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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. She had 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.”
“Me, too. But I also like coming up with my own variations. I use the recipes for the basics, then I build on them.”
He shook his head. “There’s little room for variation when you are fighting a war.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. But I think I want to. Tell me about yourself, Jay.”
“There’s not much to tell,” he said.
She frowned. “I’m not going to let you push it aside. I need to know what you’re really like.”
“Fine. I wake up at five-thirty even when I’m on leave and run five miles. Then I shower and eat breakfast.”
“What do you have for breakfast?” she asked, suspecting he ate the same thing every day. After all, he’d admitted he liked routine. It was just the Jay in Vegas that had been spontaneous.
“Cereal. I like it and it tastes the same wherever I am in the world.”
She wanted to ask him more questions, but he seemed lost in thought. She could almost see the gears in his mind turning as he mentally went through his routine.
“I report for duty when I’m not on leave and check my weapons and get my assignment. Depending on what my mission is I follow the parameters of that. Then, at the end of the day or mission, depending on how long it lasts, I return home.”
“What kind of assignments do you have?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Tell me about your day,” he said.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You’re stubborn. More so than I am.”
“Damned straight.”
She just sat there knowing that she’d play this out to the end by not budging an inch. But then if she did and kept up the stone wall around her emotions, was he going to leave her exactly the same person she was when she arrived here? Alone and not trusting
