“I know. Believe me, if it was we’d still be together and the last few years would have been much different.”
She smiled at him. “I don’t understand you, Jay.”
He didn’t understand himself. This crossroads had started in the desert sand but it was turning into a crisis inside him. Something that he had to resolve, or he knew he’d end up just as bitter and lonely as his old man had been. Having a chance at happiness with Alysse—he knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t, give that up.
“I don’t either, but we can do something about it,” he said.
“You are very confident about this.”
“It’s the only plan I’ve got. I’m kind of invested in making it work.”
She nodded. “Things are going to be different this time.”
“I get that,” he said.
“Good. I’m not the passiveperson I used to be.”
He laughed that she said that with a straight face. “You are so far from passive. From the beginning you had me wrapped around your little finger.”
“Did I?” she asked. “It felt the other way around to me.”
In that instant he knew that the bond they’d formed had its grounding in something beyond just sex. He had always known it deep inside because she’d never left his thoughts even when they had half the world between them. But she’d made him very aware that the feelings weren’t one-sided. And that gave him more hope than he probably deserved.
THE WAITER LITthe tiki torches near them and delivered a coffee service. She glanced at her watch, knowing she should be leaving, but she didn’t want to go just yet. Jay made her feel as if this was the first day of the rest of her life.
She wanted it to be worth something. She thought about how one-sided her life had been since she’d started working at the bakery. How when she went to the beach to play volleyball with her friends and family she always felt like the odd person out because everyone else had a partner and she was afraid to risk herself again.
Jay had stolen a little of that happiness from her and she wanted it back. She wanted everything life had to offer and the only way she would get that would be to take it back.
Jay had been right when he’d said she wasn’t passive. She liked to pretend she was easygoing and just went with the flow, but truly, she was determined to have everything her own way.
And maybe Jay had sensed that and he’d left her because he knew she wasn’t going to be content just to let him be her lover and rule her life the way he had that week in Vegas. Shehad changed in the last five years and she hadn’t even realized how much until she’d been sitting across from him at dinner. She wanted things now that she hadn’t understood were important back then.
It was humbling to discover that though she’d felt so adult and grown up in Vegas she was only now catching on to how much she still had to learn. It had been easy to fall for Jay because she’d never really lost before. Were her expectations too high? Not high enough?
“Come back and sit down,” he said.
She nodded and returned to the table. No matter how much she wanted to run away and leave him she knew she wasn’t going to do it until she’d gotten some more information from him.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Just wondering how difficult the last few years have been for you,” she said.
“Not too bad,” he answered. “A lot of routine and discipline.”
“Do you like the routine?”
“Love it. In the Corps there are rules and if you follow them you get the expected results.”
“Just like baking,” she said.
He chuckled and she caught her breath as she recognized just how handsome he was when he smiled. She stared at him and noticed again the new cut above his lip. Just a small scar, not recent, but it hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.
Suddenly she had a vision of a warrior, battered and bruised, but continuing to fight because he didn’t know anything else. She wondered if Jay had a code of honor and then realized what a silly thing that was to consider: she knew he had a code of honor. He’d left her to keep from hurting her.
That was what he’d said. And in a way she could see the logic in it, but in another way she didn’t get it. She truly didn’t understand this man.
“I guess it is like baking,” he said at last. “I like the order of it.”
