She just wished that he’d come right out with it. Something along the lines of, I’m flattered, but I date men. At least then she would have understood his coolness toward her and wouldn’t have taken it personally. Most people were pretty open about their lifestyle choices unless, like Julie’s ex-husband, Derek, they had reasons for secrecy. Maybe Wyatt’s parents or grandfather would flip out if he told them the truth. Erin had never been judgmental and found it difficult to understand others who were, but she was also realistic enough to know that not everyone saw the world through the same lens she did. Her heart would hurt for Wyatt if he believed his parents would refuse to accept him for who he was. She knew firsthand how horrible that felt. Her father had withheld his approval of her since the day of her birth simply because she’d been born a girl and he would have preferred a boy.

Once at the cottage, Erin heated soup for dinner, ate while checking the latest news updates on her phone, and then adjourned to her bedroom to get her uniform laid out for work the next day. She drew comfort from rituals, a trait her mother had drilled into her since childhood, and she always slept better when she knew she’d have no surprises in the morning to make her late. Boots, polished and by the dresser. Check. Shirt and trousers, both freshly laundered, starched, and pressed. Check. Clean underwear. Check. When she finished, she wandered back to the kitchen, located the bottle of wine that she and Julie hadn’t finished last night, and filled a clean goblet. Then she drew a hot bath.

As she undressed, she studied her body in a full-length mirror on the interior side of the bathroom door. She doubted that any woman loved everything about her body. It was normal to wish for perkier breasts, a flatter stomach, and narrower hips. But Erin wanted none of those things. Instead she wished for softer lines. Given that she exercised daily to maintain her well-defined musculature, her dissatisfaction with the results made no sense at all. But there it was in a nutshell. She hated how she’d made herself look, but she couldn’t stop pushing herself to maintain every ounce of strength she possessed. It was a compulsion, one that she hadn’t yet brought up during her counseling sessions with Jonas Sterling, not because she didn’t think it was a problem, but because it would sound so weird to say it aloud. I bust my ass every day to have a body like a man’s. What woman in her right mind did that? But Erin couldn’t deny the evidence of her own eyes. Her trapezius, deltoid, and triceps muscles were overdeveloped. And she’d worked so hard on her pectoralis majors that her breasts capped the mounds like an extension of the muscles, no longer pointy and softly shaped, but far firmer than was considered feminine. She knew there were women who liked the look, but Erin no longer did and she had no idea what to do about it except to stop working out and lifting weights.