Page 122 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
It hurt to look at him. The ache in my chest was crippling.
I scooted a chair up to his bed and took one of his hands in both of mine. “I’m here, Jess. Whenever you wake up. I’m here. Just wake up, honey. Please, wake up soon. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. Rowen can’t lose you. We need you. So come back to us. Come back to me,” I whispered.
I laid my head next to his thigh but kept his hand clutched tightly in both of mine. No matter how long it took, I was going to be the first thing Jess saw when he woke up from today’s nightmare.
Jess’s eyes fluttered open and searched the room. He turned his head and brilliant ice blue met my gaze.
“Hi, honey,” I whispered.
Finally, he was finally awake. It felt like I had waited a year to see those beautiful eyes open.
It was five o’clock in the morning the day after the explosion. I’d stayed awake all night long, sitting next to Jess’s side, holding his hand and thinking about all of the reasons why he was so special to me. How I would work every day for the rest of my life to make sure he knew it.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered back.
His voice was rough and scratchy. It sounded nothing like his normal deep rumbl
e.
But it was perfect.
“Georgia,” Jess called from the bedroom door.
“Closet!” I was hanging up his shirts and putting away a basket of laundry.
It had been almost a month since the explosion. Jess had spent a grumpy week in the hospital followed by a grumpy week at home. But once he could start moving around again, his spirits had lifted and he’d spent the next two weeks designing our addition.
Today, he had gone back to work, antsy to get up to speed, though I wasn’t sure why he’d felt out of the loop. His deputies had been over constantly.
He hit the closet door and snapped, “What the fuck is this?”
“What the eff is what?” I turned.
He held out a postcard and I leaned in to read it.
“Well, you’re the cop, but this looks like a birthday postcard from my dentist, Sheriff,” I said.
“Want to tell me why it says your birthday was last Wednesday?”
“Ah . . . because it was.”
“There a reason why you didn’t tell me?” he asked.
“I didn’t want a birthday this year.”
“You didn’t want a birthday.”
“Yes. I didn’t want a birthday,” I said.
“That’s not really your choice.”
“I disagree, since it was my birthday. All I wanted was for it to pass just like any other day,” I said.
“Fine. No birthday. How about instead you tell me why you’ve been acting strange since the explosion?”
“What? I haven’t been acting strange,” I lied.
I had been acting strange. I knew it. He knew it.
