“Rosie, baby.” I dropped to my knees in front of her and gently took the knife from her hand. After closing it, I tossed it into the tub. Her head was turned to the side, and I wiped the hair from her face. “Mimic, get the fuck out,” I called.
“No,” he said from the doorway.
I blocked her body with mine and looked over my shoulder. “She’s fucking naked. Get the fuck out of my room, that’s a goddamn order.”
“Cash, here.” Mellie’s voice was soft as she handed me a shirt. She must have dug through my drawers. I pulled it over Rosie’s head, then lifted her from the floor.
Walking out of the bathroom, I laid her on the bed. I looked at Mellie. I didn’t know what she saw on my face, but I knew it scared her. “Fucking fix her.”
“Cash, I don’t know what’s going on. Talk to me.”
I looked at the small woman I had fallen in love with as she lay listlessly on my bed. Her head turned to the wall, her eyes vacant and unseeing.
“I don’t fucking know,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “I think she’s cutting herself. Her thighs are covered in scars.” I kneeled on the floor next to the bed, getting into her line of sight. “Baby, talk to me. Rosie,” I whispered.
Her eyes flickered and I let out the breath I had been holding. She was still here. “I don’t want to talk to her,” she muttered.
“Why, baby? She can help you.”
She shook her head and closed her eyes tight. “No one can help. The monsters are too loud. No one wants me.”
“Baby, I want you.”
“Not now you won’t. I’m broken,” she whispered.
“We’re all a little broken, baby.” I kissed her forehead and sat on the floor, resting my chin on the bed so I could look directly into her eyes. One hand lay on the top of her head, while the other rubbed up and down her arm. I needed her to feel me. I needed her to hear me. “Haizley isn’t the first shrink I’ve seen. I went to three different ones in three years when I was a kid.”
A crowd had gathered in the doorway, but I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t care who heard me. As long as Rosie heard me. She was the only person I cared about right now.
“They all told me I was broken. Told me I didn’t know how to feel things.” I ignored Mellie’s gasp as I continued to talk to Rose. “When my parents told me I was adopted, they didn’t understand why I wasn’t angry. Why I didn’t want to ask questions about my birth parents. So they made me see a shrink. They didn’t believe me either. When they didn’t get the response they wanted, they all said the same thing. I was repressing my feelings. That I didn’t know how to express them or some shit. Instead, I buried them. They were fucking quacks.
“So, when King ordered me to talk to Haizley, I was pissed. I didn’t want to go through that shit again. It wasn’t until after I met you that I started to open up. Haizley wasn’t like those other assholes. She listened to me. She didn’t judge me. She let me say what I needed to say even when I yelled at her.”
Rose smiled at that.
“You did that, baby. You’re the reason I started talking to her. You’re the reason I wanted to work through my shit.”
“Cash,” Mellie whispered, and I turned and growled at her. I returned my attention to Rose when Mellie backed away.
“Baby, we’re all a little broken. That’s what life does to us.”
“I’m sorry. It was all just too much. I didn’t want you to know.”
I wiped the tears from her nose. “It’s ok, baby. I love you, Rosie.”
Her eyes widened, and she blinked at me.
“What?”
“Baby, if you can’t feel that, I need to do a better fucking job.” I smiled when she lifted her head.
“You love me? Why?”
“Why? Because you, Rosebud Peterson, are fucking amazing. You’re strong, independent, and courageous.” When she shook her head, I continued, “Baby, you save women and children for a living. When I threatened to throw you on the ground, you held a knife to my dick.” I lowered my voice. “You have any idea how fucking hard that made me?” She chuckled, and my heart fucking soared. “Baby, life shit on you from an early age. You had no control over that. But every time it knocked you down, you got right back up and told it to fuck off. There’s no shame in letting someone help carry the load, baby.”
“I don’t want Thorne to know.”
“Baby, that ship sailed. He’s so fucking wild to get to you that we’ve had to have Tank sit on him. When he came in here andfound me trying to bust that door down, he thought I had done something. He was ready to tear my heart out. He loves you, Rosie.”
