by Lisa Jackson
Nick turned sharply. “Cut to the chase, Alex. Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Because you’re family. My only brother—”
“Bullshit.”
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“There’s more to it.” Nick was certain of it. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have driven all this way and taken six damned weeks to do it.”
Alex nodded slowly, the corners of his mouth pulled into a thoughtful frown. “She’s . . . she can’t talk, her jaw’s wired shut and she hasn’t woken, but she has moaned and tried to say a few words.” He took in a deep, bracing breath. “The only one we understood was ‘Nicholas.’ ”
“Give me a break.” The breeze slapped Nick’s face and he was angry.
“She needs you.”
“She’s never needed anyone.”
“We thought—”
“We?”
“Mother and I and well, we ran it past the doctors, too. We thought you might break through to her.”
“You and Mother,” Nick growled. “Hell.”
“It’s worth a try.”
Nick glanced to the waterfront where vessels clustered near the docks looked dismal, small sailboats with skeletal masts stretching upward like dozens of bony fingers in stiff supplication to an unheeding heaven. The thought of seeing Marla again stuck in his craw.
And burrowed deep in his mind.
Alex tossed his cigarette onto the gravel, where it sizzled and smoldered near an ancient Buick’s balding tire. “There’s something else.”
“More?” Here it comes, Nick thought uneasily, and felt as if he’d been duped into allowing the family noose to slip over his head.
“I need a favor.”
“Another one? Besides visiting Marla?”
“That’s not a favor. That’s obligation.”
Nick shrugged. Wasn’t about to argue. “Shoot.”
“It’s the business . . . what with the accident, I’m having trouble concentrating, spending all of my time at the hospital with Marla. When I’m not there, I have to deal with the kids.”
“Kids? Plural?” Nick repeated.
“Oh, maybe you didn’t know. Marla had a baby a few days before the accident. In fact, it happened the day she was released from the hospital.” Alex paused, reached into his coat pocket for a handkerchief and mopped his face. “The baby’s fine, thank God. Little James is doing as well as can be expected without his mother.” Alex’s voice held a touch of pride and something else . . . trepidation? What was that all about?
Nick scratched the stubble covering his chin, the tip of a finger sliding over his scar, a war wound that he’d received at the age of eleven, compliments of Alex, and he sensed that there was a lot more to this story—stark omissions over which his brother had so easily slid. “The baby wasn’t with her?”
“No, thank God. Now he’s home, with a nanny. As for Cissy, she’s a teenager now and oh, well, you know how they are. She’s pretty wrapped up in herself these days.” Alex added quickly, “She’s upset that her mother’s still in the hospital, of course, worried, but . . .” He shrugged, and an expression of calm acceptance shrouded his patrician features. “Sometimes I think she’s more concerned over whether she’ll be asked to the winter dance than whether her mother will survive. It’s all an act, I know. Cissy’s worried in her own way, but it’s the same way she’s always dealt with Marla.”
“This just gets better and better,” Nick muttered.
“Doesn’t it?” Alex snorted, then sniffed and swiped his hair from his face.
“I’m surprised Marla had another baby—I didn’t think she was too into kids.”
“She did grow up,” Alex said, casting him a look.
But Nick found it odd that she would have another child so many years after the first. She was just too damned self-centered. Stubborn. Egocentric. A goddamned princess. He sniffed, looked down at his boat and thought that half an hour ago his only problem had been dealing with a lingering headache, the result of becoming too friendly with a bottle of Cutty Sark the night before. But this . . . shit. Nick squinted at the clouds rolling on the horizon.
Alex cleared his throat. “So, look, Nick, the deal is that right now I need your help.”
“What kind of help?” Nick asked suspiciously. The rough hemp of the Cahill family noose tightened around his neck as rain drizzled from the sky.
“You’re a troubleshooter for corporations.”
“I was, once upon a time.”
“You still are.”
“No more. That was a while back, Alex. I’ve done a lot of things since. Now, I fish. Or try to.”
Scowling, Alex swept a glance around the weathered marina, then to the bucket in the bed of Nick’s truck. Alex didn’t seem convinced. “A few years ago you brought several corporations back from the brink of failure and now, well, believe it or not, I could use that kind of expertise. Cherise and Monty aren’t happy that they’ve been cut out of the corporation. They seem to think that since they’re Cahills they should have a piece of the pie.”
“Cherise and Monty. Great.” Things had a way of going from bad to worse. It seemed to go with being a Cahill. He leaned against the truck and Tough Guy sat at his feet, looking up, expecting a pat on the head. Nick obliged.
“Yeah, well, all that mess with Uncle Fenton and his kids was supposed to have been cleared up long before I came on board,” Alex said. “Dad dealt with his brother, but Fenton’s kids seem to have forgotten that. At least Cherise has. She’s the one squawking. Probably because of that damned husband of hers. A preacher. Christ. This is all ancient history. Ancient fucking history. Or it should be.”
“Dad handled Fenton the way he dealt with everyone,” Nick said, remembering the tyrant who had been their father. Samuel Jonathan Cahill had been a blue-nosed bastard if ever there had been one. “His way. Period.”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is Fenton was paid for his share of the corporation years ago. End of story. Cherise and Monty can bloody well take care of themselves. I’ve got enough problems of my own.”
Nick had heard this argument all his life. He was tired of it, but couldn’t help playing devil’s advocate, especially where his brother was concerned. “You really can’t blame them for being ticked off. They both thought they’d become millionaires, but their damned father pissed everything away.”
“I don’t blame them for anything. In fact, I don’t give a shit about either one of them. Monty hasn’t worked a day in his life and Cherise hasn’t done much more except collect exhusbands and turn into a religious nutcase. I’ve tried with her, even found this last one—a preacher, no less—a job. Shit, what a disaster that became.” Alex swatted the air. “Doesn’t matter. I wish Cherise and Montgomery would both just pull a disappearing act. Permanently.” He finished his beer in one disgusted swallow, then wiped his mouth. “Christ, what a couple of leeches. Blood-sucking leeches.” Alex stepped out of the puddle and leaned against the Dodge’s dented fender. “And if they feel slighted, well, as they say, ‘them’s the breaks.’ ” There wasn’t a smidgen of pity in Alex’s voice. “But it’s too damned cold and wet to stand out here discussing them. They’re just minor irritations.”
“They probably don’t think so.”
“Tough. Besides, they’re not the reason I came up here.”
“Marla is.”
“Partly.” He met Nick’s gaze.
“So now we’re down to it, aren’t we?” Nick said as the wind shifted, whistling across the parking lot.
“Yeah, that’s right. We are.” Alex’s voice was dead-earnest. All business. “Cahill Limited needs a shot in the arm.”
“Or the head.”
“I’m not joking.” Tiny white grooves bracketed Alex’s mouth, and for a split second he actually looked desperate. “And it wouldn’t hurt you to show a little family solidarity. We could use it. Mother. Me. The kids. Marla.”
Nick hesitated.
“Espe
cially Marla.”
The noose was suddenly so tight he couldn’t breathe. Tough Guy scratched at the running board of the pickup and Nick threw open the door so that the wet shepherd could hop inside. But the decision had already been made. Both he and Alex knew it. “I’d have to find someone to take care of the dog and my cabin.”
“I’ll pay for any inconvenience—”
“Forget it.”
“But—”
“This isn’t about money, okay?” Nick climbed into the cab, shoved Tough Guy to his spot near the passenger door and jabbed his keys into the ignition. Knowing he was making a mistake he’d regret for the rest of his days, he said, “I’ll be there, okay?” Angry with himself and his fierce, misguided sense of loyalty, Nick added, “I’ll look over your damned books, make nice-nice with Mother and I’ll visit Marla, but you don’t owe me a dime. Got it? I’m coming to San Francisco out of the goodness of my heart, and I’ll leave when I want to. This isn’t an open-ended deal where I stay on indefinitely.”
“The goodness of your heart, now there’s an interesting concept,” Alex said, skipping over Nick’s concerns.
“Isn’t it?” Nick grabbed the door handle. Wind and rain lashed the cab. “That’s my best offer, Alex. My only offer. I’ll be there within the week. Take it or leave it.” Pumping the accelerator, Nick turned on the ignition and didn’t wait for an answer. The Dodge’s engine coughed, sputtered, then caught.
Cross with the world in general and himself in particular, Nick slammed the door shut and flipped on the wipers. Nothing his brother could say would make any difference one way or another.
Like it or not, he was on his way to San Francisco.
“Hell,” he ground out as the wipers slapped away the rain and he threw his pickup into reverse. Gravel sprayed and, on the bench seat beside him, Tough Guy nearly lost his balance.
“Sorry,” Nick growled as he jerked the truck into first and glowered through the foggy windshield. Alex stood in the puddle-strewn lot, his wool coat catching in the breeze, his expression as dour as an undertaker’s. Nick snapped on the wheezing defroster, then flipped the stations of the radio, but he heard only static.
He thought of Marla, and his gut tightened. He still wanted her. After fifteen years. Fifteen damned years. There had been more than a dozen women in his life since then, but none of them, not one woman had left the deep impressions, the scars upon his soul that she had. His gaze narrowed on his reflection in the rearview mirror. Harsh blue eyes glared back at him. “You’re a fool, Cahill,” he growled under his breath. “A goddamned fool.”
Chapter Two
“Will Mom remember me?” an impertinent girl’s voice demanded, and Marla strained to open her eyes. The pain had abated, probably due to some kind of medication, but she couldn’t move her mouth. Her tongue felt thick and tasted awful, her eyelids were too heavy to open and she had no sense of time. She knew only that she’d floated in and out of this state of semiconsciousness, her mind a jumbled blur. But she wanted to see her daughter. Marla fought to lift a lid but couldn’t.
“Of course your mother will remember you,” her mother-in-law said softly, her sharp, staccato footsteps snapping loudly as she approached the bed, the soft chink of jewelry accompanying the scent of that same elusive perfume. “Don’t worry.”
“But she looks terrible.” The girl again—her daughter. “I thought she’d be better by now.”
“She is, but it just takes time, Cissy. We’re all going to have to be patient.” There was a tiny hint of reproach in the older woman’s voice, almost a warning.
“I know, I know,” Cissy said with a theatrical sigh.
In the past few days floating in and out of semiconsciousness, Marla had come to recognize the nursing staff, Dr. Robertson and her family members by their colognes, their footsteps, and their voices, though often she was confused, in that nether state between waking and sleeping, never knowing if she was dreaming or if the medication was keeping her mind foggy.
She had pieced together that the older woman, her mother-in-law, was Eugenia Cahill and that Eugenia’s husband wasn’t around, maybe dead or incapacitated or just not interested; at least he’d never been to visit that she could remember . . . but her memory was the problem. A major problem.
Her mother-in-law seemed sincere, caring and had visited often . . . or at least Marla thought she had. Cissy hadn’t been here before . . . or had she? Marla couldn’t remember. Then there was her husband. Alex. A stranger and a man she should feel some tender emotion for, yet didn’t. Her head began to pound again, setting off a pain so intense it felt as if skaters were turning triple axels on razor-sharp blades in her brain. The powerful medication that helped her drift in and out of consciousness but kept her groggy definitely had its pluses.
“What if she doesn’t . . . you know . . . remember . . . or the scars don’t go away or . . . she’s not the same?” Cissy whispered, and inwardly Marla cringed.
“You’re worrying again. From here on in she’s going to get better and better.”
“I hope so,” the girl said fervently, though there was a hint of disbelief in her voice. “Will she need more plastic surgery? Dad said she already had a ton.”
“Just enough to repair the damage. Now, really, we shouldn’t talk about this any more.”
“Why? Do you think she can hear us?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
There was a pause, but Marla sensed someone edging closer to her bed, felt warm breath waft over her and realized she was being studied much like a single-cell organism under a highpowered microscope. Again Marla struggled to lift a finger. If only she could indicate that she was aware.
“She can’t hear nothing—”
“Anything, ‘she can’t hear anything,’ is the proper way to say it,” Eugenia was quick to reprimand.
“Oh, is it?” the kid countered, and Marla figured the girl was jerking her grandmother’s chain. “I’ll try to remember, okay?”
“Just remember, your mother’s lucky to be alive after that nasty accident,” Eugenia intoned. “And of course she doesn’t look the same, but you’ll see, once she wakes up and they take the wires out of her jaw and the swelling subsides, she’ll be good as new.”
“Will she be able to walk?”
Marla’s heart nearly stopped.
“Of course she will. Nothing’s wrong with her legs, you know that. As I said, she’ll be fine.”
“Then why doesn’t she wake up?”
“It’s what the body does to heal. She needs this rest.”
Cissy snorted softly, as if she didn’t believe a word her grandmother was peddling. “She never liked me anyway.”
What! No way! What a horrid idea and a wrong one. So very wrong. It was just a teenager’s warped perception. Surely she would like, no, love her daughter.
“Of course she likes you.” Eugenia laughed nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous. She loves you.”
Yes!
“Then why did she want a baby so bad? A boy? Why wasn’t I good enough for the both of them . . . oh, just forget it,” she grumbled, moving away from the bed.
“I will because it’s nonsense,” Eugenia said as if through pursed lips.
There was a loud, long-suffering sigh as if the girl thought all adults in general, and her grandmother in particular, were idiots. “I don’t know why I’m even in this family. I just don’t fit in.”
You and me both, Marla thought, though her heart went out to the girl. Had she been so cruel and thoughtless to her own daughter?
“You try hard not to fit in, but you, you just have to apply yourself. Everyone before you was an honor student. Your father went to Stanford and then to graduate school at Harvard and your mother was at Berkeley. I went to Vassar and—”
“I know, Grandpa was at Yale. Big deal. I wasn’t talking about being a brainiac anyway, and what about Uncle Nick? Didn’t he drop out or something?”
There was a tense moment. Marla sense
d Eugenia bristling. “Nick took his own path, but let’s not talk about him now,” the older woman suggested. “Come on, it’s time to meet your father . . .” Eugenia must have shepherded the girl out of the room, for Marla was left alone. She relaxed, heard a nurse enter the room, then take her pulse. A few seconds later that warm, familiar haze of comfort seeped into her veins, chasing away the pain, the anxiety, the fear . . .
She dozed for a time . . . how long, she couldn’t tell . . . but she heard the door creak open then shut with a quiet but firm click. She expected one of the nurses to walk to the bed and say something to her, to try to rouse her, or at least fiddle with the pillows, take her pulse or temperature or blood pressure again, but whoever entered was uncommonly silent, as if he or she was creeping toward the bed.
Or wasn’t in the room at all.
Perhaps she’d been mistaken, or dreaming, only thinking she’d heard the door open. Maybe no one had come inside. Her mind was so fuzzy. She should drift off again, but couldn’t and she thought she heard the scrape of a leather sole against the floor. But . . . no . . . maybe not . . . then she smelled it; the faint tinge of stale cigarette smoke and something else . . . the smell of a wet forest . . . earthy, dank . . . out of place and, she sensed, malevolent . . .
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Fear shot through her. She tried to cry out but couldn’t. Tried to pry her eyes open, but they stayed steadfastly and firmly shut. Her heart was drumming madly, and surely she was hooked up to some monitor. Some member of the staff would come running into the room. Please! Help me!
Nothing.
Not one sound.
Her throat was dry as sand.
Oh, God, what was he doing here?
Why didn’t he say anything?
Who was he? What did he want?
On nearly silent footsteps he backed away. The door clicked open again then whispered shut.
She was alone.
And scared out of her mind.
“I know this is crazy,” Nick said to Tough Guy as he thew a couple of sweaters into his duffel bag. He walked through his bedroom to the bathroom where he searched under the sink, found his shaving kit and stuffed in his electric razor and a stick of deodorant. From the bathroom door he pitched the kit into the open bag.