Wild Men of Alaska 01 - Impact

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Book: Read Wild Men of Alaska 01 - Impact for Free Online
Authors: Tiffinie Helmer
him.
    He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “Tell me.”
    “Get your hands off me.” She ya nked 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 him. Maybe if they ate, figured out a way to warm up this busted plane, she’d be a little more open for sharing, talking. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with her and their relationship if he didn’t at least try.
    A gust of wind, heavy with sleet, shook the plane. He shivered, realizing he still had on his wet shirt and his pants zipper wide open. He really needed the use of his other arm. To hell with his zipper. It didn’t bother him to be hanging out. But the shirt needed to go.
    He struggled with the buttons, one-handed.
    “Oh, for hell sake.” Wren brushed his hand out of the way. “You’re more work than a two-year-old.” She quickly freed the buttons of his shirt. She didn’t spare him a glance a s his naked chest was revealed.
    That was an ego buster. He’d worked hard on his body since they’d been apart. Building muscle had been his focus, that and his job, which the muscle came in handy for. And she didn’t even look. He had pecs, damn it, and abs.
    She helped him peel the shirt free from his good arm and then carefully inched it over his broken one. She didn’t pause in what she was doing until the fabric fell away from his bullet-grazed shoulder.
    She gasped, her fingers lightly tracing the area where her bullet had cut into him.
    “See, I told you there was a scar,” he softly murmured, enjoying the delicate touch o f her fingers on his cold skin.
    Her eyes narrowed to slits.
    Shit, he said the wrong thing again.
    “You chose this scar and it’s not a scar. It’s a tattoo. Of a wren.”
    And here he thought she’d appreciate the gesture.
    “It’s a sight better than the ragged scar you left me with. It was damn hard to explain at the gym that my girlfriend shot me. If I’d gotten it in the line of duty, that would have been different. So I got the tattoo to camouflage it.” And it hurt a hell of lot wor se than the bullet had.
    “Of a wren?”
    “Well, yeah. It was your mark, after all. Your brand.” He shrugged. “I liked it. Seems poetic in a way. Like you’re always with me.”
    She briefly met his eyes, hers showing surprise and maybe a little wetness. He couldn’t tell for sure since she bent to rummage through his bag, yanking out a dry shirt. She found another button-down one, which would be the easiest—if not warmest—to get into with his broken arm.
    He wanted to look into those expressive eyes again. “Wren.”
    “Can we get you dressed so that I can eat something?”
    She refused to look at him as she inched the fabric carefully over his broken arm. But he caught the rapid blinking. Was she crying? Had he chipped through that icy shell she’d been encased in since they’d boarded this doomed airplane?

Chapter Eight

    Why had he tattooed himself with a symbol of her? What kind of man does something that?
    She’d shot him.
    Didn’t he hate her for that? She hated herself for what she’d done to him. What did this all mean?
    And, damn it, why

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