Coast Road (25 page)

"Christ, " he said and pushed his hands through his hair. "Why didn't she tell me after? " "When, after? When you called, it was to arrange to see the girls, not to ask about her. Nothing that happened after suggested she was wrong.

She was convinced you'd lost your interest in her."

"Well, I hadn't.

" He felt an overwhelming sadness. "Ahhh, Rachel, " he breathe , lifting her hand to his chest, "you should have told me."

"Would it have made a difference? " Katherine asked.

He felt too hollow to be annoyed. "I don't know, " he murmured.

"Maybe." He would have liked a son. Hell, he would have liked another daughter.

They had talked about having more children, but their finances were stretched with two, and then, once Hope was out of diapers, they enjoyed the freedom.

If he had known she was pregnant, they might have talked. She wasn't the only one who thought her partner didn't care anymore. If he had known she was pregnant, he would have come home from that trip.

At least, right now, that sounded like the right thing to do. Back then, he was in a different place. He was riding high on success, so involved with it and with his work.

"For what it's worth, " Katherine said, "she would have lost the baby whether you were there or not. She didn't blame you for the miscarriage , only for not being with her to lend comfort and support when it happened."

"Yeah." He sighed. "Well, I can see that she did." So now he knew what had actually caused that final break. Not that it helped. He still felt abandoned. Rejected. Alone. Baby or no baby, she had gone off and begun a new life.

Thinking about that new life made him think about her friendship with Katherine. "You said you met her at the gynecologist's office. In Carmel? " "Yes."

"Did she have more trouble after she left the city?

" "No. She was just having a follow-up exam, getting to know a local doctor. We got to talking. There was instant rapport. One thing led to another. We went for coffee, then lunch, then coffee. She was very supportive." He would have thought it was the other way around. "She was supportive? " Katherine paled. She gave a quick little tip of her head, a dismissal that dismissed nothing.

"Why were you seeing the doctor? " he asked.

He could see her mind working as she stared at him. Then she glanced back at the door. No one was there. She looked down at Rachel. After another minute, she returned to Jack. "I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer." His eyes widened. It was all he could do not to look at her chest.

"Bad? " She sputtered out a laugh. "That's like being a little pregnant versus a lot pregnant."

"You know what I mean."

"I do.

And no, it wasn't bad in that way. Nothing had spread. The lymph nodes were clear. What they found in me was microscopic, tiny in situ ductal carcinomas. I'm living proof of the miracle of early detection.

If I hadn't had a mammogram, I'd either be dealing with a lump right now or dead." She took a tiny breath. "That was the good news. The bad news was that I had tiny little grains of it in both breasts. " She made a gesture that would have suggested beheading had it been eight inches higher. T Jack did look this time, because not once�and he had seen Katherine numerous times in the last week, wearing different outfits, including sweaters that clung�not once had he thought her body was anything but that of an attractive, shapely forty-something female.

She chuckled. "Your mouth is open."

I know�it's just�I don't see�" "Reconstruction."

"Ah." He was embarrassed. "Good as new."

"From the outside, " she said, and with those three words, her defensiveness was back. Jack hadn't realized it was gone until then.

But yes, she had been softer, very human.

"In what ways was Rachel supportive of you? " he asked.

Katherine studied Rachel for a minute before nodding slowly. "She was there for me, the proverbial phone call away. She talked me through many a rough spot."

"Like? " "Like deciding between lumpectomy and mastectomy. Like choosing a surgeon and a plastic surgeon, and trying to decide which method of reconstruction was best. Like dealing with the knowledge that until the surgery was done and the lymph nodes were tested in the path lab, I didn't know whether the cancer had spread.

Like wondering if I would survive the surgery, much less the disease.

" The corner of her mouth twitched. "Aren't you glad you asked? " He was. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had a clue.

"Rachel was there the entire time�before, during, and after, " she said.

"You have no family nearby? " She folded her arms over those perfectly natural-looking breasts.

"Have? No. Had? Yes. I was married at the time. My husband had a squeamish stomach." Ahhhh. She'd had a husband. The missing piece�and apparently a huge one. "He wasn't there at all? " "Well, he was. In a way." Her tone was wry, bitter. "Roy was a golf pro. We moved here from Miami when he got a job offer he couldn't refuse. He ran tournaments at a club in Pebble Beach. That's big stuff.

He didn't have the time to sit in doctors' offices holding his wife's hand." She tipped her head, still wry, still bitter. "I could've lived with that. I mean, it was boring . . . tense . . .

time-consuming.

You'd sit in a cold cubicle in a thin paper gown waiting ninety minutes for one of the team of doctors to appear, and for what, a five-minute meeting? And the whole time you're thinking that this is the beginning of the end and you don't want to die. I'm a pretty composed person, but there were times, waiting, when I broke into a sweat and started shaking and thought that if I didn't get out of that damned cubicle in the next minute I'd go stark raving mad! " Jack would have guessed that Katherine Evans had come out of the womb composed. She was composed even then�but only on the outside. He saw that now. Her eyes and her voice conveyed anxiety aplenty.

She drew herself up. "So Roy couldn't take it, and I didn't push. It would have been worse for me having to deal with his nerves on top of my own. I did everything with only a minimal involvement on his part�the doctors, the preop tests, the surgery, the drains, the follow-up appointments. Rachel drove me to some. Other friends drove me to others.

I was fine until they dropped me off at my house."

"And then? " "Then Roy treated me like I was a leper." Jack swallowed.

"He was giving me space, he said. He didn't want to risk rolling over and hitting me in bed, so he slept in the spare room. He wouldn't sit too close or stand too close lest he inadvertently bump me. We had a huge bathroom�two sinks, separate Jacuzzi and shower, dressing table, and room to spare�but I had it all to myself. He said he didn't want me feeling self-conscious. He was giving me time to get used to the new me." Her tone was straightforward, her mockery all the more powerful for understatement.

"I recovered from the surgery. It was slower than I had expected� they don't tell you the half. But I gradually gained strength and felt better. I told myself I'd been given a gift of life. I went back to work even before I regained full use of my arms." He didn't follow.

"What was wrong with your arms? " "The lymph nodes come from the armpit, so there's cutting and internal scarring. That was one of the hardest parts of the recovery, another thing no one warned me about.

But I was working for someone else at the time, my clients were loyal, and I was tired of being disabled, so I pushed myself. It was the best thing I could have done. Those first few weeks I faded by noon and wound up at home with a heating pad on my back and cold packs on my arms where the muscles ached from fighting the scarring, but before long, I had full range of motion." She stopped. Looking at Jack, she was wryness personified.

Treating her with care now, he said a cautious "What then? " "Roy couldn't get it up."

"Excuse me? " "Sex. He couldn't handle it. He couldn't look at my breasts. I bought sexy black camisoles so that he wouldn't have to see them. It didn't matter."

"Did you kick him out?

" He assumed it was a given.

She surprised him by saying, "Not at first. I figured he needed time to adjust. I did, too. The truth was that I wasn't gung ho about sex then, either. Breasts are important sexual conduits. Suddenly I had none." When he glanced at her shapely chest, she said, "Not the same.

Even aside from the emotional element�which is major�the physical response just isn't there. The raw matter is gone. I was grappling with that. So Roy was off the hook for a time."

"Until? " "Until I learned he was screwing a little redhead from Santa Cruz." She rubbed Rachel's shoulder with her fingernails. "So we had that in common, too."

"Hey, I never cheated on Rachel."

"No, but you left her alone."

"I sure as hell didn't when I was home. So maybe I underestimated what she was feeling when I was gone."

"That's putting it mildly." Jack was feeling too raw to be criticized.

He was still trying to deal . _ with the fact of that baby. "You're taking your anger toward Roy out on me. That's unfair. I'm not Roy."

"Would you be attracted to a woman with no breasts? " "I'm attracted to a woman in a coma, " he said before he could censor the thought.

Quickly he added, "Forget Roy. There are other men in the world." She gave a dramatic sigh. "Yes, well, I told myself that, too, and along came Byron. I met him at a hair show in New York. By then I had my own shop, thanks to my divorce settlement. When you have your own shop, you have to be up on the latest styles and techniques. So I met Byron in New York. What a charmer. Flowers, cards, little gifts.

When he flew out here to see me, I put him in the guest room. I said I wasn't ready to sleep with him, and I really wasn't. But he was gorgeous, and there was a definite spark, and he was persistent."

"Didn't he�didn't you�" "We kissed. I touched him."

"But didn't he�" Touch your breasts? Jack couldn't imagine not touching Rachel's. He loved their softness and sway, loved the way they changed when he tasted and touched.

Those were the very things that Katherine missed and would never have again. He began to understand her loss.

"Men can forget everything but their own needs if you push the right buttons, " she said, "but it was okay. He was good in other respects.

We were taking our time getting to know each other. I thought of him as a friend, as well as a possible lover. Then I told him." Jack waited.

She remained composed. Only her eyes showed the pain. "Oh, it was gradual, his withdrawal. The phone calls came fewer and further between.

He had a show in Paris, so he couldn't fly out for Christmas. When I had to be in New York, he had a show in Milan. After a while, it was me making the calls. When I stopped, that was it. After three months of silence, he called to see how I was. I hung up on him." She took a shuddering breath. "Rachel helped me through that, too. So maybe we did feed into each other's anger and hurt." She gave an evil grin.

"But boy, did it feel good." l Jack smiled back. How to be offended, when the woman had just opened herself that way? He doubted many people knew that she'd been sick. She was a survivor on many levels.

He had a sudden thought. "That young guy the other day in the purple scrubs? " "My anesthesiologist. He had a crush on me. Stopped in at my room every day to see how I was. And the woman in the hall, Darlene? My plastic surgeon's nurse. She's back to working the floor.

" "And Steve Bauer? " Too casually, she said, "What about him? " "Did you know him before? " "Nope."

"Was I imagining your reaction to him? " He could see her start to nod. Then her chin came up in defiance. "No."

"There's a spark."

"Uh-huh. But it isn't going anywhere. In the first place, he's a doctor, and I've had enough of those to last a lifetime. In the second place, he's a man. I'll be very happy to keep those at arm's length for a while."

"You don't miss it? " "Miss what? " she asked, staring at him, daring him to say it.

"Okay." He couldn't imagine it, attractive woman that she was, but, hey, different strokes for different folks. "So you don't miss it. " "I didn't say I didn't, " she relented. "I used to love sex. There are times when I miss it a whole lot. Right now, as Rachel would say, it just isn't high on my list."

"What is? " "Making a go of the shop. Spending time with my friends.

Being there for people who were there for me." Jack knew she meant Rachel. He also knew that her priorities were noble. That made him feel all the worse�not to mention that by virtue of being male, he felt guilty by association with Roy.

"We're not all bad, " he said. "I'm here, aren't I? " She thought about that for a minute, seemingly without rancor. "Have you thought about the possibility that Rachel may only partially recover? What if she wakes up diminished? What if she can't talk right, or walk right?

What if she can't paint? What will you do then? " He hadn't thought that far. He didn't want to do it now. "Let's get her woken up first.

Then we'll worry about the rest. It's been a week." Katherine nodded and glanced at her watch. "I have to get back to work."