Page 1 of Protecting Jess

One

Jessica Killian stretched her leg on the barre, curving her body over so she could touch the top of her pointe shoe with her index finger. Her muscles strained and she welcomed the burn. There was nothing like ironing out her kinks and making her form nimble and loose, ready to take to the stage for her part as a ballerina in the opening dance sequence for the show.

A bout of nerves slammed into her; another thing she welcomed. If she didn’t get pre-show jitters, she worried something bad was going to happen.

Not that Jess never got jitters—she always did—but today they seemed more intense.

More fluttery.

Was it because this was the last leg of the national tour, and afterwards, her next career move was up in the air?

Was it because she was in San Diego?

Was it because there was a Naval base nearby?

Jess didn’t allow herself to think too much about the last idea. When she’d seen the list of cities on the tour, San Diego was their last port of call.

The Naval Base, Coronado, was close by.

Finn Spelling lived in San Diego.

Jess adjusted her stance and bent at the waist, feet flat on the ground, and touched her toes.

Finn.

She never allowed herself to think too much about Finn, her mom’s nephew. Her cousin by marriage only—there was no blood connection between them. Their family history was complicated. Her birth mom had died when she was a baby and she had no memories of Debbie Killian. When her dad had fallen in love with Finn’s aunt Poppy, she was happy to have a mom and she loved her with her whole heart. Finn, whose own parents had died when he was six had been adopted—not by his aunt Poppy who’d been his original guardian—but by Cerise and Brodie.

Yep—complicated.

Finn was the first boy she’d ever loved.

First boy she’d ever kissed.

First boy who’d broken her heart.

“Enough,” she muttered. There wasn’t any chance she and Finn would run into each other. He was a SEAL now, and likely deployed, doing something too dangerous for her to comprehend.

He was nowhere near her. Or this theatre. She could count on one hand the amount of times Finn had come to see her dance. She’d stopped getting her mom to invite his mom and dad to her performances after the fifth time they’d come, and he hadn’t shown up since.

Even now, disappointment sat low in her belly. All the times she’d looked into the audience, hoping to see his face, came back to her, but she’d found only an empty seat next to her mom’s.

“Dammit, you’re over this. Get your head in the game,” Jess chided. The last thing she needed was to be distracted and cause herself an injury.

Her career hung in the balance; getting injured now would put a nail in the coffin for getting another contract with the dance company. As it was, they were wary after what’d happened to her last year.

Another shudder rippled down Jess’s spine, but it had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with Bartholomew Anderson.

He’d come so close to ruining everything for her. He hadn’t succeeded. There was no way he could touch her now. Not when he was locked away on the other side of the country.

Her mom and dad had wanted to come out in the hopes of seeing her final show, but her little sister was sick, so they’d stayed in San Antonio.

It sucked. Jess had been looking forward to seeing her parents. She needed one of her dad’s big bear hugs. Maybe it was better they hadn’t come, because Mom would’ve insisted on seeing Finn, if he was in town.

Jess’s aim was to do the show and hopefully not run into her former crush.

Heat coursed through her cheeks, remembering the last time she’d seen him. Four years ago, she’d just turned twenty-one, and had had one too many drinks with her friends. She’d graduated from Julliard and been offered a position as a dancer with the Baxter Dance Company, one of the most elite dance organizations in America, and she’d been thrilled.

Finn had turned up at the bar in his dress whites, looking sinfully sexy. He’d been to a Navy Ball and he and his friends had decided to hit the town. Out of hundreds of bars in New York, he’d walked into the one where she’d been.

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