Separate Cabins

“You didn’t have to!” she flared.

“You took me by surprise, Rachel.” Gard attempted to placate her flash of temper with calm reasoning. “Over the years I’ve met a few successful female executives. You just don’t look the type.”

“And what is the type?” Hot ice crystallized in her voice as she threw him a scathing look. “Ambitious and cold and wearing jackets with padded shoulders?” She didn’t wait for him to answer as her lips came thinly together in disgust. “That is the most sexist idea I’ve ever heard!”

“That isn’t what I meant at all, but the point is well taken,” he conceded with a bemused light in his dusty brown eyes. “I deserved that for generalizing.”

She was too angry to care that Gard admitted he’d been wrong. She turned on him. “Why don’t you go back to the ship ... or go drive around in your rented car? Go do whatever it is that you want to do and leave me alone! I’m tired of you following me!”

“I was wrong and I apologize,” Gard repeated with a smooth and deliberately engaging smile. “Let’s find a restaurant and have some lunch.”

“You simply don’t listen, do

you?” she declared in taut anger and looked rawly around the immediate vicinity.

A uniformed police officer was standing on the corner only a few yards away. Rachel acted on impulse, without pausing to think through the idea. In a running walk she swept past Gard and hurried toward the policeman.

“Officer?” she called to attract his attention.

He turned, his alert, dark eyes immediately going to her. He was of medium height with a stocky, muscular build. His broad features had a no-nonsense look, reinforced by a full black mustache. He walked to meet Rachel as she approached him, his gaze darting behind her to Gard.

“Officer, this man is annoying me.” Rachel turned her accusing glance on Gard as he leisurely came up to stand behind her.

His expression continued to exhibit patience, but there was a hard glint in his eyes, too, at her new tactic. When she looked back at the policeman, Rachel wasn’t sure he had understood her.

“This man has been following me.” She gestured toward Gard. “I want him to stop it and leave me alone.”

“The señor makes trouble for you?” the officer repeated in a thick accent to be certain he had understood.

“Yes,” Rachel nodded, then added for further clarification, “S?.”

The policeman turned a cold and narrowed look on Gard while Rachel watched with cool satisfaction. He started to address Gard, but Gard broke in, speaking in an unhesitating Spanish. The policeman’s expression underwent a rapid change, going from a stern to a faintly amused look.

“What did you say to him?” Rachel demanded from Gard.

“I merely explained that we’d had a small argument.” The hard challenge continued to show behind his smiling look. “I was tired of shopping and wanted some lunch. And you—my wife—insisted on going through more stores first.”

Her mouth opened on a breath of anger, but she didn’t waste it on Gard. Instead she swung to the officer. “That isn’t true,” she denied. “I am not his wife. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

An obviously puzzled officer looked once more to Gard. “Señor?”

There was another explanation in Spanish that Rachel couldn’t understand, but it was followed by Gard reaching into his pocket and producing identification. The edge was taken off her anger with the dawning realization of how she was being trapped.

“Would you care to show him your passport or driver’s license, Mrs. MacKinley?” Gard taunted softly.

“Señora, your papers?” the officer requested.

Dully she removed her passport from the zippered compartment in-her purse and showed it to him. A grimly resigned look showed her acceptance of defeat for the way Gard had outmaneuvered her. With the difficulties of the language barrier, she couldn’t hope to convincingly explain that even though their surnames were the same, they weren’t related.

When the policeman returned the passport, he observed her subdued expression. It was plain that he considered this a domestic matter, not requiring his intervention. He made some comment to Gard and grinned before touching a hand to his hat in a salute and moving to the side.

“What did he say?” Rachel demanded.

Before she could tighten her hold on the beach bag, filled to the top now with her morning’s purchases, Gard was taking it from her and gripping her arm just above the elbow to propel her down the sidewalk. Rachel resisted, but with no success.

“He was recommending a restaurant where we could have lunch,” he replied tautly, ignoring her attempts to pull free of his grasp.

“I’m not hungry,” she muttered.