Fade To Black. Amanda Stevens

stranger was seated at the counter again and didn’t look around. But Pierce’s appetite was gone. He tossed some bills onto the table and hurried through the café door.

      Outside, the sun blinded him. Pierce leaned against the building’s redbrick facade as the full realization of his plight hit him square in the face. He’d just spent the last of his money, he was still hungry, and he had absolutely nowhere to go.

      Wiping a streak of sweat from his temple, he pushed himself away from the building and started walking down the street.

      * * *

      “Now, let me get this straight,” Jay Greene said as he sat across the kitchen table from Jessica. “You’re telling me that Pierce Kincaid—a man who disappeared five years ago—strolled through your back door this morning as if he’d only been gone half an hour?”

      Jessica nodded weakly. “He even brought me the ice cream I’d sent him out to get that day, right down to the correct flavor.”

      “And you have no idea where he is now?”

      “I took Max next door, and when I came back, he was gone. That was this morning, Jay. He looked so tired, so…ill. I can’t help but think of him out there wandering the streets. It’ll be dark soon—” The look on Jay’s face stopped her.

      “I wouldn’t get carried away with the pity just yet, Jesse. This whole memory thing seems a little too convenient for me.”

      “You think he’s lying?” Her voice sounded anxious, shaky.

      “Wouldn’t be the first time a husband just up and took off. Think about it.”

      She had thought about it. Endlessly. “But…we were so happy,” Jessica protested. “We were both excited about the baby. The shop was doing great, we’d just bought this house—”

      “And maybe he woke up one morning and decided he couldn’t handle the responsibilities anymore. It happens, and Pierce Kincaid was always a bit footloose, if you ask me. You said yourself he ran the business in a haphazard fashion, and frankly he never struck me as the family-man type.

      “Now, out of the blue, he appears on your doorstep, just when you’ve gotten your own life in order. Look at this place, Jesse. It’s worth a small fortune, and so is the shop. When he tired of whatever the hell he was doing, why wouldn’t he want to come back here?”

      Jessica stared absently out the window. Jay wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t thought of herself, but it still wasn’t easy to hear. It wasn’t easy to think that Pierce might have walked out on her. That he had lied about his feelings for her.

      She had been so sure. So sure their love had been real.

      A breeze lifted the hem of the pale blue curtains as it carried in the evening scents—honeysuckle, clover and roses. Years ago, after long days at the shop, she and Pierce would sit on the back porch and sip wine while they watched the first stars twinkle out. Twilight had always been a special time of day for them, a time when the cares of the day melted away into the coming darkness.

      Had none of that meant as much to him as it had to her?

      As if echoing her thoughts, Jay covered her hand with his and asked softly, “How do you feel about him now, Jesse? What was it like seeing him again?”

      She sighed. “I’m not sure. I know you’re right. I do have to be careful, but you didn’t see him. I think he must have been in some sort of accident. He has all these scars. Do you think—could he have been kidnapped five years ago? Held all this time?”

      “With no ransom note?” Her brother looked skeptical. “It’s possible. Hell, anything’s possible. But victims who’re kidnapped either in a robbery or for sport usually turn up dead. Five years is a long time to hold someone captive.”

      “I know,” Jessica agreed, her tone bleak. “I just keep asking myself where he could have been all this time. What could have happened to him?”

      “Did he have any identification on him?”

      Jessica shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask to see it. I didn’t need to.”

      “You’re that sure it was him?” Jay’s icy gray eyes scrutinized her face.

      “It was him. It was Pierce.”

      Jay swept his hand through his brown hair, setting it on end. He shook his head. “Damn, what a mess. You know I’ll do what I can, but I couldn’t find out anything about him five years ago. It was as if he disappeared off the face of the earth. We may not have any better luck now.”

      “I just want you to find him,” she whispered desperately. “Whatever he’s done, wherever he’s been—he needs help.”

      “Your help?”

      Jessica hesitated for a moment, biting her lip. “He’s still my husband.”

      “Technically,” her brother agreed grimly. “All right, I’ll see what I can do.” He took out a pen and pad and began jotting down notes. “Give me a general physical description of how he looked, what he was wearing and all that. And how about a cup of coffee? This looks to be a long night,” he said with a sigh.

      Jessica rose from the table and reached for a cup, but the barking of a neighbor’s dog stilled her movements. A shadow swept across the open window, so swiftly she thought at first she’d imagined it. Then came a scraping noise on the back porch, as if someone had bumped into a chair.

      Jessica’s gaze flew to Jay’s, her heart hammering in her chest. He lifted a finger to his lips, silencing her. Slowly he reached for the light switch just as the sound of the back-door buzzer ripped through the quiet. Jessica gasped and Jay cursed softly as both their gazes fastened on the dark silhouette outside her kitchen door.

      Chapter Three

      At Jay’s nod, Jessica rose and went to answer the back door. Heart still pounding, she turned the knob and drew back the door. Pierce stood on the porch, his pale, gaunt features highlighted by the light from the open doorway. If possible, he looked even more weary than he had that morning.

      For the longest moment, he and Jessica stared at one another. Neither of them spoke, but the tension crackled between them like a live wire in an electrical storm.

      Then his hands slipped into the front pockets of his jeans and he shrugged, a gesture that was at once familiar and dear. The ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I seemed to have lost my key,” he said wryly.

      They both seemed to waver with indecision. Then with a little gasping sob, Jessica took a step toward him as Pierce moved toward her. His arms went around her and held her tightly as she clung to him, her eyes squeezed shut against the intense emotions spiraling through her.

      Pierce was alive!

      For a moment, everything else vanished from Jessica’s mind. She just wanted to hold him, assure herself that this was no dream. He buried his face in her hair, and she could feel his arms trembling as they held her, could feel his heart beating against hers. One hand came up and brushed through her tangled curls.

      “I’m sorry,” he whispered raggedly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come back here, but…I had to. I had to see you again, to make sure you were all right….”

      “It’s okay,” she said, her voice cracking with deep emotion. She could feel the leanness of his body against her, the sharply defined ridges of his ribs through the ragged shirt. Pierce had once been so virile and muscular. To see him now made Jessica’s heart ache with sorrow.

      But even now, when he’d been through God knows what, she could still sense remnants of strength in his arms, a hint of the same confidence she had always admired so much. Pierce was not a man who would be taken down without a fight.

      That thought struck her with cold reality. Was that why he had all