Separate Cabins

Instead of immediately answering her, Fan threw a glance at her husband. “John, close your ears. A husband shouldn’t hear the advice his wife gives to single women.”

An indulgently amused smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “I’m as deaf as a mouse in a bell tower,” he promised and looked in another direction, pretending an interest elsewhere.

Fan turned back to Rachel. “What I’m talking about is something a little more basic than romance,” she said. “What you really need is a little sex; something to start the fires burning again. And that man looks like he’s got what it takes to deliver the goods.”

Advice like that had been offered before, but it was usually given by the man interested in becoming her sexual partner. If anyone else but her best friend had said that to her, Rachel would probably have thrown the orange drink in their face. Instead she set the container on the ledge and stiffly stood up, waiting as Fan rose also.

“My fires are burning nicely.” At the moment most of the inner heat came from suppressed anger. She had never considered herself to be a prude. Lonely though she sometimes was, Rachel hadn’t become so desperate for love that she resorted to casual sex.

Struggling against her rising agitation, she turned a cold shoulder to Fan. Her forward-facing gaze looked into the glass front of the terminal building. The shaded interior produced a mirrorlike backing for the glass, causing it to reflect a faint image of her own white-suited figure and obscuring the building’s many occupants but not to the extent that she failed to recognize the tall, broad-shouldered man talking to one of the cruise staff.

The sight of him, posed so nonchalantly with one hand casually thrust in the side pocket of his slacks, seemed to add to the seething fury that heated her blood. Unquestionably he was sexy but not in any overt kind of way. It was much more subtle than that. Rachel recognized that and was impatient with herself because she did.

While she unwillingly watched him, he was taken over and introduced to another staff member, who greeted him familiarly. Then he was personally escorted past the roped-off boarding area around the open doorway. Her last glimpse of him was his tapering silhouette outlined briefly in the rectangular patch of light marking the doorway. While all the other passengers had to wait until the appointed boarding time, he was being escorted onto the ship. She supposed it meant he had friends in high places.

“I know I probably sounded crude,” Fan continued, slightly defensive and apologetic. “But it seems to me that the longer you abstain from taking a lover, the more difficult it becomes. Rather like losing your virginity all over.”

“Let’s just forget it.” Severely controlling her voice, Rachel was aware that her friend’s advice was well intentioned. She was just personally uncomfortable with it.

There was a stirring of activity inside the terminal building. The crowd was beginning to bunch closer together and press forward against the ropes. It appeared that the boarding process would commence shortly.

Afraid that if she stayed Fan would continue on the same subject, Rachel decided that it would be better if she joined the other passengers inside before she lost her temper. She didn’t want to start out on this vacation arguing with her best friend. And somewhere she seemed to have lost her sense of humor. She couldn’t turn aside the conversation with a joke that would make light of it, even though she knew it was the best and the most diplomatic way to handle it.

“They’ve started boarding,” she said. “They aren’t admitting visitors until all the passengers are on the ship, so you two might as well wait here. I’ll meet you later on the ship—by the gangway.”

“We’ll be there.” John patted his breast pocket, where he had put their visitor passes.

With that agreement voiced, Rachel left them and walked briskly to the entrance, her white reflection in the glass following and merging as she passed through the open doors. It would be a slow process to board the hundreds of waiting passengers, but this was one time when Rachel didn’t mind the long wait in line. It would give her a chance to simmer down. At the moment she was too tense, her nerves strung out like high-tension wires.

Voices ran together, creating a low din as Rachel reduced her pace and approached the pressing crowd of passengers. She found a place in the main flow and let it sweep her along to the gate that funneled them into a single line to the door.

Chapter Two

Shining pristine white, the ship loomed beside the terminal building, tied to the pier only a few feet from the building’s outside walls. Its massive size and sleek, pure lines demanded attention as Rachel followed the slow-moving string of passengers traveling along the raised walk to the gangway.

On the bow of the ship, high blue letters spelled out her name—Pacific Princess. The blue and green emblem of the cruise line, a maiden’s head with long hair streaming out in waves, was painted on the black-ringed smokestack. Rows of portholes and deck railings marked off her many levels. Rachel was slightly awed by her size and stately majesty.

Ahead photographers were snapping pictures of passengers next to signboards welcoming them aboard the Pacific Princess. Usually they took photos of a couple; sometimes two couples wanted their picture taken together; sometimes it was a family shot.

But Rachel was traveling alone. It was the first time she’d gone on a pleasure trip without Mac or some member of her family or even a friend. The point was brought home to her as she stepped forward to take her turn in front of the camera. She thought she had become used to her solitary state, but she felt awkward and self-conscious. It was an unexpected reaction to something she thought she had accepted.

“How about a big smile?” the photographer coaxed with the camera to his face so his eye could frame her in the lens.

Rachel tried to oblige, but the forced movement was stiff and strained. The click of the camera captured it on film. Then the photographer was nodding to her that it was over, smiling at her with a hint in his glance of male appreciation for her striking looks.

An absent smile touched the corners of her mouth in return, but it faded quickly on an inner sigh as she stepped forward to make room for the couple behind her. She blamed her raw sensitivity on the strain of overwork and quickened her step

s to close on the line of passengers progressing slowly up the gangway. After a couple of days rest she’d be her old self again.

Members of the ship’s crew were on hand to receive the boarding passengers and direct them to their assigned staterooms. Rachel walked onto the rich blue carpet of the foyer and paused beside the white-uniformed officer, who inclined his head in greeting to her.

“Welcome aboard the Pacific Princess. Your cabin, madam?” His voice carried a British accent, reminding Rachel that the ship was of British registry.

“Mrs. MacKinley. Promenade 347.” She had the number memorized after writing it so many times on her luggage tags.

He turned to a young, blond-haired man in a steward’s uniform and motioned him forward. “Promenade 347,” he repeated to the steward, then turned to Rachel, smiling warmly. “Hanson will guide you to your stateroom suite, Mrs. MacKinley.”

“Thank you.” Her mouth curved in an automatic response, then Rachel moved past him to follow the young steward across the wide foyer to the stairwell flanked by elevators.