Page 16 of Scythe & Sparrow
“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 throughher mind. “I just …knowit. 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 piña 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 myblood 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 isher. 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.”
“Hehit 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.
“He might not have seen me,” Rose says, pulling me back to the present, “but how many women show up randomly in a small town with a busted-up leg? It won’t take him long to find me, if he wants to. I really do appreciate your offer to bring me here, but I probably shouldn’t have accepted. I really don’t want you to be in harm’s way. You’ve done so much for me already. We haven’t even talked about the break-in or the mess I made at your clinic.”
Rose’s expression is sheepish but there’s something mischievous about it too, as though she might enjoy leaving a little chaos in her wake.
“To be honest, I was relieved it wasn’t the raccoon again. Do you know how hard it is to get a codeine-addicted raccoon out of a ventilation system? Fucking hard.”
Rose’s expression brightens. “I kind of wouldn’t mind watching Dr. McSpicy rolling up his sleeves and getting into fisticuffs with a crazed trash panda.”
“Fisticuffs.” I snort. “Well, chances are you will. It happens more often than it should.” The light that seems to linger in Rose’s eyes starts to dim. When she glances toward the door, I lay my hand on hers despite the voice in my head that tells me not to. “Listen. Cranwell lives outside the next town over.”So what? It’s fifteen minutes away. And you’ve already told her this.“He hardly comes here.”It’s not like you keep tabs on him, dumbass.“Doesn’t have many friends.”No fucking idea how many friends he has. Could be friends with the whole fucking county for all I know.I take a deep breath that fills every crevice in my lungs. “Please just stay. I promise I’ll bring you to the clinic so you can watch me get my ass handed to me the next time the trash panda infiltrates the fortress. I’ll be worried about you with the corn children if you go back.”
Rose says nothing, just keeps her eyes locked on mine as she leans forward and wraps her lips around the straw. For a brief moment, fantasies about those plush lips flash through my mind, but they’re cut short when she takes her first sip of the smoothie, and her expression transforms to one of thinly veiled disgust.
“And I’ll maybe stay away from the green smoothies,” I say with a grin as she slides the glass in my direction. I could tease her for the abashed look she gives me, but instead I take the glass to the kitchen and return to offer her my hand. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.”
She looks at my palm as though trying to work out a mystery, and it takes her a long moment to slide her hand onto mine, watching it as she does, as though this small action is a revelation. When she stands, I help take her weight until she’s balanced and ready for her crutches, and then she follows me down the hallway.
“I figured this one would be better,” I say as we stop outside the second of two guest rooms and I push the door open. “The other one has an en suite but it’s narrow. This way, you can have the main bathroom to yourself and this tub is a little lower so will be easier for you to manage. I’ll be right across the hall if you need anything. Is that okay?”
Rose swings her way into the bedroom. Her gaze pans across the details, everything bland and in monochrome. Everything except the new floral bedspread in shades of coral pink and cornflower blue, two deep yellow pillows leaning against the wrought-iron headboard. Her gaze lingers on the bed. Maybe she sees the fold lines still pressed into the fabric from when I bought it just this morning. Maybe she realizes I bought it just for her, in the hopes she might agree to stay.
Rose turns her smile toward me. The warmth of it hits me like a dart to the chest.
