Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(17)
I’m about to apologize when Rose says, “Not exactly. No.”
My gaze lingers on her for a long moment and then I give her a nod before I focus my attention back to the blender and the smoothie. When it’s ready, I grab two glasses from the cupboard and fill them with the thick liquid, taking them to the table with a pair of metal straws. I pull the chair back from the end with the single place mat, Rose’s eyes on me through every motion.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” I say as I pass her the smoothie, though she doesn’t move or even break her gaze from mine.
“I’m staying in your house. You have a right to know the kind of person under your roof.”
“Listen,” I say, curling my hand around my glass to stop myself from touching her, the sudden impulse taking me by surprise. “I’ve had some suspicions about Cranwell. I don’t see him often but when I do, there’s something about him. An instinct I have about the kind of man he is, you know? I realize that’s not a very scientific thing for a doctor to say. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, really.” I shake my head and lean back, studying Rose’s face. Those dark eyes. Those full lips that press tight as though fighting to hold on to whatever thoughts and worries are curling through her mind. “I just … know it. He’s a dangerous person. And if he did this to you—”
“You were right. When you asked at my RV. I’m the one who stabbed him in the eyeball,” Rose blurts out. Her eyes are enormous. So big I almost laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could express so much with just her eyes. And now, the rich shades of chocolate seem liquid with fear.
“I kind of thought so,” I reply, and impossibly, her eyes get even bigger as pink infuses her cheeks. “The essence of pi?a colada was a bit of a clue. But the license really sealed the deal.”
Rose swallows. Nods. But she doesn’t crack a smile despite the joke and the grin that still lingers on my lips. “I should go. I don’t want to bring trouble to your doorstep or make you uncomfortable in your own home.” When Rose clamors to lift her braced leg from the chair next to her, I grab her wrist.
“Stay. Please.”
Even her wrist is tense beneath my grip. I can feel the strain of her tendons, the hammer of her pulse against my fingertips. Every cell in Rose is ready to run, or more accurately hobble her way out of my house. And I should be letting her. If I were a better man, I would be driving her to the police station. Or at the very least, back to the creepy campground. But I have absolutely no desire to do either of those things.
Though still eyeing me with wariness, Rose settles at least a little in her chair.
I don’t let go of her when I say, “Did Matt Cranwell injure you, Rose?”
She doesn’t say the words. Only nods. Barely a perceptible admission. And that faint, simple movement is enough to set my blood aflame. The only thing anchoring me to this room and keeping me from fulfilling a sudden dark urge to strip the skin from his face is her. Her warm skin beneath my palm. Her scent lingering in the air, a faint note of cinnamon sugar and chocolate and a hint of spice.
“He didn’t see my face. I was wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet and the visor was down,” she whispers. She looks at her leg for a long moment before she returns her attention to me. “It was a baseball bat. Not a motorcycle accident.”
“He hit you? With a fucking baseball bat?” Rose nods. “Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I didn’t want to make things even harder for his wife, Lucy,” she says with a shrug as she looks down, as though she can’t bear to maintain the thread of contact between us. “If she hasn’t called the police already, there’s a reason. Maybe she’s not ready. Or she’s afraid of the consequences.” Rose meets my eyes once more, and this time they’re fierce, lit with dark determination. “He’s hitting his wife, Doc. And I don’t regret what I did. If I could do it again, I’d make sure he never made it to the hospital in the first place.”
She says it with such absolute certainty that I don’t doubt every word is true.
My blood turns viscous, lava in my veins.
I’ve seen Lucy Cranwell only once at my clinic, when she brought one of their kids in for a chest infection six months ago. She was quiet. Shy. Polite. It wouldn’t have been a memorable encounter aside from a single comment she made as she pulled out her phone to send a text. It stuck in my brain like a barb, but at the time I didn’t know why, so I only turned it over long enough in my thoughts to dismiss it.
“I just have to text Matthew,” she’d said, darting an apologetic glance to me. “He always likes to know where I am.”
I let go of Rose’s wrist to drag my hand down my face.
My focus slides to the door of my house and sticks there. It’s begging me to walk through it. To get in my truck and drive. To not stop until I’m at Cranwell’s house. And after that …?
I shut off those thoughts before I can fall into madness. They’re vines that will twist and turn and trap me in a dangerous life I can’t escape. I’ve seen it happen. It’s in my brothers, Lachlan and Rowan. I’ve felt those same urges constrict around me. But I’ve learned to put those desires into a box where they will wither, forgotten. Starved of light.