From This Day On

Whatever secret this was, neither Jakob nor his father had a prayer of keeping it out of Amy’s hands.

Thinking back to the conversation, he guessed his father didn’t really know anything. He was only uneasy.

Jakob considered calling him back and saying, Hey, what’s the scoop? But he doubted his father knew how much he’d overheard all those years ago.

And maybe misunderstood, he reminded himself. He’d only been nine years old when Dad and he moved out. His confusion over what he’d overheard was one reason he had never said anything to Amy. He hated her anyway, he’d assured himself at the time. After that, as they got older, he didn’t know what he felt about her, only that they weren’t friends, and they weren’t sister/brother in any meaningful way.

They still weren’t.

Yeah, but his interest had been piqued. It wouldn’t hurt to give her a call, would it? Take her to dinner, maybe, if she didn’t make an icy excuse. He found he was curious to know what she was like these days. His impression five years ago—even nine or ten years ago, when they’d shared Christmas Day—was that Amy had passed to the other side of her wild phase. She’d removed most of her piercings and let her hair revert to its natural chestnut color. Her makeup had been toned down considerably, too. She’d become an adult.

He knew she was a reasonably successful writer now. He’d actually bought magazines a few times to read her articles, which he had to admit had been smart, funny and not much like the angry teenage girl and then young woman he’d known.

Maybe he’d like her now.

The thought was insidious and made him feel edgy for no obvious reason.

Call her? His hand hovered over his phone. Or don’t?

* * *

AMY WAS JARRED from the paragraph she’d been reworking by her telephone ringing. She glanced at it irritably. Friends knew not to call her past about seven o’clock in the evening. That’s when she did her best work.

But her eyes widened at the number that was displayed. It was local, and she was pretty sure she recognized it. After a momentary hesitation, she picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Amy.” The voice was deep and relaxed. “Jakob.”

“Jakob.” Her thoughts scattered.

“Dad called this evening. He was telling me about this time capsule thing. I’m being nosy.”

“It is a little strange.” She hesitated then thought, Why not? “Did you know my mother ever went to Wakefield College?”

“Can’t say I did, not until Dad mentioned it tonight. You mean you didn’t know, either?”

“I’d swear she never mentioned it. I assumed she’d done her entire four years at the University of Oregon. But apparently not.”

“Have you emailed and asked her about it?”

The all-too-familiar anger stirred again. Why would she ask when her mother would either not answer, or only tell her it was none of her business?

“No. She and I never talk about the past. And I’m sure it’s no big deal.” I am lying, Amy realized. To her, knowing her mother had put something in the time capsule felt like a big deal. “I just thought it was interesting, that’s all. It even occurred to me that there might be an article idea in the opening of the capsule.”

He got her talking about the possible article, mentioned one of hers he’d read, which flattered her more than it should have, and finally suggested they actually have dinner together.

“It would make Dad happy to know we’d done something.”

He’d played the guilt card deftly, she thought, but found herself tempted, anyway. Who else could she talk to about this? Jakob at least knew some of the background and seemed to be genuinely interested. He sounded like a nicer guy than she remembered him being, too.

Amy made a face. Yes, it was possible she’d been ever so slightly prejudiced against him. So, okay, he tormented her throughout her growing-up years, but maybe that wasn’t so abnormal for an older brother. Especially one dealing with his father’s remarriage followed by the birth of a baby sister who supplanted him, in a sense.

He presumably had grown up.

“Sure,” she said cautiously. “When did you have in mind?”

* * *

JAKOB HAD THE NEXT EVENING in mind, as it turned out. Either he didn’t have an active social life right now, or a cancellation had provided an opening in his schedule.

They’d agreed to meet at the restaurant, and he beat her there. Amy was glad she’d checked it out online and therefore dressed appropriately. It wasn’t the kind of place she usually dined. Her all-purpose little black dress fit in fine, though, and the four-inch heels lent enough sway to her hips, she was vaguely aware that a couple of men turned their heads when she passed. Good. She’d been determined to look her best for this reunion. Jakob might be her brother, but she sure as hell didn’t want him looking at her with disdain the way he had the last few times they’d seen each other.

The maître d’ led her straight to a window table where Jakob waited. He spotted her when she was on the other side of the room and rose to his feet, watching her as she came.

The minute she set eyes on him, she felt sure a cancellation explained the fact that he had been free to have dinner with a mere sister tonight. This was a man who could have all the women he wanted, whenever he wanted.

He got his height and looks from their father. Amy hadn’t. She’d forgotten how Jakob dwarfed her. Or maybe not—perhaps her subconscious had prompted her to wear the tallest heels she owned.

Jakob was also ridiculously handsome, his features clean-cut, his nose long and narrow, his cheekbones sharp enough to cast a shadow beneath. He had dark blond hair that was probably a little longer than business-standard, but lay smooth except for a curl at his collar. His eyes had been a breathtaking shade of blue when he was a kid, but had become more of a blue-gray by the time he reached adulthood. He looked as Scandinavian as his name suggested.

She did not. Amy had inherited her mother’s brown eyes and hair that was neither brown nor red nor anything as interesting as auburn. Mom was a brunette, but apparently a great-aunt was a redhead so it ran in the family. Nobody had curls like Amy’s, though. That cross was hers alone to bear.

“Amy.” Jakob smiled and held out a hand. Not his arms, thank heavens—nobody in their family hugged, and she didn’t want to start with him.

“Jakob.”

They shook, his big hand enveloping hers. It felt warm, strong and calloused, which was interesting considering he presumably sat behind his desk most of the time.

Or maybe not. He’d always been the outdoorsy type, and given his business—sporting goods—he likely tested some of the products himself. Lord knows there were plenty of mountains within a day’s drive for him to climb and forests for him to hike into.

She was reluctantly aware that he had, if anything, gotten better looking with the years instead of softening around the middle or starting to gray or whatever, the way you’d expect. He was thirty-seven, after all, which ought to be edging past his prime. Part of her had been hoping for the teeniest hint of jowls, a few broken blood vessels in his nose...something.

No such luck.

The maître d’ seated her and then presented a white wine to Jakob, who approved it. Left alone with their menus, Jakob and Amy looked at each other.

The experience was more than strange. They hadn’t been alone together—focused solely on each other—in almost twenty years. She had hardly seen her brother after he’d left for college, when she was fifteen. At Christmas once or twice, maybe. One summer, she remembered, he’d worked in Tucson and, oh, gee, just never managed to get home while she was there. The summer after that, Colorado. Amy hadn’t gone to her dad’s the summer before she herself started college. Not seeing Jakob had been fine by her. Better than fine.

Now she thought, He’s a stranger. I don’t know him at all. Never knew him.

“I’m not sure how we managed to avoid each other so completely for so many years,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.

“Determination and motivation.” Amy sipped the wine then glanced at it with surprise. It had as little in common with the kind of wine she usually drank as she did with her brother the stranger.

His mouth crooked. “I was a shit to you when we were kids, wasn’t I?”

“You were.” She found herself smiling a little, too. “I don’t suppose you were exactly thrilled when I came along.”

“You could say that. I don’t remember much about it. I was only three when you were born, after all. But I was already dealing with the shock of suddenly having a new mother who didn’t seem very interested in me, and next thing I knew she wasn’t fat anymore, and there you were, squalling and ugly and I could tell my daddy was totally in love with you.”

Well, Dad got over that, she thought tartly, downplaying the hurt.

“It’s a wonder older siblings ever like the younger ones,” Amy said reflectively.

“You so sure they do?”

They shared a grin.

He nodded at the menu. “Better decide what you want to eat. Our waiter is looking restless.”

The restaurant specialized in steaks but had a few alternatives. She chose salmon, baby potatoes and a Caesar salad. Once the waiter had departed, Amy looked at Jakob again.

“So what’s the deal? Why did Dad call you about this time capsule opening?”

“I have no idea.”

Amy felt sure he was telling the truth. Or mostly the truth.

“I’m not sure he knew,” Jakob continued. “I suppose that’s what caught my interest.”

“Were you supposed to distract me so I wouldn’t go?”

“He didn’t come out and say so, but that’s the impression I got.”

“What could she possibly have put in it that Dad doesn’t want me to see?” She’d only asked herself the same question a couple dozen times in the past two days. “It’s not likely to upset me even if Mom did something completely scandalous when she was a student. Even if that something scandalous got her kicked out of Wakefield.” Now, that was a new thought, one that explained why Amy’s mother had deleted the college from her personal history.

No, wait. If that was true, why would her mother have updated the college records with her married name and current address?

Because on some level she wanted official forgiveness or at least the legitimacy of being treated like any other former student? And maybe, it occurred to Amy, the reason Mom had been able to keep Wakefield a big secret was that, in fact, the college never had sent her any mailings. This could be the first, necessitated by the fact that she had been included in the time capsule thing. They might have gotten her information from some other alum with whom Mom had stayed in touch, say.

“You know,” Jakob said, “I’ve barely seen your mother since I was—I don’t know, nine or ten?”

She nodded. “By then you were already making yourself scarce when Mom and Dad traded me back and forth, weren’t you?”

A truly wicked grin flashed. “Yeah, but sometimes that’s because I was behind the scenes setting up my latest prank.”

She glared at him. “The snake in my bed was the worst.” A memory stirred, much as the coiled snake had. “No, I take that back. The time you hid in the closet dressed all in black with that monster mask was the scariest.”

“Yeah.” To his credit, he looked chagrined. “Dad was seriously pissed that time. He put me on restriction for a month. I was the star pitcher for my Little League team, and I had to drop out.”

“Which made you hate me even more.”

“Possibly.” He sounded annoyingly cheerful.

It felt really odd to be reminiscing with her former tormenter. The bitterness she’d always felt seemed to be missing. In fact, she realized at one point during the middle of the meal, it felt odd to be reminiscing at all. Had she ever talked about her childhood with anyone, besides the superficial level that was exchanged with new friends, college roommates and whatnot?

No.

Jakob, she figured out as they talked, hadn’t exactly had the ideal childhood, either. First his mother was killed in a car accident, then his father married a woman who had no interest in mothering the little boy. Grand entrance: cute baby sister who entranced Dad. A divorce, another change of school. Then yet another move, this one to Arizona, followed by his father’s third marriage when Jakob was seventeen.

“I’d forgotten you were still living at home when your father remarried again,” Amy said thoughtfully.

“I spent as little time there as possible.”

“You don’t like Martina?”

He shrugged. “She’s fine. I never actively hated her. Truthfully, it was never her at all.”

Amy nodded her understanding.

“She had the sense to stay hands-off, so we’ve developed a decent relationship. She’s good for Dad, which is what counts.”

That might be, Amy couldn’t help thinking, except that Jakob had chosen to make a life a good distance from Phoenix. Of course, that could have more to do with the fact that the young Jakob Nilsson had been hooked on mountain climbing—or at least the idea of mountain climbing—and had immediately headed for Colorado and college in Boulder, within easy reach of a whole lot of impressive peaks he could scale.

“What about your stepdad?” he asked. “Is he okay?”

“Ken’s a good guy. In fact, I like him better...” Appalled, she stamped on the brakes. Oh, man. Had she almost told Jakob, of all people, that she liked her stepfather better than her own mother?

Yes, indeed.

They stared at each other, his eyes slightly narrowed. He’d heard the unspoken part of her sentence, loud and clear. Amy didn’t like the sense that Jakob saw deeper than she wanted him to.

“So.” Intent on her face, he kept his voice low, the reverberation jangling her nerves. “You think you’ll go to that time capsule thing, or not?”

“Why do you care?” That sounded rude, but was real, too. Why was he interested?

His shoulders moved in an easy shrug. “Like I said, now I’m curious. I was kind of thinking, if you wanted company, that maybe I’d go with you.”

She had to be gaping. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

His grin was irritatingly smug. “Nope. What’s family for?”

Amy rolled her eyes, which seemed the expected response, but she also had the really unsettling realization that she had absolutely no idea what family was for. Or maybe even what family was.

Jakob was implying that it meant having somebody to stand beside you. The notion was downright foreign. Amy couldn’t have even said why it was also strangely appealing. It shouldn’t have been, not to a woman who never considered surrendering her independence for anyone, for any reason.

“Do you mean that?”

His eyebrows rose. “That I’d come with you?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.” He looked a little perplexed, as if he didn’t know why he was offering, either. “Yeah,” he repeated more strongly. “I mean it.”

“Okay,” she heard herself say. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.” Why was she pretending? Of course she’d made up her mind. In fact—had there ever been any doubt? Trying to hide her perturbation, she offered, “But if I do decide to go... You can come if you still want to.” She’d tried so hard to sound careless, as if she were saying, Suit yourself, doesn’t matter to me. Instead...well, she didn’t know how he would interpret her invitation or the way she’d delivered it.

“Good” was what he said. Jakob’s eyes were unexpectedly serious. “We have a deal.”

So not what she’d expected from the evening. But...nice. Something warmed in Amy despite the caution she issued herself: if he ran true to form, her darling half brother was setting her up for a fall. The splat-on-her-face kind.

He was signaling the waiter and she understood that the evening was over. He had whatever he’d wanted from it.

She just didn’t quite get what that “whatever” was.

CHAPTER TWO

JAKOB SNEAKED A glance at Amy, who was gazing out the passenger-side window at the stark red-brown beauty of the Columbia River Gorge. She might be fascinated, but he suspected she was pretending. She was a Northwest native, and had seen the admittedly striking but also unchanging landscape before.

He couldn’t quite figure out why he’d insisted on coming on this little jaunt. His being here didn’t have anything to do with his father. In fact, he hadn’t talked to Dad since the one peculiar call. Just yesterday, his father had left a message that Jakob hadn’t returned. Maybe because he didn’t want to tell him that Amy was going to the damn opening—but maybe because he didn’t want to try to explain his own part in this, when he didn’t get it himself.

The one part he did understand was why he’d insisted on driving. Polite man that he was, he had walked her to her car the night they’d had dinner together. She drove, he discovered, an ancient, hatchback Honda Civic. He recalled running his hand over a rust spot on the trunk.

Two days ago, when they discussed final arrangements, he had suggested that his vehicle might be more reliable.

“Just because my car’s old doesn’t mean it’s unreliable!” she had snapped.

“We’ll be making a long drive across some pretty barren country. Not where you want to break down.”

“I didn’t break down when I drove down here from Seattle.”

He knew stubborn when he heard it. Unfortunately, that was one trait they shared. A family one?

“How many miles does it have?” he asked.

There had been a noticeable pause before she answered. “One hundred and fifty-four thousand.”

He seemed to remember muttering something that might have been obscene.

When it got right down to it, though, what kept him stubbornly repeating “I’ll drive” had been the appalling image of trying to wedge himself into the damn car.

When Amy had surrendered at last, she said grudgingly, “I guess since my car doesn’t have air-conditioning, it might be better if we take yours.”

His mouth twitched now into a smile he didn’t want her to see. For God’s sake, it was supposed to top a hundred degrees in eastern Washington this weekend! Imagining how they’d be sweltering right this minute made him shake his head.

Jakob suddenly realized she was looking at him, eyes narrowed.

“What was that expression about?” she asked, sounding suspicious.

“Just feeling glad we have air-conditioning,” he admitted. “It’s hot as Hades out there.”

“Nobody likes someone who says ‘I told you so.’”

Jakob grinned. “Did you hear those words coming out of my mouth?”

“Close enough.” Amy was quiet for a minute. Then she shrugged. “The glove compartment pops open every time I go over a bump. Usually the stuff in it falls onto the floor.”

“You’re telling me I’d constantly have a lap full of...what? Maps, registration, flashlight?”

“Um...hand lotion, dark glasses, ice scraper, receipts.” She pushed her lower lip out in thought. “Probably a couple of books, too. I always keep something in there in case I get stuck in traffic, or finish the book that’s in my purse.”

He flicked her a glance of disbelief. “Finish the book when? While you’re driving?”

She frowned severely at him. “Of course I don’t read when I’m driving! Just when I’m at red lights, or we’re at a standstill on the freeway. You know.”

He groaned.

She sniffed in disdain.

After a minute he found himself smiling. “Wouldn’t have mattered if you’d won the argument anyway, you know.”

Her head turned sharply. “What do you mean?”

“When I arrived to pick you up, you’d have been bound to have a flat tire.” He paused, that smile still playing on his mouth. “Or two.”

The sound that burst out of her was somewhere between a snarl and scream. “Oh, my God! I’d almost forgotten. That was one of the meanest things you ever did.”

This time his glance was a little wary. At the time, he’d thought it was funny. Funny was not, apparently, how she remembered the occasion.

“I was so excited when you emailed and promised to take me with you to the lake with some of your friends. I told all my friends how I was spending spring break in Arizona, and that my so-cool fifteen-year-old brother wanted to do stuff with me.” Her glare could have eaten a hole in a steel plate. “I showed my friends pictures of you. I didn’t tell them how awful you’d always been. I thought—” her voice had become softer “—you actually wanted to spend time with me.”

Jakob winced. He’d had no idea his invitation, issued via email under his father’s glower, had meant anything to her. By then, he had convinced himself Amy hated him as much as he did her and would be glad if something happened that got her out of having to spend the day with him.

She’d arrived that Friday and his father had fussed over her, sliding a commanding stare Jakob’s way every few minutes, one that said, You will be nice. Predictably, that had made his teenage self even more hostile.

Dad had just started seeing Martina, though it was another year and a half before they got married. She’d loaned her bike for the projected outing. When Jakob and Amy went out to the garage come morning, one of the tires on Martina’s bike had been flat. Examination showed a split between treads. He’d immediately said, “Wow, the guys are waiting for me. Bummer you can’t come.” After which he took off.

His father had suspected him but never been able to prove he was responsible for the damaged tire. Dad had worked Jakob’s ass off that summer, though, and he hadn’t objected too much because, yeah, he’d slipped out to the garage at 3:00 a.m. and slit the tire with a pocketknife.

“I’m sorry,” he said now, and meant it. He didn’t like knowing he might have really hurt her. “Teenage boys aren’t the most sensitive creatures on earth. Dad was forcing my hand and I didn’t like it.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I figured that out eventually. I lied when I got home and told all my friends about this amazing day with you, and how this really hot friend of yours acted like he wanted to kiss me.” She grinned infectiously. “Which would have scared the crap out of me, you understand.”

He laughed in relief. “No surprise. Some of us hadn’t worked up the nerve to kiss a girl yet.”

Amy eyed him speculatively. “You? You’ve always been so good-looking, and I don’t remember you ever going through, I don’t know, one of those gawky phases. You didn’t even get acne, did you?”

He shook his head. “I actually think I was in one of those awkward phases that summer, though. I was sullen all the time. You were blinded because I was older.”

“Maybe.” She looked away, back out the side window. “Twelve was a hard age for me. Puberty, you know, and middle school.”

He nodded, although he wasn’t sure she saw him.

This whole conversation felt astonishingly comfortable and yet really strange, too. In their entire history, they had never had a real conversation of any kind. Unlike most siblings or even stepsister and stepbrother, they hadn’t banded together against their parents. He’d waged his campaign of torment and she’d fought back as effectively as a much younger, smaller and weaker opponent could. Jakob felt a little sick at knowing how unrelentingly cruel he’d been.

Which brought him back to brooding about why he had volunteered for this ridiculous expedition. Yeah, he’d been taking it a little easier these past couple weeks, after the successful launch of a store in Flagstaff. He’d given some thought to finding a friend to join him in a backpacking trip this week. Sometimes he needed to turn off his phone and disappear into the mountains. Instead...here he was.

Amy stayed silent for a while. He kept sneaking looks at her averted face.

She’d changed, and yet...she hadn’t. As a kid, he’d thought she looked like some kind of changeling, as if a little fairy blood had sneaked in. Pointy chin, high forehead and eyes subtly set at a slant. Her eyes weren’t an ordinary brown, either; they had glints of gold that intensified when she got mad. She’d always been small. Not so much short—he guessed she was five foot four or five inches tall, but slight, with delicate bones. None of that had changed, even though there was nothing childish about her now.