Snowflakes on the Sea (9 page)

She caught Nathan’s clean, distinctive scent just as he drew her up out of the chair and into his arms.

“What did that bastard say to you?” he wanted to know, but his tones were infinitely gentle.

Mallory could only shake her head and cry harder.

“Okay,” Nathan conceded softly, his hand warm and strong in her hair, his lips brushing her temple. “We’ll talk about it later. But if I see that guy again, he may have to order new knees.”

Despite everything, Mallory giggled into the fragrant warmth of Nathan’s red T-shirt.

Her husband caught one hand under her chin and tenderly urged her to look up at him. Briskly, he kissed the tip of her nose. “I believe we were conducting a rather interesting reunion before we were so rudely interrupted.”

Sniffling and smiling through her tears and already warming to the hard, insistent nearness of this man she loved so fully, Mallory nodded.

Nathan laughed softly. “I’ll be with you in a minute—just let me make a sign for the front door.”

Mallory lay in bed, looking up at the black velvet expanse of the skylight. The snow was melting, leaving shimmering beads of water in its place. Beside her, warm and solid, Nathan slept the sleep of the exhausted. Tenderness welled up inside Mallory as she turned to look at him, to gently trace the outline of his strong jaw, his arrogant chin, his neck. He stirred but did not awaken.

Mallory smiled. Nothing would disturb his desperately needed sleep—nothing. If need be, she would have fought tigers to see to that.

Gently she kissed the cleft in his chin. “I love you, Nathan McKendrick,” she said softly. Then, snuggled close to him, she slept.

The bright warmth of undiluted sunshine awakened Mallory the next morning, aided by the cold, wet nuzzling of Cinnamon’s nose in her face. The dog whimpered as Mallory sat up, wriggled impatiently as she crept out of bed without awakening Nathan.

“Shh,” she ordered, raising an index finger to her lips. “I know you need to go outside.”

Cinnamon whined as Mallory scrambled into her clothes, again wishing that she’d left the dog behind on the island. Keeping the poor creature in a penthouse was inexcusable.

In the outer hallway as Mallory and Cinnamon waited for an elevator, Mallory made up her mind to correct the mistake that very day. Provided the ferries were running again, she would take the dog home.

Outside, the glaring brightness of the day greeted them, as did the inevitable clamor of a big city. Horns honked, boat whistles whined and cars rushed helter-skelter through the glistening slush on the roads.

Cinnamon was terrified.

In a grocery store some blocks away, Mallory bought two cans of dog food, having left Cinnamon to wait bravely on the sidewalk.

Because the weather was so beautiful and Cinnamon seemed calmer, Mallory decided not to go directly back to the penthouse. Even though Nathan would be there, the blue and gold day was simply too appealing to be abandoned so quickly.

They walked, woman and dog, back toward the waterfront. On Pike Street, where the road was paved with worn red bricks and merchants offered every sort of fish, fresh vegetable and pastry from open stalls, they bought bagels and cream cheese.

On the Sound, a passenger ferry sounded its horn, as if to remind all and sundry that no storm could stay it for long.

Mallory drew a deep, salt-scented breath. “We’ll go home today,” she said, as much to herself as to Cinnamon. “All of us.”

Cinnamon yipped, as if in celebration, and then strained at her leash as a tame sea gull ventured too near, waddling over the brick street in search of scraps. Mallory was restraining the dog when she felt a hand come to rest on the sleeve of her Windbreaker.

She turned, smiling, expecting a friend or someone who had been following her misadventures on the soap. Instead, she met the snapping azure gaze of Diane Vincent.

After a moment, Diane allowed her eyes to sweep contemptuously to the dog, who still wanted to investigate the intrepid sea gull foraging nearby. “Hello,” she said, her voice trimmed in sweet malice. “Out walking your—dog?”

“Obviously,” Mallory replied.

Diane smiled acidly. She did look splendid, though, in her casual tweed blazer, yellow silk blouse fetchingly open at the throat and tailored designer jeans. “Let’s have coffee, Mallory. How long has it been since we really talked, you and I?”

Not long enough.
Mallory managed a stiff smile, though she couldn’t have said why she made the effort. “I really don’t have time, Diane.” She patted the shopping bag resting in the curve of one arm, still holding Cinnamon’s taut leash in the other hand. “When Nathan wakes up, he’s going to be hungry, and—”

Diane tossed her head, so that the sun caught in her magnificent hair. “He’s still sleeping—well, after last night, that figures.”

Mallory visualized headlines in her mind. SOAP OPERA VILLAINESS MURDERS REAL-LIFE RIVAL….

“Diane,” she said at length, and with commendable control, “if you’ve got something to say about last night, why don’t you just say it?”

Nathan’s beautiful press agent shrugged, and a hint of a malicious smile curved her lips and then shifted to her eyes. “We’ll get together another time, Mallory,” she said. “Give my regards to Nathan.”

With that, the woman turned and walked away, leaving Mallory to stare after her, all her questions unanswered.

W
hen Cinnamon began to tug anxiously at her leash, probably bored with the sea gull and ready for breakfast, Mallory, stunned, snapped out of her mood and started off in the direction of the apartment complex. When she reached the building, her earlier high spirits still tarnished by the encounter with Diane, Mallory found that the lobby was uncommonly crowded.

“What’s going on, George?” she asked of the harried doorman, who was scowling at the bevy of reporters and photographers milling about.

George’s suspicious glance turned to one of worried recognition. “Ms. O’Connor—they’ll recognize you—” Before she could find out more, Mallory was being shuffled into the building manager’s cluttered office, out of view, Cinnamon following cheerfully behind.

Inside, Mallory frowned and set her shopping bag down on the desk usually occupied by the woman Nathan retained to look after the building. “Where’s Marge? George, what in the world—?”

“They’re after Mr. McKendrick, from what I gather,” George confided, looking very much like a beleaguered general barely able to stave off attack. “Marge is upstairs, talking to Mr. McKendrick.”

Annoyed, Mallory reached for the telephone on Marge’s desk and punched out the number for the penthouse. Oddly, it was Marge who answered. “Yes?” she demanded coldly.

“Marge, this is Mallory—I’m downstairs. Will you put Nathan on, please?”

“Are you in my office?” Marge blurted after a sharp intake of breath. “For God’s sake, stay there—” For a moment, the middle-aged woman’s voice sounded farther away as she spoke to someone else. “Yes, she’s here—I don’t think so—”

A moment later, Nathan was on the line, and the strange timbre of his voice frightened Mallory. “Mallory, listen to me. I want you to stay inside that office until I come for you. All right?”

Something shivered in the pit of Mallory’s stomach. “Nathan, what’s happening? There are reporters and—”

He broke in brusquely. “I’ll explain it all in a few minutes, Mallory—
just don’t leave that office.
”

“But—”

“Mallory.”

“Nathan, you’ve got to tell me—”

“Do I have your promise or not?”

Even more alarmed, Mallory sighed in frustration. “All right, damn it, I promise.”

“Good,” Nathan snapped, and then the line went dead.

Just then, the office door burst open, and an avid-looking man was standing there, his small eyes raking over Mallory as though she were some curious museum piece, meant to be thoroughly examined. “Did you know about the girl, Mrs. McKendrick?” he blurted out, as an angry George lumbered toward him. “Has your husband admitted to an affair with her?”

Mallory could only stare at the man, and the office spun around her as George pushed the man out and quickly locked the door. The doorman was grumbling as he turned to face the woman he had so wanted to protect.

Apparently alarmed by the sight of her, he sputtered, “Now, Mrs. McKendrick—Ms. O’Connor—don’t pay any mind to that scum! He’s probably with one of those papers they sell in the supermarket—”

Mallory couldn’t answer; her head was full of echoes.
Did you know about the girl, Mrs. McKendrick? Has your husband admitted to an affair with her?

George caught her arms, thrust her gently into the chair behind Marge’s desk and brought her a plastic cup brimming with hot, strong coffee. Five minutes passed, ten. Mallory managed the occasional sip of coffee, but only because George looked so worried. The stuff was like bile in her mouth.

Suddenly, she heard an unmistakable shout of annoyance in the area outside the office, followed by a terse invective that the reporters would probably choose not to print. George opened the door to admit a livid Nathan.

“Will you get rid of those creeps?” snapped Mallory’s husband, addressing the doorman.

“I’ll try,” George promised somewhat uncertainly, making a hasty exit.

Nathan swept Mallory’s trembling frame with dark, furious eyes, and then turned to lock the door again. Her hand shaking, she set aside what was left of her coffee and braced herself.

After a rather drawn-out battle with a very simple lock, Nathan turned to face his wife. “Are you all right?”

Mallory could manage nothing more than a nod. If he didn’t explain what was happening, and fast, she would explode in a fit of shrieking hysteria.

Pale beneath his tan, Nathan took a newspaper Mallory hadn’t noticed before from under his arm and thrust it at her. Despite what the reporter had said to her, cold, sickening shock turned her stomach as she read the headline. SINGER NATHAN McKENDRICK NAMED IN PATERNITY SUIT.

Mallory closed her eyes and swallowed the burning sickness that scalded in her throat.
These things happen all the time,
one part of her mind argued calmly.
It’s gossip, it’s trash—

“Mallory.” Nathan’s voice broke through the fog of pain and betrayal that surrounded her.
This is no cheap scandal sheet. It’s an important newspaper—

“Mallory!”

She felt the angry, frightened strength of Nathan’s hands as he grasped her shoulders, and opened her eyes to see the torment in his face. “Who is she?” she whispered.

Nathan flinched as though she’d struck him, and drew back. Head down, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his gray flannel slacks, and an awesome tension tightened the muscles in his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Mallory cried out, wounded. Then, remembering the reporters who were no doubt still lurking outside, anxious to grasp any tidbit, she lowered her voice. “Nathan, damn you, start talking!”

As if insulted, he thrust the newspaper at her. “Read it for yourself,” he snarled. “And then you’ll know as much about it as I do!”

Hoping that she could trust her hands, Mallory unfolded the newspaper, winced inwardly as she read the headline again, and then turned her attention to the picture and article beneath it. The photograph showed Nathan standing in a crowd of delighted girls, clad in the flowing silk shirt and fitted trousers he customarily wore on stage. His arm curved easily around the waist of one particularly voluptuous young lady, and he was smiling.

Mallory forced herself to read the words printed below.
Eighteen-year-old Renee Parker, of Eagle Falls, Washington, has named singer Nathan McKendrick in a paternity suit, claiming that she and McKendrick have been intimately involved on a number of occasions. This alliance, says the attractive young waitress, has resulted in the conception of…

Mallory could read no further. A soft cry of outraged pain echoed in the room, and she realized that it was her own.

“Read the rest of it,” Nathan ordered, his voice a taut, anguished rasp, his arms folded across his chest.

She shook her head. “No—no, I can’t.”

“It ends with, ‘Mr. McKendrick was unavailable for comment, according to his press agent, Diane Vincent.’ Mallory, does that tell you anything?”

The tumult outside the office seemed to be building to a crescendo, rather than waning. Apparently, George had been unsuccessful in his efforts to get rid of the press.

“Eighteen,” Mallory whispered, as though Nathan hadn’t spoken. “Oh, my God, Nathan, she’s only
eighteen.
”

Nathan’s magnificent features were flushed with outraged color, and a vein at the base of his throat pulsed ominously. “God in heaven, Mallory, you don’t seriously think—”

Before he could finish, there was an imperious knocking at the door, and Pat’s voice rang out over the clamor in the lobby. “Nathan—Mallory! Let me in!”

After one scathing glance at Mallory, Nathan unlocked the door, easily this time, to admit his sister.

She spared a sympathetic look for her brother and then turned her attention to a stricken Mallory. “I see this morning’s fast-breaking news story didn’t go over well. Nate, I’ve talked to the press. They’ll let Mallory pass if you’ll answer some of their questions. If you don’t, they’re prepared to hang around until Nixon gets reelected.”

Nathan’s dark eyes, charged with fury only a moment before, were dull with pain as they linked again with Mallory’s. “Tell them they have a deal,” he said, in a voice his wife hardly recognized. “Just get Mallory out of here.”

Five minutes later, Mallory and a very confused Cinnamon were in the safe confines of Pat’s bright yellow Mustang, on their way to her condominium overlooking Lake Washington.

Pat looked pale as she navigated the slushy streets, and her knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel. “You know, I hope,” she ventured, after they’d traveled some distance, “that that newspaper article is libelous?”

Libel. Mallory might have laughed if she hadn’t felt as though everything within her was crumbling. “That’s no gossip rag, Pat,” she said brokenly. “It’s a responsible, highly respected newspaper.”

Pat said a very unladylike word. “You innocent. Are you telling me that you
bought
that garbage?”

“I don’t know,” Mallory admitted honestly, her eyes fixed on the blurred houses and businesses moving past the car window. And it was true—at that moment, she couldn’t have said whether she believed Nathan to be innocent or guilty. She was still in shock.

There was a long, painful silence. Pat finally broke it with an impatient, “Do you want to go to the island, Mallory? To Trish or Kate? I could take you there right now—”

Mallory shook her head quickly. The island might have offered sanctuary during any other crisis, but, for the moment, it held no appeal at all. She wouldn’t be able to think clearly there or in any other place she’d lived with Nathan. “You could do me one favor, though,” she said tentatively, and the softening in Pat’s face was comforting.

“What’s that?”

Mallory reached back and patted the fitful dog filling the car’s back seat. “Take Cinnamon back to the island. Trish will look after her.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay—while I’m gone, I mean? Nathan might be busy for a while.”

“I need some time alone,” she said, and knew that her eyes were imploring Pat. “C-could you keep Nathan away f-for a few days?”

Pat sighed as she turned into the driveway of her condo. “I’ll try, Mallory. But he knows where you are, and he’s going to be very anxious to settle this.”

Glumly, Mallory nodded. “I know, but I don’t want to talk to him now. I’ve got to think—”

“You can’t run away from this, Mallory,” Pat said not unkindly as she turned off the car’s engine and pulled the keys from the ignition. “Rotten as it is, it’s real, and avoiding your husband won’t make it go away.”

“Three days,” Mallory pleaded. “Please—just three days.”

Pat shrugged, but her blue eyes were filled with worry and reluctance. “All right, Mall—I’ll plead your case. Just remember that I can’t promise he won’t come storming over here to have it out with you.”

Half an hour later, Mallory had her wish—temporarily, anyway. She was alone in Pat’s airy, sun-brightened condo, without even Cinnamon to disturb her churning thoughts.

She paced the sumptuously carpeted living room for some minutes after Pat’s departure, looking blindly out at the view of Lake Washington. Despite the miserable weather of the past few days, or perhaps because of it, the azure water was dotted with the colorful sails of several sleek pleasure boats.

Mallory was honestly surprised to discover that there were tears sliding down her face. Angry with herself, she brushed them away and approached the telephone. After a short, awkward conversation with a discerning Trish—surely the newspaper article was common knowledge on the island, too, by now—she replaced the receiver and wandered to the sofa. Bless her, Trish had asked no questions, probably sensing that Mallory couldn’t bear to talk about the impending lawsuit just yet, and she’d promised to look after Cinnamon.

The telephone rang shrilly, startling Mallory, and she debated whether to answer it or ignore it. She didn’t want to talk to Nathan yet, and she certainly didn’t want to speak with any reporters, but this was Pat’s telephone and it was most likely that the call was unrelated to Mallory’s personal problems.

She answered with a spiritless, one-word greeting, and nearly hung up when she heard Nathan’s voice.

“Babe, are you all right?”

Oh, I’m wonderful. You’ve made some groupie pregnant and she’s telling the world and who could ask for anything more?
“I’m fine,” she lied. “How about you?”

He made an irritated, raspy sound. “I don’t need the light repartee right now, sweetheart,” he replied tartly. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Then you know I need time, Nathan. Time and space.”

“I’m not the father of that girl’s baby, Mallory.”

Tears were coursing down Mallory’s face again, and she was glad of only one thing in the world—that Nathan couldn’t see her crying. She wanted so desperately to believe him, but she was afraid to; it would be too shattering to find out later that he’d lied. “D-don’t, Nathan—not now. I’m so tired and so confused—”

His sigh was a broken, despondent sound. “All right. All right—just don’t forget that I love you, Mallory, and that I don’t sell out people who trust me.”

Mallory nodded, realizing that he couldn’t see her. “I’ll call you in a few days, Nathan—I promise.”

“Is there anything you need?”

She thought for a moment—it was so difficult to accomplish even the simplest mental processes with her mind in such a turmoil. “My car. Could you have George bring my car?”

“Sure,” he said, and Mallory was grateful that he didn’t offer to deliver it himself. “Take care, pumpkin.”

“I will,” Mallory whispered, and her hand shook as she replaced the telephone receiver.

Twenty minutes later, George delivered Mallory’s Mazda, handed over the keys without comment and left again in a taxi. Mallory made her way to Pat’s guest bath, took a shower and appropriated a cozy-looking chenille bathrobe from her sister-in-law’s bedroom closet.

She was curled up on the living room sofa again, trying to read, when Pat returned. With typical thoughtfulness, she’d stopped at the penthouse for a suitcase full of Mallory’s clothes.