Coming Home (The Santa Monica Trilogy Book 2)

by Jill Blake

  He shrugged. It was true, he’d relaxed his rigid stance on a lot of things. Over time, he’d realized that moderation was the key. Just because his mother had been an alcoholic who had met her fate with a handful of pills and a fifth of Jack Daniels didn’t mean he was doomed to follow in her footsteps. Genetic predisposition wasn’t destiny. As long as he remained on guard against over-indulgence, the occasional glass of wine wouldn’t kill him.

  “I can share, if you like.”

  She hesitated. “Okay.”

  He turned to the waiter. “Make that a bottle.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Logan offered Grace the bread basket, then helped himself.

  “I’m glad to see this place hasn’t changed.” She poured olive oil onto her plate, then licked a droplet off of her finger. “These last few days, I’ve felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. I don’t recognize half the things on campus anymore.”

  “Yeah.” Logan cleared his throat, grateful for the white tablecloth and linen napkin across his lap. If something as simple as Grace licking her finger got him all hot and bothered, he wasn’t sure how he’d survive dinner. “There’s always something under construction. Our tax dollars at work.”

  “Speaking of, how’s your sister Eva doing? Is her husband still flipping houses?”

  “He died. About a year ago.”

  “Oh, no, I’m so sorry.” She lifted stricken eyes to him. “What happened?”

  “Brain cancer.”

  “But he was so young. He was what—around forty?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “Terrible. Your sister must be devastated. The last time I saw her, she was pregnant.”

  “They had a son, Benjamin. Good kid.”

  The waiter arrived with their wine. Logan was glad for the interruption. In the few minutes it took to go through the uncorking, sniffing, pouring, and tasting, he was able to push aside the anger he always felt when thinking of Eva’s dead husband. The man had been bad news from the start, though his sister unfortunately hadn’t seen that until it was too late. A year after his death, she was still dealing with the fallout. And in typical Eva fashion, she wasn’t letting Logan—or anyone else, for that matter—provide more than token assistance.

  When the waiter withdrew with their menus and orders, Logan shifted the subject. “How’s your rotation going?”

  “Fine. It’s strange to be starting as a newbie when I’m so close to graduation. But at least I’m getting to know the attending physicians. I think it’ll be a good fit if I get the faculty position.”

  “When do you find out?”

  “Hopefully I’ll get an offer in the next few weeks. Then the real fun begins. Applying for admitting privileges, credentialing, and so on.”

  “I did warn you about academic bureaucracy.”

  “Yes, you did.” She swirled the wine in her glass and took a sip. “Still, in today’s climate it’s better to be under the umbrella of a big institution than to try to make it in private practice.”

  “I would have thought the opposite. Don’t most clinical psychiatrists do cash business?”

  “Yes, but it’s hard, especially when you’re just starting out. It takes two to three years to build a practice. And most people who really need the help can’t afford to pay cash. Even if they have insurance, it doesn’t do much good. Insurance companies limit the number of visits they allow, and the reimbursements are often so low that they don’t even cover overhead. Plus they make you jump through all sorts of bureaucratic hoops just to get paid. In the end, it’s not worth the aggravation for most private psychiatrists to take insurance.”

  “So how do people get treatment?”

  “Through a managed care hybrid model, I suppose. A kind of Frankenstein approach to mental health. You have psychiatrists doing medication management, running patients through so-called ‘med mills.’ Ten or fifteen minute appointments. Enough time to ask the basics. Is your Zoloft or Zyprexa or whatever-your-drug-of-choice-is keeping your symptoms controlled? Is it causing any side effects? Are you suicidal? Homicidal? No? Okay, then, here’s your prescription, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

  Her nostrils flared, and for the first time all evening, Logan felt as if the real Grace was making an appearance: passionate, opinionated, and pulling no punches. He hid a smile behind a sip of wine and waited for her to continue.

  “The talk therapy is handled separately,” she said. “By psychologists, MFT’s, LCSW’s—an entire alphabet soup of providers with varying degrees of training and competence. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of excellent therapists out there. The problem is that the care is so fragmented. And so difficult to access. The whole system is broken, and until the government, or the insurance companies, or whatever powers that be recognize that treating mental health is as important as treating someone’s blood pressure or diabetes, nothing is going to change.”

  “It does sound pretty dysfunctional,” he agreed.

  “Sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox now. I didn’t mean to hijack the conversation. It’s just...I wish things could be different. It’s like homelessness, or addiction. Mental illness is one of those things people feel uncomfortable acknowledging. It’s easier to look the other way and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

  It was the perfect opening. Logan debated briefly before taking it. Much as he wanted to move forward and leave the past behind, he was afraid that wasn’t possible. Not yet. Not until they worked through whatever was holding Grace back. And something obviously was.

  The signs of attraction were all there. He’d caught her sideways looks, the subtle quickening of breath, the flare of interest in her eyes before her lashes swept down and she feigned preoccupation with the scenery. He would have thought, after the confessions of the other day, that they were beyond this one-step-forward-two-steps-back routine, but apparently not.

  The question was: why not? What was standing in the way? Was she still recovering from her divorce? He thought about the restraining order, the tabloids dishing about Harry Blackwell’s state of mind. Was that the root of the problem?

  Before he could think better of it, he voiced the question. “Is that what happened with your ex-husband? People looked the other way?”

  Even in the dim light, he could see her face drain of color. She took her time straightening the silverware, aligning the tip of her knife precisely an inch below her water glass, and the bottom edges of each fork in an even line beside her service plate.

  “Harry was getting treatment,” she finally said. “Unfortunately, even with unlimited resources and the best of care, it doesn’t always help.”

  Logan watched as she pinched breadcrumbs off the tablecloth and deposited them, one by one, on her plate. The task seemed to require an inordinate amount of concentration. He stifled the impulse to reach over and cover her hand in a bid to focus her attention back on him.

  Their appetizers arrived. Logan waited until the waiter withdrew and Grace took her first few bites of salad. “What happened with Harry?”

  Her fingers tightened on the fork. “What exactly are you asking?”

  At this point, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that there was more to the story than what Grace was telling, and for some reason that he couldn’t understand, she was being cagey about it.

  The speculation in the press was bad enough. Especially on the heels of a recent data breach at one of New York’s premier psychiatric hospitals, which resulted in the leak of confidential medical information detailing Harry Blackwell’s treatment following a suicide attempt. The whole thing was like watching a train wreck unfold in slow motion. Fascinating, and a little sickening.

  But Logan was more concerned about the effect it might have had on Grace. Clearly, she’d had a troubled marriage. By pushing her to revisit what were no doubt painful memories, Logan was taking a huge risk. She could easily decide she’d had enough, and walk out on him again. This time, for good. Which would leave him with
a slew of unanswered questions, a raging hard-on, and no relief in sight for either one.

  But ignoring the issue wasn’t an option either. Something had happened to her between the time she’d left for New York and when she’d returned to California. Something that was still weighing on her. He could feel it, like a third presence at the table.

  They’d already dealt with their mutual past, at least with regard to their breakup and the role Grace’s convoluted family history had played in it. Whatever miscommunication and misunderstandings had occurred then were over and done with.

  As far as Logan could see, that left only one thing still standing between them. And that obstacle had a name: Harry Blackwell.

  Logan wished he could simply wave a magic wand and erase the man from Grace’s life. If only it were that easy to undo whatever damage Harry had inflicted on her during their years together.

  Unfortunately, Logan knew better. Given how defensive and prickly Grace was these days, he had his work cut out for him. Good thing he was a patient man.

  Perhaps what he needed was a different approach.

  “I know you said Harry had nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme,” he said, holding up a hand to check her protest. “But if you turn on the news, all you hear is talking heads jabbering on about how he was the compliance officer of Blackwell Securities, and should have known what his father was doing. Would have known if not for his psychiatric problems. That maybe his father deliberately took advantage of those problems, maybe even stood in the way of Harry getting appropriate treatment, to prevent anyone from examining the company books too closely. Some people are even saying he gave Harry the job specifically so he could have a scapegoat on whom to blame everything if the scam ever came to light.”

  Grace set her fork down. “I’ll grant you the man was Machiavellian. But I can’t believe he would put his only son at risk. Harry was the one who manipulated his parents, not the other way around.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You need to understand that when someone’s in the middle of a manic episode, he’s not in any position to judge what’s best for him. He feels great, on top of the world. Like he’s master of the universe. Harry didn’t want to be on medication that would slow him down or make him feel sleepy or sluggish. And technically, William and Barbara couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do. But they could have tried a little harder to convince him of the benefits of taking medication and following up regularly with his doctors. He wouldn’t listen to me, felt I wanted to undermine him, hold him back from achieving his full potential. I tried to get his parents to understand, but it was like talking to a wall. They lurched from one crisis to the next, and in between managed to convince themselves that everything was fine. That he was fine.”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  “No.” She sighed. “The problem was they wanted to believe things were going well. So when Harry told them not to worry, they didn’t. No matter what I said. I was the outsider. Harry was their son.”

  Logan didn’t like the bleak note that entered her voice. “You were their daughter-in-law. And a physician, training to be a psychiatrist.”

  “Fat lot of good that did.” Her lips thinned. “I didn’t recognize it, you know. The fact that Harry was bipolar. Not in the beginning. In retrospect, I think he probably lived in a hypomanic state for years. He was funny, charming, constantly in motion. The life of every party. Some people are just like that. It’s their personality, or their upbringing. His behavior fit the image of someone who grew up with wealth. You know what I mean. That sense of entitlement, like everything revolves around you. He was very sure of himself. Charismatic.”

  “And you fell for Mr. Charisma.”

  Her sharp intake of breath made him wish the words back almost as soon as he said them. She didn’t need him to underscore her error in judgment.

  He leaned forward, ready to apologize, but her soft voice stopped him.

  “I was lonely,” she said. “Living in Manhattan, cut off from everything I’d known. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I went. Glad I had the opportunity to find my dad and get to know him. But he had his own life. I was in my third year of med school when I met Harry. Most of my classmates were already married, or paired off with each other. So yeah, I was lonely. Maybe even feeling a little sorry for myself. And there was this guy, larger than life, ready to sweep me off my feet.”

  Logan didn’t want to hear any more, but it was too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Too late to undo the past. He’d pushed Grace away all those years ago, rejected the possibility of a long distance relationship, refused to even consider a compromise. In retrospect, he realized he should have done whatever it took to stay together. Skype, FaceTime, flying visits on the weekends and during school breaks. Maybe he could have even given up Caltech in favor of something closer to New York. One of his post-docs had done a PhD at Columbia. Another had gone to MIT. Both schools had terrific neuroscience programs, and were a whole lot closer to where Grace had gone than Pasadena was. They could have worked something out.

  Instead, here they were, like two near-strangers, trying to come to terms with all the baggage they’d accumulated during their years apart.

  “I didn’t know about Harry’s psychiatric history until later,” Grace said, recapturing Logan’s attention. “I had no idea about the hospitalizations that his parents had hushed up, the suicide attempts.”

  “You mean there was more than one?”

  “Yes. But he’d been good for a while. And he didn’t have a full-blown manic episode until after we were married.” She paused while the waiter replaced their appetizers with entrées and refilled their glasses. “You remember that movie, The Wolf of Wall Street?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It was about this stockbroker who lived the high life on money he scammed from clients. Gambling, drugs, prostitutes, every excess you can imagine. True story.” She stabbed a piece of grilled eggplant. “That was Harry, in a manic state. Everything except the financial fraud.”

  He left that to his father, Logan thought. But he didn’t say it. Now that she was finally talking, he didn’t want to say anything to discourage her. “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? He refused treatment. I asked his parents for help, but they basically said that he was fine. Boys will be boys. That’s a direct quote, by the way.”

  “Idiots.”

  “No, not idiots. Just parents who didn’t want to face the fact that their son was out of control. When I tried to get Harry hospitalized, his parents actually paid a psychiatrist to evaluate him privately and testify that he was safe for outpatient treatment. No immediate threat of harm to self or others, according to the report. By then, of course, it was too late. The police got involved. Things got ugly.”

  Logan’s jaw tensed. “Did he hurt you?”

  Grace shook her head, then shrugged.

  What the hell kind of answer was that? Either the man did, or he didn’t, and considering she’d eventually filed a restraining order, odds were that he did. “What happened, Grace?”

  The longer she delayed in responding, the greater Logan’s anger grew. It bubbled up inside him, an intense rage unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He wasn’t a violent man. He’d just as soon shrug off an insult as follow it up in kind. Despite years of opportunity, he’d never so much as raised a finger to the sonofabitch his sister had married. But at the moment, he wanted nothing more than to hop the next flight to JFK and beat the living crap out of a man he’d never met. All on the basis of a silence that went on far too long.

  Grace took a deep breath. “I didn’t abandon him. I tried to get him help. But at some point, you have to draw the line. It’s a matter of self-preservation. Like the oxygen masks on an airplane, you know? They always say you should put on your own mask first. Reversing the order just doesn’t work. I tried it.”

  Her fingers trembled beneath Logan’s when he reached across the table. He held
himself still, resisted the urge to sweep her up and carry her out of here, away from bad memories and prying eyes, to someplace private where he could wrap her in his arms and keep her safe forever.

  Their waiter chose that moment to stop by. “How are you folks doing? Anything else I can get you?”

  Logan sighed, prepared to withdraw to his side of the table. To his surprise and delight, Grace turned her palm up and squeezed his fingers briefly before letting go.

  He glanced at her, but she was already chatting with the waiter, her expression composed, as if they had just been discussing the relative merits of gnocchi made from Avezzano brown potatoes rather than Colfiorito reds.

  Something in his chest loosened, unfurled, and spread like a low-level current through his body, making his nerve endings tingle.

  She might look like the same Grace who had loved and left him half a lifetime ago. But she was far more complex than that younger version, teeming with secrets and hidden depths. He wanted to thank her for trusting him enough to offer a glimpse into the darkness that still seemed to haunt her. At the same time, he wanted to reassure her that she had nothing to fear. At least, not from him.

  Because he had changed, too. He wasn’t the same inflexible know-it-all youth she’d left behind. He was learning to appreciate subtlety and coming to recognize that things weren’t always what they seemed. And he was beginning to understand the value of hanging on to something good, even if that meant compromising along the way.

  Now, if only he could get Grace to lower her defenses long enough to let him in completely. Much as he enjoyed watching her from across the table, what Logan really wanted was to get her naked, in his bed. The sooner, the better.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was dark out when they left the restaurant.

  “Where to?” Logan asked, as they approached the SUV he’d parked earlier on a quiet side street.

  Grace hesitated before climbing in. She realized she didn’t even know where he lived. In college, they’d gone from living in freshman dorms to leasing a crumbling Spanish bungalow just off Sunset Boulevard.