Savage (Wolf Ranch 4)

6

CLINT

Married.

Fucking married?

I waited until I’d turned off her street before I demolished my dash with a smash of my fist. The wound at my side throbbed, as if in direct response to my agitation. Fucking hell. The burn was a reminder of exactly what I’d intended to do. Not go after Becky. But I had, and in the end, she’d given me the perfect excuse not to do so.

Then why was I fucking losing my shit? Fate was a cunt.

I seriously wanted to kill someone right now, and I wouldn’t have minded if it was her husband.

Soon to be ex-husband, I hoped.

I never touched a married or claimed woman. Ever. She didn’t belong to me.

But Becky did, though. My wolf didn’t care about a legal piece of paper. A marriage was a human bond, not a shifter one. The fact that she’d ended it two years earlier meant she wasn’t with her ex. She was fair game.

To me, the man, it fucking blowed. I couldn’t mate a married human!

No matter how much my wolf wanted to turn around and keep on kissing her, I drove straight to the ranch and shot off an email to the council data-digger, some hacker who lived in Arizona. I might have pretended it had to do with shifter enforcement rather than my mate’s marital status, but I had to know everything about Becky Nichols, and this was the easiest way to do it.

She got back to me in thirty minutes—thank fuck.

What I read both infuriated and appeased me.

Becky's been separated for two years—just as she’d said—following an incident that resulted in a restraining order being filed and a legal status of separated.

A prickle of fear ran up my spine at that. The only kind of incidents that required a restraining order were ones where someone was in danger.

I growled, stood and tossed my chair across the room. Pacing the small space, I thought about how my mate had been hurt by her husband. She’d had to file papers to keep him away. She’d said he wouldn’t sign, that he’d blocked all her petitions. Still. Two fucking years later.

God fucking dammit. I was seriously going to kill the asshole.

I froze, realizing I’d been a big fucking idiot. Standing in her driveway, it had been right in front of my face. Hell, I’d replaced the fucking thing.

The tire.

Could her ex have slashed her tire? He lived in Meade, about thirty miles away. It seemed beneath a—I skimmed the data for what type of doctor the ex was—gastroenterologist to drive to the next town over just to slash his wife’s tire, but it also seemed beneath a doctor to hit his wife.

Violence wasn’t reserved for blue-collar workers, was it?

It happened in every society and every type of household. He might have driven her to file for divorce, but since it still wasn’t final, it didn’t seem like he was inclined to let her go. He was fucking with her from afar. Or right in her driveway.

Goddammit! For the second time that day, I slammed my fist down and cracked the recipient of my force—this time my desk.

I took a deep breath and let it out. Another, but wished I could still breathe in her sweet scent, not the lemon cleaner that had been used in the room recently. Fixing the chair, I settled back at the computer and kept reading the information the data-hacker sent. Becky had filed for divorce two years ago, but Dr. Todd Nichols used various legal delay tactics to block a final divorce decree from being filed. At issue seemed to be their large debt and how it would be divided up.

I opened another email. Attachments showed a house in Meade had a sizable mortgage, and liens from several home improvement contractors were filed on it. The loan was in both spouses’ names, but I couldn’t miss a bill for kitchen renovations completed six months ago in Becky’s name.

Only her name.

Which meant the douche canoe was using her to pay for shit she didn’t even know about. I wasn’t up on the legalities of marriage in Montana. Hell, never had I imagined I’d be mated to a human, let alone consider marrying one. Unless Becky’s lawyer was a complete moron, the law had to be in Todd’s favor, meaning Becky would be liable for the new kitchen solely because they were still wed.

There was more. Lots more. All indicating that Becky was being fucked over by her husband.

I leaned back in the chair, tossed my hat off and ran my hands over my face. Shame filled me. I’d added to her shit by walking away. By freaking the fuck out over what she’d said. She’d been honest and as upfront as she could be.

During the night at Cody’s, it wasn’t as if either of us were in the right mind to talk about anything beyond a condom being used. Sure, she’d been married, but legally separated and in the middle of a divorce. She’d had every right for a fun fuck. She’d also had every right not to tell me about her ex.