From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  They sipped in silence for a few minutes. It was very late now. Maybe the cocoa had a tranquilizing effect or the effect of all those tears was catching up with her, because Amy began to feel sleepy. Time to wonder if Jakob intended to go home at all.

  “You can stay if you want. The sheets on Mom and Ken’s bed are clean.”

  “All right,” he said slowly. “If you’re okay with it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Some shadow slid through his eyes, passing too quickly for her to identify. “No reason.” He paused. “Don’t suppose you’re ready to talk about any of this.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’m going to conk out. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Jakob nodded, pushed his chair back and took their empty mugs to the sink. “If you want to go on, I’ll make sure the house is locked up and turn out lights.”

  “Okay.” Wow, she didn’t know what had happened, but it was all she could do to plod toward the staircase. Her feet felt encased in cement blocks as she climbed the steps. She was doing well to brush her teeth and loosely braid her hair, get into clean pajamas and fall into bed. Her eyelids were so heavy, switching off the lamp seemed like too much trouble.

  She was almost asleep when she felt a soft touch on her cheek—fingertips?—then heard a quiet “Good night,” and knew even through closed eyelids that the room was plunged into darkness.

  Amy hugged the gentleness of the touch to her as she sank into oblivion.

  * * *

  SLEEP ELUDED JAKOB. The damn mattress was too soft, for one thing. He liked his to be hard. A faint scent seemed to cling to the bedding, too, one that he finally realized summoned memories of Michelle.

  Funny, you’d think he’d have called her “Mommy” when he was little. She was in his earliest memories. Maybe she’d insisted on “Michelle.” That part, he didn’t recall. Only that he’d never even thought of her as his mother.

  Looking back, he wanted to say she was a cold bitch, but had to amend the thought right away. Not a bitch, but the cold part was definite. She was always...pleasant. Brisk, efficient. He’d had warmer encounters with couriers who’d raced into the office to throw a package at him than he ever had with his stepmother. She did what she had to do—he had memories of her packing his school lunches, putting dinner on the table, even driving him places like Little League practice. She didn’t go to parent-teacher conferences, though, or school open houses. It was more as if she was perfectly willing to deal with him as part of the everyday organization of the household, but not to accept him on any personal level.

  He grunted. There never had been any possibility of the little boy he’d been feeling anything but resentment for the baby girl who had cast him into the shade. Thinking back, he couldn’t believe his father could have been so oblivious to his small son’s misery.

  Jakob tensed. Had he heard a sound from across the hall? No surprise if Amy had a nightmare tonight. But he lay rigid for some time, listening, and didn’t hear anything else. He must have imagined it.

  Letting his muscles go loose, he speculated on what effect all this was going to have on her. Was she secure enough to shake it off, realize it was history and really had nothing to do with the woman she had made herself into? He was undecided. She was no weakling, that was for sure. Her instinct was to come out fighting. He was surprised, in a way, that she’d let her mother’s revelations hit her so hard she’d sunk into a depression these past couple of days.

  Yeah, making any kind of assumptions about Amy was dumb. He didn’t really know her, did he? Maybe she was emotionally all over the map. It could be that what he thought of as her feistiness was something only he brought out in her. He’d given her enough reason over the years to have earned her hostility.

  Brooding, he changed his mind. Of course he knew her. The little girl she’d been, anyway. Lonely, he saw in retrospect, but also spirited. One memory stuck in his head. She’d gotten in a scratching, clawing, hissing fight in kindergarten. Her mother wasn’t available to pick her up, so Dad had done it. Jakob heard about it and sneaked upstairs, where she was confined to her bedroom. A vivid scratch had marred her cheek and her lower lip had poked out so far he thought at first it was swollen. There might have been a glint of tears in her eyes, but even then she had too much pride to let them fall.

  That got him speculating on how often she had let herself cry over the years.

  When their parents split up? Yeah, probably. But he was guessing it wasn’t the norm for her. She’d seemed too appalled when she went stiff in his arms tonight. Or maybe it wasn’t the tears—maybe it was discovering herself in her hated half brother’s embrace that had horrified her.

  Not her half brother. No blood relation at all.

  Thank God. Not that he had any concrete plans to act on their new status as two single, unrelated adults. It would be unbelievably awkward. No, that overwhelming relief had more to do with the past, with the awareness of her he’d never quite been able to suppress. Yes, he’d done his best to shut it down, but Jakob didn’t like to imagine what he’d be feeling right now if he had found out she was, in fact, biologically his sister. He didn’t know if he’d ever have been able to look himself in the mirror again. He’d had a hard enough time over the years dealing with the ugliness of those moments when he’d noticed her in a way he shouldn’t.

  With a groan, he laid his forearm over his eyes. At this rate, he wasn’t going to get any sleep at all tonight.

  * * *

  AMY OPENED HER eyes and stared without comprehension at the digital clock beside her bed. Did it really read 11:38? Night? Morning?

  Morning, of course—the blinds couldn’t entirely block the sunlight.

  And...did she smell bacon?

  A door seemed to open in her head and remembrance flooded in. Jakob pushing his way into the house, bullying her into eating, telling her straight out what his father had said, holding her without complaint when she cried.

  Jakob, who had slept across the hall from her.

  Of course he would have wanted to have breakfast before he left for work—or for home to shower and change first—but she was quite certain she hadn’t had any bacon in the house. She didn’t eat much meat, and never bothered with anything but cereal or occasionally toast for breakfast.

  Uh-huh, and why did she care how he came by the bacon?

  How do I feel?

  Amy cautiously moved her arms and legs at the same time as she made herself think about things her mother said, things she said.

  She’d meant every one of them.

  My father is a man who raped my mother.

  Oddly enough, the knowledge didn’t feel as terrible today as it had when she first read her mother’s diary. It seemed to have settled into her, become part of her, the marrow of her bones.

  Because it matched how she’d always felt about herself? If even her own parents couldn’t love her, how could she help but know there was something dreadfully wrong with her? Now she had her answer. He was what was wrong with her.

  Amy found she still didn’t want to think about him. Her mother, the man she’d thought was her father, Jakob... They gave her enough to brood about.

  Skipping the shower, she decided on yellow yoga pants and a thigh-length, thin orange top with a scooped neck low enough to allow it to slip off one shoulder. Barefoot, she padded downstairs. Even though Jakob was long gone, there was comfort in knowing he had spent the night. Maybe they could really be friends. Who’d have ever dreamed?

  Two feet into the kitchen, she stopped abruptly. Jakob sat at the table, a laptop in front of him. The French doors were open wide behind him. He looked up, smiling.

  “You’re still here.” Oh, brilliant.

  “I’m here again,” he corrected her. “Went home to shower and get out of the snot-soaked T-shirt. Plus, you didn’t h
ave much food in the house.”

  She looked at the dishes in the sink. “You mean, I didn’t have bacon and eggs.”

  “Or bread.”

  Oh, yeah. “I guess I’m overdue for a shop.” Something she’d intended to do as soon as they got back from Frenchman Lake, but had forgotten along with her appetite.

  Jakob pushed back from the table. “Pour yourself some coffee. I’ll make breakfast for you.”

  “I usually have cereal.”

  “Dry? We finished the milk last night.”

  “That’s your fault. I wanted wine,” she mumbled, sulky.

  He only laughed. “Scrambled or over easy?”

  “Um...scrambled, I guess.”

  Somehow she found herself planted in front of a plate that held a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs, several strips of bacon and two slices of some kind of whole grain toast with jam she was pretty sure hadn’t come out of her refrigerator, either.

  “I can’t possibly eat all this,” Amy argued, but started in.

  Having poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and resumed his seat, Jakob only smiled. He seemed to be focused on his laptop, which let her eat without self-consciousness. To her astonishment, she polished off the entire plateful of food.

  “Good girl,” he said, and she realized he’d been watching after all. “How are you this morning?”

  She really had to think about that. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “Why aren’t you at work? Surely Mr. CEO is expected to show his face at the office most days.”

  “Mr. President, actually.” His mouth had barely quirked, but the smile sounded in his voice. “As such, I can take time off when it pleases me.”

  She met his eyes, which she couldn’t help noticing were quite startlingly blue this morning. “I’m not suicidal, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  “You’re sure?” It hadn’t occurred to her, but why else had he pushed his way in last evening? “You didn’t have an attack of guilt because you imagined that offering to go with me to Frenchman Lake means you encouraged me?”

  His eyebrows rose. “That never crossed my mind, either.”

  “If you weren’t encouraging me, why did you offer to go?” Gee whiz, maybe she should have asked that question before she accepted his offer. Hindsight was a wonderful thing.

  He stared at her for an unnerving length of time. A muscle twitched on one side of his jaw. “I felt...protective,” he said at last, very slowly, as if he was as disturbed by his answer as she was.

  “Protective,” she repeated. Astonishment and an emotion that felt like wonder so shook her, she grabbed for the more familiar anger. “Was it like the time you locked me out of the house just when it was getting dark and lied and told Mom and Dad I was upstairs in my bedroom?”

  Guilt altered his expression. “You remember that?”

  “Yes!”

  “Is it too late to say I’m sorry?”

  “Yes!” Fuming, she snatched up her dishes. “Just for your information, I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter, okay? Feel free to go home.”

  He watched her stomp over and deposit the dishes with a clatter on the counter beside the sink.

  “So maybe I do feel guilty. So guilty I’m going to dig in my heels and stay.”

  “Stay?” She whirled to face him. “Stay how long?”

  “I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I packed a bag. Maybe for a day or two.”

  “Why?” It came out as a whisper.

  “Because I think you need to talk.” He frowned, once again looking discomfited. “So we can get to know each other.” His eyes searched hers. “Don’t you want that, Amy?”

  Her mouth opened and closed. She discovered she could not tell a lie. Not now, not to him. So she opened the dishwasher and began loading it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FOR THE FIRST couple of hours, she did her damndest to pretend he wasn’t there. Jakob could tell he’d shaken her.

  Truth was, he was a little unsettled by his own behavior. What was going on here? If she wasn’t his sister and he wasn’t going to hit on her, what was he doing?

  Being a friend, he decided, falling back on his belief that he owed her. Of course, it was a little more complicated than that. Nosiness definitely played a part. This was her history, but it was his, too. Dad and Michelle hadn’t only lied to Amy, they’d lied to him, as well. He found himself so enraged when he thought of his father, he knew he was in no frame of mind to talk to him again right now. He’d already deleted a couple of messages without even listening to them.

  He worked at the kitchen table, scrutinizing sales figures on products he was considering replacing, keeping an ear cocked for Amy, who had disappeared into the small home office at the other back corner of the house. She had announced that she had to work, and disappeared.

  Midafternoon, he got hungry. “I’m going to make a sandwich,” he called. “You want one?”

  “No.” Silence. “Thank you,” she added grudgingly.

  He grinned, guessing what an effort it was taking for her to be polite to him, the enemy.

  His hands paused in the act of taking bread from the wrapper. Did Amy still think of him that way? As her enemy? He hoped not. He was almost sure she didn’t. She had confided in him, and she wouldn’t have done that if she truly detested him, would she?

  He laid on the vegetables atop slices of turkey and Havarti, and washed down the sandwich with a dark, local brew he’d recently discovered. It felt decadent to feel free to have a beer in the middle of the day. He might order one or a glass of wine during a business lunch when everyone else did, but then he’d do little more than take a few sips. He didn’t like to cloud his thinking.

  The slice of the tiramisu cheesecake he’d picked up at a bakery on his way back to Amy’s went down just fine, too. It was so good, in fact, he raised his voice again. “I have a cheesecake.”

  She didn’t answer. He shrugged and was putting it back in the refrigerator when she appeared.

  “What kind?”

  He told her.

  “I love cheesecake.”

  Jakob put a slice on a plate and handed it to her. She grabbed a fork from the drawer, hesitated, and then all but stomped over to the table, where she plopped down in what he was coming to think of as “her” place.

  “What are you working on?”

  He explained. “I’m looking at items for spring. We solidified stock for winter long since. I’m considering dropping a line of lighter-weight sleeping bags, for example, in favor of these down ones in brighter colors.” He turned the computer to show her one illustrated with a shell in sunshine yellow with darker swirls. “Nothing wrong with the ones we carried, but sales are falling and the manufacturer is sticking to the traditional navy, forest-green, red for variety. Our goal is to attract younger buyers. They want something more exciting.”

  “I thought Boulder River Sports Company catered to the back-to-nature crowd. I’d think they want colors that would blend in.”

  He felt a ridiculous smile growing on his face. “How do you know who we cater to? Have you visited one of my stores?”

  “The one in Seattle.” Her glance was almost shy. “The one here in Portland, too.”

  “You were curious,” he said, delighted.

  Her chin came up. “You were, too.”

  “I admitted I was.” He filed away the knowledge that she’d followed his career, just as he’d followed hers, then answered her question. “You’re right. Mechanized sports aren’t our thing. We don’t carry alpine ski equipment or snowboards, we’re not going for snowmobilers. We’re after hikers, climbers, runners, Nordic skiers, windsurfers, people who are careful to respect nature even as they enjoy it. Doesn’t mean they’re s
todgy or don’t want to be stylish.”

  Amy nodded. “I’ve actually bought some clothes from you when I found them on sale.”

  “Yeah?” He pushed the laptop back and crossed his arms on the table. “What brands did you buy?”

  “Mr. President goes into product survey mode.”

  “Something like that.” He smiled openly and thought she might be blushing a little.

  “Mountain Hardware, prAna, Horny Toad. Those were all new brands to me. Um, Moving Comfort.”

  He guessed from the deepening color in her cheeks that she’d bought sports bras from Boulder River. Moving Comfort was a popular brand. From the list, it was obvious she’d shopped Boulder River more than once or twice, too.

  “What draws you?”

  She frowned, taking his question seriously, which he liked. “I prefer stretchy. Fabric that moves. Colorful. For winter I like hoodies. Oh, and thumb holes in long sleeves, when I can find them.” She made a face. “Surely you don’t decide what women’s clothes your stores will carry.”

  “I have buyers, but I approve every product,” Jakob said flatly. “I keep an eye on the clothing lines to make sure they don’t deviate too much from our core business. If a woman wants to wear one of our dresses to a nightclub, that’s fine, but I expect the dress to be lightweight, packable, the one that same woman would choose to carry if she’s backpacking across Europe. I check out recommendations to start carrying a new brand very carefully. Freedom of movement, durability and ease of care come way ahead of style.”

  “You’re hands-on.”

  “Very.” He allowed himself a wry smile. “Controlling is the word some people might use.”

  She looked offended on his behalf. “You started the company. You’re entitled. Plus, Boulder River has expanded successfully even when the economy sucks. You wouldn’t be where you were if you delegated too much.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

  Her flush had definitely deepened. “I have to go back to work.”

  Her retreat looked more like flight to him. Not that he’d have said so.