Separate Cabins by Janet Dailey

caution.
    At breakfast the next morning Gard extended invitations to his private cocktail party to the three couples at their table. After they had accepted, his roguish glance ran sideways to Rachel.
    “Will you come now?” His question mocked her with the proof that she wasn’t the only one invited, as she had once accused.
    “Yes, thank you.” She kept her answer simple, knowing how the red-haired woman was hanging on her every word and partly not caring. She’d run into gossips before who simply had to mind everybody’s business but their own.
    After last night there was no point in denying herattraction to Gard any longer—and certainly not to herself. She had begun to think that if a relationship developed on the cruise, it wouldn’t necessarily have to end when the ship reached its destination in Acapulco. Both of them lived in Los Angeles. They could continue to see each other after this was over. Part of her worried that it might be dangerous thinking. But Rachel knew she was nearly ready to take the chance.
    After she had finished her morning meal, she stopped in the Purser’s Lobby on her way topside to the Sun Deck. For a change no one was waiting at the counter for information. When Rachel asked to speak to the purser, an assistant directed her to his private office.
    When she entered, his short, round body bounced off the chair and came around the desk to greet her. “Good morning, Mrs. MacKinley.” His recognition of her was instant, accompanied by a jovial smile. “No more mix-ups, I trust.”
    “Only one,” she said, admitting the reason for wanting to see him. “The passenger list posted outside—”
    “That oversight has already been corrected,” he interrupted her to explain. “I saw Gard early this morning and he mentioned that he was still listed as being in the cabin assigned to you. I changed that straightaway.”
    “Oh.” She hadn’t expected that. “I’m sorry. It seems I’ve taken your time for nothing.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he insisted and walked with her as she turned to leave. “Will I beseeing you at the cocktail party Gard is having tonight?”
    “Yes, I’m coming,” she nodded.
    “We’ve been giving him a bad time about having a wife on board,” he told her with a broad wink. “His friends have had a good laugh over the mix-up, although I know it was probably awkward for you.”
    “It was, at the time,” Rachel admitted, but her attitude had changed since then, probably because her wariness of Gard was not so strong.
    “If I can help you again anytime, come see me.” When they reached his office door, he stopped. “I’ll see you tonight.”
    “Yes.” She smiled and moved away into the lobby.
    As Rachel headed for the gracefully curved staircase rising to the mezzanine of Aloha Deck, her course took her past the board with the passenger list. She paused long enough to see for herself that the cabin number beside Gard’s name had been changed. It was no longer the same as hers.
    It was late in the afternoon when the ship’s course brought it close to a land mass. Rachel stood at the railing with the crowd of other passengers and watched as they approached the tip of the Baja Peninsula, Cabo San Lucas.
    The cranberry-colored jump-short suit she wore was sleeveless with a stand-up collar veeing to a zippered front. It showed the long, shapely length of her legs and the belted slimness of her waist. Even though her skin was slow to burn in the sun, Rachel had limited her amount of exposure to thishot, tropical sun. As a result her arms and legs had a soft, golden cast.
    A brisk breeze was taking some of the heat out of the afternoon. It whipped at her black hair and tugged a few wisps from the constraining ponytail band, blowing them across her face. With an absent brush of her hand she pushed them aside and watched while the ship began its swing around the point of Cabo San Lucas.
    Around her the passengers with cameras were snapping