The Bodyguard

When Hannah gets to the ranch the next day, she sees that all the members of Jack’s security detail have been invited to Thanksgiving dinner and that Kennedy Monroe is sitting beside Jack. She begins making a plan to escape after just 15 minutes, but Jack quickly finds her. Connie and Doc ask everyone there to share one thing that they are thankful for, and Hannah’s turn comes last. Under the influence of the moment and some of Doc’s moonshine, she admits that she is most thankful for the things she cannot keep because she can learn something from them, and she begins to recognize the importance of what she can take with her, instead of just focusing on what she must leave behind. After a moment of silence, the table applauds her.

After dinner, Jack tries to get Hannah to take a seat beside him, but Kennedy takes it instead and asks him if this was the girl he had been seen with at the hospital. After Jack tells Kennedy that they were not actually kissing in that picture, the actress looks Hannah over and calls her “ordinary” as if she is not there. Feeling humiliated by the idea that Hannah represents competition for Jack’s affections, Kennedy lashes out against Hannah and draws everyone’s attention, asking what the point of her own beauty is if Jack plans to choose someone who looks like Hannah. She directly asks anyone in the group to raise their hand if they would pick Hannah over her, and the crowd falls silent. Hannah is immobilized with terror, not only by Kennedy’s humiliation but because Kennedy gives everyone another moment to truly make her point. After a moment, everyone raises their hands, starting with Jack, who says he would pick Hannah “in a heartbeat” (392). Jack tells Kennedy to leave, as she was never even invited.

Hannah has to stay the night after having a bit too much moonshine, and Connie is especially pleased by this turn of events. Hannah asks Jack about Kennedy’s proposal and what he told her, but Jack tells Hannah that it was just for the cameras and was part of the plot to catch his stalker. In turn, he asks Hannah about Robby, having heard that her ex-boyfriend had been to her apartment, and Hannah tells Jack almost everything about their breakup, except for what he told her at the end of their relationship.

Jack starts to return her safety pin but snatches it away and says he will not give it back until she tells him what Robby said to her. Under this duress, she admits that Robby called her a bad kisser, which Jack finds hilarious. Hannah is humiliated, but Jack is determined to prove her wrong and kisses her. On the way back to Jack’s bedroom, Doc hears them come in and hints that he knows what is going on between them, prompting them to stop. Jack asks Hannah to go on a date with him, confessing that he likes her and assuring her that he is not acting. Hannah is insecure and compares herself to his past girlfriends like Kennedy, but Jack says she is better because she is real.

While Hannah is looking for something to wear for her date with Jack, Taylor comes to Hannah’s door, asking if she can do anything for her. She apologizes sincerely, and while Hannah does not completely forgive her, she lets Taylor help her pick an outfit and do her hair and makeup for the date. While walking up Jack’s driveway, Hannah thinks about how losing her mother, boyfriend, and best friend all at once had made her feel so unlovable, but she decides to go after what she wants in spite of her insecurities.

Now that his stalker has been caught, Jack’s security threat level has been downgraded. Although there are still cameras at his house, there is no longer a security team on site. Jack takes a while to answer the door after Hannah rings the bell, and when he does answer, he only cracks the door slightly. Hannah instantly notices that he is acting distant. His behavior implies that she is not supposed to be there, and he says that he has guests over. Hannah asks if he remembers their date, and with mock sympathy, he asks her if she really thought he was serious. He tells her that he was bored and was putting on an act the previous day, then closes the door on her. Humiliated and physically injured after Jack closes the door on her foot, Hannah returns to her car and hates herself for being taken in by Jack. She thinks about how different Jack seemed just then and starts to wonder if she actually believes what he just told her.

She recognizes that something is wrong and goes to check the security cameras. Seeing that a man is holding a gun to Jack’s head, Hannah calls 911 and Glenn’s team for help. Glenn tells Hannah not to go in, but she does not listen and heads toward the house to protect Jack. Glenn tells her that if she disobeys him, the position in London is off the table, but Hannah no longer cares about London and hangs up on Glenn. When Hannah goes inside, she sees that the first two floors are empty but finds a corkscrew to use as a weapon. On the roof, she sees Jack tied to a chair as the attacker points a gun at him. As she tries to sneak up on the gunman, he is alerted to her presence by the wind slamming the door shut behind her, and he turns around and shoots her.

Hannah realizes that the bullet just missed the side of her head. When Jack sees her, he continues acting as if he does not care about Hannah, trying to convince her to go back to safety. Thinking back to her hostage negotiation training, Hannah asks the gunman what his name is. He tells her his name is Wilbur, which she recognizes as the name of an online stalker who has been making death threats against Jack. Wilbur tells her that he asked Jack whether he should kill him or Hannah when she rang the doorbell, and Jack did not hesitate to volunteer to take the bullet for her.

Wilbur reveals that his wife left him to be with Jack and that he was the one who threatened Hannah to scare her into leaving Jack so his wife would not be hurt by seeing the man she loved with another woman. He said he had purposefully copied the style of Jack’s stalker and only wanted to scare Hannah, not kill her. Instead of killing Jack, however, Wilbur wants to punish Jack by forcing him to watch as he commits suicide. To convince Wilbur that he can get through his grief, Hannah tells him about how she survived the worst time of her life when she heard her mother getting beaten. Hannah relates to Wilbur hating himself for not being loved and finally convinces him to give her the gun. Hannah and Jack pin Wilbur down, and as they hear the police coming, Wilbur asks Jack if he can get a selfie with him.

Hannah and Jack are taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but once Hannah’s wound is treated, she is cleared to go, and Glenn has Robby pick them up from the hospital, giving Hannah further opportunity to compare him to Jack on the drive home. Jack spends the night with Hannah, and in the morning, he tells her that he had his nightmare again, but the ending changed. Instead of skidding off the road, Drew stopped the car when he saw a person in front of the bridge. Jack says it was Hannah, and she approached, telling them that the bridge was closed, but Drew crossed it on foot anyway as Jack and Hannah watched him go. After the dream, Jack feels like he had some closure, and he thanks Hannah for being there. After that, Jack never has the nightmare again, and he starts being able to drive across bridges.

Once Hannah’s gunshot wound starts to heal, Jack tells her that he wants to recreate their date, so that, like his nightmare, he has a better ending to the story. Hannah agrees. Once she gets to Jack’s door again, she has him confirm that he was lying during their last date, and he tells her exactly what happened with Wilbur. He says Wilbur threatened to kill them all if Hannah was not convinced to leave. Jack and Hannah kiss and go to bed together, and hours later, they joke about how Robby must have had to watch the surveillance footage of the kiss, given that he is still the primary agent on Jack’s case. At the end of the chapter, Hannah reflects on whether someone can know if they are lovable and concludes that “loving other people really does turn out, in the end, to be a genuine way of loving yourself” (471).

After he is released from prison, Wilbur starts decorating his yard with birdhouses like the ones he made for his wife and becomes somewhat famous for it. He uses his platform to advocate for kindness and stricter gun laws to prevent others from finding themselves in situations like the one he was in with Jack. Jack agrees to do a sequel for his most popular movie but commits to only doing one movie a year so he can have more time with his family. Hannah, similarly, agrees to do only one assignment a year, and she and Jack move to a property on his parent’s ranch. Robby gets the job in London, but that does not bother Hannah, as she is finally happy with her life in Texas. Jack and Hannah get married at the ranch and have children, and Jack continues to help Hannah understand that she is “absolutely, always, undeniably…lovable” (484).