Season of Storm

by Alexandra Sellers

  She waited, but his grip did not slacken, and he said nothing. There was only the sound of the genny's soft complaint overhead.

  Smith took a breath. All her anger was gone. Now she was only afraid. "I'll...I have money of my own," she said tentatively. "Not a lot, but...my father won't pay a ransom for me, you know. That's the truth," she said urgently, unaware that the sound of pain in her voice had already testified to the truth of what she said. "Not for me as his daughter, and not for me as an executive of the company. But if you let me go now, I'll pay you. I'll find a way to get the money to you, I promise. And I won't ask questions."

  "No," he said, his voice harsh with a suppressed anger that surprised her.

  "Please," Shulamith whispered, finally and utterly at the end of her tether. "Please."

  He stared up at the sails, his jaw tight. He made a minute course alteration that seemed to require all his attention.

  "Get below," he repeated, his voice resigned. "There's coffee in the galley if you want a cup. Then I suggest that you get cleaned up. You'll find some clothes in the aft cabin."

  Shulamith raised a self-conscious hand to her lace bodice, suddenly remembering that it was torn. Suddenly remembering what an utter mess she must look altogether. To her amazement, she felt a blush staining her cheeks.

  She hadn't blushed for years, since before she'd entered college: in logging camps and sawmills and sales meetings it was better for the boss's daughter if she did not blush. The knowledge that she was blushing now confused her and made her want to escape.

  Her captor did not smile at her, nor were his eyes mocking. If anything they grew more sombre, and his jaw tightened.

  She stared helplessly over her shoulder into the dark gaze, and it was a sensation like drowning. She felt shaken. Her lips were dry. Nervously she licked them.

  He looked away to the water ahead. He breathed once and let go of her wrist.

  "Get below," he said evenly, and Shulamith scrambled down the companionway as though she had been standing on the brink of an abyss.

  ***

  She took a shower, and came up on deck wearing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt she had found below, her long hair combed and tied back.

  He wasn't going to sail around waiting for her to be ransomed. He was docking at what looked like a small island. A canoe lay keel up on the dock, and a black speedboat was moored on the opposite side of the dock. Her heart contracted: how many others were here waiting?

  Then she looked more closely. The speedboat was firmly tied at bow and stern, its fenders neatly fixed all along the lifeline, its fitted tarp firmly drawn over wheel and cockpit. It didn't have the appearance of recent use. There was no paddle by the upturned canoe.

  Which didn't mean there weren't others waiting for them, but still Smith could draw breath and calm herself a little.

  She watched him furl the sails, her tired brain trying to think of some escape. The speedboat was not an option right now—he would be on her before she had the cover half off, and who knew if the key would be handy? As for the canoe…how far would she get before he had the speedboat going?

  She could leap ashore and run—but where to? It looked a very small island, possibly privately owned. Maybe even uninhabited. There was nothing that looked like a road. And she was barefoot. Smith sighed and resigned herself to waiting.

  A few waking birds were lazily querying each other's existence, the water lapped softly around the hull beneath her feet, and she wondered why these sounds of nature should only emphasize the perfect stillness.

  Her captor was tall and broad, but not the giant that she had imagined when he held her and his hand was suffocating her. She watched silently as he worked, taking a curious pleasure in the sight of the play of his muscles, the efficient motion and interplay of arms, hands and feet. He was an experienced sailor, and that merely added to the mystery.

  When at last all was fast and they climbed together onto the dock, his weary sigh was very human. But as soon as they reached the end of the wooden dock, he bent to pick her up in his arms.

  "The path is rough. You would cut your feet," he said, then set off with her along the path and up the hillside. She did not resist. He had one arm under her knees, one supporting her back; Smith felt the warmth of his hand against her ribs, his thumb just pressing the fullness of her breast. After a moment she felt the thumb move away.

  He carried her up the steep path in long strides, as though her hundred-ten-pound weight was not much of an encumbrance. He did not look down at her: his eyes were on the path ahead. It was long, steep and overgrown, meandering through the dark green rainforest. The hush of nature was over them—Smith felt they could be anywhere, in any time. Nothing had meaning except the particular, soothing calm. She heard a birdcall she did not recognize, but she felt sure that the man carrying her could identify it. He walked so quietly, so surefootedly.

  "Where are we? Where are you taking me?" she asked. Her voice was almost a whisper; she was mentally exhausted and hardly cared what was going to happen to her. She couldn't fight anymore.

  "Wait," he said.

  She felt an odd intimacy settle on them, a feeling of closeness that might exist between brother and sister, she thought, or between lovers who have known each other long and well. Shulamith had neither a brother nor a lover she had known long and well, and it was years since she had learned how little her father loved her. She had experienced a certain amount of camaraderie with the men she had worked with and later supervised in her father's logging camps and sawmills, but what she felt now was very different. It took her a moment to sort it out, and it was with an odd little jerk that she realized that what she was feeling was a sense of comfort and security she hadn't known since early childhood.

  Even more oddly, the feeling brought a lump to her throat.

  There was no clearing to give advance warning of a human habitation; merely, the forest stopped and the house began. Her captor paused beside a tree, and when he set her down, her feet touched the cool rough stone of a step carved into rock.

  Shulamith looked up. Above her, clinging to the hillside like a staircase in glass and cedar and stone, was a structure so individual, so beautiful, that she could hardly believe it was a house. It might have been produced by the land itself, so perfectly did it merge with its surroundings. On one side water fell gently over the levels of the hillside to end in a large reflecting pool by the rock-hewn steps. The glass, where it was touched by the rising sun, was lightly golden, and on all sides trees grew close to the house. It was almost like coming upon an Aztec ruin in an overgrown jungle.

  Shulamith breathed through open lips. "What a wonderful house," she said softly.

  The dark head inclined. "Thank you," he said, with a slightly ironic emphasis. She gazed around her as they mounted the rock steps toward the door.

  "Is it yours?" she asked at last.

  He spared her a glance from under his lids. His profile was as strong and roughly hewn as the rest of him. It occurred to her suddenly that he was vibrantly handsome.

  "Of course it is," he said.

  There was no of course about it, that she could see. A man who owned a house like this—and, presumably, a boat like the Outcast—was not your normal run-of-the-mill kidnapper of lumber barons. Or their daughters. Shulamith wrinkled her brow.

  "It's a Winterhawk design, isn't it?" she said, for something to say.

  "What?" he asked, stopping on the top step and turning sharply to look at her.

  "The house. It looks to me as though it was designed by Johnny Winterhawk. Wasn't it? I've seen a few of the private residences he's done, and—" She broke off and gazed at her abductor. He was rigidly immobile, looking at her with the oddest expression in his eyes.

  "What's the matter?" she frowned. "Don't you know who designed your house?"

  Johnny Winterhawk wasn't exactly a household name, but she would have expected at least a spark of recognition. Winterhawk held very original opinions about awk
ward locations and natural sites, and he had designed a number of public buildings in Vancouver and a university in the States that they were still talking about.

  "He's very good, isn't he?" Her glance wandered to the house again. "I wanted a Winterhawk house when we built the house we're in now," she remembered wistfully. "But Daddy...."

  As the realization crystallized in her brain Smith's voice died, and her lips parted on a soft gasp. Slowly, slowly she turned her head to look at her dark, hatchet-faced abductor. He was staring at her, his eyes filled with mingled amazement and disbelief. He looked thunderstruck.

  No more thunderstruck than she.

  "You can't be. You can't be!" she whispered, her eyes mirroring his amazement. "But you are! You're Johnny Winterhawk!"

  "Damn it! Damn it to hell! You mean to say you didn't know?" Johnny Winterhawk thundered, looking as though he wanted to hit something.

  Five

  Smith stared up into the furious dark eyes in amazement. Of course she recognized him now—Johnny Winterhawk had designed enough important buildings in Vancouver for her to have seen his photo in the newspaper several times, but she wouldn't have thought he courted personal fame.

  "No, I didn't recognize you before," she said. "Why?"

  "You must have!" he thundered. "The moment you pulled off my mask."

  "This is an odd time to be concerned about fame, I must say," Smith said. "I'm a kidnap victim, not a prospective client, believe me!"

  "You didn't recognize me?" he asked, an odd emphasis in his voice. He was standing one step above her, and he was a lot taller than she was to begin with; if they stayed here much longer she was going to get a sore neck. "But you...."

  "All right," she capitulated, shrugging. "I did recognize you. You're my favourite architect. Is that what you want?"

  He looked at her, his mouth a grim line. Smith stared back.

  "You may stop laughing when you hear what I have to say," Johnny Winterhawk said. "When you ripped off my mask I got the distinct impression that you recognized me. That, Miss St. John, is the only reason you're here right now."

  It took a second to sink in. "What?" she demanded.

  He said, his jaw tight, "You didn't recognize me?"

  "I wouldn't have recognized Elvis Presley if he'd bitten me!" Smith returned. "I still don't see—"

  He interrupted. "What was that look that crossed your face?"

  Smith thought back to the terror-filled moment of insane bravado when she had ripped off the white-trimmed mask. "I—I suddenly realized how stupid it was to have got myself a look at your face," she remembered. "That's the only thing I can think of." She'd realized it meant they would have to kill her, but she wasn't telling him that.

  Johnny Winterhawk made an exasperated noise. "Yes, it was," he said. "Very damn stupid. So was I, obviously, but it was a tense moment, and you're here now."

  Ever since she'd recognized him, Smith's fear had been slowly leaving her, and when he admitted he hadn't wanted to kidnap her she'd felt as though the world was returning to normal. But that "you're here now" had a finality about it that jerked her back to apprehension.

  "What do you mean?" she demanded, leaping up the last step and grabbing at Johnny Winterhawk's arm as he turned to open the door.

  He looked at her without speaking and stood back for her to enter the house. Smith looked into the beautiful, inviting interior past his shoulder and felt a sudden inexplicable dread. Once she entered this house her life would never be the same again. She wanted to plead with him, but she didn't know for what, and his silence suddenly seemed implacable. Smith took a quick deep breath, straightened her back and walked past Johnny Winterhawk into his extraordinary house.

  It was rough-hewn inside, not at all like the interiors of the elegant homes he had designed for some of Vancouver's wealthy, which Smith had visited or seen in magazine photo spreads. In his own house the interior was an extension of the exterior, all golden cedar and hewn rock. And entire walls were made of glass, so that the forest seemed an integral part of the house.

  On the varnished cedar floors were scattered woven Indian rugs, and on the cedar walls hung a collection of antique and modern masks and carvings and paintings that even her inexperienced eye could tell comprised a variety of contributions from different native tribes of Canada. Works of Haida and Chopa and Kwakiutl artists she picked out without difficulty, but there were many that she did not recognize.

  The house was like a staircase up the steep hillside; Johnny led her up through a few rooms and several levels, then opened a door onto a bedroom that looked out over the soft waterfall she had seen outside. It was surrounded by lush forest growth. Smith felt the peace of the house enveloping her like a physical thing. She sighed deeply.

  Johnny Winterhawk stood in the doorway, looking very dark in his black jersey and trousers, and half smiled down at her.

  "If there's a way out of this," he said, "I'm too tired to think of it right now." He paused uncertainly and rubbed his hand over his head. "There's no way off the island except by boat, and I've got the keys. Can I trust you to try to get some sleep yourself, or do I have to stay with you to prevent you from trying to burn down the house for a signal fire?" As Smith blinked protestingly up at him he smiled. "And don't tell me you wouldn't consider it."

  He seemed to think she was very resourceful and ruthless. Burn down the house for a signal fire! As if she would do any such thing! Still, it was a thought....Her gaze dropped from his, and she stared unseeingly out the window. Well, why not? A kidnapper deserved whatever he got. And a victim had the right to escape by any method she could.

  Johnny Winterhawk laughed shortly, watching the thoughts play across her face. "All right," he said. "I won't put temptation in your way." And stepping into the room behind her he closed the door.

  Smith stood stiffly against the alarm that ran up her spine. "What are you going to do?" she asked levelly.

  He half smiled at her. "Are you always so cool under fire?"

  "Am I under fire?"

  "You do let yourself get angry," he mused. "Is that the only emotion you ever show, or do you allow yourself others?"

  She compressed her lips and stared at him, measuring his size against her own agility, weighing her chances.

  "If you try to rape me the emotion you can expect is murderous rage," Smith said. "And I do mean murderous."

  Johnny Winterhawk stared at her in irritated disbelief. "If I rape you?" he repeated. "What the hell are you talking about? Of course I'm not going to rape you!"

  She wanted to believe him; she wanted to be able to trust him. "You closed the door," she pointed out, "and then you asked me about showing emotion."

  "Look," he said, "I want some sleep. I've been up for about fifty hours straight. I'm seeing double, and kidnapping you wasn't exactly easy." He smiled briefly. "I'm not leaving you alone while I sleep. That's all."

  He crossed to the bed and as she watched began to pull it across the room. Before she was quite aware of his intention the wide pine bed, its mattress covered with a woven blanket with a Kwakiutl design, was solidly jammed against the door. Johnny Winterhawk stood gazing at her across it.

  "Through that door," he said, pointing across the room, "is a bathroom. There may be a book or two in that closet." Another door. "I am going to steep—on this side of the bed. If you want to lie on the other side you can be sure that I will not touch you. However, if you try to break the windows or move the bed from the door—or set a fire—I will wake up." He smiled at her with his eyes. "If you get bored while I'm sleeping remind yourself that you could have promised not to try to burn the house down."

  With that he dropped down on the bed, stretched out and fell asleep.

  ***

  She awoke with an unfamiliar slow ease to find her head resting on a black-clad shoulder. For one exhilarating moment of looking into the face of the dark, sleeping stranger, Shulamith couldn't remember who she was. Then she jerked away from the warmth of hi
s nearness back to her own side of the bed.

  She felt a sudden sense of loss, as though she had dreamed that they belonged together and found him in the dream. She gazed in wonder at the dark face on the pillow. It was an effort not to roll back into the comfort of his body.

  At that moment Johnny Winterhawk opened his eyes and looked across the bed at her, directly into her soul.

  Smith sat up with a gasp and swung her legs over the side of the bed, turning her back on him. After a moment her breathing and her emotions were back under control. "Sorry, did I wake you?" she asked, then stood and turned to look down at him, proving—to herself? to him?—that there had never been a moment when she was afraid to look into Johnny Winterhawk's eyes.

  "I don't know what woke me," he said. He rolled onto his back, watching her as she crossed to gaze out the window. "Did you sleep or pace the cage?"

  Smith turned away from the view out the window and looked back at him in some irritation, thrusting her hands deep into the pockets of the overlarge jeans.

  "I'm not a wild animal, you know," she observed. Johnny Winterhawk swung his feet to the floor and sat up.

  "Except when you're cornered," he answered with a grin. He rubbed his hands lazily in his shining black hair. "I haven't forgotten how you tried to pitch me overboard, or the way you threw the phone at my head."

  "I hope it connected," Smith said with relish. "You were lucky. If that towel—" She broke off and turned back to the window, remembering the terror of the night with a shudder. It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago she had been safe in her bed and in her life.

  A noise made her turn around: Johnny Winterhawk was dragging the bed away from the door back to its original position. He thumped it into place with his leg, then crossed to open the door. He held it open and waited for her.