you another headache.” He fastened a backpack to the rack behind her.
This probably wasn’t what her doctor had in mind, but she didn’t care and hopped behind Frank. He took off and she wrapped her arms around his waist.
After a couple minutes, she got used to leaning with him as he went around corners, holding on tight as he braked for the occasional pedestrian or farm animal. They were pretty much at the same pace. In fact, Julia thought she could jog faster than they were riding.
She pinched his hard stomach to get his attention and he jumped, turning his head slightly. “Are you okay? Do you want me to slow down?”
“No, Frank. Go faster.”
“What?” He pulled up to a stop sign leading into a more rural, hilly area and flipped up his visor.
She flipped up hers as well so he could see her. “Look at me—I’m doing fine. I don’t want to take a spill, but I’m not made of glass, either. It’s a perfect day to be out here on a motorcycle—let’s take advantage of it.”
His white smile sparkled against his skin. “Get ready.” He flipped down the visor and she did the same. Checking for cross-traffic, he gunned the machine along. Finally, the wind was whipping past her face, the air clear and fresh as it rolled in from the Atlantic. The road curved and dipped through green hills and rocky black soil. She spotted small settlements with low-slung white houses, sheep and cattle dotting the hills to graze.
She settled her cheek on Frank’s back and sighed in happiness, her cares and worries flying away like unsecured cargo. And good riddance. She didn’t want any of them back, especially those heavy memories that gripped her mind as the headaches had gripped her skull.
He patted her hand resting on his middle, as if he picked up on her thoughts. He was so sweet. He’d always been that way, even when his sweetness—and stubbornness—had caused their previous breakup. Of course it couldn’t have been her own legendary stubbornness that contributed to it, not at all. Her motto back then should have been My way, or the highway.
She’d just been scared and upset. Instead of choosing to cling to him during their rough times, she’d shoved him away. Even after returning to the States, she thought about calling him a hundred times, a thousand times. He would have been easy to find at the university, and maybe they could have patched their relationship back together. She could have called his estate in Portugal and passed along a message. But she hadn’t—and neither had he. Why was that? Was he as scared as she was? It was hard to imagine strong, brawny Frank being afraid of anything. She wanted to ask him but couldn’t shout such a deep question like that as they rocketed along the highway.
She’d had over a decade to think and had come to the conclusion that the highway was no fun unless you had someone riding along with you. Like today.
Julia hugged him and kissed his shoulder. He straightened in surprise and the bike bobbled a second. “Stop distracting me,” he turned his head to shout. “Or I’ll crawl along at twenty kilometers per hour.”
“Fine,” she shouted back, hiding her smile in his back. “I want to go faster than that cow I just saw.”
He picked up the speed again, and the ocean breeze began to take on a peculiar smell as they went around a corner, the vista opening onto a larger town nestled between a mountain and the ocean. The view was beautiful, but the air had sort of a sulfuric, rotten-eggs smell. Rather interesting combination, the whole fire-and-brimstone smell coming from a picturesque village.
The wind changed and blew away the eggs-gone-bad odor. Frank eased off the throttle as they approached the town. She was glad this time because she could see the houses and people better.
“This is Furnas,” he announced, unstrapping his helmet and helping her do the same.
“Furnace? Is that why it smells like that?” Her hair immediately sprang into its normal fluff. Not even the heavy helmet could make it behave. She shook it and fingercombed it down anyway.
“Spelled a little different in Portuguese, but the same idea. That,” he said, pointing at the mountain ahead of them, “is an active volcano.”
She was taken aback as she gazed up at the rounded mountain. Visions of rivers of lava and clouds of ash raining down as innocent Azorean islanders fled with screams of