“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Three died that day. I could have been one of those, and then I would have missed out on the life we’ve found here.” Her eyes sparkled. “My Duncan used to drive a truck. I never saw him. Now I do.”
Hope moved her head. She rubbed her eyes against the afghan, turned them toward the fire, opened them slowly, and saw Jack. “Daddy,” she breathed, and quickly sat up.
“I was worried,” he said, but gently. There was no other way to speak in this home.
“Mom always knows I’m here.”
“Well,” he said, pushing himself up, “maybe I’ll know now, too.” He held out a hand. “You have school. Samantha’s waiting.”
“She had breakfast with us,” Faith said with a fond look at Hope.
“I’m sorry for that. We’ve imposed enough.”
“Imposed? Oh, no. Hope is no imposition. She’s a joy. This is the least I can do, after all Rachel has done.” She reached for Hope’s free hand. “Give your mother a kiss for me, will you?”
“OKAY,” HE told the girls as he hustled them to the car. “The joke’s up. Tell me about your mom and the Blighs.”
“They’re good friends,” Samantha said. “Can we talk about my prom?”
“Not yet,” Jack answered, because he was feeling a little foolish knowing so little. “How did they get to be good friends?” he asked, backing out of the drive.
Hope said, “Mom was exploring right after we moved here. She stumbled across their cabin and Faith was on the porch.”
“About my prom—”
“Not yet,” Jack said, shifting to drive down the hill. “You owe me. Both of you. No one told me Faith was a person.”
“No one told you she wasn’t.”
“You guys let me think your mother was dating Duncan.”
“We never said that.”
Hope said, “The thing about Duncan and Faith is that it never seems right talking about them. Mom helps them out, doing marketing and stuff. She always said that Faith was like a favorite aunt. She has coffee up there a lot. They sit and talk. With Faith you don’t even have to talk and it feels good.”
One meeting with the woman, and Jack knew what Hope meant. Faith radiated understanding, acceptance, calm.
Samantha’s voice was a jarring intrusion. “Dad. We need to talk about my prom. There’s been a change in plans.”
He would have liked to hear more about Faith, because even picturing her brought calm, but Samantha had an agenda of her own, and he was learning that car time was good time. Oh yes, he was a captive audience here, but so was she. She couldn’t stomp off when she didn’t like what he said.
He turned north onto Highway 1. “What’s the change?”
“First of all, I’m not going with Brendan. I’m going with Teague.”
Jack felt something by his arm closest to the door. Hope was crowded against the window there. “Teague?” he asked Samantha.
“Teague Runyan. He’s a great guy.”
“Why the switch?”
“Brendan and I aren’t getting along. It doesn’t make any sense for us to be stuck with each other when he wanted to be with Jana and I wanted to be with Teague. I mean, everyone’s with everyone anyway, so it’s no big thing except for going and coming.”
Jack followed that—in a way. “Are you still leaving from Lydia’s house?”
“No. That’s the second change. Teague’s picking me up here.”
Hope shifted. Jack felt the movement against his arm, decided that he really did need a bigger car, and shot Samantha a look. “How old is this Teague?”
“Seventeen. He’s a good driver, and he has a truck. It’s, like, indestructible.”
In Jack’s day, guys wouldn’t be caught dead picking up their girls in a truck, if they had another option. So maybe this Teague didn’t. Or maybe it was just that times had changed. Trucks were in. And Jack did like the sound of indestructible. What he didn’t like was the sound of seventeen. Seventeen was a dangerous age. “Okay. So I’ll meet him when he comes?”
“Uh-huh,” Samantha said a little too brightly.
“What else?”
“Else?”
“Is that it for changed plans? You’re still doing the limo thing from Lydia’s house and back?”
“The party’s at Jake Drumble’s.”
“I’ve never heard that name either,” Jack said a little less easily. Katherine had warned him that things weren’t always as they seemed. Just now with Hope, they had proved to be better. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be that way with Samantha. “Who is Jake Drumble, where does he live, and what happened to Lydia’s party?”
“Oh God, here we go,” Samantha cried, “I knew you’d have trouble with this. You are the most … anal person I know.”
“I just asked.”
“Like it’s the Inquisition,” she said with indignation. “It’s no—big—thing. As far as you’re concerned, the only difference is that Teague will pick me up Saturday and drop me back Sunday.”
“Yeah, well, that leaves a whole lot of hours unaccounted for,” he said. He felt Hope again. Deliberate? “So. The party’s at Jake’s. Before and after?”
“I think so. It’s not definite about after.”
“But you’re going back to Lydia’s to sleep.”
“No,” She was suddenly impatient. “I’m not going with Lydia.”
“Not at all?”
“That’s the point. Like, this is a whole different group. Lydia’ll be with Brendan and Jana and Adam and Shelly, and I’ll be with Teague and Pam and Jake and Heather.”
He was beginning to see the picture. “So Lydia’s party is still on, only you’re not going. But she’s your best friend.”
“So?”
He slid her a glance. “So, that doesn’t sound right.”
Samantha blew out a breath. She folded her arms and stared out the windshield, and Jack was tempted to let it go. The silence was welcome, with his mind so full of other things. But one of those things was Katherine’s concern about teenaged girls and proms; another was a little something that was starting to feel like a finger poking his arm where Samantha couldn’t see.
“Talk to me, Sam,” he said lightly.
“What do you want me to say? Lydia just isn’t … ”
“Isn’t … sophisticated?”
“No, she isn’t, and if I’m with her, I can’t be with other kids who are.”
“Because those others won’t like you if you’re with Lydia?”
“They won’t.”
Jack thought about that as he drove. Hope wasn’t poking him anymore. She didn’t need to. He knew on his own that more than a little something wasn’t right. “What about loyalty?” he finally asked. “Lydia’s been your best friend for six years. It shouldn’t just end in a day.”
There was a pause, then a sharp “Your marriage did.”
Jack was blindsided for the space of a breath. He rebounded with a firm “No, it didn’t. It was months leading up to the end, and it was painful. It wasn’t something either of us wanted.”
“Then why did it happen?”
“Because we’d reached an impasse, but it was between your mother and me and no one else. There weren’t any third parties. We weren’t choosing between one group or another.”
“Just one lifestyle or another,” Samantha said.
“Okay. I can buy that. But it’s a far cry from being best friends with Lydia one day and deciding she isn’t good enough for you the next. So she isn’t sophisticated. What does that mean? She doesn’t use eye makeup? Her T-shirts aren’t tight enough? You seemed happy enough with her last weekend. Was that an act?”
“No.” She made a disgruntled sound. “You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to. But it doesn’t feel right.”
“This is a prom,” she said, enunciating each word. “It’s one night.”
“Sounds to me like it’s more than that. Sounds to me like a life
style decision,” he said, using her word. “You’re choosing between groups of friends. That has long-range implications. So Lydia isn’t as sophisticated as—what’s her name?”
“Pam. And it’s all those kids who aren’t as cool.”
“But they’re nice kids. They come from nice families. I haven’t seen Pam at the hospital visiting your mother. I haven’t seen Teague there, or any of the others you mentioned.”
“That’s because they’re new friends. They don’t know Mom yet. And why do you assume they’re not nice? Just because they’re different doesn’t mean they aren’t as good or even better.” Her voice turned pleading. “You don’t understand. I am so excited about going to the prom with these kids. It’ll be awesome,” she said with feeling, and because Jack did want her to be happy, he settled into the silence of the drive.
But he had a bad taste in his mouth. After meeting Lydia’s mom, he had grown complacent about the prom. What did he know about Pam whoever, or about Teague Runyan? Hell, he didn’t even like the kid’s name, which was sick. But he was Samantha’s father. And he was a man. He knew what men did. He knew what young men did. Seventeen-year-olds were loose cannons.
They were approaching the tree-lined stretch of Carmel Highlands when he said, “I worry about safety. Are Jake’s parents chaperoning this party?”
“As far as I know.” She took a quick breath. “Don’t you dare call. You’ll humiliate me.”
Well, he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to treat Samantha like a mature young woman. “Still,” he said because the whole thing with Lydia was sitting wrong in his gut, “there’s something to be said for loyalty.”
“Oh?” Samantha asked. “Is that why you’re racing back to the city to have lunch with Jill today? You dumped Mom because she wasn’t sophisticated enough.”
“Excuse me?”
Samantha barreled on, clearly driven by that agenda of hers. “She didn’t want to party all the time, so you dumped her for Jill. Is that any different from what I’m doing?”
“Totally. First of all, I didn’t dump your mother. If anything, she dumped me. Second, I didn’t start dating Jill until a long time after your mother and I split.”
“You’ve been dating her two years. Is it serious? Have you given her a ring or anything?”
“No. We’re just friends.”
“Don’t you think she’s thinking about loyalty?”
“Samantha,” he said with a sigh, “this isn’t your business.”
“It is. I want to know why loyalty has to matter to me, but not to you.”
“Loyalty matters to me. Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think I’ve spent the better part of the past week and a half at your mother’s bedside?”
“Why have you?” Samantha asked. “Has it occurred to you that she might not want you there?”
“Yes. It has. But that doesn’t change the way I feel. Sitting with your mother feels like the right thing to do. So I ask you what feels right—going to the prom with friends you know and trust, or blowing them off to be with a whole other group?”
“This is hopeless,” she grumbled and said for what had to have been the third time, “You don’t understand.” This time she turned her head away.
“No,” he sighed, feeling defeated. “I guess I don’t.”
JILL lived in a modest house in Seacliff, which was in northwest San Francisco, overlooking the Pacific. When Jack arrived, at one, he felt a sense of dread. Jill was perfect. Her blond hair was adorably layered, her makeup pleasantly light, her skirt and blouse artsy, her scent spicy—though the scent might well have come from the kitchen. She had decided against the risotto that she would have cooked Monday and, instead, had made a warm Oriental salad with fresh tuna, spaghetti-thin wonton crisps, a dressing that was light and contained herbs Jack had never heard of, and warm, home-baked olive bread.
The granite kitchen island was set with rattan mats, linen napkins, and fresh flowers. One look, one smell, and Jack sensed the effort she had made to make things special. The kiss she gave him tasted of relief, which made him feel worse.
They sat side by side on tall stools, thighs touching, arms occasionally entwined. Jill asked first about Rachel and listened in concern while he tried to verbalize the jolt he still felt each morning walking into that hospital room and seeing her lying inert. He told of helping the nurse bathe her and work her limbs to keep them pliant. He told of talking to Rachel about the girls and the past in the hope of eliciting a response.
Then Jill asked him about work. Fresh from two hours at the office, he talked about that for a while. David had been upset over Boca, but they had worked it through. More worrisome to Jack was his partner’s lukewarm response to his latest Montana design, which he described to Jill to her nodding approval. He told her about sending Brynna to Buffalo, elevating Alex to a project manager for Napa and San Jose, and alerting the others that he needed backup for Austin. He told her that he had just learned about a new project that might be interesting.
He asked Jill about the final take from the benefit the week before, and listened while she outlined plans for the next year’s benefit, proposed several days before. He asked about her tennis lessons and asked how her diabetic mother was doing.
When they stopped talking, Jill slipped her arms around his waist. She rested her head on his shoulder, then raised her face. They kissed once, and again. She slipped off her stool, came between his legs, and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breasts settled against his chest. As she kissed him again, she undulated ever so slowly.
Jack tried to get into it. He told himself that it might work after all, that Jill was an incredible woman, that he would be a fool to let her go. He tried to feel, but nothing came, so he tried to fantasize. But Rachel’s was the only face he could see, and his body wasn’t falling for the switch. It knew the difference between the women. He had spent more than a few hours of late painfully aroused in Rachel’s bed. The only pain he felt now was the knowledge that he couldn’t keep doing this and, because of that, he was about to hurt Jill.
Her mouth was doing its very best against his throat when he took her arms and gently disengaged. He put his forehead to hers. “This isn’t working,” he said quietly. “I … can’t.”
She drew back frightened, studied his face. “Is it Rachel?”
“It’s everything.”
“But is it her?”
He wasn’t sure. Early on, Katherine had asked him why he was still at her bedside. Samantha had asked him the same thing that morning.
“Do you love her?” Jill asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. My life just seems to be turning on end.”
“You need space. That’s okay. I’ll wait. You can take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
He felt a stab of annoyance. It was a minute before he realized that the annoyance wasn’t at her, but for her. She was too good. He could take advantage of her offer in no time.
Clasping her hands together in his, he said, “I can’t do this anymore, Jill. It isn’t fair to you.”
Her voice went high, urgent. “Am I complaining?”
“No. That’s the problem. You don’t complain. You don’t demand. You don’t give me ultimatums.”
“I don’t have to. You know what I want.”
“I do, and you’ve been patient, waiting, wanting it to happen, but it isn’t going to.”
“How do you know? Your life is turning on end; you just said so. Why not wait? Why call it off now?”
“Because,” he said with greater feeling, “it’s not going to happen. It’s not, Jill.”
“But—”
“Shh.” He pressed a finger to her lips, stroked the blond hair that was so much like Rachel’s but not. He spoke in a half whisper, urgent now himself. “Listen to me. Please. I love you, Jill, I do, but as a person, a friend. It won’t ever end in marriage, which is what you want, what you should have.”
Her eyes were large, teary. “Why
… won’t it? What’s … missing?”
“Nothing. Nothing in you. It’s me. I’m just … I’m just … ”
“Still in love with Rachel?”
He released a breath. “Maybe. I honestly don’t know. But I don’t feel free now. My marriage is still there. Unfinished business.”
“Rachel ended it. She left you. You always told me that.”
“It helped keep me angry, but there are reasons why she left, things I didn’t know about until now. I have to talk with her, Jill. I won’t know where I’m going until I do.”
Bewildered, Jill asked, “Was it that good with her?”
That good and better, he would have said if he hadn’t cared so much, but he was hurting Jill enough without. “It was different. Unique in its way. Rachel and I have a history, Jill. We go way back.”
“What if she doesn’t wake up?”
“Then I’ll have the girls. And regrets.” He sighed, running his hands up and down her arms. “Don’t add to the regrets, Jill. I could keep this going between us and just take what I want. But I’m trying to do the right thing. Help me? Please?”
“IT’S DONE,” he told Rachel barely two hours later. Jill had cried at the end. They had agreed to talk from time to time. He was feeling empty, alone. But he had done the right thing. “She was a perfectly lovely woman, but Christ, you have a hold on me. You always did. I was dating someone when we met. Remember? I broke up with her, too.”
Only, then, Jack had been madly in love with Rachel. Now, they weren’t married anymore. But he remembered clear as day the tingling he had felt deep inside whenever she talked, touched him, even looked at him. He remembered the anticipation of seeing her and the pleasure when he did. It had been that way through the birth of the kids. Even after they’d started to want different kinds of everyday lives, there were times when a word, a look, or a touch could start the tingling.
“Were things so bad at the end?” he asked, studying her face. It was healing by the day. Her color was improving. He wanted to think that was propitious.
He curled and uncurled the fingers of her right hand, then did the same with the left. “Maybe we jumped the gun. Gave up too soon. Let it happen without enough of a fight. We had good stuff going.” He concentrated on her ring finger, so slim and bare. “Didn’t we?” He searched her face for a blink or a twitch.
Coast Road Page 23
