To the Ends of the Earth / The Danvers Touch

by Lowell, Elizabeth

  “Cathy, I’m hardly going to be shocked if you tell me you’ve been sleeping with a man and were either careless or unlucky and ended up pregnant.”

  Cat didn’t say a word.

  “It helps if you cooperate,” Dr. Stone pointed out. “Without that, I can’t do much except doodle in your file.”

  Closing her eyes, Cat said dully, “I can’t get pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sterile.”

  The chair creaked as Dr. Stone suddenly leaned forward. “From the beginning, please.”

  After a moment Cat opened her eyes. They were as haunted by memories as her voice. “I was married for three years. I never tried not to get pregnant. My husband was certified fertile. That means I’m sterile.”

  “Were your periods irregular then?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Stone frowned and reviewed Cat’s file. “I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t become pregnant. None of the ordinary causes of infertility appear to be present. Are you sure that your husband was fertile?”

  Cat closed her eyes. She could still see Billy’s face as he waved the lab report at her: Adequate for conception.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said.

  “What did your tests show?”

  “I didn’t have any tests. Why bother?”

  “Infertility is often curable.”

  “A bad marriage isn’t.” Then, seeing that Dr. Stone wasn’t satisfied, Cat added, “Even if I was as fertile as a frog, pregnancy isn’t at the root of my irregular periods. To get pregnant there would have to be a man. There isn’t.”

  The words were no sooner out of Cat’s mouth than she remembered Travis and wondered what it would be like if he was her man.

  “Would you agree to some tests to pin down the cause of infertility?” the doctor asked. “Sometimes it’s as simple as bad timing or as subtle as incompatible body chemistries.”

  “Not unless you think it’s causing my cycle to be so damned unpredictable.”

  Dr. Stone snapped shut the file, folded her hands, and stared at her stubborn patient.

  “What’s throwing off your cycle is the same thing that’s causing those dark bruises beneath your eyes. Overwork. You’re a prime candidate for whatever virus might come along. And one will. Ease off, Cathy. Take your weekends and sleep. Play a little. Eat well. Build up your reserves.”

  “In January I’ll be glad to do that. Just get me through until then.”

  “What happens in January?”

  “Easy Street,” Cat said promptly. Then she sighed. “Well, at least Easier Street. The twins’ last payment for medical school will be done and Mother will be safely married. I just have to get there from here.”

  “Sounds like quite a jump.”

  “I’ll make it. Besides, I love my work.”

  “Try loving a man. It’s less strenuous.”

  Again an image of Travis haunted Cat. She hadn’t even known him a day and she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She cursed her photographer’s awareness of texture and line, light and shadow, clear tourmaline eyes reflecting her in their depths.

  “Here.” Dr. Stone’s brisk voice brought Cat’s attention back to the office. “I’m changing your prescription. This one is guaranteed to put color in your cheeks. The nurse will give you a B complex shot and take a blood sample. Make an appointment for a week from today. If your blood count isn’t up by then, I’m giving you iron shots.” She smiled slyly. “My patients tell me they’re quite painful.”

  “I hate shots,” she muttered, getting up to leave.

  “Cathy?”

  Cat turned and looked back.

  “It’s just as well you can’t get pregnant now,” Dr. Stone said. “You’re in no shape for it.”

  “My silver lining for the day,” she said flippantly.

  The doctor shook her head. “Get more sleep. Eat regularly and eat well. I’ll see you in a week.”

  SIX

  LATE THAT afternoon Cat met Blake Ashcroft at the foot of the cliff that was near her house, but much farther down the beach toward town. Behind her, surf foamed and creamed in the rich, slanting light. But instead of shooting it, she felt more like shooting the sulky poet.

  “Ashcroft,” she said distinctly, “I’ve photographed this spot on this cliff at sunset every day for the last three weeks. What makes you think you’ll like the results any better this time?”

  He stepped closer to her, smiling slowly. “Cathy-baby, any time you’d rather shoot the interior of my jockstrap, just say the word. Until then you’ll shoot cliffs at dawn or sunset or any other time that suits me.”

  Cat looked at the fair-haired, blue-eyed male standing between herself and the water. She wished very sincerely that she could rearrange Ashcroft’s perfectly formed face. He didn’t need this shot of the cliff any more than he had needed any of the others she had done for him in the past three weeks. It was simply his way of screwing her because she wouldn’t screw him.

  Deliberately Cat turned her back on the cable TV poet and measured the cliff face once again. There were many fine images buried in those eroding rocks. Ashcroft wanted none of them. Yet the images were there—powerful, compelling, calling out silently to be seen and known.

  Cat shrugged off the broad straps of both camera bags and sighed in unconscious relief. It seemed like the bags weighed more every time she picked them up. While she studied the cliff, she absently rubbed her aching shoulders.

  It had been a long day, beginning at dawn, pausing for Dr. Stone, then full throttle until now. Lunch hadn’t happened. She had been on the phone trying to straighten out a problem of double billing with the photo lab. From there things had gone from bad to worse to Ashcroft.

  Cat wished the fair-haired toad would just take one of his many groupies, crawl off under a rock, and screw himself senseless. There was no reason for him to badger the only unwilling woman west of the Mississippi. She should be home now, fixing dinner.

  If she had been at home, she might have seen more of Travis than a glimpse through a long lens.

  Impatiently she brought her mind back to the cliff. By slow degrees she moved to the right, shifting her perspective. From that angle heavy gold light turned the rock to black velvet. Random plants clinging to the cliff became golden sculptures radiant with life and mystery. The air itself seemed to quiver with magic, reflecting light as though shot through with diamond dust.

  Without looking away from the cliff, Cat stepped back and reached for a camera bag. Her hand bumped into Ashcroft’s hip. Before she could recover, he grabbed her wrist and held her hand against his crotch.

  She made a sound of disgust and tried to pull free, only to find that she couldn’t. Ashcroft’s poetry might have been soft, but he wasn’t. He was both taller and stronger than she was.

  And he was ready for sex.

  “Cathy-baby,” he said, smiling narrowly, “I’ve put up with your teasing little sex games long enough. I’m going to fuck you whether you like it or not. I know that I’ll like it.”

  A look at Ashcroft’s face told Cat that he wasn’t kidding. He was perfectly capable of raping her and blaming it on her for being a tease.

  She looked around quickly. There was no one in sight. She and Ashcroft were standing in a deep trough between water-smoothed rocks, shielded from casual observation. Nearby a stairway twisted up the cliff, but she could see only the middle of the stairs. They were empty. She was utterly alone with Ashcroft.

  Fear shot through Cat, followed by a surge of raw, hot rage. Whatever happened, she would guarantee that Ashcroft would not like it. She bent and grabbed a fistful of sand.

  Before she could fling it in the poet’s smiling face, Travis appeared between the boulders that hid the bottom of the stairway. Long, powerful fingers wrapped around Ashcroft’s wrist, found the nerves between the wristbones, and squeezed. Hard.

  The pain was so quick, so paralyzing, that Ashcroft’s only response was a gasp as his hand went lim
p.

  Cat jerked free and looked at her attacker with bleak gray eyes. It was all she could do to keep from slapping the stunned expression off his face.

  “Is he someone I should know?” Travis drawled.

  “No,” she said harshly. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t know him either.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  For the first time Cat looked at Travis’s face. She took a half step backward before she realized that she had no reason to fear him.

  But Ashcroft did.

  Violence seethed in Travis’s narrowed eyes. Violence waited in the unyielding planes of his cheeks. Violence begged to be free in the purposeful coiling of muscle and sinew.

  “Well, Cat?” Travis asked softly.

  “Don’t tempt me.” Then she sighed wearily. “Let him go. He’ll behave now that he has had his nose rubbed in the fact that I wasn’t playing games. I said no and I meant it.”

  Travis released Ashcroft’s wrist and waited.

  The poet wasn’t entirely stupid. He didn’t move.

  “Who is he?” Travis asked Cat bluntly.

  “Blake Ashcroft, wunderkind of American poetry,” she said. “He’s also a spoiled little boy. I’m doing the art for his latest book.”

  “You were doing the art, you teasing bitch,” Ashcroft snarled. Then he flinched at the expression that came to Travis’s face.

  “I am doing the art,” Cat shot back. “If you don’t believe me, ask Harrington. You try to dump me over this and I’ll sue you for everything from breach of contract to attempted rape.”

  Travis looked at Cat with a startled expression. Then he smiled and wondered why Harrington had let him think that his photographer wasn’t much to look at. He certainly hadn’t mentioned that Cochran had elegant legs, tempting breasts, and hair as red as an autumn fire.

  And a temper to match.

  “No one would believe you,” Ashcroft said to Cat, rubbing his burning wrist. “Women fall all over themselves to unzip my fly.”

  Cat glanced quickly at Travis. He was watching her with a curious smile.

  “I have a witness,” she pointed out.

  Ashcroft looked at the big, barefoot man wearing cutoff jeans and a faded blue T-shirt.

  “An overgrown beach bum,” Ashcroft said with contempt. “Who will believe his word against mine? You’re through, Cathy-baby. Finis. Kaput. The End.”

  Travis leaned over and spoke so softly to Ashcroft that Cat couldn’t hear him.

  The poet went as pale as his hair, stared in disbelief at Travis, and tried to speak. Nothing came out.

  Travis waited with the patience of a cougar stalking dinner. His cold, measuring eyes never left the other man’s face.

  “For God’s sake,” Ashcroft said in a hoarse voice, glaring at Cat. “You can do the damned book. But the pictures had better be great or I’ll—” He looked sideways at Travis and shut up. Then he asked her angrily, “Instead of teasing me, why the hell didn’t you tell me you had a famous, jealous maniac for a lover? I wouldn’t have touched you!”

  Cat’s eyes widened. Surprised laughter tugged at her lips as she turned to Travis. “Are you a famous, jealous maniac, Travis, er, lover?”

  His lazy smile changed the lines of his face from bleak to inviting. When he turned to face her, sunlight transformed his eyes into brilliant blue-green jewels.

  She stared at Travis, forgetting everything but his compelling male presence. She wanted him.

  The shock of wanting went through her in a wash of heat.

  Travis’s eyes narrowed as though he was reading her thoughts before she was even aware of them. The same fingertips that had brought pain to Ashcroft caressed the slanting lines of her cheekbones and the curves of her mouth.

  “I’m jealous as hell of everything that touches you,” Travis said, “even the sunlight. Especially the sunlight licking all over your smooth skin.”

  Cat’s lips parted in surprise. Slowly his fingertip slid over the small serrations of her teeth.

  She shivered at the intimacy of the gesture. Without thinking, she closed her teeth delicately around his finger, silently demanding that he prolong the tantalizing, unexpected caress.

  Travis’s expression changed again. He focused on the moment with a consuming sensuality that was as exciting to Cat as the feel of him between her lips.

  “Shit,” Ashcroft said. “I can see that she doesn’t have her mind on photography. Tomorrow, Cathy-baby. Same time, same place. I don’t care who your lover is, you’ll get that cliff the way I want it or the deal is off.”

  “She’ll be there,” Travis said without looking away from Cat’s smoky gray eyes. “And so will I.”

  Ashcroft wanted to object but thought better of it. He stalked off without another word.

  After a few moments Cat blinked as though emerging from a deep sleep. Slowly she released Travis’s finger. When he didn’t withdraw, she moved her tongue over his skin with catlike deliberation, tasting him thoroughly.

  Then she realized what she was doing and flushed to the roots of her russet hair. Quickly she turned her face, ending the contact.

  “Cat?”

  She shook her head, too ashamed to look at Travis. Billy had taught her what men thought of women who were interested in sex. They were whores, sluts, and worse.

  They were what Billy had tried to make Cat into the night she dove over into the sea.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  The sensual touch of Cat’s tongue hadn’t startled Travis, but her obvious shame did.

  “What are you talking about? That sorry bastard Ashcroft?”

  She shook her head without looking at Travis.

  “Then what?”

  “What I—I did. To your finger.”

  Travis caught Cat’s face between his hands. Her cheeks were hot against his palms. Although his grip was gentle, it was impossible to escape.

  After a few seconds, Cat didn’t even try. She turned back to Travis, but didn’t lift her eyes.

  “Look at me, Cat,” he said softly.

  Reluctantly she did as he asked. Her breath went ragged at the desire burning in the depths of his eyes. She would have said his name, but it was all she could do to breathe.

  Travis bent down and spoke against Cat’s lips. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, You can ‘not think’ like that with me any time you want. Now, for instance. Right now.”

  The kiss began as gently as dawn, a simple flow of warmth. Then the tip of his tongue teased the outer line of Cat’s lips and burrowed into a corner of her smile. Before she could do more than take a startled breath, his tongue slid between her teeth to taste and caress the tender heat of her mouth.

  Though Travis held Cat much more gently than Ashcroft had, she couldn’t move. She was too stunned by the sensuality of the man whose taste was spreading across her tongue like wine. She was nearly thirty, divorced . . . and learning for the first time what it was like to be well and truly kissed.

  When Travis finally lifted his mouth, Cat was trembling. Slowly she realized that he, too, had tremors running through his big body.

  “Travis . . . ?” The word was a sigh and a breath and a question.

  He kissed the pulse beating at the base of Cat’s throat and felt her heartbeat quicken. He caressed her pulse with the tip of his tongue, then with his teeth.

  This time there was no question in her voice when she whispered his name. She was his, melting and running like warm honey in his hands.

  It was an effort to let her go.

  Finally Travis lifted his head and looked down into Cat’s dazed, misty gray eyes. The temptation to simply take her down on the sand and sink into her was so great that for a moment he couldn’t think.

  “I feel like throwing you over my shoulder and sailing off into the sunset,” Travis said huskily. “But I’m too old to make love with a woman who doesn’t know my full name.”

  For a long breath Cat looked at him.
She realized that beneath his humor, Travis was as hungry to taste her all over again as she was to be tasted. He was hungry, period, every bit as ready for sex as Ashcroft had been.

  Yet unlike the poet, Travis was a man. He would make certain that his woman was not only willing, but eager.

  The thought sent heat scattering through Cat.

  “You don’t know my full name, either,” she pointed out in a low voice.

  “You mentioned a man called Harrington.”

  She nodded.

  “Is that,” Travis asked, “Rodney Swear-to-God Harrington, promoter extraordinaire, the best friend and most devious man ever born?”

  Despite Cat’s surprise, she smiled at the description of Harrington.

  “That’s him.” She cocked her head and looked up at Travis. “But he never mentioned you.”

  “He never mentions anyone by the first name. Only the last. Or by title, as in Ashcroft, the Crown Prince of Treacle.”

  She snickered. “You must know Harrington very, very well. He’s careful who he shares his nicknames with.”

  “Like Fire-and-Ice Cochran?” Travis asked.

  Cat drew her breath in sharply. It was Harrington’s pet name for her, one he had coined in the Virgin Islands the night she climbed up his yacht’s sea ladder and walked naked into his lounge, dripping rage and salt water.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Has he ever mentioned anyone with the nickname In-the-Wind?”

  “You?”

  Travis brushed his lips over her. “T. H. Danvers,” he said in a husky drawl, “at your service.”

  For an instant Cat told herself that she hadn’t heard correctly. Then she knew that she had. She stiffened and stepped back from Travis.

  “You’re Danvers?”

  “Is that a problem?” Travis asked, suddenly wary.

  Cat’s fingers were still clenched around a handful of sand. From the look on her face, she was prepared to use it.

  “How long have you known my full name?” she demanded.

  “For certain? About three minutes. When you threw Harrington at the poet, I guessed you must be Cochran. There can’t be too many women photographers in Laguna Beach who have Rodney Harrington for an agent.”