Separate Cabins

“But I do. We’ll say good-bye here so I won’t have to think about you making the ride back from the airport alone,” he stated.

“Okay.” She lowered her gaze and tried to keep her composure under control.

“I’ve got your address and phone number, don’t I?” There was an uncertain frown on his forehead as he began to feel in his pockets.

“It’s in your shirt pocket,” she assured him.

“It’ll probably be the middle of the week before things settle back to normal ... if they ever will.” It was an almost cynically bitter phrase he threw on at the last, showing how deeply this loss was cutting into his life.

“I understand,” she murmured, but she wanted to be with him.

“Rachel.” His hand moved roughly into her hair, cupping her head and holding it while he crushed her lips under his mouth. She slid her hands around his middle, spreading them across his back and pressing herself against the hard outline of his thighs and hips. The ache inside was a raw and painful thing, an emotional tearing that ripped at her heart.

The tears were very close when Gard dragged his mouth from hers. Rachel rested her head against his shoulder and blinked to keep them at bay. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She had never considered herself to be a weak and clinging female, but she didn’t want to let him go.

It didn’t seem to matter how much she tried to rationalize away this vague fear. Gard wasn’t leaving her because it was what he wanted to do. There was an emergency. He had to go. Shutting her eyes for a moment, she felt the light pressure of his mouth moving over her hair.

“This is a helluva way to end our cruise,” Gard sighed heavily and lifted his head, taking her by the shoulders and setting her a few inches away from him. For a moment she was the focus of his thoughts, and she could see the darkness of regret in his eyes. “We were running out of time and didn’t know it.”

“There will be other times,” Rachel said because she needed a reassurance of that from him. There was a pooling darkness to her gray eyes, but she managed to keep back the tears and show him a calmly composed expression.

“Yes.” The reassurance was absently made as Gard glanced over his shoulder to see the bellman loading his luggage into a taxi. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I have to catch that plane.”

“I know.” She walked with him out to the taxi, parked under the hotel’s covered entrance.

There was one very brief, last kiss, a hard pressure making a fleeting impact on her lips, then Gard was striding to the open door of the taxi, passing a tip to the bellman before folding his long frame into the rear seat of the taxi.

“I’ll call you,” he said with a hurried wave of his hand as he shut the door.

The promise was too indefinite. She wanted to demand something more precise, a fixed time and place when he would call. Instead Rachel nodded and called, “Have a good flight!”

As the cab pulled away Gard leaned forward to say something to the driver. Rachel watched the taxi until it disappeared. If Gard looked back, she didn’t see him. She had the feeling that he’d already forgotten her, his thoughts overtaken by the problems and sorrows awaiting him when he reached Los Angeles.

She turned slowly, walked back through the lobby, and descended to a dining terrace on the lower level. Out in the bay the Pacific Princess sat at anchor, sleek and impressive in size even at this distance. With the reflection of sun and water, the ship gleamed blue-white.

For the last six days that ship had been home to her. Its world seemed more real to her than the one in Los Angeles. The emptiness swelled within her because she was here in this world and Gard was flying to the other. But he’d call her.

Aboard ship again, Rachel was surprised to discover how many passengers knew her until she had to begin to field their inquiries about Gard. Their comments and questions varied, some expressing genuine concern and some merely being nosy.

“Where’s your husband? We haven’t seen him this evening,” was the most common in the beginning. Then it became, “We heard there was a family emergency and your husband had to fly home. We hope it isn’t serious.” Only rarely was Rachel queried about her continued presence on the ship. “How come you didn’t leave with him? Couldn’t you get a seat on the flight?”

But there was an end to them the next day when the ship reached its destination port of Acapulco and Rachel was able to change her reservations and fly home sooner than she had originally planned.

Chapter Ten

The buzz of the intercom phone on her desk snapped Rachel sharply out of her absent reverie. She was supposed to be reading through the stack of letters in front of her and affixing her signature to them, but the pile had only been depleted by three. Instead of reading the rest, she had been staring off into space.

Nothing seemed to receive her undivided attention anymore except the ring of the telephone. Each time it rang, at home or at the office, her heart would give a little leap, and every time she answered it, she thought this time it would be Gard.

For the last two weeks she’d lived on that hope and little else. She couldn’t eat; she couldn’t sleep; she was a basket case of emotions, ready to cry at the drop of a hat. Rachel was beginning to realize that this state of affairs couldn’t continue. She had to resolve the matter once and for all and stop living on the edge of her nerves.

There was another impatient buzz of the intercom. No light was blinking to indicate that a phone call was being held on the line for her. Rachel picked up the receiver.

“Yes, Sally, what is it?” she asked her secretary with grudging patience.

“Fan Kemper is here to see you,” came the answer. “She says she’s taking you to lunch.”

After a second’s hesitation Rachel simply replied, “Send her in.”