Separate Cabins Read Free Page B

mild exasperation at the reference to the long-running television series, which had filmed its location shots aboard the
Pacific Princess.
    “Someone needs to remind you if you haven’t thought about it.” Fan’s look was faintly skeptical.
    “Let’s just say that I haven’t given it
much
thought,” she replied. “And if I take any moonlight strolls around the deck, it will probably be alone. There’s no percentage in becoming romantically entangled with a stranger for a week.”
    “I’m not suggesting romance,” Fan corrected that impression.
    “Then what are you suggesting?” Rachel demanded, becoming a little impatient with the subject.
    Instead of immediately answering her, Fan threw a glance at her husband. “John, close your ears. A husband shouldn’t hear the advice his wife gives to single women.”
    An indulgently amused smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “I’m as deaf as a mouse in a bell tower,” he promised and looked in another direction, pretending an interest elsewhere.
    Fan turned back to Rachel. “What I’m talking about is something a little more basic than romance,” she said. “What you really need is a little sex; something to start the fires burning again. And that man looks like he’s got what it takes to deliver the goods.”
    Advice like that had been offered before, but it was usually given by the man interested in becoming her sexual partner. If anyone else but her best friend had said that to her, Rachel would probably have thrown the orange drink in their face. Instead she set the container on the ledge and stiffly stood up, waiting as Fan rose also.
    “My fires are burning nicely.” At the moment most of the inner heat came from suppressed anger. She had never considered herself to be a prude. Lonely though she sometimes was, Rachel hadn’t become so desperate for love that she resorted to casual sex.
    Struggling against her rising agitation, she turned a cold shoulder to Fan. Her forward-facing gaze looked into the glass front of the terminal building. The shaded interior produced a mirrorlike backing for the glass, causing it to reflect a faint image of her own white-suited figure and obscuring the building’s many occupants but not to the extent that she failed to recognize the tall, broad-shouldered man talking to one of the cruise staff.
    The sight of him, posed so nonchalantly with one hand casually thrust in the side pocket of his slacks, seemed to add to the seething fury that heated her blood. Unquestionably he was sexy but not in any overt kind of way. It was much more subtle than that. Rachel recognized that and was impatient with herself because she did.
    While she unwillingly watched him, he was taken over and introduced to another staff member, who greeted him familiarly. Then he was personally escorted past the roped-off boarding area around the open doorway. Her last glimpse of him was his tapering silhouette outlined briefly in the rectangular patch of light marking the doorway. While all the other passengers had to wait until the appointed boarding time, he was being escorted onto the ship. She supposed it meant he had friends in high places.
    “I know I probably sounded crude,” Fan continued,slightly defensive and apologetic. “But it seems to me that the longer you abstain from taking a lover, the more difficult it becomes. Rather like losing your virginity all over.”
    “Let’s just forget it.” Severely controlling her voice, Rachel was aware that her friend’s advice was well intentioned. She was just personally uncomfortable with it.
    There was a stirring of activity inside the terminal building. The crowd was beginning to bunch closer together and press forward against the ropes. It appeared that the boarding process would commence shortly.
    Afraid that if she stayed Fan would continue on the same subject, Rachel decided that it would be better if she joined the other passengers inside before she lost her temper. She didn’t