Then he began to speak. His head was bowed over hers, his arms protective, his voice beseeching but loud enough to carry over her sobs. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me if I hadn’t come in here and seen the bobcats. Ben was raving about them, saying that the canvas was his all-time favorite, and I remembered how we’d done it together. He didn’t know that, so he wouldn’t know if I did it again, and I was torn, Rachel, totally torn. You got this show all on your own, not because of the bobcats but because of the whole body of your work. That was you, your skill, your talent, your perseverance. I wouldn’t have done a thing if you’d shown signs of waking up, but you didn’t. The longer it went on, the more we realized how long it could go on, and then I started thinking that if you didn’t wake up, there wouldn’t be another show. I wanted you to have at least one, Rachel. I figured you’d worked too hard and too long not to.”
He held her head to his chest. Her sobs had slowed to hiccuping murmurs. She was hanging on every word.
“I was feeling helpless there in the hospital,” he said. “I talked to you and helped move you, but you weren’t waking up. I’d get back to Big Sur at night wanting to do something useful. I couldn’t stand the sight of my own work, and the materials were all in your studio, waiting, so I decided to try one, just one.” She felt the swell of his chest when he drew in air and a warm reverence when he blew it out against her hair. “It was incredible. I haven’t painted like that in years. I haven’t been lost in anything like that in years. I felt more alive, more talented, more purposeful.
“So I’ve been dreaming,” he said. “Know what of?”
She shook her head under his hand, against his chest, all too aware of her own dreams and wanting, wanting so badly.
“Of us doing more of this. I don’t want a name role in it. You keep the name. I’ll still design, but smaller things again, houses for people who can smile at me and love what I’ve done. I had that in the beginning, but it’s been gone for so long that I barely remember it. What you barely remember, you don’t miss until something happens to jog your memory. That’s what sitting at your bedside did, Rachel, jogged my memory. I remembered things about my work and things about us, things that maybe I didn’t want to remember because they were so good, and they were gone.”
Rachel knew what he meant. She knew what he meant.
“I don’t regret going into architecture. I grew up needing money, and architecture gave me that, but I have enough of it now. I’ve had enough of it for years. Never saw that, boy. You always talked about priorities and mine were messed up, but sitting at your bedside fixed that, too. So I want to design houses and paint your backgrounds. I want to live in Big Sur and be with the girls, and I want us to talk, Rachel. We let old habits take over, but if we broke them once, we can do it again. I want us to talk. I want us to be married.”
Rachel started crying again, but it was a gentler weeping this time, from the heart, not the gut. Twisting, she drew herself up against him. Her tears wet his neck, but she held on tightly, held on until she needed a kiss.
His mouth moved on hers, reinforcing everything he had said, taking her to places she hadn’t been in too many long years. She felt his hunger and tasted his need, weak with it all, when he finally broke the kiss and framed her face with his hands. “I never stopped loving you,” he whispered. “Never did.”
She could see it in his eyes. But the light had been there once before and died. “You shut me out,” she accused in a nasal voice.
“I was stupid. I was proud. I didn’t know what mattered.” He threw back an accusation. “You walked away.”
“I was hurting. I had to distance myself from the source of the pain.”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant when you called me that time. I should have come. I’m sorry you lost the baby. It would have been something.”
“Yes.” She had mourned that child. It would have been … something. “Did you really leave the firm?”
“I did. What do you think?”
“I think it’s good. David brought out the worst in you.”
“He may have. Do you mind that I finished your pictures?”
“I love that you finished my pictures. What’s with Jill?”
“Over. I knew there was no future. What’s with Ben?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”
“I like your friends.”
“They like you. What’ll you do with your house?”
“Sell it. We could buy something bigger, but I like the place you have.”
“Really? Are you sure? You’re not just saying that?”
“Really. I’m sure. I’m not just saying that.”
“Will you like it in five years?” she asked, knowing he knew what she meant. It was there in his eyes, with his love.
“I’ve been alone. Five years, ten years, twenty years living with you in that house is so much more than what I was facing before … ” His voice broke. His eyes were moist.
Rachel touched his lips. I love you, she mouthed and said it again in a kiss. When it was done, he gave a huge sigh of the relief she felt and hugged her with arms that shook.
From somewhere off to the side came an edgy “Mr. Wolfe won’t like this.”
No, Rachel figured, he wouldn’t. She also figured he had known all along that something was missing in her life. She suspected that in his own kind way he would be pleased to know she had found it again.
Coast Road Page 38
