Stormy Vows

by Iris Johansen

  It had struck her as positively ludicrous that a girl of her quite ordinary appearance should provoke passion in the breast of the sheikh, and she had tried to make Jake see how funny it was. She had finally faltered and fallen silent before the stormy anger in Jake's face. It appeared that she had blundered again, she thought morosely. It seemed everything she did these days was wrong.

  During one of her periods of depression, she had asked Jake if it might not be safe now to stop their morning rendezvous, since Kahlid had ceased his visits with them. The answer she received was rude, explicit, and ended with Jake's telling her icily that he would decide when they would call a halt to their meetings, and would she please refrain from making stupid suggestions.

  After this savage, unprovoked attack she did, indeed, refrain from making any suggestions at all, as well as much conversation. Their time together, before she could escape to the less demanding duties required by Brockmeyer, rapidly became a painful chore.

  Jane had even taken to arriving on deck a few minutes early and diving into the sea before Jake Dominic arrived, so that she could have a few minutes by herself in the silken serenity of the cobalt water. She desperately needed that time alone before she faced the tension that his presence aroused.

  Marc Benjamin was at the rail, staring absently at the swimmer whose slick red head bobbed in and out of the waves as she cleaved through the water with smooth, economical strokes, when Jake Dominic appeared on deck one morning. The captain had formed the habit of occasionally dropping by to have a cup of coffee and chat with the two of them before he went about his duties. He turned at the sound of the other man's footsteps and appraised the bronze, muscular figure in black swim trunks, a white terry-cloth robe slung carelessly over one shoulder. Marc Benjamin's calm eyes drifted up to Dominic's face, and he saw there the tense, restless frown he wore constantly of late.

  “She's really very good,” Benjamin commented casually, nodding toward the figure in the water.

  Jake gave Jane a cursory glance before throwing his robe on the deck chair and turning to the captain. “A veritable water baby,” he said caustically. “She tells me she learned to swim in Tahiti. One wonders how the island survived.”

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Benjamin continued to stare at Jane's distant figure. “It's strange that a girl who has knocked around the world as much as she has still retains that almost crystal simplicity.”

  Dominic did not reply, but his dark eyes turned to gaze at Jane's red, seallike head, his face taut. Benjamin glanced keenly at that face before asking softly, “Why don't you let her go, Jake? You're making her miserable.”

  Dominic's head jerked around, his eyes blazing. “Mind your own business, Marc. I won't tolerate your interference in this.”

  “She's just a kid. She doesn't understand,” Benjamin continued calmly. “You've been ripping at her like a wounded tiger, and she doesn't know why.”

  Jake's mouth twisted. “And you think you do know?”

  “I've known you for twelve years,” Benjamin replied with a shrug. “I can make a pretty good guess about what's bothering you. Since you're not going to do anything about it, it's rather masochistic to keep her around, don't you think?”

  Jake's eyes took on their familiar, shuttered look. “How do you know I have no intention of doing anything about it?” he said obliquely. “Perhaps I'm just biding my time.”

  Benjamin shook his head. “You haven't the patience for that type of cat-and-mouse game. Let her go, Jake. You can't claim that she amuses you now.”

  Dominic laughed harshly. “No, by God, I can't claim that. But I'm not letting her go.” His hand tightened on the rail. “Stay out of it, Marc.”

  Benjamin sighed and turned back to watch Jane's bikini-clad figure, now floating lazily on its back. “Well, I tried,” he said philosophically. “She deserved that from me.”

  Jake Dominic turned moodily to follow his gaze, and suddenly his body stiffened. “Oh, my God!” he breathed, his face turning white.

  Benjamin's keen eyes roamed the horizon searchingly, and then he too froze in horror. Not a hundred yards from that small, unaware figure was a triangular gray fin, lazily cleaving the water.

  “We've got to warn her!” the captain said, and raised his hands to his mouth to make his shout more resonant.

  “No!” Jake grabbed his friend's arm. “Don't startle her. I don't think he's seen her yet. She's safer if she makes no motion to attract his attention. Get two life preservers ready.” He poised to dive at the open rail.

  “Jake! For God's sake let me shout and warn her!” Marc urged. “What's the sense of your both being in danger?”

  Jake ignored him and dived cleanly into the sea.

  Jane could feel the warm sun on her wet face and see bits of blue sky through her half-closed lids as she let the sea cradle her floating body with its gentle rocking motion. It was divinely peaceful just to give yourself up to the elements and let them take you where they would, like a bit of flotsam, she thought dreamily. In the vastness of the great soothing sea, even the roar of Brockmeyer, or the biting sarcasm of Jake Dominic seemed unimportant and far away.

  “Stay exactly as you are,” Jake's voice ordered crisply. “Be very still and just listen to me.”

  Her eyes opened to see Jake's white, taut face above her, his dark eyes sharp. Oh, Lord, she thought unhappily, he was in his usual black mood. She instinctively started to swing her body upright, when he grabbed her by the chin and said, “Damn it, be still! I should have known you couldn't take a single order without messing it up.”

  She looked up to reply indignantly, when she noticed he wasn't looking at her at all but at something over her head, and that his bronze face was a shade paler than usual. “What is it?” she asked quietly, not moving.

  He looked down at her, his dark eyes flickering, an exhilarated smile on his face, “We're going to play lifesaver,” he said lightly. “You're going to be the victim and I'm the rescuer, and I don't want you to move a muscle. Understand?”

  “I understand,” she whispered, and turned her head slowly to where he had been gazing a few seconds ago.

  “Oh, no!” Her cry was almost a whimper as she glimpsed that menacing fin. A surge of primal terror shot through her.

  “Don't panic,” he ordered quickly, starting to propel her through the water with a smooth, easy crawl. “He hasn't spotted us yet, and we just might get back to the ship before he does. The important thing to remember is not to make any wild splashing movements or rhythmic sounds. Either one will attract a shark's notice.”

  She smiled through teeth that had a tendency to chatter with terror. “You mean like the noise a swimmer would make as he splashed through the water?” she asked throatily. It seemed insane for them to be moving and talking so calmly, when close by a hungry monster with sharp teeth was searching the blue waters for his breakfast.

  “Exactly!” Jake said with a trace of his mocking grin. “That's why you're playing victim. It lessens both the motion and the noise factor for me to do all the work.” He looked over his shoulder. “We're almost halfway to the ship. We may make it yet.” Dominic looked down into her strained face, and she was again conscious of the strange ghost of excitement deep in those dark eyes. “Marc will throw us two life preservers when we get within reach of the ship. Grab one, put it on, and hold on for dear life.” He actually laughed at the irony of the unintentional pun. What kind of a man was he that he could laugh at a time like this, she wondered dazedly.

  “Marc and some of the men will jerk you out of the water and onto the deck. We're almost two-thirds of the way home,” he commented with another look over his shoulder. “If I tell you to swim for it, I want you to swim like blazes for the ship, but quietly, with a minimum of splashing. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she choked out, wondering what difference it would make at that terrifying point how much splashing she made.

  But he didn't have to tell her, as it happened. Marc Benjamin's voice came ove
r the water in a clarion call. “He's seen you! God! Hurry, damn it!”

  “Go!” Jake ordered curtly, turning her over with lightning swiftness and giving her a mighty starting shove through the water.

  Jane's arms moved under the water with a panic-driven urgency that propelled her through the water like a small torpedo. She could dimly hear Jake to the right of her and remembered with relief that he was an even stronger swimmer than she was. He would make the ship in a few more swift strokes.

  She lifted her head, and there was the Sea Breeze before her, white and beautiful in the morning sunlight, with Marc Benjamin and several seamen standing tense and still at the rail. A life preserver floated a few feet in front of her, and she slipped it over her head and under her armpits.

  “My God, pull her up! He's right behind her!” Benjamin's voice contained a chilling panic, and Jane could feel her breath stop in her lungs. There was a tremendous splashing in back of her. Was he so close, then? she thought. Was she to be ravaged by those razor-sharp teeth when she was within seconds of being rescued?

  Then she was jerked out of the water with a mighty heave. She dangled awkwardly for a few seconds and then was pulled the rest of the way up to the deck. Several pairs of eager hands reached out to receive her, and she collapsed on the deck, her breast heaving with exertion and fear. A towel was thrown around her shaking shoulders, and she sat up, looking around quickly for Jake. He wasn't there!

  Jane noticed for the first time that the captain and the men were still at the rail, the silence gripping them ominously tense. No, he couldn't still be in the water with that gray horror! Why hadn't they pulled him out? She was on her feet, elbowing her way through the men at the rail. She stared down at the water that had cradled her so lovingly such a short time ago and now seemed to hold all the horrors of hell. There was Jake's crisp black head, but he seemed so terribly far away from the white life-preserver in the water.

  “He was right beside me,” she whispered to Benjamin, her hand grabbing his arm in a panicky grip. “My God, what happened? He was right beside me!”

  His eyes did not leave the triangular gray fin that seemed to be circling behind Dominic's powerful, still-moving figure. “The shark was headed right for you,” he said tersely. “We would never have gotten you out in time. Jake cut through the water between you to divert him.”

  That loud splashing, she thought dazedly, it had been Jake, deliberately baiting the shark away from her.

  “He's going to die,” she moaned, as she watched the strong arms cleave through the water with boundless vitality. “He's going to die, and it's all my fault.”

  “No, I think he's going to make it.” Benjamin's voice was tense. “His actions seemed to have confused the shark. He's been circling like that since we pulled you on board.”

  “Oh, God, please,” she prayed, her eyes on that swimming figure that suddenly, wonderfully, seemed closer. “Please let him live. Please let him be all right.”

  Then the life preserver was over Jake's head and under his armpits. With a motion from the captain, he was jerked out of the water in the same graceless fashion that Jane had been. A cheer went up from the men as, hand over hand, they pulled him aboard like a fresh-caught marlin. They crowded around him, ridding him of the life preserver and slapping him on the back in congratulations, laughing and jesting in the sudden relief from tension.

  Jane sank down on the deck, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her. She leaned against the rail, forgotten for the moment while the crew gathered around Jake. She was content to have it so. She only wanted to sit there and run her eyes over the vibrant aliveness that was Jake Dominic. It seemed a miracle that he should be there, sitting on the deck, the white towel draped over his bronze shoulders, his eyes gleaming with that familiar mocking deviltry that she had thought might be extinguished forever.

  Jane felt that she was opening up like a flower as she sat looking at that dark face. The petals of her soul were blossoming and reaching forth to a sudden maturity that was as irreversible as it was beautiful. She knew with almost painful clarity that she loved Jake Dominic and would until the day she died. It was a fact so simple and undeniable that she had no defense against it. How many times had she pushed that knowledge away, afraid to admit to herself that no one else could cause her the joy and pain that he could with a word or a twitch of that crooked eyebrow? Not until that terrible moment when she thought she might lose him had the truth burst on her with the force of an exploding nova. She didn't want to live in a world without Jake Dominic. She'd want to die also if that vibrant, complex man was taken from her.

  She closed her eyes. Oh, God, for once, couldn't she have done something with less than her usual all-or-nothing style? He filled her whole life, making everything else seem unimportant in comparison.

  She opened her eyes as she heard Benjamin's teasing voice across the deck. “Jake, you looked like a bloody bullfighter, cutting across in front of Jane like that. I was wishing I had a cape to throw you.”

  Jake Dominic pulled a face, then stood up and began to dry his hair with the towel that had been draped around his shoulders. “I would have appreciated a speargun more,” he said dryly, his black eyes dancing.

  Suddenly the captain reached back and touched a red stain on the white towel. “This is blood!” he said sharply. “Where are you hurt, Jake?”

  Jane sat up as alert as if she'd been galvanized. Oh, no, let him not be hurt, she thought feverishly, not now!

  Jake grinned lazily. “It's just a graze on my back—the shark caught me with a tooth as I swam past.”

  Benjamin was behind him looking at the wound with critical eyes. “It's not too bad,” he decided. “But I'd better put something on it. It's a good thing it didn't bleed more; it would have driven the shark into a frenzy.”

  Jane could feel the blood draining from her face at the casual remark, and she pulled herself to her feet, clinging desperately to the rail. Jake had been so close to death, down there in the water. If the cut had been deeper… if the shark hadn't been confused… So close.

  She saw with unbelieving eyes that both Jake and Marc were chuckling as if nothing had happened. Then she suddenly remembered Jake Dominic's expression as he pulled her along behind him—that flicker of excitement deep in the mocking eyes. He had even laughed, she thought incredulously. He had gotten some sort of queer kick out of playing with death. He had almost died, his life had almost ended, and he had laughed! She felt a burning anger start deep inside her. It was her life too that he was risking so carelessly—she wouldn't have wanted to live without him.

  She moved forward slowly, pushing through the crowd that surrounded Jake Dominic, her legs shaking with a strange fatigue but charged with the force of her fury.

  The laughter died in Jake's dark eyes as he caught sight of Jane's white face and blazing gold stare. His keen glance swiftly took in the violent trembling that was causing her limbs to shake, and there was a flash of concern in his face.

  She stopped a few paces from the two men, her eyes fixed desperately on Jake's face. “You enjoyed it!” she accused hoarsely. “Damn you! You enjoyed it!”

  Jake moved forward impulsively. “Jane—”

  “You laughed!” she cried, the tears running down her face. “You got some kind of wild kick out of it all.” Suddenly her fists started beating wildly at his bare, hair-roughened chest. “Damn you! Damn you!” The tears poured down her cheeks and great sobs shook her body, as her legs suddenly gave way and she felt herself falling.

  Jake caught her and swung her up in his arms in one swift movement. She dimly heard Benjamin murmur, “Shock,” as she clung desperately to Dominic's broad shoulders and buried her head in the wiry dark hair on his chest, while the sobs continued to rack her body.

  “I'll take her,” Benjamin offered quietly, and he took a step closer. Jane felt Jake's arms tighten around her, and she clung even more desperately at the threat of being separated from that vibrant strength that was now th
e center of her universe.

  “No!” he said. “I'll take her to her cabin. Fetch her some hot tea with plenty of sugar,” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe a sedative, too.”

  Jane could not seem to stop her tears as Dominic carried her swiftly to her cabin and deposited her on the narrow single bed. He would have withdrawn his arms and stepped back, but she held on to him in a stranglehold, still sobbing piteously.

  “Jane!” Dominic said with exasperation, trying to pry her arms from around his neck. “Jane, damn it, let me go! I've got to get this wet suit off of you.”

  She barely heard him, but he finally managed to unclamp her clinging arms. He sat down beside her on the bed and with swift, experienced hands stripped the wet bikini off her shaking body and wrapped her, like a papoose-child, in the warm gold blanket that he found at the foot of the bed. He went into the bathroom and came out with a thick white towel and proceeded to dry her hair, with more vigor than gentleness.

  The sobs were subsiding now, but the tears still poured from a seemingly inexhaustible fount while she watched him with feverishly intent eyes. He cared for her as gently as if she were a beloved child. His face was set and stern, his dark mocking eyes strangely serious. When he'd finished these tasks, he threw the towel on the floor beside the bed and merely sat looking at her, his eyes filled with a helpless exasperation at the tears that wouldn't cease.

  “Damn it, Jane, you'll make yourself sick,” he said huskily. “Stop it!”

  “Hold me,” she whispered. “Just hold me, please.” She fought to release her arms from the strictures of the gold blanket to pull him to her, but he stopped her with a swift movement.