Separate Cabins Read Online Free Page A

“Promenade 347,” he repeated to the steward, then turned to Rachel, smiling warmly. “Hanson will guide you to your stateroom suite, Mrs. MacKinley.”
    “Thank you.” Her mouth curved in an automatic response, then Rachel moved past him to follow the young steward across the wide foyer to the stairwell flanked by elevators.
    The decision to reserve a suite instead of a simple stateroom had been an impulsive one and admittedly extravagant, since she was traveling alone. Part of it had been prompted by Fan’s urging that Rachel should do this vacation up right and travel in style, and part of it had been motivated by a desire to have uncramped quarters where she could lounge in comfortable privacy.
    A landing divided the stairs halfway between each deck and split it into flanking arms that turned back on itself to rise to the next deck. The landings, the turns, the lookalike foyers on each deck, began to confuse Rachel as she followed the steward. Already cognizant of the size of the ship, shequickly realized that it would be easy to become turned around with so many decks and the maze of passageways.
    Instead of relying solely on her guide, Rachel began to look for identifying signs so she would learn her route to the stateroom and not become lost when she had to find it again. The striding steward didn’t give her much time to dawdle and still keep him in sight.
    When they stopped climbing stairs, the steward crossed the foyer and started down a long passageway. The level was identified as the Promenade Deck. Rachel stopped for a second to read the small sign indicating the range of cabin numbers located in the direction of its pointing arrow.
    Her gaze was still clinging to the sign when she hurriedly started forward to catch up with the steward before she lost track of him. She didn’t see the person approaching from the opposite direction until the very last second. Rachel tried to stop abruptly and avoid the collision, but she had been hurrying too fast to completely succeed.
    Her forward impetus almost carried her headlong into the man. She cringed slightly in anticipation of the impact, but a pair of hands caught her by the arms and reduced the collision to a mere bump. She’d been holding her breath and now released it in a rushed apology.
    “I’m sorry.” Her head came back to lift her gaze upward.
    A half-formed smile of vague embarrassment froze on her face as Rachel recognized the man from the limousine. Only now his face was mereinches from hers. The detail of his solid features was before her—the sun wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the angled plane of his jaw and chin, and the smooth, well-defined strength of his mouth.
    Her pulse rate shot up as her glance flicked to his lazy brown eyes. A smiling knowledge seemed to perpetually lurk behind their dry brown surfaces. She felt it licking over her as his gaze absorbed her features from the tip of her nose to the curved bow of her lips and the midnight blackness of her hair, then finally to the silver brilliance of her widened gray eyes.
    This flash of mutual recognition and close assessment lasted mere seconds. On the heels of it came the recollection of Fan’s advice concerning this very man whose hands were steadying her. Rachel went hot at the memory, her glance falling before his as if she thought he might be able to read her thoughts. She began to feel very stiff and awkward.
    His hands loosened their hold on her arms and came away. Belatedly Rachel noticed that he was holding his tan jacket, which he swung over his white-shirted shoulder, casually hooking it on a forefinger. His shirt collar was open, exposing the tanned column of his throat.
    “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly, repeating her apology for bumping into him, trying to distract her thoughts from the tingling sensation on her arms where his hands had been. “I’m afraid I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
    There was a lazy glitter in his eyes as his mouth quirked.