To the Ends of the Earth / The Danvers Touch

by Elizabeth Lowell

  With no warning, water leaped up over Cat’s perch. A cold diamond spray stung her legs. The cramps had been more painful, but hadn’t threatened her camera equipment. Seawater did.

  She raised her head, blinked, and focused for the first time on the world outside her camera lens. When she looked back toward shore, she knew that she had stayed too long on her rocky perch.

  The thirty feet back to the beach might as well have been thirty miles.

  The path to the shore was gone. What had been a tricky journey out beyond the tide line was now a witch’s brew of surf, foam, and slick black rocks. To keep from being swept off her feet by the powerful waves, she would have to cling to the rocks with teeth and fingernails. Yet she needed her hands to hold her expensive photographic gear beyond the reach of the sea.

  Water foamed up toward Cat, then hissed down the hard rock. In the reflected glow of the dying sun, the wet stone looked like a primitive sculpture of hammered gold.

  For once she didn’t enjoy the rich light. She looked at the water with clear gray eyes and the cut-your-losses attitude of someone who had made a mistake and knew it.

  “Damn!”

  Even if her hands had been free, she would be lucky to keep her feet underneath her on the trip back to the beach. But her hands wouldn’t be free. She had thousands of dollars worth of equipment to carry, equipment she needed to earn her living.

  Equipment she couldn’t afford to replace.

  Cat wasted no more time on curses or regrets. She measured the height of the water against the rocks she had used to scramble out to her present perch. Even in the troughs between waves, the water was well above her knees. Add more than three feet of wave onto that, and she was in trouble.

  But she had no choice except to get ashore as quickly as possible. Waiting would only make the trip harder, the water deeper. She would have to hold her equipment above her head, abandon the treacherous rocks entirely, and wade a diagonal course to the sandy beach that curved back from the headland.

  And pray very hard that she wasn’t knocked off her feet by the deceptively frothy waves.

  Cat didn’t look around for anyone to help her. She had been on her own so long that the thought of someone else coming to her aid never even occurred to her.

  She checked the fastenings on her carrying case to be sure that nothing would come open, spilling her cameras into the salt water. The bag itself was meant for protection against rain, not for a swim in the ocean.

  The most valuable piece of equipment she had with her was an autofocus zoom lens as long as her arm and a lot heavier. The lens was mounted rifle style on a stock that fit against her shoulder. The whole piece of gear was too big to squeeze into the uncertain protection of her camera case.

  Reluctantly Cat decided she would have to make two trips. She set down the case that held camera bodies and smaller lenses. Holding the big zoom lens above her head, she cautiously began to climb down from her rock.

  Never once did she notice the rangy man who had been trying to catch her attention from midway up the beach.

  Hands on his hips, Travis Danvers shook his head in disgust and gave up trying to shout his way into her attention. The lady with the great legs and fiery, French-braided hair must be deaf as well as crazy. There wasn’t a chance in hell that she would get to the sand before she was trashed by the surf.

  Travis started toward her at a run. And as he ran, he wondered if the rest of her matched her legs. Doubtful, but a man could always hope.

  Cat stayed upright through the first wave without too much problem. Because she was still clinging to the rock, the water reached only to her waist. The wave felt cold to her sun-warmed skin and much too powerful. It forced her against the rock in a breathless hug. The cutoff jeans and cotton halter top she wore weren’t much protection against the sharp edges of rock, barnacles, and mussels.

  “Get on with it,” she told herself through her clenched teeth. “You swim in a lot less than you’re wearing now.”

  Watching the sea rather than the shore, alert for the occasional larger wave, Cat eased all the way down the rough shoulder of the rock. She had to cross a narrow trench, then a smaller ridge of rocks, before she reached the sandy shelf leading to the beach. The waves were coming so quickly that she wouldn’t be able to take more than a few steps in the lull between breakers.

  The next wave was a big one. It caught Cat and slammed her back against the rock she had just abandoned. She scrambled desperately for balance on the slippery, uneven surface. The boiling surf wrenched off one of her canvas deck shoes. She felt a searing pain along the side of her right foot as unprotected flesh scraped over sharp barnacles. Her arms waved wildly, trying to balance her straining body.

  It was impossible.

  When she felt herself falling, she cried out against the destruction of her trademark lens.

  Just before Cat went beneath the wave, something yanked her upright. At the same instant the weight of the zoom lens lifted from her fingers. Reflexively she fought losing her grip on the costly, vital lens.

  “Hold still, wildcat. I’m not going to steal anything.”

  The deep drawl startled Cat, but not as much as the lazy amusement reflected in the stranger’s sea-colored eyes. He was standing easily in the powerful surge of surf, his lips curving in a smile that was as seductive to her senses as sunlight tangled in a breaking wave.

  “Well, you have some sense, at least,” Travis said when she stopped struggling. “Turn around.”

  “What?”

  With an impatient sound, he spun her around so that she faced the rock again.

  “Up,” he said curtly.

  “But—”

  Cat felt his big hand on her butt, and gasped. She fairly flew out of the water as he gave her a hard boost.

  “Hand me the camera case,” he said.

  She stared at the man who was holding her zoom lens beyond the reach of the sea—and her. He was tall enough to rise well above the foam. He wore cutoff jeans and a blue-green rugby shirt that matched his eyes.

  Because he was already wet to his shoulders, the shirt was plastered to his body, outlining the strength that had so casually lifted her beyond the reach of the waves. His tawny hair was short, well cut, thick, and sun-streaked. His short beard and mustache were clipped to conform to the male planes of his face.

  Despite the grooming, he somehow looked uncivilized. He certainly wasn’t conventionally handsome. His face was too hard, too individual, for easy labels. If he hadn’t been smiling up at Cat, she might have been very wary of him.

  Common sense told her that she should be wary anyway.

  It was the tawny beard that persuaded her to trust the tall stranger. She had an irrational weakness for the way his beard transformed sunlight into burning curves of gold.

  “That’s my life you’re carrying,” Cat told him in a calm voice as she handed down the camera case.

  Travis—who had been sizing up the rest of her and deciding that it lived up to the legs—looked at her face in startled reassessment. She might be reckless enough to put herself at risk for a few pictures, but she wasn’t stupid. There was fierce intelligence in her luminous gray eyes. It was matched by the determination in the line of her mouth.

  “I’ll be careful,” he said, turning toward the shore. “Stay up there until I get back to help you. The waves are stronger than they look.”

  “So am I.”

  Cat’s words were lost beneath the hissing thunder of surf as another wave broke around the rock. She watched her unexpected savior wade toward shore carrying her equipment above his head.

  The artist in her approved of him. His balance was remarkable, indescribable, a combination of strength and animal grace that made her hands itch to hold a camera again. In his own way, the man was as elemental and compelling to her as waves sweeping over rocks.

  Suddenly she realized that not only was she staring at him as though she had never seen a man before, she was waiting like an o
bedient child for him to return and pluck her off the rock. The idea of being so entranced by a stranger’s male grace both irritated and amused her.

  Irritation won. She wasn’t going to wait like a good girl for him to rescue her. It had been seven years since a man had told her to do anything. She hadn’t obeyed then, either.

  But her ex-husband’s demand had been degrading. The stranger’s was merely reasonable.

  Impatiently Cat pushed away the past and its unwelcome memories. Reasonable or not, she wasn’t going to sit around like some limp-wristed princess waiting for a brawny knight to rescue her. Life had taught her that if she needed rescuing, she had better get on with the job herself.

  In a pause between waves, she started easing down the slippery rock once more. A wave rushed up, tugging at her with immense, blue-green power, tumbling around her, shaking her until she felt like a leaf being torn from its branch by a storm.

  He’s right, she thought. The water is much rougher than it looks.

  Cautiously Cat lowered herself farther into the sea. It wasn’t a tropic lagoon. Instead of a comfortable eighty or eighty-five degrees, the water temperature was in the seventies. But it was bracing rather than chilling. The first shock of wetness passed quickly.

  She was used to Southern California’s rich, cool ocean. She swam in the calmer waters around Dana Point as often as she could. It was as close to freedom as her life got.

  January, she thought automatically. Then I’ll be able to take a deep breath and relax a little.

  But she would never get to January unless she got to shore first.

  Cat crept away from the rock, moving by careful inches rather than long strides that would leave her off balance in the surging, playful surf. She shuffled along in the water, never really lifting her feet, always keeping her side turned toward the incoming waves so that the water had less of her to push against.

  Once she was beyond the point where breakers could pick her up and slam her onto the rocks, she relaxed. The surf still could tumble her around a bit, but the thought of a dunking didn’t worry her. Keeping an eye on the waves, she edged toward the small sandy beach. Her right foot burned and ached with each step, reminding her that she had lost a shoe and some skin as well.

  “You really don’t have the sense that God gave a goose.”

  The voice came from behind Cat, startling her again—but not as much as the arms that lifted her off her feet and held her above the reach of waves. She stiffened suddenly, aware of the stranger’s sheer animal warmth, the intriguing texture of his skin against her bare legs, the muscular length of his arms supporting her body. She had never sensed a man in such an elemental way. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

  Yet the photographer in her couldn’t help but notice the play of light over his slanting cheekbones, the contrasting textures of slightly curling beard and sculpted lips, the depth and changing color of his eyes.

  Cat had an uncanny feeling that she knew this man. At the same time she was certain that she had never met him before. He wasn’t the kind of man a woman would forget.

  Yet she trusted him. The same instinct that had prompted her to hand over her cameras to him urged her to relax and accept being helped by the hard-looking man who was simultaneously familiar and a stranger.

  “I’m a good swimmer,” she said.

  It wasn’t an objection to being carried. It was the simple truth.

  But as she spoke, unhappy memories surfaced in her mind: a desperate two-mile swim through a midnight ocean, her only beacon a glittering yacht, her only strength the rage that had made her dive over the railing of her husband’s boat wearing nothing but moonlight.

  Yes, she was a very good swimmer.

  Cat realized that the man was watching her, his eyes intelligent, speculative.

  “I’ll bet you’ve got a temper to match your fiery hair,” he drawled.

  She smiled a bit. Her rich auburn hair was as close as she came to beauty. The rest of herself she dismissed as average. She had the normal number of fingers, toes, and everything else in between, and it was all in working order.

  Well, almost all.

  And that was another thing she wouldn’t think about.

  “Don’t you have any happy thoughts?” he asked softly.

  The question went through Cat like a shock wave. Her eyes widened, revealing the shadows in their gray depths. Then her dark lashes came down, shutting him out. He was far too perceptive for her comfort.

  “I have thoughts that aren’t unhappy,” she said in a clipped voice.

  “Not quite the same, is it?”

  “Close enough,” she said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She almost succeeded.

  With a feeling of relief she saw that the beach was only a few feet away. Soon she would be out of reach of the unnerving man she had just met and felt like she had known forever.

  “Do you always settle for second best?” he asked.

  “It’s called growing up.”

  “It’s called giving up.”

  Anger shot through Cat. With a quick, supple twist of her body, she slipped free of the stranger’s arms. Landing on her feet, she splashed out of the shallow water to get the camera equipment he had left well above the high-tide mark.

  With every other step she took, her right foot felt as though she was walking on bees. Sand mixed with blood stuck to her foot, scrubbing against the raw flesh. Ignoring the pain, she slung the camera bag over her shoulder, settled the sling for the zoom lens over her arm, and turned around to head for her house.

  Travis moved with deceptive laziness. Deceptive because he was much quicker than he looked. In two strides he was standing calmly in front of her, cutting off her retreat.

  It wasn’t something he had stopped to think about. He simply did it. He had no intention of losing such an intriguing, if touchy, female. The combination of great legs and clear-eyed pragmatism made him wonder what it would be like to be her lover.

  Not that he was likely to find out. His social skills were beyond rusty. They were a solid lump of corrosion. After his divorce he had discovered that a diamond tennis bracelet brought more smiles and sexy cooing from his women than social lies about beauty and such.

  Too bad she isn’t Harrington’s photographer, Travis thought ruefully. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about how to stay close to her.

  But Harrington had said Cochran wasn’t much to look at. This woman was. Not to everyone’s taste, certainly. She was no Barbie doll or slickly oiled Playmate. Yet Travis was drawn by her sleek lines and poise, and by the in-your-face independence that would have warned off a less confident male.

  “You’ve had a lot of practice landing on your feet, haven’t you, little cat?” Travis asked.

  Cat stared up at him, startled again. How does he know my name?

  Then she realized that he was referring to the way she had twisted out of his arms and landed on her feet. She smiled in wry acknowledgment of the compliment and moved to step around him.

  “Thanks for keeping my cameras dry,” she said.

  “My name is Travis.”

  “Thanks for keeping my cameras dry, Travis.”

  When she would have walked on past him, he moved with a speed that was surprising in such a rangy, soft-spoken man.

  Cat stopped abruptly. It was that or run right into him. She shifted the camera bag again, wincing as a jagged piece of shell bit into her right foot.

  “Don’t you at least owe me a name?” he asked.

  “Several,” she agreed coolly, “but my mother taught me not to swear.”

  Travis smiled. “The cat has claws. Not even a purr for me? Such gratitude.”

  “On the contrary,” Cat said, stepping around him. “I’m so grateful I’m not even going to tell you to go to hell.”

  His laughter was as unexpected as the strength that swept her up off the sand again.

  “Put me down,” Cat said. There was no coy pleading in her voice. It was as
icy as her eyes.

  “Your foot is bleeding.”

  “It’s a long way from my heart.”

  Travis looked down at her face. His eyes lingered over the tempting curve of her lower lip.

  “Buy a postcard next time,” he said huskily. “It’s safer.”

  “Postcards lack staying power.”

  His eyes widened. He stared as though seeing her for the first time.

  “I’m beginning to believe you aren’t just another pretty face,” he said.

  “And I’m beginning to wonder how you keep your feet out of your mouth long enough to brush your teeth.”

  “Come and watch me. I’ll even let you squeeze the toothpaste.”

  His slow smile was a parody of a sexy leer, and he knew it. It was his way of inviting her to share a joke that was on him.

  “You’re impossible,” Cat said, smiling despite her irritation.

  “Actually, I’m very easy.”

  She groaned at the ancient joke.

  Cat would have warned off any other man with a single cold glance, but Travis was too outrageous to take seriously. Obviously he didn’t expect anything more from her than a shared moment of amusement. She gave him that, succumbing easily to the lure of laughter, realizing as she did that it had been too long since she had really laughed.

  His expression changed when he saw the tense lines of her face changed by laughter. Her gray eyes were radiant, as warm in their own way as her hair with its hidden fire.

  “Tell me your name,” Travis said softly.

  The sudden huskiness of his voice was a caress.

  Cat’s eyes widened suddenly. She saw the male intensity in him and wondered how she had made the mistake of taking him lightly. An odd feeling raced through her, making her shiver. She blamed it on her wet clothes.

  “My name is Cat,” she said. Then she added quickly, “Catherine.”

  “Do your friends call you Catherine?”

  “No.”

  “Cathy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your men,” Travis said smoothly, “do they call you Cat?”