Page 9 of Protecting Her Secrets

I turn toward the sound of her raspy voice and notice she’s looking better already. Her cheeks are still chapped from the wind and cold, but her nose isn’t bright red anymore, and there’s life back in her green eyes.

Folding my arms across my chest, I try to look unaffected by the sight of her short, curvy body in my clothes. As predicted, she’s drowning in them, but fuck, she looks cuter than hell. I’m suddenly hit with a feeling of déjà vu. There was a point in timewhen I knew every detail about this woman, from her menstrual cycle to how she liked her steak cooked. Now I don’t know a goddamn thing, and my head is having a hard time reconciling that.

“I warmed up some soup. Take a seat.” I point at the stool on the other side of the island with my wooden spoon.

“I will, but only because you asked so nicely,” she sasses.

“Makes no difference to me if you do or don’t.” I take two bowls from the cupboard and ladle heaping spoonfuls into them. It can barely be considered soup with how overloaded it is with noodles and vegetables, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

The stool scrapes along the wood floor, telling me she decided to listen and sit down. The storm outside the window grabs my attention, and I wonder how the hell I’m going to get her back to town. Even with my four-wheel drive, it’s not safe to drive during a whiteout.

“Here.” I push a bowl of steaming soup in front of her and a hunk of bread I broke off the loaf I made yesterday.

“Thanks.” She stares at her lunch while I remain standing on the other side of the island, shoveling the soup in my mouth while I watch her closely. She blows on a spoonful, her full lips pursing together in a way that reminds me of how they looked with her mouth full of my cock. It’s a memory I keep filed away, ready to be pulled out from time to time. “It’s good. Did you make it?”

Small talk, huh? That’s what she’s going with? I all but drop my bowl to the counter with a loudclank. “Why are you here, Skylar? I know it’s not to talk about fucking soup.”

I expect her fiery temper to flare, but instead, she flinches, and I almost feel bad. Almost.

“Don’t play dumb. You know why,” she says in a low voice I don’t recognize. With her head lowered, she climbs off the stool and walks back toward the mudroom. Seconds later, she’sback with folded papers in her hand. She flattens them out and pushes them in my direction. “I need you to sign these, please.”

Already knowing what they are, I don’t so much as glance down at them. “Why now?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been fifteen years. Why the sudden interest now?”

She climbs back on the stool and pushes her bowl away, her appetite apparently gone, same as mine. “You were hard to track down, you know. I had to hire a private eye to find you.”

“I wasn’t hiding. I own this house under my real name, I have a driver’s license with this address, and I own my own company. Anyone worth a dime could’ve found me years ago. So I’m asking again, why now?” In my mind, there’s only one reason, and even though it’ll hurt like a bitch, I need her to say the words.

“I can’t be married to you anymore,” she all but whispers.

My nostrils flare, and I clench my jaw so hard, I worry about the stability of my molars. I knew this day would come, but that doesn’t mean it stings any less.

“I have chores to do,” I say and storm away, Sprocket following close behind.

“Walker, you can’t run from this.” She follows me to the mudroom, and I finally notice how worn the papers are in her hand. I’ve wondered if she has had them in her possession for the fifteen years we’ve been estranged.

I ignore her as I pull on my coveralls, push my feet into my boots, and put on a pair of gloves—actual winter gear, unlike that bullshit Skylar came in with.

“Please, just sign the papers, and we can go our separate ways,” she says.

“That’s hilarious.”

“What is?”

“That you think you’re going anywhere anytime soon,” I say, pulling open the front door to show her the additional footof snow we’ve accumulated in the last hour and the whiteout conditions. I wince, even though I knew one last winter storm was coming. It’s why I needed to get groceries this morning. Looks like I—no, we—won’t have fresh produce for a couple days.

Not believing what she’s seeing, she walks over to the door. “How the hell am I gonna get off this hill?”

“You’re not.” I shut the door and pull my beanie on.

Her hand shoots up to her throat, her breaths coming fast. “For how long?”

I shrug. “I’ve been snowed in for damn near a month before.”

“No, I can’t.”

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