Separate Cabins

by Janet Dailey

  “That’s too bad,” he growled and pushed her into a large, executive-styled office with windows on two sides and a healthy collection of potted plants. “Because you’re going to hear it anyway.” The door was shut with a resounding click of the latch.

  The minute he let go of her, Rachel moved to the center of the room and stopped short of the long oak desk. She was hurting inside and it showed in the wary gray of her eyes. When he came toward her, she stiffened noticeably. His mouth thinned into a grim line and he continued by her to the desk. He picked up the phone and pushed a button.

  “Tell Carol to come in and give me a report on her progress so far,” Gard instructed and hung up.

  Turning, he leaned against the desk and rested a hip on the edge of it. His level gaze continued to bore into Rachel as he folded his arms and waited silently. Long seconds later there was a light rap on the door.

  “Come in.” He lifted his voice, granting permission to enter.

  A young brunette, obviously Carol, walked in with a pen and notepad in her hand. Her glance darted to Rachel, then swung apprehensively to her employer.

  “I’m sorry, but I still haven’t been able to locate her,” she began her report with an apology. “A couple of people have recognized the name as someone in the business, but they couldn’t refer me to anyone. I’m almost through the L’s in the Yellow Pages. I never realized there were so many furniture stores in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles.”

  It was Rachel’s turn to stare at Gard, searching his face to make sure she was placing the right meaning on all this. A look of hard satisfaction mixed with the anger smoldering in his eyes.

  “Thank you, Carol,” he said to the young girl. “You don’t have to make any more calls.”

  “Sir?” She looked worried that he was taking the task from her because she hadn’t made any progress.

  “Since you’ve spent so much time on this, I thought you should meet Rachel MacKinley.” Gard gestured to indicate Rachel.

  “You found her!” Her sudden smile of surprise was also partly relief.

  “Yes.” He let the girl’s assumption stand for the time being while his gaze remained on Rachel. “By the way, Rachel, would you mind telling Carol the name of your furniture company?”

  It was suddenly very difficult to speak. Her throat was all tight with emotion. It was obvious that Gard had been looking for her, but she still had some doubts about what that meant.

  “The Country House.” She supplied the name in a voice that was taut and husky.

  “The T’s.” The girl shook her head in faint amazement.

  “Thank you, Carol. That will be all.” Gard dismissed the girl. There was another long silence while she exited the private office. “Now do you believe that I’ve been trying to locate you?” he challenged when they were alone again.

  “Yes.” It seemed best to keep her answer simple and not jump to any more conclusions.

  “I jotted my flight schedules on the back of the slip of paper you gave me with your address and phone numbers on it. It was late when I arrived back in L. A. I didn’t pay close attention to what was in my shirt pockets when I emptied them. All I saw were the flight schedules on the paper. I didn’t need them anymore, so I threw the paper away. It wasn’t until a couple of days later when I was looking for your phone number that I realized what had happened. By then my cleaning lady had already been in and emptied the wastebaskets.”

  The explanation was delivered in a calm, relatively flat voice. It was a statement of fact that told Rachel nothing about his feelings toward her. Nothing in his look or his attitude offered encouragement.

  “I see,” she murmured and lowered her gaze to the beige carpet, searching its thick threads as if they held a clue.

  “Information informed me that you had a private, unlisted number, so that only left me with the fact that you owned a furniture company,” Gard stated. “I pulled one of the junior typists out of the pool and had her start to phone all the stores listed under the furniture section of the Yellow Pages and ask for you.”

  “I thought it was possible that you had somehow lost my number,” Rachel admitted slowly. “That’s why I came by today.”

  “But you also thought it was possible that I didn’t intend to call you,” he accused.

  There was a defiant lift of her chin as she met his unwavering gaze. “It was possible.”

  His chest expanded on a deep, almost angry breath that was heavily released. Gard looked away from her for an instant, then slid his glance back.

  “I won’t ask why you thought it was possible. I’m liable to lose my temper and break that pretty neck of yours,” he muttered, his jaw tightly clenched. “Is it fair to say that you understand why I haven’t called you before now?”

  “Yes.” Rachel nodded.

  “Good.” Unfolding his arms, he straightened from the desk. “Now, let’s see if we can’t clear up this matter about Brenda.”

  “I’d rather just forget it,” she insisted, her breath running deep and agitated. “It’s none of my business.”

  “To a point, you’re absolutely right. And if you hadn’t insulted Brenda by the implication of your accusations against me, I wouldn’t explain a damned thing to you,” he informed her roughly. “She buried her husband last week. She puts up a good front, but she’s hurting and lonely. Damnit, you should know the feeling! There are times when it helps her to have people around her who were close to Bud. He was my friend as well as my law partner.”

  “I’m sorry.” Rachel felt bad about the thoughts she’d had when she’d seen Gard with that attractive woman—and the things she’d said, out of hurt, when he had explained who the woman was. “I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  “You couldn’t have jumped to that conclusion if you hadn’t already decided that I didn’t care about seeing you again,” he countered.

  “I hadn’t decided that,” she denied.

  “I’d forgotten,” Gard eyed her lazily. “You were prepared to give me the benefit of reasonable doubt. That’s why you came to see me, isn’t it?”

  “Something like that, yes!” Rachel snapped, not liking the feeling of being on the witness stand. “You could have lost my number and I had to know!”

  “Yet you were also willing to believe that I had just been stringing you along during the cruise, and that I didn’t have any feelings toward you.”

  “It was possible,” she insisted. “How could I be sure what kind of man you are? I haven’t known you that long.”

  “How long do you have to know someone before you can love them?” Gard demanded, coming over to stand in front of her. “Two weeks? Two months? Two years? I recall distinctly that you said you loved me. Didn’t you mean it?”

  “Yes.” Reluctantly she pushed the angry word out.

  “Then why is it so hard for you to accept that I love you?” he challenged.

  She flashed him a resentful look. “Because you never said you did.”

  He stared at her for a long minute. “I must have said it at least a thousand times—every time I looked at you and touched you and held you.” The insistence of his voice became intimately low.

  “You never said it,” Rachel repeated with considerably less force. “Not in so many words.”

  His eyes lightened with warm bemusement as a smile curved his lips. “Rachel, I love you,” he said as if repeating it by rote. “There you have it ‘in so many words.’”

  It hurt almost as much for him to say the words without any feeling. She started to turn away. A low chuckle came from his throat as his arms went around her and gathered her into their tightening circle. She started to elude his mouth but it closed on her lips too quickly.

  The persuasive ardor of his warm, possessive kiss melted away her stiffness. Her hands went around his neck as she let the urgency of loving him sweep through her. With wildly sweet certainty Rachel knew she had come home. She lived in the love he gave her, which completed her as a person the same w
ay her love completed him.

  “You crazy little fool,” he muttered near her ear while he kept her crushed in his arms. “I was half in love with you from the beginning. It didn’t take much of a push to make me fall the rest of the way.”

  “You knew even then?” She pulled back a little to see his face because she found it incredible that he could have been so sure of his feelings almost from the start.

  “Admit it,” he chided her. “We were attracted to each other from the beginning. You saw me when I arrived, just the same way I noticed you sitting there outside the terminal.”

  “That’s true,” Rachel conceded.

  “When you came strolling into what I thought was my cabin and claimed to be Mrs. Gardner MacKinley, I thought it was some practical joke of Hank’s and he’d put you up to the charade. Despite your convincing talk about the reissued ticket, I still didn’t believe you until you became so indignant at the thought of sharing the cabin with me. I could tell that wasn’t an act.”

  “And I couldn’t understand how you could take it all so lightly,” she remembered.

  “That’s just about the time I started to tumble,” Gard informed her, brushing his mouth over her cheek and temple as if he didn’t want to break contact with her even to talk. “I was intrigued by the idea of sharing a cabin with you and fascinated by the thought that you were Mrs. Gardner MacKinley. I didn’t even want to correct people when they mistook you for my wife.”

  “Neither did I,” she admitted, laughing at the discovery that he’d fel* the same.

  “Remember the cocktail party?” He nibbled at the edge of her lip while his hands tested the feel of her body arched to his length.

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “When I introduced you as Mrs. MacKinley, that’s when I knew for certain that was who I wanted you to be—my wife. She was no longer some faceless woman I hadn’t met. She was you—standing in the same room with me—and already possessing my name.” He lifted his head about an inch above her lips. “Are you convinced now that I love you?”

  “Yes.” She was filled with the knowledge, its golden light spreading through every inch of her body.

  “Then let’s make it legal before something else separates us,” he urged.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “It’s about time,” he muttered and covered her mouth with a long kiss, not giving her a chance to worry about anything but loving him.

  JANET DAILEY is the author of scores of popular, uniquely American novels, including the bestselling The Glory Game; Silver Wings, Santiago Blue; The Pride of Hannah Wade; and the phenomenal CALDER SAGA. Since her first novel was published in 1975, Janet Dailey has become the bestselling female author in America, with more than three hundred million copies of her books in print. Her books have been published in 17 languages and are sold in 90 different countries. Janet Dailey’s careful research and her intimate knowledge of America have made her one of the best-loved authors in the country—and around the world.