Separate Cabins

Chapter One

“It will be approximately another twenty minutes before they’ll begin boarding passengers. You’ll be going through that door.” The young woman, seated behind the table, pointed to the open doorway at the far end of the cavernous port terminal, then passed Rachel a long, narrow boarding card and two visitor passes. “Enjoy your cruise, Mrs. MacKinley.”

“Thank you.” Rachel stepped away from the table to make room for the next passenger in line, then paused to look around and locate the couple who had come to see her off.

The long table was one of several that had been set up to process the tickets and papers of arriving cruise passengers. Their location split the long half of the huge room nearly in the middle, separating the waiting area with seats from the baggage-handling section where passengers’ luggage was loaded on a conveyer belt and carried out to the ship’s hold. From there the luggage would be disbursed to the cabins indicated on their attached tags and be waiting in the passengers’ assigned rooms when they came aboard.

The sitting area did not have enough seats to accommodate all of the hundreds of waiting passengers gathered in the terminal building of the port of Los Angeles. The size of the crowd was increased by the addition of friends or relatives who accompanied some of the passengers, like Rachel. The majority of the passengers and their guests were milling around the large open area near the entrance. Somewhere in that throng of people were Rachel’s friends, Fan and John Kemper.

As Rachel moved toward the crowd her gray eyes made a slow, searching sweep of the faces, but it was the red-flowered silk of her friend’s shirtwaist dress that caught her attention and guided Rachel to the waiting couple.

“Everything all set?” John Kemper inquired as Rachel rejoined them.

By profession he was an attorney, of medium height and blond hair thinning to show the start of a bald spot at the back of his head. On the weekends he avoided the conservative dress of his profession in favor of flashier garb, like the loud red slacks and plaid blazer he was wearing. Mac MacKinley had been a client of his. It was through that association and Rachel’s long-time friendship with John’s wife that she had met Mac, later marrying him.

“Everything is set,” Rachel confirmed and handed him the two visitor cards. “Here are your passes. After all the passengers are on board, they’ll let the visitors on the ship . . . which we won’t board for another twenty minutes.”

“If that’s the case, let’s wait outside,” Fan suggested immediately. “It’s so crowded and noisy in here that I can hardly hear myself think.”

As Fan spoke Rachel was accidentally jostled by the person next to her, giving credence to her friend’s suggestion. “Lead the way,” she agreed.

John headed their exodus, threading a path through the press of milling people to the door. Single file, the two women followed after him with Rachel bringing up the rear. A faint smile touched the corners of her mouth at the way Fan kept glancing over her shoulder to be sure Rachel was behind them. It was a mother-hen trait that came naturally to Fan, accustomed to keeping track of her brood of four children, three boys and a much awaited girl.

The thought of the four towheaded youngsters brought a flicker of remorse, sobering the gray of her eyes. More than once in the last four years Rachel had wished she and Mac hadn’t decided to wait awhile before starting a family. At the time it had seemed sensible, since their furniture business was expanding with branch stores. Mac had been such a big, strapping man, so full of life and ambition. No one could have foretold that a massive coronary would take his life before he turned thirty-five.

They passed out

of the building’s shade into the slanting sunlight of a February afternoon. A drifting breeze picked up the scent of flowers from the bouquets for sale as bon voyage gifts just outside the terminal’s entrance. Rachel made an effort to throw off those reflective thoughts of the past and look to the present and its surroundings.

A few other people shared their desire to escape the crowd inside the building and dawdled on the walk, watching the late arrivals as they drove up to the curb. A long row of buses was parked to one side, having already transported those passengers who had flown into the Los Angeles airport.

“We can sit over here on this ledge.” Fan led them to a landscaped island of palms and shrubbery where there was room for them to sit on the concrete lip of the low wall.

Conscious of how quickly the skirt of her white suit showed the smallest trace of dust or dirt, Rachel brushed at the seat before she sat down. The femininely tailored suit was a flattering choice, showing the slimness of her long-legged figure. Its whiteness accented the ebony sheen of her black hair and the silvery lightness of her gray eyes, sooted in with dark, curling lashes. Her blouse was a jewel-bright shade of blue silk with a collar that tied into a wide bow. It was a striking outfit, made all the more stunning by the attractive beauty of the woman wearing it.

John remained standing, not taking a seat on the ledge beside them. “There’s a catering truck parked down the way. Would you girls like something cold to drink?”

“I’ll have a diet cola.” Fan was quick to accept her husband’s offer, then glanced inquiringly at Rachel. “Rachel?”

“An orange drink, please.”

“A diet cola and an orange drink coming right up,” John repeated their orders, then sketched them a brief salute before moving away.

There was a thoughtful smile on Fan’s face as she watched her husband leave. After a second she turned to Rachel and sighed, “I love it when he calls us ‘girls.’ It makes me feel as if I’m eighteen again.” She laughed shortly, a merry sound full of fun at herself. “Half the time I think I still am. That is”—she qualified—“until those four little demons of mine come charging into our bedroom in the mornings. Then I’m forced to remember I passed the thirty mark two years ago.”

“You look the same as you did the day we graduated from college,” Rachel insisted, but made no comment about Fan’s reference to her children. The mention of them came too quickly after her own thoughts of regret for her childless existence.

“Then how come the red dress I wore that day clings in all the wrong places when I try to wear it now?” Fan demanded with a mocking look. “I suppose after four children I should be grateful I can get into it at all.”

“You look wonderful and you know it,” Rachel assured her friend, because it was true.

There were minor changes in Fan’s appearance. Her blonde hair no longer flowed silkenly to her waist; it was shorter and styled in a sophisticated French sweep. Her once pencil-thin figure was now well rounded but still slender. And Fan was the same person, actively involved in a half dozen projects at once and managing to successfully juggle them all. The quickest way to make an enemy of her was by still calling her Fanny instead of Fan, an appellation she hated.

“I look like exactly what I am—a country club mother of four children, wife of a successful attorney with a flourishing law practice, and committee member of a dozen charities. All the conventional things I vowed I would never be . . . until I met John. And I couldn’t be happier and more fulfilled than I am now,” she declared with a serenely contented smile.

“Sometimes I wonder where the years have gone.” Rachel turned her wistful gray eyes to the pale blue sky and stared, lost in its infinity. “Graduation seems like only yesterday. I turn around, and here I am—thirty-two years old and—” She had been about to say “alone,” but she stopped herself.

“And about to embark on a glorious seven-day cruise down the Mexican Riviera,” Fan finished the sentence for her, deliberately steering it away from any potentially depressing thought.

Recognizing her friend’s intention, Rachel swung her gaze around and smiled in silent gratitude of Fan’s understanding. “I don’t actually believe I’m going yet,” she admitted with a touch of wryness. “I probably won’t believe it until the ship leaves and I’m on it.”

Her comment seemed to explain her lack of enthusiasm. She’d planned vacations before, but something had always come up at the last minute, forcing her to cancel. A small frown of concentration lay upon her features as Rachel mentally went over her checklist to see if she had overlooked any item that might now crop up.

“This time you’re going,” Fan stated. “John and I are personally going to make certain you are on the Pacific Princess when she leaves. After all I went through making the reservations and picking up your ticket last week, you’re going.”

Rachel smiled absently at the firm avowal. Something was nagging at her, holding any eager anticipation for the trip at bay. It darkened her gray eyes, giving them a vaguely troubled and faraway look.

“You could look a little more excited,” her friend accused.

“Sorry.” She flashed a glance at Fan, still slightly preoccupied. “I have this feeling I’ve forgotten something.”

“I don’t know what it could be.” Now it was the blonde who frowned as she considered the possibilities. “Mrs. Pollock, next door, already has the key so she can water your houseplants. And you’ve arranged to have your mail held at the post office until you come back. You did check to make sure your passport hasn’t expired, didn’t you?”

“It’s current,” Rachel nodded. Even without it she had enough other identification with her to allow her to enter and leave Mexico.

“Everything else has been handled, and they’ve already taken your luggage aboard.” Fan sighed and briefly shook her head. “I can’t think of anything other than that.”

“Other than what?” John returned with their cold drinks in time to catch the last part of his wife’s remark. His fingers were splayed to grip the three containers, slippery with the condensation coating their sides. Plastic straws were poking out of their tops.

“Rachel thinks she’s forgotten something,” Fan explained as she took two of the drinks from him before John dropped them, and passed the orange soda to Rachel.