Too Close to the Sun (42 page)

Out the ambulance window, the vineyards that
Gabby loved rushed past in a blur of brown and green and gold.

"Dammit!" Will slammed an open palm against
his steering wheel. The car in front of him rolled to a stop at a
yellow light, forcing Will to halt behind. All he could think as he
sat pinned in Napa Valley's rush-hour traffic, stymied and
nerve-racked, was that his fellow drivers on Highway 29 were
conspiring to keep him from his goal. Which was Gabby and St.
Helena Hospital.

And, possibly, relief. How he longed to hear
that Cosimo DeLuca was all right. But relief might not come, he
knew. He might well get the opposite. Tragic news. Blame.
Recrimination. A lengthening, deepening of the nightmare.

After everything that had happened, now this.
Another attack, Gabby had called it. But the words that had
followed tore at his soul, fanned the flames of the guilt he
couldn't quench.
His heart stopped and it's because of you. It's
because of you . . .

Was it? Will's head said no but his heart
didn't allow so clear-cut an answer. Certainly the doctors would
attribute this cardiac episode to Cosimo's prior condition. But
Will knew better. He knew the poor man's heart was broken. Will
wasn't sure where he had gone wrong anymore. He just knew that he
had and that he wasn't the only one paying for it. But he couldn't
go back; none of them could. What was done was truly done.

The light turned green. The white sedan ahead
of him inched forward as if its tires were filled with lead. Will
crawled along behind, nearly pushing into the infuriating car's
bumper, willing the traffic to part in front of him.

He hadn't thought for a moment about not
going to the hospital. Though he dreaded what he might find when he
arrived, he'd flown out of his office as if the devil were on his
heels. A few times he'd called patient information from his car
phone, but all he could get out of the on-duty nurse was that
Cosimo DeLuca had been admitted to urgent care. Was Will a family
member? No. Even in emergencies, he had a hard time lying. And the
nurse wouldn't divulge much to a man who could only claim the
ill-defined role of friend of the family.

Will grimaced thinking of the phrase. In its
own way, it was a lie. What kind of friend was Will to the DeLucas,
really? True, he mouthed platitudes and sent flowers. But in the
clutch, did he come through for them?

I protected their jobs
, he told
himself. But how much did that count for now? It barely registered
on the cosmic scale. It would go unremarked, unrewarded, while the
sin of hiring Hannah Harper, who had put Cosimo DeLuca in an
untenably stressful position, would be added to the litany of his
transgressions.

Maybe it deserved to be. Maybe it was unfair.
Who knew anymore? And who cared? Not him. He no longer gave a flyer
who got blamed for this or who got points for that. Keeping a
balance sheet of good versus evil doings, which he'd spent a lot of
time updating in recent weeks, was a small-minded, mean-spirited
enterprise, beneath the man he tried to be. But lately he couldn't
get past nursing a malevolent grudge. And for what? Did it make him
happy? Did it give him intellectual satisfaction? Did it get him
what he wanted? He couldn't even find an equation to weigh the
importance of what he wanted against what he'd been focused on for
so long.

An opening appeared in the lane to Will's
left. He veered into it and sped past the
stop-at-every-yellow-light sedan. Finally, finally, he was making
real headway. He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard.
6:34. Cosimo DeLuca had been at the hospital about an hour. A lot
could happen in that time.

Will took a deep breath, maneuvered around
another vehicle that had the gall to clog the roads by moving at
the official speed limit. Gabby's voice screeched in his head.
His heart stopped. Because of you
. The accusation cut at
him, chipped at his beliefs about himself. He'd felt so much pain
walking away from her, yet also a sort of soothing righteousness.
She'd betrayed him; therefore, he was right to leave her. He'd
taken a macabre satisfaction in the cool logic of it. He'd hardened
his heart and shoved aside everything that didn't fit his own neat
analysis of what had transpired. Including every single word that
Gabby told him.

Maybe she really had felt caught between him
and her family. Maybe going to Vittorio really had been an
agonizing choice. Surely if he knew one thing about this woman, it
was that she was devoted to her family. Maybe she, unlike him,
actually did the tough things her family needed. Maybe she, unlike
him, didn't always choose for herself. Maybe she sacrificed for
them, something Will had never even considered, let alone put into
practice. He'd pushed her aside for reasons that now seemed so
obviously wrongheaded. Yet that damage, too, might never be
undone.

A few turns more, and the hospital appeared
in front of him. It looked like every other such institution he'd
ever seen, its sterile facade masking the turmoil within, the joys,
the hopes, the dashed dreams of so many. Will screeched the car
into a space and ran through the sliding front doors, doing a deal
with God. He wasn't a praying man, but he was a dealmaker. If ever
there was a
You give me this, I'll give you that
moment,
this was it. Yet as he raced inside and headed without directions
for cardiac urgent care, he knew there was only one kind of deal he
was willing to strike: the kind that had no losers. Will wanted
Cosimo DeLuca alive and well and Gabby willing to forgive, willing
to love him again. Those were long shots, and Will didn't have much
to bargain with. All he could count on were the good heart of a man
he had come to admire, and the good heart of a woman he had never
stopped loving.

He spied the DeLucas back where he'd seen
them three long months before. They stood in a knot beside the
nurse's station, Gabby, her mother, Cam, Lucia. They were deep in
conversation, their heads bent close together. As he pounded toward
them down the long, fluorescent-lit corridor, Gabby turned, and
their eyes met. Her whole family pivoted toward him as a unit, but
he could see only her face.

Which crumpled into tears as he neared her.
God, oh God, don't tell me this
. She broke away from her
family and stumbled into his arms. "You came."

He almost couldn't breathe. "I had to." He
searched her face. "How is he?"

"Oh, Will." She let out a choked gasp. "He's
alive." Her head fell against his chest, sobs racked her. "It's
amazing, I can't believe it, but he's going to be okay. The doctors
say he suffered sudden death. His heart stopped. But I gave him CPR
..."

Will clutched Gabby as if he held salvation
in his arms. He only half processed the tale she told him. That in
another time and place, her father would not have survived. Were it
not for the CPR, the speed of the paramedics, the well-equipped
facilities, the alignment of the stars, Cosimo DeLuca would not
have been spared. But in this, he had been blessed by the fates.
And by a daughter who would stop at nothing to save him.

"He's awake. We all spoke to him. There's a
lot he can't remember, he may never remember." Gabby raised
brimming eyes to Will's. "Maybe that's better."

"Oh, Gabby." After this, what man couldn't
hope for his own miracle? "I am so sorry," he started to say, but
she shook her head and lay a trembling finger on his lips.

"So am I. But that's for later. I need to be
with my family now."

She was right. More important, he understood.
And he was beyond content just to hold her. Later would come; he
was blessed to get it. Will shut his eyes and pulled Gabby tighter
against him as the world of the hospital flowed around them, some
people's dreams over, and others just beginning.

*

Ava led Paul Erskine, head of the moving
company that bore his name, to her foyer. He paused to clasp her
hand and deliver his final reassurances. "We will see to
everything, Mrs. Winsted." His tone was stentorian, as befitted a
man whose mission in life was to transport the irreplaceable
possessions of affluent families. "My crew will be here the morning
of the twentieth at eight o'clock."

"Thank you, Paul." Then he was gone, off to
climb in his Mercedes-Benz, and Ava was once again alone in the
home she no longer owned, but had sold along with Suncrest to
GPG.

One week more she would live in this house.
She strolled to the French doors in the living room, open to admit
the September evening. The day's hot air was softening as the hour
melted toward twilight. The sky above the rolling crest of the
Mayacamas glowed pink as a peony, while close at hand the
grapevines beyond the mesh fence huddled in endless, undulating
rows. Here and there an olive tree punctuated the horizon like
nature's exclamation point.

Ava was not a sentimental woman, but still
tears gathered in her eyes. If Porter had lived, this glorious
valley would have remained the stage of her life. But Porter had
not lived. Her role as his wife was over. And it was long past time
for her to find a new script to memorize.

She went to the kitchen to pour a glass of
sauvignon blanc, then repaired to a white wicker chair on the
flagstone terrace between the residence and the pool. She would
miss Napa Valley. It amazed her that it had been her home for
thirty years. How accidental life was, how it could turn on a
chance meeting, a haphazard introduction, a stray idea. If she had
married a man other than Porter, she might have made her home in
Minneapolis or Houston or New York or London. And if Porter hadn't
been possessed by the urge to found a winery, she never would have
found herself uprooted from Southern California and transplanted
here.

Yet life flowed in a circle, too, didn't it?
For now she would return to Bel Air, where she had history and
friends and a precedent for starting over. True, she'd been much
younger the first time she went to Los Angeles to seek her fame and
fortune. But thanks to Porter, the latter half of her quest had
already been most tidily achieved.

Ava watched a leaf from a nearby oak tree
flutter into the pool, setting off a ripple soft as a baby's breath
across the water's surface. She owed so much to Porter. That was
another reason she couldn't bear to stay in the valley. Though she
couldn't even fathom how wounded he would be to see how Suncrest
was changing, she felt the pain of it herself. She knew how her
husband had strived for excellence, perfection even. What the new
owners would do, she didn't know, but was sure Porter's lofty goals
were not on their agenda.

Still, she told herself, she couldn't live
her life fulfilling the dreams Porter had run out of time for. She
had her own life to live.

The phrase brought a wan smile to Ava's face.
She had received a call a few days earlier from one of the
Hollywood contacts she'd assiduously maintained over the
years—under the guise of friendship, of course. Once the
conversation had wound its way through the pleasantries, he had
asked if she would consider a role in daytime television.
Apparently a long-running soap had an opening for a woman of her
age, as the love interest of a beloved male character who had been
widowed. Ava thought the role had potential, as she happened to
know that the body of the character's wife had been found,
identified, and duly buried, precluding her shocking reappearance
in a ratings-grabber a few months down the road.

Why, yes
, Ava had said,
I am
interested
. She'd been so delighted by the prospect of call
times and rehearsals and wardrobe fittings and the sheer joy of
being once again under the klieg lights that she chose to ignore
how much of a comedown a soap role would be from her former career.
Pragmatic Ava knew that beggars could not be choosers, particularly
at her age and particularly in Hollywood.

She wondered if her son would ever learn any
part of that lesson. There was no question that Max had a sense of
entitlement. She couldn't help but think she must have given it to
him. He was so flawed, it amazed and sometimes revolted her. But
still he was her son, and she loved him. She was proud of herself
for not having succumbed to his importunings for more cash. For
once she had stood firm, not let guilt over her bad mothering drive
her. Certainly she had felt his rage and frustration, but she knew
he would get past it. She also knew he recognized that they were
the only two Winsteds left in the world. That would mean something
to him.

Ultimately, she would protect him, of course.
In the end he would inherit quite a bit from her, because much as
she liked to live well, Ava's native caution kept her from
excess.

She sighed, sipped from her wineglass. It was
true that some lessons were very difficult for a mother to teach.
She had to stand by and watch, pained and helpless, as her baby
either flew or stumbled. And pray that should it be the latter, he
would fall neither too hard nor too far.

Mrs. Finchley appeared beside Ava's chair.
"You have a call, madam, from Mr. Boursault."

"Jean-Luc? At this hour?" It was past four in
the morning in Paris. More than a little curious, Ava followed Mrs.
Finchley inside. Ava had been relieved to learn that the faithful
housekeeper had been unfazed at the notion of accompanying her
employer to Bel Air. Ava thought that if she had asked Mrs.
Finchley to move to Timbuktu, the woman would have procured a pith
helmet and shown up ready to decamp at the appointed hour.

Ava took the call in the kitchen while Mrs.
Finchley discreetly busied herself in another part of the house.
"
Jean-Luc? Comment ca va
?"

"
Ca va tres bien
." Then he made a
point of adding, "Thank you for taking my call, Ava."