Rescued by that New Guy in Town

by J. L. Salter

  Ryan groaned. "You sure pick the strangest times for this ongoing interrogation."

  I've ruined it. Now he was going to stalk off and I'd never see him again. I'd never get to feel his alert touch on my whatevers. Teetering toad-frogs! "I'm sorry, Ryan, it just slipped out. I've been wanting to know since right after we met. I've heard all these stories and I know they're all bogus, but they worry me anyhow. I'm sorry."

  He sat back on the couch and placed one of the small decorative cushions in his lap. I could see why.

  Idiot! I'd screwed up yet another potential moment! What's wrong with me?

  "This history thing is real important to you, isn't it?" His voice threw me — possibly aggravated or maybe just perplexed.

  I hoped he was merely confused. I surely was. "Ryan, it's not like a background check or anything. But all those rumors. Just tell me the stories are a bunch of baloney and I can move forward on that, if it's something you don't want to talk about yet." Actually I was lying; I still wanted to know what was in his life before Verdeville. But I was punting.

  "History is what already happened. I figure you and me are about what's going on now. Thought that was enough." He looked hurt, maybe.

  I hoped he wasn't angry but I couldn't tell. "Tell you what. Let's shift the whole thing around. Why don't you ask me about my past and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

  Ryan looked slightly blank.

  "Isn't there anything about my history you want to…?" Obviously I was a lot less mysterious than I'd imagined.

  "Uh, I think I already know most everything. I mean, the significant stuff."

  For some reason I was offended; I didn't like being known. "Okay, you tell me my own history and we'll see how correct your version is."

  He cleared his throat. "Let's see. Raised here in this county. School here. College elsewhere in Tennessee. Back here to work at the bank. A slimy bum wormed his way into your life, gained too much of your trust, and then he maxed out your charge cards, drained your bank account, and he split. Your brother wanted to kill him, but couldn't find the scumbag. So you've spent years working your way out of the debt and you don't trust men anymore. Which, probably, is the big deal about my background." He looked into my eyes. "Maybe you're afraid I'm another bum. But I'm not."

  Hot tears ran down my cheeks. I hated being analyzed, but I had invited it. Somehow I resented him knowing all that information, which was entirely correct. But about as much as anything else, I bristled that his version was so succinct. When I've told my own story, it's taken nearly forty minutes and a half box of tissue. Ryan covered it all in one short paragraph.

  "Did I get anything wrong?"

  I wasn't able to speak quite yet, but I shook my head. He put his hand on my knee and I left it there. It was intimate, but not in that way. He was trying to comfort me. A sweet gesture, but not much actual comfort. "How do you know all that? The only part I recall telling you was about college at East Tennessee State."

  Ryan smiled. "You've been asking people about me — I've been asking about you."

  "Who'd you ask?" My sniffles dried amazingly fast.

  "Your early days were just my guesswork. The stuff about the slimy bum I got from a confidential source."

  I clutched the hand which rested on my knee and dug my short nails into it. "Give."

  "Okay, okay, if you're going to resort to abuse." He withdrew his hand and shook it briefly. I hadn't really hurt him — it was his little bit of theater. "I ran into your friend Ellen at the mall one day with her husband, what's-his-name."

  "Mack."

  "Yeah. Anyway, she recognized me and introduced herself. She looked familiar. I guess I'd seen her — not sure where. You know, she looks like a movie star."

  "Halle Berry?"

  "Yeah, a little. Anyway, Ellen just chatted away about how wonderful you were and stuff. Like she was your agent."

  How embarrassing. I'd kill her. Maybe… unless it worked. "Well, she was also at the Halloween Festival — might have seen you there, too. So, anyway, Ellen told you about Wally the Weasel conning me into falling for him and then how he stole me blind?"

  Ryan nodded. "I'm sorry. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. But you need to know that I'm not a weasel. If you're falling in love with me as much as I'm falling in love with you…"

  Huh? Back up! "Slow down, Ryan. That was the L word."

  "I don't completely understand it, but I think I've fallen in love with you." He looked slightly embarrassed at first, but then he grinned a little. "Just like that movie — you put a spell on me, Kris. I couldn't help it. I didn't have anybody who'd give me a magic potion to remove your spell."

  Well, there was a voodoo priestess at the far north side of town near the dump, but I had no inclination to mention it. My right brain finally fired its afterburners and I threw my arms around his neck — the uninjured side. "That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard! Volunteering to shovel dog poop just to be near me for twelve hours." Actually, I'd phrased it poorly, but he seemed willing to overlook.

  "So, a minute ago, I left a word hanging. You want to comment on it?"

  I knew exactly which word. I kissed him, with a lot of tongue, and he responded. It seemed like five minutes, but probably only about thirty seconds in real time. Then I pulled back and looked into his face. "I want to be with you, in all the ways it's defined, and I want us to be together for a long time. If that's what people mean with the L word, then I think I'm falling in love with you too, Captain Blood."

  His hand went to the side of my face and then down to my neck. Tender, loving. His eyes searched mine. "How about when I'm not in a pirate outfit?"

  I immediately zoomed to an image of him bare-beamed and buck-naked, but then I realized he was asking something else. "Yes, I've fallen for you, Ryan Hazzard."

  We kissed again. I thought his hands might resume their reconnoitering, but he pulled away and looked intently into my eyes. "Do you still need to know why I left Memphis?"

  I did… kind of. But I'd finally realized I could live without it. "No. Not 'til you're ready to explain."

  He sat back as though I'd stumped him. "Okay. If you don't have to know, then I guess I'm ready to tell you."

  Huh? The first time we were about to make love — as best I could tell, anyway — my left brain had derailed things. Now some weird part of Ryan's melon had interceded. "Only if you're ready." I studied his eyes. "You want a beer to tell this with?"

  He shook his head.

  "Well, I might need one to hear it, so I'll get two." When I went toward the fridge I could tell he watched my derrière.

  I handed him one of the few remaining long necks and sat back on the couch. "Okay. Shoot."

  Ryan rubbed the bottle's condensation on his jeans and positioned himself with the injured right shoulder slightly forward. "Okay, I've heard some of the rumors going around — including that I supposedly murdered somebody." He grunted sharply. "As if they let murderers just walk out of town."

  Something about the word murder chilled me, but I kept quiet.

  "I didn't live in Memphis proper. It was a little east of there but still in Shelby County. One day I was at a county fair. Since I've worked on a ranch for a lot of years — weekends mainly, helping my dad and brother — I'm kind of interested in livestock, so I sometimes go over to the barns where they're kept. Including the little inside arenas where some of the animals are shown to judges." Ryan took a swallow of his beer. "I heard this ruckus behind the bleachers, near one of the many sliding doors. Sounded like a hog was hollering. So I went back to see what was wrong. There was a man back there shoving a water hose down that hog's throat."

  "What?" It made me angry even though I didn't completely understand.

  "I'd heard of people doing that — forcing a lot of water into a hog's belly to make him weigh more. But I'd never seen it done. It's cruel. The animal thinks he's drowning. That hog was squealing and struggling and trying to get away from the hose. But t
he man just kept it rammed down his throat. Choking it, terrifying it. What got me even more was that his son was right there — looked horrified to me. But the kid didn't say anything. The dad was teaching him how to torture his animals to make them score higher in the competition. A few other people from the bleachers had heard all the ruckus and also went to see what it was about. I hustled over and told the man to quit."

  "Did he?"

  "He cussed at me and told me to mind my own business. So I told him again he'd better stop. He just cussed some more. Finally I said, 'if you don't quit strangling that hog, I'm gonna get those judges to come stop you.'" Ryan took a long swig of his brew. His respiration had increased just remembering the awful event. "Well, that guy certainly didn't want the judges to know what he was doing, since the whole point was to deceive them into thinking his son's hog weighed more than it really did."

  "So what happened?" I didn't want to rush him, but I was dying to know.

  "I saw he wasn't going to stop, so I decided to go get at least one of the judges. As soon as I turned around, the man clubbed me from behind. And I went to the ground."

  From what I'd witnessed during his handling of those three drunks, I pretty much knew that Ryan likely beat the stuffing out of that guy.

  "So I came up swinging."

  "That was the right thing to do, Ryan. There's laws about cruelty to animals."

  "But that wasn't what got to me."

  Maybe this is the part when Ryan kills the guy. I just kept quiet.

  "While I was fighting this man, his son jumped on my back and started laying into me. Now, I'd guess he was about twelve or thirteen — still a boy in one sense, but he hit like a young man. Between the two of them, I was getting creamed. I had to get that boy off me, but I didn't want to hit him. He was just a kid."

  I nearly panted with the exertion of his fight even though I was only hearing about it.

  "So in a brief minute when the man was down, I grabbed the boy and basically threw him off me. He landed about six feet away, with his arm underneath him. I didn't have any choice… I couldn't let him beat me to death. And I couldn't handle both of them at the same time."

  "Broke?"

  Ryan nodded. "Looked awful. The boy was crying, the man started screaming, and more people came over. Most of them just saw me standing over the kid with the broken arm. And most of them assumed the worst. One of the judges had come over by then and I tried to explain to him that all I did was tell the man to stop strangling his hog. The judge saw the water hose and seemed to comprehend, but he acted like he was supposed to believe that man's word over mine. I guess because that guy was somebody and I wasn't anybody."

  My eyes were moist. "What happened?"

  "Oh, they brought in police. The cop questioned me and that man. The kid was taken away in an ambulance. The cop seemed to believe me, just like the livestock judge, but he said he'd need a corroborating witness. I told him there were other people around from the very beginning, but I was the only one that tried to stop the abuse. The cop asked a few people and nobody wanted to get involved. Finally I recognized a woman I knew had seen the whole thing and I pointed her out. When the cop talked to her, she told him she didn't want any trouble. I guess the cop must've explained that I was facing charges of battery on a juvenile or something, because she finally agreed to give a statement. It backed up everything I said except minor variations in the man's wording. Basically his cursing, I think. Apparently she didn't want to say those words."

  "So that witness cleared you."

  "Yeah, in the legal sense. No charges were filed. But most of those folks had seen me standing over the boy with the busted arm. And everybody looked at me like I was somebody who beats up children."

  "Nobody in their right mind would let an adolescent farm boy beat them to death. You had to get him off you."

  "I know. My head knows and my heart knows. But I kinda lost it after that incident. Anytime anybody looked my way, I assumed they'd heard the story of the kid whose arm got broken. I couldn't stop and explain the whole story to everybody I met, so I just decided to bail."

  "And you came here."

  He nodded. "I wanted a fresh start where nobody knew about that cruel man teaching his son to torture hogs to win a ribbon, about my decision to get involved, and what basically was an accident with the kid's arm."

  I nearly spilled Ryan's beer when I hugged him again, crying. "I don't even like hogs, Ryan, but anybody who'd fight to save a defenseless animal, is a hero in my book." I rested my head on the left side of his muscular chest. "It took a lot of guts to face down that man. Who was he anyway? He sounds like a big mucketity-muck."

  "His name wouldn't mean anything outside of Shelby County, but I found out later he's a high profile realtor and serves on the school board, among other things."

  "Yikes. Not the best guy to tangle with. I can see why nobody else — besides you — was willing to take him on."

  "Nobody should teach his kid to cheat or abuse helpless animals, but someone in a public position like that has even more responsibility to set a proper example." Ryan shivered very slightly as he exhaled. "So, that's my long story, Kris. And you're the only person in Greene County who's heard it."

  "But some of the locals think you, uh, murdered somebody. Doesn't that bother you?"

  "Oddly, not nearly as much as them thinking that I beat up children." He groaned a bit as he got resituated in his seat.

  "I believe I understand." I looked into his eyes. "Still, wouldn't it be better to set the record straight and just tell people the real story?"

  Ryan stood again and looked through the back window toward the tranquil pond and the silent, distant trees. "There'd always be somebody who still thought I deliberately hurt that boy." He shook his head. "I'd rather let them believe whatever rumors they can make up… than to think that."

  "Is that why you just leave town suddenly, like you did this week?"

  When he nodded, his eyes were cloudy. "Sometimes, going back to the family ranch is the only thing that helps."

  All I could do was embrace him. No, not that kind of embrace. This was the comfort hug, the closeness which said, "Oh, Ryan, Ryan" or maybe even, "It's okay" but without any words to screw it up. In any case, I was keenly aware our moment was gone, along with the kissing and touching which had seemed so promising until I sabotaged it by asking stupid questions with timing that was positively atrocious. Kristen, just dump a bucket of ice water next time.

  After several minutes his heart rate and breathing returned to normal.

  I was glad to finally know Ryan's long story and quite gratified he was not a murderer after all. But how sad that one broken bone, taken out of context, had haunted Ryan Hazzard ever since.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  "You feel like another walk?" I nodded toward the back window Ryan had been gazing through. I didn't know how far he'd gotten on his morning stroll. "It's still nice outside… just need heavy jackets. You know, stretch our legs a bit."

  Ryan took a moment to return from wherever his mind had been. "Huh? Yeah. Let's go look in those woods. I've been watching a big red-tailed hawk up on one of those tall trees."

  "With a white chest?"

  "Yeah. You can't see the red tail from below, but that's what he is."

  "Been wondering. He sometimes watches from that oak by the pond. I'll get my coat." I also used the potty while I was in the master suite. Going in the woods is another big mood-breaker. Ha. I figured my thin insulated vest and flight jacket would give me sufficient warmth. I also grabbed my gloves and knit cap.

  Elvis watched us depart with that total disinterest only cats can properly display. His only probable concern was whether we'd be back by seven o'clock when he was used to receiving his kibble.

  We paused at the pond long enough for Ryan to explain that he'd previously ascertained it had fish, albeit rather small ones, and it probably needed some treatment for algae. I'd leave that to my landlord, since the pond
was also his property.

  Once we entered the woods it was like being in a different world. Even though the autumn trees were mostly bare I still felt swallowed up as soon as we'd crossed the first little rise in terrain. The sun was already below the top of the forest which meant less than an hour of daylight. It would quickly get colder after sundown.

  "This is a good mix of hardwood and pulpwood." Ryan pointed westerly, the direction we'd been moving.

  I nodded. A tree's a tree to me. I could recognize pine and a typical oak, but the rest were just tall things with leaves.

  "How many acres back here?"

  "Not sure. Other than a stream farther west, there's nothing that direction 'til Highway 231 that goes north to the boat ramp."

  "On Lake Envie? Wow. That must be thousands of acres. Lots of deer in here, I bet."

  "Coyotes too. At least one of the neighbors says he's heard them yipping."

  "They probably come down to the pond for water." Ryan pointed and then stopped as though he were calculating how many critters in that pack.

  I shivered slightly. Didn't really like knowing coyotes frequented a pond less than two hundred feet from my back door.

  We reached a small clearing of sorts with signs of an old cook fire. Some kids had probably camped back here, though I'd never known about it.

  Ryan looked back to the east and sighed heavily. "Wish I lived near some woods again. I really miss being around trees. I'd love to build a bunkhouse out near that pond."

  "Bunkhouse?"

  "You know, a simple cabin." His hands made a rough square shape.

  "I think Mister Harold owns most of this, maybe up to the tree line. In fact, somebody said he's buying another one of the houses out here."