Snowflakes on the Sea
New York Times Bestselling Author
Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Nathan McKendrick is world famous, handsome and passionate. The world loves him. Mallory O'Connor McKendrick is successful in her own right. Their storybook marriage had defied the odds as well as the rumors. They believe their love will never die—until suddenly the marriage is crumbling. What could destroy such a strong bond and what could they do to save it?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

1

The bare semblance of a smile curved Nathan McKendrick’s taut lips as he stood at the living room windows looking down at the measured madness in the streets below. Cars fishtailed up and down the steep hills, and buses ground cautiously through the six inches of snow that, according to the doorman, had fallen since morning. The stuff was still coming down, in great lazy slow-motion flakes, like flour from a giant sifter.

Nathan sighed. The people of Seattle didn’t really believe in snow—though they were certainly acclimated to rain—and they were always caught off guard when it came. The timid closed down their businesses and cowered at home, while the more adventurous braved the elements.

He focused his dark gaze on the distance. The harbor was invisible, through the swirling storm and the cloak of night, except for a few flickering lights, and the rugged Olympic Mountains beyond were blotted out entirely. The Space Needle, a modern tower commemorating a past world’s fair, appeared as a patch of blue light in the gloom.

Depressed, Nathan turned from the scene and sighed again. The penthouse, sumptuously furnished in rich suedes and velvets, was close and confining that night, even though it occupied the entire top floor of the building and had been carefully designed to seem even more spacious than it was.

Where was Mallory? The question played in Nathan’s exhausted mind and stretched his waning patience thin. He began to pace the empty living room in long, fierce strides, expending energy he didn’t possess. A six-week concert tour, followed by the endless flight back from Sydney, had left him physically drained.

He paused, looking down at his travel-rumpled clothes—tailored gray slacks and a lightweight cream-colored turtleneck sweater—and grimaced. The garments felt scratchy against the lean, muscular length of his body, and the rough stubble of a new beard stood out on his face like tiny needles.

Though the penthouse boasted no less than four bathrooms, it hadn’t occurred to him until that moment to take the time to shower, shave and change his clothes; he’d been too frightened, too desperate to find Mallory. Oblivious to everything except the state of his wife’s health, he’d caught a cab at the airport and hurried to the hospital, where he’d been summarily informed that “Ms. O’Connor” had been treated and released.

The nurses had told him so little, and he hadn’t been able to reach Mallory’s doctor, Mallory herself or any of her friends. Finally, when he’d frantically dialed his sister’s number, he’d gotten a recorded voice telling him cheerily that Pat couldn’t come to the telephone at the moment.

Though he’d tried the penthouse number and gotten no answer, he had hurried there hoping that Mallory might have left a note.

Now, having made all the same fruitless calls again and left a rather direct message on his sister’s answering machine, he was nearly overwhelmed by weariness and frustration.

Softly, furiously, he cursed. Then, with consummate control, Nathan brought himself up short. Mallory was all right—Pat’s cable had said that much, at least, and with characteristic certainty. Pat was never wrong about anything.

He ground his teeth and went back to the window, only to turn away again and stride toward the master bedroom and the sumptuous bathroom beyond. There, he stripped and stepped into a pulsing, steaming shower.

By the time he’d finished scouring his tense flesh, shaved and gotten dressed again, he felt better. He tried Pat’s number once more and got the same mechanical spiel he’d heard before. Muttering a curse, he dialed the island house and was informed by a harried operator that the lines were down.

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Nathan bounded over the plush carpet and wrenched open one of the heavy double doors.

His sister stood impatiently in the hallway, glaring up at him. “You shouldn’t say things like that on the telephone, Nathan!”

He remembered the colorful message he’d left for Pat and laughed gruffly. “And you should be at home when I want to talk to you,” he retorted, arching one dark eyebrow.

Pat sighed, placated by his off-the-cuff comment. She looked tired as she ran one slender hand through the copper and gold strands of her long hair and blinked her wide cornflower blue eyes. “Could we start over here?” She smiled, stepping around her brother to enter the penthouse. And then, without waiting for an answer, she cleared her throat and began again. “Hello, handsome. Rough trip?”

Nathan shook his head distractedly. The grandfather clock in the living room chimed a soft reminder of the hour. “Pat, I’m going insane while you make small talk. What’s the matter with Mallory, and where the hell is she?”

Pat stood on tiptoe to kiss her brother’s freshly shaven chin. “Relax,” she said gently. “Mallory is okay. After they released her from the hospital, I took her out to the island so she could have some peace and quiet.”

He took his sister’s arm, ushered her somewhat roughly toward the living room. “Why was she in the hospital, damn it?” he snapped, impatient and scared.

Pat settled herself on the suede sofa and crossed her shapely legs. “She collapsed on the set last night, Nathan, and they called an ambulance. Somebody from the show got in touch with me and I cabled you as soon as I’d seen Mallory and talked to the doctor and everything.”

Nathan stiffened, then leaned back against the long teakwood bar Mallory had bought in the Orient several years before, and folded his powerful arms in stubborn outrage. “I’ve been going out of my mind,” he growled. “They wouldn’t tell me anything at the hospital—”

Pat lowered her expressive blue eyes for a moment, regrouping, and then raised them intrepidly to her brother’s face again. “Mallory’s producer threatened them with mayhem if they gave out any information to anyone. Nathan, let it go.”

With a harsh motion of one hand, Nathan reclaimed the brown leather jacket he’d tossed into a chair earlier and slipped his arms into it. Mallory was his first concern—at the moment, his only concern.

As he turned to leave, Pat rose from the couch and caught his arm in one hand, gently but firmly. “Nathan, don’t hassle Mallory about the name thing or the soap opera, all right? She’s a wreck, frankly, and she doesn’t need it.”

“Right,” Nathan agreed crisply.

Pat reached up to touch his dark still-damp hair. “One more thing, love—stop worrying. Everything is okay.”

Nathan laughed, even though nothing in the whole damned world was funny, and walked away from his sister without looking back.

Mallory O’Connor loved the island house, though she didn’t get back to it much, now that she was working in Seattle. Often, the sturdy, simply furnished structure seemed to be the only real thing in her life. Now, standing in the huge old-fashioned kitchen, with snow drifting past the polished windows, she drew a deep breath and allowed herself to feel the sweet, singular embrace of the one place that was really home. Then, comforted, Mallory began selecting fragrant, splintery lengths of kindling from the box beside the big wood-burning stove to start a fire. She’d slept for a while after Pat had raced back to the city, and now she was pleasantly hungry.

Pride filled Mallory as the blaze caught and began to heat the spacious kitchen. Her mother had been right—there was a certain satisfaction in doing things the old way, a satisfaction she’d never found in the posh Seattle penthouse she and Nathan shared between his long and frequent absences.

Mallory sighed. She loved Nathan McKendrick with an intensity that had never abated in six tumultuous years of marriage, though she couldn’t have honestly said that she was happy. At twenty-seven, she was successful in her out-of-the-blue career, and Nathan, at thirty-four, was certainly successful in his. But there were elements missing from their relationship that caused Mallory to hunger even in the midst of opulence.

Money and recognition were pitiable substitutes for children, and the hectic pace most people considered glamorous only made Mallory’s heart cry out for simplicity and peace.

Outside, in the silent storm, Mallory’s Irish Setter, Cinnamon, began to howl for admission. Mallory smiled and went out onto the screened sun porch to welcome her furry and much-missed friend.

Cinnamon whimpered and squirmed in unabashed delight as Mallory greeted her with a pat on the head. “What do you say we just hide out here from now on, girl?” Mallory asked, only half in jest. “Nathan could go on with his concert tours—the darling of millions—and we’d exist on a diet of oysters and clams and wild blackberries.”

The dog abandoned its mistress to sniff and paw at a large, unopened sack of dog food leaning against the inside wall of the porch beside the screen door. Mallory began to pry at the stubborn stitching sealing the bag. “So much for living off the land,” she muttered.

While Cinnamon crunched happily away on the dried morsels wrested from that recalcitrant bag, Mallory heated canned chicken soup on the cookstove. There was very little in the house to eat, but shopping could wait until morning—Mallory would get her car out of the locked garage then, and drive to the small store on the other side of the island.

The wooden telephone on the kitchen wall, actually a modern replica of the old-fashioned crank phone, rang in pleasant tones, and Mallory left the soup simmering on the stove to answer. When she and Pat had arrived, there hadn’t been any phone service at all.

“Hello?”

Pleased feminine laughter sounded on the other end of the crackling line. “Mall, you are back!” cried Trish Demming, one of Mallory’s closest friends. “Thank heaven. I thought I’d fallen short in my dog-watching duties—I called Cinnamon until I was hoarse.”

Mallory smiled. “She’s here, Trish—safe and sound. I tried to call you, but the lines were dead.”

Trish’s voice was warm. “No problem. Actually, I should have looked at your house in the first place. Even when you’re gone, Cinnamon is always dashing over there. What’s going on, anyway? I thought you were all involved in taping that soap—er—daytime drama of yours, Mall.”

Mallory sighed. “I’m having an enforced vacation, Trish. Brad isn’t going to let me back on the set until I have a doctor’s permission.” She didn’t add that she was relieved to have a respite from the crazy schedule; Trish wouldn’t have understood.

There was a short silence while Trish considered the implications of Mallory’s statement. “Honey,” she said finally, concern ringing in her voice, “you’re not sick, are you? I mean, you must be, but is it serious?”

Mallory touched the top of the yellow-enameled wainscoting reaching halfway up the kitchen wall and frowned at the smudge of dust that lingered on her fingertip. “I’m just tired,” she assured her friend, glad that Trish couldn’t see the dark splotches of fatigue under her eyes or the telltale thinness of her already slender figure.

For a while, the two women discussed the plot line of “Tender Days, Savage Nights,” the first soap opera ever to be produced in Seattle. Brad Ranner, the show’s dynamic creator and chief stockholder, had brought it out from New York a year before, partly because of lower production costs and partly because of a desire to use more outdoor scenes. The spectacular vista of sea and mountains and lush woodlands gave the program unique appeal.

Most of the original cast had balked at leaving New York, however, and open auditions had been held in Seattle. On a whim, Mallory had gone, along with a horde of other applicants, to read for a part. Anxious to accomplish something strictly on her own, she had given her maiden name and prayed that no one would recognize her as the wife of a world famous rock singer.

No one had, and furthermore, Mallory had been selected, despite an embarrassing lack of acting experience, to play the role of Tracy Ballard, a troubled young woman who devoted boundless energy to destroying long-term marriages. The part had been a small one at first, but Mallory had played it with a verve that pleased sponsors and viewers alike. Her character on the show took on interesting dimensions, and suddenly, Mallory O’Connor McKendrick was a success in her own right.

And how empty it was.

She promised to visit Trish soon and rang off, frowning. Her hand lingered for a moment on the telephone receiver. Mallory was rich now and, in her own way, even famous, if “famous” was the proper word for a notoriety that caused strange women to confront her in supermarkets and department stores and even libraries, demanding that she stop interfering in this or that fictional marriage.

Nibbling at her lukewarm soup, Mallory considered her life and, for perhaps the ten-thousandth time, wished that it could all be different. Her hard-won teaching certificate had never seen a day’s use, and she longed for a child of her own to love and nurture.

She was rinsing out her empty bowl and placing it in the orange plastic drainer beside the sink when a pair of headlights swung into the yard, their golden light speckled with glistening flakes of snow. Mallory leaned close to the cool, damp window, trying to recognize the car.

When that proved impossible due to the storm, she ran her hands down the worn red-and-blue-plaid flannel of her shirtfront and hurried out onto the screened porch. Cinnamon danced at her heels and then wriggled gleefully against the legs of her jeans.

The slam of a car door echoed, mingling with the nightsong of the tide, and Cinnamon’s magnificent tawny head shot up, suddenly alert. Before Mallory could grasp her collar, the dog propelled herself through the outside screen door and bounded into the ever-deepening snow, yipping hysterically.

Nathan laughed and reached down to greet Cinnamon with the customary pat-and-rub motion that made her ears flop about in comical disarray. “Hello, you worthless mutt,” he said.

Mallory stood in the doorway, her mouth open, just staring. Would she never get over feeling as though she’d just been punched in the solar plexis whenever Nathan McKendrick came striding back into her life?

Standing in the stream of light coming from the kitchen, Nathan forgot the dog and raised his eyes to Mallory. They made their way over her trim, rounded hips, her small waistline, her high, firm breasts to settle at last on her face.

Mallory fell against the doorframe, watching him in stricken silence. Snow glistened in his unruly ebony hair and on the straining shoulders of his jacket, and he put his hands onto his narrow, powerful hips and stared back.

There was a charged silence between them for a long moment, threatening to melt the snow and raise steam from the buried earth. Mallory’s traitorous heart caught in her throat. She’d known that he would come, known that Pat, ever the loyal sister, would contact him, alert him to the fact that his wife had been hospitalized. And yet she had hoped for more time, even as she had longed to be near him again.

Nathan executed a mocking bow. “Good evening—Ms. O’Connor,” he said in a sardonic drawl.

As quickly as that, the strange spell was broken. Mallory lifted her chin in answer to his challenge and replied, “Good evening, Mr. McKendrick.”

Nathan’s jawline tightened with immediate annoyance, and some unreadable emotion glittered in his dark eyes as he strode toward her. Before Mallory could move, he had lifted her out of the doorway and over the two snow-laden steps beneath it.

Her insides rioted with involuntary need as he held her, suspended, his face between her ripe, inviting breasts. Even through the heavy flannel of her shirt, she could feel the warmth of his breath.

Slowly, he lowered her, so that the throbbing fullness of her chest was crushed against the hard expanse of his own. Then, his hands cupping the roundness of her bottom, he pressed her to him, to the ready demand of his manhood and the granitelike wall of his thighs.

Good Lord, Mallory thought with remorse. I’m as bad as any groupie—if he wanted to take me right here in the snow, I’d let him!

Nathan must have known what havoc he was wreaking on her straining senses, but he said nothing. His mouth came down on hers in a kiss that was at once gentle and demanding. Deftly, his lips parted hers for the sweet invasion and searing exploration of his tongue. Mallory responded with hungry abandon, shivering violently in the force of her need.

Then suddenly, Nathan was thrusting her away, holding her at arm’s length. His eyes glowed as they touched her lips and trailed, like the touch of a warm finger, to the pulsing hollow at the base of her throat. He turned her around and propelled her toward the house.

Mallory’s face was hot as she turned to watch her husband enter behind her, Cinnamon rollicking exuberantly at his side.

Nathan closed the door quietly, his eyes working their singular magic again as they moved idly over Mallory’s body, assessing her, stirring primitive reactions as they passed. “I’ve missed you, lady,” he said in a low voice.

Crimson color stained Mallory’s cheeks, and her pride caused her to thrust her head back, so that her dark taffy hair flew over her shoulders in glossy profusion. Her round, thickly lashed eyes flashed with sea green fury born of his ability to inflame her so easily, and she did her best to scowl.

He laughed. “You are an actress, pumpkin,” he allowed, approaching her slowly. One of Nathan’s hands cupped Mallory’s breast, the thumb stroking the bare nipple beneath her old shirt to hard and undeniable response. “Your body betrays you,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t hate me nearly as much as you’d like me to believe.”

Of course I don’t hate you! Mallory wanted to scream, but her pride wouldn’t allow that, so she lifted her chin in stubborn, wordless defiance. But a small cry escaped her as Nathan’s hand released her breast to undo one of her shirt buttons, and then another. Her entire body pinkened as he bared the rounded sweetness of her to his lazy inspection.

Mallory abandoned her act when her husband lowered his lips to one waiting nipple to nip at it, ever so gently, with his teeth. She moaned aloud and arched her back slightly so that he could feast upon her.

He chuckled in gruff triumph and flicked the rosy, pulsing center of her breast with the tip of his tongue, teasing. His hand slid between Mallory’s legs to caress the taut, womanly secrets of her inner thighs.

“Bastard,” she whispered, but there was a catch in her voice and a caress in the word itself. Her hands entangled themselves, without conscious instruction from Mallory, in the thick richness of his dark hair, pressing him closer. With sudden hunger, he devoured the freely offered breast, answering Mallory’s groan of ancient pleasure with one of his own.

Presently, he turned to sample the other breast, again teasing and nibbling, again driving Mallory nearly insane with the need of him. She would not beg him—she would not—but even as she made this decision, desperate pleas were aching in her throat.

At last, Nathan pressed her against the wainscoting lining the wall, and the lean, inescapable hardness of his body joining hers revealed the force of his desire. He stood back only long enough to divest Mallory of her flannel shirt and kiss her flat, soft stomach in a tantalizing promise of further kisses that would drive her beyond passion into the paradise they had visited so many times.

He unsnapped her jeans, and she felt the zipper give way, the fabric slide down over her hips. She shivered as her panties, too, were lowered. Lips parted, she awaited loving that always bordered on the deliciously unendurable.

Nathan nuzzled the silken shelter of her womanhood; the warm promise of his breath and his searching lips made her tremble. One plea broke past her resolve, and it took the shape of his name.

Slowly, he revealed the small, yearning nubbin. In desperation, Mallory caught his head in both hands and thrust him to her. “Oh, God,” she breathed, mindless now in her wanting. “Oh, God, Nathan, please—”

At the invitation he had purposely forced from her, Nathan partook hungrily of her, and his tender greed brought her to swift and searing release. She shuddered reflexively, her fingers moving in his hair, and moaned as he nibbled at her at his leisure, demanding a fiery encore to the performance just past.

Bared to him, and so deliciously vulnerable, Mallory whispered words of gentle, desperate encouragement as he tormented the bit of quivering flesh with soft kisses. She writhed, gasped with delight, when he took his pleasure yet again, bringing his tongue into play this time, sampling her and then suckling as though to draw some sweet nectar from her. “Don’t—stop—” she pleaded, her wanting now as naked as her hips and her thighs and her stomach.

He drew back, just slightly. “Sweet,” he whispered in a ragged voice, and then he enjoyed her in long, warm, delicious strokes of his tongue. Savage pleasure convulsed Mallory, and her triumph came in a cry that was half shout, half sob.

It was then that, in the snowy silence outside, an engine roared. One car door slammed, and then another.

Nathan swore harshly and straightened, while Mallory, cheeks burning, frantically righted her clothes. Feet were stomping heavily on the porch outside, and Cinnamon began to bark in somewhat belated alarm.

“Just a minute!” Nathan growled, closing his eyes in an obvious effort to control his roiling emotions and frustrated need.

As embarrassed as though the visitors had seen the impromptu love scene staged in the McKendrick kitchen, Mallory turned to the stove to hide her flaming face and occupy her hands with the task of brewing fresh coffee. After another moment of preparation, Nathan answered the door.

“Oops!” Trish Demming blushed, sizing up the situation with her usual gentle shrewdness. “Alex, I think we interrupted something.”

Trish’s good-natured, bespectacled husband pretended to rush for the door. He was Nathan’s accountant and one of his closest friends.

“Sit down,” Nathan ordered humorlessly, and Mallory felt his hot gaze touch her rigid back. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw Trish set a covered baking dish down on the counter.

It was several minutes before Mallory gathered enough composure to join the others at the kitchen table, and, even when she did, it was clear that Nathan wasn’t going to give her an easy time of it. His dark eyes seared her breasts whenever the opportunity afforded itself, and lingered on her lips until she thought she’d shout with frustration.

Still, it was pleasant to spend time with dear friends, and Mallory genuinely enjoyed the lively conversation touching on everything from Nathan’s last concert tour to the ban on gathering oysters along the island’s rocky shores. Trish had brought one of her highly acclaimed peach cobblers, and they all ate a hefty slice with their coffee, Trish and Mallory bemoaning the astronomical calorie count.

Mallory was fairly trembling with hidden exhaustion and anticipation when Trish began to make sincere noises about leaving. Good-byes were said, and the Demmings bundled up in their practical island coats and braved the snow piling up between the house and their car.

Mallory and Nathan exchanged a look of resignation when they heard the car’s motor grind halfheartedly, and then die. Nathan’s eyes moved over Mallory’s body in a sweep of hungry promise, and then he swatted her gently on the bottom and bent his head to nibble briefly at her earlobe. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, and strode out onto the sun porch, rummaging through the collection of battered coats that had belonged to her father.

Mallory needed to sink languidly into a warm, scented bath and go to bed. She was so tired that sleep would come easily, but not before she and Nathan had reached the breathless heights of love they always scaled after they’d been apart.

And we’re apart so much, she thought, her weariness reaching new and aching depths.

A moment later, there was a stomping sound on the porch, and Trish reappeared, looking embarrassed and apologetic. “Nathan and Alex are trying to get the car started,” she mumbled, unconsciously rubbing her chilled hands together. “Ace mechanics they’re not.”

Mallory grinned at her friend and firmly ushered her closer to the stove. “It’s all right, Trish,” she cajoled. “There’s still plenty of coffee, if you’d like more.”

Trish shook her head, and her soft blond hair moved delicately with the motion. “We shouldn’t have barged in here like that,” she said ruefully, and then her blue eyes moved to Mallory’s face. “I’m so sorry, Mall—it’s just that I was worried about you, and, of course, we had no idea that Nathan was home.”

Mallory hugged Trish warmly. “You were being thoughtful, as always. So stop apologizing.”

Trish’s pretty aquamarine eyes were pensive now, seeing too much. “Mall, you really look beat. Are you okay?”

Suddenly, Mallory had to look away; she couldn’t sustain eye contact with this friend she’d known all her life and say what she meant to say. “I’m fine,” she insisted after a short pause.

The tone of Trish’s voice betrayed the fact that she was neither convinced nor mollified, but she spared Mallory her questions and gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom. “Go and take a nice hot bath and get yourself into bed, Mrs. McKendrick. I can look after myself until the men get our car going again.”

Mrs. McKendrick. Mallory blanched, unwittingly giving away something she hadn’t meant to reveal. She longed to be known by her married name again, and yet, it sounded strange to her, as though she had no right to resume it.

Trish laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Get some rest, Mall. We’ll have a good, long talk when you’re up to it.”

There was much that Mallory needed to confide, but this was neither the time nor the place. “I—If you’re sure you won’t feel slighted—”

Trish’s eyes were sparkling with warmth and controlled concern. “Just go, will you? I’m not such an air head that I can’t entertain myself for a few minutes!”

Mallory laughed, but the sound was raw and mirthless. Reluctantly, she left her friend to her own devices and stumbled into the bathroom, where she started running hot water in the tub.

While it ran, Mallory hurried through the doorway that joined that room to the master bedroom and began to search wearily through the suitcases Pat had packed for her earlier at the penthouse. There were jeans and sweaters, always necessary for winter visits to the island, but nothing even remotely glamorous had been included. Mallory thought of all the silken lingerie left behind in Seattle and sighed. She had so wanted to look especially attractive for Nathan, but Pat had either not foreseen that contingency or not considered it important.

With resolve, Mallory ferreted out her least virginal flannel nightgown and carried it into the steam-clouded bathroom. Over the roar of the water, she heard Trish and Alex’s car start up.

Smiling to herself, Mallory stripped and climbed into the tub. The warmth of the scented water was heaven to her tired muscles, and she sank into it up to her chin, giving a soft sigh of contentment as total relaxation came at last.

Home, she thought happily. I am home.

The heavy enameled door of the bathroom squeaked open then, and, suddenly, Nathan was there, his dark eyes taking in the slender, heat-pinkened length of her body. Beneath the suntan he’d undoubtedly acquired in Australia, where it was now the height of summer, he paled.

“My God, Mallory,” he swore. “How much weight have you lost?”

Mallory shrugged as she averted her eyes. “Maybe five pounds,” she said.

Nathan was leaning against the chipped pedestal sink now, his arms folded, watching her. “More like fifteen,” he argued, his voice sharpened to a lethal edge. “You were too thin when I left, but now—”

Mallory squeezed her eyes closed, hoping to press back the sudden and unaccountable tears that burned there. Was he saying that he didn’t want her anymore, didn’t find her physically attractive?

She felt his presence in the steamy bathroom, heard him kneel on the linoleum floor. When Mallory opened her eyes, she was not surprised to find him beside her, the knuckles of his powerful, gifted hands white with the force of his grasp on the curved edge of the bathtub.

“Mallory, talk to me,” he pleaded hoarsely. “Tell me what to do—how to change things—how to make you really happy again.”

One traitorous tear escaped, trickling down Mallory’s slender cheek and falling into the bathwater. “I am happy, Nathan,” she lied.

Nathan made a harsh, disgusted sound low in his throat. His eyes burned like ebony fire. “No,” he countered. “Something is chewing you up alive, and the hell of it is, I can’t do a damned thing about it if you won’t trust me enough to be honest.”

Mallory’s voice was small and shaky with dread. “Do you want a divorce, Nathan?”

He was on his feet in an instant, turning his back on Mallory, shutting her out. His broad shoulders were taut under the soft gray fabric of his shirt.

Unable to bear the oppressive silence placidly, Mallory reached out and grasped the big sponge resting in an inside corner of the tub. Fiercely, she lathered it with soap and began to scrub herself so hard that her flesh tingled.

“I would understand,” she said, when she dared speak.

Nathan whirled suddenly, startling her so badly that she dropped the sponge and stared at him, openmouthed. His face was rigid with suppressed fury and something very much like pain. He folded his arms in a gesture that, with him, signaled stubborn determination.

“Understand this,” he said in a low and dangerous tone. “You are my wife and you will remain my wife. I don’t intend to let you go, ever. And you will warm no one else’s bed, my love—not Brad Ranner’s, not anyone’s.”

Mallory felt the words strike her like stones, and it was all she could do not to flinch with the pain. “What?” she whispered finally, in shock.

Nathan’s face was desolate now, but it was hard, too. “You’ve been wasting away ever since you signed on with that damned soap opera, Mallory. And there has to be a reason.”

Mallory lifted her chin. There were reasons, all right, but Brad Ranner wasn’t among them, nor was any other man.

“I’ve been faithful to you,” she said stiffly. And it was true—she had never even been tempted to become intimate with another man, and she had come to Nathan’s bed as a virgin. She couldn’t bring herself to ask if he’d been as loyal; she was too afraid of the answer.

Nathan sighed, the sound broken, heavy. “I know, Mallory—I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what? Mallory wondered silently, sick with the anguish of loving a man who belonged to so many. Sorry for accusing me like you did or sorry that you have a number of nubile groupies to occupy your many nights away from home?

“I’m very tired,” she said instead.

“I see. You weren’t tired in the kitchen tonight, were you?”

The sarcasm in his voice made Mallory’s cheeks burn bright pink. “That was a long time ago,” she snapped, not daring to meet his eyes.

“At least an hour,” Nathan retorted.

“Leave me alone!”

“Gladly,” he snapped. Then, slowly, Nathan turned and left the room. When the door closed behind him, Mallory dissolved in silent tears of exhaustion and grief.

Nathan stood at the bedroom window, looking out. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness, but the storm had stopped anyway. That was something. Behind him, Mallory slept. The soft meter of her breathing drew him, and he turned back to look at her.

The dim glow of the hallway light made her fine cheekbones look gaunt and turned the smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes to deep shadows. She looked so vulnerable lying there, all her grief openly revealed in the involuntary honesty of sleep.

Nathan drew a ragged breath. How could he have urged her to surrender her body the way he had, when she was so obviously ill? And what had possessed him to imply that she was attracted to Brad Ranner, knowing, as he did, that that kind of deceit was foreign to her nature?

Quietly, he approached the bed and pulled the covers up around her thin shoulders. She stirred in her uneasy sleep and moaned softly, intensifying the merciless ache that had wrenched at Nathan’s midsection since the moment his press agent, Diane Vincent, had thrust Pat’s cable into his hands after the last concert in Sydney.

The night was bitterly cold. Nathan slid back into bed beside his wife and held himself at a careful distance. Even now, the wanting of her, the needing of her, was almost more than he could bear. Raising himself onto one elbow, Nathan watched Mallory for a long time, trying to analyze the things that had gone wrong between them.

He loved her fiercely and had since the moment he’d seen her, some six and a half years ago. Prior to that stunning day, he’d prided himself on his freedom, on the fact that he’d needed no other person. Now, in the darkness of the bedroom, beneath the warmth of the electric blanket, he sighed. If he lost Mallory—and he was grimly convinced that he was losing her, day by hectic day—nothing else in his life would matter. Nothing.

She stirred beside him. Nathan wanted her with every fiber of his being and knew that he would always want her. But there was one thing greater than his consuming desire, and that was his love. He fell back on his pillows, his hands cupped behind his head, his eyes fixed on the shadowed ceiling.

Her hand came to his chest, warm and searching, her fingers entangling themselves in the thick matting of hair covering muscle and bone. “Nathan?” she whispered in a sleepy voice.

Despite the pain inside him, he laughed. “Who else?” he whispered back. “Sleep, babe.”

But Mallory snuggled against him, soft and vulnerable. “I don’t want to sleep,” she retorted petulantly. “Make love to me.”

“No.”

Her hand coursed downward over his chest, over his hard abdomen, urging him, teasing. “Yes,” she argued.

Nathan was impatient. “Will you stop it?” he said tightly. “I’m trying to be noble here, damn it.”

“Mmm,” Mallory purred, and her tantalizing exploration continued. “Noble.”

“Mallory.”

She raised herself onto one elbow and then bent her head to sample one masculine nipple with a teasing tongue.

Nathan groaned, but he remembered her thinness, her collapse on the set in Seattle, the hollow ache visible in her green eyes. And he turned away, as if in anger, and ignored her until she withdrew.

2

The telephone was ringing when Mallory awakened the next morning. She burrowed down under the covers with a groan, determined to ignore it. If she waited long enough, Nathan would answer it or the caller would give up.

But the ringing continued mercilessly, and Mallory realized that her husband wasn’t nestled between the smooth flannel sheets with her. Tossing back the bedclothes with a cry of mingled irritation and disappointment, she scrambled out of bed and reached automatically for her robe.

The house was pleasantly warm, and Mallory smiled, leaving the robe—and an aching recollection of Nathan’s rejection the night before—behind as she made her way into the kitchen and disengaged the old-fashioned earpiece from its hook on the side of the telephone. “Hello?” she spoke into the mouthpiece, idly scanning the neat kitchen for signs of Nathan. Except for the heat radiating from the big woodburning stove, there was nothing to indicate that he’d been around at all.

“Hello,” snapped Diane Vincent, Nathan’s press agent. “Is Nate there?”

Mallory frowned. Good question, she thought ruefully. And where the hell do you get off calling him “Nate”?

“Mallory?” Diane prodded.

“He was here,” Mallory answered, and hated herself for sounding so lame and uncertain.

Disdain crackled in Diane’s voice. “One night stopover, huh? Listen, if he happens to get in touch, tell him to call me. I’m staying at my sister’s place in Settle. He knows the number.”

Mallory was seething, and her knees felt weak. She reached out awkwardly for one of the kitchen chairs, drew it near and sat down. She despised Diane Vincent and, in some ways, even feared her. But she wasn’t about to let anything show. “I’ll relay your message,” she said evenly.

Diane sighed in irritation, and Mallory knew that she was wondering why a dynamic, vital man like Nathan McKendrick had to have such a sappy wife. “You do that, sugarplum—it’s important.”

Mallory forced a smile to her face. “Oh, I’m sure it is—dearest.”

Diane hung up.

Outside, in the pristine stillness of an island morning, Cinnamon’s joyful bark pierced the air. Mallory hung up the phone and went to stand at the window over the kitchen sink, a genuine smile displacing the frozen one she’d assumed for Diane Vincent. Nathan and the enormous red dog were frolicking in the snow, their breath forming silvery white plumes in the crisp chill of the day. Beyond them, the towering pine trees edging the unpaved driveway swayed softly in the wind, green and snow-burdened against the splotchy sky.

Mallory swallowed as bittersweet memories flooded her mind. For a moment, she slid back through the blurry channels of time to a cheerful memory….

“One of these days,” her father was saying, snowflakes melting on the shoulders of his checkered wool coat and water pooling on the freshly waxed floor around his feet, “I’m going to have to fell those pine trees, Janet, whether you and Mallory like it or not. If I don’t, one of them is sure to come down in a windstorm and crash right through the roof of this house.”

Mallory and her mother had only exchanged smiles, knowing that Paul O’Connor would never destroy those magnificent trees. They had already been giants when the island was settled, over a hundred years before, and that made them honored elders.

With reluctance, Mallory wrenched herself back to the eternal present and retreated into the bedroom. There would be time enough to tell Nathan that Diane wanted him to call, she thought, with uncharacteristic malice. Time enough.

Mallory crawled into bed, yawned and immediately sank into a sweet, sound, dreamless sleep.

When she awakened much later, the sun was high in the sky, and she could hear the sizzle of bacon frying and the low, caressing timbre of Nathan’s magical voice. Grinning, buoyed by the sounds and scents of morning, Mallory slid out of bed and crept to the kitchen doorway.

Nathan, clad in battered blue jeans and a bulky blue pullover sweater, stood with his back to her, the telephone’s earpiece propped precariously between his shoulder and his ear. While he listened to the person on the other end of the line, he was trying to turn the fragrant bacon and keep an eager Cinnamon at bay at the same time. Finally, using a meat fork, he lifted one crispy strip from the pan, allowed the hot fat to drip off and then let the morsel fall to the floor. “Careful, girl—that’s hot,” he muttered. And then he moved closer to the mouthpiece and snapped, “Very funny, Diane. I was talking to the dog.”

Mallory stiffened. Suddenly, the peace, beauty and comfort of the day were gone. It was as though the island had been invaded by a hostile army.

She went back to the bedroom, now chilled despite the glowing warmth that filled the old house, and took brown corduroy slacks and a wooly white sweater from her suitcases. After dressing and generally making herself presentable, she again ventured into enemy territory.

Nathan was setting the table with Blue Willow dishes and everyday silver and humming one of his own tunes as he worked. Mallory looked at the dishes and remembered the grace of her mother’s hands as she’d performed the same task, the lilting softness of the songs she’d sung.

Missing both her parents keenly in that moment, she shut her eyes tight against the memory of their tragic deaths. She had so nearly died with them that terrible day, and she shuddered as her mind replayed the sound of splintering wood, the dreadful chill and smothering silence of the water closing over her face, the crippling fear.

“Mall?” Nathan queried in a low voice. “Babe?”

She forced herself to open her eyes, draw a deep, restorative breath. Janet and Paul O’Connor were gone, and there was no sense in reliving the brutal loss now. She tried to smile and failed miserably.

“Breakfast smells good,” she said.

Nathan could be very perceptive at times—it was a part, Mallory believed, of his mystique as a superstar. The quality came through in the songs he wrote and in the haunting way he sang them. “Could it be,” he began, raising one dark eyebrow and watching his wife with a sort of restrained sympathy, “that there are a few gentle and beloved ghosts among us this morning?”

Mallory nodded quickly and swallowed the tears that had been much too close to the surface of late. The horror of that boating accident, taking place only a few months after her marriage to Nathan, flashed through her mind once more in glaring technicolor. The Coast Guard had pulled her, unconscious, from the water, but it had been too late for Paul and Janet O’Connor.

Nathan moved to stand behind her, his hands solid and strong on her shoulders. It almost seemed that he was trying to draw the pain out of her spirit and into his own.

Mallory lifted her chin. “What did Diane want?” she asked, deliberately giving the words a sharp edge. If she didn’t distract Nathan somehow, she would end up dissolving before his very eyes, just as she’d done so many times during the wretched, agonizing days following the accident.

He sighed and released his soothing hold on her shoulders, then rounded the table and sank into his own chair, reaching out for the platter of fried bacon. “Nothing important,” he said, dropping another slice of the succulent meat into Cinnamon’s gaping mouth.

Mallory began to fill her own plate with the bacon, eggs and toast Nathan had prepared. “Diane is beautiful, isn’t she?”

Nathan glowered. “She’s a bitch,” he said flatly.

Mallory heartily agreed, in secret, of course, and it seemed wise to change the subject. “My contract with the soap is almost up,” she ventured carefully, longing for a response she knew Nathan wouldn’t give.

“Hmm,” he said, taking an irritating interest in the view framed by the big window over the sink. The dwarf cherry trees in the yard looked as though someone had trimmed their naked gray branches in glistening white lace.

Mallory bit into a slice of bacon, annoyed. Damn him, why doesn’t he say that he’s pleased to know I’ll have time for him again, that we should have a child now? “Well?” she snapped.

“Well, what?” he muttered, still avoiding her eyes.

Mallory ached inside. If she told him that she wanted to give up her career—it wasn’t even a career to her, really, but something she had stumbled into—it would seem that she was groveling, that she hadn’t been able to maintain her independence. “Nothing,” she replied with a defeated sigh. She looked at the food spread out on the table and suddenly realized that the makings of such a meal hadn’t been on hand when she arrived the night before. “You’ve been to the store.”

He laughed at this astute observation, and at last he allowed his dark, brooding eyes to make contact with her green ones. “My dear,” he imparted loftily, “some of us don’t lounge about in our beds half the day with absolutely no concern for the nutritional needs of the human body. Which reminds me—” His wooden chair scraped along the floor as he stood up and reached out for a bulky paper bag resting on the kitchen counter. From it, he took six enormous bottles containing vitamin supplements. Ignoring his own rapidly cooling breakfast, Nathan began to shake pills from each of the bottles and place them neatly beside Mallory’s orange juice. Finally, when there was a colorful mountain of capsules and tablets sitting on the tablecloth, he commanded sternly, “Start swallowing.”

Mallory gulped, eyeing what amounted to a small meal all on its own. “But—”

Nathan merely leaned forward and raised his eyebrows in firm instruction, daring her to defy him.

Dutifully, his wife swallowed the vitamins, one by one. When the arduous task had been completed, Mallory had no appetite left for the food remaining on her plate, but she ate it anyway. Clearly Nathan meant to press the point if she didn’t.

Once the meal was over, they washed and dried the dishes together, talking cautiously about things that didn’t matter. As Mallory put the last piece of silverware into the appropriate drawer, however, she bluntly asked a question that had been tormenting her all along.

“Nathan, why didn’t you make love to me last night?”

He looked at her, and their eyes held for a moment, but Mallory saw the hardening of Nathan’s jawline and the tightening of his fine lips. He broke away from her gaze and once again took a consuming interest in the cherry trees outside.

“I was tired,” he said after a long pause. “Jet lag, I guess.”

Mallory was not sure whether what she felt was courage or just plain foolishness. “Are you having an affair, Nathan?”

He whirled, all his attention suddenly focused on Mallory’s face. “No,” he bit out, plainly insulted at the suggestion. “And in case you’re wondering, I still find you as desirable as ever, last night notwithstanding, even if you are a touch too bony for my taste.”

“Then what is it?” Mallory pressed, crumpling the damp dish towel between her hands. “We haven’t been together in six weeks and—”

Nathan pried the cloth out of her hands, tossed it aside and drew Mallory very close. The encounter of their two bodies, his, hard and commanding, hers, gently rounded and very willing, set off an intangible, electric response in them both. “You don’t need to remind me how long we’ve been apart, pumpkin,” he muttered, his lips warm and soft at her temple. “This last tour was torture.”

Mallory throbbed with the dreadful, ancient need of him. “Make love to me now, Nathan,” she whispered.

But he stiffened and held her away, and the only contact remaining was the weight of his hands on her shoulders. “No,” he said firmly. “You’re tired and sick…. I don’t know what your doctor’s orders were, but I’m sure they didn’t include a sexual marathon.”

Mallory’s chin trembled slightly. Was he really concerned for her health? Or was he fulfilling his needs in someone else’s bed? He’d denied having an affair, but it didn’t seem likely that he would admit to anything of that sort when he knew his wife had been hospitalized only a few days before.

Taking no apparent notice of her silence, Nathan kissed Mallory’s forehead in a brotherly manner and released his hold on her shoulders. “There’s a nice fire going in the living room,” he said, sounding determinedly cheerful. “Why don’t you curl up on the couch and read or something?”

Mallory had several “or somethings” in mind for the living room sofa, but they certainly didn’t include reading. With a proud lift of her chin, she turned and marched out of the kitchen without a word.

The living room was a warm and welcoming place, however, with its window seats and sweeping view of Puget Sound. Mallory couldn’t help feeling soothed as she entered. She stood still for a long time, looking out at the water and the snowy orchard that had been her father’s pride. When he wasn’t piloting or repairing his charter fishing boat, Paul O’Connor had spent every free moment among those trees, pruning and spraying and rejoicing in the sweet fruit they bore.

Presently, the snow began to fall again. Mallory took a childlike pleasure in the beauty of it, longing to rush outside and catch the huge, iridescent flakes on her tongue. Too tired for the moment to pursue the yearning, she perched instead on a window seat, her knees sinking deep in its bright polka-dot cushions, and let her forehead rest against the cool dampness of the window glass.

She sensed Nathan’s presence long before he approached to stand behind her, disturbingly close.

“I’ve got some business to take care of, pumpkin,” he said quietly. “I’ll be back later.”

Mallory’s shoulders tensed painfully, and she did not turn around to look at her husband. She had a pretty good idea of what kind of “business” he had in mind, but she would have died before calling him on it. If she was losing her husband, she could at least lose him with dignity and grace.

But she was entirely unprepared for the warm, moving touch of his lips on the side of her neck. A shiver of delightful passion went through her, and she was about to turn all her concentration on seducing Nathan then and there when he suddenly turned and strode out of the room.

Mallory closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until she’d heard the distant click of the back door closing behind him. She cried silently for several minutes, and then marched into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face until the tears had been banished.

On the back porch, Mallory exchanged her sneakers for sturdy boots and pulled on one of the oversize woolen coats that hung on pegs along the inside wall. The garment was heavy, and it smelled comfortingly of pine sap, salt water and tobacco. Wearing it brought her father so near that Mallory almost thought she might turn around and see him standing in the doorway, grinning his infectious grin.

Outside, the tracks in the deep, crusted snow indicated that Nathan had brought his Porsche to the island the night before. The car was gone now, and so was Cinnamon.

Mallory crammed her gloveless hands into the pockets of her father’s coat and frowned. “Rat fink dog,” she muttered.

A stiff wind was blowing in from the Sound, churning the lazy flakes of snow that were still falling in furious white swirls. Mallory turned her back to the wind and started toward the wooded area that was the center of the island.

Here, there were towering pine trees, and more of the Douglas fir that lined Mallory’s driveway, but there were cedars and elms and madronas, too. Under the ever-thickening pelt of snow, she knew, were the primitive wild ferns, with their big, scalloped fronds.

Privately, Mallory thought that the ferns were remnants of the murky time before the great ice age, when the area might well have been a jungle. It was easy to picture dinosaurs and other vanished beasts munching on the plants while volcanoes erupted angrily in the background.

Mallory marched on. The mountains were minding their manners now, with the exception of one, but who knew when they might awaken again, alive with fiery violence? Unnerved by Mount Saint Helens, many scientists were pondering Mount Rainier now, along with the rest of the Cascade range.

As Mallory made her way through the thick underbrush, a blackberry vine caught at her sleeve, eliciting from her a small gasp of irritation and then a reluctant smile. How many times had she ventured here as a child, armed with an empty coffee can or a shortening tin, to pluck the tart late-summer berries from their wicked, thorny bushes?

The thought made Mallory miss her mother desperately, and she hurried on. The motion did nothing, though, to allay the loneliness she felt, or banish persistent memories of Janet’s warm praise at the gathering of “so many very, very fine blackberries.” After the fruit had been thoroughly washed under cold water, Mallory’s mother had cooked jams and jellies and mouth-watering pies.

At last, Mallory emerged on the other side of the island’s dense green yoke, and Kate Sheridan’s A-frame house came into view. She should have called before dropping in on this busy woman who had been her mother’s dearest friend for so many years, she realized, but it was too late to consider manners now. Kate was standing on the deck at the back of the house, smiling as she watched Mallory’s approach.

She waved in her exuberant fashion, this trim, sturdy woman, and called out, “I knew I was right to wrench myself away from that wretched typewriter and brew some coffee!”

Mallory was warmed by this enthusiastic greeting, but she was chagrined, too. Kate Sheridan was the author of a series of children’s mystery novels, all set in the Puget Sound area, and her time was valuable indeed. Pausing at the base of the snowy path, Mallory deliberated. “I could come back another time,” she offered.

“Nonsense!” Kate cried, beaming. “I wouldn’t dream of letting an interesting guest like you escape. But I warn you, Mallory—I intend to pump you for information about the things that nasty character you play is planning!”

Mallory assumed a stubborn look as she tromped up the wooden stairway leading to Kate’s deck, but she knew that her eyes were sparkling. Her friend’s undisguised interest in the plot line of the soap opera amused her deeply.

“My lips are sealed,” Mallory said with appropriate drama, knowing all the while that she would tell Kate everything if pressed.

Kate laughed and hugged her, but there was a brief flicker of concern in her intelligent hazel eyes. “You look tuckered out, Mallory,” she observed in her direct way.

Mallory only nodded and was infinitely grateful when Kate let the subject drop there and pulled her inside the comfortable house.

Kate Sheridan’s home was a lovely place, though small. The opposite wall of the living room was all glass and presented a staggering view of the Sound. At night, the lights of Seattle were often visible, dancing in the misty distance like a mirage.

There was a small fireplace on the back wall near the sliding glass doors that opened onto the deck, and a crackling fire danced on the hearth. The furniture was as simple and appealing as Kate herself; the chairs and sofa were shiny brown wicker, set off by colorful patchwork-patterned cushions. Kate’s large metal desk and ancient typewriter looked out over the water, an indulgence the gifted woman often bemoaned but never altered. She was fond of saying that she spent more time gazing at the scenery than working.

Of course, her success belied that assertion; Kate’s writing obviously did not suffer for her devotion to the magnificent view. If anything, it was enhanced.

“Sit down,” Kate ordered crisply as she took Mallory’s bulky coat and hung it from a hook on the brass coat tree near the sliding doors. “Heavens, I haven’t seen you since Christmas. It’s about time you had some time off.”

Mallory, settling into one of the wicker chairs, didn’t point out that not even a month had passed since Christmas. She was comforted by the presence of things that were dear and familiar, and she watched Kate with overt affection as the woman strode purposefully into the tiny kitchenette to pour the promised coffee, looking terrific in her gray flannel slacks, white blouse and wispy upswept hairdo. The maroon sweater draped over her shoulders, its sleeves tied loosely in front, gave her a sporty look that suited her well.

“How is the new book coming?” Mallory called out, over the refined clatter of china and silver.

Kate’s scrubbed face was shining as she carried two cups of coffee into the living room, placed them on the round coffee table and sat down in the chair facing Mallory’s. “Splendidly, if I do say so myself. But tell me about you—why aren’t you working?”

Mallory lowered her eyes. “They decided I was too tired.”

Kate sat back in her chair and crossed legs that were still trim and strong, probably because of her penchant for walking all over the island. “You do look some the worse for wear, as I said before. Is it serious?”

Mallory shook her head quickly. “I’m all right, Kate,” she promised in firm tones.

The older, quietly elegant woman took a thoughtful sip from her coffee cup, watching Mallory all the while. “I don’t think you are,” she argued kindly. “You look about as unhappy as anybody I’ve ever seen. Mallory, what in heaven’s name is wrong?”

Suddenly, Mallory’s throat ached and her eyes burned with unshed tears. She lifted her chin. “Everything,” she confessed, in a small, broken voice.

Kate raised a speculative eyebrow. “Nathan?”

“Partly,” Mallory admitted, setting her own cup down on the coffee table and entwining her fingers. “Oh, Kate, our marriage is such a joke! Nathan is always away on tour or recording or something, and I’m working twelve- and fourteen-hour days on that stupid soap—”

“Stupid?” Kate asked, with no indication of opinion one way or the other.

Mallory’s chin quivered. “I’m afraid I’m not very liberated, Kate,” she confessed. “I wanted to prove that I could have a career, and that I could be important as someone other than the wife of a famous man. Now I’ve done that, I guess, but it isn’t at all the way I thought it would be.” She paused, reaching for her cup. It rattled ominously in its saucer, and she set it down again. “I’m so miserable!”

“I can see that,” Kate replied calmly, resting her chin in her hands in a characteristic gesture. “What do you really want, Mallory?”

Mallory turned her head, not quite able to meet her friend’s wise, discerning eyes, and examined the familiar scene in front of Kate’s house. The beach looked strange under its blanket of snow, and the waters of the Sound were choppy. “I want to be a wife and a mother,” she muttered. “And, maybe, someday, use my teaching certificate—”

“Rash thing!” cried Kate, with humorous, feigned outrage. “You want to be a card-carrying woman!”

Mallory was gaping at her friend, speechless.

Kate laughed. “You were right before, Mallory—you aren’t very liberated. Liberation, you see, is the freedom to do what you really want to do, not some immovable directive requiring every woman on earth to carry a briefcase or wield a jackhammer!”

Mallory was still staring, but something very much like hope was beginning to flicker inside her. Kate Sheridan was the most “liberated” woman she’d ever known, and here she was, saying that wanting to make a home with the man you love was all right. “I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” Kate broke in with good-natured irritation. “You thought it was your duty as a modern, intelligent young woman to set aside your real inclinations and devote all your energy to something that doesn’t begin to please you.”

Mallory reached for her coffee cup, this time successfully. Her thoughts were in a pleasant tangle, and she didn’t try to talk.

Kate bent toward her, balancing her own cup and saucer on her knees. “Mallory McKendrick, you march to your own drumbeat,” she ordered. “Your life won’t be worth a damned thing if you don’t.”

Mallory laughed softly in relief; it felt so good to be addressed by her married name again. “I love you, Kate.”

“I love you, too,” the woman replied briskly. “But there have been times when I wanted to shake you. You do a creditable job as an actress, Mallory, but you weren’t born to it. I’ve always seen you as a crackerjack mother, myself.”

“Are you just saying that because you know it’s what I want to hear?” Mallory challenged, grinning.

Kate laughed. “My dear, you know me better than that. Hot air belongs in balloons, not conversations between people who care about each other.”

Mallory was pensive again. All right, she’d decided that she wanted a more settled life, children, maybe a chance to teach, when the time was right. But how would Nathan react to all this? They hadn’t discussed any of the options, really, and they had grown apart since Mallory stopped accompanying him on tour to pursue a career of her own.

Kate’s hand rested on Mallory’s. “These things generally work out,” she said with uncanny insight. “Talk to Nathan. He loves you, Mallory.”

The two women chatted about less pressing things after that, and, when the snowstorm began to show signs of becoming really nasty, Mallory reluctantly took her leave. She was on automatic pilot during the walk home, her mind absorbed in all the things she needed to say to Nathan.

But as she came out of the woods and onto her own property, Mallory was jolted. Beside Nathan’s silver Porsche sat Diane Vincent’s bright red MG roadster.

Mallory paused, alarmed on some instinctive level that defied reason. All her assurances to herself that she was being silly blew away on the winter wind. After drawing a deep breath, she made her way purposefully across the yard and onto the screened porch, where she was met by a delighted Cinnamon.

“Don’t tell me how glad you are to see me!” she admonished the squirming dog, even as she reached down to ruffle her lustrous, rusty coat. “You traitor!”

The back door squeaked open as Mallory was hanging her father’s woolen coat. Nathan appeared in the doorway, his eyes even darker than usual, and snapping with challenge and controlled fury. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

It seemed now that the sensible, reassuring conversation with Kate Sheridan had taken place in another lifetime. Mallory thrust out her chin. “I’ve been walking,” she retorted.

“In this blizzard?” Nathan’s jaw tightened in annoyance.

Mallory pressed her lips together, unable to shake the unsettling idea that Nathan’s obnoxious mood had something to do with Diane Vincent’s presence. Was he having an attack of conscience?

“Kate’s house isn’t that far away,” she said. “And blizzard or no blizzard, Nathan McKendrick, I’ll go wherever I want, whenever I want.”

His granitelike features softened a little, and he even managed a halfhearted grin. “I’m sorry, Mallory—I was worried, that’s all. Next time, will you at least leave a note or something?”

Too busy bracing herself for another encounter with Diane Vincent to answer him, Mallory simply brushed past her husband and entered the kitchen.

Diane looked sensational in her tailored pale blue slacks, white silk blouse and navy blazer. Her long, blond hair, so pale that it was almost silver, shimmered on her shoulders in a fetching profusion of curls, and her clear blue eyes assessed Mallory in a way that was at once polite and disdainful.

“Hello, Mallory,” she said sweetly.

Mallory nodded. “Diane,” she responded, already moving toward the stove. The kitchen was the heart of all island houses, and coffee was offered to every guest. Being a relative newcomer, Nathan had overlooked the gesture.

Diane seemed profoundly amused when Mallory raised the old-fashioned enamel coffeepot in question. “No, thanks,” she said in a soft but cutting voice, one manicured nail tapping expressively at the less provincial drink Mallory hadn’t noticed before. Diane’s gaze swung fondly to Nathan, moving over his impressive frame like a caress.

Nathan scowled and tossed a beleaguered look in Mallory’s direction that brought his earlier one-word appraisal of Diane swiftly to mind. Bitch.

Mallory smiled, and for a while at least, she was no longer afraid of this woman, no longer in awe of her beauty and her sophistication and her undeniable charm. “Nathan?” she asked, again indicating the coffeepot.

He nodded, and Mallory grinned as she filled his cup and set it before him.

“That’s bad for you!” Diane complained, frowning and reaching out to grasp Nathan’s arm.

Nathan pulled free, raised the cup to his lips and winked at his wife. “Allow me this one vice,” he said. “Since I’m temporarily denied my favorite.”

Mallory felt her face flush, but she didn’t look away. Nathan’s gaze lingered at her lips for a long moment, causing her a sweet, singular sort of discomfort.

“So,” Diane said, too cheerfully, “how is it that the notorious Ms. O’Connor isn’t cavorting before the cameras?”

Mallory felt strong and confident for the first time in weeks, though she couldn’t decide whether the quality had its roots in the long talk with Kate or the way Nathan was quietly making love to her with his eyes. Both, probably.

“The name is McKendrick,” she said pleasantly, with a slight lift of her chin.

Something changed in Nathan’s eyes; there was an earnest curiosity there, displacing the teasing hunger she’d noticed before.

Diane looked mildly upset. “I thought ‘O’Connor’ was your professional name,” she said in an argumentative tone.

“O’Connor was my maiden name,” Mallory replied sweetly, with a corresponding smile. “I am married, you know.”

Nathan raised one eyebrow, but he said nothing. He merely toyed with the handle of his coffee mug.

Diane was obviously at a loss, but she recovered quickly. Leveling her devastating blue eyes at Nathan, she seemed to forget that Mallory was even in the room. “What have you decided about that television special, Nathan? I think it would be great to go back to Australia again, don’t you? And the money is fantastic, even for you—”

Mallory suddenly felt bereft again, shut out. Those feelings intensified when she saw a sparkle in Nathan’s dark eyes. What was he remembering? The beautiful, awe-inspiring Australian countryside? Walks along moon-kissed beaches with a warm and willing Diane?

“The people are so friendly,” he mused aloud.

Especially the ones who wear Spandex jeans and lip gloss, Mallory thought bitterly.

Diane laughed with unrestrained glee and clapped her elegant hands together. Her whole face shone with appealing mischief as she smiled at Nathan. “I thought I would die when you were presented with that kangaroo!” she sang, and her voice rang like music in the simple, homey room.

Nathan grinned at the memory, but then his eyes strayed to Mallory, just briefly, and darkened with an emotion she couldn’t quite read.

“They gave you a kangaroo?” Mallory put in quickly, in an effort to join the conversation. “What did you do with it?”

He shrugged, and his gaze was fixed on some point just above Diane’s glowing head. “I gave it to the zoo.”

“And then there was that great Christmas Eve party,” Diane trilled, tossing a look of triumphant malice in Mallory’s direction. “My God, the sun was coming up before that broke up—”

Nathan frowned, clearly irritated by the mention of the holidays. Or was he warning Diane not to reveal too much? “Ho, ho, ho,” he grumbled.

Mallory lowered her eyes to her coffee cup. Her shooting schedule hadn’t permitted her to join Nathan at Christmas, and while they hadn’t discussed that fact in person, the subject had generated several scathing exchanges over long-distance telephone. She said nothing.

But Diane went mercilessly on. “You can’t imagine how odd it seemed, swimming outdoors on Christmas Day!” There followed a short, calculated pause. “What was it like here, Mallory!”

The shot hit dead center, and Mallory had to work up her courage before daring to glance at Nathan. His features were stiff with resentment, just as she’d feared.

“It was lonely,” she said in complete honesty.

Diane was on a roll, and she knew it. Cloaking her animosity in sweetness, she smiled indulgently. “Now, Mallory, don’t try to convince us that you sat at home and pined. Everybody knows what super parties Brad Ranner gives, and I read that you celebrated the holidays in a romantic ski lodge high in the Cascades.”

Mallory had forgotten the write-up she’d gotten in the supermarket scandal sheets over Christmas week. One had borne the headline, McKENDRICK MARRIAGE CRACKING, and linked Mallory to a country-and-western singer she’d never even met. Another had, just as Diane maintained, claimed that she had carried on an interesting intrigue in the mountains.

Neither claim was true, of course, but she still felt defensive and annoyed. Why did people buy those awful newspapers, anyway? If they wanted fiction, books were a better bet.

Diane giggled prettily. “No comment, huh? Is that what you told the reporters?”

Mallory clasped her hands together in her lap, felt the color drain from her face as she glared defiantly at Diane. She did not dare to look at Nathan. “I didn’t talk to any reporters,” she said stiffly, hating herself for explaining anything to this woman. Inwardly, she realized that she was actually explaining, left-handedly, the facts to her husband. “Those stories were utter lies, and you damned well know it, Diane.”

Diane sat back in her chair, apparently relaxed and unchallenged by Mallory’s words. She shrugged. “Sometimes they get lucky and print the truth,” she threw out.

Nathan’s voice was an icy, sudden rumble. “Shut up, Diane,” he said. “None of this is any of your business.”

A smile quirked one side of Diane’s glistening pink mouth. “They should have been watching you, shouldn’t they? I can just see the headlines now: ROCK STAR CAVORTS DOWN UNDER.”

Mallory flinched and bit her lower lip. She could feel Nathan’s rage rising in the room like lava swelling a volcano. Any minute, the eruption would come, and they’d all be buried in ash.

“How about this one?” he drawled, leaning toward Diane with ominous leisure. “PRESS AGENT FIRED.”

For the first time, Diane backed down. A girlish blush rose to pinken her classic cheekbones, and real tears gathered in her eyes. “I was only teasing,” she said. “Where did you spend Christmas, Mallory?”

“In Outer Slobovia, Diane,” Mallory replied acidly. “With fourteen midgets and a camel.”

Nathan roared with laughter, but Diane looked affronted. “We could get along if we tried, you know,” she scolded in a tone that implied crushing pain.

“I seriously doubt that,” Mallory retorted. “Why don’t you leave now?”

“Good idea,” Nathan said.

Diane bristled. “Nathan!”

Nathan smiled and stood up, gesturing for silence with both hands. “Now, now, Diane—no more gossip. After all, the camel isn’t here to defend itself.”

Diane flung one scorching look at Mallory and stormed out, slamming the kitchen door behind her. A moment later, the outer door slammed, too.

“Thank you,” Mallory whispered.

“Anytime,” Nathan said, sitting down again.

“Those stories about me—”

He reached out, cupped her chin in one hand. “I know, Mall. Forget it.”

Mallory couldn’t “forget it”; there was too much that needed to be said. “I was here, Nathan—right here, on the island. I spent Christmas Eve with Trish and Alex, and the next day with Kate Sheridan. I—”

His index finger moved to rest on her lips. “It’s all right, Mallory.”

She drew back from him, more stung by some of the things Diane had implied than she would have admitted. “What did you do over Christmas, Nathan?”

He looked away. “I drank a lot.”

“No Christmas tree?”

“No Christmas tree.”

Mallory sighed wistfully. “I didn’t put one up, either. But Trish had a lovely one—”

Suddenly, Nathan was staring at her. She knew he was thinking of the beautiful tree ornaments she’d collected in every part of the world, of the way she shopped and fussed for weeks before Christmas every year, of the way she always threw herself into the celebration with the unbridled enthusiasm of a child. “No tree?” he echoed in a stunned voice that was only part mockery. “No presents?”

Mallory had received a number of gifts—a silk blouse from Kate, books from Trish and Alex, a gold chain from Nathan’s sister Pat—but she saw no point in listing them aloud. The package Nathan had sent was still stored in a guest room closet at the Seattle penthouse, unopened.

She lifted her coffee cup in a sort of listless toast. “Just call me Scrooge,” she said.

3

Fortunately, Nathan dropped the touchy subject of that Christmas just past—the first Christmas since their marriage that the McKendricks had spent apart—and said instead, “Your turn to cook, woman.”

Mallory glanced at the small electric clock hanging on the wall near the telephone, and started guiltily. Lunchtime was long past. “And cook I will,” she replied.

In the next few minutes, Mallory discovered that her husband had done a remarkable job grocery shopping; the cupboards were full. She was humming as she assembled sandwiches and heated soup, regardless of the fact that she had absolutely no appetite.

While Mallory labored over that simple midday repast, Nathan fidgeted at the table. He looked almost relieved when the telephone rang, and moved to answer it with a swiftness that injured his wife. Was it so hard for him to talk to her that he was grateful for any excuse to avoid it?

“Hello,” he muttered, and then, as Mallory watched, she saw him turn his back to her, saw the powerful muscles stiffen beneath his shirt. “Yes, Mrs. Jeffries,” he said in a low voice. “Yes, Diane is supposed to stay there. The band is coming, too—they’ll all be there before nightfall, I suppose. No, get extra help if you need it—”

Mallory set the sandwich plates down on the table with an eloquent thunk and whirled angrily to ladle hot soup into two bowls. Nathan was talking to his housekeeper, giving her orders to make Diane Vincent and the others comfortable in the sprawling Spanish-style villa on the other side of the island. His villa.

“Damn!” she muttered. She should have known that there would be no private time for the McKendricks—Diane and the band would see to that.

“Right,” Nathan said, turning to scowl at Mallory, as though reading her inhospitable thoughts. “Hell, I don’t care. Whatever’s in the freezer—”

“What?” Mallory grumbled. “No lobster? No filet mignon?”

“Shut up!” Nathan rasped, and then he colored comically and glared at Mallory. “No, Mrs. Jeffries,” he said into the telephone receiver, “I wasn’t talking to you. Well, they usually bring their wives, don’t they?”

“Whip out the satin sheets!” Mallory said, gesturing wildly with a soup spoon in one hand and a tuna fish sandwich in the other.

Nathan gave his wife an evil look and then grinned. “Oh, and one more thing, Mrs. Jeffries—put satin sheets on all the beds.”

Mallory stuck out her tongue and sank into her chair at the table with as much visible trauma as she could manage.

Clearly, Nathan was enjoying her tantrum. She knew that she was behaving like a child but couldn’t seem to stop. He ended the conversation with an additional order, meant to make his wife seethe. “We’ll need lots of towels for the hot tub, too.”

“We’ll need lots of towels for the hot tub, too!” Mallory mimicked sourly. “God forbid that Diane Vincent should have to drip-dry!”

Nathan was chuckling as he bid his housekeeper farewell and hung up. “Mellow out, Mall,” he teased, grasping the back of his own chair in both hands and tilting his magnificent head to one side in a mischievous manner. “I’m not planning an orgy, you know.”

“Why should you?” Mallory shot back. “The stage is already set for one!”

Nathan’s eyes darkened, and the mischief faded from their depths, displaced by impatience. His voice was a sardonic drawl, and he made no move to sit down and share the lunch he’d all but ordered Mallory to prepare. “This is enlightening. I didn’t think you gave a damn what went on at Angel Cove. You so rarely condescend to put in an appearance!”

Mallory swallowed miserably, all her saucy defiance gone. It was true that she avoided the magnificent house at Angel Cove—there were always too many people there, and there was always too much noise. “Sit down and eat,” she said in a small voice.

Surprisingly, Nathan sat down. There was a short, awkward pause while he assessed the canned soup and slap-dash sandwiches. The fare was no doubt much more appetizing at Angel Cove.

Mallory mourned, feeling wearier than ever, as she dragged her spoon listlessly through her soup. She felt Nathan’s gaze touch her, and involuntarily looked up.

“You didn’t decorate a Christmas tree?” he asked incredulously.

There was no point in trying to skirt the issue; she had known it would come up again. She swallowed the pain that still lingered from that lonely holiday and answered the question honestly. “No.”

“You?” Nathan pressed, no trace of his earlier irritation showing in his handsome, sensitive features.

Mallory nodded. “As far as I’m concerned, Christmas just didn’t happen this year.”

His eyes searched her face. “What about the things I sent? Did you get the package?”

Mallory managed a stiff smile. “I put them in one of the guest rooms, in a closet,” she said, thinking of the large parcel she hadn’t had the heart to open. “You got your gifts, didn’t you? I mailed early—”

“Good Lord,” Nathan breathed, shaking his head. It was clear that he either hadn’t heard her question about the carefully chosen gifts she’d sent to him or didn’t mean to answer. “Which closet?”

Mallory shrugged, though nonchalance was the last thing she felt. “You are a man of many closets,” she remarked lamely.

“Mallory.”

She frowned at him. “The room Pat sleeps in when she stays at the penthouse.”

Nathan looked thoughtful, and a long silence followed. Finally, when both husband and wife had finished pretending to eat, he stood up, scraping his chair against the linoleum floor as he moved. “I don’t think you’re up to greeting the band,” he said in a voice that was gruff and tender at the same time. “Not tonight, at least.”

I’ll bet you were counting on that, Mallory thought, but she only nodded, relieved that she could deposit the remains of her lunch in Cinnamon’s bowl and spend some time gathering her scattered thoughts and emotions. “Say hello for me,” she mumbled, holding back tears as Nathan bent to brush her cheek briefly with his lips.

When he was gone, Mallory ambled aimlessly into the living room where she went through the contents of several bookshelves and found nothing she wanted to read. She was being stubborn and stupid, and she knew it. Damn, anybody with any guts at all would have gone over to the villa on the other side of the island and—

And what?

Mallory flung out her arms and cried out with self-mocking drama, “God, I’m so depressed!”

There was no answer, of course, but Mallory’s gaze fell on the video recorder hooked up to her portable television set, and she remembered her favorite remedy for depression—old Jimmie Stewart movies.

Five minutes later, she was curled up on the sofa, immersed in the opening, snowy scenes of It’s a Wonderful Life.

The cold press of Cinnamon’s nose awakened her with a start, and Mallory sat up on the sofa, alarmed. The house was cold and dark, and she knew without making even the most cursory search that Nathan was nowhere within its walls.

Patting the dog’s head in quick reassurance, Mallory scrambled to her feet. She turned on a lamp and turned off the video recorder and the TV and saw by the glass clock on the mantel that it was nearly three in the morning.

Poor Cinnamon hadn’t had any dinner at all.

“I am a dog abuser,” Mallory said sleepily. Then, her thoughts churning, she made her way into the kitchen and quickly refilled Cinnamon’s dishes with food and water.

Where was Nathan?

Mallory found her purse and rummaged through it until she found the medication her doctor had given her when she had been released from the hospital. She took one capsule into her palm, glared at it for a moment, filled a glass with water and assured herself of hours of deep, undisturbed sleep. If Nathan was at Angel Cove, making music with Diane Vincent, she didn’t want to know.

It was late morning when Mallory awakened, and the house was filled with strange sounds and smells. It took her several moments to identify them. She sat up in bed, wide-eyed with disbelief. Turkey? The house definitely smelled of roasting turkey, and the lilting notes of Christmas music filled the air.

Mallory tossed back her covers, frowning in curious consternation. Deck the halls? What in the world was going on?

Wearing only Nathan’s old football jersey, which she had put on in the wee hours of the morning after taking the sleeping medication, she made her way out into the kitchen. A glance at the window revealed yet another snowfall, this one lacking the fury of recent storms.

“Nathan?” Mallory ventured, still frowning. The kitchen table was littered with eggshells, onion skins, bread crumbs, wilted celery leaves and an assortment of dirty mixing bowls. “Nathan!”

The recorded Christmas music came to a sudden and scratchy halt, and Mallory wandered toward the living room to investigate. Her mouth fell open in wonder, and her third call of her husband’s name died on her lips.

Nathan was standing in the corner beside a fully decorated Christmas tree, grinning like a little boy. With a flourish, he flipped a switch, and the tree was suddenly alight with colorful, glistening splendor.

“Merry Christmas, pumpkin,” he said.

Mallory’s sentimental heart twisted within her, and tears of delighted surprise smarted in her eyes. “Nathan McKendrick,” she whispered, “it is the middle of January!”

He smiled, the Christmas tree switch still resting in one hand. “Not in this house it isn’t. Aren’t you going to open your presents?”

Mallory’s blurred gaze dropped to the base of the fragrant evergreen tree and a number of brightly wrapped packages. In that instant, she knew where Nathan had been during the night, and how badly she had misjudged him.

“You went all the way to Seattle!”

Nathan shrugged. “It seemed the logical thing to do.”

“Logical!” Mallory choked, beaming through her tears. And then she raced across the room and flung herself into the arms of her own private Santa Claus.

Their embrace subtly changed the mood. The brief melding of their two bodies sparked a charge that lingered long after Mallory had opened the beautifully wrapped gifts that Nathan had originally mailed from Sydney.

Sitting cross-legged on the hearth rug, still clad in the soft-washed and somewhat shabby red football jersey, Mallory made a sound that fell somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. “There aren’t any presents for you!” she mourned.

He arched one eyebrow and folded his arms, and a wicked grin curved his lips as he assessed her speculatively. “I can think of one,” he teased. “And I can’t wait to unwrap it.”

Mallory turned the color of her football jersey, but her heart sang with the desire this man stirred in her. She looked at the glittering litter surrounding her, the sumptuous gifts, the Christmas tree. Finally, she dared to look at Nathan, who was perched on the arm of the old-fashioned sofa, looking even more handsome than usual in his dark blue velour shirt and gray flannel slacks.

“I love you,” she said, as awed by the intensity of her feelings as she had been the day she first faced them, more than six years before.

Though he was a tall and muscular man, Nathan moved deftly. Within a moment, he was kneeling on the hearth rug, facing Mallory. Gently he traced the outline of her cheek with a warm index finger. His voice, when he spoke, was hoarse with emotion. “I hope you mean that, lady.”

Mallory shifted to her knees with as much grace as possible, and wrapped her arms around Nathan’s neck. Her answering pledge was in the kiss she gave him.

Tenderly, without breaking the kiss, Nathan pressed Mallory backward until she lay supine on the large oval rug. His right hand stroked her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, and then slid beneath the neckline of the jersey to close possessively over one warm, rounded breast. She groaned as his thumb brought the rosy center swiftly to a sensuous peak.

The kiss ended, and Nathan’s lips strayed, warm, to the sensitive place beneath Mallory’s ear and then to the pulsing hollow of her throat. She moaned once again as he drew the neckline of the jersey down far enough to expose a breast.

Idly he surveyed this first sweet plunder of his conquering, as though it were some rare and special confection, to be savored and then consumed slowly. After what seemed like an eternity to Mallory, he lowered his head and nipped gently at the peak awaiting him, causing his wife to writhe. She gasped with shameless pleasure as he softly kissed the pulsing morsel and then tasted it.

He laughed, his breath warm on the tender globe he fully possessed. “You like that, don’t you, pumpkin?” he teased in a rich, baritone voice.

Mallory nodded feverishly, unable to speak.

Nathan circled the pink fruit of her bounty with a warm, tormenting tongue. “Umm,” he murmured as his right hand moved over Mallory’s knee and then beneath the jersey to her firm, satiny thigh.

She squirmed, instinctively parted her legs in an early and desperate surrender. Her hands moved of their own frantic accord, to explore the muscular hardness of his back, beneath his shirt.

He shuddered with pleasure at her touch, and as his mouth closed hungrily over the breast that had grown warm and heavy for him he caressed her inner thighs with gentle fingertips and then tangled them in the nest of curls where sweet, ancient secrets were hidden.

Mallory whimpered as he parted the silken veil to pluck gently at the treasure sheltered there, bringing it to the same throbbing response as her distended nipple. “Yes,” she gasped as he drew the football shirt ever upward, unveiling the spoils of his impending conquest. “Yes—”

And suddenly she was totally bared to him, the jersey flung aside. She was grateful when he wrenched off his shirt and hurled that away, too. She could touch him then, entangle her searching fingers in the crisp dark hair curling on his chest, feel the loving, countering warmth of him.

Easily he lifted her, so that she was sitting on the edge of the sofa. Then, kneeling, he gently parted her knees, stroked the tingling, delicate flesh along her inner thighs. A primitive groan of surrender escaped her as he lifted one of her feet, and then the other, placing them so that the heels were braced on the sofa. This accomplished, he pressed on the insides of her knees until she was totally, beautifully vulnerable to him.

This time it was Mallory who drew back the sheltering veil, baring her mysterious, aching self to him. She cried out in throaty ecstasy when she felt his breath, pleaded raggedly until he took timeless sustenance at the waiting feast.

Her fingers entwined in his thick hair, her breath coming in tearing gasps, Mallory reveled in his hunger, in the warm strength of the hands holding her knees apart, so that she could not close herself to him. As his tongue began to savor her in long strokes, Mallory shuddered and gasped a plea and loosed her fingers from his hair to again spread the veiled place for his full satisfaction and her own.

Tremors, both physical and spiritual, rocked Mallory’s entire being as he brought her to a release so savage that she sobbed out his name. Quivering with molten aftershocks, she was too stricken to speak again, or even move.

“I love you,” he breathed against the moist smoothness of her inner thigh.

Finally, after at least a partial recovery of her senses, Mallory met his eyes. She did not need to speak to relay her message; she wanted to be filled with him, to sheathe him in the rippling, velvety warmth of her and hear his familiar, rasping cries of need and violent, soul-searing satisfaction.

Understanding, his eyes dark with a wanting to match Mallory’s own, Nathan moved back a foot or so, still kneeling on the floor, and moaned as his wife slid from the sofa’s edge to face him. He trembled, closed his eyes and tilted his head back as she opened his slacks to reveal his straining manhood. For the next several minutes, Mallory enjoyed his magnificence at her leisure, with her eyes, her fingers, her mouth. Her spirit soared at his words of tormented surrender.

In a smooth motion born of passion and desperation, Nathan grasped Mallory’s slender waist, lifted her easily and then lowered her onto the pulsing pillar that would make them each a part of the other.

They moved with a rhythm as old as time, increasing their pace as the swelling crescendo building within both of them demanded. When the explosion came, it rocked them, and they shouted their triumph in one voice.

They were still one person, still shuddering with their fierce mingling, when Cinnamon began to bark in the kitchen and they heard the back door open with a cautious creak. “Nathan!” called Eric Moore, the lead guitarist in Nathan’s band. “Hey, Nate—I know you’re in here somewhere! Mallory?”

Nathan cursed and scrambled to his feet. He was fully dressed again before Mallory had managed to wriggle back into the discarded football jersey.

“Stay where you are, Eric!” Nathan ordered in ominous tones as he strode out of the glittering, cluttered living room without so much as a backward glance. “And next time, knock, will you?”

Still sitting on the floor, Mallory cowered against the front of the sofa, trembling with resentment and a wild, inexplicable loneliness. The conversation taking place in the kitchen was couched in terse undertones, and she understood none of it. She sighed. Understanding the exact situation wasn’t really necessary anyway. The fact was that, once again, Nathan’s dynamic, demanding life was pulling him in another direction.

Mallory was thoroughly annoyed. She had been planning to give up her role in the soap opera in order to devote more time to a marriage she knew was failing. And all her efforts would mean nothing if Nathan could not or would not meet her halfway.

She stood up slowly, feeling hollow and broken inside. Was Diane really the threat she appeared to be sometimes, or was Nathan’s career his real mistress?

Mallory stooped to recover the toy kangaroo that had been one of Nathan’s gifts to her and then held it close. She could hold her own against a flesh-and-blood woman any time. But how could she compete with thousands of them? How could she hope to prevail against the tidal wave of adoration lavished upon Nathan McKendrick every time he sang his soul-wrenching compositions?

Still clutching the stuffed kangaroo, she sank to the sofa in dejected thought. Obviously the physical passion between her and her husband was as formidable as ever. Still, Mallory knew that a lasting marriage required more than sexual compatibility, more than romance.

She sensed, rather than saw or heard, Nathan’s return to the room. He stood behind her, and though Mallory knew he wanted to touch her, he refrained. His voice was a low rumble and caused tremors in Mallory’s heart like some kind of emotional earthquake.

“I’ve got to go to Angel Cove for a little while, Mallory,” he said. “Diane is doing one of her numbers again. Do you want to come with me?”

Mallory did not turn to face her husband; she simply shook her head.

“Babe—”

Mallory held up both hands. “No—I’m all right. Just go and straighten everything out.”

“We’ll talk when I get back,” he muttered, and Mallory could tell that he was already turning away. “Pumpkin, there is so much to say.”

Yes, Mallory thought, there is so much to say, and it is all so painful. “I’ll be here,” she said aloud, wishing that she could crawl inside the pouch of the toy kangaroo and hide there forever. “Nathan?” she whispered, on the off chance that he was still near enough to hear.

He was. “What?” he asked, somewhat hoarsely.

“I love you.”

He came to her then, bent, brushed her temple with his lips. A moment later, he was gone, and the glistening beauty of the decorated room was a mockery.

Mallory sat very still for a long time, absorbed by her own anguish and confusion. It was only the smell of burning turkey that brought her back to her senses.

She took Nathan’s awkward attempt at culinary competence from the oven before wandering into the bedroom to dress. When the telephone rang, she was standing in the kitchen, trying valiantly to salvage at least a portion of the incinerated fowl.

“Hello!” she snapped, certain that the caller meant to make yet another impossible demand on Nathan’s time.

“It’s me,” said Pat, Nathan’s sister, in a placating tone. “Mall, I’m sorry if I’m intruding—”

Mallory loved Pat, and regretted the tart way she’d spoken. “Pat,” she said gently. “No, you’re not intruding. It’s just—”

“That plenty of other people are,” Pat finished for her with quiet understanding.

“Right,” agreed Mallory, who had learned never to try to fool her astute sister-in-law. At twenty-two, Pat was young, but her mind was as formidable as Nathan’s. “Shall we start with the band, and progress to Diane Vincent, press agent extraordinaire?”

Pat sighed heavily. “Please,” she retorted. “I just ate.”

Suddenly, inexplicably, Mallory began to cry in the wrenching, heartbroken way she’d cried after losing her parents.

Pat drew in a sharp breath. “Mallory, honey, what is it? How can I help?”

The warmth in Pat’s voice only made Mallory sob harder. She felt stupid, but she couldn’t stop her tears, and she couldn’t manage an answer, either.

“Sit tight,” Pat said in brisk, take-charge tones. “I’m on my way.”

Mallory sank into one of the kitchen chairs and buried her face in her hands. The telephone receiver made an accusing clatter as it bounced against the wall.

It was a full fifteen minutes before Mallory regained her composure. When she had, she dashed away her tears, marched into the bathroom, ran a tubful of hot water and tried to wash away all the questions that tormented her.

Was Nathan’s casual dislike for Diane Vincent really part of some elaborate ruse designed to distract Mallory and everyone else from what was really taking place?

“Diane is doing one of her numbers again,” Nathan had said just before he dashed off to handle the situation.

Mallory slid down in the hot, scented water to her chin, watching the slow drip fall from the old-fashioned faucet. Diane wasn’t really the issue, she reminded herself. It was just easier to blame her, since she was so obligingly obnoxious in the first place.

Grimly, Mallory finished her bath and, wrapped in a towel, walked into the adjoining bedroom. As she rummaged through her drawers for clean clothes, she regretted not asking Pat to stop by the Penthouse for more of her things.

Once dressed in a pair of jeans and a soft yellow sweater, Mallory went to the bedroom window and pushed back the brightly colored cotton curtains to look outside. The snow was still falling, already filling the tracks left by Nathan’s car.

Mallory returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair and apply a touch of makeup. Unless she was on camera, she needed nothing more than a dab of lip gloss. Her eyelashes were thick and dark, requiring no mascara, and, normally, because of her fondness for the outdoors, her cheeks had plenty of color. Now, staring at herself in the old mirror over the bathroom sink, Mallory saw the pallor that had so alarmed her friends and co-workers of late. Because she hadn’t brought blusher from the penthouse, she improvised by pinching her cheeks hard.

In the living room, the lights on Nathan’s Christmas tree were still blazing, and with a sigh, Mallory flipped the switch. The glorious tree was dark again, and the tinsel dangling from its branches whispered in a draft.

Mallory closed the door leading into the living room as she went out. The January Christmas was a private thing, and she did not want to share it with anyone other than Nathan—not even Pat.

In the kitchen, she sliced off a piece of turkey and gave it to an appreciative Cinnamon, but she had no appetite herself. She cleaned up the mess Nathan had left behind and put the half-charred bird into the refrigerator.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.