test.” Urgently now, Air stepped closer. “Without us, she may fail. Then, our circle is broken once and forever. Our children’s children will pay. I have seen it.”

“You ask me to give up what I have tasted. What I can now call with a
thought
?” She flung out a hand and the great sea rose to rage against the shimmering wall of sand—a thousand voices, screaming. “I will not. Before I am done with this, every man, every woman, every child who cursed us, who hunted us like vermin, will writhe in agony.”

“Then you damn us,” Air said quietly. “And all who come after us. Look. And see what may be.”

The wall of sand dissolved. The furious sea reared back, froze for one throbbing moment. The moon so white, so pure, split and dripped cold blood. Across the black sky, lightning slashed and whipped, stabbed down toward the earth to smoke and to burn.

Flames erupted, fed by the wild and greedy wind, so that the dark was blinded with light.

The night became one long, terrified scream as the island was swallowed by the sea.

However upsetting the
dream, Ripley could convince herself it was a result of guilt and chocolate. In the light of day she could shrug off the anxiety it had caused and expend her energy shoveling the latest snowfall.

By the time Zack joined her, she’d finished the steps and half the walk. “I’ll do the rest. Go in and get some coffee, some breakfast.”

“Couldn’t eat. I gorged on brownies last night, so I can use the exercise.”

“Hey.” He caught her by the chin, lifting her face for a long study. “You look tired.”

“Didn’t sleep very well.”

“What’s gnawing at you?”

“Nothing. I ate too many sweets, didn’t sleep well, and now I’m paying for it.”

“Baby, you’re talking to somebody who knows you. When you’ve got a problem you march through work—physical and mental drudgery—until you come out the other side. Spill it.”

“There’s nothing to spill.” She shuffled her feet, then finally just sighed. Her brother could simply stand and wait through an entire geological era for an answer. “Okay, I’m not ready to spill it. I’m working it out.”

“All right. If all this shoveling’s helping you with that, I’ll just leave you to it.”

He started back in. She didn’t just look tired, he thought. She looked unhappy. At least he could take her mind off that. He scooped up a handful of snow, smoothed it into a ball. What were big brothers for? And let it fly.

It hit the back of her head with a solid
whomp.
He wasn’t leadoff pitcher for the island’s softball team without reason.

Ripley turned slowly, studied his cheerful grin. “So . . . want to play, do you?”

She grabbed up snow as she sidestepped. The instant he bent down for ammo, she fired straight between his eyes. She played third, and it was a brave or foolish runner who tried to steal home against her arm.

They pummeled each other, winging snowballs across the half-shoveled walk, slinging insults and taunts after them.

By the time Nell came to the door, the once pristine blanket over the lawn was bisected with messy paths, dented with furrows where bodies had temporarily fallen.

Lucy, with high, delighted barks, shot through the door like a bullet and dived into the action.

Amused, Nell hugged her arms against the chill and stepped out on the porch. “You children better come in and get cleaned up,” she called out. “Or you’ll be late for school.”

It was instinct more than plan that had brother and sister doing instant and identical pivots. The two snowballs hit Nell dead center. The resulting squeal had Ripley laughing so hard she had to drop to her knees, where Lucy leaped on her.

“Oops.” Zack swallowed the grin as he caught the dangerous glint in his wife’s eyes. “Sorry, honey. It was, you know, a reflex.”

“I’ll show you a reflex. It’s comforting to know the entire island police force will shoot the unarmed.” She sniffed, shot her chin into the air. “I want that walk cleared off, and you can clean off my car while you’re at it, if you can spare a moment from your hilarity.”

She sailed back inside, slammed the door.

“Ouch,” Ripley said, then dissolved into laughter again. “Looks like you may be bunking on the sofa tonight, hotshot.”

“She doesn’t hold a grudge.” But he winced, hunched his shoulders. “I’ll go take care of her car.”

“Got you whipped, doesn’t she?”

He merely burned her with a look. “I’ll kill you later.”

Still chuckling, Ripley hauled herself to her feet as her brother and Lucy plowed through the snow toward the back of the house. Nothing, she thought, like a good snow fight to put everything back on an even keel. As soon as she finished the walk, she would go inside and make nice to Nell.

Still, she’d counted on Nell’s having a little more sense of humor. What was a little snow between friends? Brushing herself off, Ripley picked up the shovel, then heard the pained howl, the wild barks.

Gripping the shovel like a bat, she raced around the side of the house. As she cleared the corner, she was greeted by a face full of snow. The shocked gasp caused her to swallow some of it, choke. As she spit it out, rubbed it off her face, she saw her brother, covered to his shoulders with snow.

And Nell, standing with a smug smile, and two empty buckets. She banged them together smartly to shake out any remaining snow. “That,” she said with a nod, “was reflex.”

“Boy.” Ripley tried to dig under her collar where snow was dribbling, cold and wet. “She’s good.”

She was able
to maintain the good, even mood through most of the day. She might’ve stayed there if Dennis Ripley hadn’t come shuffling into the station house.

“It’s my favorite delinquent.” As he rarely failed to entertain her, Ripley propped her feet on the desk and prepared to enjoy the show. “What’s up with you?”

“I’m supposed to apologize for causing trouble, and to thank you for taking me back to school, and blah blah.”

“Gosh, Den.” Ripley dabbed at an imaginary tear. “I’m touched.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “Mom said I had to. I got two days ISS, I’m grounded for three weeks, and I have to write essays on responsibility and honesty.”

“Essays? That’s the worst, huh?”

“Yeah.” He plopped down in the chair across from her, sighed weightily. “I guess it was pretty stupid.”