Danielle Steel - The Cottage

“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.