married.”
Clint reared back as if I’d punched him. “What?”
I glanced around to see if his roar brought out the neighbors. The word sliced through me like a hot wire, leaving me in two pieces—the one piece that desperately wanted to take my words back and the other that knew this was the right thing to do.
I swallowed. “Separated two years ago but still legally married,” I explained because I didn’t want him to think I was a cheater. “I’m not… not an adulterer. I’d have been divorced eighteen months ago if Todd hadn’t blocked all my petitions.”
I looked down at the wet driveway. It almost hurt to see the look on his face now.
“So, you see, I’m not really in a position to enter a relationship or keep kissing you. Whatever you want to label it. It’s just... bad timing for me.”
When he didn’t say anything for a long time, I glanced up. His expression changed to stormy. “Bad timing,” he repeated, taking another step back. His hands clenched into fists then released. Over and over. I didn’t get the impression he was trying not to punch me, but it seemed like he was holding himself back from grabbing me. Holding me close. “Definitely.”
I swallowed the urge to apologize. Sorry wasn’t going to fix this—it just was what it was.
I’d done the right thing. We couldn’t get involved now. My life and world were far too complicated, and Todd was going to continue to ruin everything. I had to wonder if I was divorced now, if Todd had signed, if I wouldn’t push Clint away. If I would tell him about the baby. Too many ifs.
As Clint tipped his cowboy hat at me and walked to his truck, I knew the answer would be yes. I felt the strange urge to cry at the loss of something that never really got started.
That was the hormones talking.
It wasn’t real.
Just like this thing between me and Clint could never be real.
6
CLINT
Married.
Fucking married?
I waited until I’d turned off her street before I demolished my dash with a smash of my fist. The wound at my side throbbed, as if in direct response to my agitation. Fucking hell. The burn was a reminder of exactly what I’d intended to do. Not go after Becky. But I had, and in the end, she’d given me the perfect excuse not to do so.
Then why was I fucking losing my shit? Fate was a cunt.
I seriously wanted to kill someone right now, and I wouldn’t have minded if it was her husband.
Soon to be ex-husband, I hoped.
I never touched a married or claimed woman. Ever. She didn’t belong to me.
But Becky did, though. My wolf didn’t care about a legal piece of paper. A marriage was a human bond, not a shifter one. The fact that she’d ended it two years earlier meant she wasn’t with her ex. She was fair game.
To me, the man, it fucking blowed. I couldn’t mate a married human!
No matter how much my wolf wanted to turn around and keep on kissing her, I drove straight to the ranch and shot off an email to the council data-digger, some hacker who lived in Arizona. I might have pretended it had to do with shifter enforcement rather than my mate’s marital status, but I had to know everything about Becky Nichols, and this was the easiest way to do it.
She got back to me in thirty minutes—thank fuck.
What I read both infuriated and appeased me.
Becky's been separated for two years—just as she’d said—following an incident that resulted in a restraining order being filed and a legal status of separated.
A prickle of fear ran up my spine at that. The only kind of incidents that required a restraining order were ones where someone was in danger.
I growled, stood and tossed my chair across the room. Pacing the small space, I thought about how my mate had been hurt by her husband. She’d had to file papers to keep him away. She’d said he wouldn’t sign, that he’d blocked all her petitions. Still. Two fucking years later.
God fucking dammit. I was seriously going to kill the asshole.
I froze, realizing I’d been a big fucking idiot. Standing in her driveway, it had been right in front of my face. Hell, I’d replaced the fucking thing.
The tire.
Could her ex have slashed her tire? He lived in Meade, about thirty miles away. It seemed beneath a—I skimmed the data for what type of doctor the ex was—gastroenterologist to