“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 ad
mitted. “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.
He’d always been fascinated by her hair, too. When she was a baby and toddler, he’d spent a lot of time staring at her curls. He had never seen anyone with hair quite that color, or quite so exuberant. Not that the word exuberant had been in his vocabulary then. One of his earliest memories was getting yelled at when all he was doing was touching her hair. He’d been experimenting to see if the curls bounced back when he straightened them. Michelle had told Dad he was pulling Amy’s hair. He still remembered the flash of resentment at being falsely accused.
Good God, he thought, there he’d been, three years old, maybe four—Amy hadn’t been a newborn by then, but not walking yet, either—and the seeds of their discord had already been sown.
He surely did hope she didn’t remember what he’d done to her hair when she was a lot older.
She had beautiful hair, the color hard to pin down. He’d finally figured out it was because she had strands of seemingly dozens of colors all mixed together. Everything from ash to mahogany, and just enough of a sort of cherrywood to make you think she was a redhead even though she wasn’t exactly. She didn’t have the Little Orphan Annie thing going—her curls weren’t red enough, and they weren’t tight enough, either. When she was a teenager Amy grew her hair long enough to pull back in some kind of elastic. And in a couple of her school pictures, she’d obviously straightened it, which must have been a battle royal. Her hair wouldn’t have taken it sitting down.
He smiled, thinking about it.
“Every time I look at you, you’re smirking,” she said, surprising him. Her tone was mock-resigned.
Jakob chuckled. “I was imagining how hard it must have been to straighten your hair for your senior picture. You don’t do that anymore, do you?”
She wrinkled her small, rather cute nose at him. “Lord, no. The only times I got away with it were when I was aiming for a very specific time. I had about an hour-and-a-half window of opportunity before curls started popping out like, I don’t know, anthills in the sand. Boing, boing.” She surveyed him in disfavor. “You have
no idea how much I envied you your hair, do you?”
“Me?” he said in surprise. “It’s straight. It’s blond. It’s boring. Yours has life.”
She seemed to hunch her shoulders the tiniest bit. “I would have liked to look more like Dad. You do.”
Jakob was glad to have the excuse of concentrating on passing a slow-moving RV right then so he didn’t have to address her comment immediately, or directly.
Once he had his Subaru Outback in the east-bound lane, he glanced at Amy. “My mother was blonde when she was a kid, too, you know. Her hair darkened like mine has. A little more, I guess. I thought of hers as brown.”
She nodded. “I’ve seen pictures.”
Yeah, he guessed she would have. That’s all he had of his mother, since he hadn’t been even a year old when she was killed in a car accident. For a young guy like his dad, who worked construction, finding himself the single parent of a baby must have been a major cataclysm. In retrospect, Jakob couldn’t blame him for remarrying the first chance he got. Unfortunately, Jakob had been an adult before he achieved any understanding of his father’s choices.
“We’re getting there,” he observed.
They had crossed into Washington State when the Columbia River swung in a horseshoe, first north and then east, the highway separating from the Columbia to take them along the Snake River north of Walla Walla and Waitsburg. He saw a sign for Frenchman Lake—25 miles. Half an hour, tops.
“I made reservations.”
She’d already told him that. She sounded nervous, Jakob realized. In fact, her hands were knotted together, squeezing, on her lap.
“Did I tell you that creep Gordon Haywood refused to talk to me?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “You can’t totally blame the guy for not wanting to be hit up by a journalist when he’s trying to enjoy a walk down memory lane.”
“‘Hit up’? I have thoughtful, provocative conversations with people I interview.”
“Do you accuse them of smirking?”
“You’re my brother,” she said with dignity. “That’s different.”
From This Day On Page 3