years, he thought again. Five years of his life gone in the blink of an eye. How much more was lost to him than just that time?
“I hope to hell you know what you’re doing,” Jay muttered angrily as he pushed past them both and strode out of the kitchen.
Jessica chewed her bottom lip, a nervous habit Pierce remembered so well. It heartened him to know that at least some things hadn’t changed.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, then turned and hurried after her brother. Pierce hesitated a moment, then pushed through the door, too, distracted once again by all the changes Jesse had carried out on the house. Changes they had once planned to work on together.
Had she done all this by herself? he wondered as he walked through the formal dining room. The decor was elegant, but somehow the room left him cold. It was almost too perfect, he thought, remembering the house he’d grown up in. There was no life in it. No warmth. No love. It was a room that matched the hard chill in Jessica’s eyes.
He walked through to the living room and looked around. He liked this room better. The pictures of Max in here added a homey touch that somehow soothed him.
Jessica had walked her brother to the door, and now they both stood in the foyer, their furtive whispers attesting to the nature of their conversation.
Pierce crossed the hardwood floor to the fireplace and picked up one of the pictures of Max he’d studied so intently that morning. A baseball cap angled over the boy’s forehead as his brown eyes squinted into the sun. There was a rip in his shorts and a scab on one scrawny knee.
Pierce’s heart melted. He’d loved the baby Jesse had been carrying, and now he loved this little boy with an intensity that astounded him.
Jessica stood at the end of the sofa and watched Pierce. He didn’t look up, and she realized he hadn’t heard her come in. She watched him trace a finger gently along the photo, and the look of fierce possessiveness that came over his face shocked her. Her heart skidded with warning as her own defenses rose in reaction.
Pierce glanced up, and the expression in his eyes confirmed her deepest fears. When he spoke, his voice gave rise to new ones. Jessica trembled with dread as his gaze continued to hold hers.
“Where is he, Jessica? Where’s my son?”
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