From Now On (8 page)

             
How desperately she wanted to understand what made him feel each of those emotions.

             
“I want.” He moaned faintly. “I can’t remember the last time anyone ever asked me what I wanted.”

             
“I want to know,” Jo whispered.

             
Mark raised his hand to her face, cupping the whole right side of her face in his palm. “I want to feel normal again,” he whispered as he moved closer to her. “I want to trust, to be trusted. I want to feel like a man again.”

             
“Mark.”  She said his name as she slowly lifted her hand and pressed it against his throat, moving it slowly over the roughness of his jaw. He moaned again, moving so close to her that their foreheads touched.

             
“I so want to kiss you,” he said on a sigh. “But I shouldn’t.”

             
“Then let me,” she said.

             
There was no time to think, no time to realize how bold her actions were. Jo only knew that she wanted this kiss more than she had wanted anything in a very long time. It was more than physical attraction, more than a desire to be close to another person. This was about something Jo had always wanted, but never really believed would exist for her.

             
And, if she had let herself think about it, it would have scared her into a lifetime of loneliness.

             
Instead, acting in a way she had never done before, Jo pressed her lips against Mark’s.

             
His lips were surprisingly soft. He tasted of sweet cream, of the humid Texas air, of the softest hint of the sweat of a long working day. At first it seemed he wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t open himself to her lips’ caress. Jo pressed her lips tighter against his, her chest aching with the fear that was quickly building there. But then the muscles of his jaw flexed and his hands suddenly came around her waist. He pulled her closer to him across the long seat, cradling her in the curve of his arms as he opened to her, deepening the kiss.
             

             
A sigh of relief, of joy, of desire jumped from her lips even as he released a groan that vibrated from his body to hers. Then there was no thought, no comprehension. There was only his lips on hers, his hands on her back. There was only sensation and an ache that grew more intense with each passing second. There was just his heartbeat pounding against her chest, his breath on her face, his heat enveloping her body like a warm winter blanket.

             
Jo didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want him stop. She didn’t want to taste anything but the coffee he’d had sometime recently, never wanted to feel anything on her skin but the rough, calloused skin of his fingers, the baby softness of his palms.

             
But, as they say, all good things must come to an end.

             
A tap on the window alerted them to the fact that they were no longer alone. Mark pulled away slowly, like a child waking from a dream. But when he saw the mechanic at the window, Mark must have realized where they were, what they were doing. Jo found herself suddenly released. She fell against the seat in an undignified lump, something about the scene making the mechanic more than just casually interested in what he was witnessing.

             
Jo straightened and rolled down the window, telling the mechanic she would be with him in a moment. As the man walked away, Jo began straightening her clothes.

             
“That was embarrassing.”

             
Mark only cleared his throat. Jo looked at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. She reached over and touched his arm, but he jerked it away.

             
“You should go,” he said in a low, controlled voice.

             
“Mark, we didn’t do anything wrong.”

             
He turned the key in the ignition and gripped the steering wheel tight in his hands. “Please, go, Jo.”

             
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Jo asked.

             
Mark just stared forward, again not looking at her and not speaking.

             
Jo didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that meant.

             
Jo slipped out of the truck and had barely moved a step when he pulled out and disappeared in a puff of dust.
             

             
Word came down the following day. Becca had been given the promotion. Jo did not have to wait for Kathleen to tell her. She heard from the water cooler gossip crowd as she walked to her office first thing that morning.

             
“Too bad, Jo,” a clerk named Beth had said. “Maybe a promotion would have made up for the fact that you can’t even keep your sister from stealing your man.”

             
The others had laughed.

             
Kathleen called Jo to her office an hour later. “I hope you understand,” she had said. “Becca just seemed more interested in the position. If I had known you wanted it, I might have reconsidered. But what is done is done.”

             
Not that it mattered to Jo. The only thing she could think about was Mark.

             
All night Jo had lain in bed, tracing her hands over some of the same places Mark had touched just a few hours before. The pain of his abrupt departure still ached deep in her chest, stealing her breath from time to time as the memory popped vividly into her head. She couldn’t imagine what had caused him to rush off as he did. She replayed the whole episode over and over in her mind. He had said he couldn’t kiss her. Maybe Jo should have listened.

             
Despite everything, Jo waited breathlessly at lunchtime for Mark’s knock on the door. She even released her hair from its ponytail, brushed it out in front of a mirror in the ladies room. She found herself imagining what it would be like to feel his fingers in her hair, to feel him cradle her head in anticipation of a kiss. But anticipation was all there was. His knock never came.

             
As the day passed, so did Jo’s confidence. Doubts and supposition began to drift across her thoughts. Was it possible Mark still loved his wife? Or maybe he really was having a relationship with Kathleen? Then why did he kiss Jo, why did he seem so desperate for her touch? He could fake his compassion, his friendship, but no man can fake the passion Jo felt boiling in him just below the surface. He wanted her; she knew that without a doubt. But was it a need based in something other than affection? Was he using her? Was it all just a joke that had gotten out of control?

             
Jo could not believe that Mark was that heartless. Maybe he was as lonely as she was, maybe being close to a warm body, any body, had been the source of his need. But with clarity came the realization that Jo, while a willing participant, was not the woman he really wanted. Maybe he was simply trying to be a gentleman by not taking from her something he could not give back. It was simple. A kindness.

But why did it hurt so much?

             
Jo wished she could just talk to Mark for a minute. She wanted to explain to him what had happened, wanted to apologize for whatever it was that had made him turn from her. So she did something that was maybe a little childish. She called IT, pretending her computer had crashed.

             
Each of the IT techs had a specific floor that was their responsibility. Human Resources was Mark’s, so she knew it would be him that they would send. She sat behind her desk with her hair perfectly arranged around her face with the new curls curving around her jaw. She lay her hands on the desk in front of her, then moved them to her lap, wondering how she might look best. She kept fidgeting as she waited, unsure how to present the best image of herself. Would she look better in profile? Or would straight on be better? Should she wait behind the desk? Or maybe she would look better sitting on the couch? It turned out that it none of it really mattered.

             
When the knock came on her door and Jo called out in her best, feminine voice, it was another tech who stuck his head in the office.

             
“Your computer crashed?”

             
“Where’s Mark?”

             
The tech moved further into the room, gesturing over his shoulder with an awkward smile. “He said he had something he needed to do on the second floor. He sent me to help you out.”

             
Jo knew what that meant. Mark would rather lie and make excuses than be forced to be alone with her again.
             

The next morning, Jo walked into a meeting that was already in progress and unobtrusively slipped into a chair at the back of the room. Kathleen nodded in her direction before turning her attention to a presentation Becca was giving. Jo looked down at her notepad, doodling stick figures absently as she listened to the discussion of budget cuts the CFO had recently announced. Everyone was tightening their belts these days. It brought to mind another request for more funds Jo’s mother had made just the night before. How she was going to pay her own rent and her mother’s expenses this month Jo had no way of knowing. As if she didn’t have enough on her mind at the moment.

             
Jo glanced up as the meeting came to an end. Becca was looking in her direction before she turned to Kathleen, laughing at something the director said. Then, as though stepping straight out of her thoughts, Mark came into the room. He walked straight to Kathleen and Becca’s little group. Jo tried to catch his eye, even lifted her hand in the beginnings of a wave when his eyes landed briefly on her face. His expression darkened and he turned away, moving closer to Kathleen.

             
Jo’s stomach dropped to her feet. Clearly nothing had changed. In fact, she had the sense that things had only gotten worse. She regretted trying to force him to talk to her the day before. He must think she was stalking him, or something. Poor pathetic Jo, can’t seem to get the message even when his actions make it loud and clear.

Jo stood. She could feel eyes on her, but she couldn’t see anything but Mark’s hand on the small of Kathleen’s back as he guided her out of the room.

“Have dinner with me.”

             
Jo sighed into her cell phone. It was three days later, and Jo still couldn’t get Mark out of her mind. She had not seen him again, but somehow she didn’t really expect to. She wanted to talk to him, but what could she say? It seemed there was nothing adequate to say.

             
“I’m really not in the mood,” Jo said.

             
“Come on, Jo. I haven’t seen you since we set the date. I really need to talk to my big sister.”

             
It was the “Please, please, pretty please,” that finally got to Jo.

             
They met at Sfuzzi. Neither had ever been there before, but all Emily had to do was flirt with the middle-aged maître‘d and they got a prime table in the middle of the dining room, perfect for Emily to see and be seen. For the first fifteen minutes they were there Jo found herself studying the menu alone while Emily held court.

             
“Sorry,” Emily finally said as she took her seat. “I haven’t seen her for over a year. Can you believe we picked the same night to have dinner out?”

             
“Amazing,” Jo mumbled.

             
Emily missed the sarcasm in Jo’s voice and quickly launched into a recital of everything she and their mother had done to prepare for the wedding in the past week. Jo only caught part of it, the part where her mother had promised to pay for the flowers and the caterer, which meant that Jo would be paying for it. Great. Another debt to add to her growing financial instability. That promotion sure would have come in handy right about then.

             
Jo picked at her food, not really in the mood for the veal parmesan she had ordered. Emily happily chattered on. Jo looked across the table at her and had a sudden memory of a time when she was eight and Emily was three. She remembered Emily had just begun speaking in full sentences and suddenly her silent, agreeable little sister had become an argumentative rival. Jo couldn’t remember what it was that they were arguing about, but she remembered that her feelings had been terribly hurt and it seemed like nothing could make it better. And then Emily toddled up to her where she was pouting in a window seat in their shared bedroom and placed a tiny hand on her wrist. “Sorry, Jo,” she had said in her sweet baby voice. It still made Jo smile when she remembered that moment, remembered how surprised she was by Emily’s perception of her emotional state. It was a moment that had brought everything into sharp focus, reminding Jo that she would only ever have this one sister, this one best friend, for better and for worse.