Birthright

I’m in the john, it’s because I want privacy.”
    “Exactly. So.” Rosie crossed her legs. “You need to snap out of it, pal of mine.”
    “Snap out of what?” Callie yanked the curtain back into place, dunked her head under the spray. “Seems to me there ought to be a little more respect around here. People bopping into the bathroom while other people are wet and naked.”
    “The bags under your eyes are big enough to hold a week’s worth of groceries. You’ve lost weight. And your temper, never sterling to begin with, is getting ugly. You can’t go threatening to hack off a reporter’s tongue with a trowel. It’s bad PR.”
    “I was working. I told him no comment on the personal stuff. I even offered to take time to talk to him about the project. But he wouldn’t back off.”
    “Sweetie, I know this is tough going for you. You need to let me, Leo, Jake, even Digger do the front work with the media for the time being.”
    “I don’t need a shield, Rosie.”
    “Yes, you do. From now on, I’m taking media control. If you try to argue with me about it, you and I are going to have our first real fight. We’ve known each other about six years now, by my count. I’d hate to spoil that record. But I will take you down, Callie, if you force me to.”
    Callie inched the curtain open again, glared out. “Easy to say when I’m wet and naked.”
    “Get dry and dressed. I’ll wait.”
    “Do I look that bad?”
    “It’s started to wear more than the edges. The fact is, I haven’t seen you look this beaten up since you and Jake imploded.”
    “I can’t get away from it.” Couldn’t get away from Jake either, she remembered. From talk of him, memories of him, thoughts of him. “At the dig, in town, here. It all crawls over me like ants.”
    “People talk. That’s part of the problem with the species. We just can’t shut up.” She waited as Callie turned the water off, then rose to get a towel for her. “The team doesn’t mean to put more pressure on you. But we wouldn’t do what we do if we weren’t curious by nature. We want to know. It’s why we dig.”
    “I’m not blaming them.” She stepped out, took the towel. As modesty had never been a real issue, she wrapped her hair in it, then reached for another. “Having everybody walk on eggshells around me makes me jittery. And knowing Digger lost that ugly tin can he called home because somebody wanted to get at me bothers me. It bothers me a lot.”
    “Digger’ll buy himself another tin can. You and Jake weren’t seriously hurt. That’s more important.”
    “I know the priorities, Rosie. And I know, intellectually, the pattern of causing fear and doubt and distraction. But it’s a pattern because it works. I’m afraid and confused and distracted, and I don’t feel like I’m any closer to finding what I’m looking for.”
    She toweled off, grabbed the fresh underwear she’d brought in with her. “Why haven’t you asked me about it? About the Cullens, and what it feels like to find out you started out life as somebody else?”
    “I started to once or twice. But I figure, when you’re ready, I won’t have to ask. And I don’t think you should need to be told the team is behind you. But I’m telling you anyway.”
    “If I wasn’t part of the team, the project wouldn’t be in trouble.”
    Rosie picked up a jar of body cream from the back of the john. Opened it, sniffed. Lips pursed in approval, she slid her finger into the jar, then rubbed cream on her arms.
    “You are part of the team. You made me part of it. You go, I go. You go, Jake goes. Jake goes, Digger goes. The project’s in a lot more trouble if that happens. You know that, too.”
    “I could talk Jake into staying on.”
    “You overestimate your powers of persuasion. He’s not going to let you out of his sight. In fact, I’m surprised, and not a little disappointed, I didn’t find the two of you in the shower. It would’ve gone to the first page of Rosie’s personal memory book.”
    “We’ve got enough gossip around here without Jake and me taking showers together.”
    “Now that you mention it.” She dropped the jar of cream into Callie’s hand, played with a bottle of moisturizer while Callie massaged cream on her arms and legs. “If I did have a question, it would pertain to that particular area. What’s up with you two?”
    Callie hitched on fresh jeans. “I don’t know.”
    “If you don’t, who does?”
    “Nobody. We’re still