Shivering with reaction to Raven’s elemental presence, Janna rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The knowledge that Raven had worn the very shirt that was warming her flesh didn’t soothe her. Nothing about him soothed her. Yet even as that thought came, she knew it wasn’t completely true. Nothing in her life had ever felt as right as the instants before she fell asleep with his powerful arms around her and his big body radiating heat into her own chilled flesh. She had never felt safer, more at peace, more cherished.
Raven looked back over his shoulder in time to see Janna shiver and rub her arms as though trying to warm herself. He frowned, wondering if she were coming down with a fever. He held aside the last evergreen barrier between himself and the beach and motioned Janna forward. As she brushed by him he looked intently at her. Other than the subtle sadness that came over her face at times, there was nothing obviously wrong with her. Her skin didn’t look dry or pale.
„Wait,“ Raven said, releasing the cedar bough.
Janna turned. „ Is something – “
Her breath hissed in as he put one hand on her shoulder and the other on her forehead. The fragrance of evergreen clinging to him teased her nostrils. She knew that she would never smell cedar again without remembering this instant, Raven so close to her that she couldn’t take a breath without drawing in his scent, primal man and evergreen combined.
„You were shivering,“ he said, his voice rumbling gently. „You feel fine, though. No fever.“
That won’t last if you keep touching me.
Janna crushed her thought before it became incautious words. She had learned with her husband that if a man didn’t want you, he didn’t want you. Period. She had read an entire shelf full of books whose sexual instructions were both explicit and frankly boggling. She had gritted her teeth, taken a deep breath and tried some of those „surefire“ methods of arousal on Mark.
It had been about as arousing as a bucket of ice water. For both of them.
„I’m fine,“ Janna said with determined cheerfulness, stepping away from Raven’s touch before she shivered again in response to his closeness. „Actually, I’m disgustingly healthy. No feminine fits of the vapors, no delicate squeamishness, no interesting pallor. Just hearty, wholesome American girl. All I need are gingham checks, patent shoes and a puppy dog pulling at my anklets.“
Raven heard the unhappiness underlying Janna’s wry words. He looked intently at her, wondering what had happened to her that she so underestimated her own appeal to men. It would take a blind man not to respond to her. Her hair was a silky wildness framing her oval face. The forest green of his flannel shirt made her skin glow like mother-of-pearl on a sunrise beach. Her eyes picked up the green of cloth and forest, changing it, silvering it with emotions the way the wind changed the surface of the sea. Even the oversize shirt couldn’t hide the womanly promise of her breasts, the allure of hip and thigh, the feminine curves leading down to ankles that looked ridiculously slender rising out of his bunched socks.
Watching Janna as she stood framed against the ancient forest made Raven want to smooth away all the coarse masculine clothes, to brush her with satin and incense, to caress the essential femininity of her. He wanted to arouse her until she cried out his name and wept and left passionate marks on his body. He wanted to give her a pleasure to equal the courage and determination he had seen when she had pushed herself beyond exhaustion, driven by the bitter imperatives of survival, and, then, still in the grip of those imperatives, she had let go of fighting and given herself to him, trusting him as no one ever had, even Angel.
Emotion went through Raven like a gust of wind through the cedar forest, stirring everything, leaving restlessness in its wake. Through narrowed eyes he watched as Janna picked her way over slippery rocks toward the log he had lashed to old, rotted cedar posts jutting up from the beach. The makeshift dock bobbed unpredictably. Years ago he had been a logger; for him, the erratic motions of a log floating on water were as easy to walk on as a stairway. Janna, however, lacked the experience to know how the log would react to a push here and a nudge there. Several times she had almost come to grief.
Janna stood on the shore, eyeing the bobbing log distrustfully. She tested the dampness of her hair, hesitated and shrugged.
„It’s not worth it,“ she muttered, turning away.
„What isn’t?“
„Dry hair. I’ll slip on that log and take a header into the inlet,“ she said in a resigned tone. She shivered again. This time it was the wind off the inlet rather than Raven’s presence that drew the involuntary response. „On second thought, it’s worth it for the jeans alone. If they’re dry by now?“ she added, looking up at Raven.
„Should be.“
„I was afraid you’d say that.“
„Wait,“ Raven said, touching Janna’s arm. „I’ll get your jeans for you. And a scarf,“ he added as the wind lifted her hair in a damp, silky cloud. A few of the flying auburn strands caressed his face. They felt cool and smelled sweet against the tangy, salt-laden wind.
„Afraid you’ll have to fish me out again?“ Janna asked wryly, eyeing the log.
Raven felt his body kindle at the memory of drying Janna off and wrapping her in a warm blanket. Naked. With a muffled sound of exasperation at his unruly thoughts, he walked the log to the Black Star. Moments later he returned with her jeans, still warm from the oven, and a scarf that was the clear blue-green color of the sea under full sunlight. Janna took one look at the fine, delicate cloth and knew that it was Angel’s.
„No,“ Janna said, refusing the scarf. „I’ll ruin it.“ She stared at the glorious, blue-green wisp and had a depressing thought. „I’ll bet it’s the same color as her eyes.“
Raven’s black eyebrows shot up. „How did you know?“
Janna sighed. „She’s blond, too. Right? Small boned, willowy, graceful, a figure to break your heart, with a smile that hints at passion and tragedy?“
„Are you a witch?“ he asked, only half joking.
„If I were, Angel would be a warthog,“ Janna muttered under her breath.
„What?“
„Nothing,“ she said brightly.
Janna glared at her jeans and looked around for a place to sit that wasn’t wet. The closest one was on the boat. She muttered one of her brothers’ favorite words. Life simply wasn’t fair. In order to put on her jeans without getting wet, she was going to have to hop around on one foot and then the other, looking about as graceful as a pig on roller skates. Meanwhile Raven could watch and compare her with the oh-so-delicate Angel.
Mentally Janna sorted through her brothers’ vocabulary of locker-room epithets. She found some truly appalling phrases and spoke them in the silence of her mind. Finally she smiled, feeling better. She’d always known her brothers were good for something.
„Here,“ Raven said, realizing Janna’s difficulty as she tried to balance on one foot on the slick pebble beach. „Brace yourself against me.“
She hesitated, then mentally shrugged. He’d had her naked in bed and hadn’t turned a hair. He was hardly going to be affected if she braced her fanny against his thighs while she put the jeans on in the only way possible to mortals – one leg at a time.
Leaning against Raven wasn’t quite enough to make the job easy. The jeans were a little overcooked; they had shrunk in the oven. Now they fit her the way bark fit a tree – faithful to even the tiniest curve and hollow. Wriggling into the stubborn cloth was the only way to get the jeans on. With her tennis shoes catching every inch of the way, she had to do some major wriggling to get the jeans up her legs.
Raven suffered the innocent bump and grind of Janna’s sexy bottom against his thighs as long as he could before he slipped an arm around her rib cage and braced her firmly, hoping that she would have to squirm around less that way. The strategy was partially successful. She did indeed have to squirm less. On the other hand, her breasts inevitably rested on his forearm, their sweet weight swaying with every movement of her body
. Raven didn’t know whether to regret or applaud the fact that Janna’s bra, like her socks, had been lost in the first frantic moments of undressing her and getting her warm.
He remembered finding the bra that morning. The sheer midnight-blue lace had looked incredibly fragile in his hand. The thought of undressing her again had come to him like lightning; only this time it would be the heat of his tongue that transformed her nipples into tight pink crowns. He could almost see them pushing against the delicate lace, rising to the caress of his mouth.
The sensual images glittered through Raven’s mind, impossible to control, like salmon schooling in the sea’s mysterious darkness, gathering for the freshwater culmination that sang to them from their deepest instincts.
With a barely stifled groan Raven turned, using his hip to brace Janna rather than his thighs. The speed and intensity of his arousal surprised him. He told himself forcefully that he was no boy to go crazy over a woman’s un-confined breasts brushing against his arm. He had solved the sexual mystery of male and female long ago. He knew his own needs, knew when to control them and when to appease them. Now was definitely not the time for appeasing.
In the most primitive analysis, Janna was helpless against him – and they both knew it. He was far stronger. He knew the land, knew the sea, knew how to survive on both. He had saved her life. She was utterly dependent on the civilized veneer that covered his elemental survival calculations. She knew that, too, at some unconscious, primitive level far deeper than language and culture.
And she was too damned vulnerable because of it. If he asked, she would give herself to him. He could see it in her eyes as she watched him almost secretly – admiration to the point of hero-worship. Or was it simply fear? Was that why she sometimes trembled when she brushed against him? Had she instinctively sensed what he had only just realized?
He wanted her with an intensity that bordered on violence.
He had wanted her since he had seen her refusal to give in against overwhelming odds. He had saved her life, and now some savage, ungovernable part of his mind insisted that she was his for the taking.
Even as the realization came he fought against it. He didn’t want her like that, a woman coming to him for all the wrong reasons, gratitude and a primitive survival reflex driving her into his arms. He wanted Janna to come to him willingly, when she had all the alternatives of civilization open before her.
And if he kept telling himself that often enough, he might even believe it.
Chapter 4
The tide was out, leaving behind a damp, plant-slicked, glistening swath of shoreline for Raven and Janna to pick over in their search for dinner. Living off the land wasn’t really necessary; Raven had enough emergency stores to keep both himself and Janna well fed for the days it would take for the storm to blow itself out along the coast. On the other hand, he was reluctant to use the emergency food unless he had to. Though the chance of the storm lasting more than a few days was small, it was on such small chances that survival often hinged. More people got into trouble through bad planning than bad luck.
Besides, Raven very much enjoyed walking along the shoreline with Janna in search of food. It was the time between squall lines, when the rain was little more than a sparkling edge to the wind. Janna accepted the wind and mist and rain with the same good nature she accepted having to wear sweaters and jackets that came down to her knees.
Raven could think of a lot of women who would have shut themselves up in the warm boat rather than scramble over chilly, slippery rocks in search of seashore life that only a scientist or a very hungry person could describe in terms of enthusiasm. Janna was both. She was happily crouched over a stretch of rocky tide pools that waves would bury in foam within a few hours. Slick seaweed glistened around her. Beneath the oversize jacket she wore, her legs looked very sleek and feminine encased in her jeans. Raven knew that her legs would look even better on the boat, when she would wear nothing more than one of his long shirts while her jeans toasted and dried in the oven.
The thought made Raven smile. He knew he would never again be able to smell sea-wet jeans and tennis shoes drying without remembering the days when a summer storm had given him a gift and then sealed him within Totem Inlet to enjoy the present. Raven couldn’t think of a time he had had half so much fun as he had in the past three days. Janna was good company. Her quick mind and wry sense of humor had made the hours fly – at least in the daytime. Knowing that she was only a few feet away had made the nights incredibly long.
„What do you call this?“ Janna asked, turning toward Raven.
He stared from the creature balanced on the palm of her hand to Janna, disbelief clear on his rugged face. „What did you say you majored in?“
Janna blinked, then began laughing. „Marine biology. If it will make you feel better, I know that what I’m holding is phylum Echinodermata, class Echinoidea, and is known to its friends as Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Now, what do you call it?“
„A purple sea urchin,“ Raven said dryly.
Janna looked up at the cloudy, windswept, glittering sky as though seeking aid or inspiration. „In Haida,“ she said carefully. „What do you call a purple sea urchin in Haida?“
Janna turned her face back to Raven, waiting for him to speak. Her head was cocked in an attitude of anticipation. She had learned from him that the Haida language was technically described as an isolate, a language totally unrelated to any other on the face of the earth. Basque was the only other living language that was an isolate. All other spoken languages belonged to one or another interrelated groups, such as the Romance languages. But not Haida. It stood alone, isolated. Unique.
Like Raven, who also fascinated her.
Raven’s lips quirked as he measured Janna’s eagerness. He was oddly proud that the Haida language truly intrigued her. He had always known that his native speech was different, but through Janna’s eyes he was learning just how rare his language really was. Learning like that was an unusual experience. So was Janna. With her around life grew more interesting with every instant.
„Raven?“
He laughed softly before he answered her question in Haida.
Janna listened to the brief rumble of sound that was the Haida name for the purple sea urchin. „What does it mean?“ she asked.
Beneath the gleaming midnight mustache, Raven smiled widely. „There’s no – “
„Direct translation,“ interrupted Janna, groaning. It was a phrase she had heard too many times lately. „So give me an indirect one.“
„Round, purple, spiny, edible, sea-rock dweller.“
„See?“ Janna demanded triumphantly. „No matter how unique the language, the human mind that thought it up is still wired along the same basic diagram. Descriptive. The scientific name for purple urchins tells me pretty much the same thing as the Haida name, but in more detail. Except for edible.“ She grinned. „Most scientists aren’t interested in eating the subjects of their studies.“
Raven eyed the prickly, violently purple urchin that Janna held. „I know how they feel,“ he said emphatically. „Takes your appetite away just to look at it.“
„In Japan, the roe of the urchin is a delicacy, like caviar in Russia.“
„We aren’t in Japan.“
„Where’s your sense of adventure?“
„In the bottom of the inlet along with your brains,“ Raven retorted.
„No urchin soup?“
„No urchin soup.“
„How about raw urchin?“
„How about raw sand?“
„Eagles eat urchins,“ Janna pointed out, remembering her surprise when she had seen an immature bald eagle perched on a log and eating an urchin with every evidence of enjoyment.
„My moiety is raven, not eagle.“
The teasing light vanished from Janna’s eyes, to be replaced by a curiosity that was much more intense. She wanted – she needed – to know everything about Raven. „What?“
„Haidas are divided
into two groups, eagle and raven,“ he explained. „My mother was a raven. Therefore, I’m a raven.“
„The Haidas have a matriarchal society?“
„In some ways.“ He smiled crookedly. „It’s just as well, since my father was a Scots sport fisherman named Carl who left as soon as the salmon run was over. So I’m Carlson Raven.“
„Did he know your mother was pregnant?“ asked Janna. Even as the words left her mouth; she knew that her curiosity was almost rude, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to know more about Raven with an urgency that overrode her polite upbringing.
„I doubt it,“ Raven said, shrugging. „And I doubt that it would have mattered if he had known.“ Raven hesitated, then added quietly, „He picked my mother up in a bar. She never had enough money to buy all the drinks she wanted.“
Janna’s eyes became even more silver as a sheen of tears unexpectedly gathered. She thought of how proud her father had been of his strong sons and lively daughter, and of how much love there had been between herself and her family. Then she thought of Raven growing up without that kind of love.
„What a waste,“ she whispered. „Most men would kill to have a son like you, and most women would die proud knowing that they had once carried you in their body.“
For an instant Raven closed his eyes, unable to bear the depth of emotion he saw in Janna’s. „Not really,“ he said finally, his voice almost harsh. His eyes opened black and very clear. „I’m Haida. Indian. Maybe that doesn’t matter here and now in this inlet, but it matters like hell out there,“ he said flatly, gesturing with a broad, powerful hand to the rest of the world.
Janna started to object, then stopped. What Raven said was true. She didn’t like it, but she was too realistic to deny it. She hated it, though. She hated it so intensely that her eyes became almost as dark as his. The thought of Raven being subjected to a loveless childhood and then to bigotry in adulthood made her so angry that she shook with the force of her suppressed emotion.
Love Song For A Raven Page 5