day. It felt great.
“Remember the cave?”
She nodded, leading the way to their favorite hiding place. Fifteen minutes later, on another peak with an equally gorgeous view, they entered the shallow cave. Sheltered from the sun and constant wind, he sat on a rock with his feet propped on another. She sat across from him on another outcrop, and he tossed her a granola bar.
“How do you like teaching?” she asked.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I really like it.”
“When did you go back to school?”
“Long story.”
“I’m interested. Tell me,” she said taking a bite.
He wasn’t about to shut her down after it had taken so long to get her to loosen up. Maybe if he went first, she’d tell him something about herself.
“Okay, then. First, I kicked around Europe for a while. I found jobs where people paid me under the table, then I hired on as a deckhand on an American yacht in Italy and sailed around the Mediterranean and wound up in Greece but I couldn’t find any work, and I couldn’t speak the language, so when my money ran out, I had to come home.” He chewed the last of his granola bar. “My dad wouldn’t let me freeload, so I got a job at Starbucks and went to school to become an EMT.”
“You were a barista?”
“A damn good one, too. Remind me, and I’ll make you a mocha cappuccino sometime.”
She gave a smile that took him right back to high school, a smile that included a taste of challenge. He’d missed that look more than he’d realized.
He got out an apple, rubbed it on his shirt and took a bite. As an afterthought, he held up the second apple for Anne’s inspection. She cupped her hands so he tossed it to her, and she bit right in.
“Go on,” she said, her mouth full of apple.
“Hitting the books put the bug in me to go back to school, and while I worked as an EMT in the day I went to night school at Marshfield City College.” He took another bite of apple and swig of water. “Long story short, I transferred to CSUCI the first year it opened. We called it sushi back then. Anyway, I got my teaching credential four years later. I lucked into a job at WO High a couple years ago. Had a horrendous commute to West L.A. before that.”
“That’s great, Jack.” Anne looked genuinely interested, and he figured he’d ride the crest of his opening up in hopes of getting her to talk.
“So how do you really like living in Portland?”
She smiled at his obvious swipe at her earlier tightlipped response. “I love it. It’s a gorgeous city. Very eco-friendly. Warm dry summers and rainy winters. Clean air.”
She handed him her apple core and he put it inside a plastic baggie along with his own. “What about your job?”
“It’s great. I just started a new job last month as the lead nurse for fourteen doctors in a clinic practice. It’s very different from hospital work, part administrative and part hands-on medicine, but overall a lot less stressful.” She grew pensive and he worried she’d shut down again. “Lately, I’ve been thinking of going back to school.”
“For what?”
She avoided his laser stare and fiddled with a tiny yellow flower on a tall mustard weed. “I don’t know, I’m still thinking about it.”
She hadn’t really opened up about anything, so he thought he’d take a circular route to getting to what he was most curious about. “Do you have a roommate?”
She shook her head, still engrossed with the flower. “I lease a tiny apartment in the Pearl District. It’s a great area, loads of things to do, and I can walk almost everywhere. It’s fairly close to my job, too.”
Maybe she really was happy there. From the glint in her eyes as she went on about her neighborhood, he sensed she’d found a home for good. The realization sat like a boulder in his apple-filled stomach. Hadn’t the last thing he’d said to her before she had left Whispering Oaks been something like, moving on doesn’t necessarily mean you’re moving forward. It hadn’t been the case for him, but for her maybe it had. An aching sense of loss made him blurt out the next question.
“You seeing anyone?”
Her brows lifted then drew together. She stared at her knees. “Uh, no.” The twist to her lips could only be described as a smirk. “Not this year, anyway.”
On a breath of air, he relaxed. “I hear ya,” he said with a mixed rush of relief and possibilities. “I’ve resorted to computer dating, myself.”
Her interest piqued, she slanted a sideways glance his way. “How’s that working for you?”
He shrugged. “Let’s just say, I’m not sure dating should be a science.”
That got a laugh out of her, and he decided to not try to explain how something was always missing, though on paper he and his computer dates had seemed well matched. He couldn’t figure out a lot of things these days, like the heightened desire to find a compatible partner, and the constant disappointment with his dates. “What do you say we take the dome?”
“Today?”
“It’s only ten. We can head up there and eat lunch then I promise to take you right home.”
She flashed her signature challenging look. “I’ll race you to the top!” And she was off before he could get his backpack over his shoulders.
“That’s not fair, speedy!” He resorted to taunting her with the nickname he’d given her in high school for always finishing last in the 800M race. She laughed and her feet stuttered on loose gravel. Anne grabbed a root sticking out of a rock to steady her and glared over her shoulder. It wasn’t a real glare, but one of Anne’s pretend angry looks, and it took him right back to high school and that girl he used to know. Now he was getting somewhere.
The drive home was companionably quiet. Anne couldn’t help but think Jack had something else he wanted to say. The muscle worked at the corner of his jaw, his hand gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary. Why did she have the compulsion to run her fingers through the close cropped dark blond waves on his head? Instead, she sighed and looked out the passenger window.
When he pulled into her driveway, he threw the car into Park and turned toward her. “You remember Drew?”
She nodded. Drew had been Jack’s best friend in high school. Evidently they were still close.
“He’s got his own hot air balloon company right over in Marshfield. I used to work for him on weekends and during the summers when I went to CSUCI. Why don’t you let me take you up for a ride next Saturday? You can’t say you’ve really seen Whispering Oaks until you’ve seen it from the air.”
She ignored the charming glint in those fern green eyes.
The thought of floating in the air hanging in a basket with Jack had its merits, but last night, when she couldn’t fall asleep, she’d promised not to fall back
