Page 18 of If She Only Knew (The Cahills 1)

“Just ignore her,” Eugenia advised. “Coco’s all bark and no bite.” She let one hand trail off the arm of her chair, her manicured nails tracking through the dog’s fur, her gold bracelets clinking softly. “You’re just a coward, deep inside, aren’t you?” she asked in a higher pitched voice, then glanced at her son again.

“So, where are your bags?”

“On my way back from the hospital, I took a room at the Red Victorian.”

“Oh, for the love of St. Mary, you checked into a hotel? When your family lives just up the hill?” Eugenia threw up a hand as if she couldn’t understand what went on in her younger son’s head. “You can stay here, in your old room.”

When hell freezes over, Nick thought. This place held too many ghosts from his past, and soon Marla would be returning. He glanced around the sitting room. A few new chairs had been thrown in with the antiques and period pieces he remembered. This house had survived two major earthquakes as well as the rigors and tests of several generations of Cahills. The shake and brick walls, pitched roof and original windows exuded old money and San Francisco elegance at its finest. Or worst.

Nick wasn’t certain which.

He felt no sense of homecoming in this behemoth with its chandeliers that dripped cut glass and glittered against hardwood floors that gleamed with the soft patina that only com

es with age and the scuff of expensive shoes. Carved paneling, painstakingly tooled by a meticulous German immigrant over a hundred years earlier, had darkened with age.

Yep, it was quite a place. If you liked a house that seemed to have no soul.

The front door opened and Alex strode into the foyer. He dropped his briefcase on the lowest step of the staircase. Yanking off his gloves, he glared through the archway at his brother. “You said Marla was awake,” he accused, his gray eyes harsh and disbelieving.

“I said she woke up and stared at me, said a few words and fell asleep or whatever you want to call it again.” Nick wasn’t about to be intimidated.

“Well, she never so much as moved while I was there and I stayed over an hour.” Alex unbuttoned his coat. “Dr. Robertson told me waiting around was futile. They’ll call if there’s any change.” Tossing his coat over the banister, he walked into the sitting room. “Helluva thing, isn’t it?” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “After over six weeks of nothing, not one solitary sign of life, Marla opens her eyes, speaks to you, then relapses into a coma. All in the five minutes you were there.” Alex crammed a cigarette into his mouth and, with a click of his lighter, lit up.

“It’s a start, Alex. Just be patient.” Eugenia set her cup in its saucer, then stood as Alex planted an obligatory kiss against the smooth parchment of her skin. Even in four-inch heels, she was a head shorter than her sons. Her apricot-tinted hair was fixed in place, her suit—always some designer suit—impeccable, without so much as a wrinkle.

“Be patient? Hell, I have been!” Alex yanked on his tie and shot a stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth. Raking stiff fingers through his hair, he grumbled, “Christ, it’s frustrating. Frustrating as hell.” He leaned a shoulder against the mantel where gilt-framed pictures of the family cluttered the mantelpiece. Resting one arm on the smooth oak, he let his fingers dangle toward the grate. Smoke from his cigarette curled lazily towards the ceiling. “This is a disaster,” he whispered in a voice that was barely audible. “A goddamned disaster.”

Nick said, “I thought you said she woke up once before.”

“No.” Alex shook his head, drew hard on his cigarette and his lips twisted as if at a private irony. “She whispered your name, but she never regained consciousness that I know of. Her eyelids didn’t so much as flutter. It . . . it was like some kind of weird dream she was having.”

“Dream?”

“Or something. I don’t know. I’m just sick of this.” Alex massaged his forehead with his fingertips. “Hell, I want a drink. You?” He nodded toward his brother and crossed the room to a rosewood cabinet with beveled mirrors across the back. Inside were the finest blends of Scotch, bourbon and rye whiskey that money could buy. Alex dug a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the antique cabinet.

“Maybe we should wait at the hospital,” Nick suggested.

“Nah. They said they would call.” Alex threw a look over his shoulder, and the first hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “The nurse kinda threw me out again. I guess I was being . . . a little what did she call it . . . ‘unfeeling and argumentative,’ yeah, that was it. The upshot was that I pissed her off. So what do you want?” he asked Nick.

“Scotch. On the rocks.”

“Mother?”

“Nothing for me,” she said tartly, but then she’d always been a little bit of a teetotaler, never imbibing more than a glass of wine, which, Nick assumed, was a direct response to their father’s deep-seated love affair with gin. She held up her cup. “This’ll do.”

“Did you talk to the doctor?” Nick asked.

“Yeah. I met with Phil Robertson in the hospital room—before I pissed off the nurse. He thinks that Marla’s coming around. It might be hours or days, he couldn’t say, but, and this is important,” he extracted a couple of bottles, “when she does wake up and all her vital signs are normal, Robertson will release her.” With a flick of his wrist, Alex twisted open the cap of a new bottle. “I’ve already got a live-in nurse and a relief nurse waiting.”

“Good news all around,” Nick said, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice as he stared through the window at the lights of the city. Rain spattered the glass, drizzling in rivulets that inched down the panes and smeared the view.

“It’s not good news, Nick. But it’s the best I can do.” Alex looked older than his forty-two years. Weary. Sick of the whole damned mess. He clinked a couple of ice cubes into the bottom of an old-fashioned glass engraved with the family crest, a ridiculous symbol of Cahill self-indulgence. A hefty splash of Scotch followed and within seconds the drink was deposited into Nick’s hand.

“To better days.” Alex took a long swallow from his glass and some of the strain around his eyes seemed to ease as the liquor hit his stomach.

“Amen,” Eugenia agreed, her eyes shaded with disapproval as Alex finished his drink in one swallow.

“A helluva homecoming, isn’t it?” Alex said. “Marla in the hospital, another woman dead, a trucker burned and hanging on by a thread, a new nephew you haven’t met yet and the family business in trouble.”

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