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.”
He laughed out loud. “Good to know I get favored treatment.”
Amy didn’t rise to his comment. She was quiet for a good ten miles, but Jakob kept an eye on her. “Was this a really stupid idea?” she blurted.
From his point of view? Maybe. Jakob couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy at this tectonic shift in their relationship.
But for her? He thought about it for a minute. “No,” he said at last, with certainty that surprised him. “This matters to you. You may not even know why, but it does. I assume you’re trying to figure out some things about your mother. You could have waited placidly back in Portland until whatever she stuck in the time capsule appeared in your mailbox. But passive isn’t your style. Charging ahead and demanding what you want is a better fit. That’s all we’re doing here.”
She frowned at him. “You make me sound like a bitch.”
“No. You were a feisty little girl, and unless you’ve changed more than I think you have, you’re a feisty woman. That’s a good thing, not bad.”
“Oh.” She fell silent again for a few minutes. “Okay. Thanks, Jakob.”
The gratitude sounded less grudging than usual. Amusement lifted one side of his mouth when he glanced at her. “You’re welcome.”
“I meant...not only for what you said. For coming along, too. I’d have been okay making the trip by myself, but...it’s nice that I didn’t have to.”
“I figured that. I expect to have a good time.” He frowned a little himself as he realized the truth of what he was about to say. “I’m already having a good time.”
Her expression was skittish and distinctly wary. She didn’t say anything else. Neither did he.
* * *
AS FAR AS Amy could tell, Jakob hadn’t lied—he seemed to be enjoying himself.
The college had organized all kinds of activities. Jakob was enthusiastic about most of them and assumed she would be, too. He dragged her along on the wine-tasting tour, although her idea of how to choose the right wine was picking the one that was on sale. He bought a bunch of wines, too, and lovingly carried them up to his hotel room so they wouldn’t reach boiling temperature in the back of his SUV, parked in the sun.
He persuaded her to come along when he played golf, too. She had to concede the game—sport?—sort of looked fun. If she’d had unlimited free time and funds, she might have been tempted to take it up. Jakob admitted that, while he enjoyed a round now and again, he most often played because businessmen negotiated and networked out on the country club course. They also judged each other in part on how far below par they played, so he’d made sure he was good. He was so good, in fact, that he won the tournament staged by the college, which seemed to embarrass him.
They skipped the evening reception at the college president’s house and ate at a restaurant, where he talked about his business and persuaded her to tell him about her writing. Amy was still astonished to know that he had bought magazines only to read the articles she’d written. She’d figured she was out of sight, out of mind, as far as he was concerned. It was disconcerting to discover he’d been at least a tiny bit interested in her life.
Over dessert and coffee, they bickered like the sister and brother they were. Most disconcerting of all was that Amy couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a dinner date anywhere near as much fun.
