Separate Cabins

Her laughter was a soft sound. “Was I supposed to say I was devastated?”

“Something like that,” he agreed, this time with the humor obvious in his voice, teasing her.

There was a small lull during which Gard took a last drag on his cigarette and ground out the butt in the ashtray on the stand by the bed. In that short interim Rachel’s thoughts had taken her down a serious and thoughtful path.

“You know that I loved Mac,” she mused aloud, sharing her thoughts with Gard. “A part of me always will. There were times, just recently, when I wondered if I would ever care so strongly for a man again. I never guessed I would love anyone like this—so totally, so—” She broke off the sentence, not finding the words to adequately express how very much she loved him.

“Don’t stop,” Gard chided. “Tell me more.”

“You’re already too conceited,” Rachel accused.

“You think so?” He shifted his position, turning onto his side and taking away his shoulder as her pillow. His hand caressed her jaw and cheek as he faced her. “If I am, it’s because you’ve made me so damned happy.”

Leaning to her, he kissed her with long, drugging force. When it was over, it just added to the overall glow she felt. Her gray eyes were as soft as velvet as she gazed at him, happy and warm inside.

“Do you realize they’re serving dinner, and neither one of us has had anything to eat all day?” she reminded him reluctantly, loathe to leave the bed.

“Yes,” Gard said on a heavy sigh, then smiled crookedly. “But I can’t say that I like the idea of sitting across the table from nosy Helen and her husband.” Rachel made a little face of agreement. “I’d rather keep you all to myself. Why don’t we have dinner in the cabin?”

“I’d much prefer that,” she agreed huskily.

“As a matter of fact,” he went further with the thought, “I can’t think of any reason to leave this cabin for the next two days, until the ship puts in at Acapulco.”

“I can think of one,” Rachel smiled. “All my things are in my cabin. I won’t have anything to wear.”

“I know,” he murmured with a complacently amused gleam in his eye. “It would be terrible if you had to lounge around the cabin stark naked for two days.”

The thought brought a little shiver of wicked excitement. “I’m sure you’d hate that,” she retorted with a playfully accusing look.

“Like a poor man hates money,” Gard mocked. “But—since I don’t like to share my toothbrush, I’ll let you fetch some of your things tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Rachel murmured with false docility.

“In the meantime”—he flipped the sheet aside and swung out of the bed—“I’ll see if I can’t get the steward to rustle us up something to eat.”

Rachel lay in bed a minute longer, watching him pull on his pants before walking out to the sitting room to phone. With a reluctant sigh she climbed out of bed and made use of his bathroom to wash and freshen up.

When she returned to the bedroom, instead of putting on her grape-colored shift, Rachel picked up his shirt. Its long tails reached nearly to her knees and the shoulder seams fell three inches below the point of her shoulders. The smell of him clung to the material and she hugged it tightly around her, then began to roll up the long sleeves.

There were sounds of his moving about in the sitting room. Rachel walked to the door and posed provocatively in its frame. Gard was standing in the far corner of the room by the drink cabinet.

“How do you like my robe?” she asked, drawing the rake of his glance.

“Nice.” But the look in his eyes was more eloquent with approval. “I told you that you didn’t need clothes.”

She laughed softly and came gliding silently across the room in her bare feet to watch while he finished mixing them fresh drinks. In truth, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy—or even when she’d ever been this happy. She gazed at him, so sure of her love. If she ever lost him, she thought she’d die. The possibility suddenly brought a run of stark terror to her eyes.

“Dinner is on its way, so I thought we’d have those drinks we never got around to having.” He capped the bottle of tonic water and turned to hand Rachel her glass. An alertness flared in his eyes at her stricken expression. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I—” She started to shake her head in a vague denial, but the fear that gripped her wouldn’t go away. She looked back at him. “I just have this feeling that ... I’d better grab at all the happiness I can today. Tomorrow it might not be here.”

A searing gentleness came into his features. He put an arm around her and brought her close against him, as if reassuring her of the hard vitality of his body. His head was bent close to her downcast face.

“Rachel, I’m not your . . . I’m not Mac.” He corrected himself in mid-sentence, making it seem significant that he hadn’t said “your husband” as he had been about to say. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I know.” She stared at the scattering of silken-fine hairs on his chest, but the tightness in her throat didn’t ease.

He tucked a finger under her chin and forced it up. “Do you always worry so much?” he teased to lighten her mood.