Page 84 of Good Girls Don't Date Rock Stars (Rock Canyon, Idaho 2)

Sam picked up the phone on the second ring. “Rock Canyon Police Department.”

“Sam, it’s Gemma,” she said, her voice trembling with adrenaline.

“Hey, Gemma, everything okay?”

“No. I need you guys out here. Some reporters have decided to make their new home on my lawn,” she said.

“Hope mentioned seeing news vans on her way to work. How many are there? You want me to arrest them for trespassing?” Sam asked, talking in his usual fast pace.

“I don’t know, a lot. And you can do anything you want with them, as long as they’re gone soon,” Gemma said.

“All right. We’ll head over there and take care of it.”

“Thanks,” Gemma said, hanging up the phone. Turning to her son, she said, “Honey, go pack a bag. You’re going to stay with Grandma for a little bit.”

“But, Mom . . .”

“I mean it, Charlie. Please?”

Charlie went upstairs with a petulant expression on his face.

“Don’t you think you’re panicking a little? People were going to find out eventually. At least if we talk to someone, give them a candid interview, we can get ahead of this,” Travis said after Charlie closed the door of his room.

Gemma fumed at his casual solution, waving off the fact that he’d kept vital information from her. If only Travis had opened his mouth instead of “handling it,” she could have taken Charlie somewhere to wait for the chaos to die down.

All she’d ever tried to do was protect Charlie. From bullies. From snakes and cars and awful people, and now it was all for nothing. She couldn’t shield him from the things that people would say about her, about Travis, even about Charlie himself.

“I can’t believe I let this happen. I knew better. I should never have gone to that stupid book conference or let you talk me into lunch or that benefit or . . .”

“Whoa, back up. So, what you’re saying is it would have been better to never have seen me again? And just kept Charlie and me apart?” Travis asked, his face turning purple with anger.

“I don’t know, maybe! Or at least for you not to have tricked me into marrying you when I was drunk,” Gemma snapped, knowing the words were a lie but too furious to care.

“I didn’t trick you into anything. You wanted to marry me.”

“Really? Funny that I can’t remember half of it.”

“You weren’t drunk when you told me you loved me,” Travis said pointedly.

“Maybe I was wrong about that, too. God knows I’ve been pretty stupid the last week and a half,” Gemma said coldly.

Travis took two steps toward her, and she had to crane her neck to look up at him.

“Are you trying to say you don’t love me, Gemma? That you want me to leave?”

Stop being an idiot and apologize. This isn’t his fault.

She didn’t listen to the voice of reason, though. “Yes. I think you should go.”

His voice lowered. “You didn’t answer my other question.”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters a lot. Do you love me?”

“I just think we rushed this.” She took a deep breath, trying to swallow the lump of tears in her throat and say what she needed to, before she changed her mind and gave in. “It’s obvious we don’t trust each other and probably never will. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me that we’d been outted to the media.”

“I’m sorry about that, but that had nothing to do with trusting you. I wanted to have more time, build what I thought was a new beginning.” He tried to reach out to her, but she sidestepped out of his grasp, and his hands fell away. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I was worried you would freak out. I wanted us to have enough time to rebuild, so when something like this happened, we’d stand by each other.”