The tide was out, leaving behind a damp, plant-slicked, glistening swath of shoreline for Raven and Janna to pick over in their search for dinner. Living off the land wasn’t really necessary; Raven had enough emergency stores to keep both himself and Janna well fed for the days it would take for the storm to blow itself out along the coast. On the other hand, he was reluctant to use the emergency food unless he had to. Though the chance of the storm lasting more than a few days was small, it was on such small chances that survival often hinged. More people got into trouble through bad planning than bad luck.
Besides, Raven very much enjoyed walking along the shoreline with Janna in search of food. It was the time between squall lines, when the rain was little more than a sparkling edge to the wind. Janna accepted the wind and mist and rain with the same good nature she accepted having to wear sweaters and jackets that came down to her knees.
Raven could think of a lot of women who would have shut themselves up in the warm boat rather than scramble over chilly, slippery rocks in search of seashore life that only a scientist or a very hungry person could describe in terms of enthusiasm. Janna was both. She was happily crouched over a stretch of rocky tide pools that waves would bury in foam within a few hours. Slick seaweed glistened around her. Beneath the oversize jacket she wore, her legs looked very sleek and feminine encased in her jeans. Raven knew that her legs would look even better on the boat, when she would wear nothing more than one of his long shirts while her jeans toasted and dried in the oven.
The thought made Raven smile. He knew he would never again be able to smell sea-wet jeans and tennis shoes drying without remembering the days when a summer storm had given him a gift and then sealed him within Totem Inlet to enjoy the present. Raven couldn’t think of a time he had had half so much fun as he had in the past three days. Janna was good company. Her quick mind and wry sense of humor had made the hours fly – at least in the daytime. Knowing that she was only a few feet away had made the nights incredibly long.
„What do you call this?“ Janna asked, turning toward Raven.
He stared from the creature balanced on the palm of her hand to Janna, disbelief clear on his rugged face. „What did you say you majored in?“
Janna blinked, then began laughing. „Marine biology. If it will make you feel better, I know that what I’m holding is phylum Echinodermata, class Echinoidea, and is known to its friends as Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Now, what do you call it?“
„A purple sea urchin,“ Raven said dryly.
Janna looked up at the cloudy, windswept, glittering sky as though seeking aid or inspiration. „In Haida,“ she said carefully. „What do you call a purple sea urchin in Haida?“
Janna turned her face back to Raven, waiting for him to speak. Her head was cocked in an attitude of anticipation. She had learned from him that the Haida language was technically described as an isolate, a language totally unrelated to any other on the face of the earth. Basque was the only other living language that was an isolate. All other spoken languages belonged to one or another interrelated groups, such as the Romance languages. But not Haida. It stood alone, isolated. Unique.
Like Raven, who also fascinated her.
Raven’s lips quirked as he measured Janna’s eagerness. He was oddly proud that the Haida language truly intrigued her. He had always known that his native speech was different, but through Janna’s eyes he was learning just how rare his language really was. Learning like that was an unusual experience. So was Janna. With her around life grew more interesting with every instant.
„Raven?“
He laughed softly before he answered her question in Haida.
Janna listened to the brief rumble of sound that was the Haida name for the purple sea urchin. „What does it mean?“ she asked.
Beneath the gleaming midnight mustache, Raven smiled widely. „There’s no – “
„Direct translation,“ interrupted Janna, groaning. It was a phrase she had heard too many times lately. „So give me an indirect one.“
„Round, purple, spiny, edible, sea-rock dweller.“
„See?“ Janna demanded triumphantly. „No matter how unique the language, the human mind that thought it up is still wired along the same basic diagram. Descriptive. The scientific name for purple urchins tells me pretty much the same thing as the Haida name, but in more detail. Except for edible.“ She grinned. „Most scientists aren’t interested in eating the subjects of their studies.“
Raven eyed the prickly, violently purple urchin that Janna held. „I know how they feel,“ he said emphatically. „Takes your appetite away just to look at it.“
„In Japan, the roe of the urchin is a delicacy, like caviar in Russia.“
„We aren’t in Japan.“
„Where’s your sense of adventure?“
„In the bottom of the inlet along with your brains,“ Raven retorted.
„No urchin soup?“
„No urchin soup.“
„How about raw urchin?“
„How about raw sand?“
„Eagles eat urchins,“ Janna pointed out, remembering her surprise when she had seen an immature bald eagle perched on a log and eating an urchin with every evidence of enjoyment.
„My moiety is raven, not eagle.“
The teasing light vanished from Janna’s eyes, to be replaced by a curiosity that was much more intense. She wanted – she needed – to know everything about Raven. „What?“
„Haidas are divided into two groups, eagle and raven,“ he explained. „My mother was a raven. Therefore, I’m a raven.“
„The Haidas have a matriarchal society?“
„In some ways.“ He smiled crookedly. „It’s just as well, since my father was a Scots sport fisherman named Carl who left as soon as the salmon run was over. So I’m Carlson Raven.“
„Did he know your mother was pregnant?“ asked Janna. Even as the words left her mouth; she knew that her curiosity was almost rude, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to know more about Raven with an urgency that overrode her polite upbringing.
„I doubt it,“ Raven said, shrugging. „And I doubt that it would have mattered if he had known.“ Raven hesitated, then added quietly, „He picked my mother up in a bar. She never had enough money to buy all the drinks she wanted.“
Janna’s eyes became even more silver as a sheen of tears unexpectedly gathered. She thought of how proud her father had been of his strong sons and lively daughter, and of how much love there had been between herself and her family. Then she thought of Raven growing up without that kind of love.
„What a waste,“ she whispered. „Most men would kill to have a son like you, and most women would die proud knowing that they had once carried you in their body.“
For an instant Raven closed his eyes, unable to bear the depth of emotion he saw in Janna’s. „Not really,“ he said finally, his voice almost harsh. His eyes opened black and very clear. „I’m Haida. Indian. Maybe that doesn’t matter here and now in this inlet, but it matters like hell out there,“ he said flatly, gesturing with a broad, powerful hand to the rest of the world.
Janna started to object, then stopped. What Raven said was true. She didn’t like it, but she was too realistic to deny it. She hated it, though. She hated it so intensely that her eyes became almost as dark as his. The thought of Raven being subjected to a loveless childhood and then to bigotry in adulthood made her so angry that she shook with the force of her suppressed emotion.
„I don’t feel that way about you,“ she said distinctly. „You’re a man, Carlson Raven. You’re as fine a man as I’ve ever met. That’s all that matters to me. That won’t change whether I’m here in Totem Inlet or on the far side of the moon. And I can’t bear the thought of you being raised without love, without someone to appreciate what you’ve become.“
Janna’s voice broke. She turned away quickly, replacing the spiky, fragile urchin in its nest of stone. Impatiently she wiped off her tears on the thick sweater that she wore. It was damp and smelled subtly of the sea and the man who had worn it before he had given it to her to keep her warm.
„Janna.“ Raven’s voice was deep, gentle, gritty with restraint.
He pulled her to her feet and put his work-hardened palm beneath her chin, tilting her face up to his. He started to speak, saw her tears and felt breath rush out of his lungs as though at a blow. He bent and brushed her eyelashes with his lips. The effort it took to stop after those comforting, undemanding kisses shocked him. Slowly he released her chin, caressing the line of her jaw with his fingertips as he withdrew his hand.
„I wasn’t unhappy,“ he said softly. „Among the Haida, children belong to their mother’s moiety, and boys are initiated by their mother’s brothers rather than by their fathers. My uncle raised me, as is the custom among my people.“
„And your mother?“ Janna asked unevenly, knowing that she shouldn’t ask… unable to stop herself.
„By the time I was six my mother wasn’t capable of caring for herself, much less for a son. She abandoned me and took up full-time drinking. My uncle adopted me under both tribal and Canadian law four years before she died. Eddy is a good man, a strong man, a kind man,“ Raven said deeply. „In the summer he fishes salmon and in the winter he carves argillite into images as old and unique as the Haida language. You’d like Eddy. He would love you. He has nothing but disgust for women who are too spoiled to walk the Queen Charlottes in a storm.“
Janna looked intently at Raven, measuring the emotion that lay beneath his words. She sensed that he didn’t talk casually about his parents – or lack of them – yet he had talked to her. As she looked up into his black, gleaming eyes, it was all she could do not to throw herself into Raven’s arms and plead that he notice her as a woman. But throwing herself at him would be a disaster. Whatever Eddy might like, Raven himself was drawn to tragic, fragile blondes who wore silk scarves that exactly matched their mysterious blue-green eyes.
„Do you think Eddy’s man enough to eat urchin soup?“ Janna asked lightly, hoping Raven wouldn’t notice that her smile quivered on the edge of turning upside down.
Raven smiled suddenly, transforming the dark, harsh planes of his face. „I can’t wait to find out.“
When Janna saw Raven’s smile, emotion gusted over her like wind over the surface of the sea. She turned quickly and looked out at the water. Another squall line was sweeping in. „How long do we have to wait?“ she asked.
„For the soup?“
„For the squall.“
Raven’s glance followed hers. He frowned as he saw the dense, blue-black wall of clouds advancing toward them on the back of a freshening wind. „Just long enough to get to the boat, if we’re lucky. Damn. What the hell was I thinking of? I know better than to turn my back on the sea.“
„No time for oysters?“ asked Janna, thinking of the small oyster bed they had passed on their way to the mouth of the inlet.
„I’ll get some. You go on to the boat and stay dry.“
„What about you?“
„Getting wet will teach me to keep my mind on the weather.“ And off how sexy your hipslook when you bend over and sort through the contents of a tide pool, Raven added silently.
„But you’ll run out of dry clothes,“ Janna said.
„I’ll wear a sleeping bag.“
„No way,“ she said, shaking her head firmly, making light flicker and run through her softly curling cinnamon hair. „I’ll wear a sheet and give you back your own clothes.“
The thought of Janna naked but for a dark blue sheet made Raven smile despite his promises to himself not to think of her in any way except as a friend or a sister.
Janna didn’t see the very male smile because she had already turned and started up the shore toward the part of the inlet where the Black Star was moored. Raven watched her for a few moments, admiring the quintessentially feminine swing of her hips. With a muffled curse he admitted to himself how much he itched to trace Janna’s graceful spine and the smooth, full curves of her bottom with his tongue and fingertips. She would feel so good, warm and firm, soft and womanly, filling his senses even as he filled her. Would she like that? Would she like being teased and tasted and finally taken by him?
The direction of Raven’s thoughts was rapidly making walking uncomfortable for him.
Cursing silently, he wondered how he was going to keep his hands off her for the two more days of rain and wind that the storm was predicted to run.
“Raven?“ called Janna.
He looked up and realized that he had stopped walking while he fought his unruly thoughts and hungry body. Furiously he swore beneath his breath. Selfcontrol had never been this much of a problem for him, even when he had been a boy in the first raw rush of sexuality.
„Is something wrong?“ Janna asked.
„No,“ he said, his voice almost harsh. „I was just wondering how much longer we’ll be shut up in this damned inlet.“
„Oh.“
Janna smiled brightly, meaninglessly. She turned and walked away from Raven as quickly as possible, all the pleasure gone from her day. She had been enjoying every instant of being marooned with Raven. It was deflating to realize that he was counting the minutes until the storm let up enough to permit them to leave. Deflating, but not surprising. If he had ever fantasized about being trapped in a deserted inlet, it would be Angel who filled his dreams, not a strange brunette with an off-the-wall sense of humor.
Raven, on the other hand, was the kind of man Janna had dreamed about long before he had fished her from the cold sea. His intelligence appealed to her as much as his strength, and his laughter made her feel as though she had stepped into a cataract of sunlight. The thought of being wanted by a man like that – really desired – made her tremble.
The squall line came ashore just as Janna scrambled into the boat’s cabin. The second log that Raven had lashed to the original mooring log made it easier for her to walk along the bobbing „dock“ to the boat without slipping. Even so, she was grateful that she wouldn’t have to attempt crossing the erratically moving surface in the rain.
She smiled almost sadly. It had been very thoughtful of Raven to round up another one of the old, weathered logs that lined the inlet and add it to the „dock“ just so that she wouldn’t risk a dunking every time she came or went from the boat. She had watched in fascination as he stripped to his waist and maneuvered the log into the water. The raw strength of Raven’s body had been almost frightening.
Yet she had wanted nothing more than to run her hands over that powerful flesh, savoring the male heat and strength, the textures both smooth and intriguingly furry. She wondered if his sweat would taste like the sea or would have the astringency of cedar. Or perhaps his taste would be a blend of salt and evergreen and man, a mixture as complex and elemental as Raven himself.
„He could taste like caviar and cherry pie for all you know or will know,“ Janna muttered to herself. „Or lightning and rain, or wine and – oh, the hell with it. Stop torturing yourself over what you can’t have and make some tea. He’s going to be wet and cold by the time he gathers a bucket of oysters for dinner.“
While the water heated Janna put out two mugs, each with its own tea infuser. She liked her tea fairly mild, with lemon peel and sugar. Raven liked his tea strong enough to etch steel. Then he added canned milk and sugar in the British fashion. Janna had tried it. She still wasn’t sure what it had tasted like. She knew what it had not tasted like, though. Tea.
As soon as the water boiled she poured it into the mugs, carefully leaving enough room in one for the generous amount of milk Raven would add. She stepped across the narrow galley aisle and sat at the custom-made dining table that filled one side of the small cabin. The table was larger than most ship’s tables because Raven was larger than most men. At night the table was lowered, fitted into a groove and covered with a custom-made mattress. Normally Raven simply left the bunk made up and ate his meals sitting on one of the padded seats in the stern of the boat. Since Janna had joined him, he had insisted on setting up the table every morning and taking it down after dinner every night.
Janna looked toward the small triangular cabin in the bow of the boat where she slept. There was a narrow bunk running down either side, leaving a wedge-shaped aisle in between. One look at the bunks had told her why Raven didn’t sleep there. He would have hung over everywhere. For her the bunk was quite comfortable. For him it would have been a bad joke.
Absently Janna tested her tea by pulling out the infuser and looking at the color of the liquid running back into the mug. Perfect. She cut off a bit of lemon peel with a galley knife. It was lethally sharp, as were all Raven’s knives. She was grateful. Only a sharp knife held by a skilled, strong hand would have been able to slice through the tough fabric of the life vest that had bound her to the sinking row-boat.
She shivered unconsciously and added a teaspoon of sugar to her tea. Carefully she re-wrapped the small piece of lemon that was all that Raven had had in his cooler. She had been grateful to find even that. Lemons on the Queen Charlotte Islands were a rare and exotic life form.
Restlessly Janna looked around the boat. Her glance fell on the small writing tablet and pencil that Raven had found for her so that she could make sketches. Even as she reached for the pad, she decided against it. The ruled lines would distract her, which simply meant that she was too edgy to sketch.
She went out to the Black Star’s stern. The canopy was snapped in place, keeping off both wind and rain, making another cabin out of the stern of the boat. The sound of rain was continuous, relentless. Normally she found it soothing. Now she just wanted to hear Raven’s voice. She leaned forward, staring through the clear plastic windows in the canopy. There was nothing to see but rain. It was coming down so hard that she could barely see the shore.
The boat rocked gently against the fenders protecting the hull from the logs. Janna closed her eyes. For a long time she listened to the rain and the wind and the restless sea. She was used to being alone, yet she was not used to being lonely. And that was how she felt right now. Lonely.
„Hello the Black Star! Oysters coming on board.“
Janna felt warmth flood through her. Even as she told herself that she was a fool for letting her heart and her hopes race, she set aside her tea and rushed over to unzip a section of the canopy. A bucket emerged into the opening, followed shortly by Raven himself. He fastened the canopy again and then turned toward Janna. He was as wet as a seal despite his waterproof jacket. He peeled off the jacket, shook it and hung it on a peg before he sniffed the air.
„Ahh,“ he rumbled, „my favorite dinner. Roast haunch of tennis shoes with a side order of baked jeans.“
Laughter bubbled from Janna as though she were freshly opened champagne. Raven’s whimsical sense of humor had been as unexpected and endearing to her as his gentleness. She held out her hand for the bucket, only to notice that it held a bottle of wine as well as oysters.
„You have, er, unusual oyster beds in the Charlottes,“ Janna observed, pulling out the wine bottle.
Raven grinned. „Old Haida secret.“
„Someone must have let the French in on it, too,“ she retorted, reading the label. „How did you know I love Chardonnay?“
„Like I said,“ Raven answered, his voice muffled as he bent down to pull off his soaking shoes, „you look like a woman who enjoys her senses.“
„What did you do to your hand?“ Janna asked suddenly, setting aside the wine.
He looked at the back of his left hand. There were several thin lines of blood welling. „Barnacles,“ he said, shrugging. What he didn’t say was that he had been thinking about Janna when he should have been thinking about what he was doing. „No big deal,“ he added, cleaning off the skin with a quick swipe of his tongue and then examining the shallow cuts.
„It could be a big deal if you don’t take care of it,“ she said crisply. „Barnacle cuts are notorious for getting infected.“
She went back to the galley and returned in a few moments with hot water and an antibiotic salve. Before Raven could object she took his hand and bathed it carefully. She bent over his hand and turned it toward the light. The cuts were shallow, clean and should heal quickly. There was really no reason to worry about them. She should let go of his hand and get back to the cabin.
But Janna could not let go. The temptation to raise Raven’s broad hand to her lips and kiss away the minor hurt was almost overwhelming. All that prevented her was the knowledge that the intent of her kiss would be more sensual than healing, more hungry than comforting. Silently calling herself a hundred kinds of fool, she prolonged the contact by bathing his hand again, touching him in the only way that she could.
Raven sat motionlessly in the stern seat, savoring the gentle warmth of Janna’s hands. Her hair had come loose from the clip she wore at the nape of her neck. Tendrils of rich cinnamon curled softly across her cheeks like darkly shimmering flames. In the subdued light her hair glowed with life. He wondered what it would feel like to have that cool, silky hair falling freely over his bare arm, his chest, his thighs. Then he wondered why he was tormenting himself over a woman he would not let himself touch.
Janna dried Raven’s hand with the same gentle thoroughness with which she had bathed it. She smoothed antibiotic salve over the tiny wounds, taking her time about it, doing it twice. When there was no further excuse to touch Raven, she reluctantly released his hand.
„There you are. Nearly as good as new.“ She heard her own voice and knew that it was too husky, almost breathless.
„Thanks.“
Raven flexed his hand to keep from reaching out and burying his fingers in Janna’s beautiful hair and pulling her mouth down to his. He wanted to tell her how much he had enjoyed having her concerned over his minor scrapes and having his big, work-roughened hand touched as though she cared if he were hurt even by such a small thing as barnacle cuts. Normally he disliked women who fussed over him, oohing and cooing over every tiny scrape. Janna was different. She had cared for him so quietly and deftly that she had left him feeling cherished rather than smothered.
„You should have children. You’d be a fine mother. Gentle hands and…“ Raven’s deep voice died into silence as he saw the sudden stiffening of Janna’s body. She straightened and turned away from him so quickly that she almost stumbled. „ Janna?“
„I forgot your tea,“ she said tightly. „It will be strong enough to dissolve steel by now.“
„Sounds perfect to me,“ he rumbled, smiling.
There was no answer. Raven frowned, wondering what was wrong. Normally Janna enjoyed teasing him about the strength of the tea he drank, just as he enjoyed ribbing her about the „hot sugar water“ that she preferred. He got up to follow her and demand to know what was wrong. In three longs steps he was in the cabin.
„Janna, what – “
„As your mother surrogate,“ she interrupted in clipped tones, „I feel compelled to point out that you’re dripping all over the floor.“
„Deck,“ he corrected her automatically, frowning.
„Deck.“
Raven’s eyes narrowed as he took in the barely restrained anger radiating from Janna. He watched as she reached blindly into a drawer and brought out a punch for the can of condensed milk. She opened the can with a single savage stroke, spilling some of the thick, creamy fluid in the process. Carefully he reached past her, took the milk and metal punch, and set them beyond her reach.
„What’s wrong?“ he asked.
„Nothing.“ Janna heard her own cold word echo in the silence, watched a thread of milk spread thickly on the counter and hung on to the shreds of her self-control with every bit of willpower she possessed. „Sorry,“ she said finally. „Guess I’m like you.“
„How so?“
„Wondering how much longer we’ll be ‘shut up in this damned inlet.’“
Hearing his own words repeated like that made Raven flinch. „I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’ve enjoyed the time here. I can’t remember ever laughing so much.“
„Yeah, a regular dream come true for you,“ Janna said with a bright, empty smile. „You never had a mother and I’m great motherhood material. Pity you’re too old for me to adopt. We could have a lifetime of laughs.“
„Janna-“
„Here,“ she said, interrupting, setting Raven’s tea within his reach. „Drink this before it eats through the mug. I’ll open the oysters. You change out of those wet clothes before you get cold.“
„Yes, Mother,“ Raven said dryly, reaching for the top button of his shirt.
Janna flinched as though she had been slapped. Raven’s black eyes narrowed as he saw her reaction.
„I didn’t mean that as an insult,“ he said evenly.
„What woman could be insulted by being told she was great mother material?“ Janna asked in a flat tone.
Raven started to say something, hesitated and settled for unbuttoning his shirt. After he pulled on dry clothes and draped the wet ones over anything handy, he went out to the stern. The canopy kept out wind and rain, but did little to preserve the warmth that made the cabin cosy.
„Aren’t you cold?“ he asked, eyeing Janna’s long, bare legs gleaming beneath the tails of one of his flannel shirts.
She shrugged and continued wrestling with an oyster. The knife she used was very short, triangular and deadly. There was no guard on the hilt. So far she had managed to avoid stabbing anything but the oysters.
„I’ll do that,“ Raven said. „Get back in the cabin where it’s warm.“
„Yes, Daddy,“ she muttered, but she didn’t give up the oyster that she was struggling with.
The idea of feeling fatherly toward Janna was so preposterous that Raven couldn’t do anything but laugh.
After a moment Janna looked up and smiled. It wasn’t her best smile but it was all she had at the moment. She still was raw from hearing Raven praise her nice, motherly attributes at the very instant when she had been all shivery just from touching him. The difference between their reactions to one another couldn’t have been greater…or more discouraging.
„Sorry,“ she said. „Guess it’s cabin fever.“
„Or hunger,“ he rumbled, touching her lips with his fingertip.
Janna’s eyes widened with shock. She wondered whether Raven had read her mind. „How did you know?“ she whispered.
„No great trick,“ he said, grinning. „It’s been five hours since lunch.“
„Lunch?“
„Yeah. You remember – the meal that comes after breakfast and before dinner?“
„Oh, that lunch.“
„Is there more than one?“ he asked innocently.
„Of course,“ she retorted, rallying. „There’s lunch and then there’s getting lunched. Lately I’ve been lunched more often than I’ve eaten.“
Raven opened his mouth, closed it and then began to laugh. „Has anyone ever told you that you have – “
„A great sense of humor?“ interrupted Janna, opening the oyster with a vicious jab of the knife. „Yeah. As one of the all-time boring virtues, it ranks right up there with motherhood.“
„Not to someone who never had a mother and who likes to laugh. They’re gifts, Janna,“ he said quietly.
„Really?“ she asked, picking up another oyster, avoiding Raven’s eyes. „Too bad we’re so far from the complaint counter. I’d exchange them for sex appeal.“
Raven’s jaw dropped in the instant before he told himself that Janna was kidding. He laughed, shaking his head, and wondered why a storm hadn’t washed Janna into his life years ago.
Janna didn’t find the idea of her being sexy nearly as amusing as Raven did. In fact, she discovered that her sense of humor on that subject had just run out.
„Here,“ Janna said, slapping the hilt of the oyster knife into Raven’s broad palm. „I’ll make the cocktail sauce. It’s too cold out here for me.“
Raven looked from the knife to the long, bare legs vanishing into the cabin. The door shut firmly. He looked back at the knife and wondered why he had the distinct feeling that Janna would have liked to stick it into him rather than an oyster.