Snowflakes on the Sea (23 page)

“Not tonight, Diane,” he muttered.

Nathan awakened late the next morning. Even so, he was fully conscious for several seconds before he dared to open his eyes. When he did, he was met with a fierce sea green gaze and an intangible, bone-numbing chill. Mallory was beside him in bed, but she might as well have been ten thousand miles away. Everything about her relayed the message: Don’t talk, don’t touch.

She had definitely seen last night’s newscast.

Nathan swore and reached out for her, intending to explain that Diane, with her usual audacity, had purposely fallen into step beside him and smiled into the camera, that he’d gotten rid of her in a hurry. But Mallory drew back ferociously, her eyes wild.

“Babe,” he began awkwardly. “Listen—”

She slapped him.

The blow stung fiercely, but Nathan did not flinch, did not look away. He caught Mallory’s wrists in his hands and pressed them down, over her head. “About the newscast,” he said evenly. “Diane didn’t go to the party with me, Mallory. She simply chose an inopportune time to walk beside me.”

Mallory’s splendid oval chin lifted defiantly, and she glared up at him in sheer hatred. “I realize that,” she said in acid tones.

“Then why the assault and battery?” Nathan demanded, watching her closely, still holding her prisoner.

“I don’t want to talk about it!”

Nathan swore in frustration and released her.
“Mallory.”

“Drop dead, you bastard!”

He reached out again, this time to grasp her upper arm, hard, although he was, as always, careful not to hurt her. Even now, the savage desire for her was stirring in his loins, but he suppressed it even as he pinned her beneath him. “Start talking, lady. Right now.”

She struggled and squirmed, clearly furious, and the motion intensified the desire Nathan was trying to ignore. “Leave—me—alone!” she sputtered.

Frightened, Nathan bore down on her harder. “Mallory, for God’s sake, talk to me!”

“You liar—you
cheat—
” she mourned, and tears seeped through her thick, tightly clenched eyelashes. The sight wounded Nathan, transformed the need to possess into an equal or greater need to comfort and protect.

“How did I lie?” he asked with gentle reason. “Or cheat?”

She was turning her head from side to side, and sobs escaped her throat in soft, breathless gasps. Nathan remembered the precious child within her and eased the pressure he’d been exerting with his body.

“Please, Mallory,” he pleaded, in a raw voice. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

She cried out like something wounded and shoved at him with her small, frantic, furious hands. But he would not be moved. Not until he knew.

“I hate you, Nathan—dear God, how I hate you—”

Nathan’s raw throat constricted, and he closed his eyes momentarily against the fierce sincerity in her voice, in her face. “Please,” he said again, and if that constituted begging, he didn’t care.

Mallory was watching him when he opened his eyes again. “You act so innocent!” she hissed in a sharp undertone.

Defeated for the moment, Nathan released her and rolled away. “I
am
innocent,” he answered dejectedly.

“Liar!” she choked. “You talk in your sleep, Nathan!”

Nathan sighed, sat up, his back to Mallory, and braced his head in his hands. “What, pray tell, did I say?”

There was a brief, awful silence. “‘Not tonight, Diane,’” she finally replied, her pain blunt and savage and hopeless in her voice.

He turned back to look at her. “You’re getting pretty desperate for something to hate me for, aren’t you, Mallory?”

She would not meet his eyes or answer, and, in that moment, Nathan knew that there was no hope of convincing her that the remark, made in his
sleep
for God’s sake, had meant nothing. He had never slept with Diane, never actually even considered it.

Slowly, he rose to his feet and walked into the bathroom, where he wrenched on the shower spigots and stepped under the hot, piercing spray. He would lose her now, lose the baby. Bracing himself with both hands against the tiled wall of the shower stall, Nathan McKendrick lowered his head and cried.

The coming week was a wretched one for Mallory. Without her role in the soap opera, she had no reason to stay in Seattle. And yet she had no island house to flee to either, for it was the Johnsons’ house now, and not her own. She could not go there to hide and cry and be close to things and memories from another, less complicated time in her life. Besides, Nathan lived on the island and she didn’t think she could bear to encounter him after the way she’d made such a fool of herself and driven him away.

Day by day she fought down her senseless, fathomless love for him, and day by day it grew, like a flower forcing its way up through asphalt.

“I want to hate you,” she said aloud one grim winter afternoon to the photograph taken at Pike Place Market that day, the one that portrayed Nathan as a marshal and Mallory as a dance-hall girl. “Why?”

In her mind, she heard his voice.
You’re getting pretty desperate for something to hate me for, aren’t you, Mallory?

“Yes,” she said aloud, putting the framed photograph back onto the study’s fireplace mantel and taking up another, one that showed her mother and father standing on the deck of their boat, displaying huge, freshly caught salmon and enormous grins.

She was angry with them, these cherished people in the photograph. How dare they die and leave her, when she’d loved them without reservation?

The question made Mallory draw in a sharp breath. She’d been deliberately sandbagging her own marriage, for weeks and months and years because she was afraid, afraid that if she loved Nathan completely, he would die.

In a flurry to reach him, she grabbed her purse and coat and fled the penthouse without looking back.

T
he villa overlooking Angel Cove was almost as imposing in the darkness as it was in the light of day. Mallory’s heart caught in her throat at the sight of it, just as it had when she had first seen the place during childhood explorations of the island. It had been a place of wonder and mystery then, standing empty for so many years, and Trish and Mallory had worked up any number of fascinating fantasies concerning its past. Then, seeking refuge from the insane pace of his life-style, the famous Nathan McKendrick had bought the property and brought in an army of carpenters and decorators to refurbish it.

Mallory had met Nathan that summer at an island picnic and fallen in love with a soul-jarring thump that still vibrated within her whenever she even glanced at Nathan. Before winter, they had been married.

Now, standing forlornly on the sweeping front porch, Mallory wedged her hands into the pockets of her coat and swallowed hard, trying to work up the courage to knock. Oh, it would be so easy just to dash back to her car and drive away—

But no. She was through running.

Suddenly, one of the heavy front doors opened with a soft creak, and Mallory could feel Nathan’s dark gaze upon her, even though her own eyes were clenched tightly shut in preparation for harsh rejection.

But the rejection didn’t come. “Open your eyes, Mallory,” Nathan ordered, not unkindly, but not warmly, either.

She obeyed but could only stare at him.

“It always helps if you knock,” Nathan commented, taking her arm in a gentle grip and drawing her into the dimly lit entry hall with its black-and-white marble floor and tastefully papered walls.

She looked up at him and her throat constricted painfully, but she still could not manage so much as an offhand “hello.”

Nathan clearly suffered from no such problem, but he wasn’t inclined to make things easier for her, it seemed. He simply watched Mallory, his arms folded across his chest.

Mallory bit her lip.
Get on with it, say something!
she told herself.

“Is my dog here?” she choked out after several torturous seconds.

A tender smirk curved one side of Nathan’s mouth upward. “Is that why you’re here, Mrs. McKendrick? You’re looking for your dog?”

Mallory squeezed her eyes shut for a second, and then opened them again. “If you’re trying to make this difficult, it’s certainly working.”

He laughed and took her hand in a warm grasp. “I’m sorry,” he said, leading her along the darkened hallway and into the brightly lit kitchen at the back of the house. There the fickle Cinnamon was gnawing at an enormous soup bone.

Nathan gestured grandly toward the beast. “Your dog,
madame.
”

“That animal has no scruples!” Mallory complained, only half in jest.

“None,” Nathan agreed in a low tone that seemed to reach inside Mallory and caress her weary heart.

Mallory turned to face her husband squarely and lifted her chin. “I love you very much, Nathan McKendrick,” she announced in an unsteady voice.

Deftly, Nathan reached out and drew her close. The pale blue cashmere of his sweater made her nose itch.

With one finger, he caught the underside of her chin and lifted it so that she was looking at him again. She saw the words in his dark eyes even before he voiced them. “And I love you.”

Compelled by forces older than creation, Mallory pressed close to him, comforted by the hard strength of his body, but disturbed by it, too.

Nathan moaned low in his throat. “Talk about no scruples. Lady, do you know what it does to me when you hold me like this?”

Mallory knew that her eyes were bright with mischief. “I have an idea,” she confessed.

He tilted his head to one side and studied her with cautious, weary eyes. “Far be it from me to rock a very promising boat, sweet thing, but if you came over here to do me some kind of retaliatory number, I’ll tell you right now that I can’t handle it.”

Mallory frowned. “Number? Nathan, what are you talking about?”

“This. It’s going to wipe me out if we spend the night loving and then you leave again.”

She lifted a gentle finger to softly trace the outline of his lips. “You really think I like to hurt you!” she accused.

Nathan shrugged, an action that belied the fierce and sudden pain darkening his eyes. “Nobody does it quite like you, lover. If revenge is what you want, kindly get it through your lawyers.”

Mallory drew back at the sharp impact of his words; if he’d slapped her, he couldn’t have caused her more anguish. “My lawyers?” she echoed. “Nathan, what—?”

His embrace tightened, and it was no longer tender. “Listen to me,” he said in harsh, measured tones. “I love you. I need you. But I’m through playing stupid games, Mallory—either you’re my wife and you live with me and share my bed or you’re just somebody I used to know. The choice is yours. If you decide to stay, remember this—I’ve never made love to Diane—I’ve never been unfaithful to you at all—and I don’t intend to be tortured for some imagined transgression from now till the crack of doom. Do we understand each other?”

Mallory’s lips moved, but not a sound came out of her mouth.

Nathan’s hands were moving in sensuous, compelling circles on the small of her back. “Go or stay, babe,” he went on, “but if you walk out of here tonight, don’t ever come back.”

The hardness of his words chafed Mallory’s proud spirit, but she knew he was right. A final decision had to be made and then abided by. Her voice trembled when she spoke.

“Aren’t you being just a bit arbitrary, Mr. McKendrick?”

Nathan sighed, and his hands moved down to cup her firm, rounded bottom and draw her closer still. “Umm,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “Stop stalling, woman. Do I take you back to Seattle or do I just take you?”

Mallory’s cheeks brightened to a deep pink. The hard evidence of his desire for her was pressed against her abdomen, making it difficult indeed to think clearly. “This is coercion,” she accused in a whisper.

Nathan’s lips coursed warmly over her temple to nuzzle the soft, vulnerable place beneath her ear. “I didn’t say I was going to fight fair,” he reminded her, his voice gruff with need.

Mallory trembled; in truth, her decision had been made before he had opened the front door, before she’d left Seattle. What was the use in pretending, playing childish games? She swallowed hard.

“If you don’t mind,” she said softly, “I’ll stay.”

Trish and Mallory watched with comically serious faces as Pat modeled one of several wedding gowns she was considering.

“Too many ruffles,” Mallory commented.

“Too few,” Trish countered.

Pat paused, a vision bathed in spring sunlight, to glare at the spectators lounging on the living room sofa. “You two are no help at all!”

Mallory and Trish exchanged a look and then burst into a simultaneous fit of giggles.

Mallory, her stomach well rounded with the cherished weight of her child, Nathan’s child, sat cross-legged, like a small, plump Indian. Beaming, she reinspected Pat’s beautiful gown. “You look lovely. Yes, indeed, I think that is
definitely
The Dress.”

“Me, too,” Trish admitted. “Of course, I looked much better in mine, you know. Some of us just have better bodies than others.”

Mallory and Pat both laughed, and Mallory glanced eloquently down at the dome of her stomach. Though it was only April, she was big enough that she couldn’t join in the good-natured teasing by claiming any superiority for her own figure. “No comment from this quarter!”

“I should say not, fatso,” Pat answered.

Trish rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. “And it’s April, for heaven’s sake. By August, they’re going to be transporting El Tubbo here with a block and tackle!”

Mallory gave her friend a good-natured shove and pretended to pout. “Nathan thinks I’m beautiful!”

“What does he know?” Trish countered.

Pat laughed. “Maybe we should ask Weight Watchers to send over their emergency squad.”

Eyes twinkling, Mallory shot to her feet in dramatic indignation and summoned up her most imperious glare. “When are you two going to let up on the fat jokes?” she cried. “You’ll destroy my ego!”

Pat lifted her chin and grinned. “If you run out of ego, sis, just borrow some from Nathan—he has plenty. As for the fat jokes, we’ll let up when you can see your feet again, McKendrick. You remember—those things south of your knees?”

Mallory laughed and the child moved within her and she thought, in that moment, that she had never been happier in all her life.

Pat and Trish exchanged a look and giggled. A moment later, Pat was off to an upstairs bedroom to change out of the wedding gown and back into jeans.

Trish patted Mallory’s hand with affection. “All jokes aside, old friend, you look wonderful. I know it’s corny, but you actually
glow.
”

“Thanks,” Mallory replied, sitting down on the sofa again and resting her hands lightly on the protrusion beneath her blouse.

Trish frowned, looking briefly in the direction of the distant room where Nathan was locked away. “What’s that man of yours up to these days? Rumor has it that you clubbed him over the head with a package of frozen shrimp and stuffed the body under the cellar stairs.”

Mallory smiled at Trish’s remark and turned the simple wedding band on her finger, so that it caught the invading spring sunshine and transformed it to golden fire. “He has been something of a hermit lately, hasn’t he?” She lowered her voice to a whisper, unable, in her pride, to keep the secret to herself. “Trish, he’s writing a soundtrack for a movie, and it’s wonderful.”

Trish made a funny face. “What else would it dare be but wonderful? But what about you, Mall? Do you miss all that glamor?”

Decisively Mallory shook her head. “I taught the fourth grade yesterday,” she confided, beaming at the memory. “The regular teacher was sick and they called me. It was so much fun, Trish!”

Trish grinned. “You are easily entertained, my friend. Since when is a raging horde of preadolescents considered
fun?
”

“Trish, they’re darling,” Mallory protested as the residual joy of the experience came back to her, full force. “It was show-and-tell day, and this one little boy brought a sandwich bag full of hermit crabs—”

Trish was shaking her head slowly in amused, affectionate wonder. “You are something else, McKendrick,” she broke in. “My God, you don’t even miss the soap one little bit, do you?”

“It wasn’t the way selling real estate is for you, Trish—I never enjoyed it. I never got excited about it, like I do about teaching.”

Just then Pat returned, clad in battered blue jeans and an old sweatshirt, her potential wedding dress in a box under her arm. “Could I catch that ride back to the ferry terminal now, Mall?”

Trish rose quickly from her seat on the sofa. “I’ll take you over. I’m late for the office, anyway.”

“Great,” Pat answered, the prospect of another evening with Roger shining clear in her eyes. Quickly, she bent and planted a kiss on Mallory’s forehead. “See you around, sis. And don’t let that brother of mine write himself into collapse, okay?”

It was May, and the weather was glorious. Sitting at the very end of the boat dock in front of the villa, her feet dangling between water and wharf, Mallory reveled in the singular splendor of Puget Sound. The clear sky cast its cobalt blue reflection onto the receiving waters, and the Olympic mountains were like snow-clad giants in the tree-lined distance, their peaks craggy and traced with jagged purple streaks. And everywhere, gulls sang their contentious songs, swooping and circling against the pearlescent sky.

Mallory laid gentle hands on the folds of her well-filled madras maternity blouse and smiled to know that her baby would grow up in this marvelous place. She glanced toward the duplex where Diane had lived until a month or so before, when she’d suddenly given up her writing aspirations and gone off to do press work for a punk rock group.

“Is this a private daydream or can anybody join in?” Nathan asked softly from just behind her.

Mallory hadn’t heard his approach. She turned to look up at him; he was framed in a dazzling, silver aura of sunlight.

When she said nothing, Nathan sat down beside her, Indian-style, on the creaking, spray-dampened wooden wharf. He sighed, shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn blue running jacket and turned his dark eyes to the panorama of trees, sky, sea and mountains.

“If you could paint a picture of God’s soul,” he said quietly, “it would probably look just like this.”

Mallory nodded, loving the man beside her even more than she had before he spoke. “How’s the movie score going?” she asked, sliding her arm through the crook of his and resting her cheek against the warm rounding of his strong shoulder.

Nathan laughed wearily. “Who can work in that place? Every time I try to set a note to paper, some caterer shows up, flanked by two legions of florists.”

Mallory smiled and kissed his rough, fragrant cheek warmly. “I’m glad the wedding is tomorrow,” she confided. “Pat is hysterical.”

Nathan grinned and draped an arm around Mallory’s ample waist, drawing her close. “
Pat
is hysterical?” he teased. “
I’m
hysterical. What if I blow my lines?”

Mallory laughed. “All you have to do is walk your sister to the front of the church and say ‘I do’ when the minister asks—”

“Who giveth this woman in marriage?” Nathan boomed, in a comically ponderous, clerical voice.

“Right. Considering that you’ve dazzled the crowned heads of Europe with command performances, you shouldn’t have all that much trouble with two words.”

Nathan’s eyes were suddenly serious, almost brooding. They rose to a distance well beyond Mallory’s reach. “Do you think Pat will be happy?” he asked.

Mallory gave him an affectionate shove. “Stop worrying. Pat isn’t some besotted teenager, you know—she’s a grown woman, perfectly capable of recognizing the right man for her.”

He brought his gaze back from the unreachable hinterlands to sweep Mallory’s face with tenderness and hope. “How about you, Mrs. McKendrick? Are you happy? Did you choose the right man?”