Coast Road (19 page)

I've been putting off going in there."

"Why? " "I don't know. I guess because I've always liked her work."

"So why don't you want to look at it? " "I do." He realized that didn't jibe with what he had said before. "But her work always gets to me."

"Makes you sad? " "Not sad."

"Happy? " "It makes me .

. . feel." Hope looked up at him, her eyes wet but wide. "She was doing sea otters on Monday. They are�so�neat. They're still on the easel. Want to see? " She was beautiful from the inside out, his youngest daughter.

Sweet, sensitive. Too often dominated by her older sister, but not tonight. Tonight she was the little girl who used to crawl into his lap and make him feel like a million bucks. He smiled. "If you take me." THEY spent an hour in the studio. Then Hope went to her room to read, and Jack spread the contents of his portfolio on the kitchen table to work. He had barely taken a look at what was there when he turned around and went back to the studio.

Rachel had made things easy. Tacked to her board was a list of the paintings that she had planned to include in the show. The pieces she had been working on just prior to the accident stood closest to the easel. Other pieces stood in clearly marked stacks. He had gone through them with Hope as a buffer. She saw subject matter and felt mood, but was most concerned about telling Jack little stories that went with each. He let her talk, pleased to see her focused on something other than the cat.

Now he went through the pieces, studying each one, moving on, then back. Rachel painted wildlife. In addition to the sea otters so graphically depicted, there were gray whales and Arctic wolves, egrets, quail, and loon. There were deer in snow and deer in high grass.

There was a meadow of butterflies, and a rattlesnake so well camouflaged that a casual viewer would miss it. There was a coyote, looking Jack in the eye with such a vivid mix of fear and warning that he nearly backed off.

This was why he had put off seeing Rachel's work. He had always found it strong to the point of being intimidating. Whether she used oils, watercolors, acrylics, or pastels, she caught something so real and direct that he felt it�a look, a mood, a need. There was no mystery to why her following was growing. In a state and age where environmental concerns were rising, she captured the vulnerability of the wild.

Take the rattlesnake. There might well have been a caption below it that said the damned thing wanted nothing more than to fade into the woodwork and that it wouldn't harm a thing unless it feared harm to itself.

Powerful stuff to create with just the stroke of a brush or palette knife. He could never do anything like that, didn't have the vision or the skill. She was far more talented than he.

He suspected that that was why he had pursued architecture. True, he had been on that track before meeting Rachel. But they'd had such fun with each other that for a short time he had toyed with the idea of spending a lifetime painting with her. He hadn't, ostensibly because one of them needed to earn money. Deep down inside, though, he knew that his work would always be inferior to hers.

Still, they had had fun.

He went through her pieces again. Eleven paintings were done and ready to frame. Seven, including the otters, were finished except for the background, which held sketchy forms but no more. Field sketches and photographs were affixed to the back of each piece.

His best guess? She would need a week and a half to finish the seven.

And the framing? The moldings were stacked in long strips by the baseboard. She had picked a wide wood frame, so simple and natural that it would enhance rather than compete. Pushing it, she could do the framing in several days.

Two weeks of work for a show two weeks away. It would have been a cinch, if the artist weren't in a coma.

HE had planned to tell Ben Wolfe exactly that at the gallery Sunday afternoon, but before he could say a word, Ben led him into an adjoining room. Three paintings, framed much as Rachel planned to frame the rest, hung in an alcove. Ceiling spots hit each canvas in such a way that the subject was perfectly lit and riveting. Ben knew his stuff.

"We had four, " he explained, seeming taller and stronger on his own turf. "One of them sold last week. Another of the four isn't for sale at all. Rachel won't let it go. Not that I blame her. I'd hold on to it, too, if it were mine. It's my all-time favorite." He was looking at the one he meant, but Jack had already picked it out. A layman might not have caught the difference between the three. Not only wasn't he a layman, but he was personally involved.

The painting that Ben loved, that Rachel refused to sell, was one that she and Jack had done together. The subject was a pair of bobcat pups on a fallen log, the background a meadow surrounded by trees. They had come on the scene during a busman's weekend hiking through�yes�the same Santa Lucias that Rachel now called home. She had done the pups, he the background.

The pups were more vivid now than he remembered them being. She might have touched them up, but the background was exactly as it had been�all his.

"What do you love about it? " Jack asked Ben. So maybe he, too, needed stroking.

Ben, in his innocence, didn't hesitate to tell him. "The background is complimentary to the rest, but different, very subtlely different. It makes the bobcats more striking." . L "Have you told Rachel that? " "Many times."

"What does she say? " "Just that it was done a long time ago. So where do we stand? How many more paintings are in her studio? " Eleven, Jack thought, but he was still looking at the picture he and Rachel had done together. She hadn't told Ben about his participation.

Dishonest, perhaps, but interesting. The piece wasn't for sale. That was good.

"Do we have a shot at the show? " Ben asked.

"I, uh, I think . . . yeah, actually, I think we do, " Jack said, because they definitely had a shot at it. That wasn't the real question.

The real question was how Rachel would feel if Jack picked up a brush and collaborated with her again.

chapter nine.

JACK WAS FEELING stronger. He didn't know why, since Rachel's condition hadn't changed. He figured it had to do with being more rested. Life in Big Sur didn't make evening demands. He had slept more in the last few days than he had in months.

It surprised him. By rights, he should have been Lying awake worrying about Rachel and the girls and what might be if Rachel didn't recover.

He should have been losing sleep over work and the firm, should have been staring at the ceiling wondering what to do about Jill. And he did think about all those things�but during the day. Rachel's bed was firm, and even if the scent of her on the sheets roused the devil of his id, he had always slept well when he was with her.

He thought about that now, driving south along the coast with the girls in the car. Rachel was a cuddler. For him, that had meant having a breath of warmth against back, front, arm, or hip, depending on how she was burrowed. She snuggled in as though his body were a magnet.

During the night, at least, he had always felt competent and strong.

So sleeping better was one possible reason for his current mood.

Another might be the drive itself. He used to find driving relaxing, way back, before they moved to the city. What he felt now reminded him of that. Traffic always thinned after Carmel, allowing him to catch more of the passing scenery�the beach, artichoke fields, the touch of purple where wildflowers were starting to bloom on the low hills swelling beyond. He could feel himself mellowing once he reached this stretch, could feel himself breathing more deeply. Not even the spot where the accident had occurred changed that.

Or maybe it was Rachel's work. He kept thinking about the gallery, about Ben's favorite painting, about the ones in her studio waiting to be finished. He kept thinking that it would be fun to paint again.

It was like there was something new and different in his life.

Something exciting. Challenging. Meaningffil was the word that came to mind, which was odd, since his life was plenty meaningful. But there it was.

THE PHONE was ringing when they walked in the door. Samantha ran for it.

Jack followed her into the kitchen and waited nervously. If something had happened at the hospital�good or bad�he would turn right around and return to Monterey.

Samantha passed him the phone with a look of frustration. "It's David.

" Jack felt his own frustration as he took the phone. David had been sending messages all week. He wanted work done, but Jack's mind was elsewhere. "How're you doing, David? " "Jack? Jack? Is it really you? " Jack looked out the window. The early evening sun snagging the tops of the redwoods spilled a glow through airy needles and on down densely scaled bark. There was something settling about it. His voice was more forgiving than it might otherwise have been. "It's been a long day, pal."

"No change, then? " "No change. What's up? " "I just got a call.

Flynn's gone."

"To Buffalo? It's about time."

"To Walker, Jansen, and McCree."

Walker, Jansen, and McCree. The competition. Michael Flynn had defected. He was the third one in six weeks. At least he wouldn't have taken any accounts with him. Clients weren't drawn to Michael.

He was a follower, not a leader.

"Will you be long? " an aggrieved Samantha asked.

Jack held up a hand to silence her and said to David, "Okay. We can live with this. It makes sense. WJM's work is more local than ours.

Michael has young kids and doesn't want to travel."

"I agree with you there, but what about you? You're the one who'll have to fly to Buffalo in his place." Habit kicked in. For a split-second, Jack looked ahead to the workweek and debated what he could shift around or cancel to allow for several days in New York.

Then he realized that he had already canceled and shifted to the limit to clear the next patch for Rachel.

She had to wake up. It would be a week tomorrow. It was time.

In the meanwhile, there was a solution. There was always a solution.

He made a quick mental assessment of the office situation vis-a-vis the Buffalo project. "Brynn"Johnson can do it." David made a disapproving sound. "Brynna's only a draftsperson."

"She's more experienced than the others, and she knows Buffalo.

Besides, I think she's great."

"She's pregnant." Jack hadn't known that. "No kidding? But that's okay. We can still move her up."

"What's the point of doing that if she'll be leaving? " "Will she? " "You know how women are these days.

What'll happen�trust me, this happens all the time�is that she'll say she's taking a standard maternity leave, then at the end of it she'll tell us she's not coming back. Why should we make a woman like that a project manager? " "Because she's talented, " Jack said, thinking of his daughters being in the same boat one day, "and because maybe if we put out for her, she'll put out for us. It's a matter of instilling loyalty." David snorted. "Loyalty? Good God, I haven't heard that word in a while.

Has anyone else? " Fine. So loyalty wasn't something they had talked much about. But it was time. Instability in the lower echelons of the firm made things harder for the people on top. Jack had to be able to rely on his associates. He hadn't realized how much, until now.

"Maybe if she feels she's moving up with us, " he said, "she'll come back after the baby. How far along is she? " "I don't know. Three months? Four months? " Jack remembered Rachel at four months. She had barely looked pregnant with Samantha, had looked it a little more with Hope. The early change had been in her breasts and her belly, both gently swollen, creamy, soft.

That was what Jack had seen. The rest of the world had seen that by the fourth month, Rachel had outgrown morning sickness and was feeling good.

She hadn't wanted coddling, hadn't wanted extra attention, hadn't wanted anyone telling her not to do what she normally did. All she asked for was the occasional hot fudge sundae with mocha almond ice cream. That was her favorite, her very favorite. The ecstatic look on her face�the way she sucked off each spoonful, scraping the very last of the fudge from the rim of the dish�was a sight to behold.

Rachel in her fourth month of pregnancy had been canfident and strong.

Brynn"Johnson struck Jack as the same type.

"Brynna can go to Buffalo, " he decided. "Unless she doesn't want to.

In which case we'll send Alex Tobin. But Brynna's my first choice. " "Dad, I need the phone, " Samantha whined.

David said, "Why not go yourself? If Rachel is stable�" "She's in a coma. I can't leave now."

"Okay. Forget traveling. I'll settle for getting you back in the office. Hell, I'll settle for four hours a day. Do it while the girls are in school. If Rachel is unconscious, she won't know you're gone, and if she wakes up, hell, if she wakes up she won't want you there.

We have work to do, Jack. It'll only wait so long." Jack and David went back a long way. They had met as draftsmen sharing the bottom rung of the ladder and, commiserating, had started the climb together.

Jack was the stronger designer, David the better businessman, but they shared identical dreams of success, recognition, and monetary reward.