To the Ends of the Earth

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Does it matter?”

  Diego grinned. “Not to me. I think the man just wants a guided tour of the Wind Warrior.”

  “So give it to him.”

  “When?”

  “For the love of God,” Travis snarled. “Now, Diego! Give it to him right now!”

  “Sí, Captain.”

  Diego turned smartly and headed for the stairs, but not before Travis saw his first mate’s knowing smile. Travis swore and looked ruefully at Cat.

  “The things you do to me, Ms. Cochran, sweet Cat, Scots witch, woman. That most of all. Woman.” Then, softly, “Go topside, woman. I’ll be along as soon as my pants fit again.”

  Cat looked and wanted nothing more than to feel Travis naked between her hands, her legs, inside her. With a ragged sound she slipped by him to the door, watching him with eyes that were very dark. She was careful not to touch him.

  She didn’t trust herself to stop with just one touch.

  ELEVEN

  CAT STEPPED out of Travis’s car and turned to look back at him. “Are you sure you won’t come in?”

  “Very sure. I don’t trust myself,” he said with a wry smile. “Diego almost got a real eyeful back on the ship.”

  “Diego isn’t here.”

  “The big circles under your eyes are.”

  “Comes with the territory called self-employment.”

  Travis grunted. “It’s at least three hours before we have to meet Ashcroft. Sleep for two hours and—”

  “Alone?” she interrupted.

  “If I come in with you, it won’t be to watch you sleep.”

  She smiled slowly. “Promise?”

  He laughed despite the hunger pulsing through him each time he thought of pushing into her velvet heat. And he thought of it often, like a teenager who had just discovered sex.

  “Take a nap, Cat. I’ve got plans for keeping you awake later tonight. And that’s a promise. I’ll pick you up in two hours for dinner. Until then, I’ve got some work to do on the ship.”

  Cat stood in her driveway until the growl of the car’s engine dissolved into the rhythmic, powerful sound of the surf breaking below her house. Then she sighed and turned toward the house.

  As soon as Travis was out of sight, she realized that he was right. She was tired to the soles of her feet. Ignoring the fatigue that had become as much a part of her as her gray eyes, she went into her house and walked right past her bedroom.

  If she hurried, she could squeeze in an hour or two of sorting slides and still catch a little nap before dinner.

  I’ve got plans for keeping you awake later tonight.

  Heat snaked through Cat as she remembered the look in Travis’s eyes. She couldn’t wait to find out precisely how he planned on keeping her awake. And she had a few ideas of her own for keeping him awake, things she had heard about but never wanted to try. Until Travis.

  Smiling, she hurried down the stairs to her office on the lower floor of the house, hit the replay button on the answering machine, and began laying out slides on the light table while she listened. There was only one message that mattered. Ashcroft had called off the sunset shoot tonight.

  “Good,” Cat muttered, bending over the light table. “Travis and I can have a peaceful dinner and not have to rush out to meet the platinum blond toad.”

  Less than ten minutes went by before she heard a knock on the outside door, one of two in the house that opened onto the beach stairway. The other was in the kitchen upstairs, next to her bedroom.

  “Cathy?” called a young voice. “You home?”

  “Sure am. The door’s open.”

  An instant later a boy’s head appeared. He gave her a brilliant smile. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” she said, smiling back. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  Jason hesitated. “Uh . . .”

  Electric blue eyes peered out at her from beneath a fringe of heavy black lashes. Black hair fell in soft, unruly curls over his forehead. His skin was tanned, making his lips appear quite pink in contrast. He was saved from mere prettiness by the unusual maturity of his expression and the intelligence that gave depth to his eyes.

  Looking at the boy, Cat knew she wasn’t going to get any work done for a while. She didn’t really mind. She loved Jason as much as she would have loved her own child. Having her love returned with Jason’s own brand of headlong enthusiasm had softened the bleak edges of knowing that she was sterile.

  Pushing away from the light table, Cat held out her arms to Jason.

  Grinning, the boy ran to her, gave her a big hug, and looked up earnestly at her. “The twins were hollering and Mommy was trying to change both of them at once and Daddy’s coming home late and I spilled my juice and—”

  “You sneaked out the back way,” Cat finished.

  He nodded a bit sheepishly.

  “That’s okay, tiger. We all have days like that.”

  She ruffled his hair and went to her desk. As she reached for the phone, she hesitated. Travis had said something this morning about Jason being sick.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Cat asked, looking intently at him.

  “Sure.”

  “No fever?”

  “Nah,” Jason said with a grand gesture. “Only babies get fevers.”

  “Baloney.”

  “Sliced and diced?” he asked eagerly.

  Cat laughed and shook her head. Sliced and diced baloney was Jason’s favorite “madword.”

  “Come here,” she said.

  He trotted over to her. She bent down and put her cheek against his forehead. Jason didn’t feel hot, nor did he look ill.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll see what your mother says.”

  She dialed Jason’s mother and waited for the six rings it usually took Sharon to get to the phone. A breathless voice finally answered.

  “Sharon? Cathy.”

  “Oh Lord. Jason?”

  “Right. Bedtime?”

  “You’re sure?” Sharon asked anxiously.

  “I’m sure.”

  Smiling, Cat hung up. She and Sharon had exchanged so many calls on the subject of Jason that they had it down to a code.

  The small boy whooped and all but danced in place. “Can we go shell-hunting, Cathy, huh? Can we, huh?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Moving quickly, she stacked and put away the slides she had been sorting. The white plastic surface she was working on glowed softly, illuminating the slides from below. Not only did the light table make sorting slides easier, it was much better for the delicate color emulsion than running the slides through a hot projector.

  Someday Cat wouldn’t need to worry about such things. She would take her pictures electronically and store them the same way. But there was a lot of money standing between her and that kind of high-tech freedom.

  “What do you think? We gonna get shells?” Jason asked, watching Cat with big blue eyes.

  “First we’ll do some pictures like we agreed on, okay?” Cat smiled down at him. “It was nice of your mom to dress you in a red T-shirt, clean jeans, and red sneakers.”

  He smiled proudly. “Not Mommy. Me. I remembered you said red was good for pictures.”

  “It’s the best,” Cat said, hugging Jason. “Like you. You’re very smart to remember.”

  Jason wound his arms around her and snuggled in tight. “Where are we going this time?”

  “Bluebird Park. Then Main Beach for a while. Then back here for shells.”

  “Oh, boy! Shells!”

  Cat smiled. At least she wouldn’t be spending another futile sunset with Ashcroft.

  Which reminded her. She should leave a message for Travis.

  “But first I have to make a fast call,” she told Jason.

  She dialed the number Travis had told her was his cousin’s. Nothing answered, not even a machine.

  “We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Cat said.

  Jason was too busy prowling around a small fore
st of camera tripods and lighting equipment to answer. Prowling, but not touching. He knew better. His grown-up friend was very firm about that. If he wanted to be in her office, he couldn’t touch anything that she didn’t hand to him.

  Cat wrote Travis a quick note, stuffed it in an envelope, and put his name in block letters on the outside. As she closed the front door behind herself and Jason, she wedged in the envelope. When Travis came to pick her up for dinner he couldn’t miss it.

  Jason watched impatiently. “Who’s that for?”

  “Travis.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A friend of mine. He might meet us later. You’ll like him.”

  The little boy’s face settled into tight, stubborn lines.

  “Won’t.”

  There was a world of loneliness and jealousy in that single word. Remembering her own feelings when her newborn twin siblings had taken two hundred percent of her mother’s attention, Cat knelt in front of Jason.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “You probably won’t like Travis. Most people don’t like pirates.”

  “He’s a pirate?” Jason asked, interested despite himself. “A really for sure pirate?”

  “Yup.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He sails a black ship,” Cat said, standing again.

  “A really for sure pirate!” Jason crowed, spinning in happy circles. “And I get to meet him! Boy, that’s something baby twins can’t do!”

  “Sure is. Only big kids can play with pirates.”

  “Yippee!” Suddenly Jason stopped spinning and looked at Cat with hope in his eyes. “Does your pirate steal kids? I mean really little kids, like babies?”

  “Um,” she said, swallowing her laughter. “I don’t think so, but we can ask him. Come on, tiger. We’re wasting sunlight.”

  Hand in hand, Jason and Cat headed for her car. He didn’t let go of her hand even when she bent to raise the heavy garage door. He simply ducked beneath the door as it went up.

  “Do I have to wear a seat belt?” he asked plaintively.

  “Only if you want to go with me.”

  He sighed and allowed himself to be strapped in. She fastened her own belt and backed her Toyota up the steep driveway to the street.

  As Cat wove through summer traffic, she planned her first shot for the “A Good Place to Raise Kids” campaign while Jason chattered about a beautiful playground, Disneyland and Magic Mountain and Sea World rolled into one, a place where good kids got to go, a place where no one under seven was allowed. . . .

  By the time Cat got Jason back to the beach in front of her house, the sun was low in the sky. Santa Ana winds had blown through the day, bringing the dry warmth of the Mojave Desert to Laguna Beach, which had been flirting with tropical storms all summer. This summer El Niño, with its sultry heat, violent storms, and huge waves, had come with a vengeance.

  With the “real” photography over, Jason was stripped down to jeans and nothing else. He prowled the tide pools like a small black panther, pawing the sun-warmed water and then emerging triumphantly with a bit of wildlife wriggling on his palm.

  For her own pleasure, Cat caught it all with her camera—Jason’s intensity and intelligence, his curiosity and laughter, his endless delight in the scent and sound and feel of the world around him. She forgot how tired she was, forgot her unspoken promise to Travis that she would take a nap before dinner, forgot everything. The camera was her only reality, a mystical window that allowed her to see the universe condensed into a child’s smile.

  Jason brought her shell after shell, piling them at her feet, pale offerings against the radiance of his smile. She took photos until the rich light was gone. When it was no longer possible to catch all the nuances of his expression, she put away her cameras, lifted the sandy, delighted boy in her arms, and hugged him.

  “What a good trooper,” Cat said. “You’ve earned yourself a hamburger, fries, and a milkshake.”

  “A milkshake, too?” Jason asked, throwing sandy arms around her neck. “Chocolate?”

  “Is there another kind?”

  She shifted the boy’s weight in her arms, trying to find a more comfortable position. No matter what she did, her back and shoulders stilled burned fiercely. Wishing she wasn’t so close to the ragged end of her physical reserves, she set Jason back on his feet in the sand.

  “If you gain another ounce, I’ll need a crane to lift you,” she said, groaning dramatically.

  “That’s because I’m seven,” Jason said, proud to be so big. Then he sighed. “Mom says I’m a little man now.”

  Kneeling, Cat smoothed back the boy’s black curls, revealing the wistful depths of his blue eyes. Though he liked the idea of being grown-up, he wasn’t quite ready to let go of being his mother’s baby. But the arrival of the twins didn’t leave any choice.

  Cat understood the paradox of Jason’s eagerness to grow up and his hurt at no longer being a baby. She had felt the same way at his age, and for the same reason. Eventually she had come to love her own twin siblings, but not right away. Not for several years.

  “Tell you what,” she said, dropping a kiss on Jason’s short nose, “you can be a little man for your mother and a little boy for me. Deal?”

  “Deal.” His smile faded into a serious look. He asked hesitantly, “Does your pirate like chocolate milkshakes?”

  Cat blinked. She was used to the unexpected turns of Jason’s conversations, but this one was more off-the-wall than most. “My pirate?”

  “He looks like a pirate.” Jason stared over Cat’s shoulder. “Do you have a black ship?”

  “That boy knows a pirate when he sees one,” drawled a deep voice behind Cat’s back.

  She turned her head so quickly she almost hit Jason with her flying French braid. “Travis!”

  The delight in her voice was obvious. She didn’t care. It seemed like a very long time since she had seen him, days instead of hours.

  “Do you like chocolate milkshakes?” she asked him.

  Travis sank to his knees next to Cat. Even kneeling, he towered over Jason.

  “I love them,” Travis said. He held his hand out to Jason. “I’m Travis. Are you the boy who gave Cat all those nifty shells?”

  “Yeah.” Jason shook hands in a manner his mother would have approved, little man to big. “Cathy’s too busy taking pictures to find shells, so I do it for her.”

  “It’s a shame that someone can’t sleep for her.” Travis gave Cat a sideways look. “I thought you were going to take a nap.”

  “Ashcroft canceled, Jason appeared, the light was good.” She smiled and shrugged. “No nap, but lots of fine shots.”

  Travis seemed on the point of saying something, then looked at Jason’s eager face and changed his mind.

  “Did I hear dinner mentioned?” Travis asked.

  She smiled apologetically, hoping Travis wouldn’t mind including a lonely boy in their dinner plans.

  “Jason takes his modeling fees in food,” she explained.

  “Um,” Travis said, “that means there will be a third for dinner?”

  Cat touched his arm in silent appeal that he not spoil Jason’s pleasure. “There’s always room for one more.”

  The hard lines of Travis’s face softened into a gentle smile. “As long as that one is Jason, there’s room. I’ll call the restaurant and change the reservations.”

  “Just cancel them,” she said quickly, thinking of last night’s expensive dinner. “Jason’s favorite scarf-and-barf is only a few blocks away.”

  Travis grimaced, looked at the boy’s eager expression, and gave in. “I hope the food isn’t as bad as the description.”

  “It isn’t,” Cat assured Travis with a smile. “It’s worse.”

  Naked, relaxed, warm to her core, Cat lounged chin-deep in the gently steaming water and tried to stay awake. She clenched her jaws against a yawn but didn’t fool Travis. No matter how careful she tried to be, his eyes measured her tiredness with unflinching precision
.

  “Sharon was very grateful to you for getting Jason out of her hair for an evening,” Travis said.

  “She has her hands full and then some. Twin babies are bad enough, but her husband is on the fast track at his accounting firm, so he’s doing eighty-hour weeks. A promotion—and a move, naturally—are in the air. Sharon is going nuts. Not to mention Jason. He was the properly spoiled only child of older parents, and then wham! He’s got two screaming competitors.”

  “Do you take Jason under your wing a lot?”

  “Sure. He’s a wonderful kid, bright and full of energy and mischief. I would have liked . . .” Cat’s voice died before she could put the painful truth into words. She would have liked to have a child like Jason. “Anyway, he and I do just fine together.”

  “I could see that. He didn’t want to share you.”

  “He got over it when you bought him an extra order of fries. Not many boys have a real for sure pirate at their beck and call.”

  Travis laughed. “He’s a crafty one. When we went to the rest room, he asked me if I kidnapped babies.”

  Cat yawned. “He’s got two in mind. His competition.”

  “I picked up on that,” Travis said dryly. “It was as obvious as the fact that you’re falling asleep.”

  “I’m just relaxed.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  Travis turned Cat so that she faced away from him. Strong fingers rubbed her shoulders and back, easing muscles knotted by balancing camera equipment and crouching in odd positions for hour after hour. She relaxed against his strength, letting herself drift. Inevitably, she yawned again.

  “Bedtime for you,” he said.

  “It’s not even nine.”

  “So? You’re yawning.”

  “I yawn every night.”

  “Try sleeping.”

  “I do. Midnight to five. Or four. Depends.”

  His hands stopped. “That’s all?”

  Cat’s only answer was swallowed by a yawn.

  “If you weren’t here with me,” Travis said neutrally, “what would you be doing?”

  “Sorting slides. Duplicating slides. Mailing slides to photo agents. Writing pay-me-or-die letters. Choosing mats and frames for the L.A. showing.” Abruptly Cat sat up straight. “I’ve got to choose the rest of the images for Swift and Sons. They were supposed to go in yesterday.”