The Year Everything Changed (30 page)

“All right. I’m going.” She reached for the handle; the door was jammed. She climbed through the window and dropped to the sand. She caught her breath as pain shot through her body. Everything hurt, her head, her lungs, her knees, even her breast where the seat belt had lain across her chest.

Rolling to her side, she put her hand down and pushed into a sitting position. Seconds later water washed over her fingers. A new, terrifying reality gripped her. The water was only a few feet from the car. Was Jeff right? Was the tide coming in—or was it going out? Frantic, she tried to remember what the ocean had looked like that morning, at lunch, at dinner. Nothing.

She rose to her feet and took a final look inside the car. A hundred things came to mind to tell Jeff, how lonely she’d been before he came into her life, how happy he’d made her, how much she loved him. She reached inside to touch his hand. “I love you,” she said softly. Determined that he should hear her, she shouted, “I love you.”

Tears mixed with the blood smearing her cheeks and neck as she dropped his hand and stepped away from the car. Steadying herself on the crumpled rear fender, she stopped to study the hill, seeking the easiest climb while looking for her purse or the car phone and finding neither. A rock wall blocked her to the right; on the left was a cliff so sheer the top extended out over the bottom. The only way up was the way they’d come down, a steep slope covered with rocks, dry grass, and twisted shrubs.

The slick soles of her Prada loafers slipped on the tall grass. She took them off and tucked them in her waistband. If she had to walk when she reached the road, she’d make better time in shoes. She searched for hand- and footholds, grasping the tough grass, praying it would stay rooted while she hung on and swung from one toehold to the next. Fingernails tore as she clung to rocks; the skin on her arms and legs shredded on the rough bark of shrubs.

Inch by inch, she made her way up what had taken only seconds to descend. She talked to God, saying the same prayer over and over again, begging Him to give her and Jeff more time, begging Jeff not to leave her. By the time she reached the road her hands were raw, the stumps of her fingernails bleeding, her feet numb. She reached for her shoes, but they were gone. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting help.

The highway was deserted. How could that be? This was the only coast road, the path to every ocean tourist destination north of San Francisco. On summer weekends, the traffic was bumper to bumper. She stood next to the tracks the SUV’s tires had dug into the soft soil, a trail that led over the cliff, and waited, ready to do whatever was necessary to get the first car that came by to stop. None came.

She followed the tracks back to the edge of the cliff, wanting, needing contact with Jeff even at a distance. Confused by what she saw, she wiped her eyes and blinked. Something was different. The sand was gone . . . there was water under the car.
The tide was coming in
.

Sick with fear and frantic with the need to do something, she stumbled into the middle of the narrow, twisting two-lane highway and headed toward the only lights she could see—miles away, on the side of a hill.

Chapter Forty-eight
Rachel

Rachel sat on the edge of her bed at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and stared out the window at a city still asleep. She was alone in the two-bed room, the only sound the voices of the nurses exchanging patient information and gossip as they made their rounds and the low drone of a television coming from another room, tuned into a late-night infomercial.

She was freezing. The thin hospital gown hung open in the back, and she couldn’t reach around to close it. She listened for footsteps, her heart dancing in fear and anticipation when she convinced herself they were headed her way.

The ambulance that brought her to the hospital arrived an hour and a half after the helicopter that brought Jeff. They’d taken him into surgery immediately, and now, five hours later, she still hadn’t heard anything other than that he was “doing fine” from a nurse she’d begged to call the operating room and ask.

Rachel didn’t believe her. Jeff wasn’t fine. He couldn’t be. She’d seen him after the local fire department pulled him up the hill in a wire basket, stood at his side while the highway patrol closed the road to let the Search helicopter land. She’d looked into the faces of his rescuers—the policemen, the firefighters, the ambulance attendants, the medical people on the helicopter—seeking something, anything to give her hope. There was nothing, not even a flickering smile.

A moment’s inattention, a kiss, and a goddamned cow. Jeff’s life couldn’t be over because of a cow. It wasn’t possible. They’d been on the coast road a half-dozen times since moving to California. She remembered seeing warning signs about free-range cattle and remembered going over the cattle guards, but not once had she actually seen a cow—until last night.

Rachel took a tissue from the nightstand and blew her nose. She was crying again. She’d acquired an inexhaustible supply of tears and had no control over when they began or ended. Her stomach was a hard knot of fear that radiated into her chest, squeezed her throat, and made her feel as if she were choking. She tried but couldn’t swallow the pain medication the nurse had given her, so she’d been given a shot instead.

New footsteps. Not the soft swish of nurses’ shoes but a hard click, moving fast. Rachel looked at the window, her gaze fixed on the door’s reflection. Instead of the hoped-for doctor in scrubs, a woman appeared.

“Rachel?”

Ginger
. Rachel tried to stand but was too stiff to get up. “What are you doing here? Where are the kids?”

“Christina has them. I didn’t think you’d want them at the hospital yet.”

“Christina? How did she—”

“I called her. She drove up to take care of them so I could be here with you.” Ginger came around the bed and stopped dead, as if she’d run into a Plexiglas wall. “My God,” she gasped. “You look like sh— . . . like you were in a really bad accident.”

“I’m not as bad as I look.” She had to be better than the horror she saw on Ginger’s face.

“What happened to your head?”

Rachel gingerly touched the bandage covering the four-inch-long cut on the side of her head. The nurse had apologized when he cut her hair, saying he would only take as much as necessary. Still, she had a bald spot that would be impossible to hide. “I’m not sure. I think I might have hit a rock. I had my window open.”

“You’re going to have a couple of black eyes, too.”

“The worst is the cracked ribs. Three of them. They hurt all the time. Especially when I try to lie down.”

“That’s it? You go over a cliff and end up with three cracked ribs and a cut?” Ginger moved in to get a closer look. “What’s that on your arm?”

Rachel frowned and held up her arm. The scratches looked like someone had come at her with coarse sandpaper. “I must have scraped them when I was climbing out.” She looked at her legs. They were worse than her arms.

“Have they told you anything about Jeff yet?”

Rachel shook her head, wincing at the movement. “Nothing beyond he’s doing fine.”

“All this time and no one has told you anything? You must be going out of your mind.”

Rachel’s jaw quivered as she struggled unsuccessfully against a new wave of tears. “I keep asking, and they’re nice enough about it, but no one does anything. It’s like they’re all just patting me on the head.”

“Do you want me to see what I can do?”

“I don’t know. I’m so scared,” Rachel whispered, as if it were a dangerous secret. “At least this way I still have hope.”

“How long has it been?”

Rachel glanced at the wall clock mounted next to the television. “Almost six hours.”

“I finally managed to get through to Jeff’s brother. He was at the firehouse. He said as soon as he could get someone to cover for him he’d be down. I don’t know if he’s flying or driving.”

Rachel had called Ginger from the ambulance. She’d asked her to call Logan and let him decide whether to try to reach his parents, who were on a South Pacific cruise celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

“He’s really good with the kids,” Rachel told her. “He can take over for you and Christina when he gets here.”

“Like that’s going to happen. He’s going to have to wrestle the kids away from Christina.” Ginger smiled. “As for me, I’m due a vacation. Hell, I just may quit. It’s not like I love this job and I have enough savings left to last me another six months at least.”

Rachel didn’t know what else to say, so she simply said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything. For being my friend—for being my sister.”

“Being your friend is easy. The sister thing was Jessie’s doing.”

Rachel saw a reflected movement in the window—a man dressed in green. She should have known she wouldn’t hear the cushioned footsteps that brought the surgeon to her room.

“Mrs. Nolan?”

Ginger jumped at the male voice. “She’s here.” She moved to the end of the bed. “Come in—please.” Ginger held out her hand. “I’m Ginger Reynolds, Mrs. Nolan’s sister.”

He shook Ginger’s hand. “Joseph Kenton.”

Rachel slowly stood, holding on to the mattress with one hand, the windowsill with the other. “How is he?”

“He’s still in recovery, but you should be able to see him in about an hour. We were able to save enough of the leg to—”

“What does that mean—save enough of the leg?”

He swore softly as he swept the green surgical cap off his head and crumpled it in his fist. “No one told you?”

“No—no one has told me anything.”

“The femoral artery was crushed in the accident, cutting blood flow to the lower leg. Without blood, there is no oxygen and the tissues become ischemic and acidosis develops. When that happens, there isn’t anything we can do except remove the limb.”

“You cut off his leg?” she repeated, sure she couldn’t be hearing him correctly. People didn’t have legs cut off anymore, they had them reattached. There were newspaper stories about it all the time. Jeff still had his. Why couldn’t it be saved?

“Progressive acidosis of a large area of the body can cause shock and death,” he said. And then, with a sigh, he added, “Even though his arm was more damaged, the blood supply was never diminished and we were able to save it.”

Ginger moved closer to Rachel in a protective gesture. “Otherwise he’s okay?” she asked.

“His spleen ruptured and had to be removed. He has five broken ribs, which will heal on their own. The broken pelvis will take a couple of weeks, the bones in his arm considerably longer. Those we had to plate and pin and will have to go back in to remove.” He paused, plainly exhausted. “With your husband’s body compromised from his other injuries and the majority of the cells in his leg already dead or dying, there wasn’t any other option. Frankly, Mrs. Nolan, he’s lucky he got here when he did.”

“How much of his leg did you have to take?” Rachel asked.

“Mid-thigh. I went high enough to assure good tissue coverage for the stump. He won’t have any trouble being fitted for his prosthesis.”

“If I could have gotten help sooner would it have made a difference?” Rachel asked.

He shook his head. “From where the accident happened, even if the fire department had been on the opposite side of the road, the helicopter couldn’t have gotten him here in time.” He stuffed his cap into his back pocket, crossed his arms, and leaned a shoulder into the wall. “I know how difficult this is, but it isn’t all bad news. Barring complications, your husband is going to make a full recovery. He’ll need a couple of months of physical therapy and time to heal before he can be fitted for his prosthesis, but he’s young and in good shape, and there really isn’t anything to keep him from doing whatever he wants to do.”

“Does he know?”

“Not yet. We’ll tell him as soon as he’s fully awake.” He straightened and prepared to leave. “You’re going to have questions when you’ve had time to absorb this. If they’re something the staff can’t answer or if you’d rather talk to me personally, you can reach me at my office. Leave a message and a phone number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Rachel held out her hand. “Thank you, Dr. Kenton.”

He took her hand between his. They were enormous, and warm. “You’re welcome.”

When he was gone and Ginger had eased Rachel back into bed, she looked up from adjusting the blanket and asked, “Are you worried how Jeff will take it?”

“Of course. How would you react if you woke up and found your leg gone?”

Ginger considered the question. “After what the two of you went through, I think I’d be thrilled we were both still alive.”

She knew Ginger was right, but was logic enough compared to the reality of a missing leg? It wasn’t as if Jeff had been offered a choice, his leg or his life. If so, the aftermath would have been easier to accept because he’d been in on the decision. “If the accident had to happen, I’m glad it happened on the way home instead of the way there. Now at least Jeff can’t question my reasons for moving home.”

“So you did it?”

Rachel stared at her. In one of those compelling moments of lunacy that sometimes accompany tragedy, she answered, “More than once.”

Ginger frowned, plainly confused. Seconds later she burst out laughing. “Shame on you.”

Infected with the same insane laughter, Rachel’s mind credited the small joke with high humor. A torrent of emotion slipped the dam she’d built to get her through all that had happened after the wreck. Almost immediately the laughter changed to sobs. She held her sides at the pain both created. “I’m sorry. That was stupid.”

Ginger handed Rachel a tissue and then crawled into bed beside her, bracing her back against the headboard and crossing her legs at her ankles. She took Rachel’s hand and locked fingers.

“I’m going to get all sloppy and sentimental for a minute,” Rachel said. “I get a knot in my stomach when I think how easily I could have missed knowing you. I wanted a sister from the time I was old enough to know what they were. And now I have you and Elizabeth and Christina, and my life doesn’t just seem more complete, it feels as if I’m connected to something wonderful that’s forever.”

“I used to dream about having a sister, too,” Ginger admitted. “Someone I could talk to who would keep my secrets and tell me hers, someone who would laugh and cry with me, someone—”

“—who would let me borrow her beautiful clothes,” Rachel finished for her.

“My closet is your closet,” Ginger said. She laughed. “I can say that because I know there’s nothing in there you would want.”

“I don’t know—that cropped sweater you had on last week was pretty cute.”

“It’s yours—spaghetti stain and all.”

Rachel appreciated Ginger’s efforts to distract her, but it wasn’t working. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jeff and how he was going to deal with losing his leg. “I have to be with Jeff,” she said. “Would you help me get there?”

Ginger swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I’ll get a wheelchair.”

Rachel sat next to Jeff’s bed, resting her head lightly on the pillow they’d used to support his arm. He’d been awake once long enough to see that she was there and to ask if she was all right and immediately fell asleep again. The nurse told her he could sleep for hours and tried to get her to go back to her room, but she’d refused. She wanted her face to be the first one Jeff saw when he woke up again.

“How long have you been here?” he asked hoarsely, startling her out of her insulated world of “if onlys” and “might have beens.”

With effort she got up and leaned over the bed to give him a kiss, biting back a groan at the pain in her side. It was time for another shot. “Since they brought you to the room.”

“You look terrible.”

She had to struggle to hear his throaty whisper. “It’s just surface stuff.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why are you crying?”

“They’re happy tears.” She swiped her hand over her cheeks. “We made it, Jeff.”

“I know about the leg, Rachel.” He brought up his good hand, the one with all the tubes and IVs attached, to touch her chin. “They told me in the recovery room.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I know,” he said softly. “It’s just going to take some getting used to.”

“I was so scared.”

“You saved my life.”

A sob caught in her throat. “I wish I could have saved your leg, too.”

“I saw this dumb show a while back about a two-legged dog. He didn’t give a damn how weird he looked running around with half his legs. I remember wondering if it took someone special to love an animal that looked like that.”

The pain spread from her ribs to her heart. She turned his hand over and pressed her cheek into his palm. “It’s not how you look that makes me love you, it’s who you are.”

His fingers caressed her forehead. “When the water started coming in the car and I thought I wasn’t going to make it, I looked for something I could write on to tell you how much you mean to me. I couldn’t find anything, but it didn’t matter because I realized there weren’t any words. What I feel for you is so much a part of me that you’re like the air I breathe. I wanted you to feel what I feel. . . . To know how my heart beats faster just knowing you’re going to walk into a room.”