“Tell me about the halves.”
“Half yes because I’m good at what I do, and I feel, I don’t know, in charge of my life when I’m servin’. Responsible. Useful. Like I fit in in a way I never did while I was livin’ here.” He scrubbed his free hand over the jet-black bristles of hair on his head. “It’s a good match—me and the military. I found myself there, Gin. Jeez, that sounds so stupid, but—”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said, but her heart ached a little, imagining that if he loved the military life so much, coming home and settling down in Apple Valley, which Ginger loved so desperately, wouldn’t be a very appealing prospect to him. “You goin’ to make a career out of it?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know yet. I’ve got another year on my contract, then I can take a few months off and figure it out.”
“Figure out whether or not you’ll reenlist?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Lately I’ve been sort of thinkin’ that I’d like to get on my bike and ride it across the country. Or across Canada. Or across Europe. Or hell, all three. I’ve seen all these amazin’ places from the sea. I’d like to see them from the ground too.”
“Wanderlust,” said Ginger softly.
“Wanderlust,” he repeated, and she could tell he was trying out the word for the first time. “Hey, I like that. I think I might have found a new name for my bike, Gin.”
“So you finish your year, you ride across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and then you figure out whether you reenlist or . . .”
“Or,” he said with finality, as though “or” could be a choice, and probably—in Cain’s world—“or” was a choice, which was maddening for Ginger, who wanted plans and promises, who wanted to know he’d be back on such-and-such a date so that she could circle it in red on her calendar and look at the circle whenever she had a bad day.
Suddenly he stopped walking and pressed Thunder’s reins into Ginger’s hand. She looked up and watched him sprint across the meadow a little ways to an apple tree at the edge of an orchard. He reached up, his long body stretching skyward as he picked four apples, cradling them in his arms as he ran back to her.
“Think old Mr. Pinkney will notice four missin’ apples?”
“Bet not,” she said, handing him Thunder’s reins and taking two of the apples. One she gave to Heath, and the other she bit into, letting the tangy sweetness slip down her throat. “You never talked about the other half.”
“The other half?” he asked, apple juice pooling at the corner of his mouth. For just a moment, she imagined herself being bold enough to lick it off.
“When I asked if you were looking forward to gettin’ back, you said, ‘Half yes, half no.’ What’s the ‘half no’?”
“Oh,” he said, raising his eyebrows and taking another bite of his apple as he gazed down at her, and she wished she knew what he was thinking because he winced just slightly before turning away from her and pulling on Thunder’s reins to start walking again.
She followed him, good at knowing when Cain had talked himself into a corner, but also certain that if she stayed silent, he’d talk himself out of it.
After a while, he said, “There’s this quote I like, about how teenage boys see their fathers as stupid, but by the time they turn twenty-one, they’re shocked by how much their fathers have learned.”
Ginger chuckled softly, taking another bite of apple before offering the rest to Heath.
“It’s a little like that with my dad,” said Cain. “We never . . . I don’t know . . . we never really got along. He was so into the farm and the horses. Always seemed like he had way more in common with Woodman than me.”
“And now?”
“Either he grew up . . . or I did . . . or we both did,” said Cain thoughtfully. “Thing is, he still talks about horses all the danged time, it’s just that—”
“You don’t hate it so much?”
Cain shook his head. “I don’t hate it at all. Kind of like it, actually. There’s somethin’ . . . familiar about it.”
“Comfortin’.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And the farm?”
“Same thing,” he said. “I was so fuckin’ anxious to leave here, but it’s been a surprise comin’ back, you know? Comin’ home? Like seein’ it all through different eyes and realizin’ that everythin’ you thought you hated really wasn’t so bad.”
“That’s ’cause you’re different,” she said.
“You think so?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, looking up as a flock of geese honked above them, heading south in a V formation. “I know so. You’re not half as mad or hotheaded. I mean, you’re still a flirt,” she said, elbowing him in the side. “But you grew up a lot while you were away, Cain.”