“You want something else before I go to school?” Jason asked, licking his fingers. The cocoa mustache he wore gave his face a rakish air that went well with his tumbled black curls.
“No, thanks,” Cat said. “This is more than I’ve eaten for a week.”
He frowned. “You’re gonna get skinny.”
“Slave driver.”
She took another piece of toast and honey from the haphazard heap in the center of the tray. At first she nibbled hesitantly, then with more confidence. It actually tasted good. She reached for the pot of cocoa, only to have Jason grab it first.
“Mom said you’re not s’posed to lift anything.” Frowning intently, he poured more cocoa.
“Thank you,” she murmured, discreetly licking up dribbles of chocolate before they ran off the cup onto the bed.
The phone rang.
Cat’s heart turned over in the instant before she remembered that it couldn’t be Travis. He was in the wind, gone as completely as yesterday’s sunlight.
Automatically she started to get up and answer the phone. Then she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to get out of bed, much less take on the flights of stairs to the workroom. She had left the phone there yesterday, because it was heavier than a cup of tea, which was her maximum weight-lifting range.
“I’ll get it,” Jason said, racing off.
He came back in a few minutes. “It was Mom. She’s going to the store and wants to know if you need anything.”
Cat reached for the tablet on her bedside table and tore off the sheet that held the grocery list. “Could you put my purse on the bed, please?”
Jason grabbed her purse and plunked it down on the bed next to her. His smile was as bright as the sun. The idea of being her legs hadn’t lost its attraction yet. She hoped it wouldn’t. After seeing the Wind Warrior sail into the night, she needed Jason’s lighthearted company.
Cat fished out her checkbook, wincing when her scorched hand scraped against the zipper. The burns were more startling than painful. Travis had yanked her hand out of the flames before any blisters formed. All she had were streaks of red skin that would split and peel away in a few days, like a sunburn.
She wished that the rest of her would heal as quickly.
“Give this to your mom,” Cat said, handing Jason the check and the list, “and tell her thank you very much. When you get home from school you can teach me how to play Go Fish.”
“Oh boy!” He turned and raced toward the back door.
“Wait!” Cat said. She looked out the bedroom window at the advancing ranks of waves. “The tide’s up. Use the front door.”
“That’s okay. I just go between waves.”
Jason was out the back door before she could object. Anxiously she watched him dart down the stairs to the beach. Because her bedroom jutted out beyond the kitchen deck and the bluff itself, she could see the bottom of her stairs as well as the bottom of Jason’s stairs.
The boy waited on the last step of her stairs until a wave retreated. Then he scurried across the beach and up his own stairs before the next wave even got close to his feet.
Relieved, Cat lay back on the bed. After a few moments sleep finally came, washing over her in a black tide, carrying her out to sea.
TWENTY
THE PHONE rang, waking Cat. She was halfway out of bed before she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to get up at all. She lay back and wondered if she had remembered to turn on the answering machine.
She hadn’t. Between rings, other sounds came from the kitchen. A cupboard door closed. The refrigerator closed. Something thumped on a shelf.
“Sharon?” Cat called as the phone rang for the fourth time.
“Just putting away groceries,” Sharon called from the kitchen as the phone rang again. “Do you have a phone with you?”
“No. And I forgot to turn on the answering machine.”
“I’ll get it after I answer this call.”
A few minutes later Sharon appeared in Cat’s bedroom. She was carrying the telephone in one hand and the answering machine in the other.
“That was the framer,” Sharon said. “They’ve got some finished stuff for you to look at.” She looked around the room. “Where’s the phone outlet?”
“There.” Cat pointed to the wall by her bed. “Thanks. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.”
“Hey, no problem. It’s great to have another adult to talk to.” Sharon plugged in the phone, connected the answering machine, and dusted her hands off on her jeans. “What else needs to be moved around?”
“Nothing urgent. When I’m more rested I’m going to sort and mail some slides.” Cat grimaced. “Correction. I’ll sort and you’ll mail.” She rubbed her eyes and looked at her friend and neighbor. “Sharon, are you sure you have enough time to run my errands?”
“All the time you need.” She pushed a wisp of chestnut hair behind her ear and tucked in her blue-striped blouse. “If it hadn’t been for you these last four months, Jason and I would have driven each other crazy. Tonight I’ll send Steve over to move your bed right next to the window. Then you’ll be able to watch the ocean and the beach and whoever wanders by.”
“Thanks.” Cat laughed oddly. “Seems like that’s all I’ve been saying to you lately. Thanks and thanks and thanks.”
“So enjoy,” Sharon said, smiling. “Heaven knows you’ve done enough for me. It’s about time you were on the receiving end.”
The house seemed very empty when Sharon left. Normally Cat would have gone to her workroom and sorted slides, or she would have sat at her desk to handle the endless correspondence and bookkeeping chores.
But nothing was normal anymore. She was confined to her bed with only her own thoughts for company. She couldn’t even turn to her cameras for consolation and distraction. All she could do was lie in bed and try not to think.
It didn’t work.
Her thoughts kept jumping between Travis and check-books, the cramps that coiled in her abdomen, and the spotting that terrified her now that she understood its cause.
When thinking about those things became too painful, there was always money to worry about. Or lack of it. In four days she would have to write out checks for loans and credit card companies, the twins and her mother. The amount Cat had to pay would exceed her combined checking and savings accounts by $12,650, give or take a few dollars.
If Cat had been able to work, the deficit would have been a hill to climb rather than Mount Everest. She had lined up corporate jobs that were worth more than twelve thousand, but she would have to cancel them.
If the Big Check from Energistics didn’t come, she didn’t know what she would do.
Her stomach clenched.
Don’t worry about money, Cat told herself quickly. It’s bad for the baby.
Staring at the ceiling, she repeated the doctor’s advice about not worrying. Then she wondered why it wasn’t possible to think of nothing at all.
Memories twisted through her like black lightning, Travis and love and anger, memories burning her until she twisted as though trying to escape the relentless pain.
Crying would have helped, but tears were beyond her. Travis had left her nothing, not even hope. Without hope there could be no tears.
The phone rang, startling in the silence. Cat started to get up, remembered, and groped for the receiver without sitting up.
“Hello,” she said hoarsely.
“Is that you, Cochran?”
Cat cleared her throat. “Hi, green angel. It’s me.”
“Didn’t sound like it. Is Danvers around? I called his cousin’s house, but no one answered.”
Fighting her emotions, unable to speak, Cat hung on to the phone until her hand ached.
Slowly she rallied herself. She would have to get used to hearing Travis’s name unexpectedly. She would have to get used to knowing that she would never again wake up next to his solid warmth, never again see his eyes brilliant with passion, never again see his
lips smiling as he bent to kiss her, never again taste the salt-sweet flavor of him, never again. . . .
“Cochran? You there?”
“Yes.” Cat forced herself to swallow past the vise of loss gripping her throat. “I guess I’m a little fuzzy. You finally caught me napping.”
Harrington hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said, sounding anything but. “Just fine.”
He made a sound that said he wasn’t convinced.
Cat took a deep breath. She had to tell Harrington something. At the very least she must tell him that The Danvers Touch was a write-off unless the publisher would be satisfied with the photos she had already taken.
“Rodney?” she managed.
“I’m sitting down,” Harrington said dryly. “Go ahead.”
“Travis is in the wind. I’ll send you the slides I’ve taken for the book. If they aren’t enough, you’ll have to get another photographer.”
The words tumbled out as though by speaking quickly Cat could get it all said and over with before Harrington suspected how she felt.
“Hey,” Harrington said gently, “not to worry. Danvers gets restless, he leaves, he comes back.”
“Not this time.” Cat’s voice was very clear, very certain.
There was a long silence followed by a sigh. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m working on it.”
“That’s the ticket. Work. I’ll line up a few foreign gigs for you. In fact, just this morning I was talking to Miller in Paris and—”
“No,” she interrupted.
“What? Why not? You have something against Frenchmen?”
Cat hung on to the phone and thought of the lies she could tell her green angel. But of all the people in the world, she owed Harrington the truth. He had helped her when she crawled out of the sea, a naked stranger badly needing kindness, refuge. He had given them to her without hesitation or question and never asked for one thing in return.
“My doctor told me to stay off my feet for a while,” she said, her voice flat. “No work allowed.”
There was a shocked silence.
“It’s just temporary,” Cat continued. “I’ll call you when I can take assignments again.”
“Cochran, what the hell is going on?”
There was no way to duck it. No way to finesse it. No way to ignore it.
“I’m pregnant,” she said baldly. “And since I want to stay that way, I have to spend some time in bed.”
“Pregnant! Sweet Jesus. What the hell were the two of you think—” Harrington bit his tongue and managed to swallow the rest of his comment.
Cat smiled despite her own pain. “Don’t sound so horrified.”
“Shocked, not horrified, and only because Travis is a damned fanatic on the subject of unwanted, uh, that is . . .”
“Hey,” she said. “Don’t worry. I thought I was sterile. This baby is a miracle.”
“Some miracle. You’re flat on your back when you most need to be working.”
“Nobody said miracles were convenient.”
Yet Cat was smiling. Just the thought of being pregnant made her emotions lift with delight at her own unexpected fertility, the miraculous gift growing inside her womb. With that she could survive anything.
Even a rich bastard with a velvet drawl.
“Does Danvers know?” Harrington asked bluntly.
“Yes.”
“Then why in God’s flaming hell did he leave you!”
“Ask him when you find him. If you find him.”
“I will. And he’ll tell me, if I have to hire someone to hold him while I beat the truth out of him. No one treats you like that and gets away with it. No one. Not even my best friend.” Harrington made a disgusted sound. “Especially my best friend. To think I hoped he and you would . . . ah, shit. I’m sorry, Cochran. I wish I’d never thought of a book about a son of a bitch called Danvers.”
“You shouldn’t have any regrets,” Cat said. “I don’t. Everybody should ride a wild, breaking wave at least once.”
There was a long silence before Harrington asked, “Do you need anything?”
“Just the check from Energistics.”
There was another silence.
“That’s why I called,” he said reluctantly. “Energistics is tits-up in the bankruptcy court. They’re paying their debts at six cents on the dollar. Our lawyer is filling out claim forms right now.”
Cat heard little beyond the word “bankruptcy.”
“Cochran? You still there?”
“Yes . . .”
“What about the L.A. show? Are you ready?”
“There’s a batch of prints ready at the framers,” she said mechanically. “A lot more still to go. I haven’t had time to select mats and frames.”
“So let the gallery do it. They never like what the artist chooses anyway.” Harrington hesitated, swore under his breath, and plunged on. “I know you were counting on that Energistics check.”
“I’ll manage. I always have.”
“You weren’t pregnant. Surely Travis owes—”
“No.”
A single word. Nothing more. Nothing more was needed.
“Then I’ll give you—” Harrington began
“No,” Cat interrupted again. “Not Travis. Not you. Not anyone. I earn my own keep.”
She heard the echo of her own voice, as savage as Travis’s had been when he offered her the check for a million dollars.
Kept woman.
Whore.
The memory enraged Cat, but Harrington had done nothing to deserve her fury. She closed her eyes and worked very hard to keep her voice calm.
“But thank you anyway, green angel. I appreciate the offer. I appreciate even more that you care enough to make it.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Harrington said after a moment. “When you feel better.”
Cat didn’t answer. As far as she was concerned, the subject was closed.
“Cathy . . . ?” He sighed. “Take care. I’ll call you soon.”
“Sure,” she said mechanically. “’Bye.”
The phone clicked back into its cradle.
For a long time there was no sound but that of her own breathing and the muted voice of the sea. Cat lay on the bed and stared at the two beautifully framed prints that hung on the wall on the opposite side of the bedroom. She had been so eager to show them to Travis, but she had made herself wait until the prints were properly matted and framed.
Now they were ready.
And now he was gone.
The first print had been blown up to life size. It was a close-up of Travis that she had taken the night he carved Jason’s boat. Light from the gooseneck lamp slanted across Travis, striking gold out of his hair, making the color of his eyes the jeweled blue-green of fine Brazilian tourmaline. His intensity, concentration, and intelligence were as vivid as his eyes. Light bathed his hands, revealing the fine scars, the strength, the tension of his lean fingers holding the unyielding block of ebony, the steely flash of the knife coaxing dark curves from wood.
The photo was so real Cat kept feeling that if she called his name, Travis would look up at her and smile.
The second print was as big as an open newspaper. It was one of the shots she had taken the first time she had seen the Wind Warrior, before she knew the ship’s name or creator. In the print the sun blazed across half the darkening sky. The ship was a shape out of ancient legend, ebony grace and power, daring to sail across the incandescent eye of God.
It was an extraordinary image, one of the best Cat had ever taken. And there was no one to share it with.
She closed her eyes, yet still she saw the Wind Warrior flying through twilight into gathering night. Emotions raked through her, shaking her.
She wanted to hate Travis.
And she knew she couldn’t.
Anger, rage, fury—yes, Cat could feel all of that and more for Travis, emotions she had no easy labels for. But hat
e?
No, not that.
He had created too much beauty. He had taught her what passion was.
I can give you a chance to run before the storm, to feel ecstasy in every motion, every touch, and when the storm sweeps down, I’ll be there. Let me love you, Cat.
Travis had been a fire burning in the icy center of night. She had known his dangers, yet she had chosen to stand too close to his flames.
Her fault, not his.
And when all was said, when the last word was buried beneath silence and ice, there was the fact that Travis had given her a beauty few women ever knew. For a time she had been a part of his fierce and tender fire, as graceful and wild as flame itself, burning with him. Now the time of fire was gone, flames scattered in darkness and wind, nothing left but the memory of warmth . . . and a single ember hidden inside her, fighting to live.
That ember deserved its chance to burn.
Slowly Cat turned to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and pushed in seven numbers. There were three rings before a woman answered.
“Tidewater Auction House, may I help you?”
Cat wrote out the last check, sealed the last envelope, licked the last stamp. Then she lay back on the heaped-up pillows and stared at the stack of envelopes. The credit card companies would be held at bay for a month. The signature loans would have to wait. So would the rent, the processor, and the framer.
She would worry about them next month. She would worry about a lot of things next month, but not now.
Not now.
Today she would be grateful that tuition and trousseau were paid for and she had enough money left in the bank to live on for three weeks. Maybe even four, if she was very, very careful. If that wasn’t enough . . . well, somehow she would find a way to keep her head above water.
I’m a good swimmer, she thought. It will work out. I’ll make it work.
Cat eased herself onto her side, pressed an extra pillow against her abdomen, and tried to ignore the cramps that gripped her. She kept telling herself that the spotting had eased up in the long days she had spent in bed. She didn’t know if she believed it.
To the Ends of the Earth Page 28