Snowflakes on the Sea (12 page)

The housekeeper obeyed, then scurried out into the hallway again.

Nathan looked at the coffee and distractedly shook his head, even though there was no one to see. He’d had too much coffee during the long night, and his nerves were crackling under his skin like high-voltage wires.

A moment later, a man in a sedate business suit entered the room and looked at Nathan with obvious recognition. “Nathan McKendrick?”

Irritated, Nathan simply held out his hand.

The visitor extended a folded document and then fled.

After parting with Trish, Mallory made her way back toward the house alone. Cinnamon met her in the middle of the orchard path, bounding and yipping in greeting.

The pat Mallory gave the animal was halfhearted, at best. Reaching the house, she filled Cinnamon’s bowl from the dog food bag on the screened porch and set it down near the door.

The telephone rang suddenly, and the sound of it reverberated through Mallory’s body to her very spirit. She crossed the kitchen floor with such speed that she bruised her knee on one corner of the big woodburning stove, and tears of physical pain were brimming in her eyes. “Hello!”

“Hi,” Brad Ranner said, as easily as though they’d never argued, never shouted at each other over cross-purposes. “How’s life in the wilds of Puget Sound?”

Mallory’s disappointment was crushing; she had hoped, desperately, unaccountably, that the caller would be Nathan. “Wild,” she answered in a peevish, dispirited whisper.

“I’m sorry about that scene at the penthouse the other day, Mallory—I really blew it. Forgiven?”

Mallory sighed, rubbing her throbbing knee and grimacing. “Brad, I haven’t changed my mind. I’m still leaving the show.”

Brad’s voice was as smooth and warm as the fresh butter Mallory’s mother had always served with steamed clams. “In view of Nathan’s latest escapade, I’m surprised.”

Mallory closed her eyes tight, but the gesture was no help against the sudden knotting pain in her stomach and the ache beneath her skull. “Brad,” she responded evenly, “I don’t care if my husband impregnates a
hundred
groupies—I’m still not going to take my clothes off on national television.”

“Maybe we could work around that.”

Mallory bit her lower lip and tried to think clearly, but she was simply too tired and too confused.

“Mall?”

She drew herself up, summoned all her flagging strength. “I’m here. Listen, Brad—I’m not really an actress, you know? The show was a kind of a—well—a lark for me. But now I’m tired and I can’t think and—”

“Babe, this paternity thing has really leveled you, hasn’t it?”

Why lie? “Yes And I’ll thank you not to make any more remarks about Nathan’s alleged escapades, Brad.”

He sighed. “I was out of line, and I’m sorry.”

Even though she knew he couldn’t see the gesture, Mallory nodded. “C-could we talk another time, Brad?”

“Of course, sugar. You’ll think about renewing your contract, won’t you?”

Mallory McKendrick was not sure of many things at that point, but she was sure about one in particular. She hated memorizing lines, standing under bright lights and before cameras, getting up before dawn to go to the studio to be smothered in makeup. “No, Brad. I’ll finish out my commitment, but that’s all.”

“Fine,” Brad said, his calm manner gone. “You’re fired!”

“Thank you very much.”

“Mallory!”

Mallory replaced the telephone receiver gently. She had no more than stepped back from it when she felt a wild relief. For all the things that were wrong in her life, she’d taken one positive step. Once the few episodes she was legally bound to do had been taped, she would be free.

Maybe too free,
she thought as the fact that Nathan was living in one house and she in another displaced her momentary pleasure.

She turned, looked around the humble kitchen, and saw that it looked almost exactly as it had when her mother had walked out of it for the last time. Was Trish right? Was she trying to cling to two people who no longer existed?

I’m on some kind of psychological roll here,
she thought with grim humor. And she knew then that, on some subconscious level, she’d been waiting here, all this time, for parents she knew could not return to her.

Mallory wiped away the tears that had welled up in her eyes and reached resolutely for the telephone again.

Mrs. Jeffries spoke in crisp answer, her voice harried and sharp. Undoubtedly, people had been calling from all over the world, shocked by the news of Nathan’s retirement. Not to mention Renee Parker’s accusation.

“This is Mrs. McKendrick,” Mallory said wearily, her pride thick in her throat as she swallowed it. “May I please speak with my husband?”

There was a pause, perhaps to give the loyal housekeeper time to decide whether Mallory was really Nathan’s wife or just some brazen fan. “He isn’t taking calls now, Mrs. McKendrick—”

Mallory felt crimson fury pounding in her cheeks. It was bad enough to grovel, without being turned away like some salesperson or irksome reporter. “I want to talk to him
now!
”

Mrs. Jeffries reconsidered, and, a full two minutes later, Nathan ventured a cautious greeting into the phone.

Mallory didn’t know where to begin; they’d made such a tangle of things that any one of half a dozen conversational threads could have been picked up. She drew a deep, shaky breath, closed her eyes and took the plunge. “Do you think we could go back to square one and start over, Nathan?”

There was a silence on the other end of the line, and then a rasped, “I’ll be right over.”

Mallory remembered the things Trish had said to her that morning on the beach, and the sense of it all was undeniable. “No, I’ll come there.”

His voice was hoarse, broken. “Mallory—”

She swallowed painfully, knowing how troubled he was, regretting every moment she hadn’t spent at his side. “Shh. We’ll talk when I get there.”

“But—”

Mallory hung up the telephone.

The villa overlooking Angel Cove was of graceful, Spanish architecture, and Mallory admired it anew as she approached. It was enormous, boasting a terra-cotta roof and some twenty rooms in addition to a swimming pool and a plant-bedecked sun porch with its own hot tub. Holly trees grew in the yard, and the house looked out over the Sound and the private wharf where Nathan’s boat, the
Sky Dancer,
bobbed on the water.

Mallory was so caught up in the ambience of the place that she was startled by her husband’s voice.

“Hi,” he said, and she looked up to see that he was waiting on the front step. For all his strength, he looked so vulnerable in that moment that Mallory’s heart constricted.

“Hi,” she replied, when she could speak.

He was standing up, striding toward her. When they were face-to-face at the base of the long flagstone walk, he brought gentle hands to her shoulders and bent to kiss her forehead. “I would have killed the fatted calf, but we don’t have one.”

Mallory smiled up at him, feeling shaky inside. What if they ended up hurting each other again? What if—

Firmly she caught herself. “I’d settle for a glass of white wine and a dip in your hot tub,” she said.

He laughed. “You’re on. The phones are unplugged, and Mrs. Jeffries has stern orders to tell any visitors that we’re lost in the Cascade mountains.”

As they walked toward the magnificent house, Mallory tucked under Nathan’s arm and wondered how to begin straightening things out. She ventured a serious statement. “No sex, though—okay? Every time we try to talk, we end up making love and nothing gets settled.”

He held up one hand, as if to swear an oath. “No sex,” he promised. And then an evil light flashed behind the pain in his dark eyes. “For now,” he added.

Less than five minutes later, they were both in the swirling waters of Nathan’s hot tub, Mallory sipping the requested white wine. The black-and-white swimsuit she wore was one she’d left behind one summer day, and she was grateful that it was her own; she wasn’t quite sure she could have dealt with all the questions that would have arisen in her mind if it hadn’t been.

Nathan, his strong, tanned forearms braced against the tiled edge of the hot tub, watched her for several long seconds before he ventured, “Mallory, I was served with the summons today—it’s official.”

She wanted to avert her eyes, to look down at the warm water bubbling around her or stare into her wineglass. But she didn’t. She forced herself to meet his gaze squarely. “I’m sorry.”

He sighed, and his voice, when he spoke, was low and rough. “My lawyers want me to settle out of court.”

“Do you plan to?”

Nathan shook his head quickly, but he didn’t look affronted by the question. “No. That would mean an admission of guilt.”

Mallory swallowed. “Nathan, you know you’re not guilty, and I know you’re not. Maybe it would be easier if you did settle.”

Nathan brought one gentle hand to Mallory’s shoulder, and his eyes searched her face. “Do you, Mallory? Do you believe I’m telling the truth?”

She nodded. “I guess I was just hysterical or something. I don’t know. Trish made me see that I might be—well, kind of holding out on you and on our marriage—trying to keep one foot in the life I had with my parents and one in the life you and I share.”

He said nothing; clearly, he was waiting for her to continue. She drew a deep, shaky breath.

“I—I never realized it before, but I think Trish had a point. I mean, I kept on calling myself ‘Mallory O’Connor’ and then there’s the house—”

Nathan smiled, traced the curve of her right cheek with an index finger. “Lots of women are using their own last names now, Mallory. It’s a sign of the times.”

“Well, I don’t feel comfortable with it.”

“The choice is yours, Mallory. With your career and everything, it makes sense to call yourself ‘O’Connor.’”

Mallory flushed slightly at his mention of her acting; here was another subject they hadn’t even touched on. She’d been shocked to hear that he planned to retire, and now he’d be shocked, too. Dear heaven, when had they stopped telling each other their plans and their hopes and their dreams? “I’m not renewing my contract with the soap, Nathan.”

He raised one dark eyebrow. “That’s news to me. Did you get another offer or something?”

She could see by the expression on his face, guarded as it was, that he was hoping she hadn’t. “No. I just don’t
like
acting. If I did, it would be different.”

He looked away for a moment, pretending an interest in the fuchsias, ferns and healthy ivy plants thriving along one wall of the steamy room. “So what do you plan, as you asked me, to do with your time?”

Mallory took another sip from her wineglass, then set it aside. “The first thing I want to do,” she began softly, her hand rising, of its own accord, to his muscle-corded shoulder, “is my part to make our marriage work. Nathan, we’ve grown so far apart. We don’t share anymore—we don’t act like married people.”

He laughed, and it was a gruff sound, a sound of agreement. “That is truly an understatement, my love. You should have been the first to know that I planned to retire.”

“And you should have been the first to know that I did, too. Oh, Nathan, what happened to us? Why did things change?”

“Change is inevitable, Mallory. As much as I’d like to be a part of you, we’re two separate people and we’ve simply gone our own ways.”

“Do you think we can find each other again?”

“I know we can. But it’s going to take work, Mallory, and time—not to mention understanding and patience.”

“Then maybe it’s a good thing our careers won’t be pulling us apart.” She paused to touch his steam-dampened, fragrant hair, and then frowned. “I’m sure quitting the soap is best for me, but I’m not so certain about your leaving the music business. Nathan, it’s a part of you.”

He shrugged, then drew her close, so that their bodies were touching beneath the lulling churn of the water in the hot tub. “Lady, for you I would quit the
breathing
business. Besides, I’m tired—for the time being, all I want is you and one hell of a lot of rest.” He bent his magnificent head, sipped mischievously at her lips. “Admittedly, those two objectives are about as compatible as oil and water.”

She laughed, drew back slightly in his embrace, and looked up at him with dancing eyes. “No sex, remember?”

He groaned, made his case by nipping seductively at her lower lip.

“Nathan.”

He stepped back, looking comically chagrined. “Just how long did I agree to abstain?” he demanded.

She was trembling with a desire that equalled or even surpassed his, but she managed a flippant toss of her head. “At least long enough to get upstairs. People don’t make love in hot tubs, after all.”

He chuckled and then made a growling sound in his throat as he wrenched her close again, trailed searching lips along the length of her tingling neck. “Don’t they? Mallory, Mallory—you innocent.”

She gasped involuntarily as his hand rose to cup her breast; it was a proprietary gesture, for all its gentleness, and it made her traitorous body yearn to offer itself in unqualified surrender. “P-please—stop—”

But Nathan drew down her strapless, elasticized swimming suit top to reveal just one delectable breast. The nipple pulsed as his thumb stroked it to an inviting hardness, and the tender flesh surrounding that pink nubbin was being caressed not only by his hand, but by the warm, soothing water.

Mallory tried to protest, but all that came out of her mouth was a sound that was part croon, part whimper.

“Please, Mallory,” he whispered, his lips burning at her ear like fire. “Let me see you—all of you. Let me touch you—”

“M-Mrs. Jeffries—” she reminded him breathlessly.

He drew the swimsuit down deftly, baring her other breast, her stomach, her abdomen. She stepped out of the garment and immediately forgot that it had ever existed, as a pulsing, insistent warmth surged through her. She cried out softly as he closed hungry lips around the nipple of one breast, drew teasingly at its tip.

Her legs were wrapped around his waist almost before she knew what was happening, and she groaned as he took his leisurely pleasure at her breasts, leaving one only to devour the other.