Separate Cabins (11 page)

“Did you sign up for one of the tours?”

“No.” She shook her head briefly and tucked her hair behind an ear, almost a defensive gesture to ward off the intensity of his gaze. “I thought I’d explore on my own.”

“Would you like a private guide?” Gard asked. “I know where you can hire one—cheap.”

“Does he speak English?” She guessed he was offering his services, but she went along with his gambit, albeit tongue-in-cheek.

“Sί, señorita,”
he replied in an exaggerated Mexican dialect. “And
español,
too.”

“How expensive?” Rachel challenged.

“Let’s just say—no more than you’re willing to pay,” Gard suggested.

“That sounds fair.” She nodded and felt the run of breathless excitement through her system.

“We’ll go ashore after breakfast,” he said. “Be sure and wear your swimsuit under your clothes. We’ll do our touring in the morning and spend the afternoon on the beach.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

When they went ashore, Gard rented a three-wheeled cart, open on all sides, to take them to town. As he explained to Rachel, it was called a
pulmonia,
which meant “pneumonia” because of its openness to the air.

Their tour through town took them past the town square with its statue of a deer. Mazatlan was an Indian name meaning “place of the deer.” Gard directed their driver to take them past the Temple of San Jose, the church constructed by the Spanish during their reign in Mexico. Afterward he had the driver let them off at El Mercado.

They spent the balance of the morning wandering through the maze of stalls and buildings. The range of items for sale was endless. There were butcher shops with sides of beef and scrawny plucked chickens dangling from hooks, and fruit stands and vegetable stands. And there was an endless array of crafts shops, souvenir stores, and clothing items.

For lunch Gard took her to one of the restaurants along the beach. When Rachel discovered their seafood had been caught fresh that morning, she feasted on shrimp, the most succulent and flavorful she’d ever tasted.

Later, sitting on a beach towel with an arm hooked around a raised knee, Rachel watched the gentle surf breaking on shore. After the morning tour and the delicious lunch, she didn’t have the energy to do more than laze on the beach. Gard was stretched out on another beach towel beside her, a hand over his eyes to block out the sun. It had been a long time since he’d said anything. Rachel wondered if he was sleeping.

Off to her left an old, bowlegged Mexican vendor shuffled into view. Dressed in the typical loose shirt and baggy trousers with leather huaraches, he ambled toward Rachel and held up a glass jar half-filled with water. Fire opals gleamed on the bottom.

“Señora?”
He offered them to her for inspection.

“No, thank you.” She shook her head to reinforce her denial.

“Very cheap,” he insisted, but she shook her head again. He leaned closer and reached into his back pocket. “I have a paper—you buy.”

Gard said something in Spanish. The old man shrugged and put the folded paper back in his pocket, then shuffled on down the beach. Rachel cast a curious glance at Gard.

“What was he selling?” she asked.

“A treasure map.” He propped himself up on an elbow. “This harbor was a favorite haunt of pirates.
Supposedly there’re caches of buried treasure all over this area. You’d be surprised how many ‘carefully aged’ maps have been supposedly found just last week in some old chest in the attic.” There was a dryly cynical gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“And they’re for sale—cheap—to anyone foolish enough to buy them.” Rachel understood the rest of the game.

Turning the upper half of her body, she reached into the beach bag sitting on the grainy sand behind her and took out the bottle of sun oil lying atop their folded clothes. She uncapped the bottle and began to smooth the oil on her legs and arms.

There was a shift of movement beside her as Gard again stretched out flat and crooked an arm under his head for a pillow. His eyes were closed against the glare of the high afternoon sun. With absent movements Rachel continued to spread the oil over her exposed flesh while her gaze wandered over the bronze sheen of his longly muscled body, clad in white-trimmed navy swimming trunks.

The urge, ever since he’d stripped down, had been to touch him and have that sensation of hard, vital flesh beneath her hands. It was unnerving and stimulating to look at him.

“Enjoying yourself?” His low taunt startled Rachel.

Her gaze darted from his leanly muscled thighs to his face, but his eyes were still closed, so he couldn’t know she had been staring at him. His question was obviously referring to something else.

“Of course.” She attempted to inject a brightness
in her voice. “It’s a gorgeous day and the beach is quiet and uncrowded.”

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.” The amused mockery in his voice had a faint sting to it. “I could feel the way you were staring at me, and I wondered if you liked what you saw.”

Rachel was a little uncomfortable at being caught admiring his male body. She concentrated all her attention on rubbing the oil over an arm.

“Yes.” She kept her answer simple, but some other comment was required. “I suppose you’re used to women staring at you.” It was a light remark, meant to tease him for seeking a compliment from her.

“Why? Because I could feel your eyes on me?” Gard shifted his dark head on the pillow of his arm to look at her. “Can’t you feel it when I look at you?”

The rush of heat over her skin had nothing to do with the hot sun overhead. It was a purely sexual sensation caused by the boldness of his gaze. It was a look that did not just strip her bathing suit away. His eyes were making love to her, touching and caressing every hidden point and hollow of her body. It left her feeling too shaken and vulnerable.

“Don’t.” The low word vibrated from her and asked him to stop, protesting the way it was destroying her.

The contact was abruptly broken. “Hand me my cigarettes,” Gard said with a degree of terseness. “They’re in my shirt pocket.”

Rachel wiped the excess oil from her hand on a
towel and tried to stop her hand from shaking as she reached inside the beach bag, then handed him the pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She leaned back on her hands and stared at the wave rolling into shore. The silence stretched, broken only by the rustle of the cigarette pack and the click of the lighter.

“Tell me about your husband,” Gard said.

“Mac?” Rachel swung a startled glance at him, noting the grim set of his mouth and his absorption with the smoke curling from his cigarette.

“Is that what you called him?” His hooded gaze flicked in her direction.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“There’s consolation in that, I suppose.” His mouth crooked in a dry, humorless line. “At least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that when you say my name, you aren’t thinking of someone else.”

Rachel’s gray eyes grew thoughtful as she tried to discern whether it was jealousy she heard or injured pride that came from being mistaken for someone else.

“What was he like?” Gard repeated his initial question, then arched her another glance. “Or would you prefer not to talk about him?”

“I don’t mind,” she replied, although she wasn’t sure where to begin.

When she looked out to sea, Rachel was looking beyond the farthest point. The edges blurred when she tried to conjure up Mac’s image in her mind. It wasn’t something recent. It had been happening gradually over the last couple of years. Her memory of him always pictured him as being more handsome
than photographs showed. But it was natural for the mind to overlook the flaws in favor of the better qualities.

“Mac was a dynamic, aggressive man,” Rachel finally began to describe him, even though she knew her picture of him was no longer accurate. “Even when he was sitting still—which was seldom—he seemed to be all coiled energy. I guess he grabbed at life,” she mused, “because he knew he wouldn’t be around long.” Sighing, she threw a glance at Gard. “It’s difficult to describe Mac to someone who didn’t know him.”

“You loved him?”

“Everyone loved Mac,” she declared with a faint smile. “He was hearty and warm. Yes, I loved him.”

“Are you still married to him?” Gard asked flatly. Rachel frowned at him blankly, finding his question strange. A sardonic light flashed in his dark eyes before he swung his gaze away from her to inhale on his cigarette. “Even after their husbands die, some women stay married to their ghosts.”

The profundity of his remark made Rachel stop and think. Although she had wondered many times if she would ever feel so strongly for another man again, she hadn’t locked out the possibility. She wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged them to her chest, resting her chin on her knees.

“No,” she said after a moment. “I’m not married to Mac’s ghost.” Her glance ran sideways to him. “Why did you ask?”

“I wondered if that was the reason you didn’t want me in your cabin last night.” Gard released a
short breath, rife with impatient disgust. “I wonder if you realize how hard it was for me to leave last night.”

“You shouldn’t have come in.” Rachel refused to let him put the onus of his difficulty on her.

“I’m not pointing any fingers.” Gard sat up, bringing his gaze eye-level with hers. She was uncomfortable with his hard and probing look. “I’m just trying to figure you out.”

There was something in the way he said it that ruffled her fur. “Don’t strain yourself,” she flashed tightly.

Amusement flickered lazily in his eyes. “You’ve been a strain on me from the beginning.”

In her opinion the conversation was going nowhere. “I think I’ll go in the water for a swim,” Rachel announced and rolled to her feet.

“That’s always your solution, isn’t it?” Gard taunted, and Rachel paused to look back at him, wary and vaguely upset. “When a situation gets too hot and uncomfortable for you, you walk away. You know I want to make love to you.” He said it as casually as if he were talking about the weather.

There was a haughty arch of one eyebrow as her eyes turned iron-gray and cool. “You aren’t the first.” She saw the flare of anger, but she turned and walked to the sea, wading in, then diving into the curl of an oncoming wave. There was a definite sense of anger at the idea that simply because he had expressed a desire for her, she was supposed to fall into his arms. If anything, his remark had driven her away from him.

Rachel swam with energy, going against the surf the same way she went against her own natural inclination. Eventually she tired and let the tide float her back to shore where Gard waited. But the tense scene that had passed before had created a strain between them that wasn’t easily relieved.

Alone, Rachel strolled along a street in downtown Puerto Vallarta, the second port of call of the
Pacific Princess.
As it had yesterday, the ship had berthed early in the morning. This time Rachel settled for the continental breakfast served on the Sun Deck and disembarked as soon as the formalities with the Mexican port authorities were observed and permission was given to let passengers go ashore.

To herself she claimed it was a desire to explore the picturesque city on her own. It was merely a side benefit that she hadn’t seen Gard before she’d left the ship. Common sense told her the coolness that had come between them yesterday was a good thing. She needed time to step back and look at the relationship to see whether she’d been swept along
by a strong emotional current or if she’d been caught in a maelstrom of physical desire.

Few of the shops were open before nine, so Rachel idled away the time looking in windows and eyeing the architecture of the buildings. At intersections she had views of the surrounding hills where the city had sprawled high onto their sides, creating streets that were San Francisco steep.

Something shimmered golden and bright against the skyline. When Rachel looked to see what it was, a breath was indrawn in awed appreciation. The morning sunlight was reflecting off the gold crown of a steeple and making it glow as if with its own golden light.

With this landmark in sight Rachel steered a course toward it for a closer look. Two blocks farther she reached the source. It was the cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The doors of the church stood invitingly open at the top of concrete steps, but it continued to be the crown that drew Rachel’s gaze as she stood near the church’s base with her head tipped back to stare admiringly at it.

“It’s a replica of the crown worn by the Virgin in the Basilica at Mexico City.”

At the sound of Gard’s voice, Rachel jerked her gaze downward and found him, leaning casually against a concrete side of the church steps and smoking a cigarette. She felt the sudden rush of her pulse under the lazy and knowing inspection of his dark eyes. The cigarette was dropped beneath his heel and crushed out as he pushed away and came toward her. A quiver of awareness ran through her
senses at his malely lean physique clad in butternut-brown slacks and a cream-yellow shirt.

“I’ve been waiting for you to turn up,” Gard said calmly.

The certainty in his tone implied that he had known she would. It broke her silence. “How could you possibly know I would come here?” Rachel demanded with a rush of anger. “I didn’t even know it.”

“It was a calculated risk,” he replied, looking at her eyes and appearing to be amused by the silver sparks shooting through their grayness. “Puerto Vallarta basically doesn’t have much in the way of historical or cultural attractions. It’s too early for most of the shops to be open, so you had to be wandering around, looking at the sights. Which meant, sooner or later, you’d find your way here.”

It didn’t help her irritation to find that his assumption was based on well thought out logic. “Always presuming I had come ashore.” There was a challenging lift to her voice.

“Don’t forget”—a slow, easy smile deepened the grooves running parenthetically at the corners of his mouth—“I know most of the officers and crew from the bridge, including the man on duty at the gangway. He told me you were one of the first to go ashore this morning. I have spies everywhere.”