Coast Road (4 page)

I like doing what a camera does, capturing an instant."

"Are you still doodling? " he asked in response to her use of the present tense.

She lifted a shoulder, shy, maybe modest. "I like to think it's more.

I'm hoping to paint for a living."

"With or without a day job? " Jack asked. The average artist barely earned enough to eat. Unless Rachel was significantly better than average, she would have a tough time paying the bills.

She wrapped her arms around her middle. Quietly, almost sadly, she said, "I'm lucky. Those businesses keep selling. My mom heads one of them now. They think I'm crazy to be here doing this. Art isn't business. They want me back in the city wearing designer dresses with a designer handbag and imported boots." She took a fresh breath. "Do you have siblings? " "Five brothers and a sister, " he said, though it had nothing to do with anything. He rarely talked about family. The people he was with rarely asked.

Not only had Rachel asked, but those wonderful eyes of hers lit up with his answer. "Six? That's great. I don't have any."

"That's why you think it's great. There were seven of us born in ten years, living with two parents in a three-bedroom house. I was the lucky one.

Summers, I got the porch."

"What are the others doing now? Are they all over the country? Are any of them out here? " "They're back home.

I'm the only one who made it out." Her eyes grew. "Really? Why you?

How? " "Scholarship. Work-study. Desperation. I had to leave.

I don't get along with my family."

"Why not? " she asked in such an innocent way that he actually answered.

"They're negative. Always criticizing to cover up for what they lack, but the only thing they really lack is ambition. My dad could done anything he wanted�he's a bright guy�only, he got stuck in a potato processing plant and never got out. My brothers are going to be just like him, different jobs, same wasted potential. I went to college, which makes what they're doing seem smaller. They'll never forgive me for that."

"I'm so sorry." He smiled. "Not your fault."

"Then you don't go home much? " "No. And you? Back to New York? " She crinkled her nose. "I'm not a city person. When I'm there, I'm stuck doing all the things I hate."

"Don't you have friends there? " "A few. We talk. I've never had to go around with a crowd. How about you? Got a roommate? " "Not on your life. I had enough of those growing up to never want another one, at least not of the same sex.

What's your favorite thing in Tucson? " "The desert. What's yours? " "The Santa Catalinas." Again those eyes lit, gold more than hazel.

"Do you hike? " When he nodded, she said, "Me, too. When do you have time? Are you taking a full course load? How many hours a week do you have to give to Obermeyer? " Jack answered her questions and asked more of his own. When she answered those without seeming to mind, he asked more again, and she asked her share right back. She wasn't judgmental, just curious.

She seemed as interested in where he'd been, what he'd done, what he liked and didn't like as he was in her answers. They talked nonstop until Rachel's clothes were clean, dry, and folded. When, arms loaded, they finally left the laundromat, he knew three times as much about her as he knew about Celeste.

Taking that as a message of some sort, he broke up with Celeste the next day, called Rachel, and met her for pizza. They picked right up where they had left off at the laundromat.

Jack was fascinated. He had never been a talker. He didn't like baring his thoughts and ideas, held them close to the vest, but there was something about Rachel that felt . . . safe, there it was agsun.

She was gentle. She was interested. She was smart. Being as much of a loner as he was, she seemed just as startled as he to be opening up to a virtual stranger, but they gave each other permission. He trusted her instinctively. She seemed to trust him the same way right back.

As simply as that, they became inseparable. They ate together, studied together, sketched together. They went to movies. They hiked. They huddled before class and staked out their favorite campus benches, but it was a full week before they made love.

In theory, a week was no time at all. In practice, in an age of free sex with two people deeply attracted to each other, it was an eternity, and they were definitely attracted to each other. No doubt about that.

Jack was hit pretty fast by the lure of an artist's slender fingers and graceful arms. He didn't miss the way her shorts curved around her butt or the enticing flash of midriff when she leaned a certain way.

The breasts under her tank tops were small but exquisitely formed. At least, that was the picture he pieced together from the shadow of shapes and the occasional nob of a nipple. The fact that he didn't know for sure kept him looking.

Was she attracted to him? Well, there was that nipple, tightest when he was closest. There was the way she leaned into him, so subtle, when they went to a campus concert, and the way her breath caught when he came close to whisper something in her ear. All that, even without her eyes, which turned warm to hot at all the appropriate times. Oh, yes, she wanted him. He could have taken her two days after the laundromat.

He didn't because he was afraid. He had never had a relationship like this with a woman before. Physical, yes. But not emotional, not psychological, not heart-to-heart. Rachel made him feel comfortable enough to say what he thought and felt. Not knowing how sex would mix with that, he avoided taking her to his apartment or going to her apartment, avoided even kissing her.

A week of that was more than an eternity. He'd had it with avoidance by the time she invited him over for dinner, and apparently she had, too.

He was barely inside the door when that first kiss came. It was a scorcher, purity in flames, hotter and hotter as they slid along the wall to her room and fell on the bed. There was a mad scramble to get clothes off and be close and inside�and it was heaven for Jack, the deepest, most overwhelming lovemaking he had ever in his life dreamed could take place.

When it was done, she sat on the bed with pencil and paper and drew him, and what emerged said it all. With her hands, her mind, her heart she made him into something finer than he had ever been before. She was his angel, and he was in love.

chapter two.

I THE SURGICAL WAITING ROOM was on the second floor at the end of a very long hall. Dropping into a seat there, Jack folded his arms on his chest and focused on the door. His eyes were tired. Fear alone kept them open.

It was a full five minutes before he realized that he wasn't alone. A woman was watching him from the end of a nearby sofa. She looked wary, but she didn't blink when he stared.

"Are you Katherine? " he finally asked, and saw the ghost of a crooked smile.

"Why the surprise? " He would have liked to be diplomatic, but he was too tired, too tense. "Because you don't look like my wife's type, " he said, staring still. Rachel was all natural�hair, face, nails.

This woman was groomed, from dark lashes to painted nails to hair that was a dozen different shades of beige and moussed into fashionably long curls.

"It's ex-wgfe, " Katherine said, "and looks can deceive. So, you're Jack? " He barely had time to nod when the door opened and a doctor emerged. His scrubs were wrinkled. Short, brownish gray hair stuck up in damp spikes.

Jack was on his feet and approaching before the door had swung shut.

"Jack McGill, " he said, extending a hand. "How is she? " The doctor met his grip. "Steve Bauer, and she's in the Recovery Room. The surgery went well. Her vital signs are good. She's breathing on her own. But she still hasn't regained consciousness."

"Coma, " Jack said. The word had been hovering in the periphery of the night, riding shotgun with him down from San Francisco. He needed the doctor to deny it.

To his dismay, Steve Bauer nodded. "She doesn't respond to stimuli �light, pain, noise." He touched the left side of his face, temple to jaw. "She was badly bruised here. There's external swelling.

Her lack of response suggests that there's internal swelling, too.

We're monitoring for intercranial pressure. A mild increase can be treated medically. There's nothing at this point to suggest that we'll need to relieve it surgically." Jack pushed his hands through his hair. His head was buzzing.

He tried to clear out the noise by clearing his throat. "Coma.

Okay.

How bad is that? " "Well, I'd rather she be awake." That wasn't what Jack meant. "Will she die? " "I hope not."

"How do we prevent it?

" "We don't. She does. When tissues are injured, they swell. The more they swell, the more oxygen they need to heal. Unfortunately, the brain is different from other organs, because it's encased in the skull.

When brain tissues swell, the skull prevents the expansion they need, and pressure builds. That causes a slowing of the blood flow, and since blood carries oxygen, a slowing of the blood flow means less oxygen to the brain. Less oxygen means slower healing. Her body determines how slow." Jack understood. But he needed to know more.

"Worst-case scenario? " "Pressure builds high enough to completely cut the flow of blood, and hence oxygen to the brain, and the person dies.

That's why we'll be monitoring your wife. If we see the pressure when it first starts to build, we stand a better chance of relieving it. " "When? What's the time frame here? " "We've done a head scan, but nothing shows positive. We'll watch her closely. The next forty-eight hours will be telling. The good news is that what swelling there is now is minimal."

"But you said she doesn't respond. Assuming the swelling doesn't get worse, when will she? " The doctor caught the dampness on his brow with a forearm. "That's what I can't tell you. I wish I could, but it's different with every case."

"Will there be permanent damage? " Jack asked. He needed it all on the table.

"I don't know."

"Does the chance of permanent damage increase the longer she's comatose? " "Not if the swelling doesn't worsen."

"Is there anything you can do to get the swelling down? " "She's on a drip to reduce it. But overmedicating has its problems, too." "Then we just let her lie there? " "No, " the doctor replied patiently. "We let her lie there and heal. The body is a miraculous thing, Mr. McGill. It works on its own while we wait."

"What can we do to help? " Katherine asked from close behind Jack.

Startled by her voice, Jack turned, but her eyes didn't leave the doctor's.

"Not a whole lot, " Bauer replied, but he looked torn. "Ask nurses specializing in coma, and they'll say you should talk to her. They say comatose patients hear things and can sometimes repeat those things with frightening accuracy when they wake up."

"Do you believe that?

" Jack asked.

"It doesn't jibe with medical science." He lowered his voice a notch.

"My colleagues pooh-pooh it. Me, I don't see that talking to her does any harm."

"What do we say? " "Anything positive. If she does hear, you want her to hear good stuff.

The more optimistic you are, the more optimistic she'll be. Tell her she's doing well. Be upbeat."

"What about the girls? " Jack asked.

"We have two daughters.

They're thirteen and fifteen. They're already asking questions. Maybe I should keep them away. There's no point in frightening them if there's a chance she'll be waking up later or even tomorrow. Should I say she's still out of it from the anesthesia, and keep them home? " "No. Bring them. Their voices may help her focus."

"How does she look? " he asked. "Will they be frightened? " "The side of her face is swollen and scraped. It's starting to turn colors.

One of her hands was cut up by the glass�" "Badly? " Jack cut in, because that introduced a whole new worry.

Apparently agreeing, Katherine added, "She's an artist. Lefthanded. " "Well, this was her left hand, " Bauer said, "but nothing crucial was cut. There won't be any lasting damage there. Her leg is casted and elevated, and we've taped her ribs to prevent damage if she becomes agitated, but that's it."

"Agitated, " Jack repeated, wondering just how much more there was.

"As in seizures? " "Sometimes. Sometimes just agitated. We call it posturing. Odd physical movements. Then agcun, she may be perfectly quiet right through waking up. That's what'll scare your daughters most. They'll be as upset by her silence as by anything physical they see." Jack tried to ingest it all, but it was hard. The picture the doctor had painted was the antithesis of the active woman Rachel had always been. "When can I see her? " "Once we make sure she's stable, we'll transfer her to Intensive Care �no, " he explained when Jack's eyes widened, "that doesn't mean she's critical, just that we want her closely watched." He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was four-ten. "Give us an hour." JACK and Katherine weren't alone in the cafeteria. A handful of medical personnel were scattered at tables, some eating an early breakfast, others nursing coffee. Voices were muted. The occasional clink of flatwear on china rose above them.

Jack had paid for one coffee, one tea, and one thickly coated sticky bun. The coffee was his. The rest was Katherine's. Her polished fingernails glittered under the overhead fluorescents as she pulled the warm bun apart.