Nor had Raven expected Janna to vanish from his life without so much as a word. He had known that gratitude was a fleeting emotion, yet the idea that Janna could walk away from the past few days as though they had never happened enraged him. Before he realized what he was doing, Raven found himself pressing Janna in exactly the way that he had promised himself he wouldn’t.
„You can give me the shirt tomorrow, when I pick you up,“ he said to Janna, and his tone said that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
„Pick me up,“ Janna repeated numbly, feeling her heart turn over as she tried desperately not to hope that Raven was reluctant to let her go.
„For a picnic on a north-facing beach. If it’s clear. Very clear. Otherwise any beach will do,“ he added.
„Very clear,“ she said, when it was anything but.
„Right. That’s the only time you can really see the illusions.“
Janna took a deep breath. „Help.“
The hard lines left Raven’s face as he smiled. His hand snaked out, wrapped around the nape of Janna’s neck and gently pulled her close, disengaging her from Hawk’s grasp in the process.
„I’m glad you remembered what I’m good for,“ Raven growled.
„Help?“
„Among other things.“
„Oh help,“ Janna breathed raggedly, feeling herself go soft in the head and everywhere else at the feel of Raven’s big, warm hand on her sensitive nape. „You’re making it very hard for me to be noble,“ she said, speaking before she thought. She winced. Not thinking before she spoke was a chronic condition for her around Raven.
„Noble?“ he asked, his black eyes searching her face.
„I… I thought you might want to get on with the, uh, reunion without any… any outsiders to get in the way.“
Raven said something succinct and harsh under his breath. „If there’s anything that gives me a tired butt, it’s nobility,“ he added, ignoring the fact that his anti-nobility statement was self-serving. Nobility required him to give up Janna right away. Suddenly he was damned if he were going to do that. She had a few more days in the Queen Charlottes before she had to go back to Seattle. There wasn’t one reason on earth they couldn’t spend those days together. A lot of reasons why they shouldn’t, but none why they couldn’t. „Unless you’re too behind in your sketching to take the time to spend a few days sight-seeing with me?“
For an instant Janna closed her eyes, unable to bear the dark clarity of Raven’s eyes looking at her, into her, seeing too much. Just as she was seeing too much. Whatever else Raven might feel for Angel, there was no deep, reckless current of desire beneath his obvious love for her. Yet Janna knew that Raven was capable of intense sensuality and white-hot, elemental desire, for she had been the focus of both. Raven didn’t love Janna, but he wanted her.
And she wanted him in the same way. If the savage, shimmering wine of sensual ecstasy was all that he could accept from Janna, then she wouldn’t withhold it. She couldn’t. She loved him too much to deny him anything.
Janna didn’t notice the two other people watching her – Hawk with compassion and Angel with growing surprise and delight. Janna saw only Raven, the man she had waited a lifetime to find.
And to lose.
But not yet. She had a few days left in this wild Eden. She would spend them with the man she loved.
„I don’t need to sketch anymore,“ she said, her tone husky. „I found everything I needed in Totem Inlet.“ The words came back to Janna, haunting her with too many meanings. „For my work,“ she added quickly, tearing her glance away from Raven’s. „Thanks to Angel.“
„Your sketchbook,“ Raven explained to Angel without looking away from Janna.
Angel blinked her beautiful sea-green eyes at him, turned toward Hawk and said, „Must be those Tlingit shaman genes shorting out the brain again.“
„Tlingit?“ Janna asked, not looking away from Raven. „I thought you were Haida.“
„Mostly. One of my grandparents was a Tlingit shaman. Angel says that’s where I get my fishing luck and streak of cruelty.“
„Carlson!“ Angel said, dismayed. „That’s not what I said and you know it!“
Janna looked at Raven’s off-center smile and wanted to cry. „You’re not cruel,“ she said.
„Oh, but I am,“ he countered softly, his eyes bleak. „Remember? Sometimes comfort just doesn’t get the job done.“
„That’s not cruelty, that’s just a very difficult way to be kind,“ Angel said, putting her hand on the thick muscle of Raven’s forearm. „If you had enjoyed my pain, then it would have been cruelty. Just because I was too selfish to see your kindness at the time doesn’t change reality. You helped me, Raven.“ She laughed suddenly, a sound that was surprisingly sad. „You did more than help me. Without you I wouldn’t have made it.“
Raven hesitated, then picked up Angel’s hand, kissed it softly and replaced it on his arm. „I’m glad you feel that way, Angel Eyes. I hated hurting you.“
„It was nothing to what I did to you. If you only knew how many times I’ve regretted what I said to you.“ Angel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She turned toward Janna and smiled apologetically. „You must think we’re all crazy.“
„No,“ Janna said quietly. „I think that Raven is very good at saving lives, at being kind even when it hurts, at being… a man. More man than I’ve ever met.“
She clasped her hands together and hoped no one could see that her fingers were shaking from the reaction that had come when Raven had picked Angel’s hand up and kissed it so gently, so sadly. Seeing Raven with the woman he loved and couldn’t have was tearing at Janna in ways that she would never have expected. It wasn’t just herself that she was hurting for. It was Raven.
„He saved my life, too,“ Janna continued in a tight, desperately calm tone. „And he won’t even let me thank him.“
„Gratitude is like milk,“ Raven said roughly. „It’s bland, coats your tongue and turns sour after a few days.“ He turned toward the boy who was manning the fuel pump. „You finished yet?“
„Gettin’ there.“
„Good,“ Raven growled, impatient to be off the dock. „Where do you live?“ he asked, turning back to Janna.
„In a small house on the beach at the edge of the park.“
Raven frowned. „The shack with the bear feet hanging on the mailbox?“
„Is that what they are? I was pretty sure, but I was afraid to ask.“ Janna shuddered, remembering her horror when she had encountered the mailbox in the twilight rain. „The first time I saw them I thought they were bare feet as in no shoes, no socks, nothing but bones. Human. There was no reason to think otherwise. The claws had been cut off, and the articulation of the foot bones and ankle looked just the same as I remembered from my anatomy class. I nearly turned around and ran for the RCMP.“
Almost reluctantly, Raven grinned. „You wouldn’t have been the first. The Mounties had a bad summer a few years back. Someone shot several bears, took the claws and skin and dragged the carcasses out to sea. The beachcombers who found the feet washed up with rope around the ankles felt the same way about it that you did. So did the Mounties until they figured out what had happened.“ His smile faded. „Nadine has a grisly sense of humor. Has she fixed up that shack you’re renting?“
„It only leaks when it rains,“ Janna said, shrugging.
„Like the boat,“ retorted Raven. „It only leaked when it was floating. Now it doesn’t leak at all.“
Raven’s narrowed eyes told Janna that he disapproved of her summer lodging. Well, there was nothing she could do about that. The price had been right and had included the use of a boat and an outboard engine. Unfortunately, both boat and engine were at the bottom of Totem Inlet.