“Yes.” She watched him as he looked around. “What are you thinking?”
“That it’s about as different from my place as an apartment could be,” he chose to say, but he was also thinking that her life had been different from his. She’d been surrounded by people always—but then, that meant she had a team to support her. Pierce understood that. “I live in a new building overlooking the High Line. It’s a lot smaller than this.”
“And you don’t like it?”
“It’s more austere than I expected.” He turned to survey her place again, trying to put his finger on the difference. “This feels like home, someone’s home. My place feels more like a hotel or a rental. A place to keep my stuff, such as it is.”
“You could fix that.”
“I have no idea how. It’s beyond my capabilities.”
“I doubt it.” Jacquie said with surprising conviction. “What about mementos? You must have souvenirs from your adventures.” She pointed to the living room. “My mom and Ernest bought that rug on a trip to Morocco. The shop arranged the shipping and they were never sure it would arrive. It took almost a year. Every time my mom looked at it, she told that story.”
“And when you look at it, you hear her voice again.”
Jacquie smiled and blinked quickly. Her voice was husky when she spoke. “Yes. Exactly.”
“Does that mean that it wouldn’t be a home without your ghosts?” Pierce sorted the ingredients, checking that he had everything, then located cutting boards and knives.
“Maybe not.” She thought about it. “Maybe I’d feel lonely without them.” She shrugged and found a lemon zester at his request. “What about yours?”
“Not sure I want all of them in my apartment. My memories are mostly completed assignments, or failed ones. Reconnaissance missions. Bunkers and sand.” He shook his head. “A lot of sand. I don’t need any of that around.”
“You must have had some good times.”
“Sure, but...” Pierce bit his tongue before he said something tactless on this particular night.
“But,” Jacquie prompted.
He met her gaze. “A number of those people are dead, and died in unpleasant ways. I can’t remember one without the other.”
She nodded and her throat worked as she looked down at the counter. “I’ll trade you then. One good memory from you and how you could celebrate it in your place, for one story of Mitchell that’s commemorated here.”
“You’re always trying to fix things, aren’t you?” he teased and she flushed.
“Aren’t you? I thought that was one of the things we had in common.”
She was right.
“All right, you have a deal,” Pierce said, not because he wanted to talk about his past but because he wanted to know more about Mitchell. He saw the dead man, in a way, as competition, and he was accustomed to learning as much as possible about competitors—even ones that couldn’t be defeated. “You first.”
“Chicken!” she teased.
“You have to show me how it’s done,” he protested, glad he was making her laugh. “It’s all new territory for me. And I have to dice shallots.”
“You can’t talk and dice shallots at the same time?”
“It takes all of my concentration to dice shallots,” he assured her solemnly but Jacquie laughed again.
“Then maybe you can’t listen to a story at the same time either.”
“I thought that might make it easier for you, if I was a little bit distracted.”
She considered him with a small smile. “It is a bit spooky how well you understand me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She heaved a sigh. “It’s odd, but also nice.” She bit her lip, then eyed him, her gaze steady. “It means I can confide in you.”
“Only fair since you challenge me to confide in you,” he replied without thinking about it and was rewarded by the bright flash of her smile.
“Exactly,” she said. “Although this one might be too much.”
“I’m ready,” he said, wondering what she could possibly confide that would be too much.
Jacquie squared her shoulders as if gathering her nerve, then went to the last cupboard in the kitchen. Pierce began dicing shallots, wondering what she’d tell him.
It was time to share this story, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Jacquie took a little lidded pot out of the last cupboard and brought it back to Pierce’s side. It was a sugar bowl with pink rose decals on it. She opened it and removed the gold band inside.
Pierce blinked then kept dicing, and she knew he’d guessed what it was.
“Mitchell put this ring on my finger, in front of all of our nearest and dearest, in April 1993. A beautiful sunny spring day. I was pregnant with Ashley at the time and eighteen years old. We’d finished high school and he’d gotten a job at the bank.” Jacquie was surprised that once she started the story, the words flowed effortlessly. Pierce was a good listener—intent but not inclined to interrupt—and she liked having his attention. She never felt foolish, no matter what she told him. “My father said we couldn’t get married unless Mitchell had a job. Technically, we could have, but it was easier to make him happy. I worked part-time at the local department store. We rented a one bedroom apartment in Jersey that was a walk-up over a stationary store and thought we were the luckiest people in the world.”
Pierce’s lips tightened to a thin line but he kept chopping.
Jacquie turned the ring in the light but didn’t put it on. “I took this ring off twenty years ago tonight, when they called to tell me that Mitchell wouldn’t be coming home again.” She frowned. “It was late. Almost midnight. I’d been annoyed with him for working so late and on a Saturday. It had been a really challenging day, then that news. I was furious as well as devastated. I’ve never been so filled with conflicting emotions in my life.”
Pierce nodded. “How could he die on you?”
“Exactly!”
“You had a young baby and three small children.” He frowned slightly and pushed the diced shallots aside. “I’ve never had
