Page 113 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Instead, Maribel’s terror tears through me. Her bond lied to her. My home has been dosed. My body may already be reacting, and the person who did it left my grandmother’s voice behind as proof that they could reach inside every place I thought belonged to me.

My knees fold.

Roman catches me before I hit the rug. He lowers with me, gathering me against his chest while my breath breaks into short, useless pulls.

“I don’t want to become her.” My confession comes out wet and rough. “I don’t want to look at you and feel afraid. I don’t want that inside my body.”

Cardamom fills my next breath. Roman holds me close enough that I stop fighting his arms.

“You make your choices,” he says.

“What if I can’t tell the difference?”

“Then we slow down until you can.”

Roman waits until my breathing stops fighting me. “I’m running you a bath.”

“I should help.”

“You are helping by not doing anything.”

“That feels suspicious.”

His laugh loosens the tight band around my ribs.

He gets me upstairs with one arm around my waist. Steam gathers on the bathroom mirror while he fills the tub and adds lavender salts. He tests the water with his forearm, then eases my cardigan from my shoulders. Mud stains the hem of my skirt. My tank clings between my breasts. He undresses me with patient hands and an appreciative gaze.

“Beautiful,” he says.

My eyes burn. “I feel poisoned.”

His expression softens. “What happened to you isn’t right, and I’m sorry it happened in your own yard. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

His words are too much, and I look away before I lose myself to tears. I step in and sink down, letting the bath close around my legs and hips. Heat loosens the cramped muscles along my spine.

Roman kneels beside the tub, wets my hair using the brass cup from the windowsill, and works shampoo through my tangled strands. When I close my eyes, he keeps his hand on my shoulder.

“I can hear her crying,” I whisper.

“I wish I could take that memory from you.”

“What if wanting you is part of the drug?”

Roman rinses soap through my hair. Warm water streams down my neck, and he brushes his hands through it before adding conditioner. “Then don’t treat wanting as proof. Look back at every choice you made before the bundle, every time you reached for us with a clear head.”

I turn that over.

The bakery. The swamp. Roman beneath my hands. Wes between my thighs. The nest forming before I understood what I was building. “You were here before the greenhouse.”

“We were.”

The bathroom door opens.

Wes fills the doorway, rain darkening his shoulders and forearms. “Two more cameras are up. Motion sensors cover the rear gate and greenhouse path. Tom has a deputy circling every hour.”

His gaze moves over me in the bath, then at Roman on the floor. Some of the hard tension leaves his face. “You ate?”

Roman glances at me. “She has not.”