“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