“No. Your life is your business. I thought...I just thought...” Kara bit her lip and finally looked at his face. “It cost a lot of money and you can pawn it.”
He stared at her for a full moment and then began to laugh. “You think I need money. Because I’m working in a garage.”
“You had an amazing job on the ground floor with a well-known investment firm, Jace. You could have fast-tracked to real financial success... You were never the outlaw biker type. What happened?”
He scowled, his expression turning stormy beneath the well-trimmed beard. “Stop. Stop it. My past is my past. I have my reasons for what I’m doing and they’re none of your business.”
Jace reached out, took her hand. His fingers were calloused, but warm, and the touch sent an anticipatory shiver down her spine. Just like in the past, when he’d hold her hand and she’d gone warm inside from the contact.
Gently, he turned over her palm and placed the ring into it, and closed her fingers.
“When I gave you the engagement ring, I told you it was yours. Keep it.”
Jace sat back, his expression inscrutable.
The transformation was too great to ignore, but he’d made it clear she had no right to ask questions. Kara placed the ring back into her purse. “I apologize if I insulted you. You’re right. It is your life and I have no part in it anymore. I just...”
“You just what, Kara? You didn’t come here merely to drop off an engagement ring. Why are...”
The arrival of their drinks cut him off. Jace nodded his thanks at the waitress, raised his bottle.
“To the past and what we had once.”
Kara didn’t lift her glass. “I can’t toast that, Jace. It’s too painful.”
“And you want to be here, with me, because you like pain? You could have called and told me over the phone, Kara, instead of ripping the scab off the wound.”
His anger was justified. Kara wrapped her hands around her glass. “No. I didn’t intend to insult you. I never wanted... Please believe me, I just thought you should have it back...”
So much for good intentions. After priding herself on being good at reading people, she’d totally underestimated him. This. What they’d had between us.
Kara’s voice broke. “I’m sorry, Jace. I’m sorry for what happened with us and if I hurt you.”
Anger faded from his expression. “It’s not your fault.”
“It takes two to break up, Jace. It wasn’t you. Or me. It was both of us.”
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.
