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Too upset to continue, she sipped the tonic water the waitress had brought over, the cool liquid sliding down her tight throat.
He sighed. “I’m sorry we had to break up, too, Kara. And if I did anything to hurt you as well.”
“What happened to us, Jace?”
Anger died on his face. He rubbed his beard. “I don’t know. Things change, Kara. Or don’t.”
“It was the motorcycles, wasn’t it? They meant more to you than me and I resented you for it.”
His expression became guarded. “They didn’t mean more to me, Kara. But your demands that I sell my bike and stop riding were unreasonable. You knew how much I enjoy my motorcycle.”
“They’re dangerous.” She didn’t want to argue but had to press the point. “Jace, I worried constantly about you when you took it out. If you’d skid from an oil slick on the road, or someone would turn in front of you because they didn’t see you...”
She couldn’t voice the real fear still lurking deep inside.If you get into an accident and get killed like my little brother did.
He took a long gulp of beer, set down the bottle. “Kara, I told you. I’m careful. Always careful. I never set out to ride in the rain or bad weather. I gave up some runs so we could be together, and do other things. I asked you to go with me, understand this was something I loved, a lifestyle that was only part of my life, one you knew about when we first met, but you refused.”
Kara sighed. “I never understood your love for motorcycles.”
His gaze grew dreamy, and distant. “I tried to tell you what it was like. It’s more than the freedom of riding. It’s the sound of a V-twin engine blowing out that classic Harley rumble for everyone to hear. Feeling the bike surge beneath you, pure power. The outdoors is clean and fresh and in your face.”
Kara had to smile. “And the bugs in your teeth.”
He grinned. “Which is why my helmet has a visor. But that’s a small inconvenience compared to the feel of a bike beneath you, and everything opening up in a way you can’t feel when you’re stuck in a car. Taking the turns on a long country road, the ultimate feel of being outside, like you’re flying.”
For a moment, she felt wistful, wishing she could join him in this bliss he described. Then she recalled the horror of her accident, the screams and the stillness...
“Your bike seemed more important than I did, Jace.”
He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. But you kept hoping I’d give it up. It was like you hoped I would change to suit your needs.”
“I didn’t want you to change. Only give up the bike. Everything else was fine.”
The deep timbre of his laugh had once enchanted her. Now, it carried a note of bitterness.
“Give up the bike. If that isn’t change, what is? You’ve got a strange idea of change, Kara.”
Her fingers curled around the cold glass. “You know how I felt about your rides, Jace. You spent more time with your bike than me.”
Blue frost. His eyes became colder than a winter’s day in Michigan. Kara felt the chill down to her manicured toenails.
“I spent time on weekends on runs because you were so busy with your social calendar. This gala for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That gala for that charity you insisted on chairing. All those charity balls and charity work. It got to the point where I had to pencil myself into your schedule, dammit.”
She struggled with her rising temper. Jace had no clue she’d thrown herself into charity work to make up for what happened to her brother. Teens Advocating Safe Roads, TASR, was the principal charity she supported. When the board of directors asked her to join, she eagerly responded and threw herself into fundraising work in what little spare time she had.
It meant less time for Jace, but the work eased her guilty conscience—a conscience that couldn’t talk about the accident to anyone but her therapist. Jace had no clue about her past.
Maybe if I had joined TASR when I was seventeen, Conner would still be alive and so would that biker.
“It wasn’t only the bike, Jace. It was the secrets you kept. You were always honest and open with me about everything except your family. You kept being evasive when I wanted to meet them...”
His gaze darted away. “I told you, my dad was dead and my mother moved away.”
“To where? The Artic? I would have gladly hopped on a plane to meet her, but you kept shutting me down.”
Now, he did look at her. “You shut me down as well, Kara. That time when I joked with you over dinner about us being only children? I don’t know why your mother got up from the table, or why you changed the subject. What gives?”
Guilt filled her. She never had the strength to admit to Jace what happened with Conner. Sometimes her family found it easier to pretend he never existed, rather than that he would never return to them.
