From This Day On

A new beginning…from this day on

Jakob Nilsson has tried to keep his distance from Amy. Like a forbidden temptation, he’s always known his weakness where she’s concerned. Then an unexpected weekend brings them together. Despite the torture of being so close to her, Jakob is glad he’s there…especially when the opening of a time capsule reveals a confession that upends Amy’s world. Nothing is the way it was.

But that revelation also means the barriers between Jakob and Amy are gone. Finally he’s free to pursue the woman who has always fascinated him. The challenge now is to convince her to look beyond their past. And to consider a future that includes him.

“I’m staying.”

Jakob reined in the thoughts that reared up at the image of sleeping under the same roof as Amy. She didn’t need that now. What she needed right now was a friend. That might be all she’d ever want from him.

“You really don’t have to stay, you know.” She looked at him, her eyes dark, the gold highlights subdued. “You’ve done what you came to do. I’ve crawled out of my depression. I’ll call Mom tonight and confront her. I promise.”

“And I’m going to be here when you do.” He wasn’t going to let her drive him away. “If you don’t want me to listen in, I won’t. That’s your choice. But when the call is over, you shouldn’t have to be alone.”

The chin came up again. The defiance was back in her eyes. “I’m used to doing things alone.”

“Maybe so.” He held out a hand. “But this time you don’t have to.”

Her stare fell to his hand as if it was the snake in the Garden of Eden. Tempting, but also terrifying.

They’d touched so rarely. He waited to see what choice she would make.

Dear Reader,

I was actually a history major in college. And, yes, I’ve written a few historical novels along the way, but what’s come to intrigue me most is the more recent past. I’m always fascinated by what moves people to act the way they do. I’ve come increasingly to believe that most of our behavior, not to mention those extremely influential little voices we all have in our heads, has roots in our childhood. If, say, you’re getting out of a bad marriage but grew up in a stable, happy home, do you quit trusting all men? Not usually. Turn it around, though, so that Dad was unreliable, cheated on your mom, failed you when you needed him—then probably you never did really trust men.

The logical corollary is that our parents are the people they are because of their childhoods. And so often, we don’t know our parents as well as we think we do. Heck, it’s not like any of us tell our kids everything, either! Even when no one is trying to hide anything in particular, a lot goes unmentioned. Sometimes those mysteries would help us understand a parent better, and by extention ourselves.

My own father is gone now, and my mother’s memory is failing, which means there’s a lot I’ll never know about them. It’s gotten me thinking more than ever about the questions I never asked.

The time capsule was the perfect story idea for me. Lots of innocent stuff went in it, but also a few real secrets. In the case of my heroine, the mysteries of her past and her mother’s have kept her from being able to imagine sharing her life with anyone. But here’s a secret her mother never wanted her to know, one that shatters their already difficult relationship and remakes it into something that might be better…or might not. This particular secret also produces a shocking change in Amy Nilsson’s relationship with a man she had never imagined herself loving...

Hope you enjoy the book and come to care about these people as much as I did!

Janice Kay Johnson

P.S. I enjoy hearing from readers! Please contact me through my publisher, Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, ON M3B 3K9, Canada.

From This Day On

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author of more than seventy books for children and adults, Janice Kay Johnson is especially well-known for her Harlequin Superromance novels about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her 2007 novel Snowbound won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for Best Contemporary Series Romance. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She loves to read and is an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER ONE

WELL, THAT WAS WEIRD.

At first only puzzled, Amy Nilsson flipped the crisp white envelope over, as if the backside would offer any illumination. As she’d expected, the only printed information was on the front: a return address of Wakefield College in Washington State, and her mother’s name and address. Her mother’s full name, Michelle Cooper Doyle, followed by Class of 1980.

To the best of Amy’s knowledge, her mother had graduated from the University of Oregon. If she’d ever attended any other institution, she hadn’t said so. She’d never so much as mentioned Wakefield.

Mom’s mail had become one of Amy’s responsibilities when she moved into her mother’s house to care for it while she and Amy’s stepfather were abroad for two years. Ken Doyle, her stepfather, had accepted a visiting professorship at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Probably it was dumb, but Amy had been convinced that living in Mom’s house, living her life, in a way, would give her insight into who her mother was. And how pathetic was it to realize your best chance of getting to know a parent was in absentia? Michelle Cooper Doyle was so closed off emotionally, she felt increasingly like a stranger to Amy. And yes, the whole living-in-the house strategy was working to some extent—she inadvertently made small discoveries almost daily about Mom.

Sadly, the mail had been a huge disappointment so far. Mom was handling bills online. What little came for her was junk. A gardening magazine seemed to be her sole subscription.

But now, something out of the ordinary. A real clue.

Maybe, Amy cautioned herself.

The scent of fresh-brewed coffee filled the kitchen. She dropped the handful of mail onto the table atop the Oregonian and concentrated for a few minutes on pouring coffee, dressing it up with sugar and one percent milk and toasting a bagel. She felt like a kid eyeing packages under the Christmas tree. Anticipation was half the fun. Amy wrinkled her nose, thinking it. Sure, right. In her experience, gifts were as often socks or underwear as they were anything fun or exciting. Chances were, this package was nothing but a solicitation for money.

Yes, but why ask her mother if she had no connection to the college? And...why did someone there think Mom had attended?

Then she sat back down in the dining nook, where she could see her mother’s rose garden through small-paned French doors. Amy had sworn, cross her heart and hope to die, that she would take care of the garden in exchange for living in the house.

She briefly admired the roses, still in full bloom and looking pretty darned good, if she did say so, thanks to the soaker hoses she was religiously turning on every evening, as well as the last application of manure tea. Making it was one of her newly acquired skills.

Setting aside the newspaper, Amy tossed most of the mail into the recycling bin she kept beside the table. Square in front of her sat the mysterious envelope from Wakefield College, which had the formal look of an invitation.

So much for anticipation. Open it, already! Sliding her finger beneath the flap, she suppressed a tinge of guilt. In theory, she was supposed to forward anything that looked personal to Mom. But really, she convinced herself, how personal could this be?

It actually was an invitation, she discovered. An astonishing one that had her reading and rereading. Former students of Wakefield College, who as English majors had put an item into a time capsule almost thirty-four-and-a-half years ago, were invited back to the campus for the capsule’s premature opening. Apparently the relatively minor earthquake that had shaken eastern Washington and Oregon had damaged the foundation of one of the buildings on campus. Although less than thirty-five years old, Cheadle Hall was to be torn down and replaced. Upon reflection, college administrators had decided to open the time capsule now rather than put it in the foundation of the new building and wait until the planned fifty years had passed.

Amy kept grappling with the fact that the college thought her mother had been on campus thirty-four years ago, putting something—who knows what—into this time capsule. And yes, when she grabbed the envelope again, it was definitely addressed to her mother, Class of 1980. Cooper was Mom’s maiden name. Doyle was her current last name. There was, of course, no mention of her former married name, Nilsson.

It seemed undeniable that Michelle had attended Wakefield for at least a couple of years. Which meant either she’d lied about having graduated from the U of O, or she had transferred after—what?—two years at Wakefield? Three? And why had she never mentioned it?

Amy reread every scrap of text yet again, searching for answers. The fact that the college knew her mother’s married name suggested that she’d stayed in touch. Why had she done so if she’d chosen not to finish her undergraduate education at Wakefield? And why had she left a high-end liberal arts college to finish her education at a big state school? Money?

Lots of questions, no answers.

If this was a clue, Amy had no context for understanding it.

She could email her mother, but Mom never liked talking about the past, and especially her childhood or young adult years. Mom got impatient whenever Amy asked questions about her marriage to Josef Nilsson, too.

“For goodness sake!” she’d exclaimed the last time Amy had tried to learn more about her dad from her mother’s perspective. “Any relationship is between the two of you. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.” She had cast a suspicious glance at Amy. “Why are you asking? Did he say something?”

Since she talked to him maybe three or four times a year, Amy could reply with complete honesty, “No.”

End of discussion.

But...Wakefield College. Where did it come into her mother’s history?

Doing some math in her head, Amy frowned. Her mother had to have met Josef somewhere around the same time the capsule was set into the foundation of this Cheadle Hall. Amy had been born early the next year. So probably that was why Mom had transferred to U of O—because Dad was there. That made sense. The mystery was why the subject of Wakefield College had never come up at all. No, Amy and her mother were not close, but she’d still have thought that, at some point, Mom would have said, “I went to Wakefield for a couple of years.” Especially since it must have meant something to her, or she wouldn’t have given the college her married name and address so she’d continue to get mailings.

More than weird.

Amy eventually went out for groceries. As always, she browsed the store’s magazine section carefully. A freelance writer, she regularly published articles in half a dozen of the magazines that were displayed. She was always trying to come up with the right angle to get in at others.

Today, though, she remained distracted, even unsettled, for reasons she didn’t altogether understand. Wasn’t this what she wanted? She’d believed she could solve the mysteries of her own life if she understood her mother better. Here was an opening. So why did she feel...hesitant?

Oh, boy. Was it possible to want something, and not want it, too? The truth was, she had never liked thinking about her childhood, either. Her mother and she had that much in common.

She had been deeply hurt by her parents’ divorce when she was six. She had adored her father. Dad had been the loving parent of the two, but somehow all that changed after the divorce. Her bewilderment at the way he distanced himself had become anger. Every-other-weekend visits gradually dwindled until, by the time she was a teenager, she wasn’t seeing him more than a couple of times a year—a few weeks in the summer, Thanksgiving or Christmas, sometimes spring break. By then, she’d been in full rebellion.

Her mother had never been an affectionate woman; Amy had since realized she was the kind of woman who should never have had children at all. Probably she’d realized that, too, because Amy had no sisters or brothers, unless she counted her half brother, Jakob. Which she preferred not to. He’d apparently resented her existence from the minute she was born, and their relationship had never gotten any better. Until three months ago, she hadn’t seen or heard from him in years, although she got occasional updates on his life from her father.

Founder, owner and CEO of an outdoor gear empire, Jakob lived in Portland. After Amy moved into her mother’s house several months ago, he’d called to acknowledge that they were now in the same city. They had spoken politely about getting together but hadn’t made any plans. He hadn’t called again, and she didn’t expect he would. She had every intention of making an excuse if he ever did suggest they get together for a cup of coffee or dinner. Her memories of Jakob were not, on the whole, positive.

That evening, Amy told herself it was only curiosity that prompted her to phone her father. He had relocated to Phoenix when she was about ten, one of the reasons her visits with him had been pared to two or three times a year.

“Amy!” he said, sounding surprised but pleased. “How are you?”

They chatted for a few minutes about work, weather and a few items from the news before a pause in the conversation gave Amy her chance.

“Something came in the mail today that surprised me. I didn’t realize Mom ever went to Wakefield College.”

There was a small pause. She couldn’t decide if it was significant.

“Yes, she decided to leave after her sophomore year.”

“Because she met you?”

“No, I happened to get a job in Florence that summer. We met in May, right after she got home from Wakefield.”

Was it her imagination that he was speaking carefully, as if thinking out what he wanted to say?

“What kind of work were you doing?”

He laughed. “Construction, what else? I worked on building a new resort. Not so new anymore.”

Amy did know that her mother had grown up in Florence, famous for miles of sand dunes above the Pacific Ocean on the Oregon coast. “You don’t think it was because of you that she decided not to go back to Wakefield?”

Again he hesitated. “She said she didn’t want to, anyway. But I guess she couldn’t have gone back no matter what. Frenchman Lake is a pretty small town. I’d have had a hard time finding work there.”

They had been married that August, barely three months after meeting. Mom had only been twenty, Dad twenty-three. They hadn’t had to tell Amy she was the reason for the wedding. Accidental pregnancies often worked that way.

“Why the questions?” he asked now. “What did the college want? Money?”

“No.” She explained about the time capsule. “It might be interesting to see what Mom put in it. I could go to the opening in her place.” She hadn’t known she wanted to attend until the words were out.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Your mother values her privacy.”

She didn’t like feeling defensive. “I’m assuming whatever she put in is sealed. I wouldn’t necessarily have to open it.”

“Then why go at all?” her father asked, reasonably. “Chances are they’ll mail anything that doesn’t get picked up. You can send it on to her.”

“That’s true.” So why feel deflated? “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” His voice had relaxed. “Jakob tells me you talked.”

“Yes, he called. He suggested getting together, but we haven’t managed yet.”

Her father didn’t question the absurdity of that excuse. In three months, two single adults who were truly interested in meeting up could certainly have managed to find a few free hours. Dad had to be aware that Jakob and Amy had never had an easy relationship.

The call ended with her feeling unsatisfied by what he’d told her. If pregnancy didn’t explain Mom’s decision not to return to Wakefield, what did? Why had she never, even once, mentioned that she’d gone there?

Over the next few days, Amy wrestled with her conscience. She had no doubt at all about whether Mom would want her to see whatever she’d put into that time capsule. This was the woman who repelled the most casual question about her past. But the knowledge triggered old anger for Amy. Other people talked casually about their parents.

Yeah, my mom went to Fillmore Auditorium all the time when she was a teenager. How cool is that? She even admits she took LSD. Or, Mom says she loves Dad, but she still wishes she’d finished college before they got married. She insisted on telling me about every crappy job she ever had. In gory detail. Which I guess worked, because no way am I dropping out for some guy.

Hearing the voices of friends, Amy thought, Me? I didn’t even know where my mother went to college.

She had no idea whether her mother’s reticence had the same reasons as her own, which she did understand. Amy had spent her adult life blocking out growing-up years that had been mostly painful. She did holidays with her mom and Ken, who was an intelligent, kind man. That was pretty much the sum total of her relationship with her mother.

She’d actually been surprised when they asked if she would consider housesitting for them. It would be nice to think she was the only person they trusted, but the truth probably had more to do with the fact that, thanks to the ups and downs of her writing career, she pretty much lived on a shoestring and they knew it. They were doing her a favor. Two years with no rent was the next best thing to winning the lottery. She’d be able to save money. Maybe even do something wild and crazy like take a real vacation.

Her thoughts took a sideways hop. Speaking of money, was there a possible article in the time capsule? Of course the alumni magazine would undoubtedly be running one, but there had to be a tack she could take to intrigue readers who had no connection to Wakefield. The hopes and dreams of teenagers, captured so many years ago and now being revealed, unaltered. The reactions of former students as they were reminded of who they’d once been. She toyed with the notion that there was something dramatic in the capsule, a revelation that would provide a dramatic story for the Atlantic or the New Yorker.

She smiled wryly. Dream on. Okay, for Seattle Met, maybe.

It would be interesting to see a list of names of the attending alumni. Given the college’s reputation and national ranking, some well-known public figures had undoubtedly graduated from Wakefield.

Oh, well, she had a few weeks to decide whether she really wanted to go. In the meantime, she had to concentrate on researching an article she knew she’d get paid for.

Deciding she wouldn’t get dressed at all today—the boxer shorts and camisole she’d slept in were comfortable and cool—Amy took the coffee to her stepfather’s study, where her laptop had replaced the one he had taken with him.

A few minutes later, she was almost engrossed enough to forget the peculiar fact that her mother had, by her silence, lied about her college years.

* * *

JAKOB NILSSON DROPPED his phone on the end table and reached for the remote control. He didn’t immediately touch the mute button to restore sound on his television, however. Nothing much was happening in the Mariner game he’d been watching, and he was still trying to figure out what his father had wanted.

Dad was a straightforward kind of guy. Blunt, even. Out on a job site—he was a contractor—he could best be described as a sledgehammer. So why had he just talked in circles?

The purported message had been that he thought it was a shame Jakob and Amy weren’t acting the part of close and loving family members, given that they probably didn’t live a mile apart. Jakob had pointed out that he hadn’t so much as seen Amy since—he’d had to stop and think—Thanksgiving five years ago. He hadn’t mentioned that the only reason he remembered the occasion at all was that it had been so awkward all around. At the time, his marriage was deteriorating. The fact that Susan was sulking had been obvious to all, casting a pall over the gathering. She hadn’t bothered being polite to his stepmother—yeah, Dad was on his third marriage—or to Amy, who looked as if she’d rather be anywhere at all than at Dad’s house for a not-so-festive holiday meal. Jakob wasn’t sure why she’d shown up that year, when she didn’t most.

Before that... He really had to search his memory to nail down the previous time he’d seen Amy. A Christmas, he thought. Her mother had just remarried, he remembered that, and she’d gone back east with her new husband to celebrate the holiday with his aging parents. Amy hadn’t looked real happy to be at Dad’s that time, either. Jakob would have followed his usual pattern of making an excuse once he heard she was coming, except what could he do? It was Christmas, and Susan wouldn’t have understood.

Jakob couldn’t even say he understood. He only knew his relationship with his half sister had been prickly from the beginning—his fault—and by the time they were both teenagers, uncomfortable. He didn’t let himself think about why. Water under the bridge. He no longer had any reason to dodge her, but no reason to seek her out, either.

Still, the conversation with his father had been bizarre. While he meditated, Jakob tossed some peanuts into his mouth, chewed, then chased them down with a swallow of beer.

Dad wanted something besides a warm and fuzzy relationship between two people he knew damn well couldn’t even tolerate each other. It had to do with Amy’s mother and with a time capsule opening. Jakob wouldn’t swear to it, but he kind of thought he was supposed to talk Amy out of going to collect whatever her mother had put in it.

He grunted at the idiocy of the whole line of conjecture. Yeah, sure, he was just the guy with the best chance of influencing Amy’s behavior.

When Mariner player Gutiérrez knocked the ball over the head of the Texas Ranger shortstop, Jakob restored the sound long enough to follow the action. Gutiérrez made it to second. The next player up to bat struck out, though, bringing the inning to an end, and he muted the ensuing commercial. His thoughts reverted to their previous track.

Why would Dad think Michelle had put anything of even remote significance in that time capsule? Jakob was speculating on why it mattered if Amy got her hands on whatever that was when he thought, Oh, shit. Unlike Amy—he hoped unlike Amy—he had been old enough to understand some of what Michelle and his dad were fighting about before they separated and then divorced. Now he did some math in his head and thought again, Shit. His father knew something. Maybe not for sure, but enough to want to keep Amy away from that time capsule and what was in it.

Dad wasn’t using his head, though. Hadn’t it occurred to him that if neither Michelle nor her daughter showed up to claim her contribution, the college would undoubtedly mail it to Michelle at her address of record? That address being the house where Amy currently lived and where, apparently, she was opening the mail.