Wild Men of Alaska Collection - By Helmer, Tiffinie Page 0,12
you’ve been seeing.”
Stunned, she relaxed her hands until the words connected in her muddled brain. “Contractor? You mean Christopher?”
“Yeah, him.”
She pushed out of Skip’s hold. “How do you know about Christopher?”
“I know a lot of things about you.”
“H-have you—” No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. “Have you had me under surveillance?”
He looked guilty as hell.
“For-for how long?” She slapped his good arm when he didn’t answer her right away.
“Since you were released from jail.” He shrugged his shoulder as though her slap had stung. “Actually, the whole time you were in jail too.”
“You’ve been spying on me for the last five years?”
“When you say it like that, yeah, it sounds really bad.”
“It is bad. It’s restraining order bad. Why? Why would you do that?”
“I sent you to jail—”
“No, you didn’t. It was my fault. My consequences. I broke the law.”
He took a step toward her. “Wren, it killed me to send you there. I had to know that you were all right.”
“So, what, you’ve kept tabs on me since I was released to make sure I wasn’t using again?”
“No. Yes. Kinda.” He shut his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit. This is all coming out wrong. I had to give you space to work through your rehab, get clean, stay sober. But I had to know you were okay. I couldn’t lose hope.”
“Hope?”
“That someday we could be together again. Then you started taking up with the contractor dude, and I thought you were over me and moving on with your life. I had to stop that.”
“Stop me from moving on with my life?”
He clammed up, rolled his lips over his teeth and refused to continue. It was her turn to narrow her eyes.
“So you laid in wait until you thought I was ready? Ready for you to come charging back into my life to pick up were we left off?” Her tone continued to rise. “Where we left off was me standing over you after I shot you with your own gun.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“So we have some relationship issues to work out. An apology wouldn’t be out of order either.” He rubbed the upper shoulder of his broken arm, where the bullet had grazed him. Maybe if he acted like he was in pain, she’d cut him some slack. It wouldn’t be much of an act with his aching broken arm. “That bullet really hurt.”
“I sent you an apology.”
“One your therapist probably told you to write.”
“It was part of the program.”
“You were still angry with me.”
“Yes. I heard you went to the judge and testified against me. I’d already pled out. You made sure I was sent to jail.”
So much for cutting him some slack. “There wasn’t any other way I knew that would get you off the drugs.” He reached out to take her hand, but she linked them behind her back. His attention was caught by her breasts as the action lifted them front and center. God, she had beautiful breasts. What he would give if she let him...
The scowl on her face deepened. This wasn’t helping his cause either.
“Wren, I’d tried everything, but nothing worked. You were going to kill yourself if something drastic wasn’t done.”
“Sending me to jail almost killed me.”
That tore his attention away from her generous breasts. “What are you talking about?” Dread settled into his stomach. He’d had people looking out for her, keeping tabs, reporting back. He hadn’t heard of anything life threatening happening to her inside.
“Nothing.” She turned away from him.
He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “Tell me.”
“Get your hands off me.” She yanked her arm free of his grasp.
“You didn’t mind them a few minutes ago.”
“A few minutes ago I was out of my mind with cold and hunger.”
“You’re still cold and hungry.”
She growled. “Would you quit twisting my words?”
“Then be honest with me, and tell me what happened, damn it.”
“I almost ended it, okay.”
“What?”
She ran a hand through her hair, wincing as she brushed the bump on her head. “It was too much. The withdrawals, the confinement, not having you—it was just too much. One night, I tried to hang myself with the sheets from my bed.”
He sucked in a breath as his heart missed a beat. “Why wasn’t I told of this?”
“Probably because it didn’t work. I’m still here, aren’t I?” She arched a brow and folded her arms across her chest.
Well, shit. He remembered that look all too well. He shouldn’t have reminded her that he had spies in the jail reporting back to