Season of Storm

by Alexandra Sellers

  "I'm not myself," she wailed. She lifted her head and looked into Johnny Winterhawk's dark eyes. "I don't know what's happening to me. I feel as though I'm going out of my mind." A sudden thought struck her. "Have you drugged me?"

  "No."

  She dropped her head back against the sofa, gazing at the ceiling. The hatch above her showed the darkening sky and a single star. She should wish on it.

  "You wouldn't tell me anyway, would you?" She lifted a hand to her forehead, pushing her hair back. "I'm losing my volition, losing my brain. It isn't like me, you know, not to have acted on that."

  "I know," he said.

  "I should have gone out the forward hatch and over the side, then called to them from out in the middle of the cove."

  "Yes," he agreed softly.

  She lifted her head and sighed. "I don't suppose I'll get another chance, will I?" she asked, a kind of black humour coming to her rescue. "Did you tell them we had the plague aboard?"

  Johnny Winterhawk looked grim. "No," he said. "I...Never mind what I told them."

  "But—"

  There was an odd note in his voice, and she looked up at him, surprising an expression on his face of such bleak unhappiness she jumped. "Johnny, what happened? Who were they? Did they suspect something?" she demanded.

  "No." The bleak expression was replaced with a half smile.

  Johnny walked into the galley and opened a drawer. "Vicky and Harvey Mehan, from San Diego," he said. Picking a padlock out of the drawer he moved to the companionway, reached overhead and closed the hatch snugly. As Shulamith watched, he fitted the padlock. "They've sailed up the coast in that motor yacht, the White Dolphin." The lock snapped shut.

  "Let's get some food," he said.

  "Is that to keep them out, or me in?"

  "Let's eat," he said again.

  So they ate their simple meal together in the cosy lamplit cabin that in spite of everything felt like a safe haven. As night fell darker and darker around the boat they talked and laughed together with such an eager meeting of minds that Smith could forget entirely what her real situation was.

  And later, in his loving arms, there was no reason to remember.

  Seventeen

  Smith was suddenly wide awake in the darkness, her heart beating in panicked thuds. The boat creaked softly. A breath of wind rattled though the rigging and small wavelets slapped against the hull. It crept through the part-open hatch, bringing the scent of night and the sea. Above, pinpoints of starlight showed her a clear sky.

  Slowly she turned her head and looked into Johnny Winterhawk's sleeping face. He lay like a fallen Greek statue, one arm above his head, the strong, beautifully-shaped fingers lightly curled, his muscles firm and defined, skin glowing like polished marble.

  Fear gnawed at her bones. She must have been out of her mind. What had happened to her? The man had kidnapped her, he was a criminal! And she had let him make love to her—she had wanted him to make love to her—not once, but twice! She had had escape within reach and she had cowered and hidden as if her potential rescuers were the enemy.

  What was he doing to her? Was she losing her mind?

  She had to get away. She had to get back to reality, to sanity.

  Slowly, silently, Smith lifted the sheet and, carefully monitoring the sound of deep breathing beside her, rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Inch by inch she stood up in the pale starlight. The boat creaked and protested and another wavelet kissed the hull. Any noise she made was drowned in such sounds. She hoped.

  She turned again to look at the sleeping shape of Johnny Winterhawk. His breathing had not changed. With slow, stealthy movements Smith crept towards the open doorway and into the shadowed saloon. The padlock was a dark shadow on the companionway hatch. Smith passed it, creeping silently forward towards the doorway into the forward cabin.

  Seconds later, though it seemed much longer to her hyper alert senses, she was standing in the forward cabin, the length of the boat between herself and Johnny Winterhawk. She lifted a pillow and held it up to each of the hatch fasteners in turn, muffling the sound as she snapped them open.

  With light grace Smith climbed onto the bed and silently eased the hatch lid down to the deck as she stood up into the night. Then, catching up the skirt of her nightgown, she hoisted herself up onto the deck and gently set the hatch down after her.

  The world was at peace, dark and silent, the moon locked behind one thick fat cloud. Smith took in a deep breath and tried to get her bearings in the darkness. The closest shore was a sheer rock face. It would have to be the White Dolphin, then.

  It cost her precious moments to locate the dinghy in the water—at last she saw it nestling against the hull amidships. That at least was good luck: she didn't have to creep over the deck above where Johnny was sleeping. Anyone who spent a lot of time on a yacht had a sixth sense for footfalls overhead at night, and she had no doubt Johnny shared that ability.

  Smith dragged the dinghy close, stepped over the lifeline, and then, her toes clinging to the gunwale, crouched down, lowering one leg and then the other down onto the rim of the dinghy. A few seconds later she was seated by the motor, feeling around in the gloom for the twisted wire that carried the key to the outboard.

  And not finding it. But it must be here! She had seen it earlier, on the curly red plastic-coated wire that was standard in the yachting world. Oh, where was the bloody moonlight when you needed it? Smith cursed under her breath, got down on her knees and blindly felt every square inch of the floor of the dinghy. Gone. No oars, either! Had he known what she would do? What did that mean?

  Then she stood up, grabbed Outcast's lifeline again, and gazed over to where the White Dolphin lay on the other side of the cove. Her heart was beating in her temples and ears at a rate close to panic. Why couldn't she think? Why couldn't things be simple?

  She let go the lifeline, sat down again and pushed away from Outcast. The dinghy floated out to the length of its line—and then drifted in the opposite direction to the White Dolphin's berth. No good hoping the wind or current would carry her.

  That left swimming.

  The water was deep and no doubt icy cold, but the distance wasn't all that—as long as the swimming ladder was accessible when she got there she'd probably be fine. If she had to swim around banging on the hull to rouse them she might get pretty chilled.

  Smith stood up. Another gust of wind scudded over the surface and water lapped against Outcast's hull. With luck any splash as she went in wouldn't disturb Johnny's sleep.

  The nightgown had to go. It wouldn't do anything to keep her warm in the water, and it would hamper her kick. She hoped Vicky Mehan was a lighter sleeper than her husband.

  Smith slipped the gown up over her head and dropped it onto the floor of the dinghy. She shivered as the breeze wrapped her naked body. After what she had experienced in Johnny's bed, the sea would be a cold lover at best. She took a preparatory breath.

  "Beautiful," said Johnny Winterhawk's deep voice behind her, and the aft hatch cover lightly banged the deck.

  Smith froze, looking over her shoulder at the dark shape looming out of the hatch behind her. Just then the full moon sailed triumphantly out from behind the obscuring cloud and painted her in silvery white—the long braid of hair hanging over one shoulder, the tensed muscles of her naked body.

  The moonlight spread across the water and the yacht, illuminating the planes of his dark watchful face in all its fierce tension.

  Shulamith broke free of the spell, stepped up onto the side of the dinghy and pitched into an awkward dive.

  It was an icy shock to the system, stealing most of the breath she needed for swimming. She swam underwater till her heart was bursting, then broke surface in a powerful crawl, face down, her slim arms cleaving the silky surface of the swell with every ounce of her strength. After a few moments she lifted her head to take her bearings. The moon was bright on the water now, showing her the way.

  A muted roar a
nnounced that the dinghy motor was coming to life. Smith's heart kicked. She couldn't hope to outdistance the dinghy. Unless...sucking in a deep breath, she dived under the surface, and had the satisfaction of hearing the motor cut to idle. He could only chase her as long as he could see her: it would be criminal negligence to risk running her down while she was underwater. She would have to surface every few yards, of course, but that wouldn't give him enough time to get very far before she went under again. She could win this. All she had to do was calm her panic and keep to her goal, and she would get to the White Dolphin—or close enough to scream for help before Johnny reached her.

  Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a diver plummeting into the water. Surprised panic robbed her of all her oxygen, and Smith fought for the surface and air.

  As she surfaced she took in her surroundings with a glance: the White Dolphin still far away across the cove, the Outcast behind her.

  Johnny Winterhawk somewhere under the waves.

  The obvious course would be to try to outswim him to the big motor yacht, hoping that they never broke surface at the same time, so that he could never be sure where she was. But what if he were the stronger, faster swimmer? What if he headed directly to the White Dolphin and beat her to it? He was big and powerful.

  The less obvious course....

  Smith dragged in a painfully deep breath and sank under the water again, then changed course, breaking into a wide semicircle that would bring her up on the other side of Outcast, with the yacht's hull between her and the White Dolphin.

  She had watched him hang up the yacht's engine key. She knew where he kept it. If it was still there.

  Everything would depend on whether it was still there.

  Smith surfaced silently, not looking around, for the moonlight glinting off her white face would be a giveaway. She was parallel now with the shadowed shape of the Outcast, and a few more breaths would get her there.

  A minute later she surfaced in the moonshadow of the sleek white yacht, its length shielding her from the White Dolphin. The swim ladder was folded up on the swimming platform, but would still be better than nothing. But the swimming platform lay in bright moonlight. And cold as the water was, she couldn't risk climbing aboard until the stern moved into shadow.

  With a little help from her. As the Outcast lightly rode the swell Smith tried to ease the stern into shadow. But her efforts were nearly useless, and when the yacht had moved halfway around to where she wanted it, inexorably it moved back again to its original position.

  She was freezing to death, she couldn't wait any longer. She would have to risk going aboard in moonlight. On the next swell she grasped the chrome rungs with slippery hands and as quickly as humanly possible heaved herself onto the little swimming platform. Then up to the deck, where she crouched to dash to the open hatch. In another moment she was down into the welcome warmth, on her knees on the bed, gasping with fear and exertion.

  "Welcome aboard," said a voice, and Johnny Winterhawk's hand closed like a vise on her wrist.

  Eighteen

  He was standing in shadow, looking dark and dangerous, and very big. He stifled her scream with a quick hand over her mouth, wrapped his other arm around her and dragged her from the bed to stand in his fierce embrace.

  "Quick, march!" he said in her ear, pushing her into the saloon ahead of him, and closed the door behind them. He let her go, but there was no point in screaming now, the sound wouldn't carry to the White Dolphin with everything closed. The lights came on one by one as he moved around the room, and the space filled with the warm glow that shuts out the rest of the world. And in spite of herself the room felt safe and homelike to her. Its cosy comfortable proportions reminded her suddenly of the long-ago flat in Paris, the only place in her life that had really felt like home.

  There was nowhere to run. The main hatch was still locked and he would be on her before she could get halfway to the forward cabin.

  And she was tired of fighting, tired of a losing battle. She had been helpless against Johnny Winterhawk from the start. She turned to face him as he strode toward her, her long braid dripping wet and cold down her back, her body still beaded with seawater.

  Johnny's hair glistened, his navy shorts were glued to his groin, and his body was as wet as her own. His eyes flashed with what looked like fury. She had never seen such powerful emotion in him.

  Smith began to shiver, with cold and with reaction.

  "You could have died!" Johnny said. "What did you think you were doing?"

  "What do you think I was doing? Trying to escape!"

  "Why?"

  "Why?" She laughed mirthlessly. "Why? Because I'm a hostage and I want to go home! Because you kidnapped me, remember? Because my father is ill and a band of lunatics want to cut off my ear! And because—because you hypnotized me or drugged me into sex and I don't…I can't…I want it to stop!"

  His jaw tightened; she could practically hear the tension humming in his body.

  "I have not hypnotized you and I have not drugged you," he said with clear, hard precision.

  "Well, it sure feels like it!"

  "And if you want it to stop, you might start by not leaving erotic literature around for me to read!" he said.

  "Erotic literature?" Smith frowned blankly. "What are you talking about? I never—" She broke off as enlightenment came to her. "Do you mean my poems?" she screeched. How dared he! How dared he! "Are you telling me you think—"

  "That's what I mean," interrupted Johnny Winterhawk. "Are you telling me it wasn't deliberate?"

  "In the garbage!" She was almost incoherent with indignation. "I threw them in the garbage!"

  "And it never occurred to you that the sight of my filing cabinet lying on the floor in my study might cause me to have a close look at any papers I saw—in the garbage or anywhere else?" he demanded.

  "They were crap! Where did you expect me to leave them?"

  "They were not crap."

  "What the hell do you know about poetry?"

  "I know—"

  "You don't know much, but you know what you like?" she answered for him with heavy irony. "Anyway, if it was a message for you, you don't seem to have got it! Didn't you notice I said—"

  "My mouth naked flame. Your body dry wood. That mean something other than what it says?"

  "I guess you missed the part where it said I have no water for you." A chill ran over her skin and she shivered. "I guess you didn't get what that meant!"

  Suddenly she was shivering in earnest, her teeth chattering so she could hardly get the words out. Johnny bent down, lifted the seat of the sofa, and dragged out a stack of beach towels. He crossed to her, shaking them out, and quickly wrapped her in warmth, head and body. He stepped into the aft cabin and returned with a thick terrycloth robe. He held it for her, and obediently Shulamith slipped her arms into the sleeves, letting the towels fall to the floor, and wrapped herself snugly in its dark folds.

  Johnny bent to pick up the fallen towels, and she looked down at his perfectly muscled back, and the strange magic crept over her again, and he was no longer the enemy.

  "You're wet too," she whispered, reaching for a fresh towel.

  He straightened and tossed the wet towels onto the nav station seat. "Never mind me," he said, but she had already begun to dry his skin.

  He caught her hand in a hard grip and made her drop the towel. "If you want it to stop, you have to stop it," he said, sounding like a man at the end of his rope.

  "I'm sorry!" she whispered. "Johnny, I—"

  "Shulamith, what is it you want from me?" He looked into her face and she saw Johnny Winterhawk stripped to the bone. His eyes were bleak and hollow, his face empty of every emotion save pain. She wanted nothing so much as to give in to the urge to hold and comfort him.

  "What are we going to do, Johnny?" she whispered, and then it was there, naked between them, their impossible, aching need.

  He closed his eyes and whispered an imprecation.

&nbs
p; "Johnny," she whispered, and reached her arms out to him, feeling that if she couldn't hold him she would die. "Johnny, please--"

  Before she could make the plea she was in his embrace, her arms wrapped around his neck, the robe open, her body arched into the commanding curve of his. His face burned against her neck, her head nestled into the muscled curve of his shoulder. His hand moved to cup her head, and she felt its heat through the cold wet press of her hair against her scalp. His other arm wrapped her tightly, so that her breasts pressed against him inside the enveloping warmth of the robe.

  Johnny lifted his head and they gazed into each other's eyes for a long moment before she lifted her face and his mouth found hers. Then she drowned in feeling and sensation—every ache soothed, every hunger assuaged, every need answered.

  Where was sanity? Shulamith swallowed convulsively and gasped in a shaky breath. "Wait," she begged softly, lifting a small hand to cup the curve of his shoulder. That touch of flesh fitting flesh was so sensual it shook her, and she closed her eyes and swallowed again. "Wait," she breathed, like a woman fighting for breath in a burning building.

  His mouth moved over her skin with a keen stinging so intense she could not tell if it was fire or ice. He kissed her throat, her neck, her shoulder, as though the taste of her were all the sustenance he needed. Then he raised his head and looked into her face, and his eyes were changed. They were black now, and hungry and determined, and the look in them poured gasoline on the desire that flamed in the pit of her stomach; so that it whooshed up and burned like hot honey along every nerve. Her hands went still against him, and her breath began to shudder between her parted lips. His arm drew her closer. Her head fell back, offering her throat up to his mouth, and now she was impatient for him to taste her needy flesh, for the heat of his lips.

  But still that black gaze stared into her eyes, electrifying every corner of her mind, and she knew that this was the lover she had waited for every day of her life without knowing it. His free hand stroked the taut muscles of her arched stomach, and she quivered with desire and pressed her body to his. She was being stripped down to essentials again, but now it was without interest that she felt the social veneer fall away. Now she was Cinderella, throwing off her rags for the ball gown, her whole attention turned on the glittering fury that wrapped her.