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