If You Loved Me

by Vanessa Grant

  The narrow passage widened into an inlet, then Emma lost her bearings in a kaleidoscope of sea and trees and more sea. For a second it sounded as if the engine stopped, but then they were racing along an inlet, the engine purring as they skimmed over glassy water. As the pontoons caught on the water, she saw a wharf ahead with a blue seaplane tied to it. She couldn't see a house, but that had to be Gray's plane. In the magazine picture, he'd been standing on one of the pontoons, one hand stretched up to open the pilot's door of a blue and red seaplane.

  Dave taxied his seaplane up to the wharf, then swung open his door and gestured for Emma to remain seated as he climbed out. Through the window, she saw him remove a paddle from a holder on one of the pontoons. Then he crouched on the pontoon, paddling the seaplane closer to the wharf. From somewhere, a rope appeared in his hands and he lashed the pontoon to the wharf.

  As Emma stepped down onto the pontoon, the pilot's dark eyes studied her. She knew he'd labeled her a city woman—tailored slacks and silk blouse, low practical pumps that were ridiculously unstable out in the bushes.

  As she reached for the carry-on bag he'd removed from the luggage compartment behind the seats, she spotted Gray's house and the boardwalk leading to it from the wharf.

  "Gray should have come out when he heard us land." Dave frowned. "Wouldn't want to leave you here if he's not around."

  "His plane is here, so he'll be around somewhere." She set her bag on the wharf, its soft city leather out of place on the wooden planks. Perhaps that contrast said more than anything about why she and Gray had been doomed from the start.

  "Look, Ms. Garrett, I'd better stick around until we see—"

  "I'm absolutely fine. You can head on back." She didn't want witnesses when she met Gray.

  "Is he expecting you?"

  "Yes, of course."

  She must have sounded convincing, because he shrugged and started untying the pontoon. She stayed on the wharf and watched him taxi away. When the yellow plane disappeared around the corner of Refuge Cove into Stephens Passage, she picked up her luggage and began walking along the boardwalk to Gray's house. Behind her, she heard the roar of the seaplane's engines, but didn't turn to look.

  She recognized the house from the magazine pictures, but it was bigger than she'd expected. She walked up the front stairs and took a deep breath before she hammered on the big, varnished front door with its stained-glass window.

  Even if Gray hated her, he wouldn't turn her away now.

  She hammered on the door again, but there was no answer.

  Damn! She prowled from the front of the big log house to one side. From his living room, Gray would be able to see the water and the forest across the inlet. He had smaller windows on this side, placed to give a view through the trees.

  Did he watch bears and wolves through those windows? She was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that wolves seldom attacked humans, but she'd heard reports of bear attacks in the news.

  The thin walls of Chris's tent would never stop a bear. Chris had always laughed at her nervousness about bears. He'd been on so many organized wilderness adventures that she'd told herself her own fears were the result of inexperience. But what if—

  Emma shivered in her city jacket. Where was Gray? His plane floated quietly at the wharf, but what if he was off on some wilderness jaunt? What if Chris phoned home now, while she was away, out of touch?

  She pulled her cellular phone out of her purse and punched in her home number, then realized that the display on her cell phone said no service.

  No phone here, not even cellular.

  The sun slid behind the trees, getting ready for night. Why wasn't Gray inside his majestic log fortress?

  She'd been foolish to send the pilot away. If Gray didn't come, she would be stranded here.

  Panic wasn't going to help anything, so she shoved her hands into her pockets and continued her survey of the house. Gray must have had someone in mind when he built it; maybe he had a wife, a woman with a beautiful Mother Earth smile. That's the kind of wife Gray needed, the sort who was beautiful even in the morning without makeup, who could live in this wilderness without thinking of bears and wolves. They'd sit together on those two deep chairs on the front porch, watching the sunset over the trees, sharing soft sleepy nights.

  Passionate nights.

  She didn't care about his wife, if he had one. It was Gray she needed, his plane and his eyes, trained for the wilderness. She needed Gray to find Chris.

  She circled the house again and realized she was limping slightly. Stress.

  Gray might be in some outbuilding she couldn't see. She hadn't called out his name because she'd wanted to be the one to see him first. She had planned to knock on the door and know he would open it and she would be prepared to give nothing away when he saw her.

  Ridiculous! She had nothing to give away but memories so far back. If couldn't matter now that she had given Gray her heart and a year of her life before it ended.

  She hadn't realized how empty it would be out here!

  "Gray! Are you here? Gray?"

  She strained for an answer, heard a sound like a rock dropping into water. She spun around at the sound and saw a branch move to her right.

  "Is anybody here? Gray?"

  She jerked back as a black shadow swooped into the sky. Nothing human, just the bird crying out as took wing.

  Emma tucked a strand of hair into the twist at the back of her head, and then rubbed absently at her left leg. She'd never been camping in her life, hadn't been allowed when she was a girl. Too many dangers.

  Later, when she became a woman, camping trips would have been too much like yearning for Gray, who was gone.

  She had to stop this trip down memory lane. She needed Gray's knowledge of the coast, needed his skills and his seaplane.

  He would come home soon. Meanwhile, she should get up on that front porch, pull a sweater out of her luggage, and curl up on one of those big wooden chairs.

  She wondered if Chris was looking at a scene like this, all bushes and darkness. Her imagination supplied an image of her son injured, staring at the darkening sky, hoping for rescue.

  Had Jordy gone for help? Left Chris alone?

  Three days overdue.

  Three days during which she went through the motions of her life. Emergency surgery on a little girl Friday morning. She'd sealed Chris out of her mind before she started, then felt worry flood back while she stood beside the girl's unconscious form in recovery.

  The call to the Coast Guard after that. No news. Cleaning up the last of the office visits Friday afternoon. Calls to the Coast Guard in between. Staring at a six-year-old boy in a body cast and knowing this was all that was left of her life without Chris. She'd always cared passionately about the kids she helped, but they were other people's children.

  Chris belonged to Emma.

  She hated being powerless. She'd always been an efficient person, juggling the needs of her patients and her child. It had been hard, but she'd managed to be there for Chris when he needed her, to be there for the kids who needed healing at the clinic and the hospital. She knew she was both a good doctor and a good mother.

  Chris had paid her the compliment of bringing his friends home and confiding his dreams in her. He'd talked about this trip for almost a year, and although she'd been worried, she'd helped him make the adventure real.

  Now Chris was missing and Emma was helpless until Gray returned.

  She heard a new sound from the bushes. A crack, the sort a big animal might make blundering through the underbrush. She would never be able to sleep outside on his porch. She would hear every noise, every crack and rustle.

  She couldn't see the sun from the porch, had no idea how low in the sky it was. She pushed back her sleeve to look at her watch. Nine o'clock. Back in Seattle it would be almost dark.

  She jerked as the sound came again.

  One of Gray's wildlife pictures flashed into her mind, a huge tawny-colored wildcat crouche
d in grass the color of its fur, head tilted and nostrils alert, eyes slitted as it smelled prey. Where had Gray photographed that cougar?

  Here on Stephens Island?

  She circled the house again, stopping to study a small window beside the back door. It was the smallest window she could reach. She could break it with a piece of wood from the woodshed. Not yet, though.

  Later, when it was actually dark.

  She put her bag down beside the back door. She had been around this house four times lugging her carry-on, limping because she was tired and it was heavy. Did she think someone was going to come out of the bushes and steal her bag? Perhaps that imaginary cougar?

  She had read that bears were attracted to some perfumes. What about cougars? She rubbed the spot below her ear where she habitually touched her perfume bottle. Her usual scent, soft but not suggestive. Had her scent attracted a cougar prowling through those bushes? Could he smell her? Or perhaps it was a she. Weren't female cats even fiercer than the males?

  What about bears? What kind of perfume did bears like?

  She stepped into the shed, picked up a big chunk of wood, and swung it experimentally. Shadows and trees were melting into each other, reminding her of the night she met Gray, of sitting in Paul's car alone with trees all around.

  She would go back to the front of Gray's house, sit in the chair, and wait for half an hour. If Gray hadn't turned up by then, she'd break the window.

  She tripped on something at the side of the house, walked on more carefully in the fading light. The last thing she needed was to break an ankle. She hoped to God Chris or Jordy hadn't broken an ankle. Both boys had taken first aid courses: They knew enough to immobilize a fracture, and then go for help. Chris could put Jordy in the second kayak, then he could tow it. It would be slow, but—

  She was behaving like one of her own patient's parents sitting in the waiting room, imagining a world of horrors. For all she knew, some fisherman or seaplane pilot might already have found the boys. The Coast Guard could have called, but the cell phone number she'd given wouldn't work because she was stuck on Gray's island with a no service message permanently etched on her cell phone display.

  Damn, if only she could check her messages! It would be the ultimate irony if Chris was found and safe while Emma was stranded here on Stephens Island waiting for Gray. She should have known he would live somewhere cell phones didn't work.

  She pushed her back against Gray's front door and crossed her arms, staring at the shadowy shape of the seaplane down on the water. It was silly to pretend he would come now. The sun was gone. Gray might not have taken the plane, but he was surely gone. She was stuck here alone at least until daylight.

  Behind her, something crashed in the bushes.

  Emma spun around with her hand raised.

  Nothing.

  Then a shadow moved in front of her and she gasped and swung the stick at the black predator lunging toward her.

  It was like hitting a wall. Something grasped her wrist, the wood went tumbling, and her chest crashed into a solid, unyielding body. Fingers closed hard around her wrist and everything turned breathless. The thin fabric of her jacket was crushed under his fingers, her breasts hard against his chest.

  His breath became hers. His hand dug into her shoulder. He was bigger than she remembered, harder.

  "Gray?"

  * * *

  Gray MacKenzie was five minutes from home when Chico went crashing ahead through the bushes. He whistled sharply and Chico froze, then came dashing back and ducked into position. The mongrel whimpered once and stared mournfully at his master. Gray dropped a hand to his head.

  "Good dog. Now quiet."

  For the past hour he had been fantasizing about a hot meal and a shower before he started developing the film he'd brought back. Mama and the two cubs he'd found on the western slope of Mt. Stephens were prime grizzlies, exactly what he needed to finish up the Cathay project.

  What he did not need was another damned reporter crawling around the house. Ever since that magazine article last month, reporters and television journalists had plagued his wilderness retreat. He'd been furious when the editor of the environmental magazine gave the location of his home in the published article.

  Chico whimpered again.

  "Right," murmured Gray. "If it's a reporter, Chico, I'll feed him to you."

  The dog looked up as if asking a question.

  "Let's find out."

  Gray stopped where the game trail curved toward the point. A hundred yards ahead, the moon's reflection sheared off the painted wing of his seaplane. He made out the silhouette of the wharf itself and a hint of darkness that was his speedboat. No sign of any strange boat or plane. Whoever Chico scented must have walked in from another bay.

  Probably some shipwrecked fool. Last month Gray had been wakened at four one morning by a lost adventurer from the interior of British Columbia. The fool had been cruising around the coast in a rented trawler with only a road map as his guide. Gray had spent half the day feeding the idiot and showing him how to get back to civilization without hitting any rocks or getting lost again.

  He was in no mood for idiots tonight. He'd been fighting memories all day. If it was a mariner in distress, Gray would send him around to the camp. If it was a reporter, he'd set Chico on him. In theory Gray had nothing against reporters, but he'd had his fill.

  He reached for the flashlight on his belt and shielded the light as he switched it on.

  "Quiet, Chico," he commanded softly. His house was just around the next turn.

  He stepped out of the bushes and saw a shadow on the back porch. He approached the suitcase slowly and reached down to test the dark bag's weight. Heavy enough that its owner might plan on staying. Not a reporter.

  This expensive leather thing was more likely to belong to a style-conscious woman. Someone like Samantha.

  He reached down and caught the tag dangling from the zip. If Sam was here, it was bad news. It meant something was wrong in her life, maybe her marriage. He hoped to hell it wasn't that. Gray had spent too many uncomfortable days wrestling with his conscience over Samantha, both before and after the divorce. A man had no right marrying a woman just because her eyes reminded him of an old lover.

  He'd felt better about Sam since she married George. Then, when Sam and George started having kids, he'd decided that whatever hurt he'd given her was firmly in the past. But if she was here now—

  Gray turned the tag and caught the name printed there in his flashlight beam.

  Emma Garrett.

  Chico moved silently to his side.

  He put a hand on the dog's head. All day he'd fought the old restlessness, wanting to hop into the plane and take off as if there were somewhere important he had to be. As if he were back in college, slipping out to lunch early to be waiting when she arrived.

  She'd been Emma Jennings when he met her, Paul's girl.

  Emma in Paul Garrett's car. He should have tossed Paul his keys that night, should have done anything to keep his distance from the girl with the long blonde hair and the marvelous legs. He didn't have to close his eyes to remember her hair swinging as she hurried away from him, rushing back to class, her long legs rhythmic and innocently seductive. He'd watched her leave often enough. Each time he'd fought the desire to chase after her, to trap her, to hold back the inevitable end.

  He'd always known it would end badly.

  He shoved his flashlight back into the loop on his belt and fought the memory that always accompanied dreams of Emma, her eyes filled with tears and regret as if she would grieve forever.

  In fact, she'd recovered within a month.

  When he found out what she'd done, he'd almost gone after her despite the wedding ring. Luckily he'd clung to sanity and walked away from even the sound of her name on her father's lips. The last damned thing he needed was Emma twisting his life into regrets.

  A faint thump sounded from the front of the house.

  Chico stirred.
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br />   "Stay!" Gray's command was a quiet hiss. The dog subsided.

  Gray glided silently along the side of the house to the front porch, saw motion as he came around the corner. In silhouette, he saw her hair lying close against her head.

  She'd cut her hair.

  He fought back a vivid memory of his hands tangled in the sleek softness of her long waves. Then she moved, something held high in one hand, and he could almost smell her fear. He realized that with the light gone he could have been anyone, anything. His lips parted to speak her name, but she swung her weapon before he could speak.

  He moved swiftly, catching her wrist with one hand. He felt his possession of her flesh with a shock and ordered himself to let her go, to release her, but his grip tightened. He pulled her into him. She came up short against him with a thump as the piece of wood in her hand went crashing down the veranda steps to the ground.

  "Gray?"

  He curled his fingers around her shoulder and felt her tremble as if she knew him by touch. His body responded, images flashing in his mind.

  Emma, naked and breathless, his sheets tangled around her.

  Did Emma wake from dreams about Graham MacKenzie only to find herself in her husband's arms?

  "Why the weapon?" he demanded harshly.

  * * *

  Emma pulled experimentally against Gray's grip.

  "You came at me with a block of wood," he growled.

  His voice had grown deeper over the years. The touch of gravel in his words made her shiver. It was dark, and she was frightened by this stranger who smelled so familiar.

  "It's Emma," she gasped. "Let go of me, Gray."

  He released her and she backed up against his front door. At least that was new, she thought hysterically, begging Gray to let her go.

  His shadow loomed between her and the world. She could hear his breathing, strong and steady. She had to get her balance. After four days worrying about Chris and Jordy, she hadn't been prepared to slam hard against Gray's chest.

  "I heard sounds," she said. "You weren't here. I was going to break a window to get inside. I got a piece of—"

  He stepped close and she jerked away.