“Unlike me,?
? she muttered.
“What?”
“He doesn’t believe I was a very good cop. He was right about that.”
“No, he wasn’t. But he was right about one thing, you’re impulsive and you often act without assessing things first. You could have been badly injured, maybe even killed.”
“I couldn’t just sit by and let her get beaten up.”
“No, I know.” Hunter sat down across from her, looking tired. “But you should have waited for back-up. You should have called me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”
“That’s fair enough. I’ve been acting like an idiot and I’m sorry. My only excuse is that I’ve been trying to protect you. That backfired on me. Instead of being here when you needed me I was miles away. If I’d been there you wouldn’t have been hurt. This is my fault.”
“I never said that,” she replied sharply, knowing she couldn’t let him take all the blame. “You and that idiot detective are right. I hear someone in trouble and I jump in feet first, I know that.”
“We need to work on that impulsiveness,” he told her.
“Do we? I thought we were over.”
“Christ, that’s the last thing I want, but I can understand why you might think that. I’ve pulled away from you in the last week because I didn’t want to drag you into my shit.”
“What shit?” She sat forward. “Are you in trouble?”
“Why don’t I make us something to eat and we can talk about it.”
***
Hunter made some breakfast, giving himself time to think. His guilt over not being there with Cady last night had kept him awake most of the night, just watching her sleep. Each whimper she’d let out, every time she’d moaned in her sleep had felt like a knife digging into his heart.
He’d been wrong to pull back, and he knew he’d hurt her. He’d promised not to leave her, and although he hadn’t seen it that way at the time, that was exactly what he’d done.
“Food’s ready, babe,” he called out, placing the food on his small dining table.
Cady shuffled in from the other room. “You know, this book isn’t half bad,” she said, placing one of Angie’s books on the table as she took a seat. “I hope you don’t mind me reading it.”
“Not at all, help yourself. I think I’m going to donate them, anyway.”
“I wonder why she had all these boxes in a storage unit,” Cady mused as she picked up a fork.
“Probably didn’t have enough room in her small apartment.” He ate in silence for a long moment.
“So, you were going to explain why you’ve been acting like a jerk this week. You know, if you wanted to call things off you could have just told me. I’m a big girl, I can take it.”
He stared at her, his gaze narrowing as he took in the tension around her mouth.
“I do not want to call things off,” he growled. “Look, I was an idiot, I admit it. You know that my sister died.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what I never told you is that I believe she was murdered. Angie worked for Stephan Worthington. She quit after eighteen months of working for him and moved back here. I knew something was wrong, but I just never got around to asking her. Then one night I missed a phone call from her saying she was in trouble, that she needed my help. By the time I listened to my messages, she was dead.”
“Worthington killed her?”
“Yes. But I couldn’t prove it.”