Love Song For A Raven

by Elizabeth Lowell

  No wonder Raven had only wanted a few days with her. Lord, the wonder was that he had wanted her at all. He must have been alone in that inlet for months to even look at her, much less to make love to her as though she were the last woman on earth – or the first.

  Finished feeling sorry for yourself yet? Janna inquired sardonically of her frazzled reflection in the cabin window.

  No. I’m just getting started. Try me in a few years. I might be finished by then.

  I can’t wait. Quit complaining and pull up your socks.

  I’m not wearing socks.

  Pull them up anyway.

  Janna closed her eyes, rested her forehead against the cold glass and remembered all the times she had pulled up her socks and gotten on with life even when it hurt to breathe. She had no right to complain about the fact that Raven loved a woman he couldn’t have and didn’t love Janna, who loved him. Raven didn’t love her, but he had given her the gift of himself for a few days. She had known what it was like to see a man’s eyes kindle with laughter and desire as he watched her. She had known what it was like to evoke a fierce, elemental response from Raven’s powerful body, to pleasure him and to be pleasured in turn.

  She should be on her knees right now thanking him rather than trying not to cry because a few days weren’t a lifetime. Nobody had promised her a lifetime. Nobody had promised her a damn thing. She could have died before she had ever known Raven.

  She almost had.

  „Are you all right?“

  Janna’s eyes flew open. The voice was deep, but not as deep as Raven’s. The boat dipped beneath the man’s weight as he came aboard.

  He was tall, but not as tall as Raven. He was strong, but he didn’t have Raven’s unusually powerful build. His hair was just as black, though, and in a lean, hard way he was as handsome as any man Janna had ever seen.

  „Hawk,“ Janna said, remembering Raven’s description of the man Angel loved. Handsome as sin.

  A black eyebrow arched in silent query, giving an almost satanic cast to Hawk’s face. His eyes were an odd shade of golden brown, like whiskey or the bird of prey he took his nickname from. „Have we met?“

  „Only in a Raven’s mind.“

  „A raven? Oh, Carlson.“ Hawk’s mouth curled up slightly beneath a black mustache as he looked at Janna wrapped so intriguingly in what was obviously not her shirt. The mismatch between the shirt’s size and her own had the effect of emphasizing how different her body was from a man’s. „Leave it to Carlson to go out fishing and come back with a stunning mermaid.“

  Janna’s mouth turned down in a sad curve. She felt more stunned than stunning.

  „Are you sure you’re all right?“ Hawk asked gently.

  „Sure. Just pulling up my socks.“

  „You aren’t wearing any.“

  „Yeah. That’s where the real challenge comes in.“

  Hawk smiled suddenly.

  Janna blinked. She had never seen a smile quite so unexpected, like a fire burning beneath glacial ice, a promise of warmth radiating magically through the cold.

  „My God,“ Janna said, shaking her head, „I’ll bet when you and Raven walk down a street together you can hear female hearts breaking like dropped crockery.“

  There was an instant of startled stillness before Hawk’s smile became a warm male laugh that was every bit as unexpected and as beautiful as his smile had been.

  Raven turned toward the sound, still holding Angel. „I see you’ve met Janna,“ he said, grinning. „She has the most incredible – “

  „Sense of humor,“ Janna interrupted wearily. „With that and two quarters you can get a cup of coffee.“

  Raven’s eyes narrowed at the flatness he heard in Janna’s voice. It reminded him painfully of the night when she had fled his heavy-handed company and locked herself in the bow to sketch. Janna didn’t see his sudden scrutiny as she pushed away from the cabin’s support.

  „Do you need to get anything from the boat?“ Hawk asked, looking between Janna and Raven with barely concealed curiosity.

  She drew a deep breath, grabbed the tops of her nonexistent socks and pulled. „Not a thing,“ she said with forced cheer. „That’s one of the joys of shipwreck – no excess baggage. No baggage of any kind, as a matter of fact. What you see is what you get.“

  An arched black eyebrow lifted in query again but Hawk said nothing. Enviously Janna watched as he mounted the dock in a single lithe movement. The gap between boat and dock looked enormous to her. She was certain that she would stumble and go sprawling, further separating herself in Raven’s eyes from the ever-perfect, ever-unattainable Angel.

  „Let me help.“

  Startled, Janna looked up into compassionate golden-brown eyes. She held up her arms and was lifted onto the dock as gracefully as though she were a prima ballerina.

  „Thanks,“ she said. „With my luck I’d have taken a header into the bay.“

  Janna’s glance slid past Hawk to where Raven and Angel stood arm in arm. Suddenly a swim in the bay seemed preferable to walking down the dock and smiling cheerfully as she said goodbye to the man she loved.

  „Rough trip?“ Hawk asked, following the direction of Janna’s glance.

  „Yeah, you could say that. Lost my boat, lost my engine, lost my camping gear, my sketchbook, my…“

  „Heart,“ finished Hawk too softly for anyone but Janna to hear.

  Her mouth flattened into a line of pain. Those odd-colored eyes saw far too much.

  „An overrated organ,“ Janna said, shrugging. „The body seems to function quite well without it.“

  Hawk started to say something. Janna cut him off with an overly bright smile and a rush of words.

  „I’m sure the three of you have a lot to catch up on,“ she said firmly. „Tell Raven that I’ll leave his shirt with the gas jockey.“

  „Why don’t you tell me yourself?“ Raven asked, walking up in time to overhear Janna’s words.

  His voice was very deep, almost harsh. He saw Angel’s swift, assessing look in his direction and realized that he wasn’t concealing his anger very well. But he hadn’t expected to look up and see Janna nestled trustingly between Hawk’s hands, to see her watching Hawk’s face as though she expected a second sunrise to take place there at any moment.

  Nor had Raven expected Janna to vanish from his life without so much as a word. He had known that gratitude was a fleeting emotion, yet the idea that Janna could walk away from the past few days as though they had never happened enraged him. Before he realized what he was doing, Raven found himself pressing Janna in exactly the way that he had promised himself he wouldn’t.

  „You can give me the shirt tomorrow, when I pick you up,“ he said to Janna, and his tone said that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  „Pick me up,“ Janna repeated numbly, feeling her heart turn over as she tried desperately not to hope that Raven was reluctant to let her go.

  „For a picnic on a north-facing beach. If it’s clear. Very clear. Otherwise any beach will do,“ he added.

  „Very clear,“ she said, when it was anything but.

  „Right. That’s the only time you can really see the illusions.“

  Janna took a deep breath. „Help.“

  The hard lines left Raven’s face as he smiled. His hand snaked out, wrapped around the nape of Janna’s neck and gently pulled her close, disengaging her from Hawk’s grasp in the process.

  „I’m glad you remembered what I’m good for,“ Raven growled.

  „Help?“

  „Among other things.“

  „Oh help,“ Janna breathed raggedly, feeling herself go soft in the head and everywhere else at the feel of Raven’s big, warm hand on her sensitive nape. „You’re making it very hard for me to be noble,“ she said, speaking before she thought. She winced. Not thinking before she spoke was a chronic condition for her around Raven.

  „Noble?“ he asked, his black eyes searching her face.

  „I… I thought you
might want to get on with the, uh, reunion without any… any outsiders to get in the way.“

  Raven said something succinct and harsh under his breath. „If there’s anything that gives me a tired butt, it’s nobility,“ he added, ignoring the fact that his anti-nobility statement was self-serving. Nobility required him to give up Janna right away. Suddenly he was damned if he were going to do that. She had a few more days in the Queen Charlottes before she had to go back to Seattle. There wasn’t one reason on earth they couldn’t spend those days together. A lot of reasons why they shouldn’t, but none why they couldn’t. „Unless you’re too behind in your sketching to take the time to spend a few days sight-seeing with me?“

  For an instant Janna closed her eyes, unable to bear the dark clarity of Raven’s eyes looking at her, into her, seeing too much. Just as she was seeing too much. Whatever else Raven might feel for Angel, there was no deep, reckless current of desire beneath his obvious love for her. Yet Janna knew that Raven was capable of intense sensuality and white-hot, elemental desire, for she had been the focus of both. Raven didn’t love Janna, but he wanted her.

  And she wanted him in the same way. If the savage, shimmering wine of sensual ecstasy was all that he could accept from Janna, then she wouldn’t withhold it. She couldn’t. She loved him too much to deny him anything.

  Janna didn’t notice the two other people watching her – Hawk with compassion and Angel with growing surprise and delight. Janna saw only Raven, the man she had waited a lifetime to find.

  And to lose.

  But not yet. She had a few days left in this wild Eden. She would spend them with the man she loved.

  „I don’t need to sketch anymore,“ she said, her tone husky. „I found everything I needed in Totem Inlet.“ The words came back to Janna, haunting her with too many meanings. „For my work,“ she added quickly, tearing her glance away from Raven’s. „Thanks to Angel.“

  „Your sketchbook,“ Raven explained to Angel without looking away from Janna.

  Angel blinked her beautiful sea-green eyes at him, turned toward Hawk and said, „Must be those Tlingit shaman genes shorting out the brain again.“

  „Tlingit?“ Janna asked, not looking away from Raven. „I thought you were Haida.“

  „Mostly. One of my grandparents was a Tlingit shaman. Angel says that’s where I get my fishing luck and streak of cruelty.“

  „Carlson!“ Angel said, dismayed. „That’s not what I said and you know it!“

  Janna looked at Raven’s off-center smile and wanted to cry. „You’re not cruel,“ she said.

  „Oh, but I am,“ he countered softly, his eyes bleak. „Remember? Sometimes comfort just doesn’t get the job done.“

  „That’s not cruelty, that’s just a very difficult way to be kind,“ Angel said, putting her hand on the thick muscle of Raven’s forearm. „If you had enjoyed my pain, then it would have been cruelty. Just because I was too selfish to see your kindness at the time doesn’t change reality. You helped me, Raven.“ She laughed suddenly, a sound that was surprisingly sad. „You did more than help me. Without you I wouldn’t have made it.“

  Raven hesitated, then picked up Angel’s hand, kissed it softly and replaced it on his arm. „I’m glad you feel that way, Angel Eyes. I hated hurting you.“

  „It was nothing to what I did to you. If you only knew how many times I’ve regretted what I said to you.“ Angel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She turned toward Janna and smiled apologetically. „You must think we’re all crazy.“

  „No,“ Janna said quietly. „I think that Raven is very good at saving lives, at being kind even when it hurts, at being… a man. More man than I’ve ever met.“

  She clasped her hands together and hoped no one could see that her fingers were shaking from the reaction that had come when Raven had picked Angel’s hand up and kissed it so gently, so sadly. Seeing Raven with the woman he loved and couldn’t have was tearing at Janna in ways that she would never have expected. It wasn’t just herself that she was hurting for. It was Raven.

  „He saved my life, too,“ Janna continued in a tight, desperately calm tone. „And he won’t even let me thank him.“

  „Gratitude is like milk,“ Raven said roughly. „It’s bland, coats your tongue and turns sour after a few days.“ He turned toward the boy who was manning the fuel pump. „You finished yet?“

  „Gettin’ there.“

  „Good,“ Raven growled, impatient to be off the dock. „Where do you live?“ he asked, turning back to Janna.

  „In a small house on the beach at the edge of the park.“

  Raven frowned. „The shack with the bear feet hanging on the mailbox?“

  „Is that what they are? I was pretty sure, but I was afraid to ask.“ Janna shuddered, remembering her horror when she had encountered the mailbox in the twilight rain. „The first time I saw them I thought they were bare feet as in no shoes, no socks, nothing but bones. Human. There was no reason to think otherwise. The claws had been cut off, and the articulation of the foot bones and ankle looked just the same as I remembered from my anatomy class. I nearly turned around and ran for the RCMP.“

  Almost reluctantly, Raven grinned. „You wouldn’t have been the first. The Mounties had a bad summer a few years back. Someone shot several bears, took the claws and skin and dragged the carcasses out to sea. The beachcombers who found the feet washed up with rope around the ankles felt the same way about it that you did. So did the Mounties until they figured out what had happened.“ His smile faded. „Nadine has a grisly sense of humor. Has she fixed up that shack you’re renting?“

  „It only leaks when it rains,“ Janna said, shrugging.

  „Like the boat,“ retorted Raven. „It only leaked when it was floating. Now it doesn’t leak at all.“

  Raven’s narrowed eyes told Janna that he disapproved of her summer lodging. Well, there was nothing she could do about that. The price had been right and had included the use of a boat and an outboard engine. Unfortunately, both boat and engine were at the bottom of Totem Inlet.

  „Know any place to buy a used boat?“ Janna asked, then added hastily, „Cheap.“

  „I’ll take care of it,“ Raven said. „Old Nadine has gouged her last tourist.“

  „That isn’t necessary. I can – “

  „Care to flip me for it?“ Raven interrupted smoothly.

  Janna started to argue, took one look at the suddenly hard lines on Raven’s face and decided that now wasn’t the time to object. She had discovered that every time she mentioned Nadine’s boat, Raven lost his sense of humor. Janna knew why. He kept thinking that if he had slept harder or started out to help later or never been at the inlet at all, Janna would have drowned.

  The same thought had occurred to Janna more than once, usually in the small hours of the night, bringing her awake with her heart pounding. It had been very reassuring to feel Raven’s warm presence by her side at those moments, to curl against his body as he gathered her close, to fall asleep knowing that she was safe.

  „No, I don’t care to flip you for it,“ Janna admitted, smiling slightly. „You use the damnedest coins.“

  Raven smiled in return, remembering both Janna’s startled look and the creamy curves of her bottom as he had stroked it. „That leaves dinner to settle.“ He turned toward Hawk. „You two staying with Uncle?“

  „He wouldn’t hear of anything else.“

  „I’ll bet. Uncle has an eye for beauty. Better keep Angel on a short leash. Uncle’s quite the lady’s man.“

  Hawk’s mouth curved in a small smile. „Handsome devil, too. It’s not hard to see where you got your pretty face.“

  Angel burst out laughing. „Hawk, you ought to be ashamed. Uncle is as homely as a muddy clam and you know it. Raven definitely is not.“

  „He’s too small for my taste,“ Hawk said blandly.

  Raven chuckled as he stepped forward and enveloped Hawk in the kind of hard hug that men reserve for brothers or the rare unrel
ated male whose friendship is uniquely valued. „I’ve missed you, Hawk. I’m glad you could get away for a few days.“

  „So am I. We don’t see much of you in Vancouver anymore.“

  „I’ve been – restless.“

  „Yes,“ Hawk said softly. „I was restless, too. Once.“ He looked at Angel. „But no more.“

  Angel looked up at Hawk and smiled.

  If Janna had had any lingering question about Raven’s status in Angel’s life, that doubt vanished. Angel’s smile said silently that Hawk was as deeply rooted in her as her own soul. It was the same for Hawk. The single caressing touch of his fingertip on Angel’s cheek proclaimed that she was a radiance that illuminated every darkness he had ever known.

  Janna looked at Raven and saw his gentle smile as he watched the almost tangible currents of love flowing between his friends. Abruptly a feeling of sadness swept over Janna, a strange, almost overwhelming compassion for Raven. Angel and Hawk were two halves of a very beautiful, very powerful whole. Raven not only accepted that, he celebrated it, loving both of them equally, enjoying the visible evidence of their love for one another.

  I’m not that generous, Janna realized bleakly. Idon’t begrudge what Angel and Hawk have with each other – but I can’t help wanting that kind of love for myself, too. Wanting it until I feel as though I’ve been turned inside out, every torn nerve exposed to salt air. Wanting it until I can’t trust myself to look at Raven and not cry for me, for us.

  For him.

  Because I want it for him, too. Even if it doesn’t happen with me, I want him to have that kind of love, too. I want it even more than I want it for myself. And I can’t help him any more than I can help myself.

  „Janna? What’s wrong?“ Raven whispered.

  Slowly Janna realized that she was leaning against Raven’s hard, warm chest and his arm was unobtrusively supporting her.

  „Nothing new,“ she said, looking up, giving him the best smile she had at the moment. It must not have been very good. His eyes narrowed and he looked at her closely. „I guess it’s all catching up with me,“ she said, waving her hand around vaguely. „Coping with civilization and all that. Eden was… addictive.“