Fade To Black. Amanda Stevens

get the ice cream, I walk back here, and in the space of half an hour, everything has changed. It’s like…a nightmare. Am I going crazy, Jesse?”

      At that moment, Jessica wasn’t completely sure of her own sanity. Her heart was beating against her chest so quickly and so hard that for a second she thought she might actually pass out. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “You walked out that door five years ago,” she said shakily, “and until you walked back in a few minutes ago, I hadn’t seen or heard from you in all that time. I thought you were dead.”

      If he noticed the faint note of betrayal in her voice, he chose to ignore it, concentrating instead on her words. “Five years? That’s impossible!”

      “Look at me,” she said desperately. “You said yourself I look different. I am different. I’m five years older.”

      His proprietary gaze raked over her, stirring something in Jessica she thought had long since died. She struggled to keep her expression calm, composed, but her mind reeled in confusion. The dark gaze probed her face, making her only too aware of the changes five years had wrought in her appearance.

      “If what you say is true, then that must mean—” he trailed off as his gaze dropped to her flat stomach once again “—that must mean…you’ve had the baby.”

      In the last few minutes, Jessica’s emotions had run the gamut—terror, shock, disbelief, anger and maybe even a glimmer of joy. But the emotion she felt now overwhelmed all the others. The fierce protectiveness for her child settled around her like an impenetrable shield.

      Max was hers. She’d given birth to him all alone. She’d raised him single-handedly. She’d made the sacrifices, she’d worked the endless hours to provide for a child she loved more than life itself. No one would take that away from her. Max was the one thing in her life she had ever been able to count on.

      She opened her mouth—to say what, she was never quite sure—but suddenly the back door slammed, and both of them jumped. In unison, Jessica and Pierce whirled toward the kitchen doorway where five-year-old Max, clad in jeans, a T-shirt and a shiny red Superman cape, stood staring up at them.

      The dark hair, the huge brown eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw and chin—all were identical to the stranger who stared back at him.

      The very air quivered with emotion. Max’s solemn little eyes took the stranger’s measure and seemed to find him lacking. His gaze shifted to Jessica then back to Pierce. He squinted his eyes. “Who are you, mister?” he demanded suspiciously.

      Jessica’s own gaze was locked on Pierce’s white face. She could see a muscle throb in his cheek, saw emotion after emotion sweep across his features. There was no mistaking Max’s identity. He looked exactly like his father. Pierce took a tentative step toward him.

      The slight movement roused Jessica. She made an involuntary sound of protest which drew both pairs of male eyes. She knelt and opened her arms, and Max flew across the room to her. She hugged him tightly against her as both of them stared up at Pierce.

      “My God,” he said woodenly as he gazed at mother and son across the room, “I don’t even know if I’m dead or alive.”

      He didn’t wait for a response but turned and walked through the swinging door of the kitchen. Jessica wanted to go after him but found that her heart was suddenly pulling her in two different directions as Max’s little arms caught around her neck and held on for dear life.

      “That man’s scary, Mom,” he whispered, clinging to her. “Is he going to hurt us?”

      “No, darling, he won’t hurt us,” Jessica soothed, hugging him. But even as she gave voice to her denial, she could feel the tender flesh of her neck where Pierce’s hand—a real, flesh-and-blood hand—had pressed.

      A warning pounded in her brain. He’s a stranger, she thought. The man somewhere in her house was not the Pierce she had known and loved. Wherever he had been, whatever he’d gone through in the past five years had changed him. She only had to look into those haunted eyes to know that.

      Maybe she’d never known him, she thought with a jolt. She’d shared her life with him, shared his bed, but had she ever really known him?

      She thought now, as she’d done for those five years, of all the times he’d been away during their marriage. So many of the trips had been unexpected it seemed now in retrospect. Sometimes when he’d been gone, she hadn’t heard from him for days at a time, but the answer to that had seemed very plausible. Many of the remote areas he traveled to in Europe and Asia, looking for treasures for The Lost Attic, his antique shop, didn’t have easily accessible telephones. In fact, Jessica had been to some of those off-the-beaten-track places with him.

      Back then, it had never occurred to her to question Pierce’s absences, the lack of phone calls. She’d simply accepted it. But maybe she should have questioned Pierce. Maybe she wouldn’t have gone through the hell she’d gone through the past five years if she’d taken the time to know Pierce Kincaid a little better.

      She’d believed what she’d wanted to believe, she realized now, because she’d wanted a home and family so badly. Someone to love her.

      Jessica untangled Max’s arms from her neck and stood. “Come on, honey. Let’s go back over to Sharon’s house. You’d like to play with Allie and Snowflake for a little while longer, wouldn’t you?”

      Max stared up at her with rounded brown eyes. “Are you coming back here?”

      “Yes.”

      “To talk to him?”

      “Yes.”

      Max clung to her hand. “I want to stay with you, Mom. I don’t think I like him. I don’t want him to hurt you.”

      She bent and smoothed the dark hair from his forehead. “You don’t have to worry about me, Max. I’ll be fine. Now, come on. I’ll walk you over.”

      As she and Max stepped outside, Jessica thought how normal everything looked, how perfectly ordinary a spring morning it was. The blue morning glory blossoms that climbed the trellis walls of the summerhouse were opened wide to the early sun. A mild breeze rippled through the trees, stirring the scent of roses and mimosa, and somewhere down the street a lawn mower droned.

      Everything was the same, and yet nothing was. Five years ago, when Pierce disappeared, Jessica had thought her life was over. For the first few months, all she’d hoped and prayed for was that he would one day come back to her. As long as no trace of him was found, she couldn’t let go of the hope that he was still alive.

      But the first time she’d held her tiny son in her arms, the realization had finally hit her. Pierce wasn’t coming back. She’d counted on him for everything, depended on him to take care of her, but he was gone. Suddenly she had no one to rely on but herself.

      Max had given her life new purpose. Not only had she been both mother and father to her son, but she’d taken over Pierce’s antique business, learned everything about it there was to learn, and it had continued to grow into a thriving concern.

      She’d accomplished a lot in the past five years, but those accomplishments had demanded restitution. She’d changed, so much so that sometimes when she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she hardly recognized herself. There wasn’t a trace of the old, dependent Jesse. She didn’t need anyone anymore. Certainly not a man who had walked out on her five years ago. For whatever reason.

      Her hand tightened on Max’s. She felt his fingers squeeze hers back in response, and Jessica’s heart melted with love. She would do anything, anything to protect her little boy.

      Together they slipped through the opening in the thick hedge that divided the two properties. Sharon sat on the back porch steps, watching Allie and Snowflake romp in the shady grass beneath an elm tree.

      “I knew you couldn’t keep Max away,” Sharon called gaily. “Might as well come have a cup of coffee while the two of them torment poor