Snowflakes on the Sea (24 page)

Mallory pretended to search the shoreline behind them. “Sure did. He’s around here somewhere—”

Nathan caught her chin in his hand. “Mallory, I’m serious,” he said, and the anxiety in his features bore witness to his words.

Something ached in Mallory’s throat. “I’ve never been happier,” she vowed. And it was true—she hadn’t thought it possible to feel the wondrous things she felt, not only during their now-cautious lovemaking, but at mundane times, too, like when they walked the island’s beaches or ate breakfast on the sun porch or watched the old movies they both loved.

He bent his head to brush her lips tenderly with his own. “You weren’t always happy, were you?” he asked.

Mallory sighed and searched the sun-dappled waters dancing before them. “No. I remember thinking, one winter day, that we were like snowflakes on the sea, you and I. Our love was so beautiful, so special, but, like the snowflakes, when it touched something bigger, it dissolved.”

Poetry was an integral part of Nathan’s nature, and he smiled, somewhat sadly, at the imagery in her statement. “Snowflakes on the sea,” he repeated thoughtfully, his eyes locked now with hers. “Did it ever occur to you that that snow didn’t really cease to exist at all? Mallory, it became a permanent part of that ‘something bigger’—a part of something eternal and elemental and very, very beautiful.”

A smile trembled on Mallory’s lips, and sudden tears made the whole world sparkle before her like a moving gem. “I love you,” she said.

Nathan bounded to his feet and drew his wife with him, pretending that the task was monumental. And Mallory’s laughter rang out over the whispering salt waters like the toll of a crystal bell.

Mallory stood on tiptoe in the pastor’s study, trying to straighten Nathan’s tie. Beyond, in the main part of the small, historical building, the voices of guests and a few intrepid reporters hummed in expectation.

“Stop wiggling!” Mallory scolded, as Nathan fidgeted before her, impatient with the doing and redoing of his tie. “It’s Roger’s job to be nervous, not yours.”

He glared at her enormous flower-bedecked picture hat. “Does that thing have a sprinkler system?” he scowled.

Mallory laughed and then pirouetted to show off the rest of the outfit—a flowing pink organdy dress, strappy shoes and a bouquet of mountain violets.

Nathan was still uncomfortable. “Everything has to be right,” he grumbled. “What if—?”

Mallory caught his face in both hands. “Nathan, relax. Just
relax!
”

He laughed suddenly and shook his head. “I can’t.”

With a sigh, Mallory gave his tie one final rearrangement. “Think of it as a performance,” she suggested.

Just then the door leading into the main sanctuary opened with a creak, and Roger came in, flanked by the pastor. The groom shot a terrified look in Nathan’s direction and swallowed hard.

Seeing his own discomfort mirrored in Roger’s face seemed to ease Nathan. Mallory felt his broad shoulders relax under her hands, and saw a sudden mischief dance in his eyes.

“Don’t you dare tease that poor man!” she whispered tersely, giving her husband a slight shake.

Nathan smiled down at her wickedly. “Would I do a thing like that?”

“Absolutely,” Mallory replied.

The pastor, himself an aged and revered institution on the island—he’d married Mallory and Nathan, too, in that same small church—cleared his throat in an eloquent signal that the time was nigh.

“Be nice!” Mallory admonished her husband in a fierce whisper before leaving the room to join Pat in the tiny adjoining social hall.

At the sight of her sister-in-law, Mallory drew in a sharp breath and fought back tears of admiration and love. The other bridesmaids quietly slipped out, to wait in the sunny churchyard.

“Oh, Pat, you look wonderful!”

The tiny pearls stitched to Pat’s gown and veil caught rays of stray sunshine from the fanlight window high on the wall behind her and transformed them to tiny rainbows. Even their splendor could not compete with the happy glow of the bride’s face or the shine in her eyes. “Mall,” she choked softly, “oh, Mallory, I’m scared!”

Mallory embraced this woman who seemed as much her own sister as Nathan’s. “Take a deep breath,” she ordered with mock sternness.

Pat complied, but her blue eyes looked enormous and a visible shudder ran through her slender lace-and-tulle-clad figure. “What if I faint? Mallory, what if I can’t remember what to say?”

Mallory chuckled. “You’re as bad as Nathan. You’re not going to faint, Pat, and you know your vows inside and out.”

Pat shivered. “We shouldn’t have written them ourselves!” she cried in a small rush of last-minute panic. “We should have let Pastor Holloway read from his book! Then it would only have been a matter of repeating what he said—”

“Patricia!”

Pat closed her eyes tight and swayed a little inside Mallory’s hug, but then she opened them again and smiled. The first strains of the elderly church organ wafted into the little, sunlit room.

“Mall—we’re on!”

Mallory laughed. “Knock ’em dead, McKendrick,” she said softly, and then she led her trembling sister-in-law outside into the fragrant spring day and around to the front doors of the church. There, she surrendered Pat to Nathan.

Being the matron of honor, Mallory walked proudly down the sun-and-stained-glass-patterned aisle, on the arm of Roger’s best man. She thought what a picture she must present, with her flowered hat, flowing dress and bulging stomach, and bit her lip to keep from giggling. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the occasional reporter scribbling on a notepad, but there were no bursts of blinding light from flash cameras—Nathan and Pastor Holloway had seen to that personally.

At the orchid-strewn altar, Mallory and the best man parted ways, both turning, as Roger did, to watch Pat’s magnificent entrance.

Mallory’s heart ached in her throat as Pat and Nathan proceeded slowly toward the front of the church—his face with a touching, concentrating grimace, hers hidden beneath the glistening white net of her flowing veil. When Nathan’s sleeve brushed Mallory’s, she looked up at him and winked discreetly, in silent reassurance. He grinned in response.

“Who giveth this woman in marriage?” Pastor Holloway demanded, raising his bushy white eyebrows and bending forward slightly to stare at Nathan expectantly.

Nathan drew a deep breath, and his arm slipped casually around Mallory’s waist. “We do,” he said in a clear voice, and, at the pastor’s crisp nod, he withdrew to take his place in a front pew.

Mallory was still grinning at the way Nathan had included her in that important moment when the minister began to speak. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here—”

The house and garden at Angel Cove were positively overflowing with wedding guests and those who had been invited to the reception. Mallory’s feet were throbbing, and she was beginning to feel cornered and slightly frantic when Nathan suddenly appeared beside her and took her arm. He ushered her into the outer hallway with dignity, but, there, he swept her suddenly up into his arms. “I think you’ve had all the celebration you can take in one day,” he announced in a gruff yet tender voice.

Mallory started to protest that Pat would expect her to stay, but her husband’s determined look silenced her. She was very tired, and she longed for a little quiet solitude, so she didn’t challenge him.

Without drawing any apparent notice from the crowds gathered to wish Pat and Roger well, Nathan carried Mallory out the front door, down over the lawn and onto the wharf. When he finally set her down, it was on the deck of his impressive cabin cruiser, the
Sky Dancer.

“What—” she muttered, looking around in amazement.

Nathan grinned and deftly freed the cruiser from its mooring. “We’re escaping,” he said.

And only minutes later the boat was cutting majestically through the Sound, casting wakes of diamond and sapphire behind her. Mallory sat patiently in the seat beside Nathan’s, filled with a sort of amused wonder.

At last, the
Sky Dancer
’s powerful engine died, and they dropped anchor in a secluded cove they had visited many times before. Gently, Nathan gripped Mallory’s arm and led her below into the vessel’s well-appointed cabin.

It was even more well-appointed than usual, that day—the covers on the wide berthlike bed were turned back to reveal inviting pink satin sheets, and a pine-and-sea scented breeze billowed the new white eyelet curtains covering the portholes.

Nathan gestured grandly toward the bed. “Much as I’d like to undress you,” he said with a speculative lift of one eyebrow, “I don’t dare. I’ll be back in five minutes, Mrs. McKendrick, and when I return, I expect to find you sleeping.” With that, he turned and left the cabin.

Feeling lushly loved and shamefully pampered, Mallory removed the dress she’d worn in the wedding, along with her fussy picture hat and the dainty shoes that had been cutting into her swollen feet without mercy. Her tired flesh hungering for the restful, cool smoothness of those satin sheets, she took off her under things, too, and crawled into bed with a sigh of fathomless contentment.

Nathan returned, as promised, in five minutes, and he frowned sternly when he saw that Mallory wasn’t sleeping.

“My feet hurt,” she complained.

He sat down on the end of the bed, still clad in the elegant shirt and trousers he’d worn in Pat’s wedding ceremony, and deftly brought both Mallory’s feet onto his lap. When he began to massage them with strong, gentle hands, she sighed with sheer pleasure.

In spite of the cool breeze of the day, a powerful heat surged through Mallory’s body as he caressed her toes, her heels, her aching arches.

“Make love to me, Nathan,” she said in a sleepy, languid whisper.

“Wanton,” he teased. “You’re too tired and too pregnant.”

“Too
fat,
you mean,” she pouted.

With a sudden motion and a comically evil laugh, Nathan was standing beside the bed, leering. “Too fat, is it?” he boomed, and then he flung back the covers, baring her pear-shaped form, and knelt to kiss her satiny knees tantalizingly, first one, and then the other.

Mallory moaned, lulled by soft, insistent passion, by the delicate scent of the summery breeze from outside, by the caress of the smooth sheets and the gentle rocking of the boat itself.

Nathan’s lips travelled up one thigh to the small mountain that was her stomach, scaling it with a series of soul-jarring, butterfly kisses.

“Nathan—”

His hands stroked her stomach gently, possessively. “No,” he said.

“You made me want you,” Mallory argued. “How do you expect me to sleep now, you brute?”

Nathan laughed gruffly, but one of his hands was already caressing the silken vee between her thighs. “Too much lovemaking is bad when you’re so tired.”

Mallory tilted her head back, wordless with weary need, and, of their own accord, her hips rose and fell in rhythm with the motion of his hand.

Nathan swore hoarsely and, with gentle fingers, bared the pulsing bud hidden from all eyes but his. Mallory cried out and entwined her fingers in the richness of his hair as he pleasured her.

August. Nathan could hardly believe that so much time had passed so quickly.

He stared at the squalling infant beyond the thick glass barrier, searching the tiny, crumpled face for some subtle resemblance to himself or Mallory. As far as he could tell, the kid looked like Don Rickles.

“Well?” Mallory prodded from her wheelchair beside him. “What’s the verdict?”

Nathan smiled at his wife, at the returning light in her fatigue-smudged eyes. Delivering their baby had been difficult for her, and Dr. Lester had recommended rather forcefully that they forget having more.

Mallory had taken that decision hard, though with typical courage, and there were now faint traces of color in her pallid cheeks and a quickening flickered within her spirit that Nathan could feel in his own.

“Who does Baby McKendrick look like?” Mallory pressed, looking up at him, a mischievous twitch pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“What kind of name is ‘Baby McKendrick’?” he stalled.

“Nathan.”

He turned to study the child again, ponderously and at great length.

Persistent to the end, Mallory tugged at the sleeve of his corduroy suit jacket. “Say it. Your daughter is a dead ringer for Ike Eisenhower.”

Nathan laughed uproariously, but when he looked at Mallory’s face, her eyes were serious again, and wretched. He ached inside, all his amusement vanishing like vapor. He squatted beside the wheelchair to cup her trembling chin in one hand. “Come on,” he teased hoarsely. “She’ll grow out of it.”

Mallory sniffled miserably. “There won’t be any more babies,” she reminded him in broken tones.

Nathan released her chin to smooth back a tendril of her taffy-colored hair. “What are you, woman—greedy? We’ve got Ike!”

Mallory’s smile was like the first glimmer of light in a dark sky, shimmering and brave and full of hope. “And each other.”

He kissed her briefly, tenderly. “And each other,” he confirmed.

Mallory stood in the sound booth, Brittany perched on her hip, and watched the darkened stage below with as much anticipation as any of the other thousands of fans packing the Kingdome that rainy February night. When the stagelights were turned up to reveal Nathan, the auditorium rocked with a roaring, pounding welcome.

Looking splendid in his flashy red shirt and tailored black slacks, he raised both his arms in response to their greeting and lowered his head slightly. The gesture was both triumphant and humble, and Mallory felt tears of pride and wonder burn in her eyes. Their carefully considered decision had been the right one; she knew it in that moment as never before. Nathan McKendrick was back where he belonged.

At his almost imperceptible signal, the regathered band, which had been rehearsing at Angel Cove for a full month, began a skillful introduction to Nathan’s greatest hit of all time, a throaty, sensuous love song. He sat down casually, on a high stool, and reached for his guitar. When he began to sing, the crowd was finally silent.