Fire in the Wind

by Alexandra Sellers

  * * *

  Smith felt the engines start up only a minute or two after the stateroom door had closed on the tall figure of her abductor. The powerful engines were close; their throbbing pulsed through her body where she lay on the bunk, making her head throb, too. He had tied her bound hands to a small handgrip at the head of the bed. She had the choice to sit up or lie down. Her jaw ached unbearably. The gag that held her mouth open was still tightly bound behind her neck. Smith would have given a million dollars at that moment for the privilege of being able to close her jaw.

  Her eyes had pleaded with him again, as he tied her to the bunk, to remove the gag, silently promising utter docility if he gave in, but the dark man had shaken his head and said again, "You think you wouldn't, but you would. As soon as I was out that door you'd be screaming the place down."

  She wondered if he was speaking from experience gained on previous kidnappings or from an estimate of her character. When she thought of it, of course she would have to be a fool not to try to attract some attention while they were still in port. No doubt he was right. A promise given to a kidnapper would not have bound her. She would have screamed if he had removed the gag.

  She would scream right now, before they moved too far out to sea, if only she could get the gag off by herself. She could see by the moving lights through the porthole that they had already begun to move.

  Abruptly the noise of the engines died, and silence settled around her. They were under sail. Shulamith fought her way awkwardly to a sitting position on the bunk and lifted up her bound hands.

  He had given her a little leeway: the rope tying her to the small handgrip was about eighteen inches long. She could lie down without having to stretch her arms over her head, and she could move her hands from her lap to, about shoulder level when she sat up. But she could not reach the knot of the gag with both hands at once, and she could not, even with a great deal of pain, pull the gag down over her lower jaw. What she might be able to do, she discovered, was slide the gag around, so that eventually the knot would be within reach.

  It burned her skin and hurt her mouth, but worst of all was that fact that the knot tied under her long hair had somehow also incorporated a chunk of hair. Which would have to be pulled out by the roots if she was going to get the knot within reach of her fingers.

  It was more achingly painful than she could have dreamed of in a hundred nightmares. And a short, sudden jerk was impossible: she had to settle for a sustained pressure, a slow tearing that made her head ache and a tortured scream rise like bile in her throat.

  The stateroom door opened suddenly, and her pain and tear-filled eyes swept up and locked with the piercing gaze of her black-clad abductor. He took in everything with a look, and then with a muttered curse he stepped to where she half sat, half lay along the bunk bed.

  For the second time in that awful night Smith was suddenly aware of the thinness of the nightdress that covered her body. Her breasts were voluptuously outlined by the twisted bodice now, and in her struggle with the gag the skirt had ridden up around her thighs, revealing all the length of her slim pale legs.

  She shrank away from him as he approached, his gaze hooded. Then he stood for a moment looking down at the red wrists that had strained against the bonds, at the twisted gag wet with her saliva, at the damp red hair on her forehead and cheeks.

  "Damn," he said apologetically, and not without admiration. "What were you going to do? Climb out of the hatch and swim home? And I nearly took that gag off, even against my better judgment." He paused. "Maybe it would have been better all round if you had escaped," he said.

  She couldn't make sense of that and didn't try. He took a small knife out of his pocket, and that drove every other thought out of her head, because surely, surely he was going to cut her free?

  He cut her hands free first, put the knife away in a pocket and lifted her heavy hair to find the knot of the gag. Involuntarily Smith winced as the motion pulled against the hair knotted into the scarf.

  Her captor opened his eyes in surprise, but in the next instant they were angry slits as he caught sight of the lock of hair, and the telltale angry red of her scalp and neck under it.

  He swore violently, so that she jumped. But he bit back further comment, and with a gentleness that startled her in a man so tensely powerful, he bent to undo the knot. But it was stubborn, and for Smith these last few minutes of near freedom were the worst, impatience on top of everything else driving her closer than she had yet been to the edge of madness.

  "Almost there," he said in a deeply soothing voice, and she was reminded of the way people talk to wild animals, calming them with speech. "Almost there," he said again, his deep voice drawing out the vowels almost musically, and she caught her breath in a tiny sob, feeling as though a gentle knowing hand stroked her nerves.

  The voice continued as he sank onto the bunk beside her, but she no longer heard the words. She was hearing only the deep resonance of a voice that touched her deepest self, that spoke without language to a part of her that understood without language, that had never needed language.

  When the gag was finally unknotted he removed it gently from her face, and then his hands soothingly massaged her aching jaw, and the dark eyes smiled down at her.

  In the most extraordinary, unbelievable way she suddenly wanted him to kiss her. Her breath caught, and her sore lips parted under the thumbs that stroked her cheeks, her neck, and her eyes locked with his, and she needed his lips on her.

  "God!" he whispered as he saw the look, and she felt the shock of comprehension—and something else—jolt through his body to the hands still upon her throat.

  She was someone else, she was not herself. She had neither volition nor conscious thought, only need and the memory of his voice in the pit of her stomach. Hypnotized, she lifted her face to him, and did not know her name.

  She saw that he wanted to resist the compulsion that was now between them like a physical thing, and dimly she wondered why. She saw him battle against it and lose. Then his dark head bent, and his lips covered hers.

  She gave herself up to solace with a long sigh, relaxing against his body like an animal that has learned to trust implicitly. Never in her life cquld she remember such comfort. The strong hands at her throat slid into her hair and encircled her head, so that she felt weightless, as though she need do nothing, not think, not breathe, ever again....

  Afterward she would try to believe that she came to her senses herself, that it was her own reason and not the fact that he lifted his lips and drew his head away that caused her brain to kick into action, caused her suddenly to push and struggle and jerk so violently away from his kiss that she cracked her skull against the bulkhead.

  She stared at him, her breath coming in shallow gasps as though she were about to have a hysterical fit.

  "Don't touch me!" she commanded in a catlike hiss. She could not control her voice. "Don't ever touch me again!"

  He stood up, looking at her for a long, considering moment, his own breathing unsteady. Then he turned and left the room without a word. Dimly she saw the deadbolt turn. Dimly she realized what it meant—what she could see, she could turn.

  Her first thought was of escape, and Smith scrambled up and looked out the porthole. A glance showed her that there was nothing to see except water and sky, the winking skyline of Vancouver, and higher up, Grouse Mountain silhouetted against a pink sunrise. She was an excellent swimmer, but she knew from long experience that the water of Georgia Strait was very cold. In her present condition she wouldn't be able to swim any distance in that water. She needed to take time to think.

  Smith sighed, turned exhaustedly away from the view and slid off the bunk. Then she stopped abruptly, staring, as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror that hung on a door.

  Her face was filthy, grimed with tears and sweat. On one of her cheekbones a long graze was lightly crusted with blood. Her turquoise eyes were nearly black with a haunted look that reminded her o
f pictures of herself at the unhappy age of nine, and they were red and bloodshot. On both sides of her mouth a raw redness that the gag had caused stained her skin, and across her finely tapered chin was a black smear of grease. Her hair clung in damp tendrils to her forehead, ears, cheeks and neck, and fell over her shoulders and down her back past her waist in thick rat's-tail tangles. The white eyelet lace of her bodice was torn revealingly over her breasts, and the soft green cotton of the skirt was stained and dirty.

  She looked awful, and her mirrored image was a sharp and brutal reminder of what had happened tonight and of what might yet happen. Her father—where was he now? A hollow sob rose from deep within her, and Smith pressed a fist against her teeth to hold it back.

  He had kissed her. After doing this to her, he had kissed her! She wanted to be sick, or scream. She wanted to claw his eyes out, to beat him with her fists, to pour out her suddenly overwhelming anger and hatred on his head. Whirling with a force that made the cloth of her nightdress whip around her legs, not even trying to move silently, Smith turned the bolt, pulled open the door and leapt up the companionway to the cockpit.

  He was between the hatch and the wheel, his right hand on the wheel, his left stretching out to adjust the genoa sheet. Above her the mainsail and the genoa billowed out on two sides like wings: the wind was blowing from astern. The man turned his head toward the noise she made, his dark eyes narrowed, but she was on him like a wildcat before he could move.

  "What the...?" he exploded in surprise, while Smith, half on his chest, half on his arm, clutched at his hair and clawed him. Immediately he loosed the wheel and grabbed at her.

  She saw her chance. Reaching out with her free hand she jerked the wheel hard to starboard. She heard the moaning thwack of the boom sweeping over in instant response to its changing angle to the wind, while under her her captor lost his balance.

  They fell together with an awkward force that nearly threw her overboard. Smith was an experienced sailor, and she caught herself on the deck ropes. Hoping her abductor was unconscious, but not wasting time to find out, she scrambled over his prone body to the wheel.

  He was not unconscious. Catching her ankle, he brought her down on the deck and flung himself full length on her.

  "You bloody fool!" he shouted in her ear. "This is a shipping lane! Do you want to get yourself killed?" His body was heavy on her, and she was winded by her fall; she didn't answer. In another moment the dark man was on his feet and jerking her up after him. With a grip so strong his muscles were quivering he held her against him, one arm behind her back, and grasped the wheel.

  The sails were luffing badly, and maliciously she hoped they would tear. But with another shuddering whack the mainsail moved to catch the wind again, and the big boat was no longer at the mercy of the battering waves but running before the wind.

  His angry eyes were on her as he took his arm away from her body, but he kept the merciless grip on her wrist behind her back.

  "Get below," he said through his teeth. "Any more tricks like this one and I'll tie you to the goddamned mast."

  The genny was still luffing, and he eyed it impatiently. "Get below," he repeated sharply.

  Suddenly Smith knew, as clearly as if he had told her, that the situation was not at all to this man's liking. Whatever his plans had been, she was not part of them. She looked at him over her shoulder as he held her arm, an idea taking shape in her brain.

  "You're stuck with me," she said slowly, "you don't want me. You wanted my father, and you're sorry you took me instead."

  He said nothing. He was watching the genny, not able to adjust it as long as he held her wrist. Smith bit her lip, eyeing him. "If you take me back no one will know. I'll jump over half a mile out. I could swim half a mile, I'm a good swimmer. You don't have to worry about me." Her voice was softly persuasive, as persuasive as she knew how to make it. "You could tell the others I got away from you."

  She waited, but his grip did not slacken.

  Smith took a breath. All her anger was gone. Now she was only afraid. "I'll..I have money of my own," she said tentatively. "Not a lot, but... my father won't pay a ransom for me, you know. That's the truth," she said urgently, unaware that the sound of pain in her voice had already testified to the truth of what she said. "Not for me as his daughter, and not for me as an executive of the company. But if you let me go now, I'll pay you. I'll find a way to get the money to you, I promise. And ! won't ask questions."

  "No," he said, his voice harsh with a suppressed anger that surprised her.

  "Please," Shulamith whispered, finally and utterly at the end of her tether. "Please."

  He stared up at the sails, his jaw tight. He made a minute course alteration that seemed to require all his attention.

  "Get below," he repeated, his voice resigned. "There's coffee in the galley if you want a cup. Then I suggest that you get cleaned up."

  Shulamith raised a self-conscious hand to her lace bodice, suddenly remembering that it was torn. Suddenly remembering what an utter mess she must look altogether. To her amazement, she felt a blush staining her cheeks.

  She hadn't blushed for years, since before she'd entered college: in logging camps and sawmills and sales meetings it was better for the boss's daughter if she did not blush. The knowledge that she was blushing now confused her and made her want to escape.

  Her captor did not smile at her, however, nor were his dark eyes mocking. If anything they grew more sombre, and his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

  She stared helplessly over her shoulder into his dark eyes, and it was a sensation like drowning. She felt oddly shaken. Her lips were dry. Nervously she licked them.

  He looked away to the water ahead. He breathed once and let go of her wrist.

  "Please go belowj" he said evenly, and Shulamith scrambled down the companionway as though she had been standing on the brink of an abyss.

  * * *

  He wasn't going to sail around waiting for her to be ransomed, Smith discovered when her captor docked at a small island some time later. She came up on deck barefoot and wearing a pair of too-large jeans and a sweat shirt she had found below in a locker. Her long hair was finger-combed and tied back, and she had taken a shower. The silence of the place fell on her ears as she watched him bring down the sails, and Shulamith breathed deeply in unconscious release from the intolerable tension that had gripped her ever since she had entered her father's bedroom. She heard a few waking birds lazily querying each other's existence, sensed the water's quiet lapping around the hull beneath her feet and wondered bemusedly why these sounds of nature should only emphasize the perfect stillness.

  She watched him silently as he worked, taking an immediate pleasure in the sight of the play of his muscles, the efficient motion and interplay of arms, hands and feet.

  He was tall and big, but not the giant that she had imagined when he held her and his hand was suffocating her. When at last the boat was ready and he came to stand beside her on the dock, his weary sigh was very human. But he was certainly strong enough to carry her, and she realized that was his intention as he bent to pick her up in his arms.

  "The path is rough. You would cut your feet," he explained tersely, then set off with her along the dock and up the hillside. He had one arm under her knees, one supporting her back; Smith felt the warmth of his hand against her ribs, his thumb just pressing the fullness of her breast. After a moment she felt the thumb move away.

  He carried her up the steep path in long easy strides, as though her hundred-ten-pound weight was not much of an encumbrance. He did not look down at her; his eyes, hooded, were on the path ahead. It was long, steep and overgrown, meandering through the dark green rainforest. The hush of nature was over them—Smith felt they could be anywhere, in any time. Nothing had meaning except that particular, soothing

  calm. She heard a birdcall she did not recognize, but she felt sure that the man carrying her could identify it. He walked so quietly, so surefootedly.

&
nbsp; "Where are you taking me?" she asked. Her voice was almost a whisper; she was mentally exhausted and no longer cared what was going to happen to her. She couldn't fight anymore.

  "You'll see," he said.

  She felt an odd intimacy settle on them, a feeling of closeness that might exist between brother and sister, she thought, or between lovers who have known each other long and well. Shulamith had had neither a brother nor a lover she had known long and well, and it was years since she had learned how little her father loved her. She had experienced a certain amount of camaraderie with the men she had worked with and later supervised in her father's logging camps and sawmills, but what she felt now was very different. It took her a moment to sort it out, and it was with an odd little jerk that she realized that what she was feeling was a sense of comfort and security she hadn't known since early childhood.

  Even more oddly, the feeling brought a lump to her throat.

  There was no clearing to give advance warning of a human habitation; merely, the forest stopped and the house began. Her captor paused beside a tree, and when he set her down, her feet touched the cool rough stone of a step carved into rock.

  Shulamith looked up. She saw an incredible, unique house that ran on level after level up the steep hill away from her. It was made of glass and weathered cedar and was hung with vines and green plants. On one side of the house water fell gently over the levels of the hillside to end in a large reflecting pool by the rock-hewn steps. The glass, when it was touched by the sun, seemed lightly golden, and on all sides trees grew close to the house, so that she felt like someone coming upon an Aztec ruin in an overgrown jungle.

  Shulamith breathed through open lips. "What a beautiful house," she said softly.

  The dark head was inclined. "Thank you," he said, with a slightly ironic emphasis. She gazed avidly around as they mounted the rock steps toward the door.

  "Is it yours?" she asked at last.

  He spared her a glance from hooded eyes. His profile was as strong and roughly hewn as the rest of him. It occurred to her suddenly that he was extremely good-looking.