Chapter 25
Every part of Rosie froze. Even her tears stopped halfway down her cheeks as if they were too scared to move.
She stared at Cruz through a watery haze. All she saw was his compassion. And she was thunderstruck, again, at how he could read her.
She’d brushed him off before. Maybe that wasn’t fair. But the terror that stilled her soul wouldn’t loosen its iron grip. So intense was the fear that though that thought should have triggered more sobs, her body refused. “C-can we just go home?” she whispered.
He studied her for a second. Then sweet as pie, he kissed her damp cheek. “Sure.” He kissed the other cheek. “I don’t like to see you so sad, pretty girl. Let me help.”
She couldn’t look at him. Kept her chicken-shit gaze on the gear shift as he put the truck back into drive and took them home.
With every mile that passed, her heart squeezed more tightly into itself. Protecting itself? It was like it knew her world was about to implode. The big bang was about to happen to her soul, and she couldn’t stop it.
Her heart wanted Cruz. More than she’d ever wanted another man. Her mind, too—but she’d never let anyone in before, never been close to even thinking about it.
After passing field after field of knee-high corn, her driveway came into view. She knew every bump on the road. Glancing out the window, every star was bright and twinkling. All familiar things. But she may as well have been catapulted into another world. She’d been running from the truth for so long, she didn’t know how to begin.
Cruz parked by her front yard and hustled around to open her door. She slid out and into his arms. He clutched her tightly to his chest, lifting her off the ground as if she weighed nothing. “Baby,” he murmured into her hair. “Tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”
She sighed. A sad, angry, hopeless sigh. How to even proceed? “Can we sit on the porch?”
“You got it.” He put her down and draped his arm around her shoulders.
They reached the porch and she sat on the swing. He nestled close, tucking her against his broad chest. She expected an instant question, but was only met with Sundown’s nocturnal residents. Mockingbirds sang their repertoire of calls and katydids trilled all around the yard. It should’ve been a nice, normal rural night…but the axis of her world was about to crack. She breathed in his clean, masculine scent and tried to find strength.
She failed. She couldn’t find strength, or her voice. After a while of sitting in the humid country night, he sifted his fingers through her hair. “I just get the feeling that something is bothering you. Like I said before, you get this look sometimes, I don’t know. Like there’s more going on, and it hurts. Something big, something deep down.” He paused. “Am I wrong?”
She couldn’t lie. Just couldn’t do it to this man, who she cared about more with each passing second. “No.”
He shifted to face her, and framed her face in his hands. “Baby, I want to help you with it. Whatever it is. I fucking hate that you’re hurting.” He frowned. “I can beat up a man. But this? Whatever it is, I can’t touch it, can’t see it. I wish I could. I’d take it down right this second.”
A thousand emotions hit her as she gazed into his slate blue eyes. But they jumbled together in her mind, a heaping roadblock that wouldn’t let her speak.
“Whatever it is, it hasn’t stopped making you a caring person,” he went on. “Someone who can bust her ass doing three people’s jobs at work, and still help out with a friend’s kids, playing whatever they want to play. Even if you’re sick of that particular game.”
She swallowed.
“Was it something about the night of the crash?”
She nodded.
“You were at a party—did someone hurt you? Give you a drink with that roofie crap in it?”
“No.”
“What was it?”
Still, she couldn’t find her voice.
“When you wrecked…did anyone else get injured too?”
Jesus. That was the question, wasn’t it? It hung in the air like a dandelion puff that wouldn’t pick a spot to fall, tossing aimlessly on the breeze. She stared at his hands, unable to look him in the eye.
“Rosie. Let me in, pretty girl.” He traced her jaw, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Whatever it was, I guarantee I’ve done much worse. Not that that makes anyone feel better or takes it away. But I’m here, and I’m not giving up.”
“I don’t want to tell you,” she whispered.
“Why?” His voice roughened, as if he was reining in emotion.
“I’m scared of…”
“You’re scared of what I’ll think?”
She nodded.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Paused. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”
“Holding it in.”
“Shutting me out.” He angled to face the truck, letting his elbows rest on his knees.
A sharp pain flared behind her sternum. Oh no. She hadn’t intended to…
“And you’re not giving me a chance. You’re deciding how you think I’ll react without letting me weigh in.” A new emotion lanced through his words, one she hadn’t seen on him before. And one that made her feel worse, something she hadn’t thought was possible.
She’d hurt him. “I never meant that. “
He blew out a breath and stood. “First, it was hard to see you hurting, and see you want to keep it inside. But I get it, we’d just met. But now? I don’t play mind games. I thought you’d know me better. You think I’d judge you?” He paced now, his shoes stomping on her porch. “I’ve told you I’m the last person who should judge anyone. I would never, ever do it to you.”
Fresh tears welled. Now she’d done it. She couldn’t blame him for whatever he was feeling right now.
“I had ten years. Ten years, Rosie, of my choices taken away. People told me when I could eat, sleep, and take a piss. I’m done. I’m never letting anyone take that away ever again.”
Her shoulders shook with the truth of his words. She had no right to do what she was doing. And maybe that was a sign. If she couldn’t find courage, she didn’t deserve him. But then he swooped down to kneel in front of her. “Let me in. I am fucking begging you. I care about you more than I ever expected to care about someone. I want to help you carry this pain. Because that’s what you do when you really truly care.”
“No matter what it is?” She hoped against all hope.
“No matter what.”
She gazed into his eyes, watching in fascination as they searched her own. He’d been honest with her. He’d even told her the things that were sealed up in his court record.
The least she could do would be to return the favor. Though opening up would be the hardest thing she’d ever done, harder than her months of recovery. She’d pasted on a smile for so long, it was hard to find what lay beneath. All she had was words, and they wouldn’t be pretty.
But he was right. He’d been nothing short of wonderful to her, and she was falling for him. This miracle of a man who’d dropped into her life deserved to know all of her. The broken parts as well as the sunny side she let everyone else see.
She took a deep breath. You have to. You owe it to him. “I’ve…I’ve never told anyone. That’s partly why this is so hard.” She studied a button on his shirt. “Keeping it inside made it easier. It avoided people knowing…people gossiping…probably judging.”
He moved back to sit next to her and took her hand. His face remained calm, patient. God, how did he do that?
She squeezed his hand for strength. This was it. She had one little sentence to utter, and she may as well have been flying a fighter plane way up in the clouds, ready to drop a nuclear bomb.
Would they survive the fallout?
like she was leaping off a cliff. “When I had the wreck…” Tears popped into her eyes as she made herself speak. “I was pregnant.”