The Cottage

“What do you want from me?” he asked bluntly, and the question made her sad. She had hoped for a warmer response from him.

“Absolutely nothing. I wanted to meet you. Once. And I hoped you'd want to meet me. I'll admit, it's a bit of a shock. It was to me too. My mother never told me. I found the letter, as she intended me to, after she died. My father died years ago. I have no idea if he ever knew.”

“I hope not,” Coop said solemnly. He was still in shock. But relieved by what she'd said about wanting nothing from him. He believed her. She looked like an honest person, and a nice woman. He would have been attracted to her, but she was a little old for him.

“I don't think it would have mattered to him. He was very good to me. He left me most of his money. He had no other children. And if he did know, he didn't seem to hold it against my mother or me. He was a very kind man.”

“How fortunate for you,” Coop said, looking closely at her, and suddenly realized why she looked familiar. She looked like him. With good reason. The letter said that her mother had had an affair with Coop forty years before. They were both in a play in London, and the affair had been brief. When the play closed and she went back to Chicago, she had discovered she was pregnant, and she decided, for reasons of her own, not to tell Coop. She didn't feel she knew him well enough to impose on him, as she put it. It was an odd thing for a woman to think when she was having his baby, which she had decided to do, again for reasons of her own. She married someone else, had the baby, a daughter, and never told her that the man she believed was her father actually wasn't. It was Coop. Instead, she left her a letter, which explained it all. And now they were sitting, examining each other. The man who thought he had no children suddenly had two. This thirty-nine-year-old woman who had suddenly appeared, and the one Charlene was carrying, and claimed was his. It was a very odd feeling for a man who hated kids. But Taryn was no kid. She was a grown woman, who appeared to be respectable and intelligent, had money, and looked a great deal like him. “What did your mother look like? Do you have a picture of her?” He was curious to see if he remembered her at all.

“Actually, I brought one just in case. I think it's from about that time.” She took it carefully from her purse and handed it to him, and as he looked at it, something jogged in his memory. It was definitely a familiar face. She hadn't left a lifelong impression, but he remembered something about her, and he thought he knew which part she'd played. She'd been an understudy, but the actress she stood in for got drunk a lot, and Coop remembered being on stage with her. But he didn't remember much else. He'd been pretty wild in those days, and drank a lot himself. And there had been a lot of women since. He'd been thirty years old when Taryn was conceived.

“This is very strange,” he said, handing the photograph back to her, and looking at his daughter again. She was very good-looking in a kind of classic way, although very tall. He guessed her to be just under six feet. He was six four. And he thought her mother had been tall too. “I don't know what to say.”

“That's all right,” Taryn Dougherty said pleasantly. “I just wanted to see you, and meet you once. I've had a good life. I had a wonderful father, I loved my mother. I was an only child. I have nothing to reproach you. You never knew. And it was my mother who kept it all a secret, but I don't reproach her anything either. I have no regrets.”

“Do you have children?” he asked with trepidation. It was enough of a shock finding out he had a grown daughter, he wasn't ready for grandchildren too.

“No, I don't. I've always worked. And I've never really wanted children, embarrassing as that is to admit.”

“Don't be embarrassed. It's genetic,” he said with a mischievous grin. “I've never wanted children either. They make a lot of noise, they're dirty, and they smell. Or something like that.” She laughed at what he said. She was enjoying him, and she could see why her mother had fallen in love with him, and decided to have his child. He was very charming, and amusing, a gentleman of the old school. Although nothing about him seemed very old, it was hard to believe that he and her mother had been the same age. Her mother had been ill for years. This man seemed years younger than he was. “Will you be here for a while?” he asked with interest. He liked her, and in spite of himself, he felt some kind of bond with her, he just wasn't sure what. It was too new. He needed time to sort it out.

“I think so.” She was still unsure of what she wanted to do. But she felt liberated now that she had done this. It had weighed on her ever since she found out. But now that she had met him, she felt free to go on with her life, whether or not she stayed in touch with him.

“Can I reach you at the Bel Air? It might be nice to get together again. Maybe you'd like to come to dinner one night.”

“That would be lovely,” she said, standing up, and bringing the meeting to a close. She had been true to her word. She had been there for half an hour. She wasn't trying to linger. She had done what she came to do. She had met him. And now she was going back to her own life. And she turned to him then with a serious look. “I want to assure you, in case you're concerned, that I have no intention of talking to the press. This is just between us.”

“Thank you,” he said, and was touched. She truly was a nice woman. She wanted nothing from him. She just wanted to see who he was. And she liked what she saw. So did he. “It's probably a crazy thing to say, but you were probably a very nice little girl. Your mother must have been a decent woman,” particularly for not making trouble for him and shouldering all the responsibilities herself. He wondered if he had cared about her at all. It was hard to say. But he liked her daughter, their daughter, very much. “I'm sorry she died,” he said and meant it. It was an odd feeling knowing that while he pursued his own life, unbeknownst to him, he had a daughter somewhere in the world.

“Thank you. I'm sorry she died too. I loved her very much.” As she left, he kissed her on the cheek, and she turned to him and smiled. It was the same smile he saw in the mirror every day, and that his friends knew so well. It was uncanny looking at her. He could see the resemblance himself, and her mother must have seen it too. It must have been odd for her. He wondered if her husband ever knew. He hoped not, for his sake.

Coop was quiet for the rest of the day. He had a lot to think about. And when Alex came in at seven, he was still pensive and she asked if he was okay. He asked about her meeting with her father, she said it had been fine, but she didn't say much more than that.

“Was he rough on you?” Coop asked with obvious concern, and she shrugged.

“He is who he is. He isn't the father I'd have chosen if they'd asked me, but he's what I've got,” she said philosophically and poured herself a glass of wine.

It had been a long day, for both of them. Coop didn't say anything to her about Taryn until they were eating dinner. Paloma had left some chicken for them, and Alex added some pasta to it, and made a salad. It was enough. And then Coop looked up with a strange expression.

“I have a daughter,” he said cryptically. And Alex looked up at him.

“It's too soon for her to know that, Coop. She's lying to you. She's just trying to soften you up.” Alex was instantly annoyed at what she thought was yet another of Charlene's tricks.

“It's not her.” He seemed almost in a daze. He'd been thinking about Taryn all afternoon. Meeting her had had a powerful effect on him.

“Someone else is having your baby too?” She looked shocked.

“Apparently someone did. Thirty-nine years ago.” He told her about Taryn then, and Alex could see how moved he was.

“What an amazing story,” she said, somewhat in awe. “How could her mother keep that secret for all those years? What's she like?” She was intrigued.

“Nice. I like her. She looks a lot like me, I think. Better looking of course,” he said gallantly. “I really liked her. She's very…” he searched for the word, “dignified… honorable… something like that. She reminds me of you that way. She's very straightforward and decent. She didn't want anything from me, and she said she wasn't going to talk to the press. She just wanted to meet me. Once, she said.”

“Why don't you invite her back?” Alex suggested. She could see that he wanted to.

“I think I will.”

But instead, he went to lunch with her at the Bel Air the next day. They told each other all about themselves and were amazed at how similar they were in some ways, how many tastes they shared, right down to their favorite ice cream and dessert, and the kind of books they did and didn't like. It was uncanny how powerful the genetics were. And at the end of lunch, he had an odd idea.

“Would you like to stay at The Cottage while you're here?” he suggested, and meant it. He wanted to spend more time with her. She suddenly seemed like a gift in his life, and he didn't want to turn her away. He wanted her close to him, at least for a few days, or maybe even weeks. And Taryn liked the idea too.

“I don't want to intrude,” she said cautiously, but he could see it appealed to her.

“You wouldn't be.” He was sorry now that he had tenants in the guest wing and the gatehouse. It would have been nice to have her there. But he had an enormous guest suite in the main house too, and he was sure Alex wouldn't object. He had told Taryn about her, and she thought Alex sounded wonderful, which Coop said she was.

Taryn promised to move in the next day, and he told Alex that night. She was thrilled for him, and excited to meet her. She still hadn't told him what her father had said, and she never would. In retrospect, she realized he had meant well, but she knew it would have broken Coop's heart to hear the horrors her father had to say. He didn't need to know. Her father just didn't understand who Coop was.

And whatever Taryn had brought to him, it was obviously meant to be. She had never seen Coop like that in the few months she'd known him. He seemed remarkably quiet, and totally at peace.

Chapter 18

Taryn moved in to The Cottage with very little luggage, and even less fuss. She was discreet, polite, pleasant, and easy to have around. She asked Paloma for nothing, and was careful not to intrude on Coop. And when Alex met her, the two women hit it off immediately. They were both solid, strong, honest women, who had a penchant for being kind. And Alex could see the resemblance to Coop. Not only physically, but they had the same naturally aristocratic look. It was remarkable. The two things she didn't have in common with him were that she traveled with very little luggage, and she was financially sound. Other than that, they were two peas in a pod. And Coop loved having her around.

They spent days getting to know each other, filling each other in on their pasts, and sharing their views and opinions on everything imaginable. There were differences and similarities that intrigued them both, and Taryn thought him a nice man. After they'd gotten to know each other, she asked him if he was serious about Alex, and he told her he wasn't sure. It was the most honest thing he'd ever said. Even in the short time he'd known her, Taryn brought the best out in him, even more than Alex. It was as though she had come to make him whole. And he brought her something too. Now that she knew he existed, she wanted to know who he was, and she liked what she saw, although she saw his weaknesses too.

“I have a dilemma about Alex,” he confessed.

“Because she's so young?” Taryn asked, as they lay in the shade at the pool, while everyone else was at work. She had the same fair skin as he, and like her father, she instinctively avoided the sun, and had the same flawless alabaster complexion as he. Coop always said it was thanks to his distant British ancestry. He had “English” skin, and clearly Taryn did too.

“No, I'm used to that, young doesn't bother me,” he grinned. “She's almost too old for me.” They both laughed at that. He had told her about Charlene too. “Her father is Arthur Madison. You know what that means. I constantly question my motives about her. I'm up to my ass in debt.” His honesty seemed charming to her. He had never even told Alex that. “Sometimes I worry that I'm after her money. At other times, I'm sure I'm not. It would be so damn easy and convenient for me. Too easy maybe. The question is, would I love her if she didn't have a cent? I'm not sure. And until I am, I'm stuck. It's a hell of a question to ask yourself.”

“Maybe it doesn't matter,” Taryn said practically.

“But maybe it does,” he said, suddenly honest, which was an immense relief. She was the one person he could be totally candid with, because she had no axe to grind, and he wanted nothing from her. Not her love or her body or her money. He just wanted her in his life. It was the closest he'd ever been to unconditional love. And it seemed to have happened overnight, almost as though he had known she was out there somewhere, and he was waiting for her to arrive in his life. He needed her. And maybe, in some odd and unexpected way, Taryn needed him. “The minute sex and money get into it, Taryn, it's a mess. It has been in my life anyway.” He loved sharing his secrets with her, and was surprised about it himself.

“Maybe you're right. I had a problem with that with my husband too. We built the business together, and in the end, it brought us down. He wanted to take more money out of it than I did. I did the designing so I got the recognition, and he was jealous of that. In the end, he tried to take the business away in the divorce. It was easier to just sell it and move on. And he slept with my assistant, and moved in with her when he left, which damn near broke my heart.”

“See what I mean,” Coop said, nodding, “money and sex. It screws things up every time. We've got neither one between us, and everything's so simple.” And it felt so right. His relationship with her had become precious to him overnight.

“How bad are your debts?” she asked with a look of concern.

“Bad enough. Alex doesn't know. I never told her. I didn't want her to think I was after her money to pay my debts.”

“Are you?”

“I'm not sure,” he said honestly. “It would certainly be simpler than working my ass off, hustling commercials and God knows what else. But she's so decent, I don't want to take money from her. If she were different, I might. And I don't want money from you,” he said pointedly. He didn't want to add that to the mix, or corrupt what they had. He liked things just the way they were. It was clean between them, and he intended to keep it that way. “All I need is a part in a decent movie, a good part, and I'd be back on my feet. But God knows when that will happen, or if. Maybe never again. Hard to say.” He seemed philosophical about it.

“Then what?” She was worried about him. He seemed a little vague about his financial affairs.

“Something always turns up.” And if not, there was Alex, but that seemed wrong to him. That was what he'd been explaining to Taryn, and as they were talking, he suddenly pointed to her feet.

“Is something wrong?” Taryn asked. She'd just had a pedicure, and her nails were painted pink. She thought maybe he preferred red. But she always wore pink. Red polish looked like blood to her.

“You've got my feet.” He stuck his own next to hers and they both laughed. They looked like twins. They had the same long, elegant feet. She stuck her hands out. “And the same hands.” There was no denying her, not that he wanted to. He had been thinking of introducing her as his niece. But as time wore on and he got to know her better, he wanted to introduce her as his daughter, and he asked her what she thought.

“Sounds good to me, but not if it's going to screw things up for you.”

“I don't see why. We can just say you're big for fourteen.”

“I won't tell anyone how old I am,” she laughed, and they had almost the same laugh as well, “that works for me too. It's a bitch suddenly being single again at my age. I'm nearly forty, and suddenly I'm back out in the world. I've been married since I was twenty-two.”

“How boring,” he scolded her and she laughed again. He was fun to be with, and great to talk to. She loved spending time with him, and he with her. They had done nothing else for days, like catching up on an entire lifetime in one gulp. She brought the best out in him, and he in her. “It was time for a change. We'll have to find someone for you out here.”

“Not yet,” she said calmly. “I'm not ready. I need to catch my breath. I've lost my husband, my business, and my mother, and acquired a father all in the last few months. I need to move slowly for a little while. It's a lot to absorb.”

“What about work? Are you going to look for something out here?” He was protective of her now.

“I don't know. I've always wanted to try my hand at costume design, but that's probably a crazy idea. I don't really have to work. We sold the business very well, and Mom left me what she had. My father… my other father,” she said with a smile, “provided for me very well. I can take my time figuring it out. Maybe I can help you figure out yours. I'm pretty good at sorting things out and making sense of a mess.”

“That must have been in your mother's genes. I work it the other way round. I take ‘sense’ and turn it into a mess. It works for me. Financial chaos is familiar to me.” He said it with good humor and humility, which she found endearing too.

“Let me know if you want me to take a look and tell you what I think.”

“Maybe you can interpret what my accountant says, although it's pretty plain. He's a one-man band. Essentially he says don't buy anything and sell the house. He's an incredibly boring little man.”

“It's the nature of the beast,” she said sympathetically.

And when Alex was around, they had fun too. The three of them cooked dinner together, went to movies, and talked endlessly. But when the time was right, Taryn always discreetly disappeared. She didn't want to intrude on them. But she enjoyed Alex immensely and had great respect for the work she did.

Taryn and Alex were lying at the pool talking about it one Saturday morning when Mark and his children came out of the guest wing. Coop was up at the main house on the terrace, reading a book. He had a cold and didn't want to swim.

Alex introduced Taryn to the Friedmans, but didn't say who she was. She didn't have to. Mark asked if she and Coop were related. He said there was an uncanny resemblance between them, and asked if Alex had noticed it. Both women laughed.

“Actually,” Taryn said calmly, “he's my father. We haven't seen each other in a long time.” It was the understatement of the century and Alex chuckled. She had handled it very well.

“I didn't know Coop had a daughter,” Mark said, looking blank.

“Neither did he,” Taryn said with a smile, and dove into the pool.

“What did she say?” Mark asked Alex, looking confused.

“It's a long story. They'll tell you about it sometime.”

And a few minutes later, Jimmy appeared. It was a hot day, and they all wanted to swim. Mark was talking to Taryn about her business and New York, and the kids were hanging out with friends who had just arrived. Alex asked them not to play their music, since Coop wasn't feeling well, and they hung out at the far end of the pool, talking and laughing. It gave her a chance to talk to Jimmy quietly for a change. There were always other people around.

“How are things?” Alex asked easily, stretched out on a lounge chair as he put sunblock on his arms. Despite his dark hair, he had fair skin. She volunteered to put some on his back, and he hesitated and then thanked her as he turned around. No one had done that for him since Maggie died, and Alex didn't give it a second thought as she handed the tube back to him.

“Okay, I guess. How about you? How's work?” Jimmy asked.

“Busy. Sometimes I think the whole world has preemies, or babies with problems. I never get to see healthy babies anymore.”

“It must be depressing work,” Jimmy said sympathetically.

“Not really. Most of them get healthy eventually. Some don't. I'm not used to that part yet.” She hated it when they lost them. It was so sad for everyone. But the victories were sweet. “The kids you work with don't have an easy road either. It's hard to think about the things some people do to their kids.”

“I'll never get used to that either,” he admitted. They had both seen a lot in their respective lines of work. And in their own way, they were each saving lives.

“What made you want to become a doctor?” he asked, curious for the first time.

“My mother,” she said simply, and he smiled.

“Is she a doctor too?”

“No,” Alex grinned, “she leads a totally useless life. She goes shopping and goes to dinner parties and gets her nails done. And that's about it. So does my sister. I wanted to do anything but that, no matter what it took.” It had been a little bit more complicated than that, but not much. She had been exceptionally good at science too. “I used to want to be an airline pilot, when I was a kid. But that seemed pretty boring too. It's kind of like being a glorified bus driver after a while. What I do is more fun, and it's different every day.”

“Me too,” he smiled. “When I was at Harvard, I wanted to play professional ice hockey for the Bruins. But my girlfriend convinced me I'd look like shit with no teeth. I decided she was right. But I still like to skate.” He and Maggie used to skate a lot, but he tried not to think about that. “Who's the woman talking to Mark?” he asked with interest, and Alex smiled.

“Coop's daughter. She's staying with him for a while. She just came out from New York.”

“I didn't know he had a daughter.” Jimmy looked surprised.

“It came as something of a surprise to him too.”

“He seems to have a lot of those.”

“This was a good surprise. She's really nice.” Mark seemed to think so. They had been talking for an hour, and Alex could see Jessica checking her out. Jason was busy trying to drown his friends. “They're good kids,” she said about the Friedman children, and Jimmy agreed.

“Yes, they are. He's a lucky guy, with his kids at least. I guess they'll be going back to their mom soon. He's going to miss them a lot.” That seemed sad to Alex. He was so happy with them.

“Maybe he'll go back too. What about you? Are you going to stay out here, or go back East eventually?” She knew he was from Boston, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might know her cousin who had gone to Harvard at about the same time.

“I'd like to stay out here,” Jimmy said, looking pensive. “Although I feel kind of sorry for my mom. My dad died, and she's alone. And I'm all she's got.” Alex nodded, and asked him about her cousin then and he grinned. “Luke Madison was one of my best friends in school. We lived in the same dorm. We used to get drunk together every weekend senior year.”

“That sounds like Luke.” She laughed.

“I'm ashamed to admit I probably haven't seen him in ten years. I think he went to London when we graduated, and I lost track of him then.”

“He's still there. And he has six kids. All boys, I think. I don't see him much either, except at weddings, and I don't go to those a lot.”

“Any particular reason?” He was intrigued by her, and her attachment to Coop. It didn't make sense to him, but he didn't mention it. He wasn't particularly fond of Coop. He wasn't even sure why. It was a kind of instinctive dislike. Jealousy maybe. He was such an obvious ladies' man, and all he seemed to do was indulge himself. It went totally against Jimmy's grain.

“I ate a bad one once… wedding, I mean “Alex explained and he laughed at her explanation.

“That's too bad. The right ones can be a great thing. Mine was. Not so much the wedding as the marriage. We got married at City Hall. She was a great girl.”

“I'm sorry about what happened,” Alex said, and meant it. She always felt so sorry for him, but he looked better these days. Not quite so anguished, or so pale. And he had gained a little weight. His evenings with the Friedmans had done him good, and at least he ate. But he particularly enjoyed the kids.

“It's strange. Grief. Some days you think it'll kill you. And other times, it's okay. And you can never tell which when you wake up. A good day can turn to shit. And a day that starts out so badly you want to die can suddenly turn around. It's like pain, or an illness or something, you can never tell which way it's going to go. I think I'm getting used to it. It becomes a way of life after a while.”

“I guess there's no remedy except time.” It seemed trite, but she suspected it was true. It had been nearly five months. When he'd moved in, he looked half dead himself. “A lot of things are like that, although maybe not as tough. It took me a long time to get over the marriage I nearly had. Years, in fact.”

“I think that's different, it's about trust. This is about loss. It's cleaner. There's no one to blame. It just hurts like hell.” He was being amazingly honest about his grief, and Alex suspected it was doing him good to talk. “How much longer do you have in your residency?”

“Another year. It seems like forever sometimes. A lot of days, a lot of nights. I'll probably stay on at UCLA even when I'm through, if they'll have me. They have a terrific neonatal ICU. It's kind of a tough specialty, there aren't a lot of jobs. I was going to be a normal pediatrician originally, but I got hooked on this. High adrenaline, it keeps me focused. I think I'd get bored otherwise.” They were still talking about it when Taryn and Mark wandered back. They had been talking about tax laws, and tax shelters, and Mark was surprised by how much she knew about it. And she'd seemed interested in what he'd said. She was almost as tall as he was, and Alex smiled as they approached. They made a handsome pair, and were close to the same age.

“What are you two talking about?” Mark asked as they sat down.

“Work. What else?” Alex grinned.

“So were we.” And as they chatted, what seemed like a herd of teenagers got back in the pool. Alex was glad Coop hadn't come down. It would have driven him insane. It seemed fitting that the only child he had had stayed away until she was thirty-nine years old. It was about the right age child for him. She had said as much to Taryn the day before and they both laughed. Coop was incredibly vocal about his dislike of kids.

And five minutes later, the children in the pool started a lively game of Marco Polo and Mark and Jimmy got in with them.

“He's a good man,” Taryn said of Mark. “I gather he was pretty devastated when his wife left. It's lucky for him his kids decided to come back.”

“Coop wasn't quite as thrilled,” Alex commented and they both laughed. “They're lovely kids,” Alex vouched for them.

“What's Jimmy like?” Taryn asked with interest.

“Sad. He lost his wife almost five months ago. I think it's been pretty tough.”

“Another one?” It seemed like an epidemic, but Alex shook her head.

“No. Cancer. She was thirty-two years old,” she whispered as Jimmy moved closer to them in the pool. He had just scored a point for his team, and threw Jason the ball, who scored yet another point. It was a very loud game, and they were splashing all over the place. And as she watched them, she saw Coop wave. He wanted them to come back up. He was ready for lunch. “I think the master calls.” Alex pointed him out to Taryn, and she looked up and smiled. Even at this distance, Alex could see he was proud of her. Taryn had been a lovely addition to his life, and she was glad for him.

“Are you happy with him, Alex?” Taryn asked her. She had been wondering what the relationship meant to her. She had heard a lot about her from Coop.

“Yes, I am. It's a shame he hates kids so much. Otherwise, he's everything I want.”

“You don't mind the difference in your age?”

“I thought about it at first, but it doesn't seem to matter. He's like a kid sometimes.”

“But he's not,” she said wisely. It would matter more in time. A lot more one day.

“That's what my father says.”

“He doesn't approve?” She wasn't surprised. Having Cooper as a son-in-law was not every father's dream, unless they were starstruck, which seemed unlikely, knowing who her father was.

“To put it in context, he doesn't approve of anything I do. Or not much. And he's worried about Coop.”

“That makes sense. He's led quite a life. Do you care about this girl who says she's having his baby?”

“Actually, I don't. Mostly because he doesn't care about her. And we don't even know yet if it's his.”

“And if it is?”

Alex shrugged. “He'll send her a check every month. He says he doesn't want to see the child. He's pretty angry at her.”

“I can understand that. It's a shame she's not willing to have an abortion. It would be simpler for everyone.”

“It would. But if your mother had done that, you wouldn't be here. I'm glad she didn't, especially for Coop. This means a lot to him,” Alex said kindly. She thought it was a blessing for both of them.

“It means a lot to me too. I didn't realize it would. Or maybe I did, and that's why I came. I was curious initially. But now I really like him. I don't know what kind of father he'd have been when I was young, but he's a wonderful friend now.” Alex could see too what a positive effect Taryn had on Coop. It was as though he had found a missing piece of himself, a piece he never even knew was lost, but it was.

Taryn and Alex waved to the others, and walked slowly back up to the main house. Coop was waiting for them.

“They sure are loud,” he complained. He was feeling lousy with his cold.

“They'll get out of the pool pretty soon,” Alex reassured him. “They're going in for lunch.”

“What about the three of us going to the Ivy for lunch?” Coop suggested, and both women liked the idea. They went to change and came back twenty minutes later, dressed and ready to go out.

He drove them to North Robertson in the old Rolls, and the three of them chatted and laughed on the way. They sat on the terrace, and enjoyed each other's company. It was an easy, pleasant afternoon, and as Alex looked over at Coop, they exchanged a smile, and she knew that all was well in his world, and hers.

Chapter 19

It was nearly the end of May when Alex was working a two-day shift at the hospital, and the tech at the front desk told her she had a call. She'd had a relaxing weekend with Coop immediately before that, and things were relatively peaceful at work for a change.

“Who is it?” Alex asked, as she reached for the phone. She had just come back from lunch.

“I don't know,” the girl said, “it's in-house.” Alex figured it was probably another doc.

“Dr. Madison,” she said, in her official grown-up voice.

“I'm impressed.” She didn't recognize who it was.

“Who is this?”

“It's Jimmy. I had to come in for some lab work, and I thought I'd call. Too busy to talk?”

“No, it's fine. You picked a good time. I think everyone's asleep. I shouldn't say it out loud, but we haven't had a crisis all day. Where are you?” She was happy to hear him, she had enjoyed their most recent chat. He was such a nice guy, and he'd had such rotten luck. It always troubled her. If nothing else, he needed good friends, and she was more than willing to volunteer, if he needed a shoulder from time to time. And he and Mark had become good friends.

“I'm in the main lab.” He sounded kind of lost, and she wondered what was happening with his health. Stress probably. And grief.

“Do you want to come up? I can't leave the floor, but I can offer you a cup of our undrinkable coffee, if your stomach's up to it.”

“I'd like that,” he said. It was what he'd been hoping for when he took the chance and called. He'd felt a little guilty disturbing her. She told him where to go, and he said he'd be right up.

She was watching for him when he got off the elevator, and waved to him from the desk. She was on the phone, talking to a mom who had just taken her baby home, and everything seemed fine. The baby was doing great. It had taken them five months to get her home. She was one of Alex's stars.

“So this is where you do your thing,” he said admiringly as he looked around. There was a glass wall behind the desk, where he could see a maze of equipment and incubators and lights and people milling around in scrubs and masks. Alex had one around her neck too, with her stethoscope at a jaunty angle, and the same green scrubs she'd been wearing all day. He was impressed. It was impossible not to be. She was in her element here, and a star in her own right.

“It's good to see you, Jimmy,” she said comfortably as she walked him into her tiny office, with the unmade cot she slept on. She only saw parents in the waiting room. “What kind of work were you having done, if it's not rude to ask?” She was concerned about him, particularly here, in her official guise.

“It's just routine. I have to get checked out pretty thoroughly for work every year. Chest X-ray, TB, that kind of thing. I was overdue. They kept sending me notices, and I never had time to come in. They finally told me I couldn't report for work next week unless I did. So here I am. I had to take the afternoon off to do it, because you never know how long it'll take, which is why I've been putting it off. I'll probably have to work Saturday to make up for it.”

“Sounds like me,” she said, smiling at him. She was relieved to hear that there was nothing seriously wrong with him. And she found herself looking into his dark brown eyes, and as always her heart went out to him. You could still see how much he'd been through. “What exactly do you do?” she asked with interest as she handed him a Styrofoam cup filled with the poisonous brew. He took a sip and grinned instantly.

“You serve the same rat poison we do, I see. We put sand in ours, it gives it that little extra something.” She laughed. She was used to it, but she hated their coffee too. “What do I do? Haul kids out of homes where they're having the shit kicked out of them, or being sodomized by their father, uncle, and two older brothers I put kids in hospitals with cigarette burns all over them I listen to moms who are basically decent and scared to death they'll freak out and hurt their kids because they've got seven of them and not enough food to go around even with food stamps, and their old man is beating them up I put eleven-year-old kids in programs who're shooting up, or sometimes nine-year-olds… sometimes I just listen… or I kick a ball around with a bunch of kids. Same thing you do, I guess, trying to make a difference when I can, and a lot of the time, not making any difference and wishing I could.” It was amazing stuff, and she was as impressed with him as he was with her.

“I don't think I could do what you do. It would depress the hell out of me, seeing that every day. I'm dealing with tiny little people who come into this world with a couple of strikes against them, and we do the best we can to level the playing field for them. But I think your job would turn me off the human race forever.”

“The funny thing is it doesn't,” he said, sipping the coffee, and then winced. It was actually worse than what he drank at work, which was hard to believe. “It gives you hope sometimes. You always believe something's going to change, and once in a while it does. That's enough to keep you going till next time. And no matter how you feel about it, you still have to be there. Because if you aren't, things will get worse for sure. And if it gets much worse for any of them…” His voice drifted off and their eyes met, and she had an idea.

“Do you want a tour?” She thought it might be interesting for him.

“Of the ICU?” He looked shocked, as she nodded. “Is that okay?”

“If anyone asks, I'll tell them you're a visiting doc. Just if someone codes, don't step up to the plate.” She handed him a white coat. He was medium sized, but powerful, and he barely got his shoulders into it, which made the arms a little short, but no one would notice. They all looked like hell. What mattered there was what they did, not how they looked.

“Not to worry, if someone codes, I'll run like hell.” But nothing untoward happened, they didn't even need her, as she walked him around, and explained what was happening in each case, what the situation was, and what they were doing for the tiny patients who lay in incubators, so small most of them didn't wear diapers. He had never seen as many tubes and machines, or babies so small. Their smallest patient on their service weighed in at just over a pound and a half, but was not expected to live. She'd had babies at less, she explained to Jimmy. Their chances increased exponentially the bigger they were, but the larger babies were in grave danger too. It tore his heart out to see the moms sitting there, touching tiny fingers or toes, and just waiting for something to change. The happiest event had turned into something terrifying, and sometimes they had to live with it for months before they knew how it would unfold. It seemed like inconceivable stress to him, and he was in awe when they came out again.

“My God, Alex, that's incredible. How do you stand the pressure?” If they did anything wrong, even for a split second, or failed to do something they should, someone's life was at stake, and the course of a family's history was forever changed. It was a burden he couldn't have borne, and he admired her tremendously for what she did. “I think I'd be scared to death to come to work every day.”

“No, you wouldn't. What you do is just as hard. If you miss something, or don't spot what's happening, or move fast enough, some poor kid could die, or be killed, or be damaged forever. You have to have the same kind of instincts I do. Same idea, different place.”

“You have to have a big heart to do this too,” he said gently, and she did. He had already figured out that much, which was why he couldn't understand what she was doing with Coop. It was all about him, and Alex was about everyone else. Maybe that was why it worked.

They stood chatting near the desk for a little while, and then they needed her to evaluate a patient and consult with an attending, so he said he'd leave.

“Thank you for letting me come up,” he said, still in awe of her. “I'm incredibly impressed.”

“It's all about the team,” she said fairly, “I'm only a tiny part of it. A very tiny part,” she said with humility, as he hugged her, and then left. He waved as the elevator doors closed, and she went back to work.

She didn't see him again until the following Saturday afternoon. Miraculously, she'd gotten another Saturday off, but she had to work on Sunday. And she and Taryn were at the pool with Coop, Mark, and his kids, when Jimmy wandered down from the gatehouse. Taryn was wearing an enormous hat, and as usual, Coop was sitting in the shade of his favorite tree. He attributed his flawless skin and youthful look to never sitting in the sun. And he was pleased to see that Taryn followed suit. He nagged Alex constantly about all the sun she took.

Jimmy looked more rested for once, Alex thought, automatically assessing him. She treated the rest of the world as though they were patients, and it was hard not to notice how they looked, acted, or moved. She never seemed to be able to put her medical antennae away, and laughed at herself. But Jimmy smiled as soon as he saw her, and shook hands with Coop as Mark and Taryn went on talking about something that seemed to fascinate both of them. And for once, the kids hadn't invited friends over to swim, so things were fairly quiet. With the good weather, it seemed like a constant party at the pool these days, but this time, it was just the actual residents of The Cottage, which was a relief for Coop. The group was big enough without adding to it.

He had been in very good spirits since Taryn moved in. They were spending a lot of time with each other, and he had taken her to lunch at Spago and Le Dome, and all his other favorite haunts. He enjoyed showing her off and introducing her as his daughter. No one seemed surprised, they just assumed they had forgotten he had a grown daughter. And she was a very respectable-looking woman. Coop introduced her to everyone, and she was enjoying her taste of Hollywood. She told Alex all about it whenever they got together. It was a whole new world for her, and she thought it was fun. And sooner or later she had to decide whether or not to go back to New York, or to get involved in something in LA. But she was in no hurry to make the decision. She was having too much fun, and there was no pressure on her.

Alex thought she'd been a good influence on Coop. Although he'd been wonderful before, he somehow seemed more grounded, and more interested in other people's lives suddenly. He wasn't quite as focused on himself. He actually sounded as though it mattered to him when he asked Alex what she'd done at work. But when she explained it to him, he still looked a little blank. The complicated medical interventions she participated in were a little beyond him, as they would have been for most people. But if nothing else, he seemed happy and mellow these days.

He was working a little, but not enough, he said. Abe was still complaining to him. And he had heard from Liz, who was stunned by the number of people living on the property. She worried about how much the Friedman kids might annoy him, and she was touched at his story about Taryn finding him.

“I leave you for five minutes, Coop, and you have a whole new world of people around you.” Like Alex, she thought he sounded remarkably peaceful and content. More than she'd ever heard him. And when she asked him about Alex, he was vague. He had his own questions about that, but he didn't share them with anyone. It was occurring to him increasingly that if he just allowed himself to marry her, he would never have to work again. And if he didn't, he would be hustling cameo roles forever. It was so tempting to just let himself go, but he hated to take the easy way out, even at his age. Another, more practical side of him, told him he had earned it. But she was such an honest, decent person, and she worked so hard herself, he actually hated to take advantage of her. He loved her, and the easy life was so tempting. His financial worries would be solved forever, but another part of him was afraid that if he sold out, she would control him. She would have a right to make him do what she wanted, or try to at least, and that was anathema for him. For the moment, it still seemed like an unsolvable problem. And she had no idea what he was wrestling with, she thought their relationship was going fine, and it was for both of them. Except for Coop's bouts with his conscience. Much to his chagrin, it seemed to be growing like a benign tumor inside of him. It had never troubled him before, but Alex had introduced a new element into his life, a kind of white light that had made some things grow and others shrink. And his exchanges with Taryn only seemed to enhance it. They were both remarkable women, and they'd had a profound effect on him. More than he'd ever dreamed of or wanted. Life had been so simple before, without the burden of a conscience. And like it or not, the voices in his head seemed to be there to stay. All he needed now were the answers to their questions. He was searching for them.

By the end of Saturday afternoon, Jimmy had taken Jason somewhere to buy new sports equipment, Jessie was sitting at the far end of the pool, doing her nails with a friend, Taryn and Mark were still chatting quietly, and Coop was asleep under the tree, when Mark turned to Alex and invited the inhabitants of the main house to join them for dinner. Alex's eyes quickly went to Taryn's and she nodded almost imperceptibly, so Alex accepted on all their behalf. And when Coop woke up, and the others had gone, she told him.

“We seem to see an awful lot of them,” he complained. Mark and Taryn were trying to play tennis on the damaged court by then, and no one else was around, so she could be honest with him.

“I think Taryn really likes Mark,” she explained, “I think it's mutual, and she wanted me to accept. We don't have to go if you don't want to. She can go alone.”

“No, it's all right. I'll do anything I have to for my only daughter,” he said nobly, with a grin. “No sacrifice is too great for one's children.”

In truth, he loved having a nearly forty-year-old daughter, as no one was too clear about her age. But saying that brought Charlene to mind again. There had been some fresh demand for more money through her lawyers. She wanted a bigger apartment in a better neighborhood, preferably somewhere close to him in Bel Air, and she was wondering if she could use the pool, since she was feeling too ill to go anywhere, she claimed. Coop had an absolute fit when his lawyer called him, and said there would be nothing whatsoever given to her until the results of the DNA test came in. It was going to be another five or six weeks before she took it. And until then, and more than likely afterwards as well given the way she'd behaved, she was persona non grata at The Cottage or anywhere else that involved Coop. His irate message had been somewhat cleaned up by his attorney, and duly delivered to the opposition.

Alex felt sorry for him. Understandably, it was a situation he detested. And it put a strain on them as well. She knew he was worried about the financial implications to him. There had been a recent case where a girl had gotten twenty thousand dollars a month in child support from a man she had been involved with for two months. But the father of the baby in that case, as Alex pointed out to Coop reassuringly, was a major rock star with a humongous income. Coop was by no means in that situation. She was particularly aware of that now after talking to her father. Coop never talked about his debts, and he spent money with utter abandon. But she knew that somewhere in the back of his mind, he had to be worried about how much he would have to give Charlene to support the baby, if it was his.

The three of them went downstairs to the guest wing that night, promptly at seven. Taryn was wearing pale blue silk pajamas that were very flattering on her. She had designed them herself for her last season, before she closed her business. And Alex was wearing red silk pants, and a white shirt, with high-heeled gold sandals. She looked more than ever like a model or a ballerina, and not a doctor. It was a far cry from the scrubs and clogs and braid she wore at work, and Jimmy enjoyed the contrast when he joined them for dinner.

Jimmy described his tour of the ICU during dinner, as Taryn and Jessie helped serve the excellent spaghetti carbonara Mark had made. Jimmy had brought the salad. And there was tiramisu for dessert. Coop had brought two bottles of vintage Pouilly-Fuissé. And everyone listened with fascination as Jimmy talked about the work Alex did. She was impressed by how much he'd heard and understood, and only made one small correction, about a baby with a serious heart and lung problem. But he had correctly remembered all the rest.

“He seems to know a great deal about what you do,” Coop commented dryly when they went back upstairs. It was after midnight, and Taryn had decided to stay for a while, she was enjoying chatting with Mark and Jimmy. The kids had gone out with friends, and were staying with them. It had been an easy evening. “When did he visit you at the hospital?” Coop asked, sounding cool, and Alex was surprised at his tone. He actually sounded jealous, which was unnecessary, but touched her. It was nice to know how much he cared.

“He had some lab work done this week for work. He came by afterwards for a cup of coffee, and I gave him a tour of the ICU. He must have paid pretty close attention.” Closer than she knew. But Coop was more aware of it than she was. He was wise to the ways of men. And he had noticed that evening that Jimmy not only sat next to her, but monopolized her for most of the evening. Alex was completely unaware of it, and kept glancing down the table at Coop, who was seated between Taryn and Mark. But from the head of the table, where Mark had placed him, he had a good view of all the proceedings. He had been watching Jimmy all night.

“I think he has the hots for you,” Coop said bluntly, and he didn't seem pleased about it. Jimmy was far closer to her age, and their professional interests weren't entirely unrelated. Coop's were part of a different galaxy, and he wasn't about to start competing with men half his age. It was an indignity he wouldn't tolerate, and had never suffered. He was used to being the only star in his heavens, and it was what he expected. He liked it when everything revolved around him.

“Don't be silly, Coop,” Alex chided him. “He's too depressed to have the hots for anyone. He's been a wreck ever since his wife died. He says he still can't sleep, has no appetite. Actually, I was concerned about him when he talked about it the other day. I think he should be on antidepressants. But I didn't say anything, I didn't want to upset him.”

“Why don't you prescribe them for him?” Coop said unpleasantly, and Alex put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“I'm not his doctor. And there's something I want to prescribe for you,” she said as she slipped her hands under his shirt and he unbent a little. It was obvious that he hadn't enjoyed the evening, although she had. She liked being with the others, and chatting with them. It was fun having such compatible people close at hand, on the grounds of The Cottage. “Speaking of romances, by the way, I think Mark and Taryn are very attracted to each other. Don't you?”

He seemed to hesitate, and then nodded. He thought Mark was boring. “I think she can do a lot better. She's a fabulous girl, and I want to introduce her to some of the producers I know. She's had a very dull, staid life, and that husband who left her sounds like a jerk. I think she needs a little glamour and excitement.” Alex thought he was missing the point. Taryn didn't have stars in her eyes, it was one of the things Alex liked about her. She was real and down-to-earth, and she needed a real person. But it was the ultimate compliment to Taryn that her father wanted to introduce her to his associates and friends. He was justifiably proud of her.

“We'll see what happens,” Alex said vaguely.

They went to bed, and Coop made love to her. He felt better afterwards, as though he'd claimed his territory again. It unnerved him having younger men on his turf, particularly as he could see that Alex enjoyed them.

She was gone when he woke up the next morning. She was back at work. And he and Taryn went to Malibu to visit friends. It was nearly ten o'clock that night when Coop called her. She'd had a busy day, and he and Taryn had had fun. There was none of the petulance in his voice that she'd noticed the night before. She told him she'd see him the following night when she got off duty at six o'clock. He had promised to take her to a movie she'd been dying to see, and she was looking forward to it.

She talked to Taryn for a minute too, they almost seemed like one family now. She was going out to dinner with Mark the next day, and Alex was happy for her.

Alex went to bed in her office shortly after that. She always slept in her scrubs when she was on duty. And her clogs were parked right next to her in case she had to hit the deck running. She never fell into a deep sleep when she was at work. She was always half listening for the phone, even in her sleep. It rang at 4 A.M. and she jumped up with a start and grabbed it.

“Madison,” she said, clearing her head. She was fully awake within seconds. And she was stunned to hear Mark. She thought something might have happened to one of his kids, or even Coop. But then she realized that if it was Coop, Taryn would have called her. “Is something wrong?” she asked quickly. The hour of the call gave her the answer before he said it.

“There's been an accident,” he said, sounding frantic.

“At the house?” Maybe both Taryn and Coop were hurt. But Taryn wasn't with Coop. Mark didn't tell her she was asleep in his bedroom. She'd come down for a drink late in the evening, and his kids had slept at their friends' houses, which had given him unexpected freedom.

“A car accident,” he said quickly.

“Coop?” She held her breath, fully aware of how much she loved him. She didn't need an accident to tell her that. She knew it.

“No. Jimmy. I don't know what happened. The other day, we were talking about not having local next of kin to call in case either of us ever got sick. He must have listed me on his papers. They just called me. They took him to UCLA. I think he's in the trauma unit or something. I thought maybe you could go check on him. Taryn and I will be there as soon as we can get there.”

“Did they say what kind of shape he's in?” Alex sounded worried.

“No, they didn't. They just said it was serious. He went off the road in Malibu, and went down about a hundred feet. The car was totaled.”

“Shit.” It occurred to her instantly that it may have been less of an accident than they thought. He had been depressed ever since losing Maggie. “Did you see him today, Mark?”

“No, I didn't.” He had seemed fine the night before, but that didn't always mean anything. Often, suicides seemed happier once they made the decision to do it. Euphoric even. But he had seemed normal to her on Saturday night at dinner.

“I'll go down to trauma as soon as I can get someone to cover for me.”

She called one of the other residents as soon as she hung up. He was a nice guy she knew well who had covered for her before. She explained the circumstances to him and said she didn't need more than half an hour, to get to trauma and check things out. He said it was no problem, and showed up, sleepy eyed, ten minutes later. By then she had called the trauma unit, and all they could tell her on the phone was that he was in critical condition. He'd been there for an hour, and a team was working on him.

When she got there, she talked to the chief resident, and he told her that Jimmy had broken both legs, one arm, his pelvis, he had a head injury, and he was in a coma. It was not a pretty picture. She went in to see him, and stood at a distance so as not to interfere with what they were doing. They had intubated him, and he was hooked up to a dozen machines. His vitals were irregular, and his face was so cut and bruised, she could hardly recognize him. Her heart ached when she saw him.

“How bad is the head injury?” she asked the chief resident when she saw him again, and he shook his head.

“We don't know yet. He may have gotten lucky. His EEG looks pretty good. But he's in a pretty deep coma.

It all depends on how much brain swelling he gets, and I can't predict that. And if he comes out of the coma.” But for the moment, they had decided not to operate to relieve the pressure. They were hoping it was going to come down on its own. Time was of the essence. And luck. Alex walked up next to him, in a quiet moment. They had set his arm and legs by then, and cleaned him up, but he was very, very badly injured.

She walked out to the waiting room, and by the time she got there, Mark and Taryn were there, looking panicked.

“How bad is it?” Taryn asked before Mark could.

“It's bad,” Alex said quietly. “It could be worse. And it may get worse before it gets better.” She didn't say “if it gets better,” but she thought it.

“What do you think happened?” Mark asked her. Jimmy didn't drink a lot and it was unlikely that he'd been driving drunk. But she didn't want to share her suspicions with them. She had with the attending physician, not that it made much difference at this point. But it might later. If he was an attempted suicide, they were going to have to watch him very closely when he came out of the coma.

“You know this guy?” the attending had asked her, and she had said they were friends, and she told him about Maggie. He made a note of it on the chart, with a question mark in a red circle.

She explained to Mark and Taryn as simply as she could what the dangers of the brain swelling meant for him.

“Are you saying he could wind up brain-dead?” Mark looked horrified. He and Jimmy had become good friends in the past few months, and he didn't want anything terrible to happen to him.

“He could, but we hope he won't. It all depends when and how fast he comes out of the coma. He's got brain waves now, and they've got him on monitors. We'll know right away if there are any changes.”

“Jesus,” Mark said, as he ran a hand through his hair and looked distraught, and Taryn was sharing the agony with him. “Maybe someone should call his mother.”

“I think so,” Alex said quietly. There was always the possibility that he could slip away from them, and he was in critical condition. “Do you want me to call?” Those were not easy calls to make, and delivering bad news was part of her job, not that she enjoyed it. But it might be easier for her to do it.

“No. I'll call her. I owe that much to Jimmy.” Mark was not a shirker. He went to the phone, and took a number out of his wallet that Jimmy had given him, in case of just such an event. It had never really occurred to him that he might have to use it, it was just a precaution. And now here he was, calling Jimmy's mother to tell her he was in a coma.

“How does he look?” Taryn asked Alex in an undertone after Mark went to use the phone, and Alex looked unhappy.

“He's in bad shape, I'm so sorry this happened to him,” she said, as she and Taryn held hands and waited for Mark to come back. He was wiping his eyes when he did, and it took him a minute to regain his composure.

“Poor woman, I felt like an axe-murderer. According to Jimmy, he's all she's got. She's a widow, and he's an only child.”

“Is she very old?” Alex asked, concerned for her well-being.

“I don't know, I never asked him,” Mark said thoughtfully. “She didn't sound old, but I couldn't tell. She started crying the minute I told her. She said she'd catch the next flight out. She should be here in eight or nine hours.”

Alex checked on Jimmy again and there had been no change, and she had to go back to work. She left Mark and Taryn in the waiting room, and before she left, Mark asked if she was going to call Coop. It was 5 A.M. by then, a little early to call him.

“I'll wait a few hours and call him around eight.” She gave them her extension and pager number and told them to call her if anything happened. They had their arms around each other, and Taryn had her head on Mark's shoulder when Alex left them.

Things were mercifully quiet on her own service that morning, and as she had said she would, she called Coop just after eight. He was still asleep, and surprised that she had called him so early. But he said he didn't mind. His trainer was coming at nine, and he wanted to get up anyway, and have breakfast as soon as Paloma came in.

“Jimmy had an accident last night,” she told him somberly as soon as he was fully awake.

“How do you know?” She found it odd, but he sounded suspicious.

“Mark called me. He and Taryn are downstairs in the trauma unit. He drove off Malibu Canyon Road, he's got a lot of broken bones and he's in a coma.”

Coop sounded duly impressed by the news once she told him. He had seen a lot of ugliness and sorrow over the years, and in spite of hopes and beliefs otherwise, bad things really did happen to good people. “Do you think he'll make it?”

“It's hard to say at this point. It could go either way. A lot depends on the swelling in his brain, and what kind of toll that takes, how fast he comes out of the coma. The broken bones won't kill him.” But the rest could.

“Poor guy. He doesn't have a hell of a lot of luck going for him, does he? First his wife, and now this.” She didn't tell him that she suspected him of contributing to it. She had nothing to go on, just her gut, and the little she knew of him. “Well, keep me posted.”

“Do you want to come down and sit with Taryn and Mark?” She thought he should have volunteered, but it hadn't occurred to him to do that. There was nothing he could do for Jimmy, it was just a matter of waiting. And he hated hospitals anyway. They made him nervous, except when he met Alex downstairs, as he had on occasion.

“I don't see what good it would do them,” Coop said sensibly. “And it's too late to cancel my trainer.” It seemed an odd excuse to Alex. But he offered it instinctively. He didn't want to see Jimmy with tubes everywhere. He was squeamish about things like that.

“They're pretty upset over it,” Alex pressed further, but Coop didn't take the bait. He wanted to avoid the realities of the situation.

“That's understandable,” he said calmly. “I discovered years ago, that sitting around hospitals doesn't help anyone. It just gets you depressed and you annoy the doctors. Tell them I'll take them out to lunch if they're still there at lunchtime, but I hope they won't be.” He had denial about how serious it was, she knew, which made it easier for him.

“I don't think they want to leave Jimmy alone,” nor did she think that they would be in any mood to go out to lunch, but Coop refused to enter the drama with them, or with Alex. It was a place where he absolutely wouldn't go, under any conditions. Being part of it would have been too upsetting for him.

“If what you say is true, and I'm sure it is, Jimmy won't know the difference, if they're huddled in the waiting room miserably, or having lunch at Spa go.” What he was suggesting seemed in bad taste to Alex but she didn't say anything. It was definitely a different perspective. And she knew from experience that people had odd reactions to stress. Coop seemed to be avoiding it completely.

She called the trauma unit again at ten, and there was no change. The only thing Mark knew was that Mrs. O'Connor was already on a plane. She was expected to arrive at the hospital shortly after noon, if everything went smoothly. And when Alex had an official break, she went down to trauma to see Jimmy. Mark and Taryn were still sitting in the same place. Mark looked terrible, and Taryn had been outside smoking. She said hello to both of them, and then went into the trauma ICU to see Jimmy. They had him isolated and were observing him closely. Alex talked to the nurses for a minute, and if anything, he was in a deeper coma. Things were not looking hopeful for him.

Alex stood silently next to him, and with gentle fingers, touched his naked shoulder. There were monitors taped to it, and wires linked to machines. He had IVs in both arms, and they'd had to give him a transfusion to compensate for internal bleeding. As injuries went, he was in the big leagues.

“Hi, kiddo,” she said quietly as one of the nurses walked away and left her with him. They knew she was as capable as they were of keeping an eye on the monitors, and all the data appeared on screens in two other locations. “What the hell are you doing here? I think you'd better wake up now….” Tears stung her eyes as she talked to him. She saw tragedies as great as this every day in her work, but this was different. He was her friend, and she didn't want him to die now. “I know you miss Maggie, Jimmy… but we all love you too… there's a life for you here Jason is going to be wrecked if something happens to you You've got to come back now, Jimmy … you just have to “There were tears sliding down her cheeks as she spoke to him, and she stayed there with him for half an hour, talking firmly but gently to him. And in the end, she kissed his cheek, touched his arm again, and went back to the others in the waiting room.

“How is he?” Mark still looked panicked, and Taryn was exhausted. She had her head back against a chair with her eyes closed. And she opened them and sat up as soon as she heard Alex.

“About the same. Maybe it'll help when he hears his mother.”

“Do you really think that'll make a difference?” Taryn looked startled. She had heard that before, but never really believed it.

“I don't know,” Alex said honestly. “I've heard people say that they heard people talking to them when they were in comas, and no one thought they could. People have been brought back from the brink of death by stranger things. Medicine is as much an art as a science. I'd be burning chicken feathers and killing goats upstairs if I thought it would help one of my babies. And talking to him can't hurt anything.”

“Maybe we all should,” Mark said, looking anxious. He was dreading seeing Jimmy's mother. And Alex had increased his level of concern. He had no idea how old she was, and if she was very old and frail, this might be too much for her. “Can we see him?” They had seen him once, for a fraction of a minute, from the doorway, but things seemed less frantic around him now. Alex went to ask, and then beckoned to them. But she was more inured to medical scenes than they were. Taryn only lasted a minute or two, and then she left, with tears running down her cheeks. And Mark staunchly stood beside his friend, and talked to him, as Alex had suggested. But after a few minutes, he was so choked up, he had to stop talking. Jimmy's color wasn't good, and although he wasn't in extremis yet, he looked as though he were dying. It was a distinct possibility, Alex knew, and even Mark could see it.

The three of them sat in the waiting room after-wards, and cried over their friend. It had been an abysmal morning, and they were all frightened and tired.

Alex went back upstairs after that, but before she left, Mark asked her if Coop was coming.

“I don't think so,” she said quietly. “He has an appointment this morning.” She didn't have the heart to tell them it was with his trainer. She knew it was an excuse Coop had used, and sensed correctly that he was afraid to come. This just wasn't his strong suit.

Alex called trauma and checked on him hourly. And at twelve-thirty, Mark paged her and told her Mrs. O'Connor was there. She had gone straight in to Jimmy the minute she arrived.

“How is she?” she asked with deep concern for the woman she'd never met. Alex knew it was going to break his mother's heart to see him.

“She's a mess. But who isn't?” Mark sounded like he'd been crying. He had been since early that morning, and Alex found it touching, as did Taryn. She hardly knew Jimmy and she was devastated too. It was such a tragedy, but at least if he died, he wouldn't be leaving orphaned children. It was something at least, and very small consolation.

“I'll come down in a few minutes,” Alex promised, but it was almost two when she could get away. Someone had finally coded. She apologized for the delay when she got there. “Where's his mom?”

“She's still in there with him, she's been in for almost an hour.” They couldn't figure out if it was a good sign or a bad one. But Alex didn't blame her. Even at thirty-three, he was her baby. It was no different from the moms who sat looking agonized on her service, except she knew him better and had had more time to love him, and more to lose if he died. Alex knew how heartbroken she must be.

“I don't want to intrude,” Alex said cautiously, but the other two convinced her to take a look, so she went in, but promised herself she wouldn't introduce herself if it looked too awkward. And what she saw surprised her. There was no old lady in sight, but a very attractive, petite, youthful-looking woman in her early fifties. She looked even less than that, with her dark hair tied in a ponytail, and no makeup. She had traveled from Boston in jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, and she was a prettier, female version of Jimmy, except that her figure was slim and not athletic, and her eyes were huge and blue, instead of dark brown like Jimmy's. But her features were reminiscent of her son's.

She was standing quietly near his head and talking softly to him, just as Alex had that morning. And she glanced up when she saw Alex. She assumed Alex was either a nurse or one of his doctors. They all wore the same scrubs and carried the same equipment.

“Is something wrong?” She glanced up at the monitors with a look of panic, and then back at Alex.

“No, I'm sorry…. I'm a friend of Jimmy's… I work here. This is an unofficial visit.” Valerie O'Connor looked sadly at her, and the two women's eyes held for a long moment, and then she went back to talking to Jimmy.

When she looked up again, Alex was still there, and Valerie said, “Thank you.” Alex left her then and went back to the others. She was grateful at least that his mother was young enough to withstand the shock. She didn't even look old enough to have a son the age of Jimmy. She had had him at twenty and was fifty-three years old, and on a good day she looked ten years younger.

“She looks like a nice woman,” Alex said as she sat down beside them, feeling drained. It was much harder dealing with friends than patients.

“Jimmy's crazy about her,” Mark said blankly.

“Have you two eaten?” Alex asked, and they both shook their heads. “You should go down to the cafeteria and get something.”

“I can't eat,” Taryn said, looking sick.

“Me neither,” Mark added. He had taken the day off from work, and hadn't left the waiting room in the nine hours they'd been there.

“Is Coop coming?” Mark asked again. He was surprised that he hadn't come, and thought he should be there.

“I don't know. I have to call him,” Alex said. She was getting off duty in three and a half hours, and she was thinking about hanging around after she got off work, to see how Jimmy was doing. Mark would have to go home to his kids by then, and Taryn needed to get some rest, she looked exhausted. But she'd been a real trouper.

Alex called Coop when she went back upstairs, he had just come up from a nap at the pool and sounded in good spirits.

“How's it going, Dr. Kildare?” he teased her, which struck her as inappropriate. She realized then that he didn't understand how serious Jimmy's situation was. So she explained it to him in greater detail. “I know, baby, I know,” he said gently. “But I can't do anything about it, so I might as well not get depressed about it. The three of you seem to be upset enough. There's nothing I can add to that. My getting hysterical with you won't help him.” He was right but nonetheless it annoyed her when he said that. He seemed to take it all in stride, and she thought he should be there with him, whether he hated hospitals or not. A man that they knew might be dying at any moment, and even with her medical background, she couldn't just ignore it. Maybe life and death were less impressive at his age, or more frightening. Maybe once people you knew died, it no longer seemed so ominous. But his attitude of avoidance seemed shocking to Alex. “Besides, I hate hospitals, except when I come to see you. But all that medical stuff gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's so unpleasant.” So is life sometimes, Alex couldn't help thinking. She thought too how much “unpleasantness” Jimmy had had to deal with when Maggie died. He had told her that he had nursed her himself until her last breath, and refused to have a nurse or hospice to help him. He felt he owed it to her, and wanted to do it. But people were different. And Coop wasn't good about things that were neither beautiful nor pleasant. And comas weren't pleasant, nor were accidents or the way Jimmy looked. But by avoiding it, Coop wasn't there to support anyone else.

“What time will you be home?” he asked, as though nothing had happened to Jimmy. “Are we still going to the movies?” But when he said that, something snapped inside her. She just couldn't.

“I can't, Coop. I couldn't think straight. I'm going to hang around here for a while, and see if I can help his mother. Mark and Taryn are going home in a while, and I think it's mean to leave her alone with a comatose son in a strange city. She has no one with her.”

“How touching,” Coop said with an edge to his voice. “Don't you think you're carrying this a bit far, Alex? He's not your boyfriend for God's sake. At least I hope not.” She didn't dignify his comment with a response. If anything, it was insensitive and insulting. His jealousy of Jimmy was misplaced at that point, and totally out of line.

“I'll be home later” was all she said.

“Maybe Taryn will want to go to the movies with me,” he said petulantly, and Alex felt a chill run through her. He was behaving like a spoiled brat, not a grown man. But Coop was a child at times, it was part of his charm.

“I don't think she will, but you can always ask her. See you later,” Alex said stiffly and hung up. Coop's reaction to the situation was causing her considerable distress.

She finished work at six, and Mark and Taryn were just leaving when she got there. Jimmy's mother was sitting calmly in the waiting room with them. She looked composed but sad, but she was in better shape than they were. It had been a long day for her too, with the shock of the news, and the long flight from Boston before she saw him. But she looked like a quiet, capable, unassuming woman. Mark and Taryn left a few minutes later, and Alex offered to get her soup and a sandwich or a cup of coffee.

“You're very kind,” Valerie smiled at Alex, “but I'm afraid I couldn't eat it.” In the end, she accepted some crackers and a cup of soup Alex brought her from the nurses' station. “How lucky you know your way around here,” she said gratefully as she took the soup from Alex and sipped it. “I can't believe this happened. Poor Jimmy has had such a tough time. First Maggie got sick, and then she died, and now this. I worry about him.”

“So do I,” Alex said softly.

“I'm very grateful he has such good friends here. Thank God, he had given Mark my number,” she said, and the two women chatted for a while. She asked Alex about her work, and she knew about Coop from Jimmy. Mark had explained Alex's situation to her before she got there, so she didn't misunderstand and think Alex was Jimmy's girlfriend. But she knew she wasn't. She kept in very close contact with Jimmy and knew he hadn't seen any women since he lost Maggie. She had been afraid he never would. The two had been perfect for each other, and had an enviable marriage, just as she had. She'd been a widow for ten years and had long since given up meeting any man she cared about. There was no man on earth like Jimmy's father, in her eyes. They had been married for twenty-four years, and she was resigned to having that be enough for one lifetime. No one could replace him, and she had no desire to try.

They sat and talked for a long time, and she asked Alex to go in with her the next time she saw Jimmy.

She confessed that it made her feel braver, and afterwards they talked and she cried. She couldn't imagine what her life would be like if he left her. He was all she had in the world now, although from what she said, she had a busy life. She did volunteer work with the blind and the homeless in Boston. But Jimmy was her only child, and just knowing he was in the world somewhere, even if not at home, made life worth living for her.

It was nearly ten when Alex talked one of the nurses into setting up a bed for Valerie in a back hallway. She didn't want to leave him, although Alex offered to drive her to the gatehouse. But she preferred to stay at the hospital in case something happened.

It was ten-thirty when Alex called Coop, and he was out. Taryn said he had gone to the movies, which seemed strange to Alex.

“I think this whole hospital thing makes him nervous,” Taryn explained, but Alex had already figured that out. But it still irritated her that he couldn't at least try to rise to the occasion. He had total denial.

“Tell him I'm going to stay at my place tonight. I have to be back at five, and it's easier to be close by. I don't want to wake him when I get up,” Alex explained, and Taryn understood.

“I'll leave him a note. I'm dead myself.” Alex had already told her that there was no change in Jimmy's condition. Neither better, nor worse, nor more hopeful than it had been.

And when she went to say goodbye to Valerie, she was already dozing. Alex tiptoed away softly. And as she lay in her own bed that night, she thought of Coop, and tried to identify what she was feeling. It took her a long time, but as she drifted off to sleep, she realized that she wasn't angry at him, she was disappointed. For the first time, in the wake of Jimmy's accident, she had seen a side of Coop she didn't like. And she knew that no matter how much she loved him, she had lost respect for him. Along with Jimmy's accident, for Alex, it was a devastating piece of news.

Chapter 20

Alex called Coop the next morning from work, and he told her she had missed a terrific movie, which stunned her. His denial was in full force. He didn't even ask about Jimmy. She volunteered the information anyway, and said that his condition remained unchanged. He said he was sorry to hear it, but tried to change the subject as quickly as he could.

“The saga continues,” he said, sounding almost flip, and she wanted to shake him. Didn't he understand that a man's life was hanging in the balance? What part of this was he missing? All of it, apparently. The realities of Jimmy's situation were too much for Coop.

She said something to Taryn about it later on when she saw her in the trauma unit again. Mark and Valerie were in with him.

“I don't think he relates to difficult situations,” Taryn said honestly. She'd been a little startled by his reaction too, and he'd said something to her about resisting “negative energy” over breakfast, that it was a very dangerous thing to let into your experience. But Taryn had the suspicion that he felt guilty about it. No matter how natural his avoidant reaction was to him, he knew it wasn't the right thing, whether he admitted it or not. But what bothered Alex was how he could allow himself to avoid the situation entirely. As a result of his denial, he offered no one any support. And as a result, she felt cheated by him. What she had to accept finally was that it was the best he could do. But it worried her to think about what would happen if something “negative” happened to her one day. Would he deal with it, or go to the movies? It was scary to observe him doing everything he could to run away. It was distressing to watch, and none of what he was doing felt good to her.

She went to The Cottage after work that day, although the others were at the hospital with Valerie. But she didn't want to push Coop too far. He was pleasant and easy when she got home, and had ordered a delicious dinner for them from Spago. It was his way of making up to her for what he didn't do. Coop didn't “do” unpleasant. He did pretty. And easy. And fun. And elegant. And gracious. He had somehow managed to weed out of his life the things he didn't like or that frightened him, and only acknowledged the things he found “amusing,” and fun to do. The trouble was, Alex reminded herself, real life wasn't like that. And there was generally a lot more “unpleasant” than “amusing” in life. But not in Coop's world. He wouldn't allow the bad stuff in. He just pretended to himself and everyone else that the bad stuff didn't exist. It made for some very odd perceptions and experiences. And he didn't “do” broke either. He did it, but he didn't acknowledge it. He just went on living, and spending, and playing. And in spite of everything, they had a lovely, relaxing evening. In Alex's eyes, it was more than a little surreal.

She called the hospital to check on Jimmy's condition, but she didn't mention it to Coop. There was no change. And hope was beginning to dwindle. He had been in the coma for nearly forty-eight hours. And with each passing day, the possibility of a full recovery would diminish. He had about another day to come around, maybe two, before his possibility for full recovery would be gone forever. He might survive, but not as they had known him. All she could do was pray now. And she had a heavy heart when she went to bed with Coop that night, not just because of Jimmy, but because of the piece of Coop she saw that was missing. She found it depressing. In her mind, the missing piece was huge.

She had a day off the next day, but went to the hospital anyway, to sit with Valerie and visit with Jimmy. She wore her scrubs even though she was off duty, so she'd have easy access to the inner sanctum.

“Thank you for being with me,” Valerie said to her gratefully. She and Alex were alone all day. Mark had gone back to work. And Coop was doing a commercial for a national pharmaceutical company, and had insisted on taking Taryn with him.

Valerie and Alex sat for hours in the waiting room, and took turns keeping Jimmy company. They both talked to him endlessly, as though he could hear them. And it seemed fitting that Valerie was standing near his head and talking to him, while Alex stood near his foot and saw a toe move. At first, she thought it was a reflex. And then the whole foot moved. Alex glanced at the monitor, and then the nurse. She had seen it too. And then, very quietly, he reached for his mother's hand and held it. There were tears streaming down her cheeks, and Alex's, as Valerie continued talking. Very calmly, very surely, she told him how much she loved him and how happy she was that he was feeling better, although in truth there was no sign of it yet, but she acted as though it had already happened. It took another half hour for his eyes to open, and when they did, he looked at his mother.

“Hi, Mom,” he whispered.

“Hi, Jimmy,” she smiled down at him through her tears, and Alex had to fight back a sob that nearly choked her.

“What happened?” His voice was a croak from when they'd intubated him when he was first admitted. The tube had been taken out that morning, because he was able to breathe on his own, even though he was unconscious.

“You're a lousy driver,” his mother said in answer to his question, and even the nurse laughed.

“How's my car?”

“In worse shape than you are. I'll be happy to buy you a new one.”

“Okay,” he said, and then his eyes closed, and he opened them again and saw Alex. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm off duty, so I dropped by to visit.”

“Thanks, Alex,” he said and drifted off to sleep. The attending came only minutes later to check on him.

“Bingo!” he said, grinning at Alex. “We made it.” It was a real victory for the whole team, and while they checked him, Valerie sobbed in Alex's arms in the hallway. She had thought he would die, and she was so relieved, she was completely unglued from the stress she'd been through.

“It's okay… it's going to be okay now….” Alex comforted her and held her. It had been a terrible ordeal for her, and a huge relief that he had made it.

Alex finally convinced Valerie to leave him later that night, and drove her to the gatehouse. She found a spare key at Coop's, and let her in. Coop was still on the set of the commercial when they got there. And Alex checked to see she had everything she needed.

“You've been so wonderful to me,” Valerie said, with tears in her eyes again. Everything made her cry now. It had been an agonizing two days, and she was starting to feel seriously shaken. “I wish I had a daughter like you.”

“I wish I had a mother like you,” Alex said honestly, smiling at her, before she left her. Alex was feeling greatly relieved when she went back to the main house. And she'd had a bath and washed her hair by the time Coop came in at eleven, looking tired too. It had been an endless day for him as well.

“Oh my God, I'm exhausted,” he complained, as he poured himself, Alex, and Taryn champagne. “I've done plays on Broadway in less time than it took to shoot that dreadful commercial.” But at least they had paid him well, and Taryn had found it interesting. It had kept her mind off Jimmy, and she had called at regular intervals all day to see how Jimmy was. “How was your day, darling?” he asked Alex blithely.

“Excellent.” She smiled at Taryn, who already knew. “Jimmy woke up today. He's going to be fine, eventually. He's going to be in the hospital for quite a while, but he's going to make it.” Her voice shook as she said it. It had been an emotional experience for everyone, except Coop.

“And they all lived happily after,” Coop added, and smiled at her somewhat patronizingly. “You see, my darling, if you simply don't focus on those things, they take care of themselves in time. It's much easier to let God handle it, and go about your business.” What he said denied entirely what she did for a living. God was in control undoubtedly, but she did her share of the work too.

“That's one way to look at it,” she said quietly. But Taryn was smiling with relief.

“How's his mother?” she asked, looking concerned.

“Collapsing, but fine. I took her to the gatehouse.”

“You'd think she'd rather stay at a hotel, with some service, at her age,” Coop said grandly. As always, he looked as immaculate and as elegant as he had that morning, when he left to do the commercial.

“Maybe she can't afford it,” Alex said practically, “and she's not as old as we expected.”

Coop seemed surprised though not particularly interested in the entire drama. He'd had enough of it. “How old is she?”

“I don't know. She looks about forty-two, forty-three, forty-five tops maybe… but she must be in her early fifties.”

“She's fifty-three,” Taryn supplied. “I asked her. She looks amazing. She looks more like his sister.”

“Well, at least we don't have to worry about her falling and breaking a hip at the gatehouse,” Coop teased. He was happy the entire story was over, and relieved for Jimmy of course, but he disliked melodrama. Now they could all go back to normal. “Well, what are we all doing tomorrow?” he asked happily. He had made some money, and he was in fine spirits. And now Jimmy was going to be fine too. Even Coop was pleased for him, and Alex was relieved to see that he cared.

“I'm working,” Alex said, laughing.

“Again?” He looked disappointed. “How boring. I think you should take a day off and we'll go shopping on Rodeo.”

“I'd love that,” Alex smiled at him, he was so loving and boyish at times, it was hard to stay angry at him. She had been upset with him over the whole incident with Jimmy. It was a side of him that had surprised her, and recognizing what he couldn't handle and didn't feel really hurt. “I think the hospital would be a little upset if I didn't show up for work because I went shopping. That would be a tough one to explain.”

“Tell them you have a headache. Tell them you think there's asbestos in the place and you're going to sue.”

“Maybe I'll just go to work,” Alex laughed at him. And at midnight they all went to bed. She and Coop made love, and she kissed him as he slept when she left for work the next morning. She had forgiven him his lack of sympathy for Jimmy. Some people just couldn't handle emergencies or medical problems. They were so familiar to her that it was hard for her to understand it. But not everyone could do what she did, she told herself. She felt a powerful need to make excuses for him. She was willing to give him a break on this one. In fact, for her own sanity, she needed to. Love, in her eyes at least, was about compassion, compromise, and forgiveness. Coop's definition might have been a little different. It was about beauty, elegance, and romance. And it had to be easy. Therein lay the problem. In Alex's mind, love wasn't always easy. But it had to be for Coop. It was a serious glitch.

She stopped in to see Jimmy during lunch that day. His mother had just gone to the cafeteria for a sandwich, and they chatted for a minute about how great she was. Alex said she loved her, and Jimmy agreed with her. He was lying quietly on his bed, and they were going to move him out of the ICU by the next morning.

“Thanks for hanging around while I was out cold. Mom says you were with her all day yesterday. That was nice of you, Alex. Thank you.”

“I didn't want her to be alone here. That's pretty scary for anyone,” she said, looking at him, and then decided to brave it. He was well enough for her to ask the question that had been tormenting her since it had happened. “So what was with the accident? I assume you hadn't been drinking.” She was sitting very close to him, and he took her hand in his without thinking.

“No, I hadn't… I don't know, I guess the car got out of control. Old tires… old brakes… old something…”

“Is that what you wanted?” she asked softly. “Did you make it happen or did you let it?” Her voice was almost a whisper as he paused for a long moment and looked at her.

“To be honest with you, Alex, I'm not sure I've asked myself the same question. I was in a daze… I was thinking about her…it was her birthday on Sunday…. I think for just a fraction of a second, I let it happen. I think I started to skid, and I just let it go, and when I tried to stop it, I couldn't, and then it was all over, and I woke up here.” It was exactly what she suspected. And he looked as horrified as she felt as she listened. “It's a hell of an admission. I wouldn't ever do it again, but for that one second, I just threw it to the Fates… and fortunately, they threw it right back at me.”

“You took a hell of a chance,” she said sadly. It hurt her to think that he was in that much pain, and had been for a long time. It was a terrible way to learn a lesson. He had confronted all his own miseries and terrors, and lived to tell it. “I think some good therapy is in order.”

“Yeah. So do I. I'd been thinking that lately anyway. I can't stand feeling like this anymore. I felt like I was drowning, and I couldn't come back up to the surface. It sounds crazy to say it,” he said as he looked at his casts and the monitors, “I actually feel better now.” And he looked it.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Alex said with relief, “I'm going to keep an eye on you now. I'm going to ride your ass till I see you jumping for joy all the way down the drive from the gatehouse.”

He laughed at the vision she'd created. “I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of jumping.” He was going to be in a wheelchair for a while, and then on crutches. His mother had already volunteered to stay and take care of him for the duration. The doctors thought that in six or eight weeks he'd be walking. He was already fretting about going back to work as soon as he could manage, which was a good sign. “Alex,” he said cautiously, “thanks for caring. How did you know what happened?” he asked, impressed that she had figured out the part he himself had played in the accident. She was a very caring person.

“I'm a doctor, remember?”

“Oh yeah, that. But preemies don't drive cars off cliffs, generally speaking.”

“I just figured. I don't know why, but I knew the minute Mark told me. I think I felt it.”

“You're a smart woman.”

“I care about you a lot,” she said seriously, and he nodded. He cared about her too, but he was afraid to say it.

Alex went back to work when his mother returned with her sandwich, and she sang Alex's praises to Jimmy. Valerie was curious about her.

“Mark says she's Cooper Winslow's girlfriend. Isn't he a little old for her?” his mother asked with interest. She hadn't met Coop yet, but she knew who he was, and had heard a lot about him from both his tenants and Alex.

“Apparently, she doesn't think so,” Jimmy answered.

“What's he like?” his mother asked, munching turkey on whole wheat. Jimmy was still on a soft diet, and watching her made him hungry. It was the first time in a long time that he actually remembered being hungry. Maybe what he had said was right, he thought to himself, maybe he had finally exorcised his demons. He had gone right to the edge and jumped off, and, no thanks to himself, had landed safely. Maybe in a crazy way, the accident would prove to be a blessing in the end.

“Coop is arrogant, handsome, charming, debonair, and selfish as hell,” Jimmy answered his mother's question. “The only problem is, she doesn't see it,” he said, looking annoyed.

“Don't be so sure,” Valerie said quietly, wondering if he was in love with her, or even knew it. “Women have a way of seeing things and not choosing to deal with them until later. They file them. But it's not that they don't see them. And she's a very bright young woman.”

“She's brilliant,” Jimmy defended her, which confirmed his mother's suspicions about his feelings, whether or not he was aware.

“I suspect she is. She won't make a mistake. Maybe he suits her for the time being, although I must say, they seem like an odd combination, from everything I've heard about him.”

But she was impressed the next day when they moved Jimmy to a private room, and Coop sent him a gigantic bouquet of flowers. She wondered if Alex had sent them for him, and then realized she hadn't. It was the kind of bouquet a man would send, and not a woman. A man who was used to knocking women right off their feet and bowling them over. It didn't even occur to Coop to send fewer than four dozen roses.

“Do you think he wants to marry me?” Jimmy teased his mother.

“I hope not!” she said, laughing at him. But she also hoped Coop didn't want to marry Alex either. She deserved better than an aging movie star, Valerie knew, after talking to her for hours. She needed a young man who loved her and cared about her and would be there for her, and would give her babies. Like Jimmy. But Valerie knew better than to say anything to either of them. They were friends, and for the moment, it was all either of them wanted.

Alex came to see Jimmy every day, when she was working, and when she wasn't. She came down to see him on her breaks, and brought him books to keep him entertained, and told him funny stories. She even brought him a remote-controlled fart machine, so he could wreak havoc with the nurses. It wasn't dignified, but he adored it. And late at night, she would come down quietly, and they spent long hours talking about things that mattered. His work, hers, his parents' marriage, his life with Maggie, the agonizing way he missed her. She told him about Carter and her sister. About her parents, and the relationship she had wanted with them as a child, and never had, because both of them were incapable of it. Little by little, they fed each other their secrets and tested uncharted waters. They were entirely unaware of it, and had anyone asked, they would have insisted it was friendship. Only Valerie knew better. She was highly suspicious of the label they put on it. The brew they were concocting was far more potent, whether or not they knew it. And she was happy for them. The only fly in the ointment, as far as she could see, was Coop.

And that weekend, she got a look at the fly for herself. She hadn't met him until then. And she had to admit, he was very impressive. He was everything Jimmy had said he was, egotistical, self-centered, arrogant, entertaining, and charming. But there was more to him than that. Jimmy just wasn't old enough to see it, or mature enough to understand it. What she saw in Coop was a man who was vulnerable, and scared. No matter how youthful he looked, or how many young women he surrounded himself with, he knew the game was almost over. He was terrified, she realized. Of being sick, of being old, of losing his looks, of dying. His refusal to deal with Jimmy's accident in any form told her that. And so did his eyes. There was a sad man behind the laughter. And no matter how charming Coop was, she felt sorry for him. He was a man who was afraid to face his demons. The rest was just window dressing. But she knew Jimmy would never have understood it if she'd tried to explain it to him. And the nonsense about the girl having the baby was just food for his ego. Even if he complained about it, she sensed instinctively that there was a part of it which flattered him, and he brought it up to torture Alex, just to remind her subliminally that there were other women who wanted his babies. It meant he was not only young, but potent.

She didn't think Alex was genuinely in love with him. She was impressed with him, and he was the attentive father she'd always wanted and never conquered. They were an interesting group, Valerie decided. And she thought Mark and Taryn were perfect for each other.

But more than anything, she found Coop's complexities fascinating. And at first glance, he appeared to be unimpressed by her. Valerie was by no means the profile of the women he courted. She was old enough to be their mother. What he did like, he told Alex later, as they lay in bed and rehashed the evening, was Valerie's graciousness, her style, her simple elegance. She had worn gray slacks and a gray sweater and a string of pearls. There was nothing pretentious about her. And the fact that she didn't try to appear young, actually made her look it. There was a distinct sense of class and breeding about her.

“It's a shame she doesn't have money,” Coop said sympathetically. “She looks like she ought to have it. But then again,” he laughed, “we all should.” Alex was the only one in the group who did, in vast abundance, and it was wasted on her. She really didn't care whether or not she did. Just as he felt youth was wasted on the young, money was wasted on the overly philanthropic. He thought money was meant to be spent and have a good time with. Alex hid hers, or ignored it. She needed lessons in how to spend it. Lessons he could easily have given her, but hesitated to for the moment. His conscience again, damnably. He was still trying to overcome it. It was new to him, and becoming an infernal nuisance.

Coop saw Valerie again the next day, at the pool. She was sitting in the shade of his favorite tree. She had taken the day off from visiting Jimmy, and was going to see him that evening. She lay on a chaise longue in a perfectly simple black bikini, and did herself credit wearing it. She had a very reasonable body. Both Alex and Taryn were envious of her and hoped they looked half as good at her age. And when they'd said so, Valerie said she was just lucky, she had good genes, and did very little to maintain it. But she was grateful for the praise of the younger women.

Coop invited her up to the house for a glass of champagne afterwards, and she came, just to say she had seen it, and was surprised by how beautiful it was, and how restrained. There was nothing showy about the house. It was all in perfect taste, with splendid antiques and exquisite fabrics. It was definitely the house of a grown-up, as she put it, when discussing it later with Jimmy. And once again, she thought Alex was out of place there. But they seemed happy together.

She was actually beginning to think that Coop was serious about Alex. He was so solicitous, so attentive, so loving. He was obviously smitten with her, but it was hard to tell with Coop how much depth there was to anything. He kept everything in his life on the surface, particularly his emotions. But she could easily see him marrying her, even if for the wrong reasons, to prove something, or worse, to slide into the Madison money. Valerie hoped, for Alex's sake, that there was more sincerity to it than that, but it was difficult to determine. In any case, Alex didn't appear to be worried about it. She was perfectly at home with him, and happy staying at The Cottage, particularly with Taryn.

“You've got adorable friends,” Valerie commented to Jimmy that night, when she visited him at the hospital. And she told him how much she liked Coop's house, and even the gatehouse. “I can see why you love it.” She did too. It had a rural quality, and one had a sense of peace there.

“Did Coop put the make on you?” he asked with interest.

“Of course not,” his mother laughed at him. “I'm about thirty years too old for him. He's smarter than that. Women my age see right through him. It would do him good actually, but I haven't got the energy for a man like Coop,” she said, smiling at Jimmy. “It's too much work to train them.” She didn't have the energy for any man, or the desire. Those days were over for her, as she always said. She was content to live on her own, and to be spending time with Jimmy. She had promised to see him through his convalescence and he was looking forward to spending time with her. He hadn't done that in years, and he enjoyed her company. Aside from mother and son, they were best friends.

“Maybe you should give Alex a run for her money,” he teased her.

“Not likely, my darling,” she laughed, “she'd win hands down, and she deserves to.” Whether or not it was good for her was another question which remained to be seen.

Chapter 21

By June, the romance between Taryn and Mark was progressing nicely. They carried on as discreetly as they could. Neither she nor Mark wanted to upset his children. But both Jessica and Jason were extremely comfortable with her. So much so that by the end of school, they didn't want to go to New York to see their mother. She had only seen them once since they'd been there. And when Janet called Mark to talk about it, she was insistent that they come East. What's more, she wanted them to stay with her until after the wedding. She was marrying Adam over the Fourth of July weekend.

“I'm not going,” Jessica told her father stubbornly when they discussed it. And Jason had said he would do whatever she did, or didn't. Jessica was still furious with her mother. “I want to stay here with you, and see my friends. And I'm not going to the wedding.”

“That's a separate issue, and we can talk about that later. Jessica, you cannot refuse to see your mother.”

“Yes, I can. She left you for that asshole.”

“That's between me and your mother, and it's none of your business,” Mark said firmly. But it was obvious to him that Janet had really burned her bridges, or damaged them badly. And Adam hadn't helped her. He had been outspoken and overbearing with the kids, and made it obvious to them that he'd been involved with their mother before she left California. If nothing else, it was stupid of them. And it had hurt Janet badly with her children. But sooner or later, Mark felt, they had to forgive her. “You still have to see her. Come on, Jess,” Mark wheedled, “she loves you.”

“I love her too,” Jessie said honestly, “but I'm mad at her.” She had just turned sixteen, and she was in deep conflict with her mother. Jason remained more of a bystander, but it was clear that he was disappointed in her. And in truth, he was happier living with his father, and so was Jessie. “And I'm not going back to school there.” He hadn't even begun to broach that, but Janet wanted them back with her as soon as possible, and in school in New York in the fall.

In the end, he had to call Janet back to discuss it with her.

“I can't sell it, Janet. I'm trying, but the kids aren't buying. They don't want to come to New York now, and they're adamant about not coming to the wed-ding.”

“They can't do that,” she said, bursting into tears as soon as she said it. “You have to make them!”

“I can't drug them and put them on a plane in body bags,” Mark said, feeling frustrated with both factions. She had made her bed, and she was having a tough time lying in it. He wasn't feeling vengeful about it, or even angry. He was happy with Taryn. “Why don't you come out here and talk to them? It might make things easier for them,” Mark suggested sensibly, but Janet didn't want to hear it.

“I don't have time. I'm too busy getting ready for the wedding.” They had rented a house in Connecticut, and were having two hundred and fifty guests at the reception over the Fourth of July weekend.

“Well, if you care, your children aren't going to be there, unless you do something to change that. I've done everything I can.”

“Force them,” she said, finally getting angry. “I'll take them to court if I have to.”

“They're old enough that the court is going to listen to them. They're fourteen and sixteen, they're not babies.”

“They're behaving like juvenile delinquents.”

“No,” he defended them quietly. “They're hurt. They think you lied to them about Adam. And you did. He made it obvious to them that you left me for him. I think his ego was talking. But they heard him loud and clear.”

“He's not used to children.” She defended him, but she knew Mark was right.

“Honesty is a major message, and usually the best one.” He had never lied to his children, and until Adam, nor had Janet. She was besotted with him. And now she did everything he wanted, including antagonize her children. “I can't help you with this, unless you do something to help too. Why don't you come out here for a weekend?”

In the end, she did. She stayed at the Bel Air for two days, and Mark convinced the kids to stay with her. Things weren't resolved at the end of it, but they had agreed to go to New York for the remainder of the month of June. She had promised not to force them to go to the wedding if they didn't want to. She was sure that once they were there, she could convince them. And Jessica had told her in no uncertain terms that they were coming back to LA to go to school. And Jason agreed with her. Janet knew that she couldn't force them to do otherwise, but she told Mark that if she agreed, they had to set up a regular visiting schedule for them to come to New York for weekends, once a month, if not more often. He agreed, and promised to try to convince the children. They thought it was a major victory that she had agreed to let them continue living with their father, and so did Mark. And they left for New York the following week, in much better spirits. They were going to be gone for four weeks, and as soon as they left, Taryn moved to the guest wing to stay with him. Things were going very smoothly. She and Jessica were nearly best friends now. Jessica felt entirely different about Taryn than she did about Adam, and so did Jason. But Taryn had been honest with them so far, and hadn't broken up their parents' marriage, which was a definite advantage.

Taryn had never liked anyone's children before, and she was surprised to see how comfortable she was with Mark's kids. She found them respectful, and funny and loving and easy, and she was developing a deep affection for them, which they reciprocated freely.

“You know, if they're going to stay with me permanently,” he said to Taryn thoughtfully, a few days after they'd left, “I should look for a house. I can't stay here forever. We should really have our own place.” There was no hurry, but he said he would start looking sometime that summer. And if the house he bought needed remodeling, they still had the guest wing until February. It was a great arrangement, and he had to admit he'd be sorry to leave.

Talking about it, even tentatively, brought up questions about him and Taryn.

“How would you feel about living with us?” he asked her seriously. Life had worked out so unexpectedly for them. Five months earlier he had been devastated by Janet leaving him, and now he had found this wonderful woman, who seemed like a perfect fit, not only for him, but his children.

“That sounds interesting,” she said as she leaned over and kissed him. “I think I could be talked into it, under the right circumstances.” She was in no hurry to get remarried, and Coop had told her she could have the guest wing, if Mark ever moved, or the gatehouse, if Jimmy did. But in truth, she preferred to live with Mark and his children, in whatever location. “You have to be sure your children won't mind, Mark. I don't ever want to be the intruder.”

“That would be Adam, not you, sweetheart.” He smiled ruefully. He thought it highly unlikely that his children were going to attend their mother's wedding, and he wasn't sure he blamed them. That was a big bite for them to swallow.

The time Mark and Taryn spent together while the children were gone only solidified their relationship, and strengthened their resolve to do something about it in the near future.

Things were moving along at such a fast clip that Taryn spoke to her father about it. He wasn't surprised, but he was faintly disappointed.

“I'd love to see you with someone more exciting,” he said honestly, as though she'd been in his life since her childhood. He felt very protective of her. In three months, she had not only moved into his heart and his life, but he wanted her to stay at The Cottage with him.

“I don't think I want ‘someone more exciting,’ in fact I know it,” Taryn confided in him. She was a sensible woman. “I have an exciting father, I don't need an exciting husband. I want someone peaceful and reliable and stable. Mark is all of those things, and he's a good person.” Even Coop couldn't deny it, although talking about tax law bored him to extinction.

“What about his children? Don't forget our genetic horror of offspring. Could you tolerate living with those juvenile delinquents?” He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but lately he had found them far less disruptive, and almost pleasant. Almost. Within limits.

“I really like them. No, more than that. I think I love them.”

“Oh God, not that.” He rolled his eyes in mock horror. “This could be fatal. Worse yet,” he added, realizing yet another detail. “The little monsters would be my grandchildren. I'll kill them if they ever tell anyone that. I will never be anyone's grandfather. They can call me Mr. Winslow.” She laughed, and they chatted about it for a while. She and Mark had actually talked about getting married the following winter. And they both suspected that the children would have no objection to their wedding.

“What about you and Alex?” Taryn asked him after they'd exhausted the subject of her plans with Mark. Everything seemed to be in good order, and she was obviously happy.

“I don't know,” Coop said, looking troubled. “Her parents just invited her to Newport, and she refused to go. I think she should. But apparently, I couldn't go with her. Her father is not enthused about the relationship. I can imagine why, more than Alex can. I don't know, Taryn. I don't think I'm being fair to her. That's never bothered me before. I must be getting senile, or just plain old.”

“Or growing up,” she said gently. She knew all his frailties by now, or many of them, but she loved him. He was very different from the father she'd grown up with, but he was also a very decent person. He had lived in a different world all his life, which had centered around him, and spoiled him. It wasn't surprising that his character hadn't developed in some areas. It never had to. But in an odd way, Alex had forced him to look at things he never had before, and challenge his entire belief system and values. And so had Taryn. And whether he liked it or not, it had changed him.

He was still thinking about it that afternoon when he went down to the pool by himself for a swim. Taryn and Mark had gone out, and Alex was at work as usual. Jimmy had just come home from the hospital a few days before, and was still in bed at the gatehouse, and his mother was with him. Coop was glad to have some time to himself, to think quietly, and he was surprised when he ran into Valerie at the pool, quietly swimming. She had her hair in a knot on top of her head, wore little or no makeup, as usual, and a plain black bathing suit, which showed off her youthful figure. There was no denying she was a good-looking woman, beautiful even, he conceded. Just older than he liked them. And so far at least, he'd found her easy to talk to. She was sensible, and had an uncomplicated view of life that seemed to cut right through the fog that seemed to confuse others, and sometimes even him.

“Hello, Cooper,” she said with a smile, as he sat down in one of the lounge chairs, and decided not to swim. He preferred watching her, although he was a little sorry to see her, because he had a lot on his mind. Alex. And Charlene's DNA test was only a few weeks away now. That was a whole other problem.

“Good afternoon, Valerie. How's Jimmy?” he asked politely.

“He's all right. Frustrated that he can't walk yet. He's asleep. It's hard helping him get around with those casts.” And he was heavy for her.

“You should get him a nurse. You can't do all that yourself.” It seemed foolish but admirable of her.

“I like taking care of him. I haven't had a chance to in a long time. And it's probably my last chance.” And Coop realized he'd been tactless. She probably couldn't afford to pay for a nurse for Jimmy. Although she had style, it was obvious that they didn't have much money. The only evidence to the contrary was the fact that Jimmy paid a stiff rent at the gatehouse, but Coop suspected he did so out of insurance money Maggie must have had, and that would run out sooner or later. Everything else he saw suggested that he, and his mother, lived on a shoestring. Albeit in her case, a silk one. Valerie O'Connor was a very distinguished woman.

“Is Alex working?” Valerie asked pleasantly, as she got out of the pool and came to sit beside him. She wasn't going to stay long. She didn't want to intrude on him. She thought he looked distracted.

“Naturally. The poor girl works too hard, but she loves it.” And in his own way, he admired her for it. She certainly didn't have to, which made it even more noble, or more foolish, depending on how you chose to see it.

“I saw one of your old movies last night,” Valerie said easily, and told him which one. She had seen it in the middle of the night when she was taking care of Jimmy. “You're a remarkably good actor, Coop.” It had surprised her. “It was an excellent movie.” And a far cry from the cameos and commercials he was doing now. “You were a very serious actor, and still could be.”

“I'm too lazy to be,” he said honestly, with a tired smile. “And too old. You have to work awfully hard to make movies like that. I'm too spoiled now.”

“Maybe not,” she said, looking at him with more faith than he had in himself. But she'd been impressed by the caliber of the movie. She had never seen it before, nor heard about it. She figured he must have been about fifty when he made it, and he was embarrassingly handsome, and still was. But in his younger years, he had been even more amazing. “Do you enjoy your work, Coop?”

“I used to. The things I do now aren't very challenging, Valerie.” On any level. It was all about easy and fast, and quick money. He had sold out so long ago, it was hard to remember back to when he hadn't. “I keep waiting for the right part to come along. But nothing has in a long time.” He sounded sad about it, and somewhat discouraged.

“Maybe if you shake the trees a little bit, you'll surprise yourself. The world deserves to see you in a great film again. I really enjoyed that one.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” He smiled at her and they sat in silence for a while, as he thought about what she had said to him. He knew there was truth to it, and what she had said made him think about it. “I'm sorry about your boy,” he said finally. “That must have been terrifying for you.” For the first time, as he looked at her, he almost understood it. She was a truly devoted mother.

“It was. He's all I have,” she said honestly. “My life wouldn't be worth a damn if I lost him.” Because of his newfound relationship with Taryn, he could almost glimpse the agony it would be for him now if he lost her. And after all the years Valerie had shared with her son, the pain of such a loss didn't bear thinking. It was his first glimpse of compassion since Jimmy's accident, and Valerie could sense it, and was grateful to him.

“How long have you been widowed?” he asked comfortably. He was curious about her.

“Ten years. It seems like forever.” She smiled at him, she was a woman who had made peace with herself and the hand life had dealt her. She had surrendered to life's forces and was comfortable with them. There was nothing pathetic about her. In fact, to Coop, she seemed like a very strong woman. He had judged her correctly. “I'm used to it now.”

“Do you ever think about remarrying?” It was an odd conversation between the two of them, as they sat beneath the trees at the pool on a warm June day, thinking about life and what it meant to them. She was just old enough to be able to see things from his vantage point, but not so old she had lost her zest for life, or appreciation of having fun or being happy. Talking to her was comfortable for him, and she seemed surprisingly young to him, despite her wisdom. She was seventeen years younger than he was. As opposed to the forty that separated him from Alex.

“I don't even think about remarrying,” Valerie said honestly. “I haven't been looking. I always figured if there was another man out there for me, he'd find me, and he hasn't. I don't mind. I've already had a good one. I don't need another one.”

“Maybe someone will surprise you sooner or later.”

“Maybe,” she said easily. But she didn't seem to care one way or the other, and he found that appealing. He hated desperation. “You have a lot more energy for those things than I do.” She smiled, thinking to herself that if she applied the same age difference as he, she would have to be dating Mark's son Jason. But she didn't say it.

“What are you doing for dinner tonight?” he asked suddenly. He was at loose ends, with Alex working, and he was lonely. It was difficult for him at times being faithful to one woman, who was so often busy. In the past, he had always dated several women, so he never had solitary nights as he did now. He would have been even lonelier without Taryn. She had been a godsend for him.

“Cooking for Jimmy,” she smiled at him comfortably. “Would you like to join us? I'm sure Jimmy would love to see you.” Coop had dropped by the gatehouse once since he'd gotten home. He had exited quickly, and explained to Alex later how much he hated sickrooms.

“I can have Spago send us dinner if you like,” he offered, suddenly grateful for the invitation. He liked her, and enjoyed their budding friendship. She was almost like a sister to him.

“I make much better pasta than they do,” she said proudly, and he laughed out loud.

“I won't tell Wolfgang you said that, but I'd love to try it.”

Jimmy was surprised to see him when he appeared for dinner that night. His mother had forgotten to tell him Coop was coming. And Jimmy was a little uncomfortable with him at first. He had been spending a lot of time with Alex, when she visited him, and he had told her all of his secrets, and knew a great many of hers now. He wasn't sure if Coop knew, or if he was jealous of him. But Coop seemed far more interested in talking to his mother. And he agreed with her readily about the quality of her pasta.

“You should open a restaurant,” he said grandly. “Maybe we should turn The Cottage into a spa or a hotel,” he said. Abe had been threatening him again that if he didn't have a windfall of some kind soon, he would have to sell it. He was beginning to run out of steam and bravado fighting with him. And contrary to what Abe thought, Coop didn't see Alex as the optimal solution. Nor would her father.

Jimmy went to bed right after dinner, and after Valerie settled him, she came back and sat in the living room with Coop and they talked for hours. About Boston, and Europe, the films he'd made, the people he knew, and they were both surprised to discover they had a number of friends in common. Valerie said she led a quiet life, but Coop was surprised to find she knew some very racy people. All she said was that her husband had been a banker, but she didn't elaborate on it, and Coop didn't ask her. He just enjoyed her company, and they were both startled to discover that it was two in the morning when he finally left her, and he was in excellent spirits. He had had a wonderful evening with her.

Alex had called him several times that night, and was surprised to find him out. He hadn't said anything to her about it. But she had noticed that he had been restless recently, and she didn't know what to do about it. It never occurred to her to call and check on him at two in the morning, nor that he might have gone up to the gatehouse to have dinner with the O'Connors. But after five months in the relationship with him, it seemed to be stalling.

Coop lay in bed awake for a long time that night, thinking about things he and Valerie had said. He had a lot to think about, and decisions to make. He fell into a fitful sleep finally, dreaming about Charlene and the baby.

Chapter 22

Things got considerably worse for Coop after his dinner with Jimmy and Valerie. He had a meeting with Abe the next day, who told him that if he didn't turn things around in the next three months, there was no question in his mind that Coop had to sell The Cottage.

“You owe back taxes, you owe stores, you owe hotels, you owe your tailor in London eighty thousand dollars. You owe jewelers, you owe just about everyone on the planet. And if you don't pay what you owe to the IRS by the end of the year, not to mention your credit cards, they're not going to give you a chance to sell The Cottage, they're going to seize it and sell it for you.” Things were even more dire than Coop had suspected, and for once he heard him. The months he had spent with Alex had somehow improved his hearing. “I think you ought to marry Alex,” Abe said sensibly, but Coop was offended by the suggestion.

“My love life has nothing to do with my financial circumstances, Abe,” Coop said with dignity. But his accountant thought his scruples foolish in the extreme. He had a golden opportunity. Why not take advantage of it? Marrying Alex would have provided him a windfall he needed desperately.

Alex had just worked three days straight when she came home exhausted one night. She'd been covering for two other people, and had had a string of emergencies, babies coding, mothers getting hysterical, a father who had threatened a doctor with a gun when his baby died unexpectedly, and was subsequently arrested. She felt as though she'd seen it all and then some by the time she got to The Cottage. Mark and Taryn were away for two days, and all Alex wanted to do was take a bath and go to sleep in bed next to Coop. She didn't even have the energy to describe to him what she'd been through.

“Bad day?” he asked casually, and she shook her head. She was near tears from sheer exhaustion. She wanted to see Jimmy, but she was too tired to visit him. She had promised to go up and see him in the morning. He was getting stir-crazy being stuck in the gatehouse with his mother. Alex called him as often as she could, but in the past two days she hadn't even had time to do that. She felt like she'd been a hostage on another planet.

“Bad three days,” she explained, as Coop offered to cook her dinner. “I'd be too tired to eat it,” she said honestly. “All I want to do is jump into the tub and go to bed. I'm sorry, Coop. I'll be better tomorrow.”

But in the morning, he seemed strangely quiet. He sat staring into space at the breakfast table. She made him bacon and eggs, and poured him a glass of orange juice in his favorite Baccarat goblet. And after he ate it, he looked at her with an unhappy expression.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly. She was feeling much better after a night's sleep and a good breakfast. But she was a lot younger than he was, and recovered quickly.

“I have something to say to you,” he said, looking anguished for a moment.

“Is something wrong?” He didn't answer her, and she didn't know why, but she'd had the feeling they'd been losing altitude lately.

“Alex… there are things you don't know about me. Things I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to tell me either,” he smiled sadly. “I have enormous debts. I'm afraid I'm a bit like the prodigal son, and have spent it all on ‘riotous living.’ The problem is, unlike the prodigal, I have no father to come home to. My father is long gone, and he had no money anyway. He lost it all in the Depression. And I'm up the creek, as they say. Taxes, debts, I have to pay the piper one of these days. I may even have to sell The Cottage.”

She wondered for a minute if he was asking her for money. It wouldn't have upset her if he had. They were close enough by now for him to be honest with her. She preferred that to secrets between them, even if the truth was unpleasant. She knew about all this anyway, from her father. “I'm sorry to hear it, Coop. But it's not the end of the world. There are worse things.” Like death, and bad health, and cancer, and what had happened to Maggie.

“Not for me. My lifestyle is important to me. So much so that I've sold my soul for it occasionally, making bad movies, or just spending money I didn't have, so I could go on living the way I wanted, the way I felt I deserved. It's not something I'm proud of, but I did it.” He was making a clean breast of his situation. He knew he had to. It was the voice of his conscience speaking, in his case a country never before heard from. It was all very unfamiliar to him.

“Do you want me to help you?” she asked, looking lovingly at him. She had truly come to love him, whether or not he wanted to have children with her. She had decided to make that sacrifice for him, if he asked her to. She thought he was worth it.

But he startled her with his answer. “No, I don't. That's why I'm talking to you. Marrying you would be the easiest way out for me. And the hardest in the long run. If I married you, I would never know for sure why I did it. For you. Or your money.”

“Maybe you don't have to know. They come as a package. Fully loaded. You don't have to select options.”

“To be honest with you, I'm not even sure if I love you. Not enough to marry you anyway. I love being with you, I have fun with you. I've never known anyone like you. But you're a solution for me. The answer to all my prayers and problems. And then what? The whole world will call me a gigolo, and they'd be right probably. And so would you eventually. And without a doubt, your father. Even my accountant thinks I should marry you. It's a lot easier than working to pay back taxes. That's not who I want to be, Alex. And maybe I do love you, because I care about you enough to tell you that's not who I want you to marry.”

“Are you serious?” She looked horrified. “What are you saying to me?” She thought she knew but she didn't want to hear it.

“I'm too old for you. I'm old enough to be your grandfather. I don't want babies. Yours, Charlene's, or anyone else's. I have a daughter now, through the grace of God. She's a grown woman and a nice one, and I never did a damn thing for her. I'm too old and too poor and too tired, and you're too young and too rich. We have to end this.” She felt as though her breakfast had just gotten stuck in her throat as she listened.

“Why? I'm not even asking you to marry me. I don't need to get married, Coop. And telling me I'm too rich is discrimination.” He smiled at her answer, but there were tears in her eyes, and his. He hated to do this, but he knew he had to.

“You should get married, and have babies. Lots of them. You'd be a terrific mother. And any minute that bitch Charlene is going to turn my life into an absolute swamp of scandal. I can't do anything about it, but I can at least spare you the embarrassment of swimming through it with me. I can't do this to you. Any of it. I won't let you solve my financial problems. And I'm serious, if I marry you, I'll never know why I did it. To be honest, more than likely, it would be for the money. If I didn't have these problems, I probably wouldn't even be thinking about getting married. I'd just be playing.” He had never been as candid with anyone, but he felt he owed it to her.

“Don't you love me?” She sounded like a little girl who had just been dropped off at the orphanage, which was what she felt like. He had rejected her. Just as her parents had. And Carter. She felt the weight of the world on her as she looked at him, and he was as honest as he had promised himself he would be.

“I don't know, to be honest with you. I'm not even sure I know what love is. But whatever it is, it shouldn't happen between a girl your age and a man mine. It's not natural, and it's not right. It isn't the correct order of things. And marrying you for what you can do for me won't change that. It only makes matters worse. For once in my life, I want to have some dignity, and not just act as though I have it. I want to do the right thing, for both of us. And the right thing in this case is setting you free, and cleaning up my own mess, no matter what it takes to do it.” It had been a Herculean effort for him to say what he had to her, and it nearly broke his heart looking at her. All he wanted to do was put his arms around her and tell her he loved her, because he did, enough not to ruin her life by staying with her. “I think you should go home now, Alex,” he said sadly. “This is hard for both of us. But trust me, it's the right thing to do here.” She was crying openly, as she cleared away their breakfast. And afterwards, she went upstairs and packed up her things. And when she came down, he was sitting in the library, looking morbid. He hated doing it, but he knew he had to. “It's a terrible thing, a conscience, isn't it?” She had given him one, like a gift from her, and so had Taryn. He wasn't sure he was grateful to them. But now that he had one, he knew he had to use it.

“I love you, Coop,” she said, looking at him, hoping he would change his mind and beckon to her, and ask her to stay with him, but he didn't. He couldn't.

“I love you too, little one… take care of yourself.” He made no move toward her. She nodded, and walked out the front door. She felt as though her life as a fairy princess was over. She was being sent away from home, into the darkness and loneliness. It was impossible for her to understand why he had done it. She couldn't help wondering if there was someone else. And there was finally. There was Coop. He had himself now. He had found the piece of him that had always been missing. It was the piece he had always been afraid to find.

Alex drove up the driveway in tears, and as the gate opened, she knew without a doubt that she had just turned into a pumpkin. Or she felt that way anyway. But she was who she had always been. It was Coop who had turned into a prince finally. A real one.

Chapter 23

Jimmy couldn't understand why he hadn't heard from Alex. She hadn't called, she hadn't come to visit. And Valerie said she hadn't seen Alex at the pool all week. She hadn't run into Coop either. And when she did finally, he looked grim. She almost hesitated to talk to him. She just swam quietly, until he finally said something to her. He asked about Jimmy.

“He's better. He complains constantly. He's getting sick of me. It'll do him good when he can get around on crutches.” Coop only nodded. And then Valerie asked after Alex. There was an interminable silence. And then he looked at Valerie, and she saw something in his eyes she hadn't previously. He looked desperately unhappy, which was very unlike him. Coop had always been able to hide everything, even from himself. He had been brilliant at it. But no longer. He was no longer a god, he was a mortal. And mortals suffered. Sometimes a great deal.

“I'm not seeing her anymore,” he said unhappily, as Valerie paused, while drying her hair with a towel. She could see how much it had upset him to say what he just did.

“I'm so sorry.” She didn't dare ask him what had happened. He had told Taryn, and Taryn had had lunch with Alex, and then told Coop how unhappy Alex was. She felt sorry for both of them, but she thought Coop had made the right decision, especially for Alex. It would take her time to see it. And it had made him feel better when Taryn said that. He needed her full support now.

“I'm sorry too,” Coop told Valerie honestly. “Giving her up was like giving up the last of my illusions. It's better this way.” He didn't explain to her about his debts, or the fact that he didn't marry her for her money. It was enough to know it, and that he hadn't done it. Virtue was its own reward, or something like that. He told himself that often late at night, but he missed her anyway. And he had no desire to run out and find another woman, particularly a young one, which was a first for him.

“It's a bitch being a grown-up, isn't it?” she asked sympathetically. “I just hate it.”

“So do I,” he smiled at her. She was a nice woman. And so was Alex, which was why he'd refused to take advantage of her. Maybe for the first time in his life he really had been in love.

“Do you want to have dinner with us?” Valerie asked generously, and he shook his head. For once in his life, he didn't want to see anyone. He didn't want to talk or play or party. “You and Jimmy can sit and feel sorry for yourselves and growl at each other.”

“I'm almost tempted,” he laughed. “Maybe in a few days.” Or a few years. Or a few centuries. He was surprised by how much he missed her. She had become a delicious habit. Too delicious. In time, he would have choked on her. Or hurt her badly, and he didn't want to do that either.

Valerie didn't say anything to Jimmy for a few days, but when he started fuming about Alex's silence again, she finally relented.

“I think she's got some heartaches of her own right now,” Valerie said gently.

“What does that mean?” Jimmy snarled at her. He was sick of being stuck in a wheelchair and having casts on his legs. And he was angry at Alex. She had completely forgotten about him.

“I think she and Coop stopped seeing each other. In fact, I'm sure of it. I saw Coop at the pool a few days ago and he told me. I think they're probably both very upset about it. I suspect that's why you haven't heard from her.”

Jimmy sat very quietly when he heard it. And after thinking about it for a few days, he called her at the hospital but they told him she was off duty. He didn't have her number at her studio. And when he paged her, she didn't answer. It was another week before he reached her at work.

“What's happening to you? Did you die or something?” he barked at her. He had been snapping at his mother all morning. And he missed talking to Alex. She had been the only one he opened his heart to, and then she disappeared.

“Yeah, I died… sort of I've been busy.” She sounded awful, and near tears. She had been crying for two weeks.

“I know,” his voice softened as he spoke to her. He could hear that she was hurting. “My mother told me what happened.”

“How does she know?” Alex sounded startled.

“I think Coop told her. He saw her at the pool or something. I'm sorry, Alex. I know you must be unhappy about it.” He thought it was a good thing for her, but he didn't want to say that and upset her more.

“I am. It's complicated. He had some sort of crisis of conscience or something.”

“It's nice to know he has one.” Even after what had happened, Jimmy didn't like him. Particularly if he had hurt Alex in the process. But pain was unavoidable in those situations. The peeling away of two lives that had become one, even briefly, was inevitably painful. “They're taking my casts off next week, and giving me smaller ones I can walk on. Can I come and see you when they do?”

“Sure. I'd like that.” She didn't want to come and see him at The Cottage, and risk running into Coop. It would be too painful for her, and maybe even for him.

“Can I call you sometime? I don't know how to reach you. You're always busy at work, and I don't have your home number.”

“I don't have one. I sleep in a laundry basket on a pile of dirty clothes,” she said, feeling and sounding pathetic.

“That sounds attractive.”

“It isn't. Oh shit, Jimmy, I'm miserable. I guess he's right, but I think I really loved him. He says he's too old for me, and he doesn't want kids. And… he has a lot of other problems, and he doesn't want me to take care of them for him. I think he thought he was being noble. What a dumb idea.”

“I think he was being decent,” Jimmy said honestly, “and he was doing the right thing. He's right. He is too old for you, and you should have kids. When you're fifty, he'll be ninety.”

“Maybe that doesn't matter,” she said plaintively. For the moment, she still missed him. She had never known anyone like him.

“Maybe it does. Do you really want to give up having kids? And even if you could have talked him into it, he would never have participated in that with you.” She knew Jimmy was right. When Jimmy had had his accident, Coop had entirely removed himself, because going to see him at the hospital was “unpleasant.” In the long run, she needed a man who was willing to do both pleasant and unpleasant. And Coop would never do that. She hadn't liked that side of him when she'd seen it.

“I don't know. I just feel like shit.” It was comfortable opening up to Jimmy again. She had missed his friendship. The only one she'd spoken to since it had happened was Taryn, who had been very understanding, but also thought Coop had done the right thing. And in some part of her, so did Alex. It just didn't feel good.

“You'll probably feel like shit for a while,” Jimmy said sympathetically. He knew it well. He had been there after Maggie. But ever since the accident, he was feeling a lot better. It had been a kind of epiphany for him. “When I get my casts off, I'll take you to dinner and a movie.”

“I'm lousy company,” she said, feeling sorry for herself, and he smiled.

“So am I a lot of the time. I've been biting my mother's head off. I don't know how she stands me.”

“I suspect she loves you.” They both knew she adored him.

He promised to call Alex again the following day, and when he did, she sounded a little better. He called her every day until they took his casts off. And to celebrate, he took her out to dinner. His mother drove them, and she was relieved to see that Alex looked better than she had expected. It had been a hard blow, but maybe the right one in the long run. It was hard to say, but she hoped so. Coop had talked to her about it again. He had thrown himself into doing a series of commercials, which distracted him. And for the moment, he was worried about Charlene's DNA test. The last thing he needed now was a baby to support, not to mention Charlene, whom he was still furious with.

“I swear, Valerie,” he had told her the day before, “I'm never going out with another woman.” He was positively fuming and she had laughed at him.

“Why is it that I don't believe you? If you were ninety-eight and on your deathbed, I wouldn't believe you if you made a statement like that. Coop, your whole life has been about women.” Over the past weeks, they had become friends, and he was surprisingly open with her, and she with him.

“True,” he said pensively, reconsidering. “But in most cases, the wrong ones. Alex wasn't the wrong one, and if I'd never known about her money, it might have been different. I knew about it from the first moment I met her. It was always a factor in how I felt about her. I was never able to separate the two elements. What I felt for her, and what I needed from her. It was too confusing in the end.” He had reexamined it a thousand times, but always wound up in the same place. Confused. And then, finally, he was sure he had done the right thing. He had even admitted once to Valerie that Alex had been too young. A first for him.

“I still think you did the right thing, Coop,” she said honestly. “Although I'd understand it if you married her, she's a very special girl and she loves you. You could do a lot worse.” But she hoped he didn't marry her. For Alex's sake.

“I love her too. But the truth is I didn't want to marry her. Not really. And I certainly didn't want to have babies with her. I felt I had to marry her, or should, because I needed the money. It's what my accountant wanted me to do.” Given what he said, she still thought he'd made the right decision for both of them.

“What are you going to do now to solve those problems?” Valerie asked him with concern.

“Make a great movie,” he said thoughtfully, “or a lot of very bad commercials.” He had already told his agent that he was willing to take some very different parts than the ones he'd played previously. He was willing to consider playing an older man, or someone's father. He no longer expected to play the leading man. His agent had been dumbstruck, and it had nearly killed Coop to say it. But his agent was more hopeful for him than he'd been in the last decade.

It was the first of July before Coop looked like himself again, and Alex finally seemed more cheerful. Valerie had driven Jimmy to see her at the hospital several times, and one weekend that she knew Coop was away, Alex had actually come to the gatehouse to have dinner, with Mark and Taryn. The kids were coming home after the Fourth of July. They had finally agreed to go to their mother's wedding. They still said Adam was an asshole, but they were doing it for their mother. And Mark was proud of them.

“We're getting engaged,” Mark said with a look of pride at Taryn. They were both feeling a little shy about it, but it was easy to see that they were both excited, and very much in love.

“Congratulations!” Alex said, feeling a pang. She still missed Coop and the time they'd spent together. She had never expected it to end so quickly, and it still hurt a lot that it had.

Jimmy was hobbling around the room on his crutches, and his mother was trying to talk him into going to their house on Cape Cod later that summer.

“I can't get away from work, Mom. I have to go back sooner or later.” He had already promised them to go back the following week on crutches. He couldn't do home visits. But he could at least see people in his office. Valerie was going to drive him to work, and she was planning to stay with him until he was fully walking again, and able to drive.

“I feel like a kid with my mother driving me everywhere, and taking me to the bathroom,” he confessed to Alex with a rueful grin.

“Be grateful you have her,” Alex scolded him. They all had a nice evening together, and afterwards as she drove home, she wondered what Coop was doing. She knew he had flown to Florida for two days, to do a commercial on a sailboat. But he hadn't called her. He said he thought it was best if they didn't talk for a while, although he hoped they'd be friends one day. For the moment, it wasn't a cheering prospect. She was still in love with him.

Mark's kids came home after the Fourth of July. And three days later, Alex saw on her calendar that it was the day for Charlene's DNA test. They were supposed to get the results in ten days, and she wondered what was going to happen, or when she would hear about it. But two weeks later to the day, Coop called her. He was ecstatic, and had wanted to share it with Alex. The moment he heard, he'd picked up the phone to call her.

“It's not mine!” he said exuberantly, after he asked Alex how she was doing. “I thought you'd want to know, so I called you. Isn't that marvelous? I'm off the hook.”

“Whose is it? Do you know?” Alex was happy for him, although it tugged at her heart to hear his voice again.

“No, and I don't give a damn. All I care about is that it's not mine. I've never been so relieved in my life. I'm too old to have children at my age, legitimate or otherwise,” he said for Alex's benefit. He wanted to remind her, and perhaps himself, that he was not the right man for her, in case she was mourning for him. He missed her too, but every day he was more certain that he had done the right thing in ending it with her. And he was more adamant than ever that she belonged with a man who wanted to have children with her.

“I'll bet Charlene is disappointed,” Alex said pensively, still absorbing what he'd said. She knew it was a huge relief to him, and how worried he'd been about it for months.

“Probably more like suicidal. The father is probably a gas station attendant somewhere, and she won't be getting support and an apartment in Bel Air. Couldn't happen to a more deserving woman.” They both laughed, and Coop sounded more relaxed than he had in months. And the following week Alex saw in the tabloids in the grocery store a front-page piece that said COOP WINSLOW LOVE BABY NOT HIS! She knew it had to have been planted by his press agent. Coop was vindicated. Which left him footloose and fancy free, with his bills still to pay, and Alex still lonely for him. But he had made it clear again when he called that he wasn't coming back to her, not only for her sake, but for his. It no longer seemed right to him to be with a woman forty years younger than he. Times had changed. So had he.

“Okay, okay,” she said when Jimmy chided her for working more than usual. He could never see her. “So I still miss him. There aren't a lot of other people like him.”

“That could be a good thing,” Jimmy teased her. He had started working again and was feeling better than he had in a long time. He was sleeping well, and claimed he was getting fat on his mother's cooking, but he didn't look it. He had another month of physical therapy ahead of him, before he finally got his final casts off. He insisted on taking her to dinner and a movie, with his mother still acting as chauffeur. But he was in much better spirits, and as time wore on, so was Alex. She felt more like her old self again, and she enjoyed spending time with him. Maggie had been gone for six months by then, and Coop for one, and they were both healing from their emotional wounds.

“You know,” Jimmy said to her one night over Chinese dinner. He had taken a cab for once. His mother had a dinner date, and he didn't want to impose on her. Alex had said she would drive him back to the gatehouse. “I think you should start dating.”

“Really?” she said with a look of amusement. “And who appointed you as the guardian of my love life?”

“That's what friends are for, isn't it? You're too young to go into mourning for a guy you dated for four or five months, however long it was. You've got to get out there in the world, and start again.” He sounded almost fatherly about it. They always had a good time together, and there wasn't a single subject between them that was sacred. She was completely open with him, just as he was with her. They shared a special bond of friendship that meant a lot to both of them.

“Well, thank you, Dr. Strangelove. And for your information, I'm not ready.”

“Oh, bullshit. Don't give me that crap. You're just chicken.”

“No, I'm not. Okay, I am,” she amended, “and besides I'm too busy. I don't have time for a relationship. I'm a doctor.”

“I'm not impressed. You were a doctor when you went out with Coop. So what's different?”

“Me. I'm wounded.” But her eyes were laughing as she said it. She just hadn't found anyone she wanted to date yet, and Coop was admittedly a tough act to follow. He had been wonderful to her, even if it hadn't been a relationship meant to last for a lifetime. She was beginning to see that, although she still wished it had.

“I don't think you're wounded. I think you're lazy and scared.”

“What about you?” She turned the tables on him, as they polished off their dim sum, and she ate the last of his pot stickers.

“I'm terrified. That's different. Besides, I'm in mourning.” He said it seriously, but he didn't look nearly as devastated as he had when she'd met him. He looked healthier again. “But I'll go out with someone one of these days too. My mother and I have been talking a lot about it. She went through it when my dad died, and she said she made a big mistake not getting back out in the world again, and now I think she regrets it.”

“Your mom is a gorgeous woman,” Alex said admiringly. She had enormous affection for her and thought Jimmy was very lucky, and said so frequently.

“Yeah, I know. I think she's lonely as hell though. I think she loves being here with me right now. I told her she should move out here.” And he meant it.

“Do you think she will?” Alex asked with interest.

“Honestly, no. She likes Boston, she's comfortable there. And she loves our place on the Cape. She usually spends the whole summer there. She's going as soon as I get my casts off. I think she can hardly wait. She loves to putter around fixing the place up while she's there.”

“Do you like to go?” Alex was curious about it.

“Sometimes.” He had a lot of memories of Maggie there, which were going to be hard for him to deal with, he knew. He had decided to give it a rest until the following summer. By then, he thought it would be easier for him to handle, and his mother said she understood. She was always very sympathetic, and understanding about whatever he did. Particularly now. She was just grateful he was alive.

“I hate our place in Newport. It looks like Coop's place, only bigger. I've always thought that was stupid for a beach house. When I was a kid, I wished we had something simple, like the other kids. I always had the biggest and the best and the most expensive. It was embarrassing.” And the place in Palm Beach was even bigger, and she hated that too.

“I can see that was very traumatic for you,” Jimmy teased her as they sipped their tea, and she complained that she'd had too much to eat. They were like two kids kidding around with each other. “I mean look at you now, you never wear decent clothes anymore. I don't think you own a pair of jeans that's not ripped. You drive a car that looks like you bought it in the junkyard, and from what you tell me, your apartment looks like you furnished it in a dumpster. It's obvious that you have a psychotic phobia about anything decent or expensive.” He didn't realize it, but he could have made the same speech to Maggie, and had often.

“Are you complaining about the way I look?” She looked vastly amused and not the least bit insulted.

“No, you actually look pretty good, considering that you live in hospital pajamas ninety percent of the time. The rest of the time you look great. I'm complaining about your car and your apartment.”

“And my love life, or lack of one. Don't forget that. Anything else you want to complain about, Mr. O'Connor?”

“Yeah,” he said looking into her eyes, and noticing that they looked like brown velvet. “You don't take me seriously, Alex.” His voice sounded strange when he said it.

“What am I supposed to take seriously?” She looked startled.

“I think I'm falling in love with you,” he said softly, not sure of what her reaction would be, and terrified she would hate him for it. His mother had encouraged him to tell her when they'd had a serious conversation about it the night before.

“You're what? Are you crazy?” She looked stunned.

“That's not exactly the response I was hoping for. And yeah, maybe I am. I hated it when you were going out with Coop. I always thought he was the wrong guy for you. I just wasn't ready to be the right guy,” he said honestly as she looked at him in amazement. “And I'm not sure I am yet. But I'd like to be one day. Or at least apply for the job.

“It may be hard for me at first. Because of Maggie. But maybe not as hard as I think. It's kind of like getting the casts off my legs and walking again. Same thing. But you're the only woman I've ever known that I feel about the way I felt about Maggie. She was a hell of a woman, and so are you I don't know what

I'm saying, except that I'm here and I care about you, and I'd like to see what would happen if we both give this a chance. And now you probably think I'm a lunatic, because I'm not making sense, and I sound like a total jerk,” he was stumbling all over the place as Alex stretched out a hand to touch his.

“Hey, it's okay,” she said softly, “I'm scared too… and I like you too… I always did I was terrified when I thought you would die after the accident, and all I wanted was for you to wake up from the coma and come back…and you did…and now Coop's gone. I don't know what'll happen either. Let's just go slow, okay?… And we'll see “

He was sitting there smiling at her, not sure what either of them had said, or what they felt, other than that they liked each other. But maybe it was enough. They were both good people, and they deserved the right person in their lives. Whether or not they proved to be the right ones remained to be seen, but it was a beginning at least. It was a promise to promise to try to promise to maybe if they were lucky fall in love with each other one day. They had each opened their doors, and were standing on the threshold of a new beginning. It was all either of them could have hoped for, or asked for at that point in time. And for now, it was enough. Neither of them was ready for more.

And when she drove him back to the gatehouse after dinner that night, they felt both comfortable and awkward, hopeful and scared. And when she helped him out and up the stairs, he turned to her with a smile, and then leaned down and kissed her. He almost slipped and fell, and she yelled at him as she helped him into bed.

“Are you crazy to kiss me there, you could have fallen down the stairs and killed me, and yourself!” He laughed, watching her. He had always loved everything about her, and even more so now.

“Stop yelling at me!” he tossed back at her good-naturedly.

“Then don't do dumb things like that,” she said as he kissed her again. And a few minutes later, she left, and called back up the stairs from the living room, “Tell your mother I said thank you!” For what she had given them, for encouraging Jimmy to live again, and finally let go of Maggie, at least a little. There were no promises, no guarantees. But there was hope for both of them. They were young and life had everything in store for them. Alex smiled to herself as she drove home, thinking of him. And in his bedroom at the gatehouse, Jimmy looked pensive and smiled too. Life was a perilous road at times, fraught with demons and miseries. But his mother had been right. It was time to give life another chance. Time for a new beginning.

Chapter 24

While Alex and Jimmy were at the Chinese restaurant, Coop was out with Valerie that night. He had promised to take her to L'Orangerie. She had been nursing Jimmy for nearly two months, and Coop thought she deserved at least one decent evening out. And he appreciated her friendship. Besides which, he'd been lonely since Alex left. In the past, he had always rushed into other romances to heal his “chagrins d'amour,” but this time he had wanted to spend some time alone. It was yet another first for him.

It was also the first time he'd been out to a restaurant in a month, and Valerie proved to be excellent company. They seemed to share the same points of view on a multitude of subjects.

They liked the same operas, the same music, the same cities in Europe. He knew Boston almost as well as she did, and they both loved New York. She had spent time in London with her husband before Jimmy was born, and Coop loved going there. They even liked the same food, and the same restaurants.

They shared an easy, relaxing evening, and talked about Taryn and Mark. He told her the story of how Taryn had come into his life. And she talked about Jimmy and his father and how much alike they were. They seemed to touch on everything that mattered to either of them. And he talked about Alex.

“To be honest, Valerie, I was crazy about her, but I don't think it was ever right. I'm not sure she's old enough to realize it yet, but I think we'd have made each other unhappy in the end. I'd been having second thoughts about it for the last month, but I didn't want to give her up, selfishly.” It had actually felt better to him not to be selfish for once, in the end. He and Valerie even talked about Charlene, and what an embarrassing mistake that had been. There was nothing hidden between them. Alex had taught him that. And the honesty was familiar to him now, and comfortable with Valerie. He was even candid about the financial stress he was in. He had sold one of his Rolls-Royces recently, which was a big step for him. At least, for once in his life, he was facing things. Liz would have been proud of him, and Abe nearly was. And his agent said he was chasing an important part for him. But he always said that.

“Maybe it isn't so bad being a grown-up,” he confessed to Valerie, contrary to what he'd said after leaving Alex a month before. “It's a novelty for me. I've never been a grown-up before.” But his lack of responsibility had always been part of his charm. There was just a high price to pay for it at some point. And the piper still had to be paid. “I wanted to go to Europe this summer.” He had talked to Alex about the Hotel du Cap, but she couldn't get away from work. And he couldn't afford it anyway. “But I'm going to stick around and hustle work.”

“Would you like to come to Cape Cod for a few days when I go back, Coop? I have a comfortable old house there. It was my grandmother's, and I don't run it as well as she did. It's a lot harder these days. The place is falling apart, but it has a lot of charm. I've spent my summers there since I was a child.” The house meant a lot to her and she liked the idea of showing it to Coop. She was sure he'd appreciate it.

“I'd like that very much,” he said with a warm smile. He enjoyed being with her. You could see that she was a woman who had suffered a great deal, but at the same time, she had learned from it, and made the best of it. She wasn't sad or depressed or pathetic. She was peaceful, calm, and wise. And it did him good just being with her. He had felt that about her from the first. He enjoyed her as a friend, and could easily imagine their friendship growing into more in time. He had never been attracted to a woman her age, or not in a long time. But he could see a lot of merit in it now. He had developed a strong distaste for women like Charlene, and he didn't want to hurt or disappoint anyone, as he had Alex. It was finally time to play with kids at least a little closer to his age. She was, after all, nearly twenty years younger, but it was a vast improvement over what he'd been doing in recent years, with girls half Valerie's age, or a third of his own.

“Is there anyone in your life, Valerie?” he asked her with gentle curiosity. He wanted to make sure there was no one waiting for her in Boston or Cape Cod before he embarked on anything, or even approached it with her, and she shook her head as she smiled at him.

“I haven't wanted to be involved with anyone since my husband died. It's been ten years.” He looked shocked.

“That's a terrible waste,” he said sympathetically. She was a beautiful woman and she deserved to have someone in her life.

“I'm beginning to think so too,” she admitted, “and I was afraid Jimmy would do the same thing. I've been on his back a lot about that. He needs time, but he can't mourn Maggie forever. She was a wonderful girl, and a great wife for him. But she's gone. He's going to have to face that one day.”

“He will,” Coop said confidently. “Nature will push him, if nothing else does,” he laughed. “It did me. A few too many times, I'm afraid,” and then he looked serious. “But I've never had a great grief like that in my life.” He had enormous respect for both of them. They had come a long way, and in his own way so had he. He just hoped Alex recovered quickly, and wasn't bitter about the disappointment he'd been for her. He knew how badly Carter had hurt her, and he didn't want to add to her scars. He hoped she was finding her way, or would soon.

It was a pleasant, easy evening for both of them. And they walked for a while afterwards, when they got back to The Cottage. The grounds were so peaceful and beautiful on a warm, summer night. They sat next to the pool for a while and talked. They could hear laughter coming from the guest wing. He knew Taryn was there with Mark and the kids, although she was sleeping in the main house again, now that the kids were home.

“I think they'll be good for each other,” Coop said, talking about them, and Valerie agreed. “It's funny how things work out, isn't it? I'm sure he was devastated when his wife left. And now he's got Taryn, and his children want to live with him. I'm sure he never expected any of that to happen. Fate is a wondrous thing sometimes.”

“I was telling Jimmy that tonight. He has to trust that things are going to work out for him. Even if differently than he once thought they would.”

“And what about you, Valerie? Are things working out for you?” he asked her gently, as they held hands, sitting in two chairs by the pool. He could see her blue eyes in the moonlight, and her dark hair shone.

“I have everything I need,” she said, content with her fate. She didn't ask or expect a great deal from life. She had Jimmy. He had lived. That was enough for her for now. She didn't dare ask for more.

“Do you? That's a rare thing. Most people wouldn't say they have everything they need. Maybe you're not asking for enough.”

“I think I am. Maybe someone to share it with. But if not, that's all right too.”

“I'd like to come to Cape Cod to visit you, if you really meant what you said at dinner,” he said quietly.

“I did. And I'd like that too.”

“I love old houses. And I've always liked the Cape. It has a wonderful old-fashioned quality to it. It doesn't have the grandeur of Newport, which has always seemed a little out of place to me, although the houses are magnificent.” He would have liked to see the Madison place, although that was not to be, for now anyway. Maybe one day, when he and Alex had become friends as he hoped they would. But he liked the idea of visiting Valerie on Cape Cod. He was ready for a simple holiday in a comfortable place, with a woman he could talk to, and whom he liked. He couldn't think of anything nicer than visiting her. It was easy for him too, knowing he wanted nothing from her, nor she from him. Whatever they gave each other, if they did, would be from the heart and nothing more. There were no motives to question, nothing to be gained. It was all very clean and very pure.

They sat in silence for a little while, and then he walked her home. He left her at her front door, and smiled down at her. He wanted to go slow this time. He was in no rush. They had a lifetime ahead of them, and she smiled up at him. She felt the same way too.

“I had a lovely time, Valerie. Thank you for having dinner with me.” He meant every word of it and more.

“I had a lovely time too. Goodnight, Coop.”

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he promised, and she waved and walked through the front door. It was a development she hadn't expected, and a friendship she hadn't anticipated. But one she was grateful for. She didn't need more than that just now, and didn't know if she ever would. But for now, this was something special for them.

Chapter 25

Coop had meant to call Valerie, as he'd promised to, the next day. But he got a call from his agent at nine in the morning instead. His agent asked him to come to the office as soon as he could. Whatever it was he had to tell Coop, he didn't want to say on the phone. Coop was irritated by the mystery and cloak-and-dagger of it all, but he turned up at eleven anyway, and the agent said nothing to him, and handed him a script.

“What is it?” Coop looked blasé. He'd seen a million scripts before.

“Read it, then tell me what you think. It's the best damn script I've ever read.” Coop expected another walk-on, or a cameo where he played himself. He'd seen too many of them by now, but it was all they'd offered him in years.

“Are they willing to write me in?” Coop asked.

“They don't need to. This one's written for you.”

“How much are they offering?”

“Let's discuss it when you've read the script. Call me back this afternoon.”

“Who do I play?”

“The father” was all he would say. Not the leading man. But Coop didn't complain. He was in no position to.

Coop went home and read it, and was duly impressed. It was admittedly a potentially extraordinary part, depending on who the director was, and how much money they were willing to put into it. Having read it, Coop needed to know more.

“Okay, I read it,” Coop said when he called back. He sounded interested, but he wasn't leaping for joy yet, there was too much he still didn't know. “Now tell me the rest.”

The agent reeled off the names. “Schaffer is the producer. Oxenberg directs. The leading man is Tom Stone. Leading lady either Wanda Fox or Jane Frank. They want you for the father, Coop. And with a cast like that, you'll win an Oscar for sure.”

“What are they offering?” Coop said, trying to sound calm. He hadn't been associated with names like that in years. It was one of the best films he'd ever been associated with, if he took the part. But he was sure they weren't going to pay him much. It was all for glory, but even at that, it might be worth it. They were shooting in New York, and LA, and he assumed, given the size of his part, it would be a three-to-six-month shoot. He had nothing else to do, except a bunch of commercials he didn't want to do anyway. “How much?” he repeated to the agent, bracing himself for bad news.

“Five million dollars, and five percent of the box office. How does that sound, Coop?” There was a long, stunned silence from Coop's end.

“Are you serious?”

“I am. Someone's looking out for you, Coop. I never thought I'd have a picture like this to offer you. It's yours, if you want it. They want to hear from us today.”

“Call them. I'll sign it tonight, if they want. Don't let this one get away.” Coop could hardly catch his breath he was so stunned. He couldn't believe his incredible good luck. At last.

“They're not going anywhere, Coop. They're desperate for you. You're perfect for the part, and they know it.”

“Oh my God,” Coop said, and he was shaking when he hung up the phone. He went to tell Taryn, because he didn't know who else to tell. “Do you realize what this means?” he asked her. “I can keep The Cottage, pay my debts, put some money away for my old age.” It was a dream come true, a reprieve, his last chance. His ship had come in. And then he stopped and looked at Taryn. It also meant he could tell Alex he could support himself, but the funny thing was, he no longer wanted to call her. Instead, he rushed to the front door, and Taryn called after him.

“Congratulations, Coop! Where are you going?” But he didn't answer her. He strode down the path to the gatehouse and knocked on the front door.

Jimmy was at work, but Valerie was there. She opened the door wearing black linen slacks and a white T-shirt, and she stared at Coop. He looked like a madman, with wild eyes, and he'd been running a hand through his hair. She'd never seen him look like that, no one had. But he didn't care. He knew he had to tell her.

“Valerie, I just got an incredible part, in a film that's going to take all the Oscars next year. And even if it doesn't, I can take care of all my, err… responsibilities It's a miracle, truly. I have no idea what happened. I'm going to my agent's office to sign the deal.” He was almost stuttering he was so excited, and she smiled broadly at him.

“Good for you, Coop! No one deserves it more.”

“I'm sure someone does,” he said, laughing, “but I'm glad I got it instead. It's exactly what you said. I'm playing the father instead of the leading man.”

“I'm sure you'll be fabulous,” she said sincerely, as he stood talking to her and grinned.

“Thank you. Will you have dinner with me tonight?” He had to celebrate with her. And he was going to invite Jimmy, Taryn, and Mark. For a moment, he was sorry not to invite Alex, but he knew it wasn't a wise thing to do, yet. Maybe he could in time. But he was going to call and tell her he was out of the woods.

“Are you sure you want to have dinner with me again? You just had dinner with me last night. I might wear thin.”

“You have to have dinner with me,” he said, trying to look stern, but unable to, he was smiling too much.

“All right. I'd love to.”

“And bring Jimmy.”

“I can't. He's going out.” She knew he was seeing Alex again. They were exploring new facets of an old relationship, and she knew he couldn't bring Alex along, it would be too hard for her. “But I'll tell him you asked.” She knew he wouldn't want to go. He would rather be with Alex than with Coop, which made sense. He had no animosity toward him, he was just more interested in pursuing his own love life, which seemed reasonable and healthy to her.

“I'll call you when I get back, and tell you where we're going. Spago, I think,” Coop called over his shoulder as he hurried back down the path with a wave.

Five minutes later he was in the car on the way to his agent's office, and an hour later, he was home again. He had signed the deal. He told Valerie and Taryn they had a reservation at Spago at eight o'clock. And then he called Alex at the hospital. She came to the phone right away. It was the first time he had called her in nearly a month, since Charlene's DNA results. Her heart pounded as she answered, and her hand shook, but she tried to sound calm for him.

He told her what had happened, and she told him how happy she was, as he told her all the details, and then there was a long silence. He knew what she was thinking, and what the answer was. He had thought about it all the way home, although he had been tempted for a minute or two.

“Does this change anything between us, Coop?” she asked, holding her breath. She wasn't even sure what she wanted now, but she knew she had to ask.

“I thought about it a little while ago, Alex. And I'd love to say yes. But it doesn't. It's not right between us. Even with my debts paid, I'm too old for you. People would always think I was after your money. And it's not right for a girl your age to be with a man like me. You need a husband and babies, and a real life, maybe with someone from your own world, or someone who does the same kind of work you do. I think if we tried to make this work permanently, it would be a huge mistake. I'm so sorry if I hurt you, Alex. I learned a lot from you, but that's a poor excuse to have done it at your expense. Maybe it wasn't about the money. But it just doesn't feel right. Maybe we both need people closer to our own age. I don't know why, but all my instincts tell me that we both need to walk away from this before we make a real mess of it. If it's any consolation, you've taken a piece of my heart with you. Just keep it close to you, like a locket, or a lock of hair. But let's not go back and make a big mistake we'll both regret. I think we both need to go forward instead of back-In light of the time they'd spent together and what she'd felt for him, she had hoped he would say something different to her, but she didn't disagree with him. She just didn't want to lose. But she had thought about it a lot in the past weeks too, and her conclusions weren't very different than his. She missed him terribly, and she'd had a wonderful time with him, but something in her gut stopped her from trying to talk him into it, or even wanting to go back herself. But she had felt compelled to ask.

In truth, she wanted to explore things with Jimmy now. That felt right to her. In a funny way, more than it ever had with Coop. She and Jimmy had the same passions, the same love for kids, so much so that it spilled over into their work. Jimmy was fascinated by what she did. Coop had always been squeamish about it. And she had never really belonged in Coop's world. She had had fun being in it with him, but she had always felt like a visitor, a tourist, she couldn't really imagine living there for good. In fact, she had more in common with Jimmy than she'd ever had with Coop. Although whether or not it ever worked out with Jimmy was something else. Neither of them could be sure of that yet. But for whatever reason, in the end, it hadn't worked with Coop. For him at least, and maybe he'd been right. It was easier now to move forward, and not back, just as he said.

“I understand, Coop,” she said quietly. “And I hate to say I agree, but I think I do. My head does, and my heart will catch up eventually.” A part of her hated to let him go, maybe because he was the loving, happy-go-lucky father she'd never had, and hers had never been.

“You're a brave girl,” he said generously.

“Thank you,” she said solemnly. “Will you invite me to the premiere?”

“Yes. And you can come watch me get an Oscar at the Academy Awards.”

“It's a deal.” She smiled, happy for him.

She felt better after talking to him. It was as though his windfall had set them both free. He needed that so desperately, not only to pay his bills, but for his peace of mind, and self-respect. Now he could do whatever he wanted to. She was truly pleased for him. And she felt better that night when Jimmy met her at work in a cab. She was driving after that. They were going out for dinner and a movie, and he noticed her mood as soon as they got into her car.

“You look happy. What's up?”

“I talked to Coop today. He got a big part in a movie, and he sorted out a lot of stuff.” Jimmy looked instantly panicked although he also knew his mother was having dinner with him. But he didn't want to mention it to Alex.

“What kind of stuff? About you two?”

“Yeah, that and other things.” She didn't want to tell Jimmy about his debts. She thought she owed that much to Coop. “I think we've both figured out that it wasn't right between us. It was fun, but in the long run, we both needed something different.” She felt freer and more at ease than she had since he left.

“What do you mean you needed something different? Like what?” He looked stressed.

“Like you, dummy,” she said, smiling at him.

“Is that what he said?”

“Not specifically. I figured that much out for myself. I'm a doctor, you know,” she said, as he relaxed. She had worried him for a minute or two. Coop was a formidable opponent for any man, and Jimmy felt at a serious disadvantage compared to him. He was ten feet tall and had so goddam much charm. But what Jimmy had to offer meant more to her. He had a tenderness of soul and gentleness of spirit that had captured her heart. And Coop was right, she needed someone with more in common with her than they had shared. In some ways, she and Jimmy were the answer to each other's prayers.

As promised, Coop and Valerie and Mark and Taryn had dinner at Spago that night. Their mood was ebullient, and Coop was practically euphoric he was so pleased. People stopped to talk to him, and the news was already leaking out. There was going to be an article about it in the trades the next day. He was already the man of the hour around town.

“When do you start shooting?” Mark asked with interest.

“We go on location in New York in October. And we should be back here by Christmas. We'll shoot in a studio here after that.” He had two months to play before he went to work. “I'd like to go to Europe in September, before I start,” he said, looking at Valerie. Maybe they could go after his visit to Cape Cod. He could afford to now, and he was hoping to invite her. “How does that sound to you?” he asked Valerie softly, a little while later, while the others were talking to each other.

“Interesting,” she said with a Mona Lisa smile. “Let's see how Cape Cod goes.” There was a lot they still didn't know.

“Don't be so sensible,” he chided her, but she was smart. He had the feeling that he had finally met the woman of his life. “I'd love to go to the Hotel du Cap.”

She looked tempted, and they both laughed. They both felt the same nearly irresistible pull. But if it was right, it would unfold. They didn't have to rush into it. And later, while they took a walk on the grounds again, Valerie said as much to him, and Coop agreed. It was just that there was so much happening, he felt like a kid in a candy store, and he wanted to share it with her.

He told her about his conversation with Alex that afternoon, and said that he felt liberated after talking to her. They both knew he'd done the right thing by ending it with her, painful though it had been.

“I think she and Jimmy are starting to see each other,” Valerie said cautiously. She didn't want to be indiscreet, but she didn't want Jimmy to feel awkward with him, particularly now. Coop looked pensive for a minute, and then he sighed and looked at her. For an instant, all his male jealousies had been aroused, and then he calmed down.

“I think that sounds right, Valerie. For both of them. And this is right for us.” He smiled at her, and took her hand, and he kissed her that night when he left her at her door. It was a world full of new beginnings for all of them. It was funny the way things worked out the way they were meant to eventually, if you waited long enough. It had been a long wait for Valerie, and not as long for Coop, but they had found each other, and the right movie had even found him. It all felt like destiny as he kissed her again, and then she slipped quietly into the gatehouse, thinking of him. Cooper Winslow was not who she'd expected, but she was glad he had come along. She didn't even feel like Cinderella with him. She felt like herself, but a woman falling in love with her best friend. It was the same feeling he had as he walked down the path to the main house. What he was looking forward to now was their time on Cape Cod.

Chapter 26

Jimmy's casts came off on schedule in early August, and news of Coop's upcoming movie was all over the papers by then. He was a hero around town. Everyone was congratulating him, and suddenly he had more offers for work. But he was determined to get out of town with Valerie for a few weeks. And after that, he was going on to Europe, whether she went with him or not. She said she would decide after Cape Cod.

Jimmy was walking comfortably again by the time they left. He was seeing a lot of Alex, and things were going well for them. Mark and Taryn were taking the kids to Tahoe for two weeks. Only Jimmy and Alex were staying in town, because they both had to work.

Valerie made one of her memorable pasta dinners the night before they left. Coop was flying with her to Boston, and then they were driving to the Cape. Alex hadn't come to dinner, she had to work anyway. But Valerie had gone to the hospital that afternoon to have lunch with her and say goodbye before she left. But Mark and Taryn and the kids had come to dinner, and Coop was pretending to growl at them. He asked Jason if he'd broken any windows lately, and Jason looked mortified, and then Coop invited him onto the set when they were shooting in LA, and the boy looked thrilled. Jessica asked if she could come too, and bring some of her friends.

“I don't suppose I have a choice in the matter anyway,” he said, looking pained, with a glance at Taryn and Mark. “Something tells me we're going to be related sometime in the next few months. I will do anything you want, as long as you promise never to refer to me as your grandfather, step or otherwise. My reputation has taken a lot of hits over the years, but I don't think it would survive that. They'll be giving me parts for ninety-year-olds,” he said ruefully, and everyone laughed. But Jessica and Jason were slowly getting used to him. They were crazy about Taryn and willing to accept him as part of the deal. There was a possibility that they were all going to wind up related, one way or another, sooner or later, which was an exotic idea. Even he and Alex if she and Jimmy became a serious thing, and he and Valerie stayed together, which he hoped they would. It was all a little incestuous, but everyone seemed to have gotten something out of it, even Mark's kids.

“I hope the toilets flush this year when you get to Marisol,” Jimmy teased as they finished dessert, and Coop looked across the table at him with a puzzled expression, as Valerie scolded Jimmy for frightening Coop.

“It's not as bad as all that. It's just a very old house.”

“Wait a minute, back up Who is Marisol?” Coop asked with a strange look in his eyes.

“Not ‘who,’ ‘what,’” Jimmy corrected him. “That's my mom's house on the Cape. It was built by my great-grandparents, and it's a combination of their names. Marianne and Solomon.” Coop looked as though he'd been struck by a thunderbolt as he stared at them.

“Oh my God. Marisol. You didn't tell me that,” he said to Valerie, as though he'd just been told she'd been in prison for the last ten years. That might have been easier to absorb.

“Tell you what?” she said innocently, pouring him another glass of wine. Her dinner had been excellent, but he wasn't thinking about that now.

“You know exactly what I mean, Valerie. You lied to me,” he said, looking stern, and the others looked faintly concerned. Something was happening that none of them understood. But she did.

“I did not lie to you. I just didn't explain it to you. I didn't think it mattered.” But she knew it did, and was afraid it would.

“And your maiden name is Westerfield, I assume.” She made a kind of humming sound in answer, and nodded her head. “You fraud! Shame on you! You pretended you were poor!” He looked shocked. The Westerfield fortune was one of the largest in the world, surely in the States.

“I did not pretend anything. I didn't discuss it with you,” Valerie said nervously, while trying to appear calm. But she had been worried about his reaction for a while. It was a lot for him to swallow at one gulp.

“I went to Marisol once. Your mother invited me when I was making a film near there. The place is bigger than the Hotel du Cap, and if you turned it into a hotel, you could charge more. Valerie, that was a very dishonest thing to do.” But he didn't look as angry as she had feared he would. The truth was that the Westerfields were the biggest banking family in the East. They were the Rothschilds of America in the early days, and related to the Astors and the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers and half the blue bloods in the States, if not the world. The Westerfields made the Madisons look like paupers by comparison, but the difference was that Valerie was a grown-up, and didn't have to answer to anyone. Somehow, the circumstances were such, now that his finances were in order, or about to be, that it didn't seem like such a shocking alliance after all. And she wasn't a young girl, but he was stunned that she had never said anything to him. She was the most unassuming woman in the world. He had presumed she was a widow living on a small income. But it explained why Jimmy had been able to rent the gatehouse so easily. It explained a lot of things, about the people she knew and the places she'd been. But he'd never seen anyone as unpretentious and discreet as she was. He sat there and stared at her for a long moment, absorbing it, and then he sat back in his chair and laughed. “Well, I'll tell you one thing, I don't feel sorry for you anymore.” But he wasn't going to let her support him either. If they married, he was going to be supporting her. That was the way he wanted it to be. She could be as discreet as she wanted on her own budget, but their extravagances, and there would be many of them, would be paid for by him. “And I'm calling a plumber, if my toilet doesn't flush at Marisol, you little witch. What would you have done if I didn't get this movie?” He'd have been in the same boat as he had been in with Alex in that case. But Valerie was more mature. It wasn't just about the money with Alex, it was about their age, and not having kids, and being perceived as a gigolo, and Arthur Madison disapproving of him. But none of that seemed relevant with Valerie, because she was the right woman for him. And he was back on his feet financially, in fact better than he'd ever been.

“If you call a plumber at Marisol,” Jimmy warned him with a grin, “my mother will have a fit. She thinks it's part of the charm, along with the roof that leaks, and the shutters that fall off. I damn near broke my leg last year when the south porch caved in. My mother loves fixing the place up herself.”

“I can hardly wait,” Coop groaned. But he already knew he loved the place. He had fallen in love with it when her mother had invited him there. It seemed to go on forever, with houses and boathouses and guest houses, and a barn full of antique cars he could have spent the entire weekend in. It was one of the most famous houses in the East. The Kennedys had often visited there when they were in residence at Hyannis Port, and the President had stayed there. Coop was still shaking his head when the others left.

“Don't ever lie to me again,” he scolded Valerie.

“I didn't. I was being discreet,” she said, looking demure, with a decided look of mischief in her eye.

“A little too discreet perhaps?” he said, smiling at her. In a way, he was glad he hadn't known before. It was better like this.

“One can never be too discreet,” she said primly. But he loved that about her. He loved her elegance and her simplicity. It explained the distinction he had felt. She was an undeniable aristocrat even in white shirt and jeans. And suddenly he realized what it meant for Alex too. Jimmy was exactly the man she needed, he was part of her world, and at the same time, as much of a renegade as she. Even Arthur Madison couldn't object to him. And suddenly Coop felt pleased. Things had worked out exactly as they were meant to. Not only for him, but for her too. Even if she didn't know it yet, she was on the right track. And as Valerie cleared the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher, Coop glanced at her.

“Does Alex know?”

“Knowing Jimmy, probably not.” Valerie smiled at him. “It matters even less to him than it does to me.” It didn't matter to them because it was part of them, right down to their bones. They hadn't made it up, or invented it, or acquired it, or married it. They were born to it, so they could live any way they chose. Richly, or poorly, or quietly or noisily. It was entirely up to them. And Alex was cut from the same cloth. It meant nothing to her, and she liked living as though she were poor.

“How do I fit into all that?” Coop asked Valerie honestly, pulling her close to him. She really was the woman of his life, whether she knew it yet or not. But he was determined to convince her of it eventually. Not for the money, but simply because of who she was and what she meant to him.

“You fit into it very comfortably, I suspect. You're used to all that. In fact, we might not be quite elegant enough for you.” He had lived very well for a very long time. In fact, he was very spoiled. And now, with the movie he'd just landed, he could afford to indulge himself, and her. And he had every intention of doing just that.

“I'll adjust,” he said, laughing at her. “I can see I have my work cut out for me. I'm going to spend all my money repairing your old house.”

“Don't,” she smiled, “I like it the way it is, falling apart and crumbling, with things falling down all over the place. It has charm that way.”

“So do you,” he said, holding her tight, “and you're not falling down or crumbling.” But he knew that when she did, he would still love her. And he was likely to crumble first, because he was, after all, seventeen years older than she. She was in fact a younger woman, and a very wealthy woman. But not too young. And no matter how rich she was, he no longer cared, because he had money of his own. It had taken a Westerfield to bring him down, and capture him. But the job had been done at last, and done well.

“Will you marry me?” he asked her, as Jimmy tiptoed softly upstairs, smiling to himself. It was funny how much better he liked Coop now, now that Alex wasn't involved with him. He was beginning to think he was a pretty good guy.

“Eventually, I suspect,” Valerie answered him with a smile. He kissed her then, and then he left the house. They were leaving at the crack of dawn the next day.

The driver took them to the airport in the Bentley the next morning. Coop had four suitcases with him, and he'd had a hard time getting it down to that. But he was going on to Europe afterwards. Valerie only had one. But she had packed in a hurry when she left.

Coop had said goodbye to Taryn when he left the house. And Valerie hugged Jimmy tight, and then kissed him and told him to take care at least ten times.

“Take good care of yourself, Jimmy,” she said and then both men hurried her out the door so they didn't miss the plane.

They left for the airport in high spirits, and both of them slept on the plane. And when they woke up, they were nearly there. She told him some of the history he didn't know about the house. It fascinated him and he couldn't wait to see it again, and share it with her. As he remembered it, it was an elegant, charming, romantic old estate, with exquisite grounds.

He rented a car at the Boston airport, and they drove slowly up the Cape. And when they got there, Marisol was exactly as he remembered it, only better now. Because he was there with her.

He helped her hammer things, and fix screens, and repair wicker furniture. They were there for three weeks, and he'd never been happier, although he'd never worked as hard in his life. But he loved doing it with her, and she worked as hard as he. She always had a hammer and nails in her pocket, and a swipe of paint somewhere on her face. He loved her and every minute that they shared.

On Labor Day weekend, they flew to London and spent three weeks there. He went straight from there to New York to start working on his movie. And Valerie went back to Boston for a few days and then joined him in New York. They lived at the Plaza for the duration of his location shoot. And she flew back to California with him just before Thanksgiving. Taryn and Mark were married by then. They had gotten married at Lake Tahoe with only Jason and Jessica with them the week before. There was much to celebrate. Alex and Jimmy were living at the gatehouse by then. She had turned his bedroom into a laundry basket, and given up her studio. She had almost finished her residency, and been promised a permanent position on staff as a neonatologist at UCLA. She and Jimmy were talking about getting married. But he hadn't met Arthur yet.

Coop had them all for Thanksgiving dinner, even Alex, and it was easy to see how happy she and Jimmy were. Wolfgang sent over a turkey, which Paloma served wearing the leopard sneakers which she wore with a new pink uniform. The rhinestone glasses had been retired for the winter months, and much to everyone's relief, she liked Valerie. A lot. And Valerie liked her.

The tabloids carried the story the week before Christmas. As did People magazine, Time, Newsweek, the respectable newspapers and wire services, and CNN. The headlines were pretty much the same everywhere, WIDOWED EASTERN HEIRESS MARRIES MOVIE STAR. Others gave him top billing, COOPER WINSLOW MARRIES WESTERFIELD HEIRESS. In either case, the photographs showed them both happy and smiling at a small reception they gave. His press agent delivered the photographs to the press. And the following day, Valerie came down the stairs from his bedroom with an armful of towels she'd found in the linen closet.

“This works out really well, Coop,” she said distractedly. He had a week off before he started shooting again in LA, and he was trying to talk her into going to Saint Moritz for the week, but so far she didn't seem interested. She was happy at home with him, and so was he. More than he'd ever been.