Jess and the other members of the marketing committee are coming out of one of the classrooms when I enter the building. Simone and Avery spot me approaching, and their worried expressions morph into relief. They give Jess a quick hug.
I join them, and Jess’s face brightens with a wide smile.
She glances at the entrance and groans, her smile falling away. “The reporters followed me from work. I didn’t know about the protesters.” She sounds on the edge of fed-up and defeated. Can’t say I blame her.
“Let’s get you and Bailey out of here,” I tell her, gentling my voice so she doesn’t hear in it my murderous thoughts directed at the assholes outside.
“Before they stone me,” she mutters, her words dialing up my less-than-pleasant thoughts.
I put my hand on the small of her back, keeping myself between Jess and the group outside. “They’ll have to get through me first.”
And they really won’t like what I plan to do to anyone who tries to physically hurt Jess—festival be damned.
But it’s their words—the way the protesters are trying to destroy her self-esteem—I can’t protect her from, as much as I want to.
And that’s killing me.
36
TROY
August, Present Day
Maple Ridge
I parkmy truck in the visitor’s stall for Zara’s apartment building. It’s Friday night. Game Night.
I turn off the engine. Jess makes a move to open her door.
“Not yet.” I reach behind my seat and pull out the sealed medium-sized shipping box. Hopefully the contents will cheer her up. She seems sad, which is hardly surprising with everything going on, especially after protesters showed up at the library on Tuesday. “This is for you.” I hand it to her.
She takes it and stares at the brown box with my name and address on it, confusion wrinkling her forehead. “What is it?”
The beginnings of a smile twitch on my mouth. “If you open it, you’ll find out.”
She slowly opens the shipping box as if savoring the moment. As if getting a present is a foreign concept. It well may be, given how long it’s probably been since she last had a Christmas or birthday gift. Who knows if her late husband gave her anything when they were married—or if the gifts fell far and few between?
Jess removes the box containing the headphones I ordered the other day.
“You wanted a magical dome over your garden so you can work outside and not hear the protesters,” I explain. “I don’t know anything about getting one of those, but these noise-canceling headphones should do the trick too.”
Jess doesn’t look at me. She just stares at the box in her hand. “You…you didn’t have to do that.” Her whispered voice comes out rough and small, as if trying to disappear on itself.
I study her beautiful face, attempting to see past the gentle curve of her lips that turns down instead of up. Attempting to understand what the problem is. It hurts seeing her this way. All I wanted was to make her smile and to make things easier for her.
Her eyes squeeze shut, and her breath quickens. Like she’s having a panic attack.
I cover her hand with mine. Her hand jerks at the touch.
“Jess, what’s wrong?” It’s not as if I’ve given past girlfriends gifts like this one—this expensive—but when I did give them gifts, they didn’t result in panic attacks. My mind scrambles for a way to fix whatever I did wrong.
Her breath comes in faster, her eyes still squeezed shut.
“Jess, you’re hyperventilating. Cup your hands over your mouth and breathe in.” I gentle my voice so not to worsen her panic attack, but I also keep my tone firm in hopes it will get through to her.
She lifts her hands to her mouth and does as I suggest, inhaling and exhaling into her cupped hands until her breathing slows. She lowers her hands to the package on her lap, her gaze unfocused and lost somewhere outside the windshield.
“Any idea why you started hyperventilating?” I ask, needing to understand what just happened. There are times when I feel like I’m not only walking on eggshells with Jess’s past, I’m at risk of stepping on a land mine—and if that should happen, Jess and what we have between us will be the casualties.
