Maidenstone Lighthouse (11 page)

“W
hat would you like to do now?” Dan gave me along questioning look. We were sitting in the Mercedes and a fine freezing drizzle had started to fall. I noticed that the moisture was forming glaring halos around the orange security lights that were coming on around the hospital parking lot.

Dan had waited for most of the day while I had gone in to be with Damon for the allowed ICU visiting periods of five minutes out of every hour. I had spent those brief intervals holding Damon's hand and talking to him, willing him to wake up. But nothing had changed.

Around noon I suddenly remembered that our Manhattan office had been unattended since Damon had left New York on his fateful flight, so I called in to check voice mail. After jotting down a dozen calls to be returned, I changed the outgoing message, explaining that there had been a medical emergency and that I would get back to everyone as soon as possible.

Then I returned my attention to Damon. In between my brief ICU visits, Dan had brought me coffee and listened quietly while I talked, mostly about my best friend and the unique relationship that he and I shared.

We stayed on at the hospital until Alice Cahill came back on duty at six and threw us out. “There is absolutely nothing you can do here except make yourself sick,” she warned me. “If your friend pulls through this ordeal he's going to need you. So go back home and get some rest. That's an order. I promise I'll phone you the minute there's any change whatsoever in his condition.”

“Sue?” Dan was patiently waiting for me to answer his question. I had been gazing transfixed through the misted windshield at the floodlit façade of the medical center, praying for a miracle. “I really don't want to go back to Freedman's Cove. At least not right now,” I said at last. “It's much too far away…in case something changes.”

“Can I make a practical suggestion, then?”

I turned and looked at him, reading the weariness in his eyes. “I'm sorry,” I said, taking his hand, “you must be positively exhausted and I've taken up your whole day.” I scanned the darkness beyond the security lights, looking for a lighted Holiday Inn sign. “There's supposed to be a motel around here somewhere,” I said. “Maybe we should try to find it. Then you can drop me off and get back home to your work.”

“My work wasn't exactly what I was thinking about.” Dan gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “I think you need some support right now, and my schedule is whatever I make it. I'm here for as long as you want me.”

“Thanks.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“Anyway,” he continued, “Running Freedan Studios involves a lot of travel for our executives and we also entertain visiting buyers here in Boston. So the company maintains a couple of rooms at the Hyatt Regency out near Logan Airport. It's only fifteen minutes from the medical center. I seldom use the place myself, but we can go out there and stay, if you'd like.”

I shook my head in wonder. “You are full of surprises,” I said.

“Of course,” Dan hurried to assure me, “if you'd feel more comfortable by yourself I can put the place at your disposal and arrange for a car and driver to ferry you back and forth to the hospital—”

I reached out and placed my fingers over his lips. “Please, don't say another word,” I whispered. “Just start the engine and drive.”

He obeyed, twisting the ignition key, slipping the car into gear and pulling out of the lot.

“What I really want more than anything right now is a long, hot bath,” I mused when we were on the road. “I feel like all my joints are creaking and I'm chilled to the bone from the air-conditioning in that ICU. It's a wonder everyone in there doesn't have hypothermia. I hope they have really hot water at the Hyatt.”

He laughed. “Scalding,” he said.

“Then maybe we can get some actual food, too,” I said, feeling my stomach rumble. “Preferably something that hasn't been petrifying on a cafeteria steam table for the past twelve hours.”

“I recommend calling room service in your bathrobe,” Dan advised. “And maybe we'll get a basin of hot water to soak your feet in, so you won't get chilled again.”

“Sounds heavenly,” I sighed.

There was a long silence as Dan guided the car onto the beltway leading to the airport.

“Alice talked to you while I was in with Damon the first time,” I said in a small voice. “Tell me the truth, Dan, do you really think she believes he'll come out of this?”

Dan thought about my question for several seconds. “I believe if anyone can pull Damon through, Alice is the one,” he finally answered. He smiled and reached over to touch my hand. “She told me she felt Damon had been sent to her in order to see if she was really as good as she thought she was.”

I nodded approvingly. “I like that,” I said. “I like that a lot.”

 

Freedan Studios' “couple of rooms” at the Hyatt turned out to be one of four VIP suites in the penthouse. The Freedan suite consisted of two very large bedrooms, each with its own bath, separated by a vast living room that came complete with a conference table, fax, computer with broadband Internet, wet bar and too many other amenities to mention. The entire suite was furnished in good late-18th-century English antiques in the Japanese style, and the exquisite silk-and rice-paper-covered walls were hung with Dan's original paintings.

He had called ahead from the car, so we were met and escorted upstairs by no less a personage than the Hyatt's manager, who had informed us that the chef in the four-star restaurant was awaiting our room service dinner order.

“Okay,” I said when the manager, who'd seemed not at all surprised by my handsome friend's arrival with a bedraggled me in tow, had departed, “I'm impressed.”

“Good,” Dan replied slyly. “I was wondering what it would take to affect a jaded New York sophisticate like you.”

Despite the grim circumstances of our being together I felt better than I had all day. By now I was totally at ease with Dan. And it felt perfectly natural to flop onto his richly brocaded sofa and wearily kick off my shoes. “No wonder poor Debbie Carver—excuse me, Olson—looks so wistful when she talks about the thing she used to have for you,” I teased, looking around the palatial suite.

Dan went to the bar and rummaged in the refrigerator for a beer. He popped the top and took a long swallow straight from the can. “You never told me you'd been talking to Debbie,” he accused. “Would you like something to drink?”

I asked for white wine. “Oh, yes, Debbie and I had a fascinating chat the other day,” I allowed as he found a small bottle of Fumé and poured a glassful.

He brought me the wine and dropped into a soft chair facing me. “Interesting,” he said seriously. “Did she tell you that I offered her a job with my company a few years ago?”

I looked up in surprise, for I really had just been joking with him. “And she turned you down?” I asked.

He took another sip of his beer. “Debbie said that if she went to work for me everyone in town would figure we were having an affair. And, of course, they would have done exactly that. But, considering what the town had already thought about both of us in the past, I asked her what difference it would make. Know what her answer was?”

I shook my head.

“She said she wouldn't mind the talk if it was true,” Dan said. “But since it wasn't, she'd never have any love life at all if she took the job. ‘So, thanks, old pal, but no thanks.'”

I smiled. “I'm beginning to understand why you liked Debbie so much,” I said, sipping my wine.

“Like,” he corrected. “I still do and I always will. She's a wonderful person.”

“So what about your current love life?” I probed curiously. “After all, you're rich, famous and good-looking. Where's the jealous girlfriend who should be calling up here about now to find out who the strange lady is in your hotel room?”

Dan shrugged. “Don't have one, jealous or otherwise.” He grinned. “At least not at the present time.” He cast me a meaningful look.

Ignoring the look, I took another sip of wine and got unsteadily to my feet, suddenly aware that I was treading on dangerous ground. Thankfully, though, I still had enough sense to realize that the small amount of alcohol I had consumed on an empty stomach was going straight to my head…and out my mouth.

“I think I'd better go take that bath before I get myself in trouble.” I looked questioningly at the two bedroom doors on opposite sides of the big room.

Dan stood and pointed with a gallant flourish to the nearest door. “Milady's boudoir is right through there,” he said. “Sing out if you need anything. While you're soaking, I'll call downstairs and order our dinner. What would you like?”

“You're doing just fine so far,” I replied with a smile. “Why don't you order for both of us?”

“Done,” he said.

I hesitated in the doorway, all the fatigue and anguish of the past twelve hours suddenly seeming to come back heavily to rest on my shoulders. “Dan,” I said softly, “thank you again, for everything.”

He winked at me and leaned over to plant a brotherly kiss on my forehead. “My pleasure,” he said. “And I really do hope that Damon pulls through this crisis.” He smiled. “From what you've told me about him, he seems like a person I'd really like to know.”

I went into the bedroom and closed the door.

The bathroom light was on and I stepped inside to discover that it was just as large and luxurious as the rest of the suite, with azure marble flooring, a huge, comfortable tub and a vanity stocked with expensive shampoos, conditioners and bath oils. Arrayed on the countertop beside the built-in hair dryer was a complete set of toilet articles, including a new toothbrush, comb, shower cap and the like.

I started the water running and snatched a thick terry robe embroidered with the hotel logo from a hook by the door, then returned to the bedroom. Peeling off my rumpled clothes, I opened a closet in search of hangers.

Inside were a half dozen articles of feminine apparel, all bearing exclusive designer labels. “Whoops!” I muttered aloud. “Who's been sleeping in my bed?”

I frowned and lifted a delicate black cocktail dress from the rack, wondering cattily who it belonged to. She had great taste and was a size six, whoever she was. A Freedan Studios executive? Heather, the mysterious New York art agent to whom Dan credited his amazing success? It was impossible to tell, for he had said earlier that any number of his people used the suite.

Deciding that it was really none of my business, I carefully replaced the exquisite garment on the rack and hung my own clothes at the opposite end of the closet. But as I walked back to the bathroom I felt just the slightest tinge of annoyance at having to share the space with a stranger's clothing.

“Now you're being ridiculous!” I told my haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Anyway, this is certainly neither the time nor the place to start having possessive thoughts about Dan Freedman.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” the little voice in my head that is my romantic self replied. “Surely you've noticed that Dan's interest in you transcends his being the nicest, most considerate guy you have ever met in your life.”

“Don't give me that crap!” I snorted, lowering myself by slow degrees into the scalding water. “Bobby was by far the nicest guy I ever met.”

I closed my eyes and let the heat envelop me. “Besides,” I murmured, “I'm not ready for anything like love yet. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever be ready for it again…Love hurts too much.”

The little voices inside wisely remained silent.

“Anyway, I've got to think about Damon now,” I added in a louder voice, just in case she was still listening.

“Dan's right here with you for Damon,” Little Miss Practical unexpectedly chided. “Think about that, smart-ass.”

“Oh, shut up,” I snapped, tired of the blasphemous thoughts she was planting in my brain.

“What do you think Bobby would have done in this situation?” she goaded. “He never even liked Damon.”

“Bobby would have been here for me,” I snapped back.

“Like he was there when Aunt Ellen died?”

I tried to push her away by concentrating on good thoughts of Bobby. It troubled me to discover that I could not instantly conjure up a clear picture of his face. And I could hear her laughing at me from some dark corner of my mind.

“Dammit! Now look what you've done,” I hissed. “Go away and leave me alone.”

Little Miss Practical fell silent again. Slipping deeper into the tub I closed my eyes and reminded myself to call the hospital to check on Damon as soon as I was through.

D
inner was a quiet, low-key affair.

After I'd soaked the deep chill out of my bones I wandered out to the living room in my robe, attracted by the delicious smells wafting under the bedroom door. The plum-colored satin drapes covering the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the suite had been opened, exposing a breathtaking nighttime panorama of the rain-swept city a few miles away across the bay.

“I hope you're hungry.” Dan stepped out of the other bedroom and escorted me to a small table draped in snowy linen and set with sparkling crystal and silver.

“Mmmm,” I replied, allowing him to seat me and place a napkin in my lap.

“Excellent,” he said. “My name is Dan and I will be your waiter this evening.” He smoothly turned to open a small metal cabinet on wheels and produced a crisp salad garnished with tiny bay shrimp. “Freshly ground pepper?” he asked, holding up a big wooden grinder.

“Thank you.” I laughed as he dusted my salad with a showy flick of his wrist, then filled a crystal goblet with a clear Johannesburg Riesling.

“Don't tell me,” I said, tasting the wine and licking my lips to show I approved, “before you discovered your artistic talent you used to be head waiter at the Four Seasons.”

“Not exactly,” he admitted reluctantly, “but when I was in the marines I once spent an entire month mopping floors in the mess hall.”

“Aha!” I exclaimed. “I knew you'd picked up that high-toned panache somewhere.”

We both laughed and he got his own salad from the cabinet and touched his wineglass to mine.

“Here's to Damon!” Dan proposed.

My smile disappeared and I abruptly set down my glass on the table. “Oh, God,” I moaned. “Damon! I meant to phone the hospital…”

I started to rise but Dan reached across the table and restrained me. “I called and spoke to Alice five minutes ago,” he informed me. “There's been no change in his condition since you last checked. But the hotel switchboard has orders to put through calls from the hospital, no matter what time they come in.”

“I'm sorry,” I apologized, staring down at my lovely salad. My appetite was suddenly gone.

“Sue, you have to eat,” Dan firmly insisted.

“I know,” I replied miserably. “It just doesn't seem as if I should be enjoying it so.”

He gave me an appraising look. “I wonder what Damon would have to say about that remark,” he speculated.

I thought that over for a moment. “Damon?” I found myself smiling again. “My God, Damon is so completely irreverent, he'd probably say something like, ‘Girl, if you're not gonna eat those darlin' little pink shrimp, then for the Lord's sake give them to me.'”

“I sort of guessed it would be something like that,” said Dan. He raised his glass again. “Here's to Damon. May he soon be with us to help with the shrimp.”

“To Damon!” There were tears in my eyes as I raised my glass and clinked it against Dan's. “God bless him.”

As it turned out the meal Dan had ordered was just right for stressed-out stomachs. Following our salads we shared a delicate, light-as-air soufflé laced with tender slices of mushroom and succulent bits of chicken. Dessert was a simple lime sorbet.

As we ate, we spoke quietly and hopefully of Alice Cahill's skills and Damon's tenacious fight to live. And before long I found myself telling a funny story about an elderly New York society matron who was convinced that Damon was the reincarnation of a dashing English lord who had escorted her to her 1935 debutante ball. By the time I had finished the story we were both laughing again. And I really did feel much better.

We called the hospital right after dinner. Alice was not available to come to the phone, but the ICU duty nurse informed us that Damon's condition remained essentially unchanged.

Later, we sat together on a sofa in the semidarkness and watched the cold rain falling on Boston. The imminent possibility that I might lose Damon this night weighed heavily on my mind. And our conversation soon shifted to our views on eternity, as we both speculated about what might await us beyond this Earthly life.

From my experience with the ghost of Aimee Marks, I confided in Dan, I felt assured that Damon's spirit would go on, even if he lost his fragile hold on life. And I admitted to him that having encountered my ancestor's gentle spirit was also helping me come to terms with Bobby's death.

“Would you like to tell me about Bobby now?” Dan's arm was resting lightly on my shoulder and his features were masked by the dim light.

I squirmed uncomfortably and tucked my legs up under me on the sofa. “I already told you about Bobby,” I said evasively.

“No, Sue. You only told me how he died and how distraught you were over losing him,” Dan challenged. “I'd like to know the kinds of things about Bobby that I learned from you about Damon today. What kind of person he was. The little things he did and said that made you love him so desperately.”

“Dan, please don't,” I begged. “Not now.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Why not now?”

“This is a difficult time for me,” I replied.

“I know it is,” he said. “It's difficult for me, too. But I didn't choose the time, Sue. Nobody did. You just stepped into my life out of nowhere. Neither of us planned it, and I certainly wasn't ready for it, either.” He exhaled loudly, obviously frustrated over the emotions he was experiencing. “But here we are,” he concluded.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Here we are.” I thought I understood what he was feeling. For the same sense of frustration had been nagging at me since the day we'd first met out on the island. Then I'd been plunged into a quagmire of unreasonable guilt over having simply enjoyed our conversation together. Somehow it didn't seem fair that I felt so guilty just for living.

“Why do you want to know those things about Bobby now?” I asked, which was my way of dodging questions for which I feared I would have no ready answers.

“Because,” Dan said softly, “I'm falling in love with you. And I don't know how to compete with a dead lover who can never be anything but young and strong and perfect in your mind.”

His reply hit me hard, because Laura had said nearly the same thing when she had counseled me about the special difficulty of recovering from the loss of a loved one who vanishes without a trace, like Bobby did. And for once I believed she had been absolutely right on target. Because whenever I thought about Bobby, my thoughts—and dreams—invariably centered on the good things we had shared. Never on the darker moments of our relationship.

“Bobby was hardly perfect.” I said it cautiously, the well-intentioned words sounding cold and faithless in my ears. “Wonderful, but not perfect,” I amended. “I don't think anybody is perfect.”

A clear image of Bobby suddenly popped into my mind, and an invisible wall came tumbling down. “Bobby was headstrong and reckless,” I continued truthfully. “And he used to do little things that annoyed the hell out of me, like leaving his dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, or forgetting his keys and then calling to demand that I come home and let him into the apartment.”

Dan was looking at me, his expression unreadable in the darkness. I swallowed hard and kept talking, knowing that this was important, but not exactly sure why. “He was strangely secretive, too, often refusing to tell me where he was going or when he would be returning. There were many times when I spent weeks on end, lonely and terrified,” I confessed, the emotion gradually rising in my voice, “not knowing where he was or what kind of risks he was taking flying his goddamn airplanes…I was always terrified that he was going to kill himself in them.”

I paused to catch my breath, surprised at the vehemence of my outburst.

“Then he did kill himself flying,” Dan said flatly. “And I think that beneath your grief you're really very angry about that, Sue.”

“No!” I shook my head emphatically, knowing even as I denied it that there was a measure of truth in Dan's harsh appraisal. “I mean, maybe I am angry,” I stammered. “But I'm angry with myself, because it was my fault that Bobby was flying that particular airplane. Don't you see? I forced him into it…” I could feel my voice beginning to quaver, on the verge of sobbing.

“Sue, nobody forces someone like Bobby Hayward to do anything they don't want to do,” Dan countered emphatically. “He was doing exactly what he wanted to do and he kept on doing it, even though he knew it bothered you—the long absences, the worry…” Dan stopped himself in midsentence and I could see that he was afraid he had gone much too far.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized. “That was out of line.”

“No!” I shook my head. Because what Dan had said was true. “Living with Bobby was like living in a vacuum,” I continued. “He'd be gone for days or weeks at a time and despite my work and my friends, my life always seemed to grind to a halt without him. I'd be completely miserable and empty, just waiting for his call. Then, suddenly, he'd come back home again and for a few days or a week it was like Christmas and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. Then the cycle would start all over again. The strain was almost intolerable.”

I gazed out the window toward the city and the distant medical center. “Damon always said he could never understand why I put up with it,” I murmured.

“You obviously loved him very deeply.” It was a flat statement.

“Yes,” I whispered sadly, “probably more than he loved me, maybe even more than I should have…” I paused and took a deep breath to steady myself. “But I guess that doesn't matter when you're so much in love with someone.”

Dan stroked my hair. “No,” he agreed. “It doesn't.” He leaned closer, until I could feel the warmth of his breath against my ear. “And because of the way you lost Bobby,” he continued, “you feel like you're betraying him by even considering the possibility of becoming involved with someone else now.”

I reached up and with a trembling hand touched Dan's cheek. “I can't be coy about this,” I said. “I'm strongly attracted to you. I even think…I could very easily be in love with you, Dan. But I just have yet to fully come to terms with the fact that Bobby is truly gone.”

He lowered his head and gently kissed my fingers. “It's okay,” he assured me. “Take all the time you need, Sue. I'll be here when you're ready.”

We sat there on the sofa for a while longer, not speaking, but simply watching the rain and reveling in being close to one another. As I snuggled in the crook of Dan's arm, feeling the warmth and strength of his body next to mine, I knew that something extraordinary had just happened. A bond had been forged that did not require either of us to say another word.

We finally said good night, planning to be up early. I wanted to go to the hospital first thing, to be with Damon. Then, later, I would need to return to the hotel and begin calling our clients, who would be clamoring to know exactly what had happened.

Later, alone and naked beneath the cool sheets of the king-sized hotel bed, I tossed restlessly for a long time before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It seemed as though I had barely closed my eyes when I felt a weight pressing down on the mattress beside me and heard a low masculine voice in my ear.

“Sue?”

I opened my eyes to see him half-kneeling over me, his hard, muscular body sharply outlined in the fall of light through the open door.

With that peculiar sense of disorientation that comes from awakening in a strange place, for a moment I was not quite certain where I was, or who was leaning over me. I saw that he was clad only in black briefs. The tattoos on his upper arms were black in the feeble light.

“Dan,” I gasped. “What in the world…?”

“It's the hospital,” he said, his voice still husky with sleep. “They want us to get over there right away.”

“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, leaping out of bed. “Damon. He's not…?”

Dan shook his head. “No, he's still alive. But they wouldn't give me any further information,” he said, gazing openly at my nakedness.

I looked down at myself, dimly aware that I had let the sheet slip away and I was completely exposed to him. But strangely, I thought, I was not at all bothered by Dan's frank gaze. Naked I walked deliberately across the room and put on my underwear. “Please, let's hurry,” I said as I opened the closet to get my clothes.

Dan simply nodded and left the room. As I pulled my dress on over my head I could hear him phoning the hotel garage, ordering someone to have the Mercedes brought up immediately.