Coast Road (39 page)

Taking a steadying breath, he lowered her hand from his eyes. "I don't know if you can hear me, Rachel, but there are things I need to say.

There are things we need to say. If you wanted to get my attention, you couldn't have done it better. It's been an. . . enlightening few weeks." He whispered his thumb over her eyelids, feeling tissue-thin, soft skin that was surprisingly warm. "I want to talk about what happened. We never did that. We just kind of split up and went separate ways. Stopped talking over the piano." He was haunted by his memory of her picking out sad tunes that night, when she had given him an opening and he had walked away. "We fell back into who we were before we met, but that wasn't us. It was me. It was you. It wasn't us. Together we were something different, something better than we'd been. When did we lose that? " Through the ruckus of gasps, he imagined her voice, thoughtful and warm as it was in the best of times, but there were no words, no s answers, no mslght.

Suddenly angry, he whispered, "Don't you leave me in the lurch, Rachel Keats. Keats�God, I hate that. With all due respect to fuckin' women's rights, I hate it. You should be Rachel McGill. Or I'll be Jack Keats.

But we should be the same." He took a shuddering breath and said, fiercely, "We had a pretty damn nice marriage, Rachel. I want it back.

Don't you die on me now." He watched her face closely, hoping for a reaction. "Did you hear what I said? " he fairly yelled. "I want it back! " She didn't move, didn't blink, just took one gasping breath after another.

Frightened, he pulled up a chair and sat back.

should have said before, things he might never, ever have a chance to say. "Do it now, Sam. That's a lesson we all have to learn. If you know something's right, don't let it go." chapter nineteen.

JACK WAS IN the same chair an hour later. Samantha had squeezed in beside him and was sleeping under his arm. Hope was dozing, curled on her side against Rachel's hip. Noon had come and gone. Rachel was still blue, still gasping.

Samantha stirred. She looked at him groggily, then less groggily at Rachel. "No better? " she asked.

"Not yet. How's your head? " "Okay." She settled back against him in a way that spoke of how far they had come. If the chair was crowded, he didn't care. He wouldn't have moved for the world.

"I keep thinking about Lydia, " she said softly. "I should tell her about Mom." With only a minor stretch, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket, turned it on, and held it out.

It was a minute before she took it. "What if she hangs up when she hears my voice? " "She won't hang up." If she did, he would never forgive her. Samantha was headed in the right direction. He didn't want her derailed. "She's not that kind of person. Isn't that the lesson here? " Samantha fingered the phone for a. long time. "Maybe I should wait." He thought of the things he wanted to say to Rachel, things he SAMANTHA wanted privacy. Calling Lydia to grovel was hard enough. Doing it in public would be worse. So she walked to the end of the corridor and wedged herself in a lonely corner, and even then she hesitated. If Lydia refused to talk, she didn't know what she'd do. But Rachel had given her a perfect excuse. The blood clot was something to tell Lydia.

Lydia adored Rachel. All of Samantha's friends adored Rachel. They thought she was the nicest, most interesting, mostfun of the moms. Of course, they didn't have to live with her.

Feeling guilty to have thought that, she pressed in Lydia's number.

When Lydia's mother answered, Samantha's throat closed. In that instant, she would have given anything to hear her own mother's voice.

She cleared her throat. "Hi, Mrs. Russell. Is Lydia up? " "Samantha! We missed you last night. I thought for sure you'd stop over. Did you have fun? " Samantha's eyes teared up. She debated lying, but she was too tired, too nervous, too needy. "No. It wasn't . . . what I thought. Is everyone still there? " "Shelly just left.

I think Lydia's in the shower. Hold on. I'll check." Samantha turned in against the wall and waited.

"Yes, she's in the shower, " Mrs. Russell said a little too brightly.

"Is there a message? " No Hold on, she's getting out, no She'll call you right back�either of which Lydia would have done the week before.

"Um, it's kind of important. My mom is worse." There was a gasp, then the kind of worried "Oh dear" that Samantha would never have heard from Pam, Heather, or Teague, let alone any of their mothers. "Hold on, Samantha." She was an ally now. "Let me get her out." Samantha pressed her head to the wall. It seemed forever until Lydia's voice came through. It, too, was worried, but there was a distance to it.

"What happened to your mom? " Acting as though nothing had ever come between them, Samantha told her about the clot and ended with, "She's making an awful sound. It's very scary." There was a silence on the other end, then a wary "Do you want me to come? " Groveling sucked.

If Samantha was willing to forgive and forget, she didn't know why Lydia couldn't. "Not if you don't want to."

"I want to if you want me to be there. Do you? " "Yes."

"Okay." The line went dead before Samantha could say another word.

The coward in her was relieved to be let off the hook. But the hook was still there, so she felt dread. She also felt humbled. Lydia hadn't sounded young or stupid.

She had taken the phone when she had every right not to. It remained to be seen how she would be in person, but maybe Jack was right. Maybe there was a lesson here.

She jumped when the phone in her hand rang. Thinking that Lydia wanted to say more, even reconcile there and then, she pressed send and was about to speak when a loud male voice beat her to it.

"It's about time you turned on the fuckin' phone, Jack. I've been leaving messages at every number you have, and you don't call me back?

We're partners in this business, pal. You gotta carry some of the weight. I know Rachel's sick and you have a lot on the brain, but so do I. The natives are getting restless in Montana. They hired an architect, they want some plans, and I don't think they're gonna like those new ones you faxed. What's going on with you? Are we talking midlife crisis here? I'm getting the distinct impression you don't care about work anymore. Tell me this is a temporary thing." He paused, waited. "Jack? " "This is Samantha, " she said, standing taller. "If you want to speak with my father, you'll have to hold on.

" Dropping the phone to her side, she walked with deliberate leisure back to Rachel's room.

IACK saw her coming. He took heart from her composure, until she handed him the phone and said, "It's David. He is . . . fuckin' mad.

" He stared at her for the time it took to rake his upper lip with his teeth. Then he took the phone and stepped into the hall. "How're you doin', Dave? " "I'd be doing better if I thought you just weren't getting my messages.

Why haven't you called? " "Rachel's in the middle of a crisis. " "What kind of crisis? " "She's having trouble breathing. She can't get enough oxygen."

"Where are the fuckin' doctors? " "Right here, but they're doing all they can. We're waiting. That's all we can do.

" "Jesus." He gave a long, loud sigh. "How long this time, Jack?

When are you coming back on board? " "I don't know."

"Not good enough. I'm trying to run a business. We need you here, Jack."

"I can't be there. Not now."

"When? " "I'll let you know, " Jack ground out and turned off the phone.

When Samantha raised a fist and said, "Yesssss, " he smiled. It was a single fine moment in the middle of a mess.

KATHERINE had no intention of going to the Wharf for lunch. It felt wrong, with Rachel so sick. She wanted to be at the hospital, rooting, supporting, fighting for her right by her side.

But Jack and the girls were doing that, Jack surprisingly well. And they were family. Besides, she was hungry. She'd had nothing but tea all day.

There was still the matter of how she looked. The sweat suit was fine, but the hair? The skin? She prided herself on being a walking ad for her shop. She wouldn't win many customers looking like this.

But this was Fisherman's Wharf, the major tourist attraction in Monterey. She wouldn't look any different from the average visitor.

She might not gain customers, but she sure wouldn't lose them. And she was hungry. By promising to be back in an hour with lunch for Jack and the girls, she made it a practical mission and easier to justify.

She went down to the front door, assuming that a CJ-7 was a snappy sports car. The dark green car that waited, though, was an old-fashioned Jeep, with a roll bar on top, neither roof nor windows, and what looked like tin for doors.

"Wow, " she said, fastening her seat belt first thing�second thing being grateful that her hair wasn't loose. "Quite a car." He grinned.

"Thanks." He worked the stick shift, stepped on the gas, and the car headed out. "It's an eighty-six. I had to look for two years. Then I found it in La Jolla. CJ means civilian Jeep. Know any Jeep history?

" "Uh, no. Beauty school doesn't go that far." He laughed. "Neither does med school. Jeeps go back to World War when the army needed a reconnaissance vehicle that would go anywhere. Lore has it that the name Jeep is a derivation of GP�general purpose. The first CJs hit the road as early as forty-six. So there's your trivia for the day." She had to admit there was a classic feel to the thing.

The dashboard was metal�dark green to match the outside of the car�with chrome circling the dials. He touched that chrome once or twice. She couldn't begrudge him the affection.

He took his time driving�enjoying the fresh air, she imagined, because she surely was. The May sun was relaxingly warm, the ocean air a far cry from the hospital's sterility.

Despite his promise to make it quick, he parked a distance away.

Katherine didn't fault him on it, nor did she rush the pace as they walked to the Wharf. She figured she owed herself the leisure after two weeks of shuttling between work and the hospital. She figured Steve deserved it, too. Without the lab coat, he looked totally casual �sport shirt rolled up his forearms, old jeans, sneakers. She could have sworn he was taking the same reinvigorating breaths she was.

Tourists were milling in groups at the head of the Wharf. They joined one group that circled a tiny monkey who was stuffing his pockets with the quarters children offered, but Katherine could only watch so long.

"I always feel bad for that poor little thing, " she murmured when they broke away and set off.

They passed storefront after storefront as they ambled down the pier.

Had she been there alone, Katherine would have simply picked out a grill, ordered food, eaten, and left. But the ambling was pleasant, and the Wharf wasn't long. They reached its end just as a bench opened up.

Steve parked her there and left, returning several minutes later with cups of clam chowder, grilled-salmon sandwiches, and iced tea.

Katherine rather liked being waited on. She had spent so much of her adult life doing for herself that it was a treat. She ate every last bit of her portion, not in the least embarrassed, since Steve ate every last bit of his, and with the very same grinning gusto. Passing the bench on to another pair of eaters, they stood a bit longer watching a seal in the water. When they spotted a group of kayakers on the bay, he told her that he was a canoeist. She told him she had never learned to swim. He told her it was easy. She said that was nice. He told her she didn't know what she was missing. She said she'd take his word for it. They smiled at each other, no offense taken either way.

Walking back up the pier, she bought sandwiches and chowder for the McGills. Steve guided her to the car.

He didn't immediately start it, but turned to her and sat back.

"Thanks. I needed that." Feeling safe enough, she smiled back. "So did I. Thank you." He looked out the windshield, pensive. Then he looked at her. "There.

That didn't hurt, did it? " She laughed. "No, Doctor."

"I'm serious." She could see that he was. There was no humor in his eyes, just concern and that same vulnerability. "I know it's hard to do things like play tourist on the Wharf when people you know are in Intensive Care, " he said, "but I live with people I know being in Intensive Care. Part of me wants to be back at that hospital watching Rachel. That part would be at the hospital twenty hours a day. So I make a concerted effort to leave. That thing about emotional involvement? I have to balance it somehow. Walking the Wharf helps.

Canoeing helps.

Gardening helps."

"Gardening? Oh dear. I have a brown thumb."

"I said that once, too. Funny, how resilient nature is. I do my best, and it may not be everything a plant needs, but it's more than the thing would get without." He stretched his fingers, palms to the steering wheel. "I kind of look at medicine the same way. Take Rachel. Thirty years ago, without drugs like mannitol and streptokinase, she would have died. Yes, I want her awake. I want her awake now. I do the best I can.

It may not be everything she needs, but she'd be worse offwithout. " His eyes found hers and held for a silent minute. Then, quietly, he said, "I'm a good guy, Katherine. You can trust me." She knew he was talking beyond Rachel, and the air grew charged. She tore her eyes away, focused on her lap, then on a brick building adjacent to the parking lot.