Separate Cabins

Before she could check the impulse, she lifted a hand and smoothed a part of the tangle, then kept her hand there to grip the back of her neck. The suggestion of a smile on his mouth deepened at her action, a light dancing in his look.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Gard advised her with a lazy intonation of his voice. “You look beautiful.”

With that, he straightened, drawing his arm away from the frame and moving forward. Her instinctive response was to move out of his way and maintain a distance between herself and his blatantly male form. Too late, Rachel realized that she should have attempted to close the door to her cabin instead of stepping back to admit him. By then his smooth strides had already carried him past her into the sitting room. It was this lapse on her part that made her face him so stiffly.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

There was an interested and measuring flicker of light in his eyes as he idly scanned her face. He seemed to stand back a little, in that silent way he had of observing people and their reactions.

“I made a mistake yesterday evening when I said I hadn’t unpacked,” Gard replied evenly. “I’d forgotten that I’d taken out my shaving kit so I could clean up before going to dinner. I didn’t discover it until late last night. Somehow”—a hint of a mocking twinkle entered his eyes—“I had the feeling you’d get the wrong idea if I had come knocking on your door around midnight.”

“You’re mistaken about the shaving kit.” Rachel ignored his comments and dealt directly with the issue. “You didn’t leave it here. I unpacked all my things last night and I didn’t find anything of yours while I was putting mine away.”

“You must not have looked everywhere because I left it in the bathroom.” He was unconvinced by her denial that it wasn’t in the cabin.

“Well, you didn’t—” But Rachel didn’t have a chance to continue her assertion because Gard was already walking to the bathroom door. She hurried after him, irritated that he should take it upon himself to search for it. “You have no right to go in there.”

“I know you won’t be shocked if I tell you that I’ve probably seen the full range of feminine toiletries in my time,” he murmured dryly and paid no attention to her protests, walking right into the bathroom.

Rachel stopped outside the door, her fingers gripping the edge of the frame, and looked in. The bathroom was comfortably spacious, but she still didn’t intend to find herself in such close quarters with him.

“You look for yourself,” she challenged, since he intended to do just that anyway. “You’ll see it’s not here.”

He cast her a smiling look, then reached down and pulled open a drawer by the sink. It was a drawer she hadn’t opened because she hadn’t needed the space. When she looked inside, there was a man’s brown shaving kit.

“Here it is—just where I left it,” he announced, dark brows arching over his amused glance.

“So it is.” Rachel was forced to admit it, a resentful gray look in her eyes. “I guess I never looked in that drawer.”

“I guess you didn’t,” Gard agreed smoothly—so smoothly it was almost mocking.

He half turned and leaned a hip against the sink, shifting his weight to one foot. A quiver of vague alarm went through Rachel as she realized that he showed no signs of leaving either her cabin or her bathroom. There was a slow, assessing travel of his gaze over her.

“How long will it take you to dress and fix your hair?” he asked.

“Why?”

“So I’ll know what time to meet you topside for some morning coffee.”

“It won’t make any difference how long it takes for me to get dressed, since I won’t be meeting you for coffee,” Rachel replied, stung that he was so positive she would agree.

“Why?” he asked in a reasonable tone.

“It hardly matters.” She swung impatiently away from the bathroom door, the silken material of her long robe swishing faintly as she moved to the center of the sitting room. When she heard him following her, Rachel whirled around, the robe swinging to hug her long legs. “Hasn’t anyone ever turned down an invitation from you?”

“It’s happened,” Gard conceded. “But usually they gave a reason if only to be polite. And I just wondered what yours is?

”

Her features hardened with iron control. Only her eyes blazed to show the anger within. “Perhaps I’m tired of men assuming that I’m so lonely I’ll accept the most casual invitation. Every man I meet immediately assumes that because I’m a widow I’m desperate for male companionship.” Her scathing glance raked him, putting him in the same category. “They’re positive I’ll jump at the chance to share a bed with them—or a cabin—just because they can fill out a pair of pants. According to them, I’m supposed to be frustrated sexually.”

It didn’t soothe her temper to have him stand there and listen to her tirade so calmly. “Are you?” Gard inquired blandly.

For an instant Rachel was too incensed to speak. The question wasn’t worthy of an answer, so she hurled an accusation at him instead. “You’re no better than the others! It may come as a shock to you, but I’d like to know something about a man besides the size of his shorts before I’m invited into his bed!”

She was trembling from the force of her anger and the sudden release of so much bitterness that had been bottled up inside. She turned away from him to hide her shaking, not wanting him to mistake it as a sign of weakness.

“What does meeting for coffee have to do with going to bed together?” he wondered. “Or has your experience with men since your husband died been such that you don’t accept any invitations?” There was a slight pause before he asked, “Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life?”