once upon a time. But the boy who’d owned those lips was gone, replaced by a man who looked like he belonged on an ancient battlefield, wielding a mace and dressed in furs. Even the word man seemed too bland, too thin to describe him. He was a bear, grizzly and wild, loping through a forest alone.
That was the Jake I remembered. I wondered what he remembered of me.
His eyes sparked with amusement, crisp and flecked with greens and golds and honey browns, like the first turn of the leaves in autumn.
“Jake?” I said stupidly, not realizing I’d stopped moving until my suitcase dragged me off balance.
He moved more gracefully than a man of his size should have been capable of, somehow catching me with one arm and lifting my suitcase with the other. I found myself tucked into his chest and inhaled greedily, my lids fluttering and senses full. He smelled of pine and hay, of old wood and loamy earth. He smelled like he was made of the woods and the soil and the salty sea air.
He smelled like home.
His hand was so big, it spanned the small of my back, which held me to him while he turned us like we were dancing. For a moment when he released me, I stood mutely, blinking at him.
One of his brows rose with the corner of his lips, just a flicker, just a glimpse. “You okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” I blustered, smiling. “Are you okay? You didn’t pull anything, did you?”
“I think I’m all right,” he said, hefting my suitcase with one hand. His bicep turned into a mountain range, with veins snaking like rivers down his forearms and hands. “That one yours too?” He nodded to the suitcase’s twin.
“How’d you guess?”
Jake gave me a sidelong glance, that corner of his mouth still just a little higher than the other. “I thought the pink thing was just a phase.”
I shrugged to cover my wounded ego. “It’s my signature color.”
“I can see that,” he said, snagging the other suitcase by the handle without breaking stride.
“That has wheels, you know.”
He held one out for inspection. “Sure does,” he noted and kept walking toward the exit.
We walked through the sliding doors toward the parking garage of the Humbolt airport, which was smack dab in the middle of Nowhere, California. The crisp, spring air drifted over us, carrying his scent in the draft.
God, he’d grown. He’d been big for his age at sixteen, but by my measure, he’d grown nearly a foot taller— two in shoulder width. When he’d shown up at the farmhouse looking for work at sixteen, Pop didn’t think twice. It’d been clear to all of us that Jake had nowhere to go, so Pop took him in, cared for him just like he’d cared for me when my parents died. In turn, Jake worked his ass off for Pop, earned every bit of his room and board and then some.
Of course, we’d only really known each other that first summer, at the end of which I left for New York to live with my aunt. Jake stayed on the farm indefinitely, and I was glad for his presence there. It excused my guilt for leaving Pop.
A sharp pinch in my chest brought my palm to the spot, followed by the familiar sting at the corners of my eyes. Tears were never far these days, the endless well forever surging without warning. Because I left the farm, and now, Pop was gone.
Jake stopped, and I slammed into his back, bouncing off him like a rubber ball. Unfazed, he glanced over his shoulder at me.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I waved a hand and made a noise of dissent. “Please. I run into brick walls all the time.”
The quietest chuckle left him. He picked up one of the suitcases like it was empty and deposited it in the bed of his old Chevy.
A low whistle slipped out of me as I inspected his truck. “A ’67 K20? Boy, she sure is pretty, Jake.” I ran a hand across the shiny cream stripe, crisp against the fire-engine red. “Did you lift it?”
“Just a couple inches,” he said, depositing the other bag with a thump. “Didn’t figure you for a gearhead.”
“I did grow up on a farm, you know,” I teased, nonplussed. “Pop loved his old Chevy. When I was little, I helped him tune it up, fix it up, replace parts. He thought it important that I know the difference between a ratchet and