the ones that are documented are in private collections. But I found this in a little shop on the outskirts of Paris. The owner didn’t realize what he had.”
Jessica was like a sponge. She drank in every word Pierce uttered, exclaimed over the beauty of each and every piece he brought back from his treasure hunts. She loved being surrounded by beautiful things with fascinating histories, possibly because her own past was so dismal. She adored having Pierce spend hours talking to her, devoting his time solely to her. She’d never had so much attention before.
When she’d been working for him for six months, he gave her a raise and added responsibilities. He began leaving her in charge when he went on his regular jaunts overseas. When he returned, he’d tell her intriguing stories about the places he’d been to and the people he’d met as they pored over his findings.
“Pop quiz today, Jessica. Tell me how we can be certain this is an authentic Allenburg watercolor?” he would ask, a teasing glint in his dark eyes as he and Jessica unwrapped the paintings.
With a magnifying glass, Jessica would locate the tiny hidden water lily which identified the artist’s work, and Pierce would smile his approval. “Excellent. Perhaps you deserve a reward,” he would say, with that mysterious, sexy smile that always sent her heart racing. And then he’d take her out to lunch at some little out-of-the-way place, which would have both excellent service and scrumptious food. And for the rest of the day, Jessica would feel special and pampered.
When she’d been with Pierce a year, he began taking her on buying trips with him occasionally. Slowly but surely, under Pierce’s expert tutelage, Jessica began to blossom, to come out of her self-imposed exile. And slowly but surely she was falling madly, passionately, desperately in love with her boss.
When she’d been with Pierce fifteen months, he asked her to marry him. They were in Paris, and at first Jessica convinced herself that the romantic ambiance of the city of light, the effusive flow of champagne at the Cochon d’or had made Pierce impulsive.
“If I were impulsive,” he explained, staring at her over the flickering candle on their discreetly located table, “I would have proposed to you the first time I laid eyes on you. Because I knew even then that you and I were meant to be, Jesse. You knew it, too, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I knew it.”
“Then say you’ll marry me,” he demanded, his eyes glowing with triumph.
“I’ll marry you,” she said, and then he lifted her hand and slipped a beautiful antique diamond and garnet ring onto her finger.
“You won’t regret it. I’ll make you so happy you’ll forget all about the past.”
“I already have,” she vowed.
Weeks later, they were married and settled into their home in a lovely neighborhood only a few miles from the shop. Edgewood, located a few miles from Langley, Virginia, and across the river from Washington, D.C., was home to a lot of government and military employees. Though not as pricey as Georgetown or Alexandria, it still boasted many of the same attractions: tree-shaded sidewalks, cobblestone streets, elegant old Federal and Georgian homes, as well as a close proximity to the nation’s capital.
Jessica loved her job at the shop, but she gladly gave it up to concentrate on remodeling and redecorating their home. She had no higher aspiration than to be the perfect wife and mother. She loved Pierce dearly, needed him desperately.
How could she have known back then that the one person she held most dear, loved more than life itself, would eventually leave her just like all the others had?
Jessica rested her forehead against her knees as she closed her eyes, trying to push away the memories. Why? she asked herself over and over.
Why had Pierce left her?
And why had he come back?
How could he not remember five years of his life? And yet that was exactly what he’d told her. What had been five years of grief and loneliness, struggle and frustration for Jessica had only been a mere thirty minutes in time to him. What could have happened to him?
He’d been hurt. She could tell that by the scars on his face and arm. It made her shudder to think what he might have gone through. There was only a shadow remaining of the man she’d known, loved, adored. But was that shadow merely a mirage? Was there anything left of the man from her past?
At that moment, Jessica wasn’t sure she could handle the truth—whatever it turned out to be.
* * *
Pierce walked the streets. By force of sheer will, his tired legs carried him farther and farther away from that house. From his home. From his wife. From his son.
The image of those huge dark eyes in that solemn little face brought stinging tears to his own eyes. He rubbed the back of his hand across them, trying to erase the vision as he wiped away the moisture. He had a son. Dear god, a five-year-old boy he didn’t even know.
And Jesse. Sweet, lovely, fragile Jesse. She seemed so cold, so hard, so suspicious. But five years had elapsed, she’d said. Five years! How could that be? How the hell could that be? Pierce asked himself desperately.
Just a moment in time for him had been five years of limbo for her. One glance in the mirror had told him she wasn’t lying—not that Jesse ever would. Not his Jesse, he thought as his fingers moved to touch the scar on his face.
But the woman back there, the cold-eyed, beautiful stranger was not his wife. He felt something of the loss and betrayal now that she must have felt so long ago when he hadn’t come back, and he despaired for them both.
A car horn blasted in his ear, and Pierce jumped back from the curb, startled to alertness. The driver shook his fist at him as the car zoomed through the intersection.
Pierce paid him scant attention. Automatically he waited for the traffic light to change, then walked aimlessly across the street. A bright red Coca-Cola sign flashed in the morning sun over a corner café, reminding him rather urgently that he was hungry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He couldn’t remember anything, in fact, beyond two hours ago.
That wasn’t exactly true, he realized. Ever since he’d seen Jesse’s shocked face, he’d been experiencing certain…impressions. Impressions of darkness and pain, of wandering around hopelessly lost but knowing all the while there was some place he should be, had to be. That certainty had driven him relentlessly through the mists until, almost as if he’d awakened from a long, deep sleep, he’d found himself at the grocery store and everything had clicked back into place.
For Pierce, the world had stopped for five years, then started back up again in exactly the same place. But why? And how?
He gazed at the scar on his left arm. What the hell had happened to him?
Checking his pockets, he pulled out the bills and change he’d gotten back from the twenty he’d used at the grocery store earlier. He had no idea where the money had come from. Someone must have given it to him….
Suddenly the street noises faded. His surroundings disappeared. For just a flash of time, Pierce was back on an island, standing on the beach, staring at the sky. A bird soared high overhead, silhouetted in the brilliant sunlight. It was an image that instantly brought back feelings of anger and betrayal. A nagging premonition of danger. And
