I don't stop.
"You're okay," I murmur against her hair, breathing in her scent. "You're safe. I've got you."
She cries until there's nothing left. Until the sobs fade to hiccups and the hiccups fade to shaky breaths. Her scent slowly sweetens, as if she belongs here in my arms.
She doesn't pull away. Neither do I.
"I'm sorry," she says finally. Her voice is muffled against my chest, and I feel the vibration of her words through my uniform.
"Stop apologizing."
"I got your shirt wet."
"It'll dry."
She pulls back just enough to look up at me. Her eyes are swollen, her makeup is destroyed, and there's a wet spot on my uniform the size of a small lake.
And her scent is still mixing with mine. Clinging to me. Marking me as much as I'm marking her.
"Why are you being nice to me?" she asks.
The question catches me off guard. “You need help. That’s a good enough reason.”
"Because I disappeared for six years. Because I left without saying goodbye. Because I was Callum's girlfriend and now I'm his runaway bride and everything is messy and complicated and I don't have any right to show up here expecting you to fix it."
"You didn't expect me to fix anything. You expected me to arrest BeckyLovesWine2003."
A startled laugh escapes her. "That's not the same thing."
"It's a little the same thing."
Her lips twitch. Almost a smile. And her scent lightens another degree. I call it a victory.
"Come on." I release her reluctantly, already missing the weight of her against me. I grab my jacket from the back of my chair. "You need food."
"I'm not hungry."
"That wasn't a question."
She blinks at me. "Did you just order me to eat?"
"I'm the sheriff. I give orders." I shrug on my jacket and hold the door open for her. "You can file a complaint later."
Deputy Martinez looks up as we pass his desk. His eyes go wide when he sees Jessica, then wider when he sees the wet spot on my shirt. I fix him with a stare that promises paperwork duty for the rest of the month if he says a single word.
He suddenly becomes very interested in his computer screen.
The walk to Rosie's Diner takes three blocks. Jessica is quiet beside me, her borrowed coat pulled tight against the cold, her breath puffing out in little white clouds. I'm hyperaware of every step, every movement, every time she shivers in the wind.
I match my pace to hers. Watch her from the corner of my eye. Catalog the way she moves, the way she holds herself, the way she flinches every time someone on the street looks at her too long.
She's been broken. Slowly and systematically, over years. The confident woman who used to light up our packhouse with herlaugh, who used to curl up beside me during movies like I was the safest place in the world, has been worn down to this. Scared. Uncertain. Convinced that everyone is judging her.
I'm going to kill Callum.
Not literally. Probably. But the urge is there, simmering under my skin like a slow-burning fuse.
Rosie's is half-empty at this hour. The dinner rush won't hit for another hour. I guide Jessica to the corner booth, the one with the high backs that provide some privacy, and slide in across from her.
