To the Ends of the Earth / The Danvers Touch

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Startled, Cat turned to look at Travis. He was staring ahead, his eyes concealed in shadows, his profile hard beneath the erratic illumination of streetlights. She looked away, back to the road.

  “I’m not sure I believe that,” she said, her voice uncertain.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think I affect you the way you affect me.”

  “I know I don’t. If I affected you the way you do me, you wouldn’t have sent me out to sea alone.”

  “That isn’t fair,” Cat said instantly, angrily. “I have to work to survive. My choices aren’t as easy as yours. And even if they were, I wouldn’t have left you hanging for days, not knowing if we’d ever see each other again.”

  Travis’s breath caught, but his voice remained calm. “Is that what you thought?”

  “What else was I supposed to think, Mr. In-the-Wind Danvers? Or is it Mr. Hell-on-Women Danvers that I’m with tonight?”

  “Damn Harrington,” Travis snarled suddenly, finally understanding why Cat had been so reluctant to trust him in a negotiated relationship. “What did he tell you about me?”

  “Nothing that I didn’t already know.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m playing with fire.” Cat smiled, but there was no humor in the curve of her lips, no warmth. “At first I thought I could just enjoy the flames.”

  Travis waited, but she said no more. “And now?” he demanded. “What are you trying to say? I’m not a mind reader, Cat.”

  “Now,” she said in a tight voice, “the only question is how badly I’m going to be burned.”

  He drew in a long breath. Then, slowly, he relaxed and touched her cheek. He shouldn’t feel better—nothing had been settled between them—but he did. He had needed to know, really know, that she missed him.

  “Funny you should mention that,” Travis said, but his tone wasn’t amused at all. “I feel the same way about fire. About you. I almost didn’t come back.”

  Cat bit back a cry of protest and denial at the thought of never seeing Travis again.

  After a mile of silence and darkness, she asked, “Why did you come back?”

  “Why are you here with me now?” he countered softly.

  “It’s better than the alternative,” she said, her voice rich with irony and something softer, yearning.

  “Yes,” Travis agreed simply. His voice was as gentle as his fingertips tracing the line of her hand, her arm, her cheek. “Much better.”

  He started to say more, to tell her that she didn’t need to worry, they would get their relationship on a sensible footing as soon as she figured out how much she needed from him. But he couldn’t bring himself to open up what would surely become another argument. He was enjoying the peace of her presence in a way that was too new and too fragile to destroy with business talk.

  They finished the drive to the harbor in silence, touching each other from time to time. The touches were more reassuring than provocative. They were small, tangible statements of mutual pleasure at being within reach of one another.

  It was a kind of undemanding intimacy that Cat hadn’t known since she was a child, a warmth that sank all the way to her core. When Travis touched the corner of her smile, she turned and breathed a kiss across his fingertips.

  “Cat,” he whispered.

  Just that. Her name.

  It was enough.

  With the shadow of a smile still softening her face, Cat drove into the nearly empty parking lot at Dana Point. In silence she switched off the engine and looked across the harbor to Travis’s ship rising clean and dark and potent out of the moonlit sea. The Wind Warrior was both refined and wild, an elemental force drawn in black lines against a starry sky.

  “I’d give my soul to capture just part of her strength, her elegance, her savage beauty,” Cat said in a low voice.

  “Yes.” The word was short, almost harsh.

  Travis was watching Cat rather than his ship, and he was thinking of the five long days when he had learned that the sea alone wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t like feeling the way he did then or now, almost helpless, certainly not in control.

  We’ve got to settle this, he thought again. Tonight.

  Cat turned toward Travis, wanting to say more about the impact of his creation on her, but her words caught in her throat. He was like his ship, fierce and powerful, and he was looking at her as though he wanted to melt through her into her soul.

  His look held more than passion, more than lust. It was a shattering hunger that was as complex and compelling as Travis himself. She would have been frightened by his intensity if it hadn’t been so like her own feelings when she looked at him.

  Then Travis framed Cat’s face in his hands and simply looked at her. The restraint he exercised at only looking, barely touching, was obvious in the muscles standing out tautly on his arms.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t dream you,” Travis said, his voice both harsh and wondering.

  Before Cat could answer, he took her mouth in a swift, hard kiss, as though reassuring himself that she was real. Her lips softened, opened, invitation and demand. Then her hands went to his face, holding him as fiercely as he held her. They kissed each other without reservation, as though a single kiss could say everything, be everything, assure everything they wanted of each other and themselves.

  A kiss wasn’t enough. Their hunger went deeper than desire, but only their bodies could express what neither had the words to speak aloud. Only by blending together, sinking into one another, could they begin to describe or appease the levels of need they aroused in each other.

  “Travis,” Cat said raggedly.

  “I know,” he breathed against her lips. “Wrong time. Wrong place.”

  But still Travis couldn’t bring himself to let go of her. Not yet. He caught her mouth, kissing her with a sweet hunger that made her moan. Then he swore very softly and released her while he still could.

  Cat closed her eyes and fought the hunger that coiled through her in liquid waves.

  Without looking at her, Travis got out, pulled camera gear from the backseat, and walked around to her side of the car. When he opened the door she climbed out and locked up the car with hands that wouldn’t stop trembling. Not wanting to fumble with the buckle on her purse, she stuffed the car keys into her pants pocket.

  Travis hung camera bags and straps around his neck, picked up several cases in one hand, and laced the fingers of his free hand through Cat’s.

  The frank sensual pleasure he took in even such a simple caress made her feel weak all over again.

  “It would be easier if you didn’t enjoy touching me so much,” she said raggedly. “It makes me want to . . . everything.”

  Travis rubbed her fingers against his beard and led her toward the dock where the Zodiac was tied up.

  “You’re the one who taught me how to enjoy touching,” he said in a low voice.

  “Me?” She laughed in disbelief. “You’re the experienced one.”

  “Pleasure and experience aren’t the same thing. That’s what you taught me, Cat.” Then, so softly that she almost didn’t hear, Travis muttered, “And I hope to hell I won’t regret learning it.”

  His hand tightened painfully in hers and he watched her with eyes as dark as the sea. She understood his fear. It was the same fear she had of him. If she was wrong about Travis, if he was less than he seemed . . .

  The cost would be more than she could pay.

  In silence the two of them loaded camera equipment and themselves into the Zodiac. When Travis started up the outboard engine, it sounded very loud in the quiet harbor. As though called by the sound of the engine, a lantern bloomed suddenly on the Wind Warrior’s stern. A shutter descended once, twice, blocking out light, then returning it in a long flash before the lantern was shuttered completely.

  “Diego,” Travis said beneath his breath. “He wants to talk to me.”

  Cat’s fingers tightened in his hand, silently protesting the intrusion of a
nother person into their world.

  “I wonder what couldn’t wait until morning,” he said savagely. “It better be good.”

  Travis helped Cat up onto the ship’s deck, handed over her camera equipment, and pointed her toward the steps leading below.

  “I’ll met you in my cabin,” he said. “Whatever Diego wants, it won’t take long, I promise you.”

  Before Cat went below, she watched him stride toward the dark figure of a man standing discreetly near the Wind Warrior’s helm. When Travis started talking to Diego in a low voice, she turned and went below.

  “What couldn’t wait?” Travis asked bluntly.

  Diego winced. When he had seen Cat’s silhouette climbing onto the ship, he had hoped his captain’s temper would be improved. That didn’t seem to be the case.

  “Schoenfeld,” Diego said. “Remember him?”

  “The guy who thought he could sail anything, anywhere?”

  “Sí.”

  “What about him?”

  “He ran aground.”

  “In my ship?”

  Diego knew better than to comment on the captain’s possessive feelings toward his hull designs, no matter who happened to own the hull in question at the moment.

  “Sí, the hull is one of the Delta series.”

  “He ran aground in the hull I sold him,” Travis said.

  The first mate nodded.

  “Fool,” Travis said harshly.

  Diego knew better than to ask who the fool was, Schoenfeld for going aground or Travis for selling one of his most recent hull designs to a man who wasn’t much of a sailor.

  “Was he drunk?” Travis asked.

  “Undoubtedly, though nothing was said.”

  Travis grunted. “This could have waited until morning.”

  “Telling you about the hull, yes. But the rest, no.”

  “There’s more?”

  “The insurance company wants to know if the hull is a write-off or if it can be salvaged. The Australian expert took one look at the hull configuration below the water line and—”

  “Australians? Where did Schoenfeld run aground?”

  “Some nameless piece of the Great Barrier Reef. Nearly even with Brisbane, I believe.”

  “Hell.”

  “They will pay all expenses for you.”

  “I’m sure they will. And while they’re at it, will they also hand me an extra week of time to make up for what I’ll lose?” Travis asked ironically.

  “I’ll ask.”

  “Do that,” he retorted, turning away. “But not yet. Call them tomorrow.”

  “Captain, they are eager for your answer. The hull, you understand, is not waiting in dry dock. It is still aground in a lagoon.”

  “If a storm gets there before I do, the insurance company will have its answer. The hull will be a write-off.”

  With that Travis went downstairs to the captain’s cabin. As irritated as he was with Schoenfeld, the idiot had provided a perfect opening for beginning a conversation with Cat about time, money, and relationships.

  Yet as soon as Travis closed his cabin door behind him, all thought of a bottom-line negotiation evaporated. She was asleep in his bed with the sheet pulled up to her nose, as though she was enjoying the scent of where he had slept.

  “Cat,” he whispered, feeling helpless against the emotions twisting inside him, tying him in knots. “What am I going to do about you?”

  Slowly, as though pulled against his will, Travis went to the bed. The subdued fire of Cat’s hair had escaped from the clip that held it. Silky auburn curled over white sheets and cheeks that were almost as pale.

  Tenderly he smoothed a lock of hair away from her eyes. When he saw how tightly drawn her skin was over her cheekbones, he frowned. She looked much too fragile to hold all the passion he knew was in her body.

  “Why are you scowling at me?” Cat asked, her voice husky.

  “You’ve lost weight. You’re working too hard.”

  “It’s only temporary,” she said, yawning and rubbing against Travis’s hand. “Just until January, when the major bills are paid.”

  His frown deepened. January, when her money crunch would be over. At least, that’s what she had told him.

  But he didn’t know where he would be in January. Nor did he want to wait that long for some of Cat’s time.

  “You don’t have to wait until January,” Travis said. “All you have to do is tell me how much you need.”

  Cat woke up suddenly and cursed her sleepy tongue for touching on the subject of money. Every time the topic came up, she and Travis argued. She didn’t want to argue tonight. She wanted to hold him and know again the joy and peace she could find in his arms.

  She sure as hell didn’t want to talk about money.

  “What did Diego want?” Cat asked neutrally.

  Travis hesitated. The stubborn lines of her face told him that she would have to be dragged screaming into a business talk. He told himself he couldn’t let her get away with evasions much longer.

  But he really didn’t want to argue with her right now. He just wanted to climb into bed beside her.

  “I sold one of my hulls to a fool,” Travis said in a low voice. “He ran it aground somewhere off Australia’s east coast. The insurance company wants my estimate of salvage value.”

  Cat made a sound that could have meant anything and watched him.

  He peeled off the soft bedcover and slid in beside her. Pulling her over onto his chest, he covered both of them up again. She braced herself on one elbow, wanting to see his brilliant, changing eyes. Her fingers spread over his chest, savoring both the texture of the cashmere sweater he wore and the resilient muscle beneath.

  “Nothing to say about Australia?” he asked.

  “When are you going?” Cat asked, keeping all emotion from her voice.

  Lean, masculine fingers moved up to her head and combed out the silver clasp that still held some of her hair in a twist. Locks of hair flowed over his hands like warm, silky sunset. His fingers clenched suddenly, chaining her.

  “We,” Travis corrected. “We’re going.”

  Before Cat could argue or agree, his tongue invaded her mouth. He claimed the soft territory with long, slow strokes.

  She didn’t protest the bone-melting sensuality that robbed her of speech. She wanted him too much. They could argue later, when desire no longer clawed at both of them, making their tempers too short and their words too reckless.

  Cat’s hands slid beneath Travis’s black sweater, along his ribs, over his chest. Her fingers tangled gently in his tawny, springy hair. Then she smoothed and caressed each ridge of tendon, each supple swell of muscle. When her nails brushed over his flat male nipples, he shuddered lightly. Instinctively she returned to the sensitive area, wanting to give as much pleasure to him as he gave to her.

  The hunger of his kiss increased, making her ache, shortening her breath and speeding her heartbeat until it matched his. His legs parted until she sank between them. Then he locked his legs over her, holding her in a sensual vise. His eyes were an intense blue-green, narrowed, revealing his desire for her as surely as the slow, sinuous movements of his hips revealed his arousal.

  “Come with me, my Cat, my woman,” Travis said huskily, moving against her, coaxing with his body as much as with his words. “I know you don’t have the time to sail to Australia. We’ll fly.”

  “But—”

  “It won’t take long to see if the hull can be salvaged,” he said quickly, ignoring her interruption. “When I’m done we can dive along the Great Barrier Reef, drift in diamond waters with fish more brilliant than any jewels. We can love each other and sleep in the sun, and then we can love again beneath a moon as big as the world. Come with me.”

  As Travis’s heat and need broke over Cat like a storm wave, he sensed her succumbing to his lure, felt the liquid heat of her passion matching his. The relief of knowing that she would come to Australia with him was almost dizzying.

&n
bsp; And in the next heartbeat it was gone.

  Cat’s soft, giving smile changed into a determined line. He could feel her withdrawing even as he molded himself to the sultry heat between her thighs.

  “I’m sorry,” she said raggedly. She turned away from the hunger in her lover’s eyes, hoping to conceal her own hunger from him. “I can’t go with you.”

  “Why?” Travis’s voice was as blunt and smooth as wave-polished stone. And as hard.

  “My work.”

  “It’s just money. I have plenty of it.”

  Cat’s eyes flew open. “I don’t want your money. Can’t you understand that?”

  “You work to get money.”

  “I love my work!”

  “All of it? All the time?” he retorted. “Are you really looking forward to shooting fluff for Ashcroft?”

  “No, but—”

  “You need the money,” Travis finished smoothly. “No problem. I’ve got money. How much do you need?”

  Cat closed her eyes and shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s not money.”

  “Like fiery hell,” he said under his breath. Then he bit back a curse and took a better grip on his temper. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. If it’s not the money, what’s keeping you from going with me?”

  She hesitated, then spoke in a rush. “Where is this going, Travis? Where are we going?”

  There was a charged silence followed by a sound of disgust from him. “So that’s it.”

  His hands opened, letting her hair spill away. His legs loosened, freeing her.

  “So that’s what?” Cat asked, not understanding.

  “I told you the truth the first day we met,” Travis said, trying to be reasonable despite the hot running of his blood and the furious chill of being wrong about Cat after all. “I’ll never marry a woman less wealthy than I am. I’m sorry you didn’t believe me when I told you. But that doesn’t mean we can’t—”

  He stopped abruptly as she shoved away from him and sat on the far end of the bunk. Her face was pale and very still. He could see her anger burning in red slashes across her cheekbones.

  “Who said anything about marriage?” Cat demanded.

  “You did.” Travis saw the silver blaze of her eyes and realized that she was as furious as he was. “Wait, Cat. Listen. We’re very special together. I’ve given up fighting it, whatever it is. I want to give you—want to share with you—a simple time of peace, companionship, pleasure, passion. And when the time is over, I won’t be so vicious to you that you have to jump overboard and swim out to sea to escape me.”