Storm the Author's Cut

by Vanessa Grant

  "I think he's lucky to be alive. If you've been in a crash then you're lucky to be alive, too. There's no point looking further than that. What difference would it make knowing the reason?"

  "It would make a difference to me."

  "Would it?"

  This wasn't her life, this wild storm, this lonely island. Today the search and the knowledge of danger had brought yesterday back to life. Shane was a memory. No matter how painful, the crash was past.

  She had to keep her mind on reality. Tomorrow she'd be home, back with Ken. They'd take a day and go up to Tlell and he would try again to talk her into getting married right away. They'd planned to wait a year, to save money for a down payment on a house, but this time she might agree to change the date. Marriage to Ken might lay her ghosts.

  Doggedly, she followed Luke up the hill. When they finally came to the cabin, she stumbled in behind him.

  It was small and damp and dusty, a single room with a fireplace at one end and an old wooden cook stove at the other. A wooden table with two sawed-off logs for chairs occupied the area across from the stove.

  Luke tossed their sleeping bags on an old army cot in the corner of the room and turned to face her. The wind howled outside and although the cabin seemed well built, she shivered in the cold.

  "If I told you the pilot flew up that channel because he wouldn't listen to warnings from anyone else; that he might have gone up there to prove he could do it—what difference would it make if you knew that?"

  He wasn't a tall man but he seemed to dwarf her.

  "Why did your plane crash?" he demanded harshly. "Does it matter who was to blame?"

  "Yes, it matters." She turned away from him and walked unsteadily to the cupboards over the sink. Six years ago, and it had been her fault.

  "Do you think there's anything in these cupboards?" she asked desperately. "Yes—look at this! Canned stew, salmon, baby peas. We can make a meal of this. Are you hungry?"

  "Starving, but we've got to get warm and dry first. I saw a woodbox outside. Why don't you have a hot bath while I get the fire going?"

  "That would be something, wouldn't it? But I don't think this place has running hot and cold water..."

  He grasped her hand and pulled her toward the door. "Come see!"

  It was wet outside, raining and miserable, but she was singing inside, walking through the wet bushes as he led her. Being so close to death had made life seem suddenly very joyful. The memories were dropping away from her.

  He led her across a clearing, along a path to a rough shell of a building with only two walls and a roof. They stepped through one open side and onto a wooden platform.

  "I don't believe it!"

  Two old-fashioned, claw-footed bathtubs stood on the platform. Each tub was fed by a modern, plastic plumbing pipe from the uphill side of the building. Steaming, clear water poured out of the pipes and overflowed the sides of the tubs in a constant stream.

  Luke said, "A natural hot spring bubbles up at the top of the hill, above us. It's an artesian well, constantly flowing up from below under pressure. Those pipes run down from the spring, so they deliver a constant flow of hot water. You can bathe in the pool on top of the hill, too, but it's not covered. I thought you'd prefer this one."

  Laughter bubbled out of her throat, surprising her. "I really expect you to produce a hot bath."

  "At your service." He bowed ironically. "Anything else you wish, madam?"

  "A towel would be nice—or a blanket."

  "I'll see what I can find. There's soap on the ledge behind you. I'll be back in a minute, then you can have privacy for your bath."

  It wasn't much longer than a minute before he reappeared with a small towel and what looked like a wool army blanket.

  "The blanket will probably itch. It's wool, but it'll cover you while you dry your clothes at the fire. Here's a belt you can use to fasten it..." he gestured vaguely "...somehow or other."

  She laughed. "I'll be the belle of the ball. Thanks, Luke. It would have been awful to crawl back into my wet clothes after a hot bath."

  "I'll get the fire started and see what we have in those cupboards. When you come back to the cabin, I'll have my turn in the tub."

  He was gone, disappearing in the direction of the cabin.

  A nice man, she decided. He'd sensed her discomfort at the idea of bathing here in the open with him nearby, so he'd made certain she knew he planned to stay inside the cabin until she finished. She didn't doubt that he meant to stay inside. There was nothing sneaky or devious about Luke Lucas.

  She pulled off the jacket. The sweater and blouse underneath were wet across her shoulders and down her arms. Her jeans clung damply to her hips and legs and she had to struggle to get them off.

  After a minute, when she had become accustomed to the hot water, she slid down low in the deep tub and let the heat seep into her chilled body. She could not remember ever enjoying the feeling of a hot bath more in her life.

  The tub... the water was amazing.

  To the left of the shelter she saw a bird scurry through the trees. Here, in the midst of a raging storm, she felt no sense of danger. She could smell the ocean but she felt freedom, as if she'd flown high above the fetters of everyday life.

  She must tell Ken about Hot Spring Island. Maybe on their honeymoon they could come here, get one of Luke's planes to fly them in. It was so magically isolated, so far from anything.

  She closed her eyes, soaking up the warmth.

  Chapter 5

  When Laurie returned from her outdoor bath, the aromatic smell of wood smoke filled the air.

  "I've got the fire on," said Luke. "Hang your wet clothes here in front of the stove."

  Not only were there flames in the fireplace, but the old wood cooking-stove was also throwing off heat. Luke was pulling tins out of a cupboard in the little cabin and she felt her stomach spasm in response.

  She closed the door to the outside and felt as if she'd just shut out the rest of the world with the storm, sealing herself inside with Luke, self-consciously aware of her own nakedness under the rough wool blanket.

  "What do you think of tinned stew?" he asked. "And baby peas? There's a pile of some kind of tinned luncheon meat here—the ingredients are enough to scare me off—mostly sawdust, I think."

  "The stew sounds better." Uneasily, she moved away from him and concentrated on spreading her wet clothes to dry near the fire. "I've got some cheese sandwiches in my pack. We could have them with the stew. The bath was lovely. I never dreamed I'd have a hot bath when we landed here—I had no idea how cold I was until I got into that hot water. I drained the tub. It should be full again now. If not, you could use the other one..." She was talking too much, but when she stopped she felt uncomfortably aware of his husky masculinity. When he stood up, he was so close she almost gasped.

  Alone with Luke, far from any other living soul, awareness pulsed through every pore of her being.

  "I'll have a bath now." The lines around his face and a tension in the way he stood communicated his tiredness to her.

  "You must be exhausted. While I was lazing in the world's best bathtub, chopped wood and lit the fire, and you're still soaking wet. I'll get supper ready. Don't hurry back. Have a nice long soak. Once the stew is hot, it can sit on the stove until you get here. You'll need a towel. The one I used is damp, but—"

  "It'll do."

  When the door shut behind him, she grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself. Yes, okay, he was attractive, but this was insane. She could feel his awareness of her as a woman, but it wasn't his emotions that were so disconcerting.

  She'd never felt like this before—not even with Ken.

  The storm outside must have played on her emotions, rousing a storm within her. These feelings weren't real, and they certainly weren't hers. If Ken were here she'd be throwing herself in his arms, but Luke was the only person around, and she had a sudden, terrifying need to touch him, to have him touch and comfort her.
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br />   The memories of six years ago, the fear and the guilt, had unhinged her until she was desperate for any kind of comfort.

  If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel Luke's touch. He would draw his hand along the bare skin of her arm and sensations would flood her body, drowning the memories.

  This was insane!

  Luke was an attractive man and she'd felt his awareness of her as a woman. They were alone, miles from the nearest person, and he'd bought her through the storm and here... to safety. But whatever her needs for comfort, she would wait for tomorrow and Ken.

  Bev had said the missing plane brought back her memories of Shane, but it was worse than that. As a child, she'd been volatile and impulsive, but she had grown up, learned to control her passions and her life... until today.

  She had to get hold of herself and somehow regain the inner peace that had disappeared in the last few hours.

  When Luke returned, she would talk, tell him about herself, about Ken. Not that she was afraid he would try anything. Luke was not the kind of man to force himself on a woman. It was her own emotions, her own need for comfort that frightened her. If she reached out to him, it could so easily be misinterpreted. She needed Ken as a barrier between herself and the emotional turbulence flooding her senses.

  When her hands finally stopped shaking, she began opening tins. Cooking grounded her and she had herself fully under control when he walked through the door.

  His damp jeans clung to his legs. He held his wet shirt in his hand. Above his belt a sparse collection of hairs curled damply on his chest. The towel hung around his neck, partially covering his broad masculine chest.

  "Dinner's almost ready," she announced. Tomorrow she would be home, she'd tell Ken that she agreed, that they should be married right away.

  "Am I imagining the smell of fresh biscuits?"

  "That part's real." She turned her back to him rather than watch as he spread his towel and shirt out to dry. "It's warmest in front of the fireplace? Let's eat there."

  They held the bowls in their laps, dipping biscuits into the stew. It tasted as good as anything Laurie had ever eaten before.

  "Better than leftover party treats. Mrs. McDonald, my landlady, had a party last night. After everyone left, there were enough of these little sandwiches to keep the household fed for a week."

  She remembered leaving the party to try to interview him. Remembered his critical eye on her dress as they stood together on the wharf the night before, but there was no hint of disapproval now.

  "I left the party to interview you," she said. "You weren't very co-operative."

  "A waste of your time?"

  Now was the time to mention Ken, throw him down casually, a barrier she could hide behind. Luke would move away a little. She'd be alone with her painful memories and the storm.

  Luke, talking to her, kept the past away.

  "No, I wouldn't say it was a waste of my time."

  A green flash streamed out from one of the burning logs in the fireplace, then died. Luke put on another log.

  "What about your landlady?" he asked. "Won't she be worried about you?"

  "The station manager will reassure her. He'll make it all sound like an everyday occurrence. At least, I hope so. If she really is worried, she'll call my parents. Our families have been friends for years. I wouldn't want mom and dad worried about me."

  She never talked about flying to her parents.

  "Where do your parents live?"

  "Massett. Dad has a hotel there. I lived in Massett all my life until I went away to college."

  "Here, sit still. I'll get the tea." He stacked the dishes and carried them to the sink, coming back with two tin mugs filled with hot tea. "I put milk in yours. Is that right?"

  "Yes. And you take yours black?"

  "Of course. Where did you go for your education? UBC?"

  "No," she said. "My father believed in being practical. I would have liked to take an arts degree, but I went to BCIT for a business administration certificate." Shane's funeral had been the week before she was scheduled to leave. Her parents had insisted that she not change her plans, so she had gone, leaving them alone to grieve.

  "I must be missing part of the story. A business degree should have put you in your father's hotel."

  "My brother and I were supposed to take over the hotel, run it together. After my brother died, it was me, but..." She had tried, but her ideas were always too extreme for her father. Shane had been the one with solid, conventional ideas. Often, she felt that her presence only made her father miss Shane more. "It was never really my thing. I wasn't good at it."

  "Couldn't bear to have your world bounded by four walls," he murmured.

  "I guess that was part of it. My father was disappointed."

  Luke drank his tea, watching her talk as if he knew the thoughts that went between her words.

  "What about you?" she asked. "Did your parents had plans for you?"

  "My father is in hotels, too."

  "But you're not?"

  "I might have been, but my father and I had a problem seeing eye to eye—over just about everything."

  The lines of Luke's face were deep and hard when he spoke of his father. Earlier, his eyes had been gentle, his hand gentle as he reassured her in the plane. Hard, yet gentle. She was starting to know this man. She could see his father facing Luke, two stubborn men, too alike for their own good. "I imagine he wasn't any more stubborn than you."

  "More tea? Here, hold your cup out. You're right. It was a hopeless situation. I would suggest a new idea; he would turn dogmatic and refuse to listen; then I would walk out in a temper. I had my pilot's license and almost enough hours for a commercial license, so I went flying instead."

  He told her about flying in the northern wilderness of Canada's arctic and the people who lived there. She could see the people when he talked about them—the Eskimos and the trappers living among the corporate businessmen of the northern cities.

  "That's enough from me," he told her finally. "What about you?"

  "My dad brought my mother west from Toronto before I was born, so I've lived on Haida Gwaii all my life. My biggest adventure was running away when I was fifteen."

  "Where did you go?" The fire burned lower. Luke put another log on. Sparks showered in the stone fireplace as the log settled on to the coals.

  "I hatched up a plan with Shane, my brother, to hike from Masset to Tlell. If you cut a few miles through the bush at Rose Spit, you can hike all the way down the east coast beach of Graham Island to Tlell. Dad would have let Shane go with his friends, but I was a girl. I went anyway. My friend Bev tried to stop me—she was always trying to keep me out of trouble—but I was determined, so she came, too."

  "Did you make it?"

  "We would have. They sent out search parties and found us on the beach, about five miles north of Tlell. Both sets of parents were furious and I felt bad about Bev getting in trouble. She'd really only been trying to stop me."

  "With a start like that, you should have had a few adventures."

  He had. She could tell that, looking at him.

  "My father said I was wild," she told him. "He was right, but I got over it. I went to college and came back and worked for a living. My one rebellion was getting the job at the radio station." She told him about the station, how she had started reading news on the weekends, then worked into her present job.

  "It's as if I have my finger on the pulse of the world. Sometimes it's frustrating when I have ideas and my boss won't let me try them out, but I love the job."

  "You're good at it. I listen to you."

  "You can't have much rime for listening to my shows—you're always flying."

  "I have a broadcast radio in all the planes." He smiled at her. "Remember that when you're talking."

  "I'll remember. I'll talk to you." She talked to someone. For a moment she wondered if it was Luke. Then she shook away the mood, picking up their cups to carry them to the little sink. The th
ought of Luke listening to her was strangely disconcerting.

  He put on his jacket and went out to check on the airplane while she cleared away their dishes. When he returned, the sun had set. It was only half light now inside the little cabin.

  They had no light except the flickering of the fireplace, so sundown meant time for bed. Luke spread out sleeping bags, one on the small bed and one on the sofa. "You take the sofa, Laurie. You'll be warmer by the fire—and it's too short for me. I'll get up in the night to put wood on the fire. I'll try not to wake you."

  "Will you be warm enough? Maybe you should move the bed nearer the fire."

  "I'll be fine."

  In the flickering firelight, she lay curled up under the sleeping bag. She was not cold. It was half dark and she was watching the fire.

  She heard the sound when Luke unzipped his jeans, imagined the damp denim slipping down over his hard thighs. She stared into the flames and listened to his footsteps cross to the cooking-stove. She didn't need to look to see him in his briefs, spreading out his jeans to dry, or to see him walk back across the floor in his bare feet, then climb into the cot.

  "Good night, Laurie. Sleep well."

  "Good night, Luke."

  She hadn't told him about Ken. There had not exactly been a need to, but her fear of the memories was no real excuse.

  She slept, dreaming...

  Much later, she opened her eyes and saw the fire glowing dully. The cabin felt dark and cold. When she stood up, the icy cabin floor shocked her bare feet. She took some small pieces of kindling from the pile of wood and coaxed the fire back to life, concentrating hard on the small task, trying to forget the dreams.

  She could see the outline of Luke's form under the sleeping bag. She could hear his breathing as she moved silently about the cabin.

  Luke had put the teapot on the back of the stove and she poured out a bit of the thick, bitter-looking mixture. She poured it down the sink without tasting it.

  The moon was shining through the uncovered window, illuminating the inside of the cabin enough for her to find her shoes and socks. Her jeans were still wet, so she refastened Luke's belt around the blanket toga. She left her soaking jacket behind when she went out.