Too Close to the Sun (6 page)

That brought a smile, wan and weak but a
smile nonetheless. "Don't you have to work tomorrow?"

God, yes. He had back-to-back meetings,
starting with a breakfast—seventy miles south in San Francisco—at 7
AM. He had two sets of deal papers to redline and a dozen phone
calls to make. And about a dozen more he really
should
make.

Including one to Stella Monaco, who probably
didn't understand why Cosimo DeLuca's cardiac arrest had taken
precedence over her party plans.

"It's manageable," he told Gabby, then tried
to gauge what he read in those eyes of hers. "Would you rather I
went?" He felt compelled to ask the question, though he wanted only
one answer. "I would understand if you wanted to be alone with your
family. But I'd rather stay . . ." His words petered out. "Help if
I can."

What he didn't say hung in the air. He could
almost see it under the too-bright hospital lights, like the words
in a bubble in a strip cartoon.
I want to make sure your dad's
okay. Be here if the clot-busting drug doesn't work. Be here if he
starts bleeding, like the doctor warned us. Be here if . .
.

Gabby looked at him and he could see those
same doomsday scenarios spin out in her mind. Watching her, scared
and sad and worried, a good part of him wanted to bundle her body
into his arms, make his own strong, even heartbeat convince her
that she'd done the right thing, the brave thing, for her
father.

"All right," she said. "Please stay."

*

Gabby watched Will and wondered what to make
of him. His behavior went well beyond Boy Scout, to a level of
gentlemanliness she hadn't thought existed anymore.

"How about," he said, "we go down to the
Starbucks on the first floor and get everybody coffee? It seems to
be open all night. It was open when we got here."

She shook her head. "I don't think I should
go anywhere."

"We won't be gone long." He cocked his chin
at her family. "And I think at this point everybody could use a
pick-me-up."

"That's probably true." And it did sound
good, doing something normal and everyday, something not filled
with life-and-death questions.

Her feet led her back to her family. "Will
and I are going down to the Starbucks. Does anybody want anything?
Mom?" She realized she didn't ask,
Does anybody want to come
with us?

And no one did, not Cam or her youngest
sister Lucia or her mom. Gabby took their orders, then she and Will
headed for the elevators. When they arrived at the first floor, he
directed her toward a short hallway to the right.

"It's next to the Burger King," he said, then
chuckled.

"Can you believe they have fast food in
hospitals?"

"Too bad the gift shop's closed. We could see
if they sell cigarettes."

"They probably do."

Amazingly at this hour, Starbucks had a line.
Gabby wrapped her pashmina a little tighter around her naked
shoulders.

"Cold?"

"I'm okay."

A beat of silence. Then, "Really?"

She turned to look at him. He stared back at
her, unblinking, as steady and silent as a buddha. She had the
sudden thought that she could tell him anything and he wouldn't be
shocked. "No, I'm not all right." She was almost surprised to hear
herself say it. Goodbye, social facade. Hello, reality. "It really
upset me to have to push my mom to give the go-ahead for that
drug."

He seemed unfazed. "I can understand
that."

"I wish one of my sisters had said something
to back me up. I'm scared that giving it to him was the wrong thing
to do."

He shook his head. "It was the right thing to
do, Gabby. And for what it's worth, I think you were brave to make
the decision."

She wished she felt brave. That would be a
lot better than petrified. "But he could have a stroke from it."
She almost couldn't speak the words. "He could even die."
And
then it would be all on me. How could I live with that?

"There are risks on both sides. The bottom
line is how strong his heart is going forward."

It almost made her angry, him being so cool
and logical and sure. "How do you know?" Her voice came out
snappish, loud. "Don't try to tell me what the 'bottom line' is.
Even Dr. Hearst admitted it's risky."

Immediately she felt guilty. Here Will was
being more considerate than God and she was berating him for trying
to reassure her. He looked away and said nothing. The line inched
forward. They were next, after a dark-haired man in a droopy
sweater carrying a sleeping toddler on his shoulder. The child was
only inches from Gabby's face, his thumb planted firmly in his
mouth. She focused on his dewy skin, his soft little baby snore,
the long, long lashes draped on his sleep-flushed cheeks.

Once, many years ago, she had been a child
like that, and the man lying upstairs fighting for his life had
held her on his shoulder in exactly that way.

Tears stung her eyes, for reasons she
couldn't name. Fear. Exhaustion. Anger, at her family and at God
and at who else she wasn't sure. She had an enormous desire to be
shot back in time to before this nightmare had begun, so she could
have spirited her father away to some refuge where he would have
been safe, though she wasn't sure anymore that such a place
existed. She castigated herself for missing Vittorio, for loving
him, for giving a damn about him at all. What was losing him
compared to this? It was nothing. Nothing.

The man with the child moved forward to the
counter and ordered. Gabby bit her lip, hung her head, caught the
sob that rose in her throat. Will was silent, but she could sense
his gaze on her face, could almost hear the gears of his mind
turning.

Then she felt the gentle pressure of his hand
on her back, moving her up to the counter. But she didn't want to
raise her head, she couldn't make herself speak, her tears were a
hairbreadth away. After a moment she heard Will start to order,
what he wanted, what everybody in her family wanted, getting it all
right when she hadn't even known he'd been listening, then throwing
in a cappuccino and a brownie for her.

He pressed a few paper napkins in her hand.
"Go sit down," he murmured when the clerk had moved off. But by now
she knew she couldn't check her tears; she could no longer hold
them back. She backed away from him and pitched blindly past the
people behind her in the line, her pashmina flying off her
shoulders to land somewhere on the coffee-stained floor. Then out
into the corridor, where she pushed open the first escape hatch she
could find, a metal exit door which led into a stairwell where
finally she could let the agony flow.

Her body was racked with sobs, which came
thick and fast and loud, echoing in the chilly industrial
stairwell. Some caught in her throat, some shrieked to the upper
floors of the hospital, some choked in little pops that tore at her
soul. She collapsed onto a stair, deathly cold through the thin
fabric of her dress, and rubbed her hands down her naked legs, shod
in strappy little silver slingbacks that looked obscenely out of
place on the concrete floor, another sour note in a thankless
night.

Minutes later the door opened. Will stood
outlined in its rectangular frame, concern grafted onto his
all-American face. Behind him and across the corridor she glimpsed
yet another ragtag crew of strangers lined up for Starbucks coffee.
The door clanged shut, and he came to sit beside her on the stair,
which required her to shuffle toward the railing to make room. He
leaned forward, linked his hands, and let them rest between his
knees.

No platitudes or baseless reassurances came
out of him, no
Are you okay?
or
Everything will be
fine
. He said not a word, just sat and studied his fingers.
Around them fluorescent lights buzzed. People got into the
stairwell floors above, went up or down a level, chatting and
laughing, then exiting with a metallic finality. Neither of them
moved or spoke. She started to calm down. Somehow Will's
stalwartness, his silent comfort was an enormous counterweight to
the freakishness of the occasion.

She stopped crying, and realized that she had
crumpled paper napkins in her hand that she could use as makeshift
tissues. She flattened one out and blew her nose into it and was
about to wipe her cheeks with another when Will took it out of her
hand.

"Here," he said, and pivoted toward her. He
went to work mopping her cheeks, his own face as serious as if he
were piloting a fighter jet or doing laser surgery. She had a
fleeting vision of him as a little boy, all white-blond hair and
blue eyes and sunburned nose, brow furrowed and tongue wedged
between teeth as he painstakingly filled in his coloring book or
glued together his balsa-wood model airplane.

Then, "I think I got everything," and he
handed her a napkin mottled with beige, pink, and black gobs of
color.

Even in the midst of all this, she had to
chuckle. "I think that was every bit of makeup I had on."

"I'm extremely thorough." But he didn't
laugh; he looked as serious as ever. Then he abruptly stood up,
grasped her by the arms, drew her to her feet, and after gazing
into her eyes for a moment, kissed her.

She could have stopped him. It was hugely
inappropriate—it was the wrong place, wrong time. All of that
occurred to her, but none of it seemed to much matter. She simply
let herself sink into an attractive man, realizing with some
surprise that it just so happened she very much liked how this
particular man smelled and felt and tasted.

Especially when he backed into the wall and
took her with him, pulling her tight against his body, giving her a
tutorial in how good she could feel. He abandoned her mouth to kiss
the skin along her neck, leaving a trail of pleasure behind him,
then moved on down her shoulder. Her left spaghetti strap fell—or
was pushed, she wasn't quite sure—and her fingers dug into his hair
while heat built deep, low, in her body.

It was suddenly too much. She pulled back,
heard his ragged breathing, tried to slow the rampaging of her
heart. Their eyes met.

"I'm sorry, Gabby." He gave her a sheepish
smile. "I got a little carried away there."

"You weren't the only one."

They smiled at each other for a moment
longer. Then, "Shall we have our coffee?" he asked.

"We should probably take it upstairs."

"You're right," he said, and led her—after a
pause for dress and hair smoothing—to a table for two where her
pashmina and their order sat waiting.

They picked everything up and started back
toward the elevator. "My turn to apologize," she said. "I'm sorry
for yelling at you before."

"Don't worry about it." He smiled at her
again.

She sipped her cappuccino while they waited
for an elevator. It was true—she did feel better. And, oddly, not
at all awkward. She felt no need to bring up their kiss in the
stairwell, and no worry about it, either. An unending stream of
people moved past them to get into the Starbucks line, get served,
move on, and be replaced by still more. "Where are they all coming
from?"

"What amazes me is that there are always
people in hospitals, at all hours, worried about somebody. When
you're working or sleeping or doing whatever. It's like a whole
other world that you just don't think about." He tipped back his
head and drank from his cardboard coffee cup.

She watched his throat work as he swallowed.
"At least until you're there yourself."

He met her eyes. "Then what's going on in the
hospital is the most important thing in the world."

"It sounds like you've been through this
yourself."

The elevator doors opened and they went
inside. Will nodded as if casting his mind back in time. "Three
years ago, my mom had an emergency triple bypass."

Gabby took that in. "Is she okay?"

"Better than ever."

"Where does she live?"

"Denver. Where everybody in my family
lives."

"But you're in California."

"Have you lived anywhere else?"

"One other place. Castelnuovo."

His brows flew up. "Italy?"

"Tuscany. The Chianti region, to be
precise."

"To study winemaking, I bet."

But that's not all I learned. In fact, that's
not the half of it.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'd also bet
there's a story there."

"An epic."

He smiled. "Then perhaps we should leave it
for another night."

I hope there is such a night
. A normal
night, when her father was fine and tucked into his bed at home.
When the biggest thing she had to worry about was how to look
pretty for a man she found attractive. Such simple things, yet at
this moment they sounded like nirvana.

They had just emerged from the elevator when
Camella came flying toward them down the corridor. Gabby's heart
picked up a staccato rhythm. Then she saw that her sister was
smiling. Tears were drying on her cheeks, but she was smiling.

She grabbed Gabby's arms. "Daddy's okay.
They're taking him to ICU. The doctor said his EKG is better."

Thank God. Thank God
. "So the drug is
working?"

"The doctor thinks so. Daddy squeezed his
hand. That's a really good sign," Cam started to say—then she
choked on her words and couldn't say more.

Neither could Gabby. They clutched each
other, both sobbing, and through the relief that coursed through
her body, Gabby was conscious of Will stepping away, giving them
space. "Can we see him?"

"Yes, on the way to ICU."

"You go on," Will said from where he stood,
"I'll wait for you here, and I'll also call Ava to let her know
what's going on."

"Thank you," Gabby began, but already Cam was
pulling her away, toward her father. Before she disappeared around
the corner, she saw him in the hallway, his jacket on his arm,
standing and watching her, as if he had nothing more important in
the world to do.