To the Ends of the Earth

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Strong arms came around Cat, wrapping her in warmth, pulling her close. Slowly her stiff body softened, accepting the comfort Travis silently gave.

  “The worst of it was that I believed him. When he . . .” Cat’s voice thinned until it broke.

  “You don’t have to tell me any more,” Travis said.

  His voice was as tight as hers, as tight as the arms holding her, wanting to protect her from everything, especially her own memories.

  “I want to tell you,” she whispered. “I have to. I’ve never told anyone what really happened, not even Harrington, but I have to tell you. I want you to understand why I can’t just put my hand in yours and step into the wind with you for a week or a month.”

  Cat took a breath as though preparing to dive into cold water, but she didn’t move away from Travis. His warmth made it possible for her to face the past without flinching.

  “Like I said, it wasn’t much of a marriage to begin with. It’s not that I minded Billy’s other women.” Cat’s lips twisted down. “Sex with him wasn’t so special that I wanted to keep it all to myself.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t bring home something lethal.”

  “He used condoms when he was screwing around. Not for my protection, of course, or even for his own, but for the son I was going to conceive. He didn’t want to infect his dynasty with anything that antibiotics couldn’t cure.”

  Travis said nothing. He knew a few people like Billy, slow learners who hadn’t figured out that promiscuity wasn’t worth the price no matter how many condoms you wore. Sooner or later, everyone paid the piper.

  “The night he found out I was sterile . . .” Cat swallowed and fought to keep her voice level. “That night Billy brought his latest bar girl on board. I was asleep. When I woke up, he was shoving her into bed with me.”

  Travis’s breath came in sharply.

  “When I tried to get out of bed, Billy tore off my nightgown and told me that since I was a dead loss as a wife, I could earn my keep as a whore.”

  “Cat, don’t,” he said in a low voice. “I understand now. I’m sorry.”

  But she kept talking, driven by the need for Travis to understand all of it, the rage and the shame.

  “When I tried to get away, Billy started slapping me, shouting at me that tonight he was going to teach me how to fuck. When I was good enough, he would take me to meet some drinking buddies on the boat anchored next to ours. He couldn’t wait to watch them take me back to front.”

  The muscles in Travis’s arms were like steel, but Cat didn’t notice his fierce tension. She was held in the poisonous coil of memories that still sickened her.

  “I don’t remember exactly what happened after that,” she said hoarsely. “I think I went crazy. Somehow I grabbed the glass shield from a hurricane lamp. It was cold and smooth. I hit him as hard as I could in the face.”

  “I hope you killed the son of a bitch.”

  Cat laughed a little wildly. “No such luck. There was glass and blood everywhere and that drunken slut was screaming with laughter and Billy was cursing and kicking me.”

  Travis stroked Cat’s hair, trying to call her out of the past, but she couldn’t leave it behind yet. She still had to make him understand why she couldn’t run off with him on a moment’s notice, even though she wanted to so much that the thought made her weak with yearning.

  “Somehow I got away from him,” Cat said. “There were boats anchored nearby, but they were full of Billy’s friends. Out in the dark I saw a light from a small boat anchored farther off out to sea, away from the noisy parties. There wasn’t time to lower the dinghy, so I just dove over the rail and started swimming toward that boat.”

  “Was Billy too drunk to lower the dinghy and follow you?”

  “No, but he was looking for me in the wrong place. He thought I’d swim toward shore. I didn’t. I swam straight out to midnight. It was the only place I would be out of Billy’s reach.”

  Travis whispered Cat’s name and gathered her even closer. She shuddered and put her forehead against his chest for a few moments. Then she straightened and kept talking.

  “It turned out that the boat I was heading for wasn’t small after all,” she said. “It was a huge power cruiser strung with lights. And it was a long way off. A long, long way. I thought I was going to drown before I reached it. But I didn’t. I’m a good swimmer.”

  Distantly Cat realized she was trembling all over. She drew a strained breath and laughed oddly. “I’ll never forget the look on Rodney’s face when he first saw me.”

  “Harrington?” Travis asked, surprised.

  “It was his cruiser I swam to. Poor guy. He was entertaining a lady when I came up the sea ladder wearing nothing but salt water and some bruises.”

  Travis wished he could laugh as Cat was laughing, but he couldn’t. A cold rage was choking him.

  I thought I was going to drown.

  He held Cat as he had the first night, rocking slowly, comforting her without words.

  After a time she continued her story. Her voice was steady now, almost calm. The worst of the memories were behind her, bitter words spoken aloud, poison draining away into the past where it belonged.

  And Travis was warming her with his own life, holding her as though he would never let her go.

  “I’ve always wondered how Rodney explained me to his lady,” Cat said.

  “He probably didn’t have to explain. Women of all kinds follow Rod like puppies.”

  “It’s his eyes. He looks for all the world like a lonely teddy bear some child forgot to put away.”

  “Don’t be taken in by those sad brown eyes,” Travis retorted. “Rodney Harrington is about as shrewd as they come.”

  “He’s also very kind. He was so calm, as though strange naked women crawled up his sea ladder five times a night. He wrapped me in a blanket and fed me hot soup. As soon as he figured out what had happened to me, he ordered his crew to weigh anchor for California.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t find Billy and beat the hell out of him,” Travis muttered.

  “I begged him not to. All I wanted to do was get as far away from Billy as I could.” Cat let out a long, long breath and continued in an even tone. “Harrington’s lady was about my size and very sympathetic. I shared her clothes. She even taught me how to cook at sea. When we docked in Acapulco I sold my wedding rings to buy a Mexican divorce. Then I went back on board the yacht and worked my way to California as a cook.”

  “A good one, if the dinner you fixed me was any measure,” Travis said, kissing her hair gently.

  “I wasn’t good at first,” Cat said, smiling even though her lips still trembled with the fading echoes of the past. “I learned a lot that trip. Some of the other passengers asked me to take a picture of them with their Polaroid. They showed me what to do, I did it, and when I saw the image condensing out of nothing on that little piece of cardboard, the hair on my neck lifted. I knew I had found something miraculous.”

  “Photography?”

  “Yes” She looked up at Travis intently, wanting him to understand. “Putting a camera in my hands was like putting a fish in water. I earned my keep cooking, saved until I could buy my own camera, and then worked my tail off until Harrington insisted that I let him represent me.”

  “So that’s how he became your agent,” Travis said. “I always wondered.”

  “I’m good at what I do,” Cat said, her voice smooth and certain. “I’m a dead loss in the baby department, but no man can say I don’t earn my keep as a photographer.”

  A sound came over the water before Travis could speak, a noise like a chain saw. A Zodiac skimmed the surface of the marina toward them. When the inflatable boat reached the pier, the engine cut off suddenly. The black boat coasted smoothly to the stairs beneath the pier.

  In the sudden silence, Travis’s words sounded harsh, almost brutal. “You didn’t keep Billy’s last name.”

  It was a statement, not a question, but Cat answ
ered anyway.

  “No, I didn’t keep anything of his. Not his name, not his rings, not one dime of his damned money. Nothing but my freedom and a few bruises.”

  “What is Billy’s last name?”

  Her head snapped up to look at Travis. His voice belonged to a stranger. His expression was distant, savage.

  Yet his arms were very gentle around her.

  “Nelson. Why?”

  “I sail everywhere,” Travis said, bending down to take Cat’s lips. “Someday I’ll meet him. I promise you.”

  She was too surprised to say anything. Nor would she have known what to say if she could speak. Travis’s combination of leashed violence and tender protectiveness was new to her. It left her feeling confused, off-balance, and . . . safe.

  “Come on,” Travis said as though nothing had happened. “Diego is waiting for us.”

  He led her down the stairs to the water and handed her into the Zodiac.

  “This is Diego,” Travis said, gesturing toward the compact, dark-haired man at the stern of the little boat. “Diego, meet Catherine Cochran. If you behave yourself, she just might let you call her Cathy.”

  Cat smiled and held out her hand. Instead of shaking it as she had expected, Diego kissed her fingers with Old World grace.

  “I always behave,” Diego said in a clear tenor voice, “and most especially I behave for beautiful women.” He smiled, transforming his looks. He had a Mediterranean beauty in his face that only smiling revealed. “And you are very beautiful, señorita. Muy, muy hermosa, like a rose in winter.”

  “Gracias, Diego,” Cat said, wishing her Spanish was up to returning the compliment. The corner of her mouth curled in a slight smile. “Why is it that I look at you and see a string of broken hearts circling the world?”

  Diego’s dark eyes lit with laughter. He looked over to Travis and nodded approval.

  Travis put his hand on the small of Cat’s back in an unconsciously possessive gesture that Diego noted and instantly understood.

  “You see broken hearts,” Travis drawled, leaning down to put his lips on Cat’s auburn hair, “because Diego is a heartbreaker. If you listen carefully, you can hear women crying, too.”

  Cat cocked her head, pretending to listen but actually enjoying the play of light in Travis’s hair. When she spoke it was without thinking, for most of her mind was framing a photo.

  “They don’t cry for you, do they?” she asked Travis in a low voice. “Tears come from hope, and when you go you leave nothing behind, not even the hope that you’ll return. No hope, no tears.”

  The expression on Travis’s face changed, anger and regret and an emotion that could have been pain. Then there was nothing at all but distance and restraint.

  Cat realized what she had said and tried to make a joke of it. “Ah, my secret is out. Your great-grandfather might have been a pirate, Travis, but I come from a long line of Scots witches. Second sight and third as well.” She winked at Diego. “So be on your best behavior, hombres, or I’ll turn you into toads and gingerbread cookies.”

  Diego smiled brilliantly, ignoring the grim lines of his captain’s face. “I am warned, señorita. Only the best for you.” He turned his attention to the engine.

  “Wait,” Travis said.

  Diego froze, his hand on the starter.

  Cat looked at Travis and wondered if he had changed his mind about taking her aboard his ship. She wouldn’t particularly blame him. What she had said about him was thoughtless, nearly cruel.

  The fact that it was also true made it worse, not better.

  “Your cameras,” Travis said.

  “What?” she asked, off-balance.

  “Your cameras are locked in the trunk of my car.”

  “I know. They’ll be safe there, won’t they?”

  “Cat,” he said patiently, “don’t you want to take pictures of my ship? That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  “If it makes you feel better, I’ll get my cameras. But I’ll just throw away whatever I take today.”

  “Why?” Travis asked, startled.

  She looked beyond him to the elegant, powerful ship floating at rest on the water. “Something like the Wind Warrior can’t be taken by storm. I’ll need time to absorb her presence, her lines, her silence.” Cat’s mouth turned down in a self-mocking line. “I know it sounds crazy, but . . .” She shrugged. “That’s the way I work.”

  “Seduction rather than force?” Travis suggested softly, his expression no longer grim.

  “I never thought of it that way, but yes.”

  His finger followed the line of her eyebrows. “Whatever you say, my Scots witch. Diego, take us to the ship.”

  Smiling to himself, Diego started up the engine.

  Cat settled into place and concentrated on the ebony shape that loomed larger with each second. The ship was even more beautiful up close. The feeling of power and endurance and grace was almost overwhelming.

  How will I ever capture that on film? Cat asked herself silently.

  She followed Travis aboard, barely hearing as he described the Wind Warrior’s dimensions and attributes. She was lost in the feel of the ship, the glow of polished brass and new paint, dark rigging and black masts, the muscular bulge of sails furled along the booms. Traditionally ships were referred to as “her,” but there was a masculine potency to Wind Warrior that reminded Cat of the man who walked beside her.

  “. . . fathoms,” Travis concluded.

  “Mmm,” Cat said.

  It was her all-purpose answer when she didn’t want to be distracted. At the moment she was fascinated by the subtle, clean sweep of the railing and wondering which lens would best capture its line.

  Travis stopped, took Cat’s chin in his hand, and forced her to look at him instead of the ship.

  “You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve said, have you?” he accused.

  Cat blinked, called out of her private thoughts about how to capture on film the appearance and reality of the ship called Wind Warrior.

  “Sure I have,” she said. “Two masts, schooner-rigged, thirty meters long at the waterline.”

  He smiled and shook his head in mock despair.

  “Forty meters?” she hedged.

  “Closer, but no prize. I’m glad you aren’t trying to bring my ship alongside a dock.”

  Cat gave him a guilty smile. “You’re right. I was thinking of . . . images. But I’m not going to photograph the Wind Warrior’s exact dimensions or her bilge or her precise speed in a forty-knot wind with following seas and full sail, so what’s the point of remembering all that?”

  “What are you going to photograph?”

  A man’s soul.

  But Cat knew she shouldn’t say that aloud. She had already said more than her share of foolish things to Travis. So she simply shook her head and said, “You’ll see.”

  Travis led her below, saying very little about the ship’s construction and inner dimensions.

  It was just as well. Cat wasn’t listening again. She was running her fingers over hardwoods from every part of the world, rare woods inlaid and polished to make a table or frame a door, the lives and histories of individual trees laid out grain by grain in swirling patterns.

  T. H. Danvers designed and built state-of-the-art racing hulls that were poured and formed and polished to exact computer specifications . . . but his cabin was filled with the traditional, exquisite textures of wood and brass. The sheets on his oversized bunk were made of smooth linen. An antique beveled mirror was set like a diamond in the hull, and the overhead light shone through a carved crystal globe.

  Cat looked around the room again, seeing with a photographer’s eye, missing nothing. At some wordless level she realized that there was no contradiction between the metal masts and the textured richness of the cabin. Both were the culmination of long traditions, both were essentially sensual, both were powerful rather than meek in their beauty. And besides, where was it written that an engineer couldn’t be a pirate
too?

  Smiling to herself, Cat watched the play of light through carved crystal.

  “Talk about the cat that licked up all the cream . . .” Travis said in a low voice. He put his hand behind her head, burying his fingers in the auburn hair that fell loosely down her back. “Share some with me.”

  Cat’s lips parted even as she felt long, strong fingers kneading her scalp. Warmth uncurled along her nerves, the heat that always came when Travis looked at her with blue-green fire in his eyes.

  Hunger leaped inside Travis when she sighed and gave herself to his kiss. His hands moved over her almost roughly, molding her to the hard lines of his body as though he wanted to take her into his very bones.

  It was a long time before Travis lifted his mouth from Cat’s. He started to say something, but the temptation of her flushed lips was too great. He groaned deep in his throat and kissed her again, not stopping until her hips moved against him and her eyes were nearly black with passion.

  Pushing her away was like tearing off his own skin, but he had to do it. There wasn’t enough privacy for what he wanted so much his hands were shaking.

  “Go back up on deck,” he said huskily.

  “Why?” Cat asked, her voice as dazed as her eyes.

  “If you don’t, I’ll take off your clothes and taste every bit of you until you’re hot and wet and crying for me with every breath you take.”

  Hunger shook Cat, a need to equal his.

  Travis saw it. The certainty of her welcome was a fire in his veins.

  “The hell with it,” he muttered, reaching blindly behind him for the open door. “I’ll just have to keep my head enough to muffle your screams.”

  But before he could find the door, Diego was calling to him.

  “Captain? Are you still belowdeck?”

  The sound of footsteps descending the ladder was very distinct. Travis swore softly and spun around with his back to Cat. His body blocked the doorway, concealing her flushed face and misty, hungry eyes from Diego.

  “What is it?” Travis asked curtly.

  Diego stopped just outside the open cabin door and looked at Travis a bit warily. “Some official wants to know how much longer we’ll be anchored here.”