by Janet Dailey
“Now, I disagree.” There was a negative tip of his head. “The simplest thing would be to let the present arrangement stand. This suite comes with two separate beds, and there’s more than enough room for both of us.” The corners of his mouth deepened in the suggestion of a dryly amused smile.
All sorts of images flashed through her mind—the prospect of lying in one twin bed knowing he was in the other, bathing with him in the next room, wakening in the morning as he was dressing. Rachel was disturbed by the direction of her own imagination.
It made her rejection that much stronger. “I think not.”
“Why?” Behind the calmness of his question she could see that he was amused by her curt dismissal of the idea. “It could be interesting.”
“I don’t think that is the word I would use to describe it,” she replied stiffly. “But it hardly matters, since I have no intention of sharing my cabin with you.”
“Somehow I knew that would be your answer,” Gard murmured dryly and set his empty glass down to walk to the telephone. She watched him pick up the receiver and dial a number. “This is MacKinley in 347 on the Promenade Deck,” he said into the mouthpiece, sliding a glance at Rachel. “We have a rather awkward situation here. You’d better have the purser come up.” The response must have been an affirmative one because a moment later he was ringing off. “Until it’s decided whose cabin this will be, may I offer you a drink?” Gard gestured toward the wet bar, offering her its selection.
“No, thank you.” The urge was strong to pace the room. The purser couldn’t arrive soon enough and rectify this whole mess as far as Rachel was concerned, but she tried to control her impatience.
Gard took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, then hesitated. “Cigarette?” He shook one partway out of the pack and offered it to her.
“No, I don’t smoke but go right ahead.” She motioned for him to smoke if he wished.
He gave her a look of mock reproval. “You don’t drink. You don’t smoke. You don’t share your cabin with strange men. You must lead a very pure . . . and dull life.” A wickedly teasing light danced in his eyes.
“So others have informed me,” Rachel acknowledged and wondered where her sense of humor had gone. Half the reason Gard MacKinley was making these baiting remarks was because she kept snapping at them. She was handling the situation poorly, and she wasn’t too pleased about it.
A silence followed, broken only by the strike of a match and a long breath expelling smoke into the air. The quiet was nearly as unnerving to Rachel as the conversation had been.
Gard seemed to take pity on her and asked a casual question. “Is this your first cruise?”
“Yes.” Rachel tried to think of something to add to the answer, but her mind was blank.
“Are you traveling alone or do you have friends aboard?”. He filled in the gap she’d left with another question.
“No, I’m alone,” she admitted. “I don’t know a soul.”
“You know me,” Gard reminded her.
“Yes, I do—now.” She was uncomfortable, but how could she be natural with him when they had met so unnaturally?
The knock at the door startled Rachel even though she’d been listening for it. She pressed a hand to her stomach as if to check its sudden lurch. Before she could move to answer it, Gard was swinging across the room to open the door.
“Hello, Gard. It’s damned fine to see you again, boy.” The officer greeted him with a hearty welcome, clasping his arm as he shook his hand. “Hank told me you were aboard this trip.”
“Come in, Jake.” Gard escorted the officer into the sitting room.
He was a short, rounded man with full cheeks and a jovial, beaming smile. When he noticed Rachel in the room, his blue eyes brightened with interest and he removed his hat, tucking it under his arm.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
“Both Mr. MacKinley and I have been given this cabin,” Rachel explained in an even voice. “But we aren’t married.”
“Even though the British pride themselves on running a taut ship, I doubt if Jake would be either shocked or surprised by such an announcement,” Gard informed her dryly, then glanced at the officer. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t introduce you. Meet Mrs. Gardner MacKinley.”
“Mrs. MacKinley?” he repeated and frowned as if he were sure he hadn’t heard right. “But she just said you weren’t married.” He pointed a finger at Rachel. “Are you divorced? I don’t even recall Hank telling me that you’d ever been married.”
“I haven’t.” Gard assured him on that score. “Rachel and I merely share the same name. Unfortunately she doesn’t wish to share the same cabin with me.” His amused glance danced over to her.
She reddened slightly but managed to keep her poise. “Evidently Mr. MacKinley and I made our separate reservations at approximately the same time, and someone must have assumed that we were man and wife.”
“I see how it could happen, all right.” The officer nodded and raised his eyebrows. “Well, this is a bit awkward.”
“What other staterooms do you have available?” Gard asked.
“That’s the problem,” he admitted reluctantly. “There aren’t any comparable accommodations available. All the suites are taken, and the deluxe outside rooms. The only thing I have empty are some inside staterooms on Fiesta Deck.”
“Is that all?” An eyebrow was lifted on a faintly grim expression.
“That’s about it.” A light flashed in the man’s eyes, a thought occurring to him. “Maybe not.” He took back his answer and moved to the telephone. “Let me check something,” he said as he dialed a number.
Feeling the tension in the air, Rachel strained to hear his conversation, but his voice was pitched too low for her to pick out the words. With his back turned to them, she couldn’t even watch his lips. When the officer hung up the phone and turned around, he was smiling.
“The owner’s suite is empty this cruise,” he informed them. “It’s on the Bridge Deck where the officers are quartered. Under the circumstances I can’t offer it to Mrs. MacKinley, since it might not look right to have an attractive and unattached woman staying in their area, but you’re welcome to it, Gard.”
“I accept. And I’m sure Mrs. MacKinley appreciates your concern for her good reputation,” he added with a mocking glance in her direction.
He was making her feel like a prude, which she certainly wasn’t. The gray of her eyes became shot with a silvery fire of anger, but Rachel didn’t retaliate with any sort of denial. It would only add to his considerable store of ammunition.
“I’ll arrange for the room steward to bring your luggage topside to the owner’s suite,” Jake offered. “In the meantime I’ll show you to your quarters.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t get around to unpacking. My suitcases are sitting in the bedroom.” Gard turned and faced her. “It was a pleasure sharing the cabin with you—for however short a period of time. Maybe we can try it again sometime.”
“I’m sure you’d like that.” Her smile was tinged with a wide-eyed sweetness. At last she’d found her quick tongue, which could answer back his deliberately teasing remarks.
“I’m sure I would,” Gard murmured, a new appreciation of her flashing across his expression along with a hint of curiosity.
With his departure the room suddenly seemed very empty and very large. The sharp tang of his after-shave lotion lingered in the air, tantalizing her nose with its decidedly masculine scent. After his stimulating presence there was a decidedly let-down feeling. Rachel picked up the glass he’d drunk from and carried it into the bathroom, where she dumped the watery ice cubes into the sink and rinsed out the glass.
The piped-in music on the radio speakers was interrupted by a ship announcement. “Dinner is now being served in the Coral Dining Room for late-sitting guests.” The words were slowly and carefully enunciated by a man with a heavy Italian accent. “Buon appetite”. The bell-
sweet notes of a chime played out a short melody that accompanied the end of the announcement.
But Rachel had no intention of going to dinner until the steward came for Gard’s luggage. She didn’t want any of her suitcases being accidentally taken to his cabin and have that mix-up on top of the duplicate cabin assignment.
A few minutes later the steward knocked at the door. Curiosity was in his look, but he never asked anything. As soon as Rachel had supervised the removal of Gard’s luggage, she freshened her makeup, brushed her waving black hair, and put the white jacket on.
When she arrived at the dining room on the Coral Deck, the majority of the passengers had already been seated. Tonight they weren’t expected to sit at their assigned table. Since she was arriving late, Rachel requested one of the single tables.
After she’d given the dark-eyed Italian waiter her order, her gaze searched the large dining room, unconsciously looking for Gard. Only when she failed to see a familiar face did she realize she’d been looking for him. She immediately ended the search and concentrated on enjoying the superb meal she was served.
Upon entering the cabin on her return from the dining room, Rachel discovered that the steward had been in the room during her absence. The drapes at the window were pulled against the rising of a morning sun and one of the beds was turned down. There was a copy of the next day’s Princess Patter on the table with its schedule of events.
Briefly she glanced through it, then walked to the closet to take out her suitcases and begin the tedious business of unpacking. It was late when she finally crawled into bed, much later than she had anticipated retiring on her first night at sea. There was little motion of the ship, the waters smooth and calm.
In the darkness of the cabin her gaze strayed to the twin bed opposite from the one she lay in. Its coral spread was smoothed flatly and precisely over the mattress and pillows. Its emptiness seemed to taunt her. She shut her eyes.
The February sky was blushed with the color of the late-rising sun as Rachel opened the drapes to let the outside light spill into her cabin. According to her watch, it was a few minutes after seven. It seemed that the habit of rising early was not easy to break even when she could sleep late.
She paused a moment at the window to gaze at the gold reflection of the sunlight on the sea’s serene surface, then walked to the closet and began to go over her choices of clothes. Her breakfast sitting wouldn’t be until half past eight, but coffee was available on the Sun Deck. Although it would probably be warm later in the day, it would likely be cool outside at this early hour of the morning. Rachel tried to select what to wear with that in mind.
A gentle knock came at her door, just loud enough to be heard and quiet enough not to disturb her if she was still sleeping. Rachel tightened the sash of her ivory silk nightrobe as she went to answer the door. A few minutes earlier she had heard the room steward in the passageway outside her stateroom. She expected to see him when she opened the door.
She certainly didn’t expect to see Gard MacKinley lounging indolently in her doorway, a forearm braced nonchalantly against its frame. He was dressed in jogging shorts and shoes, a loose-fitting sweatshirt covering his muscled shoulders and chest. Rachel wasn’t prepared for the sight of him—or the sight of his long legs, all hard flesh and corded muscle.
The upward-pulled corners of his mouth hinted at a smile while the warm light in his brown eyes wandered over her. Rachel was immediately conscious of her less than presentable appearance. The static cling of her robe’s silk material shaped itself to her body and outlined every curve. Her face had been scrubbed clean of all makeup the night before, and she hadn’t even brushed her sleep-rumpled hair, its tousled thickness curling in disorder against her face and neck.
Before she could check the impulse, she lifted a hand and smoothed a part of the tangle, then kept her hand there to grip the back of her neck. The suggestion of a smile on his mouth deepened at her action, a light dancing in his look.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Gard advised her with a lazy intonation of his voice. “You look beautiful.”
With that, he straightened, drawing his arm away from the frame and moving forward. Her instinctive response was to move out of his way and maintain a distance between herself and his blatantly male form. Too late, Rachel realized that she should have attempted to close the door to her cabin instead of stepping back to admit him. By then his smooth strides had already carried him past her into the sitting room. It was this lapse on her part that made her face him so stiffly.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
There was an interested and measuring flicker of light in his eyes as he idly scanned her face. He seemed to stand back a little, in that silent way he had of observing people and their reactions.
“I made a mistake yesterday evening when I said I hadn’t unpacked,” Gard replied evenly. “I’d forgotten that I’d taken out my shaving kit so I could clean up before going to dinner. I didn’t discover it until late last night. Somehow”—a hint of a mocking twinkle entered his eyes—“I had the feeling you’d get the wrong idea if I had come knocking on your door around midnight.”
“You’re mistaken about the shaving kit.” Rachel ignored his comments and dealt directly with the issue. “You didn’t leave it here. I unpacked all my things last night and I didn’t find anything of yours while I was putting mine away.”
“You must not have looked everywhere because I left it in the bathroom.” He was unconvinced by her denial that it wasn’t in the cabin.
“Well, you didn’t—” But Rachel didn’t have a chance to continue her assertion because Gard was already walking to the bathroom door. She hurried after him, irritated that he should take it upon himself to search for it. “You have no right to go in there.”
“I know you won’t be shocked if I tell you that I’ve probably seen the full range of feminine toiletries in my time,” he murmured dryly and paid no attention to her protests, walking right into the bathroom.
Rachel stopped outside the door, her fingers gripping the edge of the frame, and looked in. The bathroom was comfortably spacious, but she still didn’t intend to find herself in such close quarters with him.
“You look for yourself,” she challenged, since he intended to do just that anyway. “You’ll see it’s not here.”
He cast her a smiling look, then reached down and pulled open a drawer by the sink. It was a drawer she hadn’t opened because she hadn’t needed the space. When she looked inside, there was a man’s brown shaving kit.
“Here it is—just where I left it,” he announced, dark brows arching over his amused glance.
“So it is.” Rachel was forced to admit it, a resentful gray look in her eyes. “I guess I never looked in that drawer.”
“I guess you didn’t,” Gard agreed smoothly—so smoothly it was almost mocking.
He half turned and leaned a hip against the sink, shifting his weight to one foot. A quiver of vague alarm went through Rachel as she realized that he showed no signs of leaving either her cabin or her bathroom. There was a slow, assessing travel of his gaze over her.
“How long will it take you to dress and fix your hair?” he asked.
“Why?”
“So I’ll know what time to meet you topside for some morning coffee.”
“It won’t make any difference how long it takes for me to get dressed, since I won’t be meeting you for coffee,” Rachel replied, stung that he was so positive she would agree.
“Why?” he asked in a reasonable tone.
“It hardly matters.” She swung impatiently away from the bathroom door, the silken material of her long robe swishing faintly as she moved to the center of the sitting room. When she heard him following her, Rachel whirled around, the robe swinging to hug her long legs. “Hasn’t anyone ever turned down an invitation from you?”
“It’s happened,” Gard conceded. “But usually they gave a reason if only to be polite. And I just wondered what yours is?
”
Her features hardened with iron control. Only her eyes blazed to show the anger within. “Perhaps I’m tired of men assuming that I’m so lonely I’ll accept the most casual invitation. Every man I meet immediately assumes that because I’m a widow I’m desperate for male companionship.” Her scathing glance raked him, putting him in the same category. “They’re positive I’ll jump at the chance to share a bed with them—or a cabin—just because they can fill out a pair of pants. According to them, I’m supposed to be frustrated sexually.”
It didn’t soothe her temper to have him stand there and listen to her tirade so calmly. “Are you?” Gard inquired blandly.
For an instant Rachel was too incensed to speak. The question wasn’t worthy of an answer, so she hurled an accusation at him instead. “You’re no better than the others! It may come as a shock to you, but I’d like to know something about a man besides the size of his shorts before I’m invited into his bed!”
She was trembling from the force of her anger and the sudden release of so much bitterness that had been bottled up inside. She turned away from him to hide her shaking, not wanting him to mistake it as a sign of weakness.
“What does meeting for coffee have to do with going to bed together?” he wondered. “Or has your experience with men since your husband died been such that you don’t accept any invitations?” There was a slight pause before he asked, “Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life?”
The quiet wording of his question seemed to pierce through the barriers she had erected and exposed the need she’d kept behind it. She wanted to love someone again and share her life with him. She didn’t want to keep her feelings locked up inside, never giving them to anyone.
When she swung her gaze to look at him, her gray eyes were stark with longing. She had lived in loneliness for so long that she hadn’t noticed when it had stopped being grief. His dark gaze narrowed suddenly, recognizing the emotion in her expression. Rachel turned away before she showed him too much of the ache she was feeling.
