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Soue so easily hadout of my hands and threw it toward the hallway door I narrowedto sit there and pretend that you haven’t known exactly who I am from the minute we met? I saw the e- on the ‘Bishop case’ for months"

All of the color drained fro across the floor to kneel in front of me "Tina, please"

"Was it all a trick?" I asked, ht with that Marty guy in the parking lot, or was that a setup to get ood reason"

"Tina--"

"I trusted you, you sonofabitch! And I don’t trust anyone You promised me, no more surprises And this is a hell of a surprise You lied to me Every time you opened your mouth and didn’t tell et that you’re just trying to do a job, that I was an assign you work, I can respect that it’s not anything personal But why pretend you didn’t knowyou to find me? Why pretend you likedme and toss me into the back of the truck like you do everybody else? It’s not like you didn’t have the chance I couldn’t exactly overpower you You let me thinkhow could you let me think that I foundjust how the hell could you?"

My rant done, I sagged against the door, all of the wind knocked out ofthe slightest hint of howup on him I considered that a small personal victory

His dark eyes flickered doardanything?"

"I wanted a head start," I told him When his jaw dropped, I added, "You’veas long as you get paid You don’t care what they did or who’s after them--"

"This is different!"

"How?"

"It just is I can’t believe you thought I would just hand you over!"

"Are you really going to try to pull the indignant card right now?"

"You knohat you mean toyou’ve toldyou love me You have at least that much shame"

"I’ve told you I love you in about a dozen ways But believe me, if I said the words, you’d bolt"

I slapped his hands ahen he tried to touch my cheeks "Believe you?" I scoffed "Because you’ve proved yourself so trustworthy, right? You didn’t even admit you were a olf until you had no choice Oh, ured out that you were a olf, and you wanted to make sure I wouldn’t tell anybody? You--"

"No, stop it Stop! Look, Schuna hadn’t told ain but thought better of it when I unleashed a growl so vicious it rivaled his own on his wolfiest day "You were an assignot your paperwork, I had no idea you were the sweet little pack doctor ure that out until you toldproblem and a worried husband at home Schuna said his client just wanted to knohere you were, that you were safe I was supposed to send him the location and then wait for instructions But you weren’t a priority case I wasn’t even following your trail I was still looking for Jerry when I came across that beautiful ‘ho around that arrocery store I did recognize you as Tina Ca were one and the same From that moment on, your case was closed I couldn’t take someone in when she smelled like my pack I wanted to approach you, to ask how a little human like you could be connected to ht Just hold on for a while Watch her’

"And I watched I saw that the story Schuna fed me was total bullshit I saeet you were to everybody who crossed your path, even though it was so obvious that you were exhausted and scared and barely hanging on I saw you sured whatever was really going on with your husband, I could find a way to help you I’d finally worked up the nerve to talk to you, which hy I aiting in the parking lot for you--which I will admit sounds a little creepy, now that I’ve said it out loud Anyway, I aiting for you, and that’s when Marty showed up, and the whole thing just sort of snowballed"

He looked atofat hihtly insane story explains why you continued to lie to me, how?"

"Well, how the hell was I supposed to cohtly insane? You were already so skittish I was afraid you were going to bolt at any minute Then you found my tool kit in the truck, and you did try to bolt I’ht trust ry that there would be no getting past it I just wanted to get you back to the valley before I confessed everything," he said, as if he could tell the last feords out of his ent olf

"Where I would be trapped for the winter and couldn’t get away"

He pulled a face that looked rely word"

I glowered at him "I can think of a few more"

"Can I put some pants on so we can discuss this?" he asked

"You’re worried about being naked? Isn’t that a olf’s favorite outfit?"

He shook his head, glancing down "I feel all vulnerable"

I rolled my eyes and waved toward the bathroo recovered fro in record time, and threw on some sweats He offered lared up at hihed and dropped to the carpet next tojust in case Schuna sent another investigator after you And I’ve been feeding hi a plane froe to Ontario And then I told hi to keep him off your trail We took off after Trixie because Schuna told ator to Fairbanks to help out I had to get you out of town Suds is stalling hi on another case By the tiot back to the valley, we’d be snowed in, and we’d have ti to help you, Tina, I swear"