In that very same pond, too.”
“Yeah, well, the tadpole was your idea.” Jake’s scowl turned into a wide grin. “Should I let her out? Or maybe throw away the key for a few more hours?”
“Let me handle her.” Ryan tossed the key into the air and caught it. “Everything under control at the park?”
“The protest fell apart peacefully once we had Zoe in custody.” Jake chuckled. “You should have seen Flora Tyler. Demanded that Zoe pose for a picture with the senior citizen group. Bet it will make the front page of the Tribune.”
Ryan laughed. “That’s what happens when a celebrity comes to town. Have you called Kate about bailing her sister out?”
Jake nodded. “Gave me an earful. Mumbled something about how she hadn’t talked to Zoe yet, and asked if she could beg a second favor.”
“She expects me to post Zoe’s bail,” Ryan guessed and wasn’t surprised to hear Jake still chuckling as he walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. Ryan fingered the key he’d pocketed. Too bad the key wasn’t a coin, and he could toss it into the air, leaving it up to fate to determine whether he would—or should—grant Kate’s second favor.
Because he knew exactly what Kate wanted him to do. She’d been dropping not-so-subtle hints since she’d set her wedding date last month. Make peace with Zoe. At least for the next two weeks until the wedding was over and Zoe headed back to New York. There was nothing in the Ryan O’Connor rule book that said he had to go back and rehash the last ten years. That was history. And since the incident in Philadelphia, Ryan had become very good at ignoring the past.
As Ryan grabbed his checkbook and headed for the court offices next door, he didn’t want to consider whether or not he was strong enough to turn a blind eye to the woman Zoe Russell had become.
Zoe’s limited stock of patience had run out.
She didn’t appreciate being ignored. She didn’t appreciate being locked in this tiny jail cell—still handcuffed—for more than an hour. It felt like days.
She shook her hands to clear them of the numbness, then winced as the cuffs jangled heavily against her wrists. Not her jewelry of choice. Somehow, some way, she’d see that Ryan paid for not having a master key to these cuffs. She’d like to think that if their roles had been reversed, she’d graciously have called the locksmith, even if his workday was officially over.
Zoe tried to curl up on the cot. The lumpy cot. With a pillow missing its crucial foam or feathers. She hoped Kate got here soon to bail her out. She couldn’t take much more of Riverbend’s unique blend of hospitality.
She closed her eyes, then immediately opened them when the image of Ryan’s face appeared. Those perfect features. Chiseled chin. Deep-set blue eyes. Thick blond hair that seemed kissed by the sun. It had been ten years since she’d last seen him in the flesh. Photographs and family home videos didn’t count.
He looked better than she remembered, sexier than she’d imagined possible. She tried to picture him at sixty-five, potbellied, gray-haired—no, make that bald—limping down Main Street chasing after a criminal, banned from driving a car because his vision was so bad.
She smiled at the image she had created of a not-so-perfect Ryan O’Connor. Too bad men like Ryan usually aged like fine champagne, not cheap wine. She stood and paced the tiny cell. Why was it taking him so long to find that key? And who did Ryan think he was dealing with, anyway, claiming Riverbend was not a 24/7 town? She knew full well that locksmiths everywhere lived for being called after hours so they could charge outrageous overtime fees.
“He owes me a phone call,” Zoe muttered. “I should call the locksmith, just to prove him wrong. Ryan! I want my phone call!”
When Ryan didn’t materialize, Zoe shouted out his name again. She heard footsteps and braced herself. But it wasn’t Ryan. It was Jake.
“Uh, Zoe,” Jake said with a wariness Zoe could understand. After all, they had tangled in the fishpond and ended up wet, dirty and slightly shaken by the encounter. And she’d punched him, a fact she deeply regretted. “Uh, Ryan hasn’t let you out yet?” He glanced right, then left, everywhere except at her. Finally their gazes met.
Zoe motioned him closer until they stood face-to-face. “You don’t want to be the one who tells me he’s found the key but hasn’t unlocked the cuffs.”
“Can I…I mean…is there something else I do can for you?”
“You can accept my apology for hitting you. And I want my phone call.”
“Apology accepted.” Jake warily handed her his cell phone through the bars, then reddened in embarrassment when she waved her still-cuffed wrists in front of his face.
“I can hardly punch out numbers while my hands are otherwise occupied, Jake. Maybe,” she said gently, “you could help Ryan find the key.”
Jake slowly backed away. “I’ll get Ryan.”
“You do that,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice bright.
She watched Jake disappear around the corner. He was tall, like Ryan. Had an athlete’s body, like Ryan’s. Handsome features, including deep-set blue eyes, also like Ryan’s. But when she stood face-to-face with Jake, she felt nothing, there was no sizzle between them. Unlike the sizzle that had unexpectedly snapped, crackled and popped when she and Ryan had stood on opposite sides of the jail cell door.
What she feared most was caring for Ryan again, maybe even falling head over heels for him again, because in the end, he’d pick up and leave.
As she impatiently waited for the man to appear, Zoe pondered why the Ryan she’d met today had sizzled and every man she’d dated during the past year in New York had fizzled. She’d chosen them, she admitted wryly, because they hadn’t sizzled, hadn’t captured a portion of her heart and soul. And when they left, as all the men in her life inevitably did, she’d been left whole and emotionally untouched. And alone. Very, very alone.
But that was preferable, she told herself, than to be left alone and heartbroken. The way she’d felt when her father left, when Kate left, when Ryan left. Okay, so the all-too-sexy Ryan O’Connor could still made her sizzle. Nothing wrong with that, as long as she didn’t act on it.
Zoe lay back on the cot, letting her eyes drift shut again. This time the image was of the night of her high school graduation. Her parents were seated as bookends to the two empty chairs in the otherwise packed Riverbend High School auditorium. She’d never forget that June night when her world had turned upside down. Her parents had announced they were separating. And Kate and Ryan had eloped. She’d been eighteen, hurt, crushed, devastated and determined never to forgive any of them, especially Ryan.
She was twenty-eight now. Long ago she’d made peace with Kate, and accepted but still couldn’t claim to understand the reasons for her parents’ divorce. But she hadn’t let herself answer why she still felt the sting of Ryan’s betrayal.
Maybe, she admitted to herself, it was because she didn’t want to accept that their friendship, which had meant the world to her, hadn’t been important enough to him.
The sound of approaching footsteps—very different male footsteps from Jake’s—helped clear her mind. She waited until she heard the cell door open before she
