When I finally dropped into bed, the ceiling spun above me. Sleep wouldn’t come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her walking away. My gut swam with the sick certainty that I’d lost her forever. Not because of the gossip. Not because of her brothers. Because of me.
CHAPTER 9
JESSA
After all the work I’d put into it, Adventure Weekend felt like a living thing I’d breathed into existence and then let run wild.
Lights strung from the cafe to the Hard and Handy bathed the Friday night crowd in a warm gold. The bonfire at the center crackled and whooshed, sparks spiraling up into a sky so clear it looked polished. The air was full of the scent of sugar and smoke: cider, marshmallows, the faint char of hot dogs from a grill someone had dragged over. Laughter bounced off brick and glass, ricocheting from station to station until it mixed with the low hum of music from the speaker Rowan had reluctantly let me set up outside of town hall and became the sound of a town remembering itself.
“Clue card number six!” a kid yelled, sprinting past with a map flapping like a flag. “We still gotta find the carved trout!”
“Not in my flower box,” Nellie called after him, one eyebrow arched as she ladled spiced cider into mugs. “Rowan, tell him there are consequences for trampling begonias.”
Rowan—her neat bun still somehow perfect after spending fourteen hours outside—didn’t look up from her clipboard. “There are always consequences for trampling begonias,” she said as she flipped a page. “And for filling out waivers in crayon, Dane.”
Dane leaned against her folding table with a grin that could have sold sins to a saint. “Crayons are non-toxic and fun. Just like me.”
“Fun isn’t a color,” Rowan said, but her mouth twitched before she strangled the almost-smile.
Dane clocked the twitch and, because he was Dane, doubled down. “Rowan March at Town Hall, scourge of unapproved clip art. Admit it, you live for my signature.”
“I live for correctly alphabetized forms,” she shot back, snatching a stack from him before he could doodle something crude in the margins. “Which your presence imperils.”
A group of teenagers hanging near Trace’s portable climbing wall snorted with laughter. Trace, spotting a nervous first timer, patted the kid’s shoulder and nodded me over. “We good on waivers, boss?” he asked, teasing but respectful. “Or does Rowan need to frisk us for contraband stickers again?”
“We’re good,” I said, tapping my own clipboard. “Helmet straps snug, harness checks double. Dane, try heckling quieter, you’re scaring the parents.”
“Impossible,” Dane said, palms up. “Parents love me.”
“Some do,” Holt called from the first-aid tent, where Lane—wrapped in gauze and very committed to the role of a volunteer patient—was being inspected by three stern seven-year-olds. “Others tolerate you.”
“Others,” Thatcher added from a small crowd at the fire-safety demo, “have earplugs.” His voice was dry, but the corners of his mouth tipped when a kid yelled, “Stop, drop, and roll!” and executed an overly enthusiastic shoulder tuck across the asphalt.
Ridge had a half circle of teenagers around him at the survival station, and a coil of rope looped around his forearm. “If you can tie a bowline with your eyes closed, you can do anything,” he said, his blindfold slipping as he made a loop and flicked the tail through. The kids ooohed like he’d pulled a rabbit from a hat.
I couldn’t help but smile. This was what I wanted. People engaged, useful, a little proud of themselves for being good at something simple and human.
“Joely texted,” Calla said, materializing at my elbow with a to-do list. “She’s on cocoa duty while I wrangle scavenger teams. Lane has demanded prestige placement as Prize Table Guard.”
“I already made him a badge,” I said, pulling a sticker from my pocket and slapping it against my clipboard so I wouldn’t forget. “Chief Guard, capital C, capital G.”
Calla grinned, then sobered as she scanned my face. “You’ve done something here, Jessa. They’re going to talk about this weekend for years.”
I nodded, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “That was the plan.”
It was, and it wasn’t. The plan had been to give Hard Timber something to rally around, to show Wild Wilderness they couldn’t out-community us. The plan had been to prove—to myself, to the town, to everyone who ever underestimated me—that I wasn’t just the Thorne brothers’ youngest, a girl with big ideas and no follow-through.
The plan had not been to fall for a man who treated control like oxygen and me like the match that set his entire life on fire and burn it down.
I walked around the square, each step an effort in futility to try to outrun the ache lodged in my chest. On my way, I thanked the contractors who’d donated prizes, and nudged Trace to drop the beginner belay a notch for the little kids. I caught a loose tent stake and hammered it in with the heel of my boot. Wiped up a spill. Tied a little kid’s shoe.
As I worked, I watched people be people. A dad showed his daughter how to flick water from the end of a fishing line. An older couple slowly swayed in time to the music near the cider stand, their foreheads touched together like they’d done this a thousand times. Nellie palmed a cookie to a boy who’d burned his marshmallow to a crisp and pretended it had nothing to do with the tears on his lashes.
I let the warmth soak into me. This was home, whether I deserved it or not. Whether I stayed or didn’t. Whether Harlan… I didn’t want to look at the outfitters on the corner, but I did it anyway. The windows were dark. The new display I’d fought for glowed under the streetlight. There were the bear paw slippers I’d been so excited about, the enamel mugs stamped with flirty lines, a tidy pyramid of camp cook sets, a folded map with red Xs and a handwritten “ask us where to go.” My touch was there, as obvious as a signature, at least for now.
“Here,” Nellie said, pressing a hot mug of cider into my hand. “Drink. Smile. Breathe. Then let me fuss over you like I’m not plotting how to take down the most stubborn man on the mountain.”
I took the mug, grateful for something to do.
