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been with you.”
    He raised one eyebrow, studying me more closely. “You went to see the council?”
    “How did you know?” I asked. Then, I shook my head. “Wait, not here. We’ll talk about it later. What’s the surprise?”
    “If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
    I laughed. Well, more like giggled. He kind of brought out the girly side of me. “I guess not.”
    The back of the bike was packed with stuff. There was a blanket strapped on the back, but I couldn’t tell what was underneath. A basket of some sort?
    He handed me a helmet and our fingers touched. I started to pull the helmet away, but he held onto it, running his index finger along the outside edge of my pinky. I looked up and our eyes met. Everything else fell away from my vision. There could have been a thousand people in that parking lot, and I wouldn’t have seen a single soul except Jackson. The look in his green eyes made my breath catch in my throat and my hands go all clammy.
    I yanked the helmet away and put it on, thinking that if I let him stare into my eyes like that much longer, I might just melt onto the blacktop. “I can’t go far,” I said. “New rules.”
    “Since when are you the type of girl who follows the rules?”
    I rolled my eyes. “Since last night, I guess.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Home by seven. They said they’ll be watching my tattoo to make sure I stay near school and Shadowford home, but if you get the urge to keep riding to, say, California, I won’t complain.”
    Jackson laughed and threw his leg over the seat. “Get on,” he said. “I won’t take you too far.”
    I climbed onto the back of the bike and put my arms around his waist. He drove toward Shadowford, but instead of turning down the driveway, he kept going. I hadn’t been this far out of town since Mrs. Meeks, my social worker, first brought me to Peachville just a few months ago.
    “Where are we going?” I shouted.
    Jackson just shook his head. I relaxed into him. The cool wind made my eyes water and my cheeks burn, but it felt nice to be on the road. We passed a small farm with cows grazing in the pasture. The sun was shining and it was warm for a day this late in the fall. A thick forest of pine trees on our left opened up into a beautiful pecan orchard.
    Jackson slowed his bike and turned down a dirt road that ran alongside the pecan trees.
    We followed the road all the way to the back of the orchard, out of the view of the main road. Jackson stopped the bike and lowered the kick-stand. We both pulled our helmets off and got off the motorcycle.
    “This is gorgeous,” I said.
    He smiled and unhooked the red flannel blanket from the back. Underneath was a basket. I was right. He took the basket and blanket in hand and told me to follow him.
    We walked to the middle of the orchard and he spread out the blanket in a gorgeous patch of warm sunshine. I sat down and looked inside the basket. He’d brought a feast! Cookies, a handful of sandwiches, chips, fresh fruit, and a bottle of white wine.
    “Wow, what’s all this for?” I said, blushing.
    “Decoration,” he teased, opening the bottle of wine and pouring two glasses.
    I took a sip. I’d never had wine before, and I expected it to be bitter. But it wasn’t. It was actually kind of sweet.
    “Like it?” he asked.
    “It’s delicious,” I said. I took a strawberry from the plastic container and popped it into my mouth. The sweet flavor rushed across my tongue as I bit into it. I wondered if I was the first girl Jackson had ever brought to a pecan orchard. “I don’t think this is what the Order had in mind when they put me on probation.”
    Jackson’s eyebrows drew together in the middle. “What exactly happened last night? I can tell something’s different about you.”
    I nearly choked on the strawberry. I knew I needed to tell him about the confirmation ritual, but I was afraid he’d be upset with me for agreeing to take the next step.
    “Besides the