She worked in silence for a minute, and in the silence she was aware of the proximity, his face tilted up, her hand against his jaw, the lamp throwing soft yellow light across the worktable in both of them. She was aware of the specific quality of his stillness, which was voluntary. He was letting her do this. That was different from simply not resisting. You didn't hit him back, she said.
No, he hit you twice. I know. I was there. Why didn't you? Because I'd have killed him," Ryder said quietly and without drama.
She stopped, looked at him. "Not I'm not saying I would have meant to," he said. "I'm saying I'm bigger than I look, and I've been in enough of these that I know how they go. If I hit Decker back the way I'm capable of hitting someone, it stops being a brawl and becomes something else. Then it's me with a problem and you with a scandal.
Neither of those things needed to happen. " She stared at him. There was no performance in it, no pride, no self-congratulation about his own restraint. He said it as pure practical fact. You made a calculation, she said. I made several while he was hitting you.
It's easier to think when you're not the one swinging, he said. She looked at him for a long moment. The cloth was still against his lip, her hand still against his jaw, and she realized suddenly that she'd stopped working and was just holding his face. She took her hand back, set the cloth down on the table, straightened. "That scared me," she said.
The honesty of it surprised her. Watching that, Ryder looked at her. His dark eyes were steady and direct, and there was something in them she'd been catching glimpses of for weeks. Not the almost smile, not the practical patience, something underneath those things that she hadn't let herself look at straight on. "I know," he said.
"I'm sorry. Don't apologize for getting hit. I'm apologizing for scaring you. She looked away first. The worktable was between them.
The lamp hummed slightly in the silence. Outside, Silver Creek moved through its evening in ordinary ways. Distant voices, a horse on the street, the faint music from the saloon. Ryder, she said to the worktable. Yeah.