Pat’s eyes glistened. “If you’ll forgive me, too.”
“Done,” Mallory said softly, and then she turned to leave.
Just as Mallory left the main part of the auditorium, Diane Vincent stepped into view, her face a study in sadness and resignation. She tossed her head toward the swinging doors, beyond which the band was already playing again.
“I hope you’re happy now, Mallory,” she said.
Mallory lifted her chin, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve clipped his wings,” Diane replied with an eloquent little shrug. “He’ll rot on that damned island of yours. But it all went your way, didn’t it?”
Mallory started to reply, and then stopped herself. Diane might be Nathan’s favorite playmate, but she, herself, owed the woman nothing—not explanations, not reassurances.
“You’re ruining his life, Mallory.”
Mallory moved to leave, but Diane cut her off in one agile step. Something soft and broken haunted her bewitching powder blue eyes.
“At least I loved him enough to let him be himself,” she went on when Mallory didn’t speak. “For God’s sake, Mallory, Nathan needs his music!”
“You’re certainly an expert on what he needs, aren’t you, Diane?” Mallory retorted finally, in acid tones.
A responding smirk shimmered in Diane’s eyes and danced briefly on her lips. “You really didn’t think you were woman enough for a dynamic, vital man like that, did you?”
Mallory had had the same thought herself, many times, but she was damned if she would let Diane Vincent see that. Green eyes shooting fire, she leveled a savage retort at her beautiful enemy. “Ever notice that while men like Nathan fool around with your type, Diane, they marry mine?”
The shot was a direct hit: Diane wilted visibly, and a look of pain trembled briefly in her eyes. Mallory wasn’t the least bit proud of herself as she walked briskly away.
She spent the next few hours browsing in the baby departments of Seattle’s finest stores, but the activity lacked the quiet glow Mallory had anticipated. The encounter with Diane had cast a shadow over her day, if not ruined it entirely.
Her heart looking forward to the peace and pine-scented sanity of the island where she and Nathan would, at last, be alone, Mallory finally hailed a cab and went back to the penthouse. There, the part-time housekeeper, Mrs. Callahan, was marauding through the spacious rooms with her vacuum cleaner, singing Nathan’s latest hit in a loud, exuberant and off-key soprano.
Mallory crept past her, unseen, to the bedroom. She locked the doors and huddled on the bed for half an hour, like a hunted creature with no place to hide. She was tormented by images of Diane and Nathan making love in posh hotel rooms, on Australian beaches kissed with moonlight, in auditorium dressing rooms—images that would no doubt be deftly described, for all the world to read, in Diane’s forthcoming book.
Mallory closed her eyes and rocked back and forth in helpless hatred. How would she bear seeing that book on display everywhere? How would she stand knowing that Diane lived so near the villa on Angel Cove?
When it was time to eat supper, Mallory had no appetite. Instead of consuming the meal Mrs. Callahan had left for her, she dressed for the concert, selecting jeans, a woolly gray sweater and a colorful lightweight poncho. Her mood was dark indeed by the time she met Trish and Kate and Pat at an agreed place and entered the Kingdome with them.
The crowds were so thick backstage that Mallory despaired of catching so much as a glimpse of Nathan before taking a seat in the third row with her friends. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. But, suddenly, despite the crush of people, Nathan was there, looking magnificent, as always, in his simple black tailored slacks and gleaming white silk shirt. Mallory suppressed a wifely urge to button the shirt, which was gaping provocatively to his muscled, ebony-matted midriff.
“Hi,” she said shyly as Kate and Pat exchanged conspiratorial looks and slipped away to find Trish again.
Nathan laid his gifted hands on Mallory’s shoulders and his smile warmed his dark eyes and softened his lips. “You came,” he said in a gentle, surprised voice.
Mallory bridled a little, hurt. “Nathan, why wouldn’t I?”
He shrugged slightly, but a shadow of pain moved in the depths of his eyes. “I guess I thought you would be anxious to get back to the island.”
Mallory barely stopped herself from flinching, and Diane’s bitter words echoed in her mind. He’ll rot on that damned island of yours—he needs his music—
“Not so anxious that I’d miss something this important, Nathan,” she said in a voice tight with doubt. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly. “Break a leg, babe.”
He smiled and raised both hands to the dark softness of her hair. “Everything is going to work out,” he said gruffly. “I promise.”
Mallory longed for that same certainty the way a drowning swimmer longs for a life preserver, but she knew better than to let wild wishes overwhelm her reason. Outside the enthusiasm of the crowd was rising to a deafening roar. They were claiming him now, those thousands of faceless women, and Mallory felt a wrench at giving Nathan up to them, even temporarily. Silently, she touched his lips with an index finger, turned and walked away.
“The natives are getting restless,” Trish observed dryly as Mallory sank into her seat on the aisle. “What’s he doing back there?”
Mallory shrugged and looked around at the surrounding concertgoers with a tremor of alarm. Their mood was petulant—almost hostile—and some of them were crying.
They don’t want Nathan to retire, even for a year, she thought, and, at that moment, nothing in the world could have made her admit that she was his primary reason for turning his back on them.
The stage went dark, and suddenly the auditorium was throbbing with an almost tangible expectancy. When the lights came up again, Nathan was there and the crowd seemed to call to him in one discordant voice. With lithe motions of his powerful arms, he reached out for the microphone, pretending a slight difficulty with the trailing black cord. When he held the small electronic marvel in both hands, he muttered, “Hi, group,” in a rumbling, sensuous voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”
The audience went wild—shouting, applauding, stomping their feet.
Nathan lowered his dark, magnificent head, and waited, the very picture of patience. When the thunderous welcome ebbed a little, a female voice from several rows behind Mallory pleaded plaintively, “Nathan, don’t go!”
“I’ll be back, baby,” he promised, and, as another wave of screaming madness swept through the crowd, Mallory felt a small spike of jealousy puncture her heart. It was beginning then, this strange, spiritual lovemaking between Nathan and the adoring horde.
When Nathan slid into a gruff, sensuous ballad, Mallory felt like flotsam adrift on a sea of communal grief. She was grateful for the darkness that lent her what would seem to be a very timely anonymity, and she wasn’t surprised when Kate nudged her during a brief lull between songs, and whispered, “Maybe you should have stayed backstage, Mallory.”
Mallory was glad to have someone so sensible confirm her own sense that the mood of this multitude of fans was unfavorable toward her. But she brought herself up short. In the press conferences preceding the concert, Nathan had not given any specific reason for his unexpected sabbatical. It wasn’t as though someone had circulated fliers imprinted with Mallory’s face and the words GET THIS WOMAN, SHE MADE HIM QUIT!
Despite this logic, the mood of that audience was the mood of a spurned and vengeful lover. Mallory slid down in her seat, dreading the time when the concert would end and the auditorium lights would come up, revealing her in all her guilt to the furious masses.
Three songs later, Mallory’s worst suspicions were confirmed when the woman in front of her whispered to her companion that Nathan’s defection could be laid at the feet of his “bitchy wife.” She’d read it in one of the supermarket scandal sheets and regarded it as gospel.
The atmosphere seemed to pulse more dangerously with every song after that—finally, it was so tangible, this rising fury, that Nathan raised both his arms in the air, perspiration glistening on his face, to stop the music midbeat. To the accompaniment of a petulant rumble from the crowd, he strode to the side of the instrument-cluttered stage and spoke inaudibly to someone just out of sight. In a moment, however, he was back, speaking soothing words, moving easily into another song.
The horde was calming down a little when two security guards came and quietly collected Mallory from her seat to usher her out through the nearest exit. In the glaring light of the empty passageway, the hum of the crowd was muted, though it was still as frightening as the swarming sound of enraged bees.
Standing there, between the two middle-aged men appointed as her protectors, Mallory marveled at the change in the mob’s mood. It was almost as though Nathan’s fans knew that she had been removed.
One of the security guards took her arm gently. “Mrs. McKendrick, we have orders to take you home immediately. I’m sorry.”
A shaft of terrible disappointment impaled Mallory. “Couldn’t I just wait backstage?” she asked, stricken.
“I’m sorry,” the man repeated, and he had the good grace to sound as though he meant it. “Mr. McKendrick wants you off the premises as soon as possible, and I can’t say I blame him.”
Mallory stiffened for a moment, but then she knew that there was no use in arguing. Rather than defy Nathan, these men would probably remove her forcibly. As they discreetly squired her outside to a waiting limousine, she resented Nathan’s fans as never before.
Back at the penthouse, Mallory took off the casual clothes she’d worn to the concert and slipped into a sleek white cashmere jumpsuit. With quick, angry motions of her hands, she brushed her hair up and pinned it into the Gibson girl style Nathan liked. Maybe that faceless horde had won by sheer number, but that was the battle, not the war. No one would stop her from attending the party that would follow the concert, from taking her rightful place at Nathan’s side—no one.
At eleven-fifteen, the concert ended; Mallory saw the headlights of thousands of cars leaving the Kingdome in splendid, jewel-like tangles.
The sudden, shrill ring of the telephone made her start. But, after a moment of recovery, she pounced on it. Nathan’s voice was hoarse with exhaustion and worry. “Are you all right?” he demanded without preamble.
“Yes,” Mallory managed after an awkward moment. “Nathan, just tell me where to meet you, and—”
“No.”
Disappointed fury jolted Mallory. “What?”
“Stay exactly where you are, Mallory,” he bit out in tones that brooked no argument. “I’ll be home as soon as I possibly can.”
Before she could object, he summarily hung up.
Frustrated, hurt and outraged, Mallory had no choice but to obey his dictate. The party could be held in any one of a hundred places; searching would be fruitless. She paced for a time and then, in desperation, strode into the study and snapped on the seldom-used television set.
The late news was on, and the entertainment commentator couldn’t say enough about the performance of Seattle’s own Nathan McKendrick. Alone, Mallory sputtered out a commentary of her own, and it was not so flattering as that of the man on television.
There were a few feet of footage showing the high points of the concert itself, and then a shot of a harried, annoyed Nathan striding into the wings from the stage, his eyes flashing, his face glistening with the exertion of more than two hours on stage.
“Enough already!” Mallory shouted at the flickering screen. “Can’t you talk about a war or something?”
And as if to spite her, there was Nathan on the screen again, now showered and clad in a navy blue blazer, dress shirt and slacks. At his shoulder bobbed the glistening, proud blond head of Diane Vincent. Weak with shock, Mallory reached out, snapped the set off and sank dispiritedly onto the study sofa, too stricken to cry or shout or even move.
It was three o’clock in the morning when Mallory felt the bed shift slightly under Nathan’s weight. He sighed and fell into an instant, fathomless sleep.
“Not tonight, Diane,” he muttered.
Nathan awakened late the next morning. Even so, he was fully conscious for several seconds before he dared to open his eyes. When he did, he was met with a fierce sea green gaze and an intangible, bone-numbing chill. Mallory was beside him in bed, but she might as well have been ten thousand miles away. Everything about her relayed the message: Don’t talk, don’t touch.
She had definitely seen last night’s newscast.
Nathan swore and reached out for her, intending to explain that Diane, with her usual audacity, had purposely fallen into step beside him and smiled into the camera, that he’d gotten rid of her in a hurry. But Mallory drew back ferociously, her eyes wild.
“Babe,” he began awkwardly. “Listen—”
She slapped him.
The blow stung fiercely, but Nathan did not flinch, did not look away. He caught Mallory’s wrists in his hands and pressed them down, over her head. “About the newscast,” he said evenly. “Diane didn’t go to the party with me, Mallory. She simply chose an inopportune time to walk beside me.”
Mallory’s splendid oval chin lifted defiantly, and she glared up at him in sheer hatred. “I realize that,” she said in acid tones.
“Then why the assault and battery?” Nathan demanded, watching her closely, still holding her prisoner.
“I don’t want to talk about it!”
Nathan swore in frustration and released her. “Mallory.”
“Drop dead, you bastard!”
He reached out again, this time to grasp her upper arm, hard, although he was, as always, careful not to hurt her. Even now, the savage desire for her was stirring in his loins, but he suppressed it even as he pinned her beneath him. “Start talking, lady. Right now.”
She struggled and squirmed, clearly furious, and the motion intensified the desire Nathan was trying to ignore. “Leave—me—alone!” she sputtered.
Frightened, Nathan bore down on her harder. “Mallory, for God’s sake, talk to me!”
“You liar—you cheat—” she mourned, and tears seeped through her thick, tightly clenched eyelashes. The sight wounded Nathan, transformed the need to possess into an equal or greater need to comfort and protect.
“How did I lie?” he asked with gentle reason. “Or cheat?”
She was turning her head from side to side, and sobs escaped her throat in soft, breathless gasps. Nathan remembered the precious child within her and eased the pressure he’d been exerting with his body.
“Please, Mallory,” he pleaded, in a raw voice. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
She cried out like something wounded and shoved at him with her small, frantic, furious hands. But he would not be moved. Not until he knew.
“I hate you, Nathan—dear God, how I hate you—”
Nathan’s raw throat constricted, and he closed his eyes momentarily against the fierce sincerity in her voice, in her face. “Please,” he said again, and if that constituted begging, he didn’t care.
Mallory was watching him when he opened his eyes again. “You act so innocent!” she hissed in a sharp undertone.
Defeated for the moment, Nathan released her and rolled away. “I am innocent,” he answered dejectedly.
“Liar!” she choked. “You talk in your sleep, Nathan!”
Nathan sighed, sat up, his back to Mallory, and braced his head in his hands. “What, pray tell, did I say?”
There was a brief, awful silence. “‘Not tonight, Diane,’” she finally replied, her pain blunt and savage and hopeless in her voice.
He turned back to look at her. “You’re getting pretty desperate for something to hate me for, aren’t you, Mallory?”
She would not meet his eyes or answer, and, in that moment, Nathan knew that there was no hope of convincing her that the remark, made in hi
s sleep for God’s sake, had meant nothing. He had never slept with Diane, never actually even considered it.
Slowly, he rose to his feet and walked into the bathroom, where he wrenched on the shower spigots and stepped under the hot, piercing spray. He would lose her now, lose the baby. Bracing himself with both hands against the tiled wall of the shower stall, Nathan McKendrick lowered his head and cried.
The coming week was a wretched one for Mallory. Without her role in the soap opera, she had no reason to stay in Seattle. And yet she had no island house to flee to either, for it was the Johnsons’ house now, and not her own. She could not go there to hide and cry and be close to things and memories from another, less complicated time in her life. Besides, Nathan lived on the island and she didn’t think she could bear to encounter him after the way she’d made such a fool of herself and driven him away.
Day by day she fought down her senseless, fathomless love for him, and day by day it grew, like a flower forcing its way up through asphalt.
“I want to hate you,” she said aloud one grim winter afternoon to the photograph taken at Pike Place Market that day, the one that portrayed Nathan as a marshal and Mallory as a dance-hall girl. “Why?”
In her mind, she heard his voice. You’re getting pretty desperate for something to hate me for, aren’t you, Mallory?
“Yes,” she said aloud, putting the framed photograph back onto the study’s fireplace mantel and taking up another, one that showed her mother and father standing on the deck of their boat, displaying huge, freshly caught salmon and enormous grins.
She was angry with them, these cherished people in the photograph. How dare they die and leave her, when she’d loved them without reservation?
The question made Mallory draw in a sharp breath. She’d been deliberately sandbagging her own marriage, for weeks and months and years because she was afraid, afraid that if she loved Nathan completely, he would die.
In a flurry to reach him, she grabbed her purse and coat and fled the penthouse without looking back.
Snowflakes on the Sea Page 21
