She stared at him with the intensity of a hawk sizing up a particularly stupid field mouse. Moose, to his credit, shut up.
Then she turned that laser focus on me. I tried to soften my tone, to sound helpful instead of condescending. “Seriously, Jess. That door latch?—”
“Is fine.”
“It’s obviously?—”
“Fine, Powell.”
“It’s not safe.” The words came out more forcefully than I’d intended, edged with the kind of professional concern that came from years of dealing with equipment failures and safety hazards.
“Fine.” She slapped my coffee into my hands so fast I had to scramble not to spill the scalding liquid. The plastic lid popped slightly loose, and steam escaped in an accusatory wisp. “Have a nice day.”
That last bit sounded like a threat.
Moose clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to jostle the drinks. “Come on, man. Before she murders you in front of half the town square as witnesses.”
“He would definitely deserve it,” Jess muttered as we turned away, her voice carrying just far enough for us to hear.
But when I glanced back over my shoulder—just a quick flicker—she wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was already helping the next customer, her professional smile sliding back into place like a mask. The transformation was so complete it was almost unsettling.
“Donkey,” Moose warned beside me, his voice taking on the patient tone of someone who’d had this conversation before. “Do not go back over there and try to fix that thing.”
“I’m not,” I said, though even I heard the lack of conviction.
“You’re thinking about it. I can see the gears turning in your head.”
I sighed, adjusting my grip on the carriers. “Yeah. I am.”
He shook his head with the long-suffering expression of a man who’d been dealing with my particular brand of stubborn helpfulness for years. “Son, if the apocalypse ever hits Huckleberry Creek, it’s not the zombies we gotta worry about.It’s you and that woman’s unresolved sexual tension reaching critical mass.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response.
But as we walked across the square, juggling twelve perfectly crafted holiday lattes and my single, lonely black coffee, I couldn’t stop hearing that awful screech of protesting metal. Or thinking about how that faulty lock could trap someone inside that truck. Or picturing Jess stuck in that confined space with no way out, no one hearing her calls for help, no escape route if something went wrong.
Jess Donnegan was a lot of things—stubborn, infuriating, sharp-tongued, and unwilling to accept help from me—but she didn’t deserve to be trapped in a metal box because of a mechanical failure she was too proud to acknowledge.
TWO
JESS
Town council meetings were my personal vision of hell. They always started too early, went too long, and inevitably included someone over seventy yelling about potholes or bird feeders. My coping consisted of mainlining my own cold brew and silently judging everyone’s organizational systems. But this evening was worse than the usual municipal torture. This evening,hewas here.
Powell Ferguson sat two rows up, still in his station uniform, all broad shoulders and clean jawline and irritating competence. I slid into a seat beside Pepper and almost groaned when I spotted him. She followed my gaze, took one glance at my face, and smirked. “Oh good. Your favorite.”
“Please shut up,” I muttered, pulling out my notebook. “He’s not my favorite. He’s a menace.”
“A menace.” Her lips twitched with amusement. “You mean the guy who rescued a kitten from a storm drain last week?”
“That kitten was stuck because he startled it,” I snapped. “He sneezed too loud and the poor thing ran in there to hide.” Of course, I knew no such thing, but it was the kind of thing high school Powell would have done. High school Powell whom I still despised even more than store brand instant coffee.
Pepper snorted into her scarf. “You’re ridiculous.”
“No.” I stabbed my pen at my blank page as if it were the problem. “He’s ridiculous. With his stupid firefighter muscles and his stupid smile and his stupid—” I cut myself off, because Pepper was staring at me like I’d just delivered a monologue on forbidden love. She didn’t need that kind of fuel.
“Jess,” she whispered. “Normal people don’t catalog someone’s… attributes with that level of emotional intensity.”
“It’s not emotional intensity,” I hissed. “It’s annoyance.”
