„No, it’s rose-colored mirages dancing between Eden and Alaska,“ he countered, stopping suddenly. „See?“
Janna felt the warmth of Raven radiating through her as he fitted her spine against his muscular chest. His powerful arm came over her shoulder as he pointed toward the northern horizon.
„There,“ he murmured. „See them dance?“
„Oh sure,“ she said agreeably. „Right next to the pink elephants tripping the light fantastic. They – “ Janna’s breath came in sharply and the hair on her neck stirred. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the rose-tinted distance. „Raven, there’s something out there.“
„Yes,“ he whispered. „Aren’t they beautiful? Everything man has ever wanted shimmering and dancing just beyond his reach.“
Janna couldn’t answer. The eerie, compelling illusions twisted and changed like pale rose flames, whispering to her soundlessly, haunting her. The rational, educated part of her mind calmly told her that the gently seething apparitions were simply a trick of light and atmosphere, like the mirages that had led so many desert explorers to madness and death; but the most primitive part of Janna looked at the illusions and saw pieces of her own soul calling soundlessly to her, telling her that everything she had ever dreamed of beckoned just beyond her fingertips.
The visions were drawn in flames of transparent silver and luminous rose, a world both dreamed and real. It was the sea and a deserted inlet and a single tree that was unique upon the face of the earth. It was a raven’s song sung in silence and answered in the beauty of a smile. It was a man and a woman created for this radiant instant that knew no time, created for this beautiful and savage Eden, created each for the other. They glimmered and intertwined between sky and sea, time and timelessness, being and dreaming.
Raven saw Janna’s face both haunted and radiant, sadness and ecstasy combined. He wanted to ask her what she was seeing in the enigmatic sky but knew that he had no right. Visions could only be shared, not demanded, a gift from one mind to another, one soul to another. He had taken too much from her already, more than he had any right to take. And he would pay for it in the torment of his memories when he touched again each moment of his days in Eden and thereby measured the immensity of his loss when he lived in Eden no longer.
Raven looked at the heartless, haunting mirages shimmering over the water; and he saw a time years ago, when he had been alone.
„The summer I built the cabin in Totem Inlet,“ Raven said quietly, „I was restless, lonely, a bird without wings, a fish without fins, nothing fit and nothing was right. I had been alone before, but never lonely.“ He hesitated, seeing again the summer that had begun so like this one and had ended so differently. „A few days after I finished the cabin I was restless again. I prowled through the forest, trying to wear myself out enough to sleep at night.“
For an instant Raven closed his eyes, remembering, seeing a green Eden that at the time had looked more like hell.
„I found a young doe trapped in a moss-covered deadfall. She was half dead from thirst and terror and pain. When I freed her, I saw that one of her legs was injured. If I let her go, she would die. Yet if I kept her, tamed her, made her dependent on me, then I would be dooming her to a different, even more cruel death when I abandoned her. Because I knew the summer would end, the winter would come and I would go. I knew this, but the doe did not. She only knew each moment as it came.“
Janna waited, feeling silence gathering like cold mist around her, chilling her. She sensed that she didn’t want to know the end of the story Raven was telling.
And she had no choice but to know it, to understand the man she loved no matter what the cost.
„What did you do?“ she whispered, forcing the words past the ache in her throat.
„I carried the doe to the cabin, bound her leg and wove cedar boughs into a fence upwind of the cabin. There was natural food, clean water and no bears to feed on her helplessness.“ Raven paused, seeing again the fragile, shivering doe who had calmed so quickly beneath his voice and hands. „It would have been very easy to win her trust. She was gentle, intelligent, adaptable as all young things are. She would have learned to run toward my voice, making me smile. She would have been company, and I was… lonely.“
Janna started to ask why Raven had been so lonely, but he was talking again.
„I left the doe alone behind the cedar fence. When I checked on her I made sure that she neither saw nor scented me. In time she didn’t limp anymore. She even chewed off the shirt I had used to bind her wound. The fence was high enough to restrain an injured doe, but not too high for a healthy one to jump. One day I came to check on her and found nothing there but silence and cedar.“
Wind breathed across Janna’s cheeks, cooling the tears that welled in her eyes. Raven saw the silver gleam and smoothed his palm very gently over Janna’s hair.
„There was nothing sad in her leaving,“ he said. „My reward for helping the doe didn’t come from winning her trust. My reward came when I saw her last graceful leap as she fled into the forest where she had been born. She never looked back. She never returned to the clearing or the cabin.“ Raven lifted his hand from Janna’s hair. „And that was the way it had to be. To have taken anything more from the doe in her helplessness would have made me less of a man.“
Janna bowed her head as she fought against tears and the realization that in some way Raven thought of her as he had the doe – something wounded, helpless, given into his care only long enough to be rescued, healed and then freed.
Like Angel. She had been another gift to be healed and freed. That was what Raven had meant when he said that he had finally realized Angel’s life was more valuable than his chance to win her love. He had gone to her, pulled her out of the trap of her rage and despair, shown her the way to heal herself… and then watched her slip from his hands without a backward look.
At least Angel had finally returned. But did that make it better for Raven, or worse?
„It was Angel, wasn’t it?“ Janna whispered. „That’s why you were restless the summer you built the cabin.“
The slight trembling of Janna’s voice made Raven wish that he had never brought her to this beach, this instant, tearing her illusions from her and leaving her nothing in their place. Yet illusions could be very cruel. Then they had to be taken away. Janna had to realize that she was free, that she owed nothing to the man who had pulled her from the sea, certainly not the love that she thought she felt.
„I don’t feel that way now,“ Raven said quietly. „Seeing Angel and Hawk together brings me a feeling very close to joy.“
„Now. But not then. Not the summer you built the cabin.“
The slight flinching of Raven’s eyelids told Janna that she was right.
„Angel had just married Hawk,“ Raven said, his voice rough with restraint. „I loved both of them, but seeing them together sometimes made me feel…“ He hesitated.
„Terribly lonely,“ Janna whispered.
„It was nothing they did deliberately. It was just…“ again Raven paused, searching for words to describe the feelings he had never before tried to articulate.
„Seeing them made you wonder if you would ever love and be loved like that,“ Janna said.
Raven closed his eyes and wondered how Janna saw so easily, so clearly, into his soul. „Yes,“ he said simply.
„I love you like that, Raven.“
„Hush, small warrior,“ he whispered, brushing the back of his fingers across Janna’s cheek.
„Why?“ Janna asked, her voice trembling. „Why won’t you let me say that I love you?“
Raven breathed Janna’s name against her hair as his hands closed around her shoulders with a force that he could barely control. He didn’t let her turn toward him. He was afraid that if he saw her eyes he would be lost again, he would close his hands and keep her for himself because he had never felt so alive as he had when he was with her.
„What you feel is gratitude and passi
on, not love,“ Raven said, his voice so tightly held that it rasped harshly on his own ears. „You would have felt those things for any man who saved your life and then lacked the self-control and common decency to keep from seducing you while you were so vulnerable.“
The bitterness and self-recrimination in Raven’s voice shocked Janna. „That’s not – “ she began.
„No,“ Raven interrupted roughly. „Listen to me, Janna. You are a beautiful, incredibly sexy woman who married one of the few men around who couldn’t appreciate you. I’ll never forget our time together in Eden. I’ll remember your wit and your laughter and your sensuality until I die.“
And the last word I say will be your name.
Raven had just enough control left not to speak that cruel truth aloud. He had come to stand here on the shore of illusions and give back his gift from the gods. He had come here to release Janna, not to continue her captivity to the mistaken belief that she loved him.
„You owe me nothing,“ Raven continued, giving Janna no chance to speak. „We met by accident in a place out of time. There were no other people, nothing to remind you of your real life. You gave yourself to me out of gratitude, because I had taken you from the sea and you knew how violently I wanted you. If we had met any other way, you wouldn’t have wanted me as a lover.“
„That’s not true,“ Janna whispered, trying to turn toward Raven but unable to move for the strength of his hands forcing her to face away from him. „I would have loved you if we’d met in Pike Place Market with a thousand people milling around and nothing more urgent on my mind than dinner. Haven’t you been listening to me? I’ve always loved you, Raven. Always. That won’t change – ever, anywhere, under any circumstances!“
„Janna,“ he said, wanting to believe her, knowing that he could not allow himself to reach for what he wanted so much that he couldn’t trust himself anymore. Gratitude faded. Passion faded. Love endured. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to let Janna go a few years or a few months from now. Or even a few hours. It had to be now. It had to be before she woke up in his arms and realized the difference between gratitude and love, before she looked at him with compassion and unhappiness. „Once you’re back home, you’ll think about what happened here. You’ll see it differently. It will be like a dream. A joyous dream,“ he whispered very softly. „Please, God, at least that.“
„What can I say to make you believe me?“ Janna asked in despair. „Nothing can change how we met. Nothing can change how I feel about you now.“ She spun toward Raven suddenly, eluding his grasp, not caring that he would see the tears on her face. „Raven,“ she said, her voice trembling. „Raven, let me love you. Let yourself love me just a little in return. Raven, please.“
„Don’t,“ he said gently, covering Janna’s mouth with his hand. „I already hate myself for making love to you. Don’t make it any worse.“
Pain twisted through Janna, making her helpless. The realization that Raven regretted making love to her was devastating, taking the world out from beneath her feet, leaving her with nothing to hang on to but herself. Distantly she heard voices on the wind and thought that the rosy illusions were calling to her again, taunting her with the specter of things that would never be.
The voices dissolved into laughter. Angel and Hawk were coming up the beach, following the footprints of the two who had gone before. Angel, the woman Raven had once loved and lost and then finally loved again, but differently. Hawk, the man Angel loved in ways that she hadn’t been able to love Raven. Raven had not only accepted that, he celebrated it, loving both Angel and Hawk equally, enjoying the visible evidence of their love for one another. Janna had learned to enjoy it, too. In the past few days she had come to appreciate the intelligence and courage that existed beneath Angel’s honey-blond exterior. It was the same for Hawk, a gift for gentleness and laughter unexpected in a man of his hard good looks.
Yet suddenly Janna knew that she couldn’t bear seeing Angel and Hawk together, much less take pleasure from their nearly tangible love. Not now. Not when she had just been told that the man she loved regretted ever having touched her.
She closed her eyes for an instant, gathering her courage. She had promised herself a perfect day before she spoke of love and it either was returned or not. She had had the day, she had spoken of love… and she had heard the gate to Eden closing behind her, leaving her alone in a world without love. All that remained was to walk away before she embarrassed Raven any further with her pleas.
„Are there really illusions out here?“ Angel asked, coming up behind Raven.
„Delusions, actually,“ Janna said, her tone desperately normal as she opened her eyes. „There’s a difference, you know. Like the difference between gimble and gambol, wabe and wave.“
Angel went very still, sensing the pain in Janna even before she saw the evidence of spent tears. She looked at Raven. His face was hard, closed, as though he had been created from stone instead of flesh.
„Raven will explain it to you,“ Janna continued, looking through Angel. „He’s good at inexplicable explanations. If you want to hear a real jaw-dropper, ask him about the difference between gratitude and love. Educational, I can assure you. A regular dissertation on sneezing bandersnatches.“
„Janna,“ Raven said quietly. „You’re not making any sense.“
„Of course not. I left my brains at the bottom of an inlet.“ She looked around at the broad beach and the savage perfection of the land. „A pity this is Eden instead of the Ark. Two was a magic number for Noah and getting across water was no problem. But this is Eden and I have a ferry to catch. I’ll bet the captain’s name is Charon.“
Without another word Janna turned and began walking away from the others, going where no tracks marred the glistening surface of the sand.
„Where are you going?“ Raven asked.
„Across the river Styx.“
„It ran around hell, not Eden.“
„Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.“
„It’s three miles to your cabin,“ Raven called. „Let Hawk take you home.“
„It’s all right, Raven,“ Janna said calmly, looking over her shoulder. „I’ll walk on the edge of the sea. When the tide turns, it will be like I never was.“
Raven closed his eyes, wanting to go to Janna, hold her, comfort her and himself. But it would be a cruelty, not a kindness. He had to be strong enough to be kind.
Janna watched Raven for a long moment before she turned away. She walked swiftly, cleanly, and she didn’t look back again.
Raven opened his eyes and watched her until he could stand it no longer. Then he closed his eyes against the agony twisting through his soul.
„Carlson?“
Raven flinched from the soft voice and softer touch on his arm. Deliberately he stepped aside, beyond Angel’s reach.
„Aren’t you going to go after her?“ Hawk asked.
„I never should have touched her.“ Raven’s eyes opened. They were black, wild, almost frightening in their intensity. „I couldn’t stop myself. I knew Janna was mine in some primitive, unspeakable way the first time I saw her. I knew it.“
„So did she,“ Hawk said. „She loves you, Carlson. It shows in every – “
„Gratitude,“ Raven interrupted in a harsh tone. „Not love.“
„How can you be so sure?“ Angel asked.
His sudden laughter was as dark and savage as his eyes. „Angel Eyes,“ he said gently. „Sweet, beautiful Angel Eyes. It’s so simple. I’m not the kind of man a woman loves. Of all people on earth, you should know that.“
Angel went pale. „Carlson,“ she said, throwing her arms around him, „I never meant to hurt you like that. It was my fault, not yours. There’s nothing wrong with you!“
„Don’t cry for me,“ Raven said quietly, stroking the burnished gold of Angel’s hair. „Even if I could, I wouldn’t change what happened in the past. I’m not the other half of your soul, and I never could have been. Hawk is. And,“ Raven mu
rmured, „you aren’t the other half of mine. I know that now.“
„But Janna is,“ Angel said urgently. „She’s the other half of you.“
„I know,“ Raven said. „And I know that gratitude isn’t love.“
„You’re wrong about Janna,“ Hawk said quietly. „I was raised on gratitude, not love. I know what gratitude is and what it isn’t. It isn’t a woman’s eyes following you everywhere, her fingers touching you when there’s no need, her voice softening when she says your name, her smile more beautiful for you than for anyone else on earth.“
Raven couldn’t bear to hear any more words. He wanted to believe them too much. He no longer trusted himself to listen.
Abruptly he turned away and walked toward his car, letting his tracks mingle with the others, blurring all distinctions as to whom had gone out to the beach of illusions and who had returned. Yet still Hawk’s voice followed, carrying clearly on the wind.
„Janna looks at you the way Angel looks at me. The way I look at Angel. The way you look at Janna. Not gratitude, Carlson. Love!“
Overhead, gulls wheeled on a gust of wind, keening and crying to one another, and their calls became Janna’s name echoing in Raven’s mind. The breakers took up the cry, chanting in deeper tones, while the wind’s supple voice mourned in counterpoint. He saw Janna wherever he looked, tasted her on his lips, felt her in the heat of his own blood sliding through his veins. She was everywhere, a part of everything; but most of all she was part of his soul and he was crying her name within the silence that only she had ever touched.
Raven drove quickly to the Black Star, wanting only to pack up and get as far away from the Queen Charlotte Islands as possible. Once aboard he began stripping his clothes from lockers and drawers, throwing things haphazardly into a duffel bag. He opened the last drawer and froze. Angel’s sketchbook lay on top, the sketchbook that Janna had used in Totem Inlet.
Slowly Raven pulled the book out. He had never looked at Janna’s sketches. She had never offered to show them to him, saying that after seeing Angel’s stained glass creations, anything else would be a disappointment.
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