To the Ends of the Earth

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Cat spoke then, her voice as lifeless as her eyes. “I sold all my cameras.”

  Travis didn’t want to believe that he had heard her correctly. Yet he knew he had.

  “Cat.”

  The word was hoarse, an involuntary cry of pain and regret. He didn’t have to ask why she had sold her cameras, her heart, her life’s blood. He knew. He could hear his own voice coldly suggesting it: If you need money so damn bad, you could always sell some equipment. You’ve got enough for three photographers.

  She had done more than sell extra equipment. She had sold her future to buy enough time to have his baby. The baby of a man who had more money than trust. The baby of a man who would have given anything for that child.

  Too little.

  Too late.

  Cat rolled away from Travis, turning her back on him and the world, staring at the far wall without seeing it, seeing nothing at all.

  With a hand that shook, he stroked tangled coils of hair away from her still face, remembering her cheeks flushed with excitement, her gray eyes misty and luminous as she watched him, touched him, laughed with him. Memories like razors sliced through his fear of repeating the past until truth finally bled out, unmistakable, unavoidable.

  She had loved him.

  Do you believe in miracles? I’m pregnant, my love. I’m pregnant! A baby! Travis, my man, my lover, my love. Our baby!

  Head bowed, Travis measured the depth of his loss, her loss, their loss. He sat for a long time, motionless but for his hand smoothing her hair with endless patience, his eyes as dark as hers were pale.

  He didn’t call Cat’s name again.

  When Cat opened her eyes the next day, Travis was there. He had been there every time she awakened, night or day, since he had carried her and Jason beyond the reach of the storm waves. After she told Travis that she sold her cameras, he had said nothing, demanded nothing of her, not even an acknowledgment that she wasn’t alone.

  Travis was simply there.

  Cat ignored him. She didn’t know what he wanted of her. She didn’t want to know. His presence threatened the emotional numbness that was all that protected her from being overwhelmed. She could cope with the rest of the world, after a fashion. But not Travis, not in any fashion.

  “Sharon and Jason are here,” Travis said. “He thinks it’s his fault that you were hurt. Sharon thought if Jason saw you, saw that you were all right, he would feel better.”

  Travis waited, unwilling to ask any more of Cat than he already had, knowing he had no right to ask anything of her at all.

  For the space of several slow breaths, Cat thought of Jason, young and laughing and so very vulnerable.

  “He doesn’t know about—about—” She stopped, unable to talk about her miscarriage.

  “Don’t worry,” Travis said quickly. “All Jason remembers is seeing you reach for him just as the first wave hit.”

  The part of Cat that hadn’t drowned realized that Travis understood that she didn’t want Jason to know about the miscarriage. Deep inside her numbness a faint echo of anger and grief trembled, then faded. Travis had always understood everything about her except the one thing that mattered.

  She had loved him.

  “All right,” she said tonelessly. “Send Jason in.”

  Not until Travis let go of her hand did Cat even realize that he was holding it, had been holding it the whole time, night or day, asleep or awake. It would have disturbed her, if she had been able to feel anything.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  She didn’t answer.

  After a few minutes Travis returned with Sharon and Jason. Cat saw Jason’s strained, too old expression and troubled blue eyes. Emotion rippled beneath her numbness. She was deeply grateful that this small boy was alive.

  “Jason,” she said softly, and held out her hand.

  A smile lit the boy’s face. He ran to her and buried his face against her neck in a fierce hug. Then he pulled back and looked at her with eyes made huge by tears.

  “I th-thought you wouldn’t want to s-see me,” he said.

  Unable to speak, Cat simply shook her head. Her fingers trembled as she pushed thick black curls back from Jason’s forehead and hugged him again.

  “I’m very glad to see you,” she finally said in a voice that was husky from lack of use. “You’re my very favorite little boy.”

  Jason snuggled against Cat and then pulled back, energy overflowing in an electric smile.

  “This is for you,” he said, holding out his hand. “I found it this morning.”

  On the boy’s narrow palm lay a shell that had been rubbed smooth by countless waves and then flung carelessly up on the beach by the storm. The rough outer layer of shell had been completely worn away, leaving bare the pearly layer beneath. What remained was an object stripped to its essential form, revealing the gleaming beauty that had been hidden until time and storm waves peeled the shell to its iridescent core.

  At one time Cat would have itched to photograph the shell. Now it was all she could do to accept it.

  “It’s beautiful,” she managed, looking at the silent plea in Jason’s eyes. “Thank you.”

  Sharon glanced at Jason and then at Travis, who was standing in the doorway. He crossed the room and lifted the boy onto his shoulders.

  “I saw this big ol’ candy machine in the lobby,” Travis drawled. “Bet they have your favorite kind of tooth poison. Watch your head, now. We’re kinda tall, stacked like this.”

  Travis ducked, Jason squealed, and the two of them got through the doorway to the hall. The sound of the boy’s giggles floated back.

  Cat closed her eyes.

  “It isn’t fair,” Sharon said in a low voice. “It just isn’t fair that you should lose your baby to save my son.”

  Cat forced herself to look at the other woman’s clear blue eyes, eyes as troubled as Jason’s had been. Cat tried to smile, to reassure Sharon.

  “Jason is alive,” Cat said. “That’s all the ‘fair’ anyone can expect.”

  “But you—”

  “I’d do it again in an instant,” Cat interrupted. “I love Jason.”

  Tears gathered and slid down Sharon’s cheeks. Cat felt a dim envy for the other woman’s ability to cry.

  “Thank you,” Sharon said shakily. “You saved his life.”

  “Thank the man who carried Jason up the stairs. He saved Jason. I wasn’t strong enough.”

  “If you hadn’t held on until Travis got to you . . .” Sharon took a sobbing breath and squeezed Cat’s hand. “You won’t have to worry about Jason getting into trouble while you get back on your feet. We’re going to my sister’s house in Georgia for a while. I haven’t been able to sleep, knowing the ocean was out there, day and night, waiting. . . .” Her voice broke. “Jason is so small. So terribly small.” She bent and kissed Cat’s pale cheek. “I was told not to stay long, not to tire you out. But thank you, Cathy. Thank you for Jason’s life.”

  After Sharon left, Cat lay and looked at the ceiling. She heard footsteps and knew that Travis was back. She neither moved nor spoke, ignoring him even when he took her hand. Only when Dr. Stone walked into the room did Cat stir.

  “I want to leave,” she said.

  “You would be better off with a few more days of rest,” the doctor said, looking at Cat’s chart.

  “I can rest at home better than I can rest here. Tell the cashier’s office to make up my bill.”

  Surprised, Dr. Stone looked from Cat to Travis.

  Cat’s emotions might have been frozen, but her intelligence wasn’t. She knew instantly that Travis was paying for her hospital room. Something like anger flickered in her pale eyes as she turned on Travis.

  “Rich man,” she said in a smooth, empty voice, “I’ll sell myself on street corners before I take one dime of your money.”

  Cat turned away from Travis and looked back to Dr. Stone. “I’m leaving whether you agree or not.”

  There was no emotion in Cat�
��s voice, just certainty. She would not stay here one moment longer than she had to. Once she was home, she wouldn’t have to tolerate Travis by her bed, his blue-green eyes following her every movement, counting each breath she took, each heartbeat, searching for a way beneath the ice that was her only refuge.

  Dr. Stone hesitated, then gave in to the inevitable. “If you feel you must leave, I can’t stop you.”

  “You told me she should stay here for several more days,” Travis protested.

  “She should. But I’m not going to tie her to the bed.”

  He hissed a word under his breath. He knew Cat’s true reason for wanting to get out of the hospital. She didn’t want to be near him.

  “If you will excuse us, Mr. Danvers,” Dr. Stone said, “I would like to examine my patient.”

  Without a word he stood and walked out of the room. As soon as he found a public phone, he punched in a long string of numbers and started counting the initials scratched on the battered steel face of the phone.

  Harrington picked up his very private number on the second ring. “Well?” he demanded.

  “What would you do if it wasn’t me?” Travis asked.

  “Hang up.”

  Travis almost smiled despite his unholy turmoil of anger, pain, and desperation. “Cat’s physical condition is better than we had any right to expect.”

  “Good. What about the rest?”

  “She saw Jason this morning, and even managed a smile for him.”

  Harrington let out an explosive breath. “Then she’s coming out of it.”

  “You couldn’t prove it by me. She’s checking herself out of the hospital so she won’t have to put up with me anymore.”

  “Shit.”

  “Amen. I’ll play it your way for a few more days, just like I promised. Then I’ll change the game. And you’ll help me, just like you promised.”

  “Travis . . . ah, hell. What do you want me to do?”

  “Get her aboard my ship.”

  “And then?”

  “We’re in the wind. Together.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “She’s hiding from what happened, from me, from herself. I can’t reach her. But I know what can. Her cameras. She loves them more than anything else on earth.”

  Especially Travis Danvers.

  “You said she sold them,” Harrington objected.

  “I tracked them down. They’re aboard the Wind Warrior, along with the lab I designed and a computer setup that will let Cat do anything she wants with the images she takes. Thanks to your contact at Nikon, she’ll have a chance to test state-of-the-art digital cameras and software, as well as the old-fashioned kind.”

  “Old-fashioned? Swear to God, Fred would kill you if he heard that. His autofocus zoom lenses are to cameras what your hulls are to racing—innovative and unbeatable.”

  “Good. I have a full set of his latest, from micro to macro to stuff that could count rocks on the moon.”

  For a time Harrington didn’t say anything. Travis could fairly hear his friend’s brain humming.

  “Cathy will have a fit when she finds out you bought her all the gear,” Harrington said finally.

  “A fit would be welcome. It would tell us that we’re both alive.”

  Harrington made an involuntary sound of sympathy at the pain tightening Travis’s voice.

  “No point in digging any deeper a hole than you already have,” Harrington said. “I’ll just tell her Nikon is so impressed with her photography that they want her to test lenses for them. Swear to God, the way her show is going in L.A., camera types are going to be beating down her door with equipment to use.”

  “The show is going well?”

  “They can’t hang the stuff fast enough. Swift and Sons are walking around rubbing their hands and mumbling about Catherine Cochran, the twenty-first-century Stieglitz.”

  “Have you told her?” Travis asked.

  “Not yet. I’m waiting until it’s sold down to the bare walls, then I’m going to drop the good news on her.”

  “Don’t wait too long. Time is running out.”

  “Time or your patience?” Harrington retorted.

  “Same difference. Three more days, Rod. Then we do it my way.”

  “On two conditions.”

  Travis bit off a curse. His temper was raw and he knew it. And he knew why. “What?”

  “Dr. Stone has to approve of Cathy being on her feet and at sea.”

  “She does.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The usual way. I asked. If you don’t believe me, call the doctor yourself.”

  “I will, if only to shut my conscience up.”

  “You didn’t do anything to Cat.”

  “That, boy-o, is a matter of opinion. My second condition is that if you lure Cathy out of her shell, and she still doesn’t want you, you’ll put in to the first port and let her go. Alone.”

  For a time Travis couldn’t force any words past the fist squeezing his throat shut. He closed his eyes and remembered the horrifying sight of Cat hurtling down her stairway, Jason blithely climbing up, and a cold wall of water rising, rising, rising, then exploding over them.

  He had come so close to losing her, so damned close. He didn’t know if he could lose her again, feel again the cold black wings of loss wrapping around him, freezing him all the way to his soul.

  “Travis? I mean it. If I had known what doing that damned book would cost Cathy, I never would have thrown the two of you together. If she wants to walk, let her. Let her find a man she can love. She deserves to be loved, and loved well.”

  When Travis finally could speak, his voice sounded like a stranger’s.

  Like Cat’s.

  “If that’s what she wants.”

  For three days Cat didn’t allow anything to disturb her solitude. The answering machine picked up all incoming calls. She returned none of them, listened to none of the messages. She simply lay on her bed and let the sun and darkness wash over her.

  Though Travis didn’t come to the house, she knew he was next door, just a few steps away. Each dawn she saw him swimming. When she watched him, she wondered if his nights were like hers.

  When he falls asleep, does he stumble into the hole at the center of the universe? Does he wake up sweating, cold, disoriented?

  When Cat heard her own thoughts, she would have laughed bitterly if she had the energy.

  Rich men don’t have nightmares. They don’t care enough about anything to let it disturb their sleep.

  The phone rang. Dully Cat focused on it. She knew who it would be. Only one person would call her at dawn.

  Harrington. Swear to God. I don’t have the energy to talk to him. But I should. It’s the least I owe him.

  Guilt forced Cat to struggle to the surface of her lethargy long enough to answer the phone. She knew she should have called Harrington the day she got out of the hospital, or any of the days since.

  “Hello,” she said, and wondered if her voice sounded as strange to the rest of the world as it did to her.

  “Cathy?”

  It was Harrington’s voice. His concern was as clear as the rosy light of dawn filling her room.

  “Must be a wrong number,” Cat said. “This is Cochran.”

  Static crackled softly on the line, filling the silence.

  “I talked to Dr. Stone,” Harrington said bluntly.

  Dimly Cat wondered how he had gotten the doctor’s name. Travis, probably.

  “Are you still there?” Harrington asked.

  She felt a wild impulse to laugh or scream. Of course I’m not here. I drowned. Didn’t Travis tell you?

  “Cathy—damn it!—say something!”

  “Hello, green angel,” she said without inflection. “How are you. I’m fine, thank you. Just fine.”

  There was a startled pause before Harrington collected himself. “Good. Then there’s no reason why you can’t finish the Danvers assignment, is there?”

 
; Cat stared at the phone, speechless. Something finally stirred beneath her indifference.

  “You’re crazy,” she said. “I sold my cameras.”

  “Not to worry. It’s all taken care of. You’re a famous photographer now. Nikon is dying to lend you equipment.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t someone from Swift and Sons call you?”

  “No. I don’t know. My messages are . . . piled up somewhere.”

  “Your show sold out,” Harrington said cheerfully. “You’re back-ordered for more. You’re a sixty-thousand-dollar hit, Cochran. And Ashcroft’s publisher came through. If you don’t like the gear that was sent out to the Wind Warrior, buy a different camera. Hell, buy twenty. Money doesn’t matter anymore. You’re over the hump.”

  Cat knew she should feel something, if only relief. She could pay off the hospital, the signature loans, the credit cards, her mother’s expenses, education loans for the twins, everything.

  But Cat felt nothing, nothing at all, except a certainty that she couldn’t set foot on the Wind Warrior again, couldn’t look at Travis again, couldn’t see her own emptiness reflected in his eyes.

  “No.”

  “Cathy,” Harrington said softly, “I’ve never asked you to do something for me, have I?”

  “No . . .” she said, swallowing, afraid of what he would say next.

  “I called in a lot of debts to get the Danvers book going. I didn’t say anything before because there wasn’t any way you could do the work. But Dr. Stone said you were well enough to spend a month shooting the Wind Warrior under sail, as long as you took it easy the first week.”

  “Angel—” Cat’s voice broke.

  She swallowed and tried again, desperately wanting to refuse Harrington but knowing she owed him so much more than a few photos. Her mind raced frantically, trying to find a way out of the trap.

  “On one condition,” she said finally. “That Tra—” Her voice broke again. She couldn’t say his name aloud. It was bad enough to hear it in the numbing silence of her mind. “Only the crew,” she managed. “No one on board but me and the crew. No one.”

  “Done,” Harrington said quickly. “Be at the harbor in an hour.”