From Now On

by Louise Brooks

  “I love you, Jo,” Emily whispered against her neck.

  “I love you, too, Em.”

  Jo pulled away and stood, gathering the clothes they had abandoned before donning their wedding attire.

  “I wish you weren’t moving,” Emily said. “Who will I talk to now?”

  “You can still talk to me. You’ll just have a much longer drive when there’s something that needs to be said face to face.”

  Emily giggled. “I can see that. Me getting into the car in the middle of the night and driving to Houston because I had a fight with Ryan.”

  “So can I,” Jo agreed, realizing she really could.

  Jo kicked a box out of her way as she made her way to the little suitcase sitting open on the floor of the closet. The apartment was nearly empty now, most of her things were already on a truck to Houston. The rest would be traveling with her in her old car. Tomorrow morning, right or wrong, Jo would embark on a new life.

  “Can I ask you something?” Emily said, still perched on the end of the bed.

  “Anything.”

  “Why don’t you hate me?”

  Jo spun around, nearly tripping on the unfamiliar heels. “Why would I?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because Mom always treated me differently than you. Because I was more popular in school. Because I always had more boyfriends.” Emily reached up and scratched her temple as though she was struggling to remember something else. “Oh,” she said with a flick of her eyebrow, “and because I’m about to marry a guy you dated first.”

  Jo shook her head. “How could I hate you?” Jo walked to Emily, took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Mom and the boys…none of that was your fault. You have always been more outgoing than me, friendlier and easier in a crowd. I would be petty if I held that against you.”

  “And Ryan?”

  Jo looked down at Emily’s hands, touched her engagement ring with her thumb. “I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt in the beginning. I felt so betrayed.” Jo bit her lip as her eyes lifted to Emily’s and she saw the pain there. “But then I found out what it felt like to be really and truly loved. And now I know that it would be selfish to wish you and Ryan anything but all the happiness in the world.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” Jo kissed Emily’s cheek and wiped away her tears with a brush of her thumb. “Now, you are getting married in twenty minutes. We better fix your makeup.”

  Emily resisted Jo’s attempt to move her. Instead, she took Jo’s hands as Jo had done to her and leaned close, whispering in her ear, “I know he’ll come back, Jo. I know he will.”

  Tears flooded Jo’s eyes. She had tried to push Mark to the back of her mind, but it was so much easier said than done. Every waking hour in the past two weeks he had been the first thing she thought of in the morning and the last at night. She physically ached with the pain of cutting him out of her life. No matter how many times she told herself it was for the best, she somehow couldn’t make her heart believe it. Leaving Mark was the hardest thing she had ever done.

  But, to appease her sister, she blinked the tears away and smiled.

  A limo was waiting outside when they finally made their way out of the apartment fifteen minutes later. They climbed inside and Emily, spotting the bottle immediately, directed Jo to pour them both a glass of champagne. They made the short, ten minute trip toasting each other with increasingly funny, and crude, wishes for Emily’s wedding night.

  “To the gods of bedsprings, in the hope that the hotel does not give you a bed that squeaks with every movement,” Jo finished off as the car came to a stop.

  Emily gulped a swallow of champagne, despite the giggles that threatened to choke her. The door opened and the chauffeur reached a hand in to help Jo out of the car. He dropped a wink as she grasped his arm to steady herself. She was almost too busy trying to acclimate herself to her new height on the heels to notice, but she did. And it made her glad she had worn the stupid heels.

  “Let’s go,” Emily said, after downing the last of her champagne and handing the plastic flute to the chauffeur. “Let’s go get me married.”

  “Good luck, ladies,” the chauffeur called as they walked across the lawn.

  “I think he likes you,” Emily said in a loud whisper.

  “Maybe,” Jo agreed. “But tonight is about you, kiddo.”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  Emily stopped as they stood at the side gate to the new house she and Ryan had just closed on three days before. The house itself still stood empty, but the backyard had been transformed into a lover’s retreat, thanks in part to the former owner’s penchant for roses and the hard work of all of Ryan and Emily’s friends and family. Behind the gate waited several dozen wedding guests, including Ryan’s parents, Jack, Kyra, and Michelle, and Emily and Jo’s mother. And, of course, Ryan.

  Jo’s mother hadn’t been happy with the change in venue, the date change, or the lack of fanfare, but she was quickly adjusting. It helped that Emily had given her an ultimatum, not unlike the one Jo had given her. She simply had to accept that this was the way it was going to be.

  It was what Emily wanted.

  Emily took Jo’s hand and slipped it under her arm. “Walk me down the aisle?” she asked.

  “It’ll be my pleasure.”

  Jo walked out of the copy room with a stack of files in her arms. She could have sent her secretary to do this, she knew, but sometimes she liked to do these mundane things herself. It reminded her of how far she had come in the last six months.

  Jo started out in the same position she’d held in Dallas, but the deputy supervisor was married to a Navy officer who gotten a promotion and a transfer a month after Jo’s arrival. As the most experienced in this fledgling subsidiary, Jo was promoted. And, when three months after that the head of the department decided her retirement had been delayed long enough, the powers-that-be upstairs decided, based on the successful implementation of the in-house daycare based on the proposal Kathleen had created in Dallas, to promote Jo again.

  This move had been the best thing Jo could do for her career.

  “Isn’t he gorgeous,” Jo heard one of the clerks say as she walked up behind her.

  “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t married to such a wonderful man. Boy, a little innocent flirtation with a guy like that would sure be fun,” another said.

  “Ladies, you know I always get first dibs,” Jo said.

  The ladies turned. “Oh, Jo,” the first, Cindy, said. “I don’t know if you can handle this one.” She gestured toward the mystery guest. “I’m not sure I can.”

  Jo laughed as she turned to follow the gesture. She saw a tall man standing at the reception desk, but he was too far away and there were too many cubicles between them for her to see much more than the soft curl of his hair touching the tip of his blue collar.

  “I’m sure you’ll give it a good try, though,” Jo said, patting Cindy’s arm as she continued on to her office.

  Jo dropped the stack of files on her desk and dropped into her seat, kicking off her shoes as she tried to get into a comfortable position in her tight pencil skirt. Her computer chimed, alerting her to a new email. Jo clicked on the dialogue box and smiled as a new message from Emily popped up. No doubt the sonogram pictures she had been promising for weeks. Most women suffered nausea and dizzy spells in the first trimester of pregnancy. Emily suffered memory loss.

  As Jo settled back to read the message, there was a knock on her door.

  “It’s open,” she called, not even bothering to look up. She had an open door policy. It could be anyone from her secretary to the guy who changes the water cooler bottle. But she couldn’t imagine whatever it was could be more important than the first pictures of her new niece or nephew.

  But she could be wrong.

  “Could you tell me where Chuck Franklin’s office is?”

  “Chuck Franklin?” Jo frowned, her eyes still locked to her computer screen. “We don’t have a Chuck Frank
lin here.”

  The name was familiar, though, and Jo’s hand paused over her mouse, stopped just as she was about to open the pictures Emily had finally sent. She knew the name, but more importantly, she knew the voice. It was like walking back in time. A new employee, lost on his way to rescue someone else’s antiquated computer system.

  It was the day she first met Mark.

  “How have you been, Jo?” he asked quietly, his voice filled with amusement and something not quite definable.

  She hesitated before looking up, not sure what she expected to find. It had been six months. Six months of nothing. No phone calls. No emails. Not even a letter via snail mail. Nothing. And suddenly he was here.

  Jo had moved on with her life. She made the best out of this move. It was a fresh start, a new beginning. She had a good job, got along well with her coworkers. It was as if the past five years had been erased, as though someone had pressed the restart button and given her a second chance. She even had a flirtation going with a guy at the new gym she had joined.

  She was different. Life was different.

  “Jo?”

  She looked up, unprepared for the emotional wallop that awaited her. He looked so much the same, still dressed in those button downs he liked so much, the pressed jeans with the razor sharp crease from too many ironings. His hair was longer, surprisingly curly on the ends. She had somehow imagined it would be darker, straighter, if he ever grew it out of the military buzz he preferred. His eyes were the same. The same caramel, melt-your-soul gaze that seemed to see right through her.

  “Hello, Mark,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong and clear.

  He smiled, revealing that dimple she often saw in her dreams. “You look good,” he said.

  “You, too.” She touched her own soft curls. “I like,” she said, indicating his.

  Mark brushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah. My daughter thought it was time to get rid of the cut.”

  “How is she? Missy, I mean.”

  “Good.” Mark slid the door closed behind him and moved further into the room, acting as though he might take a seat in one of the chairs in front of her desk, but changing his mind at the last second. “I was awarded full custody. Again.”

  “Really? That’s great, Mark.”

  “Yeah.” He paced the length of the room, pausing in front of a bookshelf where Jo displayed a few family pictures. He picked up one from the night of Emily and Ryan’s wedding and held it up where she could see it. “I heard they got married.”

  “Six months ago. It was a nice, quiet ceremony.”

  “What happened to the big to-do they were planning?”

  “They decided it was more for our mother than them.”

  Mark nodded, as if he sympathized. “How was it? For you, I mean.”

  Jo shrugged. “I’m happy for them.”

  Mark looked over at her, his expression a storm of emotion. It was as if he didn’t quite believe her. But then he turned back to the shelf, looking through some of the other pictures, as though unwilling to challenge her claims.

  Jo stood and walked across the room. As she approached him, she was overwhelmed with memories. The sight of him there, standing in her office so out of place, and yet as if he had always belonged. His ghost had been here so many times before. She wanted him to turn and say something crazy, to put her at ease as he had done so many times before. She wanted him to laugh. She wanted him to pull her into his arms and assure her that there was nothing broken that could not be fixed. She wanted it to be like it was before.

  But, of course, it wasn’t.

  “Why are you here, Mark?”

  He paused, his hand on another picture frame. This one was of Jack and his little Michelle, laughing together in a candid photo Jo had snapped during their visit a month ago. He studied the photo like it was a Monet, giving it his complete attention.

  “I wish I could change so many things about what happened between us,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t,” Jo said. She realized it was true as the words left her lips. Despite the hurt, she was glad for every moment they shared.

  He turned and took her in, really looking at her for what she was sure was the first time. His eyes drifted from her eyes to her lips, her throat. He studied the lacy baby doll top she wore under a sheer cashmere sweater, the linen skirt with its modest slit up the side. He smiled slightly when he saw her bare feet. Then his eyes moved back to her face.

  “You’ve changed,” he said.

  “People change.”

  “Not always.” He glanced at the door as though wondering if this had been a good idea. Again he dragged his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know why this is so hard.”

  “Mark—”

  “I came here to tell you I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I never meant for things to end the way they did.”

  Jo shrugged. “It wasn’t any more your fault than it was mine.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t come here to assign blame.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Mark studied her face, tension building in his shoulders with every passing second. Jo reached up and brushed her hair from her shoulder, trying to imagine what it was that he saw. The subtle layers of makeup Emily had encouraged her to wear? The longer hair, cut in a soft bob that accentuated her natural curls? The new earrings she had bought herself last weekend?

  “It’s too late, isn’t it?”

  “For what?”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” he said, his gaze dropping. “I don’t want to make things harder for you.”

  Jo clenched her fists at her sides. “You’re right,” she said with a voice suddenly filled with anger. “You shouldn’t have come if all you’re going to do is run away.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You always run away.” Jo waved her hand, encompassing everything from his body pointed toward the door to the past. “You ran away after our first kiss, after that first night in my apartment. And you ran away the moment it began to look like we might have something. A future.”

  “I did not. You’re the one who pushed me away.”

  “Only because I could see you were on your way out the door.”

  His eyes narrowed and Jo was sure that she had pushed him too far. She could see him leaving as if he had already slammed the door behind him. And it didn’t hurt any less than the last time. She was falling, crashing back to earth from the cloud of hope she didn’t even realize she had jumped on, in the same painful heap she had known so many times before. She was hurtling toward disaster and there was nothing to stop it.

  Until her fall was broken.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered as he slid his hands into her hair, his lips pressed against her ear. “I came here to fight for you, to tell you that a day hasn’t gone by in which I haven’t thought about you every waking minute. To tell you that I was a broken man until you, and without you I’m nothing but an empty shell.”

  Jo melted in the familiarity of his touch, molding her body to his and finding it to be a perfect fit. A moan slipped from between her lips as she felt his heart pound against her, as her body remembered what it was like to be a part of this whole. That memory awakened so many others, not the least of which was the taste of his lips. So, when his mouth found hers, it was like coming home.

  As they kissed, her heart soared again, lifting to a height that would be deadly should she fall again. She never wanted it to stop, never wanted this moment to end. But how could she ignore the danger? How could she pretend that so much had never happened? How did she silence the voice of doubt that so desperately wanted an invitation to this party?

  “Mark,” she whispered, pushing at his chest. “We can’t just forget.”

  “I know.” Mark pressed his forehead to hers, his breath bathing her face in soft puffs. “I know I hurt you.”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “Then tell me what you need me to say
or do. I’ll do anything.”

  Jo closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I need.”

  “I do.” Mark stepped back just enough so that she could see his face. A soft smile touched his lips as he traced the line of her jaw with his fingertip. “You need to know that you can trust me.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I thought you were the one with the trust issues,” she said with what she was afraid was less a laugh and more a sob.

  He inclined his head slightly, acknowledging her words. “It was. It might still be. But I think that’s a two way street.”

  Jo stepped closer to him and hid her face against his chest. “So what do we do?”

  “I think that’s something that comes with time.” Mark kissed the top of her head lightly. “All I know is that I’ve missed you like crazy. And I don’t particularly want to keep doing that.”

  “I miss you, too,” Jo said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

  “And I’m hoping I didn’t just uproot my kids and move them to Houston for nothing.”

  Jo pulled back and stared up at him. “You did what?”

  He shrugged. “When I jump into something, I jump with everything.”

  “What about their grandparents? Their school?” Jo tensed as another barrier reared up between them. “What about Danielle?”

  Mark lifted a hand to smooth the tension from her brow, but stopped before he could touch her. “It’s only an hour by plane. If their grandparents want to see Missy and Dillon, they know where we are. And there are schools here in Houston that are just as good as the ones in Dallas.”

  “And Danielle?” Jo asked, unable to let him avoid the issue.

  “Danielle will always be their mother, and, therefore, always be a part of our lives.” Mark shrugged. “With that said, Danielle has never been consistent in taking advantage of her visiting privileges and I don’t anticipating that changing any time soon.”