Devon stared at him, her shocked mind unable to grasp the meaning behind his words. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I won’t agree to a divorce. Not until I get to know you and my kids again. Not until I see if I can get my life back and—” He broke off and swallowed convulsively. Were it not for the expressionlessness of his tone, the coldness in his eyes, Devon might have thought that he was struggling with strong emotions. Then, without waiting for a response, he rose and stalked from the cabin leaving Devon to stare numbly at the closed door.
I don’t have a clue who you are, but it is possible that you are my wife...I won’t agree to a divorce... The words echoed in her mind. Stunning. Inconceivable. Until I see if I can get my life back. Was this stranger who looked like Geoff now telling her he wanted to reclaim a life with her—with her children—in it? Devon shook her head. This was not going the way she’d planned it at all!
Chapter 2
Jack shoved his hands into the pockets of his chinos and hunched his shoulders against the crisp night air He’d forgotten to put on his jacket, but he’d be damned if he’d go back and get it. Not yet
He took a deep breath and absently watched his exhalation condense into mist as he wondered what the hell had happened to him in the last few hours. He felt as though he’d been swept up in a tornado His emotions were spinning out of control until he didn’t know which way to move, what to think or do Was this woman. this Devon, his wife? He felt no sense of recognition, but after almost two years of existing in limbo, he wasn’t willing to discount her claim too readily.
When she’d initially shown up on his doorstep calling him “Jeff” and talking to him as though she knew him, Jack had relegated her visit to one of two possibilities. One, it was an interesting case of mistaken identity. Or, two, she was a cop playing an elaborate game of entrapment Ever since he’d accidentally been caught on camera the previous night, he’d been plagued by the worry that the authorities would find him
He visualized the scrap of now-yellowed newspaper that lay in the drawer of his dresser. That single scrap of paper, in large part, had defined the course of his life over the past two years. He’d read it so many times, wondering if he was doing the right thing, searching for clues as to what was behind it, that he no longer had any need to see it to replay the exact words recorded there
Missing Plane Found Amid Rumors Of Fraud
The light plane that disappeared in rugged north country almost three weeks ago was found yesterday by a bush pilot just one week after the seemingly futile search had been called off. Rescuers were immediately dispatched to the scene, however it now appears that there are no survivors Due to the condition of the bodies, a positive ID will have to come from the coroner’s office However, identification discovered at the site leads investigators to believe that the remains of the two victims found in the downed plane are those of Geoffrey Grayson and Holly Loring The third passenger of the plane, Spencer Loring, remains missing, but is presumed dead.
“Given the state of the craft, it would have taken a miracle for anyone to emerge with anything less than life-threatening injuries,” says Chief Investigator Sergeant Marett. “Factor into the equation the passage of time and the harshness and remoteness of the country in this region, and the situation becomes very bleak.”
The search for Spencer Loring’s remains will continue, but investigators are not particularly optimistic The ruggedness of the terrain will make any exploration difficult at best
Even should he, by some miracle, have survived the crash that took the life of his wife, it is entirely possible that Spencer Loring may not want to be found In a curious twist to this story, this reporter has learned that rumors of fraud are surfacing in a number of quarters in connection with Loring’s company, Fort Knox Security, although no details have yet been officially released. However, anonymous sources suggest that, if there is any substance to the accusations taking shape. Spencer Loring may prefer to remain missing rather than return to face a criminal trial and possible jail term More on this will be forthcoming as details are disclosed.
Jack had never seen any other articles, but he hadn’t felt he needed to. Until now.
The front door opened and he tensed. Not yet, dammit’ He wasn’t ready to deal with her and the chaos she’d brought into his life
“Geoff—”
He exhaled and slowly turned to face her. She stood in the center of the porch. The bulkiness of her silhouette told him she’d donned her jacket, but the darkness prevented him from seeing her clearly. Still, the powers of observation he’d used earlier stood him in good stead for he knew exactly what she looked like. About five foot six, she was slim, perhaps a little more curvy than current fashion dictated, and definitely more than passingly attractive She wore her straight sable brown hair in a shoulder-length style with bangs. Her eyes were a bit on the small side, but they were a clear luminous gray that made them seem larger. Her features were delicately boned, almost fragile, with high cheekbones and a narrow nose that was neither too long, nor too short. She had full kissable lips and a set of ortho-dontic-perfect teeth. The scarlet red of the sweater she wore made her fair complexion appear almost translucent. Although she wasn’t beautiful in the fashion-model sense, he could certainly understand what he had seen in her. If indeed he ever had.
But Jack didn’t trust her completely. In fact, he was feeling distinctly paranoid. “Yeah?” he asked in response to her call. His tone was more abrupt than he’d intended.
“I ..I’m confused.”
He barked a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “You think you’re confused” Who the devil was he? Geoff Grayson? Spencer Lonng ? Or some other person whose name had not yet surfaced? Or, would he maintain the Jack Keller persona he himself had invented in a rash attempt at self-preservation?
“Are you saying—?” She broke off and raked her fingers through her hair, setting the bangs on end. The gesture had the earmarks of a habit that emerged when she was stressed or looking for words. “Do you have amnesia?” The words came out in a rush.
He considered her, wondering if she would accept his explanation or reject it as fiction “Yes ” He offered her nothing more. He didn’t trust her enough yet to share the birth of Jack Keller with her
Jack Keller had come into existence in an old recluse’s cabin near Great Beaver Lake in northern British Columbia a few short days after he’d awakened to the glare of a pair of vibrant, piercmg blue eyes set in a grizzled face topped by a thick mop of white hair It had been a rather frightening and intimidating countenance when beheld from the viewpoint of a man who found himself barely able to speak and as weak as a baby. The image of those eyes gleaming down at him, studying him with an air of detached curiosity, was as clear in his memory now as it had been on that day. However, the first words out of the crusty old codger’s mouth had served to lessen his trepidation.
“Hurry up and get well so you can get out of here and leave an old man to his privacy, will ya, Spence?”
Spence?
The name had rung no bells, come with no sense of belonging. And that was when Jack had found himself floating on a sea of anonymity He had no idea who he was, where he had come from, or where he was going. And the old man—who introduced himself as Bill Johnson—knew little more, for the man carrying Spencer Loring’s identification was a stranger to him. He’d discovered him wounded and hypothermic in the woods nearby, and so hoarse he was almost mute Bill surmised that he’d ruined his voice by shouting for help.
“How bad is it?” Devon asked, startling Jack back to the present. She moved toward him, and for the first time he noticed that she carried something in her hands. In the next instant, she draped his sheepskin jacket over his shoulders and tugged it close around him before backing away to a comfortable distance. For some reason, her gesture warmed Jack in a way the jacket itself could never have done. He hadn’t been a monk in the last two years by any means, but he’d found that most women tended to
be reserved around him. Wary. The caring little courtesy that Devon had just extended was not something that he’d received often.
Was it something she’d done for Geoff? he wondered. Had they shared a loving and demonstrative relationship? In the next instant, he dismissed his musings as pure fancy. Their relationship couldn’t have been as wonderful as all that or she wouldn’t be seeking a divorce.
“Geoff?”
“Yeah?”
“The amnesia.” As he watched her, Devon raised clasped hands to her chin and closed her eyes for a moment, appearing almost as though she was praying. Then she said, “I asked you how bad it is,” in a voice scarcely above a murmur.
Not in the mood to discuss his situation, he purposely misunderstood her question “It’s amnesia. It’s bad.”
“That’s not what I meant ” Lowering her hands, she took a step closer to stand directly in front of him so that she could look up into his face. “How much have you forgotten, Geoff?”
Her movement brought her into the multi-hued illumination created by the Christmas lights that lined the porch railing, and he stared at her for a moment, searching for some genuine concern for him. But he read only confusion in the depths of her dove gray eyes. He decided to make his response quick, and, hopefully, painless. “I have no personal memories.”
“None?”
“None,” he confirmed “Not even my own name.”
“Oh, God.” Once again she raised her hands to her chin in a praying gesture. “Oh, Geoff, I’m sorry. These last two years must have been horrible for you, too. I never considered anything like this. It’s so. unbelievable.” She concluded on a choked sound, suspiciously like a sob. And, avoiding his gaze, exhaled a sigh on a cloud of steam into the chill night air.
Jack knew what she meant Amnesia was the stuff of novels, not life. That made it unbelievable. Hell, if he wasn’t living it, he wouldn’t believe it either.
The silence stretched and Devon hugged herself against the cold air. Then slowly she looked back at him. “So you had no clue whatsoever as to your identity?”
Jack shook his head. She probably didn’t want to believe the amnesia angle and he couldn’t blame her. It was pretty inconceivable. “Do you remember a man named Spencer Loring?” he asked.
“Of course I remember Spencer He was your best friend. You often did business together.” Abruptly, Devon broke off as her gaze raked his face in consideration. “Do you remember him?”
He didn’t respond at once He had believed that he was Spencer Loring. A man who for some reason had run afoul of the law. Knowing he couldn’t defend himself against criminal charges when he had no memory of the situation from which they’d arisen, he’d taken an alternate identity and silently mourned the loss of a wife whom he couldn’t remember.
Jack shook his head. “No, but it was his identification I was carrying when I was found.”
She frowned thoughtfully and stared out at the snow-draped cedars. “That’s possible. You both carried your wallets in your jackets. The weekend your plane crashed, you were both wearing denim jackets. If you had taken the jackets off at some time during the flight, then you could have grabbed the wrong one when you put yours back on. Especially if, when you put it on, you were disoriented after the crash.”
She stared thoughtfully out at the yard for a moment and then she continued in a musing tone, as though thinking aloud. “It wouldn’t have been the first time you two accidentally switched jackets. It actually happened a couple of times before, because you were the same size and had much the same taste in clothing. But...”
“But what?”
She looked at Jack. “Spencer’s driver’s license would have had his picture on it.” The statement doubled as a question, and Jack knew what she was asking.
“I thought it was a bad picture.”
“Spencer had very dark brown hair and brown eyes.”
Jack shrugged. “Like I said, I thought it was a bad picture. Other than those two small details, it looks like me.”
Devon considered him thoughtfully and finally conceded. “There were some people who used to think you were brothers. But I don’t understand, if you thought you were Spencer, why are you going by the name Jack Keller?”
Jack studied her intently as a fragment of the paranoia engendered by his amnesia returned to haunt him. But he’d already told her more than he’d ever told anybody. “The old man who nursed me back to health following the accident brought a newspaper to the cabin after one of his trips to town. There was an article in it that suggested that Spencer was in big trouble with the authorities ”
Devon slowly nodded “I remember it,” she said. “I think there were even some rumors concerning Future-Tech for a while Future-Tech sold Fort Knox Security many of the security systems that Spencer installed. As far as I knows, nothing came of it. Dad handled it and, as usual, refused to worry me with the details But, from what I understood, all the charges against Future-Tech were dropped I think some companies are still in the process of suing Spencer’s estate for damages though.”
Abruptly, she shivered and rubbed her arms. “I’m freezing.”
Jack studied the woman standing before him. He’d understood less than half of what she’d just said. Future-Tech? What had a company called Future-Tech to do with them? How had her father handled It? And what damages had been incurred?
But in the next instant, as his mind took a different tack, he dismissed his questions for they seemed distant and unimportant.
It was incredible to him that this attractive woman could be his wife. That he could have had two children with her That they would have undoubtedly shared a number of years together. And yet he could remember not the slightest thing about her. She was a stranger to him.
He looked out over the snow-frosted landscape. In moments of weakness, he’d sometimes longed for a way to reclaim a life with meaning, with people around him who cared. But he’d relegated his longing to the realm of a dream that would never be realized and resigned himself to this new existence. And now.. now Devon had shown up on his doorstep and he no longer knew what to think.
His initial inclination had been to doubt her But, when she’d said her name was Grayson, he’d begun to question Was it possible that, for some reason, he’d been carrying another man’s ID? Was it possible that he was Geoff Grayson? That he had no reason to avoid the law because he’d never run afoul of it in the first place? That he had a life somewhere?
Turning away from Devon, he squeezed his eyes closed and took another deep breath of the mountain air. When he’d awakened on the floor of the bathroom, he’d gone over everything that had happened. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that if he gave Devon the one thing she asked of him—a divorce—it would mean relinquishing any claim he might have to a past life. He wasn’t prepared to cast that stake away lightly.
In the next instant he’d been furious with her, hating her for offering him the possibility of a life, a real life somewhere with friends and family who cared, but not wanting him in it. She’d driven all day to find him, not because of some great love for him, but because she wanted a divorce. She wanted to cut him, officially, out of her life.
“Who is he?” Jack asked aloud.
There was a second of silence as she sought to follow his train of thought. “My fiance?”
Jack nodded. He needed to know who the man was who had her love now. Who was the man she wanted to raise his children in his stead? His children. The words echoed in his mind, bringing a lump to his throat.
“David Randolph,” Devon replied. “You may remember—” She broke off abruptly at her poor choice of wording, and then resumed “He’s a lawyer in my father’s law firm. We were planning on being married this summer, but..well, now that I know you’re still alive that won’t be possible until we finalize a divorce ”
The silence grew. Finally, Jack reiterated his position. “There’s not going to be a divorce until I get a chance to try to reclaim my life. I want
to get to know my kids ”
What had their names been? Oh, yes Britanny and Tyler He searched the black void of his mind for any hint of their presence in his life, but again came up empty. The doctors had long since given up hope that he would regain his lost memory It’s been too long, they said. The longer it takes the less likelihood there is of a full recovery Still. Jack refused to despair. He had lived for a reason. He had to believe that. And maybe his children were the reason
Kids needed two parents He had a beautiful daughter to raise and to protect from unscrupulous males A daughter to draw pictures with and teach to cook. And he had a son to take fishing and sailing A son to teach how to be a good and decent man His heart swelled
“Geoff, you don’t need to be married to me to reclaim your life You’re welcome in the children’s lives, and Future-Tech is still alive and kicking although it’s not quite as profitable as it was when you were running it ”
He ignored her argument in favor of divorce and focused on her second statement. “This Future-Tech you keep mentioning was my company?”
She nodded “A production and design company, Future-Tech Manufacturing”
“What did I design?”
“Computer hardware components, security systems, that kind of thing. You did a bit of the software programming too, but not much. Primarily you hired programmers to meet those needs”
Jack thought about that, and wondered if that knowledge would come back to him Or, perhaps he’d never lost it, but it hadn’t surfaced simply because he hadn’t called upon it That’s how most of his knowledge had returned to him, with the single exception of his personal life. He resolved to put the theory to the test as soon as possible. Reclaiming his career would be an important step in reclaiming his life
“And there were rumors of Future-Tech being involved in the same fraud as Fort Knox Security?”
“Yes, but like I said, Dad took care of it.”
A Season Of Miracles Page 3