you stay? Just in case I need an interpreter?”
Why did he think she actually wanted him there for moral support? She didn’t say it, but the plea was in her shadow-filled eyes.
“I won’t leave your side,” he promised.
Some of the tension drained from her shoulders, and the corners of her lips tilted in a slight smile. The urge to comfort her with a hug crept up, but he resisted. The last thing she would want would be to be touched by him. He was well aware of the fact that he had a long way to go to make up for the jerk he’d been eleven years ago.
Leading her out to his truck, he held the door while she pulled herself up into the cab. Good thing he hadn’t parked next to a puddle. As he shut the door behind her and jogged around to his side, he ignored the anticipation dancing through him at the thought of spending more time in her presence. It wasn’t as if they were going on a picnic. It started to rain again once they were underway. The overcast sky and the loud patter of raindrops on the roofs made the space inside the cab seem close. The fragrance of her light perfume added to the impression. Perfume? Since when did he pay attention to perfume unless it was too strong? Weird. Just weird.
He glanced into the rearview window, frowning at a car riding right on his tail. “Back up, buddy,” he muttered. Seth slowed the car, then made a right turn. The dark green sedan continued to keep pace with him. The tinted glass made it difficult to see who was driving the vehicle. Someone was in a hurry.
“What?”
He shot a reassuring grin at Jess. “Sorry. Talking to myself. We have a tailgater.”
Jess looked back over her shoulder, and froze. Seth stopped grinning as he saw the look of fear on her face. Her hands were fisted on her lap, the knuckles white.
“Jess? Jessica! What’s wrong?”
“I have seen that car almost everywhere I have gone in the past couple of weeks. I can never tell who’s driving it.”
The thought of someone shadowing her, stalking her, set his teeth on edge. “Are you sure it’s the same car?” He used one hand to sign the question so there would be no mistake.
Jess shook her head. “Sure? No, I have never gotten close enough to see a license plate. And there are hundreds of cars that look like that one. Except for the dark windows.”
Without considering his actions, Seth spun the wheel and started to pull off onto the berm. The green car slowed down. Then it suddenly shot forward. Its tires hit a large puddle, and water splashed Seth’s windshield. His left hand shot out to activate the wipers, hoping to clear his view in time to get a glimpse of the license plate, but it was too late. The car whipped around the corner. And another car was coming far too fast for Seth to get back on the road and follow him.
Frustrated, he waited for the other car to pass and then resumed driving toward Maggie and Dan’s house. His mind was full of questions. And doubts. Was it possible Jess was being stalked, or was she letting her anxiety rule her thoughts? After all, even she had admitted the car wasn’t an uncommon model. Except for the windows. He rejected the idea that she was imagining things almost as soon as it entered his mind. She had always been very down to earth, never one to exaggerate or jump to conclusions. “Okay, we need to remember to tell Dan about the car.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nodding, but her expression remained troubled. It was time to see if they could make some sense of the current situation, while they were alone. And the quiet of the truck meant she would be able to hear him. And if she couldn’t, it was light enough that she could see him sign, or read his lips if necessary.
“Why don’t we try and get our ducks in a row before talking to Dan. He’s going to want to know about the people you work with at the barn. Because chances are good that one of them might be the person responsible for the fire.”
A shake of her head denied any such possibility, but shadows crept into her expression. As much as she might want to believe none of her coworkers would hurt her, the doubt had taken root in her mind.
“So who worked for you yesterday?” Man, he hated doing this to her. But it was necessary for her protection, he argued with himself.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure if she would answer. Finally she sighed. “Kim and Eric. They’re both fairly young. Kim just started working for us about seven months ago, but Eric has been coming for years, first as a student, and later as a worker and part-time trainer. I would trust him without hesitation.”
“And Kim?”
He knew the answer the moment she bit her lower lip. As painful as it was, Kim was a possible suspect.
“Okay, how about Rebecca—”
The words weren’t even out of his mouth before she interrupted him.
“Don’t even go there. I would trust her and Levi with my life. We went to the same deaf and hard-of-hearing program for years. In fact, we rode the same bus. She was two years behind me, but we stayed friends even after I returned to my home district for high school.”
He nodded. “Okay. And she was Amish?”
“Yeah. Until she was seventeen. She made the choice to leave instead of being baptized, which means she can still visit her family.”
“But still, there would have been years when you didn’t see her because you left...” His voice petered out as he realized what he was saying. The last thing he wanted to do was bring up why she had left high school, and his role in all of it, but it was too late now. If he could, he would have swallowed those words back. But he couldn’t. Maybe she would let it go. He glanced at her. Her lips tightened, her shoulders grew stiff. Nope.
“Yeah, I left to go back to my district’s school so I could be closer to home and take advantage of the clubs and sports programs. Things most high school students take for granted. I just didn’t expect that to include you telling your bully friends that the weird deaf girl you tutored had an annoying crush on you. And I definitely didn’t expect them to decide to teach me a lesson to show me how unworthy I was.”
“I never meant—”
“They ganged up on me, drew the word IDIOT on my forehead with a permanent marker and shoved me into a dark janitor’s closet. It was small, no lights and no windows, and I missed my bus. I was stuck in that small, smelly place for five hours until my parents and the principal found me. I was terrified to go back there. And Rebecca had left the deaf program. Amish students only go to school through eighth grade. I convinced my parents to send me to the Western PA School for the Deaf so I wouldn’t have to face any of my attackers again.”
So that’s where she had gone.
He could hear her ragged breathing. Remorse choked him. What a moron he had been.
“I would do anything to take that back. I only said something to get my girlfriend, Trish, off my back. She was jealous of the time we spent together.”
She grimaced. “She was cruel. All your friends were. Except that dark haired girl you sat with in bio.”
Melanie. His best friend. He’d messed that up, too.
He sighed, wishing he could go back in time and shake some sense into the stupid, arrogant kid he used to be. “I couldn’t believe Trish would do something like that. We had a huge fight over it and finally broke up. I wanted to track you down and apologize...but no one knew where you’d gone.”
“How hard did you look?” she asked, her voice cold and accusatory.
“Not very,” he admitted. “I figured you wanted to leave me and everything I’d done in the past. It didn’t seem right to force you to have to sit through my sad excuses if you’d moved on with your life.”
“And yet here you are.”
“To help,” he insisted. “I know it doesn’t change the past, but you’re in trouble now and you shouldn’t be