Separate Cabins (16 page)

“If Hank hadn’t shown up, I planned on doing just that,” Gard replied. “Although I probably would have crawled back in bed with you to do it.”

“Now you tell me.” She laughed and eased out of his arms. “When is the coffee coming?”

“Anytime. Why?”

“I thought I’d run down to my cabin and pick up a few things—like my toothbrush,” Rachel explained, already moving toward the door.

“Don’t take too long,” Gard warned. “Or I’ll send out a search party to find you.”

Rachel had no intention of making a project of it, but even hurrying and packing only the few items she absolutely needed, plus a change of clothes, took her more than a quarter of an hour. When she returned to Gard’s cabin, she had to knock twice before he came to the door.

A puzzled frown drew her eyebrows together as he opened it and immediately walked away. She had a brief glimpse of his cold and preoccupied expression.

“How come you took so long to come to the door?” she asked curiously as she quickly followed him into the room. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m on the phone to California.” There was a harshness in his voice that chilled her.

Her steps slowed as she watched him walk to the phone and pick up the receiver he’d left lying on the table. A tray with cups and juice was sitting on the long coffee table in front of the sofa. Rachel changed her direction and walked over to it, sitting down so she could observe Gard.

There was very little she could piece together from his side of the conversation, but it was his body language she studied. His head was bent low in an attitude of intense interest. He kept rubbing his forehead and raking his fingers through his hair as if he didn’t like what he was hearing. There was a tautness in every line.

That odd feeling began to come back, growing stronger. She poured coffee from the tall pot into a cup and sipped at it. It seemed tasteless. She folded both hands around the cup, as if needing to absorb its warmth to ward off some chill.

The phone was hung up, but his hand stayed on the receiver, gripping it tightly until his knuckles showed white. He seemed to have forgotten she was in the room.

“What is it, Gard?” Rachel asked quietly.

He stirred, seeming to rouse himself out of the dark reverie of his thoughts, and threw her a cold glance. “An emergency.” He clipped out the answer and pulled his hand from the phone to comb it through his hair again.

“Is it serious?” she asked when he didn’t volunteer more.

“Yes.” Again his response was grudgingly given, but this time there was more forthcoming. “Bud—one of the partners in my law firm—was killed in a car accident on the freeway last night.”

Even as he spoke the words, Rachel could see that he was trying to reject the truth of them. Quickly she crossed the room and gathered him into her arms. She understood that combination of shock and pain and hurt anger. His arms circled her in a crushing vise as he buried his face in the blackness of her hair.

“Damnit, he had three kids and a wife,” he muttered hoarsely.

For long minutes she simply held on to him, knowing that there was no more comfort than that to give. Finally she felt the hard shudder that went through his body, and the accompanying struggle for control as he pulled his arms from around her and gripped her shoulders.

“Look ...” His gaze remained downcast as he searched to pull his thoughts together. “I’m going to have to see if I can’t catch a flight out of Manzanillo back to Los Angeles. Would you mind throwing my things into the suitcases?”

“I’ll do it.” She nodded with an outward show of calm, but inside there was a clawing panic. Last night she had worried about losing him. Today he was leaving her. They wouldn’t have those two more days on the ship as he had talked about. It couldn’t be over—not so quickly—not like this.

“Thanks.” Gard flashed her a relieved glance and turned to pick up the phone.

Rachel bit at the inside of her lip, then boldly suggested, “Would you like me to fly back with you?”

“No.” As if realizing that his rejection was slightly abrupt, Gard softened it with an explanation. “There’s nothing you can do, but I appreciate the offer. It’s going to be chaotic for a few days, both personally and professionally.” He dialed a number and waited while it rang. “Did you say you were staying in Acapulco for a few days?”

“I was, but—I think I’ll fly straight back on Saturday.” She didn’t look forward to those idle days in the Mexican resort city now that she knew Gard would be in Los Angeles.

“Write down your address and phone number so I can call you later next week,” he said, then turned away as the party answered the phone on the other end.

While he was busy making inquiries about airline schedules and reservations, Rachel took a pen and notepad from a desk drawer and printed out her name, address, and the telephone numbers at both her home and the office. She slipped it onto the table in front of Gard. He glanced at it and nodded an acknowledgment to her, continuing his conversation without a break.

A feeling of helplessness welled inside her, but there were still his suitcases to be packed. She went into the bedroom they had shared for only one night and took his suitcases from the closet and began to fill them with his clothes.

Half an hour later she was shutting and locking the last suitcase when Gard walked into the bedroom. The troubled, preoccupied expression on his features was briefly replaced with a glance of surprise at the packed suitcases on the bed.

“Are they ready to go?” he asked.

“Everything’s all packed,” she assured him.

“The steward’s on his way.” He looked at his watch. “There’s an opening on a flight leaving Manzanillo in an hour and a half. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to make it and my connecting flight to Los Angeles.”

As she noticed the slip of paper in his hand with her address and phone numbers marked on it, Gard folded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket. There was a knock, followed by the steward entering the cabin.

There were no more moments of privacy left to them as Gard called the steward in to take the luggage. Then they were all trooping out of the cabin and down to the lower deck to take the tender ashore.

As the collection of white block buildings tumbling down the steep sides of the mountain to the bay came closer, Rachel was conscious of the sparkling white beauty of the place, contrasted with the dark red tile roofs. Flowering bushes spilled over the sides of white balconies in scarlet profusion. But she couldn’t bring herself to appreciate its aesthetic beauty. She was too conscious of Gard’s thigh pressed along hers as they rode on the tender to the yacht harbor.

There was no conversation between them when
they reached shore. Rachel offered to help carry one of his suitcases, but Gard refused and signaled to a hotel employee when they reached the large, landscaped pool area with its bars and dining terraces.

At the hotel lobby Gard finally stopped his hurried pace and turned to her. “I’ll catch a cab to the airport from here. There’s no need for you to make that ride.”

“I don’t mind,” she insisted, because it was just that many more minutes to spend with him.

“But I do. We’ll say good-bye here so I won’t have to think about you making the ride back from the airport alone,” he stated.

“Okay.” She lowered her gaze and tried to keep her composure under control.

“I’ve got your address and phone number, don’t I?” There was an uncertain frown on his forehead as he began to feel in his pockets.

“It’s in your shirt pocket,” she assured him.

“It’ll probably be the middle of the week before things settle back to normal ... if they ever will.” It was an almost cynically bitter phrase he threw on at the last, showing how deeply this loss was cutting into his life.

“I understand,” she murmured, but she wanted to be with him.

“Rachel.” His hand moved roughly into her hair, cupping her head and holding it while he crushed her lips under his mouth. She slid her hands around his middle, spreading them across his back and pressing herself against the hard outline of his thighs
and hips. The ache inside was a raw and painful thing, an emotional tearing that ripped at her heart.

The tears were very close when Gard dragged his mouth from hers. Rachel rested her head against his shoulder and blinked to keep them at bay. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She had never considered herself to be a weak and clinging female, but she didn’t want to let him go.

It didn’t seem to matter how much she tried to rationalize away this vague fear. Gard wasn’t leaving her because it was what he wanted to do. There was an emergency. He had to go. Shutting her eyes for a moment, she felt the light pressure of his mouth moving over her hair.

“This is a helluva way to end our cruise,” Gard sighed heavily and lifted his head, taking her by the shoulders and setting her a few inches away from him. For a moment she was the focus of his thoughts, and she could see the darkness of regret in his eyes. “We were running out of time and didn’t know it.”

“There will be other times,” Rachel said because she needed a reassurance of that from him. There was a pooling darkness to her gray eyes, but she managed to keep back the tears and show him a calmly composed expression.

“Yes.” The reassurance was absently made as Gard glanced over his shoulder to see the bellman loading his luggage into a taxi. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I have to catch that plane.”

“I know.” She walked with him out to the taxi, parked under the hotel’s covered entrance.

There was one very brief, last kiss, a hard pressure making a fleeting impact on her lips, then Gard was striding to the open door of the taxi, passing a tip to the bellman before folding his long frame into the rear seat of the taxi.

“I’ll call you,” he said with a hurried wave of his hand as he shut the door.

The promise was too indefinite. She wanted to demand something more precise, a fixed time and place when he would call. Instead Rachel nodded and called, “Have a good flight!”

As the cab pulled away Gard leaned forward to say something to the driver. Rachel watched the taxi until it disappeared. If Gard looked back, she didn’t see him. She had the feeling that he’d already forgotten her, his thoughts overtaken by the problems and sorrows awaiting him when he reached Los Angeles.

She turned slowly, walked back through the lobby, and descended to a dining terrace on the lower level. Out in the bay the
Pacific Princess
sat at anchor, sleek and impressive in size even at this distance. With the reflection of sun and water, the ship gleamed blue-white.

For the last six days that ship had been home to her. Its world seemed more real to her than the one in Los Angeles. The emptiness swelled within her because she was here in this world and Gard was flying to the other. But he’d call her.

Aboard ship again, Rachel was surprised to discover how many passengers knew her until she had to begin to field their inquiries about Gard. Their
comments and questions varied, some expressing genuine concern and some merely being nosy.

“Where’s your husband? We haven’t seen him this evening,” was the most common in the beginning. Then it became, “We heard there was a family emergency and your husband had to fly home. We hope it isn’t serious.” Only rarely was Rachel queried about her continued presence on the ship. “How come you didn’t leave with him? Couldn’t you get a seat on the flight?”

But there was an end to them the next day when the ship reached its destination port of Acapulco and Rachel was able to change her reservations and fly home sooner than she had originally planned.

The buzz of the intercom phone on her desk snapped Rachel sharply out of her absent reverie. She was supposed to be reading through the stack of letters in front of her and affixing her signature to them, but the pile had only been depleted by three. Instead of reading the rest, she had been staring off into space.

Nothing seemed to receive her undivided attention anymore except the ring of the telephone. Each time it rang, at home or at the office, her heart would give a little leap, and every time she answered it, she thought this time it would be Gard.

For the last two weeks she’d lived on that hope and little else. She couldn’t eat; she couldn’t sleep; she was a basket case of emotions, ready to cry at the drop of a hat. Rachel was beginning to realize that this state of affairs couldn’t continue. She had
to resolve the matter once and for all and stop living on the edge of her nerves.

There was another impatient buzz of the intercom. No light was blinking to indicate that a phone call was being held on the line for her. Rachel picked up the receiver.

“Yes, Sally, what is it?” she asked her secretary with grudging patience.

“Fan Kemper is here to see you,” came the answer. “She says she’s taking you to lunch.”

After a second’s hesitation Rachel simply replied, “Send her in.”

Before she had returned the receiver to its cradle, the door to her private office was opened and Fan came sweeping in, exuding energy and bright efficiency. A smile beamed from her friend’s face, but there was a critical look in her assessing glance.

“Sorry, Fan, but I can’t have lunch with you today,” Rachel said and began to write her signature on the letters she should have already signed.

“I know I’m not down on your appointment book, but I thought I’d steal you away from the office.” Fan crossed to the desk, undeterred by the refusal. “I’ve only seen you once since you came back from the cruise—and every time I phone you, we never talk more than five minutes because you’re expecting some ‘important call.’”

“I had a lot of catching up to do when I came back.” It was a vague explanation, accompanied by an equally vague smile in her friend’s direction.

“You look awful,” Fan announced.

“Thanks.” Rachel laughed without amusement.

“You’re lucky you got some sun on that cruise.

Without the tan those circles under your eyes would really be noticeable.” Fan pulled a side chair closer to the desk and sat in it, leaning forward in an attitude that invited confidence. “You might as well tell me, Rachel. Hasn’t he called?”