Coast Road (11 page)

"Who's Ben? " he asked, but before Duncan could answer, Hope had taken the big man's hand and was looking up at him with reverence.

It was some picture�beautiful Hope, with sunny blond hair, hazelgold eyes, and now, finally, just a touch of color under her freckles, and Duncan, who approached homely with his big white beard, long ears, and leathery hands.

"I'll come for her later, " Hope was saying.

The big man nodded, gave her hand a squeeze, and nudged her toward Jack.

WHEN JACK arrived at the hospital, Rachel was freshly bathe, lying on crisp white sheets, smelling as antiseptic as she had the day before.

He had brought a tube of cream from her bathroom and began rubbing it onto those stretches of her skin that were bare.

"Better, " he said when the scent of lilies rose. "More you. I'm flattered. I'd have thought you would switch." He touched lotion to her cheeks, working carefully around the bruise. "Black-and-blue here, " he told her. "If they didn't know better, they'd be wondering who hit you.

Good thing I was in San Francisco." Not that he had ever raised a hand to Rachel�or to either of the kids. For, whatever other faults he had, that wasn't one. As the son of an avid disciplinar > U G ian, he had seen enough raised hands to last him a lifetime. "I'll bet you have a headache." She didn't respond. Her hand lay limp, her arm dead weight. He studied her eyes for a sign of movement behind the lids.

When there was none, he checked the monitor screen. Her heartbeat was undulating evenly. She was definitely alive. He wondered if she found his worry amusing.

He told her about getting the cat to Duncan's, about waiting ten minutes for Samantha to finish blowing her hair stick straight, about dropping the girls at school with minutes to spare. He told her his plans for the day. He told her that she was messing up his life in a major way, and when she didn't respond even to that, he left the room in a fit of frustration.

He found Kara Bates in the hall. The pearl earrings had been replaced by onyx squares, powerfill in their own right on ivory lobes, a foil for black hair knotted stylishly in back. So, she wanted to be taken seriously? He could give her that chance.

"Shouldn't Rachel be reacting to something by now? " he demanded.

"It's been a day and a half." Kara stuck a thumb over her shoulder.

"It's been a month and a half for the family in there. These things take time, Mr. McGill. Your wife isn't getting worse. Her stats are stable. There's been no drop in oxygen saturation, no rise in arterial pressure. We have to assume that something's working the right way in there."

"Easy for you to say."

"No, " she said crisply. "Not easy at all. I want to do, not to wait.

This isn't easy for any of us."

"I have a neurologist coming from the city. He said he'd be by today."

She reached behind the desk and produced a business card. "He was already here. He suggests that you call him midafternoon."

"Did he see her file?

"Her file, her, everything. He says he agrees with our diagnosis. He doesn't feel that anything else should be done right now." Jack ran a hand through his hair. Another hope thwarted. "If you were to make a guess as to when she'll wake up�" "I can't do that." If she wanted to play in the majors, she had to do better. "Try." She simply shook her head. "I'd like to give you hope, but I just� don't�know. Head injuries are like that. The best I can do is to say that Rachel is a good candidate for recovery." That was only part of what Jack wanted to hear.

HE SHOULD have felt better driving north toward San Francisco. This was his city, his turf. It was where his home was, where his business was.

He had seen remarkable success here, had felt the headiness of landing plum jobs and the satisfaction of seeing his designs built. He was known here, respected here. He had a potential significant other here.

But his middle grew tighter the closer he got and was joined by an odd grogginess. It was like his mind was a leg that had fallen asleep.

Tingly. Dense.

He stopped at his house first, hoping to get his bearings there, but the place felt cold. Frequent traveler that he was, he tossed a duffel on the bed, quickly filled it with clothes, packed up razor, shaving cream, hairbrush�seeing little of it, barely thinking. In the studio, he stuffed a briefcase with papers from the fax, a portfolio with plans in varying stages of completion. He didn't bother to look out at the courtyard. Nothing to see�it was foggy again. He spent a total of ten seconds flipping through yesterday's mail before tossing it aside, then started out the door, stopped short, and returned. Standing in the front hall, whose walls had been rag-painted a charcoal gray that he had thought handsome at the time, he called Jill.

"How'd it go? " he asked as soon as she said hello.

"Jack! Where are you? " The enthusiasm in the simple question invited more.

"My place, but not for long. A quick stop at the office, then I'm eaded back. I told the girls I'd pick them up at school. Rachel is still comatose. How was last night? " "It was fine. Successful. " "I knew it would be. You do things like that so well." She was a warm, generous hostess, whether entertaining at home, at a restaurant, or in a ballroom. They had met as fellow guests at someone else's party two years before, and he had been immediately impressed. She was poised and intelligent, knew how to ask questions, could discuss politics with the best of them, but�important, here�knew when not to.

"How much did you raise? " "We're still tallying the last of the raffle receipts, but it looks like we topped a quarter of a million. " "That's great, Jill. Good for you. You must be thrilled." He was pleased for her, even if his voice didn't show the inflection. She had worked hard. She deserved good results.

"I missed you, " she said.

I missed you, too, he should have been able to say. But he was too preoccupied with Rachel's condition to have thought much about Jill.

"You deserve better than a guy who ducks out at the last minute, even though his reasons are good. Was it very awkward? " He was inviting her to yell at him, all the while knowing she wouldn't.

"No. You were right. I was running around. You'd have been stranded.

Will I see you, Jack? " "Not enough time, Jill."

"Not even for a minute? Just a quick run in on the way to the office?

" "I can't."

"When will you be back again? " She had asked that question often during the past two years. Jack traveled constantly.

Any woman he dated knew that. Jill was the first who had accepted it graciously.

And why not? She had her own life, her own causes, her own friends, and was a mature, giving individual. He loved those things about her.

He especially loved the fact that she made him feel wanted. He would always need that. But she didn't nag �and she wasn't nagging now, though the question sounded different this time. He could have sworn he sensed fear. It was the same fear that he had sensed a time or two before, when she alluded to a future together.

Usually he skirted the issue by blaming his work. "You don't want to be tied to a man married to work, " he would tease. Or he would say, "Let me get through this patch, and we'll talk again, " or even, "My life isn't my own, Jill, not with so many big projects going on. " This time he simply said, "I'll be back as soon as I can. Pray for Rachel? " Knowing that, bless her, she would probably do just that, he drove to the office, but the minute he pulled into the space that he paid dearly for each month, he had the urge to back right out and leave. There were problems here, too many to label or count�none to do with economic survival, though that was what he had spent a lifetime fearing. More to do with him. He felt confused. The grogginess in his head became a buzz.

He wanted to run, escape, flee.

But this was his firm. As a name partner, he had a responsibility to the twenty-some-odd people that he and David employed.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he crossed through the brick-walled foyer with only a passing nod at the receptionist. He strode down the hall, looking at none of the open cubicles lest his eye be caught, and didn't stop until he reached Tina Cianni's glass-enclosed office.

She was on the phone. Eyes widening, she hung up within seconds.

"What are you doing here, Jack? You're supposed to be in Monterey. " More cautiously, she said, "How is she? " "Alive. But still comatose.

" Tina released a breath. "Well, the alive part is good. How are the girls? " "Hanging in there. What's doing? " She paused, gave him a warning look. "You don't want to know." Again? "Is it worse than a coma? " "David would say it is, " she said dryly. "Michael Flynn was supposed to have revised plans done for Buffalo last night. Calls are coming in fast and furious. Every day those windows don't go in is costing John Perry a pretty penny." Jack knew that all too well. The last time he had worked with this particular developer�on a series of housing clusters�heavy snows had brought work to a standstill at three crucial points. Each day of delay meant another day carrying the construction mortgage with interest. This time the project was an art gallery with adjoining studios, a project closer to Jack's heart than most, and the windows had come in wrong. The contractor swore he had ordered the right ones. Whether he had or not was moot. Reordering and waiting for delivery could set them back two months.

As designing partner, Jack had done the original work. He had revised the plan to incorporate the windows as delivered. Michael Flynn, as his project manager, was supposed to see that what Jack designed was built, which meant making blueprints of Jack's revisions, getting them to Buffalo, and following them there posthaste.

"Where is Michael? " "Home. He ran out of here at three yesterday to take his two-year-old to the doctor. She was having a massive poison ivy attack, and his wife panicked. He was rear-ended on the way home, then tripped and fell down a flight of stairs with the child in his arms. It's a miracle neither of them was killed. The little girl is fine. Michael thinks he broke his ankle. It's swollen. He's going for X rays." The buzz in Jack's head grew louder. "Where's everyone else? " "They're working, but it's slow. When Michael ran out, he implied that he was nearly done, but he wasn't. Alex and Brynna are on it." Jack took a tired breath. He should have been irate. His name would be the one tarnished if Buffalo was upset. His reputation was the one at stake.

But he felt numb. "What else? " "Boca. Regulations and committees.

Back to the drawing board." The project in Boca was a combined office building and shopping mall.

He had already revised the design not once, not twice, but three times to satisfy the quirks of one vocal member of one crucial committee.

With preliminary approval of that revised design, he had put two draftsmen to the task of producing working drawings. He had already compromised to the limit, not to mention swallowed wasted hours for which he had to pay his draftsmen without reimbursement. Was the money worth it?

Tina was right. He didn't want to be there.

"Shall I cancel you out for tomorrow? " she asked.

"Yeah."

"You look done in. Did you sleep? " "Some." Dropping his head back, he eyed the ceiling. He couldn't focus on Buffalo, couldn't focus on Boca. But he was the leader of the firm, and morale was low.

So he walked down the hall and stopped at one cubicle after another, making his presence felt in the barest way�a question here, a suggestion there�wading through the static in his head for relevance.

He was singly responsible for three-quarters of the design work the firm did. It was good work, increasingly important work. Metropolitan Home had photographed his museum in Omaha, Architectural Digest was doing a piece on his library in Memphis. He was getting invitations to bid on some of the most exciting projects�that, and repeat clients.

Every architect dreamed of tying himself to a conklomerate with ongoing projects, and the dream was coming true for Sung and McGill. Still, Jack felt detached, felt angry to be in the office.

Mercifully, David was on-site in Seattle. Jack wasn't up for explaining himself. How could he explain what he didn't understand?

His own office was in a far corner of the suite. Like his studio at home, it harbored more business than art. Oh, there were pictures on the wall, lots of black-and-white under glass, elegant renderings of his favorite projects, reprints of magazine pieces�and for a minute, looking at them, he felt that old glory and the glow. There had been nothing, absolutely nothing, like the high of seeing his first design turned into a home. And there were other highs�the high of designing something bigger, more complex, more expensive, the high of winning an award or being solicited for work by a client so powerful that Jack was stunned.

He felt pride. Yes, he did. But it was distant.

He needed a break. Maybe that was it. He had been working nonstop for too long. He and Rachel used to take vacations, trekking through remote areas of Canada or South America, always with pads and pencils, often with the girls. Since the divorce, he hadn't taken more than an occasional long weekend to himself, and then always for something more lazy and posh. Jill wasn't a trekker. She was a skier, so they did that together. But it didn't clear his head the way vacations with Rachel had.