Coast Road (49 page)

" The drive back to Carmel wasn't as easy. The sun set. The road grew darker. He turned on his headlights, but they didn't show him what he needed to do. It wasn't until he passed the Highlands and saw the lights of Carmel across the bay that he had a clue.

RACHEL hovered on the brink of tears. With each hour that passed, the reality of the accident, the coma, and the blood clot sank in deeper.

She had never been one to dwell on her own mortality, but it was hard not to now. She was vulnerable. She was human. She thought about Katherine and about Faith. Just picturing them gave her strength.

So there was that, and the girls, and her work, and Jack. And Jack.

And more Jack. She was trying to process all she had been told about him, trying to figure out what was what and where it went. She liked putting things in piles. She didn't care if there was a mess within a pile, as long as there was a semblance of order, pile to pile.

Since the divorce, she had kept Jack in a pile of his own. It wasn't a neat pile. Dozens of thoughts and emotions were stacked randomly and high. For the most part, she managed to keep them separate from the rest of her life. The occasional spillover was quickly contained.

That was how she survived.

Now, though, Jack was scattered everywhere. He touched the girls. He touched Katherine. He touched friends in Carmel, touched the house in Big Sur, touched Duncan and Faith. He touched her work.

l She wanted to sort and separate, but her heart kept messing things up.

She couldn't unwind Jack from those other people and things.

Then he appeared at the door to her room and her heart moved right up to her throat. She swallowed, but it didn't budge.

"Hi, " he said. After several seconds on the threshold, he came inside.

"I dropped the girls back home." He put his hands on his hips and looked around the room. Then his eyes returned to hers.

Say something, she told herself, but her throat was closed and her eyes moist. Say something, she cried, directing the plea to him.

"I thought maybe�, " he began and cleared his throat. "I know it's late�well, there's�" He took a breath and asked straight out, "Do you want to take a ride? " She hadn't expected that. The tears hung on her lids. Something more than her throat squeezed her heart. Standing there, all six two of him�with his sport shirt rolled to the elbow, faded jeans, his weathering hair, and unsureness�he looked so dear.

"You haven't been out of this place in two and a half weeks, " he went on. "I have the new car downstairs. I won't keep you out long �unless you're nervous being in a car, after the accident."

"I don't remember the accident."

"Ifyou're too tired�" "I'm not, " she said. She pushed herself up, carefully easing her casted leg over the side. Her nightgown fell to her ankles. She reached for her crutches.

"If I carry you, you won't wear yourself out, " he said with such gentleness that the tears returned. She brushed them away with the\ t heels of her hands and nodded. It wouldn't be the first time that he had carried her, but it would be the first time since well before the divorce. It would be the first time in six long years that their bodies had been so close.

"I've been doing this for seventeen days, " he corrected as he slipped his arms under her. He lifted her with the same exquisite gentleness that had been in his voice.

She held herself stiffly at first.

, Not comfortable? " he asked as he headed for the door.

"Awkward." She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck, bury her face against his throat, and hang on, but she was frightened. Giving in to a want could mean trouble if the want was taken away again. "Is this allowed? " He strode to the nurses' station and said to two nurses and a resident, "I'm taking my wife for a ride. We'll be gone an hour. Is there any reason we shouldn't? " The nurses looked at each other, then at the resident, who was nonplussed. "It isn't normally done. " "That's not a good reason, " Jack said. "Medically, any problem? " He reached for the phone. "I'll check with Dr. Bauer." Jack took that as permission and set off down the hall.

I'm not your wfe, Rachel thought, but didn't say it. She didn't want to argue over words, not when being carried felt so nice. She settled in a little and thought about seeing the car. She thought about smelling fresh air, rather than hospital sterility. She thought about feeling alive.

The night was warm and clear. It no sooner enveloped her when her eyes filled with tears again. She took a deep breath, then gasped when she saw where Jack was headed. A tall halogen light lit the car well.

"It's red! " she cried. "The girls didn't tell me it was red! I haven't had a red car since�" "Since the VW I thought it was time. " He freed a hand enough to open the door and carefully settled her inside. He adjusted the seat to make more room for her cast and fastened the seat belt before she could do it herself.

"Why? " Rachel asked when he slid behind the wheel.

He started the car. "Why what? " "Why did you think it was time? " He left the parking lot and drove several blocks before he said "Because you loved that car. I shouldn't have sold it the way I did.

" Rachel was startled by the admission so long after the fact, but there was too much to see and do to dwell on it. She rolled down her window and put her face to the warm breeze that blew in as he drove.

Her lungs came alive, hungry for more. "Where are we going? " "P.

Emmet's." The show! Exciting! Her paintings were like her children, now all dressed up in their new frames and on display. She had seen Samantha and Hope. She wanted to see her work. But, "At this hour? " "It's Friday night. They're open late."

"It's nearly ten.

" "No, it's not, " Jack said. But it was. He looked at the clock and swore. "Well, we're going anyway. I want you to see the paintings. " "We won't be able to get in."

"We'll get in." She didn't argue, didn't have the strength. Jack was determined. It was all in his hands.

Laying her head against the headrest, she said, "I haven't thanked you for doing the framing. I'm grateful."

"You had everything there.

The girls helped." She rolled her head to look at him. Six years hadn't changed his profile. His hair remained thick and too long in the back. His nose was straight, his mouth strong, his chin and neck firm. She had always thought him beautiful. That hadn't changed.

"Thank you for staying with them, " she said.

He nodded, but didn't speak.

When tears pricked her lids, she looked forward agCun. They used to talk, used to go on and on about whatever they wanted, or keep utterly still, but there was an ease. She felt no ease now, only a dull ache inside. It hurt to be with Jack like this, locked out as surely as she had been at the end. It hurt. She had warned Katherine.

There's no point in this, " she said, feeling tired and weak. Her paintings could wait. What she wanted most in that instant was to bury her head in a pillow and cry.

"We're almost there."

"Jack, they're closed." He didn't answer, simply drove on through the back streets of Carmel and pulled up in front of the gallery. The place looked dark and deserted. Swearing, he left the car and peered in the front window.

Using his hands as blinders, he tried to see more. He knocked on the glass, went to the door and knocked harder.

"Custodian, " he called to Rachel. He knocked again, studied the I door, jabbed his thumb on the bell. He cupped his hands on the glass and peered inside again. He hit the bell several more times.

Rachel was picturing a person wearing headphones to blunt the noise of a vacuum when Jack turned to her and raised a victorious fist. Seconds later, a man was on the inside of the door, waving a hand no, shaking his head.

Jack spoke loudly. "My wife is the artist whose show is about to open.

She's been in the hospital in a coma. I stole her out to show her this.

Two minutes. That's all we'll need." The man opened his hands in a helpless gesture.

Jack held up a finger, telling him to wait. In two long steps, he was at the car, lifting Rachel out, carrying her to the door.

"See her cast? " he yelled through the glass. "This is legitimate, bud."

"Show him ID, " Rachel tried, because, having come this far, being this close, she wanted in.

Her arms were around his neck. He looked at her, so close, so tender.

"My name, not yours, " he said with regret. She watched the little line come and go between his eyes. Gently lowering her to her good foot, he anchored her to his side while he removed his watch and held it up.

"It's a Tag. Want it? It's yours."

"Jack! " "I don't need it, " Jack said as the man opened the door.

Rachel saw that he was an older man. His head had a constant shake.

"I don't want your watch, " he mumbled, barely opening his mouth. "I want my job. Place is closed. No one's s'posed to be here but me. " "This is the artist."

"Could be a thief."

"Does she look like a thief? Her name's Rachel Keats. Look." He thumbed the window. "See this notice. Rachel Keats." To Rachel, he said, "Was Ben putting your picture on a flyer? " Before she could say she didn't think so, he told the man, "Go inside and look for a flyer.

Check out the picture. It's her face." The man scratched his nose.

His head continued to wag. "I don't know." .

Jack lifted Rachel again, shouldered the door open, and entered the gallery. Rachel felt a little naughty, but excited, very excited.

"Mr. Wolfe won't like this, " came a complaint from behind, but Jack went right on through to the room where shows were hung, the room where Rachel had previously only dreamed of seeing her things.

It was dark, almost eerily silent. She held her breath there in his arms, catching it when he suddenly turned and went back to the wall.

She held on tighter when he angled himself to snag the lights with an elbow.

When they came on, he carried her to the center of the room and carefully lowered her. Standing behind, he slipped his arms around her waist and put his chin on her head. The familiarity of the pose alone would have made her cry, except that she was distracted�and not by the voice from behind that said, again, "Mr. Wolfe won't like this." She barely breathe . Her eye ran around the room, not knowing where to settle, wanting to see everything at once. She felt surrounded, overwhelmed. These were her babies, but more in content, more in style, more in numbers. When tears blurred her vision, she pushed both hands against her eyes to stem them. Leaving her hands over her mouth, she began with the bobcats. That canvas was her favorite. She had already seen it framed and hung, likewise the two that flanked it, but then came the butterflies . . . and the rattlesnake. And the gray whale. And the sheep. And her Arctic wolf, her lone Arctic wolf, with the sun making a full-length halo of its white fur.

She gasped. She hadn't finished the Arctic wolf. "Omigod." She hadn't finished the quail . . . or the deer . . . or the great egret, either.

"Omigod." The loons. The loons, sitting on that mirrored surface of a lake at dusk, with the island in the center and the sky lit by the aurora borealis. Jack had done this. No one else could have. He had done it for her so beautifully, so heautfully. He might as well have put her on a pedestal and draped that plain stone pillar with variations of the softest, richest, most exquisite velvet.

There was no stopping her tears this time. They came hard and fast along with huge, wrenching sobs. She was touched and lonely and needy and wanting and afraid, so afraid that those paintings were as good as it got.

When Jack turned her into his chest, she coiled her arms around his neck and clung. "Don't cry, angel, " he begged, "please don't cry. I only want you to be happy." She wanted to say that what he had done was so beautiful that she was more happy than she would ever, ever be again. She wanted to say that she missed the days when they painted together and that she wanted to do it again. She wanted to say she loved him, only she couldn't stop crying.

She had never cried like this. She had never cared like this.

She felt his arms around her, felt movement, and the next thing she knew they were sitting on the floor. He cradled her close, absorbing the spasms of her weeping with a soft rocking.

Then he began to speak. His head was bowed over hers, his arms protective, his voice beseeching but loud enough to carry over her sobs.

"It wouldn't have occurred to me if I hadn't come in here and seen the bobcats. Ben was raving about them, saying that the canvas was his all-time favorite, and I remembered how we'd done it together. He didn't know that, so he wouldn't know if I did it again, and I was torn, Rachel, totally torn. You got this show all on your own, not because of the bobcats but because of the whole body of your work.

That was you, your skill, your talent, your perseverance. I wouldn't have done a thing if you'd shown signs of waking up, but you didn't.

The longer it went on, the more we realized how long it could go on, and then I started thinking that if you didn't wake up, there wouldn't be another show. I wanted you to have at least one, Rachel. I figured you'd worked too hard and too long not to." He held her head to his chest. Her sobs had slowed to hiccuping murmurs. She was hanging on every word.