and hard resolve. His face had lost its tan, and his eyes looked out from behind bifocals now, but they weren't faded and dull, and they missed nothing.
True, his body had lost some of its strength from age and lack of exercise, but his real power had always come from his mind. And as Cole had discovered tonight, his mind was as sharp and fit as ever.
In the next few days, Cole would find solutions that would suit his uncle and himself and solve everything. In the morning he would start a vigorous search for some sort of new or updated treatment for his uncle's condition. New medical treatments were being discovered every day, and old, effective ones that had been discarded were being rediscovered. If he'd known sooner that his uncle's heart condition wasn't staying the same or even improving, he'd have been looking hard for solutions already.
He had always found solutions, Cole remembered.
Finding solutions to seemingly insoluble problems was one of the things he did best. It was a knack that had helped bring him wealth and success beyond even his own wildest dreams.
Sleep pressed down on his eyelids as he lay in the plain, unadorned bedroom where, as a boy, he had dreamed of his life as a man. There was something about the monastic simplicity of the small room that had encouraged him to dream big dreams in his youth. Now, in his adulthood, the room soothed and lifted his spirits. Cole owned homes and apartments all over the world, all of them with spacious bedrooms furnished with large beds in a variety of shapes, but he was already falling asleep more quickly here than he'd been able to do elsewhere in years.
He decided the room itself still had some sort of mystical, uplifting effect on him, much as it always had.
Peace settled over him and followed him into his dreams, just as it always had when he slept here.
The window was open and a sliver of moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains, turning them into shiny silken webs that drifted weightlessly on a flower-scented breeze. The air seemed fresher here, just as it always had.
In the morning, when he was well-rested, he would be better able to think and plan and solve. For now, the walls of the room, with their familiar framed pictures, seemed to surround him and shelter him, just as they always did whenever Cole slept there.
On the nightstand beside the bed, an old alarm clock ticked with the loud, steady rhythm of a heartbeat, lulling him further asleep, reminding him that time was passing and things would look better in the morning, just as they always did whenever Cole slept there.
Sometime later, Cole rolled onto his stomach, and the sheet lifted magically, covering his bare shoulders, just as it always seemed to during the night, whenever Cole slept there.
Beside the bed, Calvin Downing gazed down at his sleeping nephew, frowning at the deep lines of tension and weariness etched at the corners of Cole's eyes and the sides of his mouth. He spoke to the sleeping man, his voice lower than the whisper of the curtains drifting against the window, his words low and soothing, tinged with gruff emotion, just as they always were whenever he came in to check on his nephew and felt the need to tell him in his sleep what he could not say to him while he was awake. 'You've already accomplished what most men only dream of doing,' Cal whispered. 'You've already proved to everyone that you can do anything you set out to do. You don't have to keep pushing yourself anymore, Cole.'
The sleeping man stirred and turned his head away, but his breathing remained deep, peaceful.
'Things will look better in the morning,' Calvin promised him softly, just as he always did whenever Cole slept there. 'I love you, son.'
Chapter 17
Traffic on the interstate between Houston Intercontinental Airport and downtown Houston was heavy for five p.m. on a Saturday, but the chauffeur maneuvered the long black Mercedes limousine skillfully from lane to lane in a graceful, daring dance of speed, power, and timing.
Heedless of the driver's efforts on his behalf, Cole sat in the backseat, poring over a thick, detailed analysis of the complexities involved in having Unified participate with other corporations in a collaborative effort with the Russians to put a gas pipeline through to the Black Sea. He did not look up until the car glided to a stop beneath the green canopy at the entrance of the Grand Balmoral Hotel and a uniformed doorman appeared beside his window. Reluctantly, Cole put the report in his briefcase and got out.
On the right of the lobby was a grand staircase that swept upward to a wide mezzanine that circled and overlooked it. In preparation for the White Orchid Ball's
The hotel's manager spotted Cole and hurried down the steps to introduce himself; then he insisted on escorting Cole to the Regent Suite as soon as he'd finished registering. 'If there is anything we can do to make your stay with us more pleasant—anything at all—please let me know, Mr. Harrison,' he said as he bowed himself out the door.
'I'll do that,' Cole said absently, as unimpressed by this special deferential treatment as he was by the magnificent five-room suite with its mauve-and-gold Louis XV furnishings and spectacular view of the Houston skyline. He spent a good part of his life conducting business in luxury hotels all over the globe, and in little more than a decade, he had come to expect the best—and to take it completely for granted.
Having refused the manager's offer to have a maid unpack for him, Cole handed the departing bellman a tip for carrying up his luggage; then he took off his jacket and tie, loosened the top buttons of his white shirt, and walked over to the bar in the living room, where he fixed himself a gin and tonic. He carried it past the fireplace to a pair of doors that opened out onto a balcony and stepped outside. The outdoor temperature was in the mid- nineties, but the humidity that normally made Houston into a steam bath during the summers was absent, and Cole stood at the railing looking out across the city he had called home during college. He'd been to Houston on business a few times in the intervening years, but he'd never spent the night there, and perhaps for that reason, he was suddenly struck by the enormous difference between the style of his departure from Houston fourteen years ago and that of his 'homecoming' today.
He had left Houston by bus the day after he graduated from college, carrying all his worldly possessions in a nylon duffel bag and wearing a pair of faded jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of worn-out, scuffed boots. He had arrived today by private jet, wearing a $7,000 Brioni suit, $600 Cole-Haan loafers, and carrying a $1,500 briefcase. When his plane taxied to a stop in the hangar, a chauffeur had been waiting beside a limousine with its engine idling, ready to whisk him to the Balmoral. He was as accustomed to VIP treatment wherever he went as he was to private jets, penthouse suites, and come-hither looks from glamorous women.
He thought back to that ten-hour bus ride from Houston to Jeffersonville and remembered it as clearly as if it were last week. The day after his graduation, he'd boarded the first bus north to his uncle's ranch (the bus had been a concession to thrift-minded Cal, who, despite his lucrative oil wells, still regarded plane travel as an inexcusable waste of good money). On the day he boarded that bus, Cole's practically only remaining possessions were the clothes he was wearing.
Beyond that, all he owned were the few items in his duffel bag—and his dreams. The duffel bag was small and plain, but his dreams were big and elaborate. Extremely big. Extraordinarily elaborate. Seated beside an old man who belched at regular intervals, Cole had gazed out the window at the River Oaks mansions parading past, and he had indulged himself with fantasies of returning to Houston someday, rich and powerful.
