I glowered down the beach. “If you two so much as move, so help me, you’ll have sore asses for a week!”
Conner held up his hands in surrender. “Not looking. Not our business.” Grabbing Pippa’s wrist, he hauled her from the sea and walked quickly down the beach.
Smart kid.
“Don’t you dare talk to the children like that!” Estelle pushed my chest. “Leave them alone.”
Red dripped over my vision.
I’d managed years in prison avoiding the taunting for a brawl. I could do this.
She’s mine. I love her. I don’t want to hurt her.
“I told them to give us some space to talk. I didn’t hurt them, woman.”
“Could’ve fooled me. What did you do in your past, huh? I’m guessing it was something to do with violence. How can I trust that you won’t hurt me or them?”
I. Couldn’t. Breathe.
Did she seriously just fucking go there?
My fingers clamped over her biceps, pinching her muscles hard. “What the hell is your deal, Estelle?”
“My deal? What’s your deal? You started this!”
“No, I didn’t. You’ve been strange for weeks.”
She squirmed in my hold, glaring at my fingers and her reddening skin. “Get your hands off me.”
“No.”
“Do as I say.”
“Not until we figure out what’s going wrong between us.” My fingers tightened. “I feel as if I’m losing you. Is that it? You’re pushing me away because you don’t have the guts to tell me you don’t want me anymore?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God, you’re bringing that up again? How many times do I need to tell you! I love you. I want you. I’m not going to leave you!”
“Strange way of showing it, don’t you think?”
“No, because you’re being an arrogant ass.”
“Me? You’re being the stuck-up shrew.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Well, I can’t call you what I really want to, so it will have to do.”
Flyaway strands from her plait blew around her cheeks, making me want her with an intensity that only grew the bigger she ballooned with my baby.
“What? What do you want to call me?”
Don’t go there, Gallo.
I hated this. We were both stressed and angry. Nothing ever came from nasty arguments. I wouldn’t be cruel.
Letting her go, I put a step between us. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is us. And I’m so damn confused about where I stand.” Dragging a hand through my hair, I sighed. “What is it, Stel? Why are you so angry with me?”
Something snapped in her gaze. “You want to know why I’m so angry?” She stormed toward me. “Fine, I’ll tell you.” Listing on her fingers, she shouted, “How about the fact that you don’t let me do anything anymore. You won’t let me swim. You won’t let me walk. You won’t let me scratch messages into the sand. And you won’t let me take home movies as you say the strain of holding the phone could hurt me and I should let you do it.” Her voice wobbled. “Dammit, Galloway, you’re suffocating me and I’ve had enough!”
“Wow, tell me how you really feel.” The sarcastic coolness I’d used to protect myself returned with a vengeance. Estelle had made me a better person and knocked down my safety crutches, but now, she was the one making me feel weak, insecure, and woefully overbearing when all I was trying to do was protect her, care for her, show her I loved her and hoped to bloody God that she forgave me for putting her in this awful, awful position.
“You asked!” Her cheeks blazed with fire. “Maybe you should stop being such a hypocrite and tell me what you really feel. Because it seems as though you have a thousand things you want to say but you’re being a wimp.”
A wimp?
I was a wimp?
After everything I’d done. After accepting that I’d be a cripple for the rest of my life. That I’d go to Hell for murder. That I would never have deserved Estelle if we weren’t thrown together on an uninhabited island.
She called me a wimp?
Fine!
We were really doing this.
I wouldn’t hold back for her pregnant ass’ sake.
She wanted a fight?
I’ll give her a fight.
Closing the distance between us, I stood to my full height, dwarfing her.
To her credit, she didn’t back down, only inflated more with rage.
“You’re treating me as if I don’t exist, Estelle. You’re making me feel like shit.”
“Oh, boo hoo. You can’t handle me wanting my independence.”
“You call hiding your cramps and discomfort and not asking for my help independence?” I snarled. “Whatever. I call that stupidity.”
“Don’t call me stupid.”
“Then stop acting stupid.”
“You stop acting stupid.”