Her cheeks turned pink as she sat back. She hoped he couldn’t tell that his touch had made her heart beat faster.
“Why did you always wear that old baseball cap?” Jake asked suddenly.
“You mean…when we were kids?”
“Yeah. You wore that thing all the time. Why?”
She hesitated. “I don’t think you’ll understand.”
“Try me.”
“Well…I hated my hair.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You did?” His gaze moved to her hair, which she’d worn down tonight. She knew most people thought it was beautiful.
“Yes…but not because I thought it was ugly or anything. I knew it was pretty. That’s what I hated.”
He stared at her. “You didn’t like being pretty?”
She started to answer, but the waitress came by and she paused to order another root beer.
“No,” she said after the waitress left. “I never wanted to be pretty. My mother…” she hesitated a moment, and then went ahead. “My mother was beautiful. I mean really beautiful. She was Miss Iowa back in the day and she married my dad when she was only seventeen. She always told me that if a girl was pretty, she didn’t need to be anything else.
“When I was eight, she ran off with some guy to New York. Two years later she went to Europe with someone else. I hardly ever saw her after that.” Erin took a breath. “She always followed her own advice. She was never anything but pretty. And I…”
“You wanted to be something more.”
“Yes. I did.”
When she started this explanation, she wasn’t sure if Jake would get it. But from the look on his face she could tell that he did. “You succeeded,” he told her now. “Even as a kid you succeeded.” He smiled at her. “Do you remember those long days on the farm?”
“Of course I do. I loved that work. When I was hoeing or picking vegetables I felt like the exact opposite of my mother. She always seemed like…well, a parasite. Helping out on the farm made me feel useful. Strong and capable. And I loved what we were doing—growing food for people. It was so satisfying to go to farmer’s markets and see customers buy the corn and tomatoes and squash we’d planted months before. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do. And you were always a huge help.” He grinned suddenly. “Do you remember the summer we stacked the hay together? Allison gave up after twenty minutes, but you wouldn’t quit. I thought you were going to kill yourself.”
“I never wanted to be the kind of person who quits. I guess I can be a little stubborn at times.”
“You think?”
She rolled her eyes. “Very funny.” She paused. “Since I just let you in on a childhood secret, can I ask you something?”
He hesitated just an instant before he nodded. “Shoot.”
“Why do you love motorcycles so much?”
The waitress stopped by their table to deliver Erin’s drink. It was filled to the brim, and she took a careful sip as he thought about her question.
“I’m not sure,” he said finally. “I just always have. Is that good enough?”
Erin shook her head. “Nope. Come on, think about the first time you ever rode one. What do you remember most?”
“The wind,” he said immediately. He leaned back in the booth, and she could tell he was picturing it. “When you’re on a motorcycle, there’s no barrier between you and the world. No safety net, no cage. The wind rushing at you…there’s nothing like it. It feels like freedom. Total freedom.”
“But if you like freedom so much…”
“What?” he prompted her after a second.
“I guess I think of the Army as pretty structured. Didn’t being a soldier mean giving up a lot of freedom?”
“In some ways, yeah. Giving up some of your freedom is part of the sacrifice you make. But it feels good to be part of something bigger than you are. To be part of a unit, with guys depending on you.”
“Do you ever miss it?”
There was a pause. “Yeah,” he said slowly, after a minute. “Sometimes I do.”
She started to ask another question and then stopped.
“What?” he asked after a moment.
“I was wondering what the hardest thing was about being back,” she said. “But you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
He frowned down at the table for a minute. The look on his face reminded her of something, but she couldn’t think what it was right away.
Then she remembered. Her father had broken his leg once, and he’d looked like that after the cast came off, right before he took his first step. Like he wasn’t sure the leg would bear his weight.