“What do you think you’re doing?” said a man’s voice. He sounded pretty close, and it startled me.

I froze, then wrapped myself around the bar I was climbing on before I looked up. Just a car length from me, Sherwood sat on the last, highest rung of the boom, his leg and prosthetic both dangling off the side. He wasn’t holding on.

Reflexively, I looked down before I remembered how bad an idea it was. I put my forehead against the cool metal and swallowed until I knew I wasn’t going to throw up. I looked up at him again.

His words had been pretty aggressive, especially for a wolf addressing his Alpha’s mate, but the tone was soft and relaxed. I answered the tone, not the words.

“I’m climbing up after you,” I told him.

He turned around—balanced on his rump until he could get all the way around—so he could see me easily. I was going to take a wild guess that the height didn’t bother him at all.

Bastard.

“That’s dumb,” he said. “Where’s one of the werewolves? If they fall, they might be able to catch themselves. What’s Adam thinking to send you up here?”

I growled at him. “Adam is otherwise occupied. Next time you decide to kill yourself, wait until he’s home and can climb up here himself. If I have to do this again, I might just push you off myself.” It probably wasn’t what I should have said to someone sitting five hundred feet—more or less—in the air, but my hands hurt, and I had made it up here by concentrating on how mad I was at the stupid werewolf who made me do it. Also, I have a problem with suicide, and have ever since my foster father had left me alone at fourteen because he couldn’t bear to live without his wife. I couldn’t take my anger out at him, so I let Sherwood be the scapegoat.

He laughed.

“And yes, I agree with you,” I said. “Climbing up here is very, very dumb. I know why I did it. Why did you?”

He sighed and spun around again, making me cling more tightly to my bar. “I’m a useless freak,” he said, gesturing at his leg. “It’s hard to kill a werewolf, but I’m pretty sure that drop would do it.”

Me, too. But that wasn’t a productive thing to say, so I found something else. “Marley was going to fire you for climbing up here until the other Lampson guy told him who you were. Apparently you are too useful to them to fire.”

He snorted, and I had a thought. He’d been working here since the third day he’d come to the Tri-Cities.

“Just how many times have you climbed up here without getting caught?” I asked.