Page 15 of The Unknown Colton
“Apparently because he or she was hungry,” she said, gesturing toward the kitchenette. She still hadto clean up the food on the floor, the table and in the sink, as well as the residue from the fingerprinting.
“They still broke intoyourhome,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion, “and if you had been home—”
“They probably would have gone on to the next cabin,” she interjected.
“Parker checked the other ones,” Troy said. “He couldn’t find any sign that anyone had tried getting into them. Just yours.”
That knowledge chilled her a bit. Why just hers? Maybe because hers was the farthest away from the others, so the chance of getting caught was slimmer. She hoped that was the only reason, but she wasn’t going to obsess over that, not right now. She was obsessing over something else, over someoneelse.
She shrugged off his concerns about the break-in. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. I want to know how badly you were hurt when you fell off the oil rig.” Several weeks ago. Several weeks ago he’d been hurt, but he hadn’t let her know. Why? Because he hadn’t been able to? But why didn’t someone from the oil company contact his family?
Troy sighed and rubbed his hand over the head of black hair he kept super short. “Lakin…”
“Tell me,” she insisted. “How bad did you get hurt when you fell off the rig?”
He touched his back almost unconsciously, like he didn’t realize he was doing it. “I… I was paralyzed.”
“You wereparalyzed?” she repeated, her voicecracking. Pain pressed on her chest, making her heart ache for what he must have gone through. “Why didn’t you call me, Troy? I would have rushed to the hospital—”
“That’s why,” he said. “I didn’t want to put you or my family through the fear and uncertainty—”
“That you were feeling,” she interjected. She couldn’t imagine how scared he’d been. That he hadn’t reached out to his family didn’t make her feel any better. She loved his mother and siblings almost as much as she loved him, almost as much as she loved her own family. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that all by yourself.”
“I wanted to,” he said. “Ihad to know what I was facing before I told anyone what happened.”
“Why?” she asked, her heart pounding hard with fear, over what he’d gone through and over what it meant to their relationship that he’d chosen to be alone. “You have to know that it wouldn’t have mattered to me or to your family. We would have wanted to be there for you no matter the outcome from your fall.”
He groaned and rubbed his hand over his head again. “That was why, Lakin. I didn’t want you or my family to make sacrifices for me—”
“Like you make?” she interjected. “You sacrificed your college education to go right to work on the oil rigs so you could help your mom and siblings.” She’d understood that then. But what she had assumed would be just a few years had become seven,nearly eight years of long distance. “And you choose to keep working there instead of starting a business with me.”
“Because I don’t have enough money saved yet for us to give up our day jobs and start up a business,” he said. “We have to be sure we have enough reserves to give us time to get the business up and running.”
While Troy hadn’t physically gone away for college like she had, Lakin knew that he took online courses in business. He probably knew more than she did even though she had the degree. And he wasn’t going to agree with what she’d done any more than she agreed with what he’d done.
But right now, even though it made her feel like a hypocrite, she couldn’t confess to what she’d done. She was too upset over his injury. That concerned her more than anything else. She hated that he’d been hurt even more than she hated that he’d chosen to go through his medical ordeal alone.
“So what are you facing?” she asked him. “You’re obviously still in pain, still limping…”
He nodded. “I’m still healing. The swelling went down, and the paralysis went away, so I can start physical therapy now. But I still have some numbness and tingling, and I have to be careful until I’m completely healed or…”
“It could come back,” she said, alarm shooting through her. “The paralysis could return?” She couldn’t imagine Troy, who’d always been so strong and fit, feeling that helpless. He must have been terrified;he probably still was. She didn’t dare show him how scared she was for him.
He shrugged, then grimaced slightly, as if the movement had tweaked those healing muscles again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not even sure if the doctors know for sure, but they warned me that I have to be careful.”
“Chasing after intruders wasn’t being careful,” she pointed out. Anger joined her fear. “You shouldn’t have done that.” And not just because of his back. He could have wound up in the hospital again or worse if the intruder had been dangerous.
She wasn’t only angry that he’d put his life in danger again. She was angry that he’d shut her out. “And you shouldn’t have kept what happened to you from me and your family,” she said.
She was so damn hurt that he had. While she hadn’t had the chance to tell him what she’d done, the two things were not the same. He’d been hurt and hadn’t reached out to her for comfort or emotional support.
He reached out for her now, but she stepped back and shook her head. If he touched her, the same thing would happen that always happened. She would forget all about how she felt when he was gone and focus only on how wonderful it was that he was home, that he was with her again. While they always made the most of their time together, it was never long enough. He always went back to the oil rigs.
The thought of him going back again to wherehe’d been hurt…and knowing that he could be hurt again or, worse, wind up dead like his dad, filled her with more terror than finding out someone had broken into her cabin.
“Lakin…” His voice was gruff with emotion, and his beautiful green eyes glistened with it. But was it regret? Did he feel bad for not contacting her?
“Why, Troy?” she asked. “Why did you shut me out?”
