Coast Road (40 page)

"I've been divorced for ten years, " he said. "I've had it with dating." She chewed on her cheek.

"So if I come on faster than you want, " he continued, "it's because I don't see the point in beating around the bush when someone appeals to me. Few women have. You do." She put her elbow on the door and pressed her knuckles to her forehead.

"Say the word, and I'll get lost, " he said.

She wanted to say the word, wanted to say any word, but none came.

"Either tell me to get lost, " he said without a bit of smugness, "or give me a kiss."

"That's not a fair choice."

"Ask Rachel about fair. Look, I know the timing of this stinks, but I'm fifty-three.

I'm too old to play games. Do you want me to get lost? " She thought about that. There was something about him, some thing beyond those blue eyes and that fit body, that appealed to her, too. "No."

"Then kiss me." She eyed him from under her fist. "Why? " "I want to see if it works."

"What a male thing to say."

"And because I said it, you're totally turned off."

"I should be." But she wasn't, because it went two ways. If his kiss left her cold, she wouldn't have to worry about the rest. They could be friends without the threat of anything more.

"Okay, " she said and looked at her watch. "One minute. Then we have to leave." She leaned over and put her lips to his, moved them a little, backed off. "Am I doing a solo here? " Smiling, he shook his head. He slid one hand around her neck and moved gentle fingers into her hair, slid the other around her shoulder in a gentle message that rose to her jaw before she could begin to fear it would head south.

His hands framed her face. His eyes touched her lips.

He took his time, moved closer, tipped his head, took more time. His mouth was an inch from hers when, with a less than steady breath, he drew back, faced front, cleared his throat, and turned the key in the ignition.

Katnerine stared in disbelief. "What are you doing? " "Minute's up.

" She knew that, but her insides were humming. She would have been flexible on the time. "I thought you didn't play games." Shifting in his seat, he headed out of the parking lot. "I don't. It works.

Wasn't that the point of the exercise? " "Works for who? " she cried.

"Is that your idea of a kiss? " "Oh, no." His laugh was quintessentially male. "But it works, Katherine.

Tell me you didn't feel it." She jabbed a finger at her lips. "I didn't feel a damn thing." He shot her one look, then, when she didn't relent, shot her another.

Seconds after that, he pulled over to the curb, took her into his arms, and without once giving her cause to tense up by going anywhere near her breasts, gave her a kiss that spelled trouble.

SAMANTHA stood beside Rachel's bed watching the door. Her head was throbbing again, her stomach was twisting. Her wrist ached and her feet hurt. Going to school in the morning was unthinkable. She didn't care if finals were coming up. She would make them up in the summer, when no one else was around. By fall, people would forget.

It was thirty minutes since she had called Lydia. Jack had his elbows on the bed rail. He was staring at Rachel. Hope was looking around the room, sitting cross-legged with her butt agsunst Rachel's cast.

Barely five minutes passed without either Kara or a nurse stopping in.

Samantha wished Cindy was there, but she wasn't on duty until tomorrow morning.

Hope straightened her legs and slid off the bed. Her boots hit the floor with a thunk. "I'm getting stufffrom the other room. This room could be anyone's." She strode into the hall.

"She shouldn't do that, " Samantha warned. "The point is getting Mom back there as soon as the medicine works." Jack had straightened. He was flexing his neck, dipping his head from side to side. "That is the point. But then there's Murphy's Law. It says that as soon as we move everything here, she'll be ready to move back.

Hold the fort, " he said and left.

Rachel's breathing was louder than ever in the silence that remained.

Samantha went to the door and looked down the hall just as Jack turned into Rachel's regular room. In the other direction, several nurses were clustered, heads together. Lydia was nowhere in sight.

Back at the bed, she curled her fingers over the rail. Just thinking about the fiasco of the prom, she felt lost and sick and scared. The best part, the best part, was getting home. She didn't know how many of the other dads would have been as supportive as hers had been. So it was possibly a fluke. So maybe he wouldn't have come for her if he'd been working his head off in the city. So maybe if Rachel woke up he would be gone again.

But, boy, it had been nice listening to fog feet with him. It reminded her of times before the divorce.

The blue tint around Rachel's mouth brought back another memory.

"Omigod, Mom, remember Halloween? We always had the best costumes.

Hershey's Kisses and Crayola boxes and bunches of grapes. And makeup out of food coloring and flour? Blue lips? Purple lips? " "Sam? " She whirled around. Not knowing what to say, she turned right back to Rachel. When she sensed Lydia beside her, and still there weren't any words, she dared a look. Lydia's eyes were on Rachel, reflecting the same horror Samantha had felt seeing her mother like this for the first time.

"Can't they do something? " Samantha waved at the IV pole. "It's up there. We have to wait for it to work."

"Oh." She wrapped her arms around her middle. "Does she know about last night? " "You mean, did my telling her cause this? " It wasn't the vote of confidence Samantha needed. "No, Lydia. I haven't told her. She did this all on her own.

" "You don't have to get angry. She'd be upset about last night, and you know it." Samantha looked at her then. "What do you know about last night? " __ "You want me to say? In front of your Mom? " "Yeah, I want you to say." Rachel would have to know sometime. Better when she couldn't speak.

Lydia kept her eyes on Rachel. "You went to Ian's but left there with Teague and got so sloshed you passed out, so he drove you home. At least, that's what Teague said when he got back to the party. He ended up with Marissa Fowler, who was supposed to be with Mark Chill.

Mark's Amanda's cousin. He picked her up at my house this morning. " "And told everyone that story? " Nightmare!

"Told Amanda and Shelly and me. Is it true? " "No, it is not true. I didn't get sloshed or pass out, and Teague did not drive me home. He came on so strong that I could nail him for rape, hands down�only it never got past the attempted stage. I ran away before it did. Me sloshed? Try Teague. And stoned. My father came and got me. " Lydia's eyes were wide. "You had to call him? " "I wanted to call you, but I didn't think you'd care." Lydia looked suddenly close to tears, and totally like the sweet person Samantha loved. "You're stupid, you know that? " she cried.

Samantha was about to say she was right, when Hope walked in loaded down with cards, signs, and pictures. Jack followed with vases of flowers, which he set on the windowsill. Hope sank to the floor and opened her arms.

Samantha said to Lydia, "We're counting on Murphy's Law. Want to help?

" JACK was buoyed when sweet, unsophisticated, loyal Lydia stayed. He couldn't help but think that if Samantha could go through life with friends like this one, she would survive and flourish. She certainly had a role model in her mother. Rachel had Faye and Charlie, Dinah, Jan, and Eliza. She had bridge friends, and friends at the girls' school. She had Ben. And she had Katherine�who returned with an incredibly good lunch.

Steve Bauer arrived minutes later. He checked Rachel's chart, the monitor, and the IV drip. He lifted her lids and studied her pupils.

He called her name, then leaned closer and called it again. He left the room to order another lung scan. Within minutes, the necessary equipment was wheeled in. Jack sent the three girls out to walk around in the sun.

He and Katherine waited in the hall.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and blew out a frustrated breath.

"She'll make it, " Katherine insisted. "There are too many people working too hard to make her live."

"The point isn't just to make her live. It's to make her wake up and be well." He thought about Faith Bligh. "She could wake up not whole.

You asked me once what I'd do then. I think I'd be destroyed."

"Would you leave? " "No." It was a sober admission. "No. I couldn't." When Katherine said nothing, he met her gaze. It was open and warm. "What? " he asked, vaguely embarrassed.

"Man has risen to the occasion, " she declared. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her eyes flew toward Rachel's room. "Oh, man, " she murmured, folding her arms on her chest.

Jack followed her gaze. All he could see was Steve Bauer, alternately watching the technicians and looking out into the hall at them. And there was Katherine, with windblown air and warm apricot cheeks.

"Did I miss something? " he asked.

She bowed her head and made a strangled sound. "Don't ask. This is so not the right time." He disagreed. If that strangled sound she had made was related to a laugh, the time was right. "I could use a lift.

Make me smile." She was sober when she raised her head. "He's a great kisser. What should I do? " Jack did smile. He liked the doctor.

The smile faded when he realized what she meant. "Ah. The old breast thing." She settled against the wall and looked into the room again.

She kept her arms folded and her voice low. "He didn't try to touch them, but he will. Men always do. It's only a matter of time." Jack tried to imagine what he would want if he were Bauer. He thought about Rachel. All too well he remembered arriving at the hospital that morning, unprepared for what he would find. "I think you should tell him. If it were dark, would he know? " "By feel? Yes.

Silicone was the best, but it's been banned. Mine are saline. There's a difference."

"Then tell him. You'll be too nervous to enjoy it, if you don't." She made another of those strangled sounds. "Yeah, well, I'd have thought that, too, before he kissed me. I didn't have time to think of much, it was that good. I mean, he did everything right."

"It's chemistry."

"It was chemistry with Byron. Funny how body mutilation can kill a good thing." She pressed her lips together and met his gaze.

"And you don't want it killed, " Jack said, "so there's more at stake this time." She nodded.

Jack tried to think of all the women he had dated. The ones before Rachel hadn't been anything special. The ones after had been nice enough, but Jill was the first he had viewed as a friend. For a while he had thought she might be it. But she wasn't Rachel. Poor Jill wasn't Katherine, either.

Hard to believe, but he liked Katherine a lot. Totally aside from all that she gave Rachel and the gids, she did things for him, too. Like now. Confiding in him. Telling him things he guessed she would normally tell only another woman. She made him feel like his opinion mattered, which was quite a compliment from a woman as strong as Katherine.

"There's an analogy here, " he said, reaching out to tuck in a windblown piece of hair, then leaving it because it looked so nicely undone.

"Samantha was sure Lydia wouldn't want any part of her. I told her it was a test. If Lydia didn't, then she wasn't the friend Samantha thought, so the loss wasn't as great. The same goes for you. Any man who loses it because of what you've been through isn't worth your while."

"Easy to say. You're not the one baring all." He understood that. It had to be hard for Katherine to open herself to the kind of rejection she had already experienced twice. "But breasts are only a small part of a woman, and pretty fickle things, when you get down to it. They swell, they shrink, they sag. Intelligence is more constant. So is warmth, and humor. So is loyalty. Truthfully?

If Steve was younger, I'd warn you off. Breasts mean more to young guys. They're a symbol. I'd be lying if I denied it. But Steve's not a kid. He's been around the block. Look at him in there with Rachel.

He doesn't have to be here. It's Sunday. Give a guy like that the choice between a bimbo with natural knockers and an intelligent, warm, funny, loyal, beautiful woman with rebuilt ones�come on, Katherine, no contest. Hell, I'd go after you myself if I weren't still in love with my wife." JACK"S wife remained unresponsive to the clot buster. The scan showed no noticeable improvement in the passage of air through her lungs, and on the outside, to the eyes and ears of the people who loved her, the symptoms didn't ease. The doctor said it would take longer.

He wouldn't say how much longer.

Sitting with her that afternoon, Jack thought about love, but he couldn't relate to it in the abstract, only in specifics. Eighteen years ago, love had meant spending every free minute with Rachel.

Seventeen years ago, it meant making monthly payments on a small diamond ring.

Sixteen years ago, it meant marrying her, fifteen years ago, having a child.

Men like action, Katherine had said during one of their earliest discussions.

He had made it into a semantic argument, but the truth was that he did like action. Having admitted that he loved Rachel, he wanted to do something. Talking to her, moving her arms, applying Vaseline to her lips or scented lotion to her legs was only part of that.