With agonizing slowness the Black Star pulled the waterlogged rowboat toward the safety of the inlet. Raven checked through the binoculars every few moments. The water level inside the boat had gone down some, but not nearly enough for safety. He cut back his speed as much as he could and still hold his own against the storm. Although he wanted to reach the inlet’s shelter as soon as possible, he had to wait while the woman bailed. If he tried to turn into the inlet now, the rowboat would capsize and sink.
Helplessly Raven watched through the binoculars as the woman struggled against the storm. The sight of her made agony twist deep inside him. It was too much like a time eight years ago, when he had watched helplessly as the woman he loved slid further and further into alternating bouts of rage and despair. He had tried to reach Angel with words of comfort and hope, tried to tell her that he loved her. He had wanted her to shift the focus of her love from a dead man to himself, from death to life. Later, when he understood that Angel was slowly killing herself rather than face life without the man she loved, Raven had realized that he wanted Angel to live more than he wanted her to love him. He had gone to her, dragged her brutally from her shell of despair – and had gotten his wish. Angel had gathered her courage and her strength. She had lived. In time she had even loved again.
But the man she loved was not Carlson Raven.
The sad memories flickered like distant lightning at the edge of Raven’s consciousness, memories called up by the violence of his feelings of fury and helplessness as he watched the unknown woman struggle against the storm and her own overwhelming exhaustion. He had spent a lifetime in a body so powerful that people automatically stepped back when they first saw him; yet that power couldn’t do a damn thing to help the woman now, any more than it had helped Angel long ago. It seemed to be the story of his life. Intimidating strength, a hard face, and beneath it a yearning that was as unexpected as it was enduring.
Raven’s mouth flattened making the blunt lines of his face even more pronounced. The speed of the woman’s bailing had fallen to nothing. Raven knew that soon she wouldn’t even be keeping up with the water coming in over the gunwale. Ready or not, safe or not, he had to make the turn for the inlet.
He eased the Black Star in a long, shallow curve that eventually, gently swung the row-boat in a direct line into the inlet. As soon as both boats were headed straight into the narrow opening, he turned and watched the row-boat through the binoculars. Now was the time of greatest danger, when the rowboat’s broad, low stern was presented to the waves. The woman knew it, too. He could tell by her uneven, almost convulsive motions as she drove her exhausted body to bail just a few more times, just a few more minutes, just a few more yards, just…
Cold blue-green water humped up and welled over the stern as the rowboat wallowed into Totem Inlet’s mouth. The gunwale was so low that the wave barely foamed as it rolled over the rowboat. The boat wavered, rocked wildly and turned over with shocking speed, trapping the woman beneath as it sank.
Raven threw the binoculars aside, slammed the throttles into neutral and slashed the tow-rope. An instant later he hit the water in a long dive that took him halfway to the white swirl of sea that had once been a rowboat.
Nothing floated on the surface in front of him but a single oar.
Chapter 2
Janna had no warning. One instant she had her head down as she bent over to bail out the water that was slopping around her ankles. The next instant the world tilted wildly. She tried to throw herself clear as the boat capsized, but her cramped legs responded much too slowly. It was the same for her arms. Instinctively she flung them out as though to break a fall, but only managed to jam the steering arm of the outboard engine through the armhole of her life vest.
The bottom of the boat flipped over her, shutting out the light. Even as chilled as she was the water felt cold. She was dragged over as the motor turned with the boat. In the water and darkness she was disoriented, tangled with the engine, not knowing in which direction lay freedom. With a feeling of horror she realized that the boat was sinking deeper into the cold sea, pulling her down with it despite her struggles.
Suddenly Janna was caught from behind. Something clamped around her arm and yanked. The life vest ripped away, freeing her. She was spun around, pushed down and then jerked upward.
Where there had been only darkness beneath the boat, now Janna saw far above her a silver disk that shimmered and beckoned. Feebly she tried to swim upward, for instinct and intelligence both told her that if she broke through that silver light there would be air and warmth on the other side. Even as she struggled, she realized dimly that she was going up far faster than her own efforts could account for.
Janna burst through the radiant disk and began to drag air into her aching lungs, breathing in great rasps of sound. Gradually she realized that she wasn’t alone. She was being supported by a man’s big hands. Eyes as dark and deep as a midnight sea were watching her. Above those unflinching eyes a thick growth of raven-black hair was slicked against a skull whose bones were as powerful and un-compromising as the hands that were holding her above the inlet’s choppy waves.
As though her eyes focusing on him were the signal he had been waiting for, the man turned Janna gently in his hands and brought her shoulder blades across his chest. He held her in place by putting his right arm between her breasts until she was pinned to his chest. His arm was thick, almost overwhelming in its implicit strength. She sensed a stirring behind her, felt her body floating, and then a deep swirl of water boiled up as powerful legs scissor-kicked, propelling her and the man through the water.
With a feeling of vast relief, Janna stopped fighting the cold and the sea, giving herself wordlessly to the stranger’s strength.
„That’s it,“ said a very deep voice in her ear. „Relax. You’re safe.“
Like everything else Janna had seen of the stranger, the voice was strong, big, dark.
„We’re almost to my boat.“
The words growled against her ear like stones tumbled by storm waves. She tried to answer but found the effort beyond her. Words swirled around in her mind without connecting. Dimly she realized that she was no longer cold. At some point she had just gone numb all the way to her core, losing all feeling.
„I’ve got to climb on board. Hold on to the ladder until I pull you up. Can you do that?“
The world turned lazily around Janna. Black eyes came slowly into focus.
„Did you hear me?“
Janna stared at the man, wondering what he wanted from her. When she saw her left hand being tugged through the rungs of a sea ladder, she felt a bizarre impulse to laugh. A big, tanned hand wrapped her fingers around a rung. He reached for her right hand, only to encounter the drowned bleach bottle.
„You can let go now,“ he told her. „You don’t need it anymore. You’re safe.“
The voice rumbled and reverberated down Jenna’s spine like distant thunder, reaching her on a level deeper than intelligence, sinking down to touch the same instinct that had made her keep on fighting even when she had no more strength. She accepted the absolute truth of the stranger’s words. She was safe. She had known she was safe from the instant she had felt his strong hands pushing her up into the life-giving air.
Slowly, painfully, Janna’s fingers unlocked, letting the bleach bottle go. It sank swiftly, a pale shadow fading into the depths of the sea. Under the man’s urging she wrapped her fingers around the ladder and hung on. She saw him grasp the low metal railing that ran along the gunwale of the boat. Muscles rippled and bunched while he pulled himself out of the water as casually as she would have stepped from the street to the sidewalk. Before she had a chance to absorb the implications of that kind of strength, she felt herself lifted from the sea and carried into a small cabin as though she weighed no more than a puff of wind.