Snowflakes on the Sea

by Linda Lael Miller

  Mallory closed her eyes and swallowed the burning sickness that scalded in her throat. These things happen all the time, one part of her mind argued calmly. It’s gossip, it’s trash—

  “Mallory.” Nathan’s voice broke through the fog of pain and betrayal that surrounded her. This is no cheap scandal sheet. It’s an important newspaper—

  “Mallory!”

  She felt the angry, frightened strength of Nathan’s hands as he grasped her shoulders, and opened her eyes to see the torment in his face. “Who is she?” she whispered.

  Nathan flinched as though she’d struck him, and drew back. Head down, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his gray flannel slacks, and an awesome tension tightened the muscles in his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Mallory cried out, wounded. Then, remembering the reporters who were no doubt still lurking outside, anxious to grasp any tidbit, she lowered her voice. “Nathan, damn you, start talking!”

  As if insulted, he thrust the newspaper at her. “Read it for yourself,” he snarled. “And then you’ll know as much about it as I do!”

  Hoping that she could trust her hands, Mallory unfolded the newspaper, winced inwardly as she read the headline again, and then turned her attention to the picture and article beneath it. The photograph showed Nathan standing in a crowd of delighted girls, clad in the flowing silk shirt and fitted trousers he customarily wore on stage. His arm curved easily around the waist of one particularly voluptuous young lady, and he was smiling.

  Mallory forced herself to read the words printed below. Eighteen-year-old Renee Parker, of Eagle Falls, Washington, has named singer Nathan McKendrick in a paternity suit, claiming that she and McKendrick have been intimately involved on a number of occasions. This alliance, says the attractive young waitress, has resulted in the conception of…

  Mallory could read no further. A soft cry of outraged pain echoed in the room, and she realized that it was her own.

  “Read the rest of it,” Nathan ordered, his voice a taut, anguished rasp, his arms folded across his chest.

  She shook her head. “No—no, I can’t.”

  “It ends with, ‘Mr. McKendrick was unavailable for comment, according to his press agent, Diane Vincent.’ Mallory, does that tell you anything?”

  The tumult outside the office seemed to be building to a crescendo, rather than waning. Apparently, George had been unsuccessful in his efforts to get rid of the press.

  “Eighteen,” Mallory whispered, as though Nathan hadn’t spoken. “Oh, my God, Nathan, she’s only eighteen.”

  Nathan’s magnificent features were flushed with outraged color, and a vein at the base of his throat pulsed ominously. “God in heaven, Mallory, you don’t seriously think—”

  Before he could finish, there was an imperious knocking at the door, and Pat’s voice rang out over the clamor in the lobby. “Nathan—Mallory! Let me in!”

  After one scathing glance at Mallory, Nathan unlocked the door, easily this time, to admit his sister.

  She spared a sympathetic look for her brother and then turned her attention to a stricken Mallory. “I see this morning’s fast-breaking news story didn’t go over well. Nate, I’ve talked to the press. They’ll let Mallory pass if you’ll answer some of their questions. If you don’t, they’re prepared to hang around until Nixon gets reelected.”

  Nathan’s dark eyes, charged with fury only a moment before, were dull with pain as they linked again with Mallory’s. “Tell them they have a deal,” he said, in a voice his wife hardly recognized. “Just get Mallory out of here.”

  Five minutes later, Mallory and a very confused Cinnamon were in the safe confines of Pat’s bright yellow Mustang, on their way to her condominium overlooking Lake Washington.

  Pat looked pale as she navigated the slushy streets, and her knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel. “You know, I hope,” she ventured, after they’d traveled some distance, “that that newspaper article is libelous?”

  Libel. Mallory might have laughed if she hadn’t felt as though everything within her was crumbling. “That’s no gossip rag, Pat,” she said brokenly. “It’s a responsible, highly respected newspaper.”

  Pat said a very unladylike word. “You innocent. Are you telling me that you bought that garbage?”

  “I don’t know,” Mallory admitted honestly, her eyes fixed on the blurred houses and businesses moving past the car window. And it was true—at that moment, she couldn’t have said whether she believed Nathan to be innocent or guilty. She was still in shock.

  There was a long, painful silence. Pat finally broke it with an impatient, “Do you want to go to the island, Mallory? To Trish or Kate? I could take you there right now—”

  Mallory shook her head quickly. The island might have offered sanctuary during any other crisis, but, for the moment, it held no appeal at all. She wouldn’t be able to think clearly there or in any other place she’d lived with Nathan. “You could do me one favor, though,” she said tentatively, and the softening in Pat’s face was comforting.

  “What’s that?”

  Mallory reached back and patted the fitful dog filling the car’s back seat. “Take Cinnamon back to the island. Trish will look after her.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay—while I’m gone, I mean? Nathan might be busy for a while.”

  “I need some time alone,” she said, and knew that her eyes were imploring Pat. “C-could you keep Nathan away f-for a few days?”

  Pat sighed as she turned into the driveway of her condo. “I’ll try, Mallory. But he knows where you are, and he’s going to be very anxious to settle this.”

  Glumly, Mallory nodded. “I know, but I don’t want to talk to him now. I’ve got to think—”

  “You can’t run away from this, Mallory,” Pat said not unkindly as she turned off the car’s engine and pulled the keys from the ignition. “Rotten as it is, it’s real, and avoiding your husband won’t make it go away.”

  “Three days,” Mallory pleaded. “Please—just three days.”

  Pat shrugged, but her blue eyes were filled with worry and reluctance. “All right, Mall—I’ll plead your case. Just remember that I can’t promise he won’t come storming over here to have it out with you.”

  Half an hour later, Mallory had her wish—temporarily, anyway. She was alone in Pat’s airy, sun-brightened condo, without even Cinnamon to disturb her churning thoughts.

  She paced the sumptuously carpeted living room for some minutes after Pat’s departure, looking blindly out at the view of Lake Washington. Despite the miserable weather of the past few days, or perhaps because of it, the azure water was dotted with the colorful sails of several sleek pleasure boats.

  Mallory was honestly surprised to discover that there were tears sliding down her face. Angry with herself, she brushed them away and approached the telephone. After a short, awkward conversation with a discerning Trish—surely the newspaper article was common knowledge on the island, too, by now—she replaced the receiver and wandered to the sofa. Bless her, Trish had asked no questions, probably sensing that Mallory couldn’t bear to talk about the impending lawsuit just yet, and she’d promised to look after Cinnamon.

  The telephone rang shrilly, startling Mallory, and she debated whether to answer it or ignore it. She didn’t want to talk to Nathan yet, and she certainly didn’t want to speak with any reporters, but this was Pat’s telephone and it was most likely that the call was unrelated to Mallory’s personal problems.

  She answered with a spiritless, one-word greeting, and nearly hung up when she heard Nathan’s voice.

  “Babe, are you all right?”

  Oh, I’m wonderful. You’ve made some groupie pregnant and she’s telling the world and who could ask for anything more? “I’m fine,” she lied. “How about you?”

  He made an irritated, raspy sound. “I don’t need the light repartee right now, sweetheart,” he replied tartly. “I know what you’re
thinking.”

  “Then you know I need time, Nathan. Time and space.”

  “I’m not the father of that girl’s baby, Mallory.”

  Tears were coursing down Mallory’s face again, and she was glad of only one thing in the world—that Nathan couldn’t see her crying. She wanted so desperately to believe him, but she was afraid to; it would be too shattering to find out later that he’d lied. “D-don’t, Nathan—not now. I’m so tired and so confused—”

  His sigh was a broken, despondent sound. “All right. All right—just don’t forget that I love you, Mallory, and that I don’t sell out people who trust me.”

  Mallory nodded, realizing that he couldn’t see her. “I’ll call you in a few days, Nathan—I promise.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  She thought for a moment—it was so difficult to accomplish even the simplest mental processes with her mind in such a turmoil. “My car. Could you have George bring my car?”

  “Sure,” he said, and Mallory was grateful that he didn’t offer to deliver it himself. “Take care, pumpkin.”

  “I will,” Mallory whispered, and her hand shook as she replaced the telephone receiver.

  Twenty minutes later, George delivered Mallory’s Mazda, handed over the keys without comment and left again in a taxi. Mallory made her way to Pat’s guest bath, took a shower and appropriated a cozy-looking chenille bathrobe from her sister-in-law’s bedroom closet.

  She was curled up on the living room sofa again, trying to read, when Pat returned. With typical thoughtfulness, she’d stopped at the penthouse for a suitcase full of Mallory’s clothes.

  “Did you hear from Nathan?” she asked without preamble, setting the suitcase down at Mallory’s feet.

  Mallory nodded, but was, for the moment, speechless. Why in hell did she feel so guilty, when it was Nathan who had stirred up an ugly scandal, Nathan who had been the betrayer? Or had he? She saw an angry defense of him brewing in Pat’s dark blue eyes.

  “He was in pretty bad shape when I left him a few minutes ago, Mall.”

  Mallory felt a swift and searing fury flash through her battered spirit, but the emotion was tempered with self-doubt. Suppose Renee Parker’s paternity charge was trumped up, as so many such cases involving celebrities were? Suppose Nathan was as innocent a victim as Mallory herself?

  “Be more specific, Pat. ‘Pretty bad shape’ is a broad phrase.”

  Pat pulled off her coat in angry motions and tossed it aside. Then she sank into a chair facing Mallory’s and glared at her sister-in-law. “Will ‘dead drunk’ do? Damn it, Mallory, you’re putting the man through hell for something he didn’t do!” Sudden tears brimmed up in the blue eyes and then spilled over. “He’s my brother and I love him and I can’t stand what this is doing to him!”

  Mallory shivered. Nathan, drunk? She’d never seen him intoxicated even once, in all the time that they’d been married, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how he would look or sound in such a state. “Pat,” she asserted, “you’re not being fair! I’m not trying to hurt Nathan—”

  Quickly, Pat reached out, caught Mallory’s hand in her own. “I know, Mall—I know. It’s just that—well—”

  “I understand. A-are you sure he was drunk?” In her mind, Mallory was remembering the day she and Nathan had talked about their Christmas apart from each other, and he’d said, “I drank a lot.”

  A rueful, sniffly giggle escaped Pat. “He was on his lips, Mallory.”

  “Was he alone?”

  Instantly, Pat was on the defensive again. “Did you think he’d send for Renee Parker, Mallory? Of course he’s alone!”

  “He shouldn’t be.”

  Hope gleamed in Pat’s misty eyes. “You’ll go to him, then?”

  Mallory shook her head. “I can’t, Pat—not yet. But he shouldn’t be by himself. Alex Demming is his best friend—I’ll call him.”

  “Forget it,” Pat said sharply, disappointment clear in her voice. “I’ll ask Roger to go over there.”

  Mallory looked down at her hands, clasped painfully in her lap, startlingly white against the deep blue of the borrowed chenille robe, and wondered if she was being selfish in avoiding Nathan now when he obviously needed her. She did her best not to hear Pat’s tearful conversation with her boyfriend and felt deep gratitude when Nathan’s sister informed her, after hanging up the phone, that Roger was on his way to the penthouse.

  It was a long night. Mallory soon gave up on the idea of sleep and got out of bed to pace the guest room, torn between the fact that she loved Nathan McKendrick with all her heart and soul, no matter what he might have done, and the counterpoint: her own pride.

  No matter how deeply she loved that impossible, arrogant, wonderful man, she would never live with him again if he’d betrayed her. There would be no trust, and without trust, love meant nothing.

  The sun was barely up when Mallory crept out of Pat’s condo, yesterday’s newspaper tucked under one arm. Sitting behind the wheel of her Mazda, she scanned the article just once more, to confirm her plans.

  The girl’s name was Renee Parker, and she lived in Eagle Falls, a small town about an hour from Seattle. Mallory had been in that community once, years before, with her parents.

  And now she was going there again.

  Nathan rolled over in bed and moaned. Nausea welled up in his middle, and blood pounded in the veins beneath his skull. He swore.

  Roger Carstairs, Pat’s boyfriend, appeared in the bedroom doorway, his healthy looks annoying. He was wearing the housekeeper’s apron and stirring something in a mixing bowl. “Breakfast?” He grinned, his green eyes alight with malicious mischief.

  Nathan swore again. “How much did I drink last night?”

  “Let’s just say I wouldn’t throw a party, if I were you, without replenishing your liquor supply.”

  The telephone on the bedside table rang suddenly, jarring Nathan’s throbbing head. “Hello!” he barked obnoxiously into the receiver. If it was a reporter, he’d—

  It was Pat, and she sounded worried. “Nate, is Mallory over there?”

  Nathan’s jaw was suddenly clenched so tightly that it ached. “No—” He paused and looked questioningly at Roger. “Mallory didn’t drop by, did she?”

  Roger shook his head.

  “No,” Nathan repeated. “My lovely wife is not here, soothing my tortured brow. Did you call her place on the island or Angel Cove?”

  “Yes, I called Kate Sheridan and Trish Demming, too, and they haven’t seen her either.”

  Though he was trying to be angry, Nathan was actually scared. Mallory hadn’t been in the best state of mind before the paternity charge, and the pain and confusion she had to be feeling didn’t even bear thinking about. God, she might have left, might have walked out of his life forever. And the hell of it was that he was innocent; whatever other sins he might have committed, he had been a faithful husband from the first.

  “She must have said something, Pat—anything.”

  “She said very little, Nathan. Her clothes are still here, if that’s any comfort.”

  It wasn’t. Mallory had enough credit cards to buy all the new ones she wanted. Forgetting his incredible hangover, Nathan threw back the covers on his bed and sat up, still cradling the receiver with his shoulder. He was reaching for a pair of jeans when he barked, “Damn it, if she’s left me—she promised—”

  “Oh,” Pat marveled in the tones of one who has just had a revelation. “I think I know where she is.”

  “Spare me the dramatic pause, Pat!” Nathan snapped, struggling into the jeans. “Where?”

  “Eagle Falls.”

  “Eagle what?”

  “That little town where your alleged lover lives, dummy. Eagle Falls. Mallory went there.”

  The thought made Nathan sick. “What makes you think she’d do a stupid thing like that? What the hell could she hope to accomplish?”

  “I’d do that, if I were in her shoes—that’s what makes me thi
nk it. Nathan, you have been straight with me, haven’t you? She’s not going to walk into some hideaway filled with romantic mementos and candid snapshots of you, is she?”

  Nathan was balancing the telephone receiver between his shoulder and his ear, and wrenching on his socks. “On the basis of our long-standing relationship, sister dear, I’m going to let that question pass. It’s too damned low to rate an answer!”

  “All right, all right. So what do we do now?”

  Instantly deflated and stung on some primary level, Nathan sank back to the bed, abandoning his previous hasty efforts to get dressed. He ignored Pat’s question to continue angrily, “She believes it. God, after everything we’ve been through together, she thinks I’d go to bed with someone else.”

  “Nathan—”

  Rage and hurt made his voice harsh. “Damn her, she knows better!”

  “Does she? Nathan, how would you have felt if that story had been about her? Well, I’ll tell you how you would have felt, bozo!”

  Nathan calmly laid the receiver down on the bedside table and walked away, and his sister’s tirade was audible even from the doorway leading into the bathroom.

  He heard Roger speaking placating words into the phone as he reached into the shower and turned the spigots.

  Eagle Falls was smaller than Mallory remembered. In fact, it boasted only one gas station, one café and one grocery store. Behind this one-block business section, about two dozen shabby houses were perched on the verdant hillside, along with a post office, a tiny school and a wood-frame church. Remembering that Renee Parker was, according to the newspaper article, a waitress, Mallory headed for the café.

  Inside that dusty, fly-speckled kitchen, she was informed by an eager-eyed fry cook that Renee lived in the pink house next door to the church. Like as not, the man imparted further, she’d be home, since she wasn’t working in the café anymore.

  Mallory nodded politely and left. What was she going to say to this Renee person, anyway, once they came face to face?—“Pardon me, but have you been sleeping with my husband?”