Love Song For A Raven

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Nobody ever cared if a blonde had a sense of humor, great or otherwise.

  „You never answered my question about breakfast,“ Raven said. He looked over his shoulder and checked the progress of the water heating in a kettle on the small galley stove that was just across the aisle from his bunk. „Are you hungry?“

  „Are you kidding? That isn’t thunder you’re hearing, it’s my stomach,“ she announced, waving her hand dramatically, only to have to make a wild grab for the drifting blanket.

  Raven glanced away quickly, not wanting Janna to realize that she had inadvertently shown him a firmly curved breast topped by a nipple that was such a velvety pink that he had to clench his hands against reaching toward her.

  The teakettle whistled, offering Raven a much-needed distraction. He lifted the kettle and poured water into two mugs, wondering how Janna would react if he told her how perfect she had felt stretched out along his body. Soft. Resilient. No hard edges or angles. But if he said anything like that to her, it would sound like the opening gambit in a bid for sex. He knew that she didn’t want that anymore. He had seen the desire fade from her after he had tucked in the blanket around her shoulders. The shimmering veils of passionate emotion had gone as though they had never existed, leaving only laughter in her clear gray-green eyes.

  He wondered why that made him feel both sad and very angry, as though he should have taken what she had offered when she had offered it and not had any scruples about why she wanted him. Other women had wanted or not wanted him, and it hadn’t mattered in any real way. Except for Angel. Her rejection had made pain a part of his everyday life. Finally, long before Miles Hawkins had met Angel, Raven had understood that some things were not meant to be. For him, Angel was one of them. He could either accept that, or he could destroy himself over it.

  In the end, he had accepted it as he accepted storms and elusive fish and the powerful body that made men and women nervous. Life was what it was. He was what he was. Love was what it was.

  Beyond his reach.

  Chapter 3

  „Do you have a knife?“ muttered Janna. Raven heard the disgust in her muffled voice. Beneath his black mustache, his lips shifted into a smile at the picture she made. She was kneeling over the freshwater creek and wringing out her soapy hair. The long, curving lines of her body were revealed through the water-splashed flannel of one of his shirts. Below the trailing ends of cloth, her calves were pale and smooth, tautly curved, glowing in the misty light that was characteristic of the Queen Charlottes.

  „Yes,“ Raven mumbled. „I have a knife.“

  „Good. Cut off this mess, would you?“

  „I have a better idea.“

  „Shaving it off?“ she retorted. „Sold!“ Janna felt as much as heard Raven’s laughter when he knelt next to her on the moss-covered ground. His chest rubbed against her back as his fingers slid into the soapy, slippery mass of her hair.

  „I didn’t mean that you had to wash my hair.“

  „Your arm is still sore, isn’t it? Rest. I’ll take care of it.“

  „I’ve done nothing but lie around and let you take care of me since you fished me out of the inlet,“ Janna protested.

  „A whole thirty hours,“ Raven said gravely. „Such laziness. I’ll have to report you to the tourist bureau.“

  „But-“

  „Hush,“ rumbled Raven. „I love a woman’s long hair. Let me play with it.“

  Janna couldn’t have answered if her life had depended on it. She was too caught up in the feel of Raven’s big, gentle hands massaging her scalp. Chills went shivering over her flesh in response.

  „Are you cold?“ he asked, concerned. To him the day wasn’t chilly, despite the wind that blustered and shredded clouds into sudden bursts of rain.

  „I’m fine,“ Janna said quickly, suppressing another shiver. And it was true. She wasn’t cold despite the fact that she was wearing only two layers of clothes – both of them Raven’s.

  The soft cotton T-shirt held in her body heat and the heavy flannel shirt turned aside the occasional gusts of wind that reached the forest floor. It was Raven’s touch that made her shiver, not the temperature.

  „I’ll hurry,“ he said.

  Janna caught herself just before she told Raven to take his time, that she hadn’t shivered because she was cold. In the end she said nothing, because she was afraid to open her mouth. If she did, she would probably whimper from the sheer pleasure of feeling his hands so strong and gentle as he washed her hair.

  Your brains really must be at the bottom of the inlet, she told herself in disgust.

  Her brains, yes. Her nerve endings, no.

  Think of Raven as one of your brothers.

  Janna tried to take her own excellent advice. It didn’t work. The only times her brothers had had their hands in her hair was to give it a good yank. Never had they massaged her scalp with strong, slow, sensual motions.

  So think of Raven as your hairdresser. He has his hands in your hair all the time.

  Janna tried to think of Raven as her hairdresser. It was impossible.

  Raven was… Raven. He was the most intriguing man she had ever met. Beneath his rough exterior he was a man capable of tenderness, laughter and the kind of silence that made her feel peaceful rather than uneasy.

  And in him there was a promise of male sensuality that sent tiny streamers of fire through her. It should have frightened her. He should have frightened her. She hadn’t been attracted to anyone since her divorce. She had been too vulnerable, too uncertain. Too afraid. Despite the assurances of her family and Mark’s family, that none of it had been her fault, she still had the deep, never-spoken belief that if she had somehow been more of a woman, Mark would have been more of a man. It had taken almost two years before she could look in the mirror without silently asking herself if she had been bigger or smaller, lighter or darker, fatter or skinnier, Mark wouldn’t have somehow been more attracted physically to her.

  She had just gotten to the point where she could see herself in the mirror as a woman who might sexually interest a man, when she had found herself upside down and sinking fast in a cold sea. She had awakened naked in the arms of a man who was also naked. In short, she had had the best chance to attract Raven that any woman ever could, and what had happened?

  He had all but chucked her under the chin, that’s what.

  Janna bit her lip against the thought that maybe Mark and her family and Mark’s family had been wrong. Maybe there was just something lacking in her when it came to arousing a man.

  Pale, slender fingers dug into the moss until Janna’s knuckles went white. She forced herself to stop thinking about Mark and the sad mistake of their marriage. It was in the past. All of it. Mark had accepted what he was and was not and had made a better future for himself. She had to do the same.

  Streamers of cool lather fell softly into the creek and dissolved immediately, vanishing. The lather that stayed behind on Janna’s face was equally biodegradable, but it was running in the wrong direction. She swiped ineffectually at her cheek, angry at herself for fighting battles of self-esteem that she thought she had won or, at the very least, had stopped fighting herself over. She had a lot to offer a man. She could talk intelligently, cook very well, clean well enough, and identify things that crawled and swam on beaches all over the world. She was healthy, had all her own teeth, loved children and animals – and she had a great sense of humor.

  Why did that list of virtues sound so depressing?

  Janna sighed and squirmed unconsciously, as though trying to get away from her own thoughts.

  „Hold still or you’ll get soap in your eyes.“

  „How would I know the difference?“ she mumbled, swiping at her face again.

  „Sorry,“ Raven mumbled. „Guess I should have kept my clumsy paws out of it. You were doing fine without me.“

  He started to ease his fingers from the sudsy mass of Janna’s hair, only to have her grab his wrists, holding him in place.<
br />
  „Don’t stop,“ she said. „Please. It feels wonderful,“ she said, turning her face toward Raven. It was a mistake. The weathered tan of his skin, the slashing black lines of mustache and eyebrows, and the endless mystery of his eyes all sank into her like a series of blows that took her breath away. She drew air in raggedly and tried to explain to him what she didn’t understand herself. „I don’t know why I’m being so snarky. I guess my usual good nature got left out in the inlet along with my brains. I’m sorry.“

  Raven looked down at Janna’s lather-streaked face and earnest, silver-green eyes. Her moist, slightly parted lips were the same raspberry color as the tip of her breast had been. The realization made heat and heaviness sweep through Raven’s body, settling in the part of him that was even now nestled against her lovely, firm bottom. He wondered what it would feel like to be naked with her right now, his hands rubbing through her hair, sliding over her body, arousing her until she opened herself and cried for him to come to her.

  Even as the thought swept through Raven, he denied it, ignored it, discarded it. He had spent too many years torturing himself over a woman he couldn’t have. He wasn’t going to start all over now, not even in the smallest way. Janna was here by accident, not by choice. Under normal circumstances she would never have agreed to stay in the lonely inlet with a man who looked as rough as he did. Not if she had a choice. The storm had taken choice from her, stranding her with him in Totem Inlet’s isolation. If he took advantage of that and of the gratitude that softened Janna’s magnificent, silver-green eyes when she looked at him, he would hate himself. As soon as the storm broke, he would take her to Masset. They would stand on the dock and shake hands and smile rather uncomfortably as they parted, two people who never would have met under normal circumstances.

  „Raven?“

  He smiled sadly, slid one hand from Janna’s hair and picked up a nearby towel. With immense gentleness he held her still and wiped the lather from her face.

  „Put this over your eyes while I rinse you off.“

  Janna wanted to protest as Raven covered her eyes with the towel, but she didn’t. She wanted to ask if it was something she had done that had made him so sad, but she wasn’t going to do that, either. At least, she told herself she wasn’t going to, right up to the instant when she heard her own words.

  „Is something wrong?“ she asked, staying Raven’s hand when he would have turned her.

  „Nothing new,“ he said simply. „And nothing wrong, really. Turn around. If you get soap in your eyes, you’ll cry.“

  „I feel like crying right now, and I never cry,“ Janna said, searching Raven’s midnight eyes.

  His big, blunt fingertip touched her nose lightly. „That’s just the last echoes of the adrenaline from yesterday. It will pass.“

  Gently, implacably, Raven turned Janna away from him. He stripped soap from her hair into the stream, moving with swift economy, no longer lingering to enjoy the sensual weight and texture of her hair in his hands. He rinsed her hair first with cold water from the creek, then finally with the bucket of water he had warmed on the galley stove and carried to the stream.

  Janna let out a long sigh. „That feels wonderful.“

  Raven smiled and continued to work the warm water through her hair, rinsing away the last traces of soap. AsJanna’s hair lay wet between his hands, it seemed almost sable, yet it gleamed with hints of mahogany and gold. He wondered what her hair would look like in sunlight. Would the long strands be reddish brown or richly cinnamon? Would they be as straight as his own or they would curl seductively around his hands?

  With a silent inward curse, Raven caught his glittering thoughts once again in the net of his will. He squeezed excess water from Janna’s hair and began drying it with the towel. Her hair felt very soft, very clingy, and gleamed like wet silk in the stormy light.

  „I can do that,“ Janna said, feeling guilty about causing Raven so much trouble. „You came here to be alone, not to be a lady’s maid.“

  Raven removed his hands from Janna’s tempting hair and stood up in a surge of controlled strength. „I’ll wait for you on the shore. Do you like clams?“

  „Nope. I love clams. Different thing entirely.“

  Raven grinned suddenly. „Raw?“

  Janna stopped rubbing her hair with the towel and looked up. Her face was flushed from bending over the creek. Her eyes had the brilliance of sun-shot mist. „Raw clams?“ she asked carefully, wondering if she had understood him. She loved clams, but had never brought herself to eat them raw.

  „Umm,“ he said.

  „Is that a rumble-yes or a rumble-no?“ she retorted.

  Raven laughed. „Just a rumble. How about clam chowder with raw oysters on the side?“

  „Sold,“ she said promptly, diving back into the towel, trying to ignore how she had gone weak just looking at Raven’s wicked smile. From the depths of the towel, she asked, „Are they any good raw?“

  „Oysters?“

  „Clams.“

  „Raw?“ he asked innocently. „I don’t know. Are they?“

  „Good?“

  „No. Raw.“

  Janna’s hands stilled as she heard the laughter vibrating in Raven’s voice. Surrounded by a cloud of flying hair, her face emerged from the towel. „Do you know my brothers by any chance? I used to have this conversation with them all the time.“

  „Was it good?“

  „And raw!“

  „Then they weren’t clams.“ Raven’s smile flashed whitely, changing his face from brooding to amused in a single instant.

  „Oh, help,“ Janna groaned, diving back beneath the towel.

  „Thought you wanted to do that yourself,“ he said, reaching for the towel once more.

  Janna’s answer was muffled beneath strategically placed folds of towel. Raven’s laugh wasn’t. By the time he finished with her hair, she was laughing, too. She stood patiently while he combed out tangles with a gentleness that kept surprising her in a man of his size. In his broad hand the comb looked like a half-scale toy. It seemed impossible that such a powerful man could have such precise control of his every motion.

  „Braid?“ he asked.

  „If I do, it will never dry. Sure you won’t let me use your knife?“

  „Positive. How about blow-drying it instead?“

  „Sure. And a manicure, too, while you’re at it,“ she retorted wryly, thinking Raven was teasing her again.

  „Don’t know about the nail polish. Angel never used it.“

  The way Raven’s voice softened as he said the word Angel told Janna more than she wanted to know.

  „I take it that this Angel is of the wingless, two-legged, earthbound variety?“ Janna asked lightly.

  He smiled. „So she keeps telling me. Never believed her, myself.“ He smoothed his palm over Janna’s hair. „I should have thought of it yesterday.“

  „You were too busy rescuing me to think of angels.“

  „I meant the box.“

  „Help.“

  Raven tugged very gently at a damp stand of hair. „Quit teasing me. Angel left some stuff on the boat last summer. I’d forgotten about it until I saw your hair shining beneath my hand.“

  Silently Janna wondered if Angel was a summer resident like herself, here today and gone in September. Had Raven loved Angel only to lose her at the end of the summer? Was Angel coming back? Was that why she had left a box of things on his boat?

  Was that why Raven wasn’t attracted to Janna?

  Janna bit her lip against the words crowding her tongue. If Raven wanted her to know about his Angel, he would tell her without being prodded by unsubtle questions such as: Were you married to her? Are you married still? Are you in love? Engaged? Who are you, Carlson Raven? Why does your sadness and your laughter tear at me until I want to cry and laugh, too?

  Janna watched as Raven bent down, loaded shampoo and other items into the bucket and turned toward her. Every movement was both enormously powerful and oddl
y beautiful. It was like watching the tide flowing, strength both smooth and endless, supple and potent. She had been raised among big men, strong men; male strength had always thwarted and irritated her, not fascinated her. But Raven was different. She could not stop watching him.

  „Ready?“ Raven asked, holding the wire-handled bucket in one big hand.

  Silently Janna turned and walked from the creek through a screen of windswept, mist-spangled cedar to the rocky margin where sea met land. The path she followed was overgrown, barely visible, older than the thick evergreens lifting to the sky. She wondered if Raven’s people had come from the abandoned village whose rough-hewn cedar houses and savage totems were slowly being engulfed by the resurgent forest. Had his ancestors carved the eerie, powerful images that faced the sea like human cries frozen within time?

  „Careful,“ Raven said, clutching Janna as she stumbled on a mossy rock. „We’re going to have to tie up your socks.“

  Janna felt Raven’s breathtaking, casual strength as he steadied and then released her. She looked down at her feet. Her tennis shoes had survived their dip in the inlet and their subsequent drying in the galley oven, but her socks had been kicked aside and forgotten in Raven’s haste to warm her. As a result, today she was wearing a pair of his wool socks while hers decorated the galley railing. She had rolled and rolled the borrowed socks, but the heel still came above her ankle. It was the same for her shirt. Raven’s shirt, actually. The cuffs engulfed her entire hand and the tail came below her knees.

  With a sigh, Janna conceded that the islands had reduced her to looking like a refugee from a low-budget circus. All she needed was thick makeup and a painted-on smile.

  Watching Raven didn’t make her feel any better about her own appearance. He looked as elemental as the land itself. Wind and wet cedar boughs had combed his hair into an untamed black pelt that gleamed darkly with every shift of his body. It was the same for the rest of him; he was perfectly suited to the place and the time, as though he had always been here, a part of the island’s savage perfection. She was a ragged urchin – and he was the mist and the rugged mountains, the wind and the wild sea. It was there in his fathomless eyes, in his immense strength, in his silences.