Face the Fire Page 0,38

stone paths, trying to imagine how she had done it. How she had turned what had been a pretty, if pedestrian, garden, a stretch of manicured lawn, and the single formal terrace he remembered into a celebration.

And he wished, foolishly, that he could sit and watch while she tended one of her beds. The house had always been beautiful, he thought now. And she had always loved it. But he remembered it as somewhat staid, and very formidable. She had made it a place of pleasure and beauty, warmth and welcome.

And standing in the midst of Mia's personalEden , with the fragile scents, the trill of birds, the thunder of the surf, he understood what she had created, and what he had never found. Home.

He had had the luxurious, the adequate, the tasteful, and the efficient. He had looked for, but had never found, his place. Until now.

"A hell of a note, isn't it?" he murmured. "To realize she had hers, and mine, all along."

Since he didn't know what to do about it, he went back to his car to finish what he'd come to do. He would add his own charms of protection to Mia's, and make her - and hers - doubly safe. He'd just finished when he spotted the island's patrol car coming up the road. Watching it, he dropped a small silk bag of crystals back into his coat pocket. His initial pleasure at the prospect of seeing Zack flipped over to irritation when Ripley got out of the car.

"Well, well, isn't this interesting." Simmering, and delighted to be so, she tucked her hands in her back pockets and swaggered toward him. The bill of her cap was angled low over dark glasses. But he didn't need to see the whole of her face to know it was hard as stone.

"Here I am, on routine island patrol, and what do I find but a nefarious character. And find him skulking around on private property." Smiling fiercely, she unhooked her cuffs from her belt. Sam eyed them, eyed her. "Not that I don't have a soft spot for a little bondage now and again, Rip, but you're a married woman." When her lips peeled back to show her teeth, he shrugged. "Okay, bad joke. But so are those."

"The law isn't a joke, hotshot. You're trespassing, and I imagine I could make an attempted daylight B

and E stick." The cuffs jingled in her hand. "Either way, trying is just going to make my day."

"I didn't go in the damn house." He'd just been considering it. "And if you think you're going to arrest and cuff me for trespassing - "

"Goody. I can add resisting."

"Cut me some slack."

"Why the hell should I?"

"I didn't come up here to poke around." Though he had poked, a bit. "I'm just as concerned about Mia as you are."

"Too bad being a lying sack of shit isn't against the law."

"How about this for truth?" He leaned over until they were nose to nose. "I don't give a rat's ass what you think of or about me. I'm going to make damn sure this house and the woman who lives in it are protected, especially after what nearly happened to her this morning. And if you think you're going to get those fucking cuffs on me, sweetheart, you'd better step back and think again."

"It's not your job to protect this house. And if I want these cuffs on you, city boy, you'll be flat on the ground eating dirt while I secure them. What the hell do you mean, 'after what happened this morning'?"

He started to spit something back at her, but then his gaze narrowed in speculation. "Mia didn't tell you?

She tells you every damn thing. Always has."

Ripley's color came up a little. "I haven't seen her today. What happened?" Then the color drained away again as she gripped his wrist. "Is she hurt?"

"No. No." His temper ebbed, leaving only frustration. He raked his fingers through his hair. "But she could've been. Nearly was."

He relayed the story, appreciating when Ripley swore impressively and stalked around the front yard as if looking for something handy to kick.

It reminded him why he'd always liked her.

"I didn't see any skid marks."

"I vanished them after I cleansed the area," he explained. "I thought it would upset her to see them again. God knows, it bothered me."

"Yeah, well." Her voice dropped to a mutter. "You're right."

"Excuse me? I don't believe I caught that."

"I said you're right. Don't milk it.