Just when he was ready to switch to a different heading, he caught a flash of color off toward shore. He frowned even as he turned slightly. The flash had been too close to shore and too far away from the inlet’s mouth to be the boat he was looking for. More likely it was a fishing float or crab-pot marker that had torn loose in the storm.
The flash of color came again. Raven focused and saw someone straining over oars.
The rowboat vanished from sight in the trough of a wave, then reappeared in a burst of spray. Instantly Raven realized that the man was in real trouble. He obviously wasn’t strong enough to make headway against the tide, wind and waves, which had pushed him dangerously close to shore. In fact, he looked more like a teenager than a man. His shoulders weren’t broad, nor were his arms muscular.
Abruptly Raven began to swear, his words as savage as the wind. He threw the binoculars aside and slammed the throttle forward, sending the Black Star leaping toward the smaller boat. That wasn’t a man out there nor even a boy; it was a woman, and she was pulling her heart out against the relentless sea. Her rowboat wallowed and rolled sluggishly, bringing the gunwale perilously close to the water. Both the woman’s fear and her determination were in every straining line of her body as she fought to keep the waterlogged boat on a safe course, away from the dangerous shore.
Raven sent the Black Star on a broad curve that brought him close to the rowboat. He saw the look of stunned relief on the woman’s face when she spotted him. Easing closer, he cut the throttle and abandoned the wheel long enough to throw coils of the heavy towline over to the rowboat. He held his breath while the woman scrambled to the bow and made the line fast.
Only then did he notice how much water filled the rowboat. It was all but awash. He started to yell at the woman to bail, only to see the pale flash of a bleach bottle as she bent to work. Very carefully he eased the throttles up on the Black Star, taking slack from the towline. He felt the slight jerk as the rowboat’s weight hit the end of the long line. Slowly, carefully, he began towing the rowboat toward the inlet.
Once both boats had settled into the new motion, Raven picked up the binoculars and turned toward the crippled rowboat thirty feet astern. For minutes that seemed like years, he divided his attention between steering the Black Star and watching the woman bail. Despite her efforts, the rowboat still rode far too low in the water for safety.
Suddenly the woman stopped bailing. Raven’s mouth flattened as he watched her slump on the bench seat. Didn’t she know that the danger wasn’t over? The rowboat was wallowing like a pig in mud. When the time came to make the turn into the inlet, the rowboat’s stern would be presented to the waves. There was no help for it, for there was no other way to get into the inlet. Unless she got to work the first wave that broke over the stern would send the rowboat right to the bottom.
And unless Raven cut the towrope as soon as the rowboat went under, he stood a good chance of going down with her.
Even as the thought came, Raven kicked out of his waterproof boots. Unconsciously his hand went to his belt for an instant. The worn, leather-wrapped hilt of his sheath knife nestled against his palm in cool reassurance.
„Bail!“ Raven yelled, his voice as deep as the thunder of waves breaking over rocks.
A gust of wind ripped the word from his mouth and flung it back at him. Cursing, he stared through the binoculars. The woman seemed to be wrestling with something, but he was damned if he could figure out what it might be. Finally her struggles caused her to turn slightly, bringing her hands into the viewing field of the binoculars. She was prying at the fingers of her left hand, which were wrapped around the handle of the bleach bottle in a death grip.
Raven saw the muscles of the woman’s left arm locked in a rigid spasm of protest over the demands that had been made on them. The arm was useless and would remain that way until the muscles uncramped. He saw tears of frustration welling from the woman’s eyes as she fought her own body. Then he saw the brutal lines of exhaustion that had drawn her mouth into a harsh line and the blue-tinged pallor of her skin that warned of a body dangerously chilled. She was past the end of her physical strength, stripped to the core, all reserves spent.
Yet still she fought, refusing to quit.
A chill went over Raven, tightening his scalp in primal response. He had never seen anything quite so beautiful as the woman’s courage. She was outmatched, overpowered, overwhelmed, yet she drove her slender body to work still harder, refusing to give up. Raven called to her as though he could give her some of his immense strength through an outpouring of words. He doubted that she understood him across the thirty feet of wind-churned sea, but he called to her anyway, wanting her to know that she wasn’t alone.
When the woman finally managed to shift the bleach bottle to her right hand, Raven let out a hoarse shout of triumph. She began bailing with jerky, mechanical strokes, sending water sloshing out into the sea. He turned, adjusted the course of the Black Star and looked back again. Small plumes of water shooting over the rowboat’s gunwale reassured him that the woman was still bailing.
With agonizing slowness the Black Star pulled the waterlogged rowboat toward the safety of the inlet. Raven checked through the binoculars every few moments. The water level inside the boat had gone down some, but not nearly enough for safety. He cut back his speed as much as he could and still hold his own against the storm. Although he wanted to reach the inlet’s shelter as soon as possible, he had to wait while the woman bailed. If he tried to turn into the inlet now, the rowboat would capsize and sink.
Helplessly Raven watched through the binoculars as the woman struggled against the storm. The sight of her made agony twist deep inside him. It was too much like a time eight years ago, when he had watched helplessly as the woman he loved slid further and further into alternating bouts of rage and despair. He had tried to reach Angel with words of comfort and hope, tried to tell her that he loved her. He had wanted her to shift the focus of her love from a dead man to himself, from death to life. Later, when he understood that Angel was slowly killing herself rather than face life without the man she loved, Raven had realized that he wanted Angel to live more than he wanted her to love him. He had gone to her, dragged her brutally from her shell of despair – and had gotten his wish. Angel had gathered her courage and her strength. She had lived. In time she had even loved again.
But the man she loved was not Carlson Raven.
The sad memories flickered like distant lightning at the edge of Raven’s consciousness, memories called up by the violence of his feelings of fury and helplessness as he watched the unknown woman struggle against the storm and her own overwhelming exhaustion. He had spent a lifetime in a body so powerful that people automatically stepped back when they first saw him; yet that power couldn’t do a damn thing to help the woman now, any more than it had helped Angel long ago. It seemed to be the story of his life. Intimidating strength, a hard face, and beneath it a yearning that was as unexpected as it was enduring.
Raven’s mouth flattened making the blunt lines of his face even more pronounced. The speed of the woman’s bailing had fallen to nothing. Raven knew that soon she wouldn’t even be keeping up with the water coming in over the gunwale. Ready or not, safe or not, he had to make the turn for the inlet.
He eased the Black Star in a long, shallow curve that eventually, gently swung the rowboat in a direct line into the inlet. As soon as both boats were headed straight into the narrow opening, he turned and watched the rowboat through the binoculars. Now was the time of greatest danger, when the rowboat’s broad, low stern was presented to the waves. The woman knew it, too. He could tell by her uneven, almost convulsive motions as she drove her exhausted body to bail just a few more times, just a few more minutes, just a few more yards, just…
Cold blue-green water humped up and welled over the stern as the rowboat wallowed into Totem Inlet’s mouth. The gunwale was so low that the wave barely foamed as it rolled over the rowboat. The boat wavered, rocke
d wildly and turned over with shocking speed, trapping the woman beneath as it sank.
Raven threw the binoculars aside, slammed the throttles into neutral and slashed the towrope. An instant later he hit the water in a long dive that took him halfway to the white swirl of sea that had once been a rowboat.
Nothing floated on the surface in front of him but a single oar.
Chapter 2
Janna had no warning. One instant she had her head down as she bent over to bail out the water that was slopping around her ankles. The next instant the world tilted wildly. She tried to throw herself clear as the boat capsized, but her cramped legs responded much too slowly. It was the same for her arms. Instinctively she flung them out as though to break a fall, but only managed to jam the steering arm of the outboard engine through the armhole of her life vest.
The bottom of the boat flipped over her, shutting out the light. Even as chilled as she was the water felt cold. She was dragged over as the motor turned with the boat. In the water and darkness she was disoriented, tangled with the engine, not knowing in which direction lay freedom. With a feeling of horror she realized that the boat was sinking deeper into the cold sea, pulling her down with it despite her struggles.
Suddenly Janna was caught from behind. Something clamped around her arm and yanked. The life vest ripped away, freeing her. She was spun around, pushed down and then jerked upward.
Where there had been only darkness beneath the boat, now Janna saw far above her a silver disk that shimmered and beckoned. Feebly she tried to swim upward, for instinct and intelligence both told her that if she broke through that silver light there would be air and warmth on the other side. Even as she struggled, she realized dimly that she was going up far faster than her own efforts could account for.
Janna burst through the radiant disk and began to drag air into her aching lungs, breathing in great rasps of sound. Gradually she realized that she wasn’t alone. She was being supported by a man’s big hands. Eyes as dark and deep as a midnight sea were watching her. Above those unflinching eyes a thick growth of raven-black hair was slicked against a skull whose bones were as powerful and un-compromising as the hands that were holding her above the inlet’s choppy waves.
As though her eyes focusing on him were the signal he had been waiting for, the man turned Janna gently in his hands and brought her shoulder blades across his chest. He held her in place by putting his right arm between her breasts until she was pinned to his chest. His arm was thick, almost overwhelming in its implicit strength. She sensed a stirring behind her, felt her body floating, and then a deep swirl of water boiled up as powerful legs scissor-kicked, propelling her and the man through the water.
With a feeling of vast relief, Janna stopped fighting the cold and the sea, giving herself wordlessly to the stranger’s strength.
„That’s it,“ said a very deep voice in her ear. „Relax. You’re safe.“
Like everything else Janna had seen of the stranger, the voice was strong, big, dark.
„We’re almost to my boat.“
The words growled against her ear like stones tumbled by storm waves. She tried to answer but found the effort beyond her. Words swirled around in her mind without connecting. Dimly she realized that she was no longer cold. At some point she had just gone numb all the way to her core, losing all feeling.
„I’ve got to climb on board. Hold on to the ladder until I pull you up. Can you do that?“
The world turned lazily around Janna. Black eyes came slowly into focus.
„Did you hear me?“
Janna stared at the man, wondering what he wanted from her. When she saw her left hand being tugged through the rungs of a sea ladder, she felt a bizarre impulse to laugh. A big, tanned hand wrapped her fingers around a rung. He reached for her right hand, only to encounter the drowned bleach bottle.
„You can let go now,“ he told her. „You don’t need it anymore. You’re safe.“
The voice rumbled and reverberated down Jenna’s spine like distant thunder, reaching her on a level deeper than intelligence, sinking down to touch the same instinct that had made her keep on fighting even when she had no more strength. She accepted the absolute truth of the stranger’s words. She was safe. She had known she was safe from the instant she had felt his strong hands pushing her up into the life-giving air.
Slowly, painfully, Janna’s fingers unlocked, letting the bleach bottle go. It sank swiftly, a pale shadow fading into the depths of the sea. Under the man’s urging she wrapped her fingers around the ladder and hung on. She saw him grasp the low metal railing that ran along the gunwale of the boat. Muscles rippled and bunched while he pulled himself out of the water as casually as she would have stepped from the street to the sidewalk. Before she had a chance to absorb the implications of that kind of strength, she felt herself lifted from the sea and carried into a small cabin as though she weighed no more than a puff of wind.
„Hang on to me.“
Janna obeyed as the world shifted again. Vaguely she realized that her feet were resting on something solid. In the next moment her knees gave way. Only the strong arm around her waist kept her from pitching face-first onto the deck. She clung to the man with numbed hands as he shifted the engines from neutral and slapped the throttles up. A throaty roar came in response. The boat surged forward, racing up the inlet.
For long minutes there was only the thunder of powerful engines and the unwavering strength of the man supporting her. Then the engines were shut off. He let go of her just long enough to moor the boat and then he returned. He began stripping off her clothes with swift, casual motions. She blinked and pushed vaguely at his hands. It was like trying to hold back the tide with a sigh. Desperately she reached for more strength, but every bit she had was already involved in the huge shudders that were racking her body.
„Don’t fight me, small warrior,“ he rumbled gently. „You’ll never get warm in those soaking clothes.“
Janna looked at the man with confused, gray-green eyes, wanting to ask who he was and how she had gotten there and why she was so terribly cold. Nothing came out but an odd whimper as the last of her strength bled away and the world darkened around her.
Raven caught her against his body, peeled off the remainder of her clothes and carried her to his oversize bunk. The sight of her pulse beating against the smooth curve of her neck reassured him, but her skin was far too cold. He yanked back the blankets from the bunk and dried her as best he could before he slid her between the sheets. He pulled off his clothes with harsh sweeps of his hands, ripping cloth in his haste. Pausing only long enough to jerk a special blanket from a cupboard, he crawled into the bunk with her.
„I don’t know if you can hear me,“ Raven said as he arranged the woman on top of his big body, „but you’re going to be warm again. This survival blanket takes every bit of our heat and reflects it back to us. It wouldn’t do you much good by yourself, but as long as I’m wrapped up with you it’s better than a bonfire. I’m too damn big to be chilled by a few minutes in a summer ocean.“
There was no response from the woman but the convulsive shuddering of a body that had been pushed too hard and now was too cold to warm itself. Raven shook out the survival blanket and wrapped both of them within its thin, flexible folds. The inner, heat-reflecting side of the blanket gleamed in shades of silver. The outer, heat-absorbing side of the blanket was a midnight blue as dark as the sodden flannel shirt that lay in shreds on the deck by the bunk.
Long shudders of the woman’s body threatened to shake off the blanket. Raven’s hands moved gently over her, both soothing and slowly rubbing warmth back into her clenched muscles. After a long time her body began to relax as the violence of her shivering waned. He shifted slightly, bringing her into more complete contact with the heat of his body. She murmured and instinctively burrowed closer to the abundant warmth that was radiating into her.
Raven’s hands gently massaged the long, slender back to the swell of the woman’s but
tocks. The firm, deep muscles were still cool to his touch but no longer chilled. She was bruised, numb, exhausted, but no longer in danger of succumbing to hypothermia. He smiled and felt a sense of satisfaction that for once his body had been good for something more than drawing sideways stares from strangers. He wondered if the woman would be frightened when she awoke and saw what had fished her from the sea.
He hoped not. Even half-drowned and utterly exhausted, she had looked sleek and very feminine beneath the soggy clothes. She also felt amazingly good in his arms, fitting against his body with a perfection that would have shortened his breath in other circumstances and was threatening to do so even now. Her hips swelled smoothly beneath his hands. Her breasts were soft and her nipples were as hard as pebbles against his chest. He wondered if she would respond like that to heat rather than cold – a man’s heat. Would she come to a man with the same elemental passion and courage with which she had faced the storm?
The thought chased the last of the cold from Raven’s body. He felt a surge of hot, sweet heaviness in his blood. Abruptly he cast his willpower over his glittering, leaping thoughts as though they were wild salmon coming to the net. She had trusted him enough to give herself over to his keeping despite the fact that he must have looked almost as frightening as the sea to her. He would no more violate that trust than he would have let her drown before his eyes.
„Can you hear me yet?“ he asked softly, feeling his own deep voice rumble in his chest. „You’re going to be fine. A few hours of sleep, some warm food, a few lazy days, and you’ll be ready to tackle me with one hand tied behind your back.“
The thought of anyone taking him on like that made Raven smile. He was still smiling when the woman’s head stirred and wide eyes studied him through dense eyelashes. At close range her eyes were the color of a cedar forest veiled by silver fog. They were deep, intelligent, exquisitely clear.
Love Song For A Raven Page 2
