summer you built the cabin.“
The slight trembling of Janna’s voice made Raven wish that he had never brought her to this beach, this instant, tearing her illusions from her and leaving her nothing in their place. Yet illusions could be very cruel. Then they had to be taken away. Janna had to realize that she was free, that she owed nothing to the man who had pulled her from the sea, certainly not the love that she thought she felt.
„I don’t feel that way now,“ Raven said quietly. „Seeing Angel and Hawk together brings me a feeling very close to joy.“
„Now. But not then. Not the summer you built the cabin.“
The slight flinching of Raven’s eyelids told Janna that she was right.
„Angel had just married Hawk,“ Raven said, his voice rough with restraint. „I loved both of them, but seeing them together sometimes made me feel…“ He hesitated.
„Terribly lonely,“ Janna whispered.
„It was nothing they did deliberately. It was just…“ again Raven paused, searching for words to describe the feelings he had never before tried to articulate.
„Seeing them made you wonder if you would ever love and be loved like that,“ Janna said.
Raven closed his eyes and wondered how Janna saw so easily, so clearly, into his soul. „Yes,“ he said simply.
„I love you like that, Raven.“
„Hush, small warrior,“ he whispered, brushing the back of his fingers across Janna’s cheek.
„Why?“ Janna asked, her voice trembling. „Why won’t you let me say that I love you?“
Raven breathed Janna’s name against her hair as his hands closed around her shoulders with a force that he could barely control. He didn’t let her turn toward him. He was afraid that if he saw her eyes he would be lost again, he would close his hands and keep her for himself because he had never felt so alive as he had when he was with her.
„What you feel is gratitude and passion, not love,“ Raven said, his voice so tightly held that it rasped harshly on his own ears. „You would have felt those things for any man who saved your life and then lacked the self-control and common decency to keep from seducing you while you were so vulnerable.“
The bitterness and self-recrimination in Raven’s voice shocked Janna. „That’s not – “ she began.
„No,“ Raven interrupted roughly. „Listen to me, Janna. You are a beautiful, incredibly sexy woman who married one of the few men around who couldn’t appreciate you. I’ll never forget our time together in Eden. I’ll remember your wit and your laughter and your sensuality until I die.“
Raven had just enough control left not to speak that cruel truth aloud. He had come to stand here on the shore of illusions and give back his gift from the gods. He had come here to release Janna, not to continue her captivity to the mistaken belief that she loved him.
„You owe me nothing,“ Raven continued, giving Janna no chance to speak. „We met by accident in a place out of time. There were no other people, nothing to remind you of your real life. You gave yourself to me out of gratitude, because I had taken you from the sea and you knew how violently I wanted you. If we had met any other way, you wouldn’t have wanted me as a lover.“
„That’s not true,“ Janna whispered, trying to turn toward Raven but unable to move for the strength of his hands forcing her to face away from him. „I would have loved you if we’d met in Pike Place Market with a thousand people milling around and nothing more urgent on my mind than dinner. Haven’t you been listening to me? I’ve always loved you, Raven. Always. That won’t change – ever, anywhere, under any circumstances!“
„Janna,“ he said, wanting to believe her, knowing that he could not allow himself to reach for what he wanted so much that he couldn’t trust himself anymore. Gratitude faded. Passion faded. Love endured. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to let Janna go a few years or a few months from now. Or even a few hours. It had to be now. It had to be before she woke up in his arms and realized the difference between gratitude and love, before she looked at him with compassion and un-happiness. „Once you’re back home, you’ll think about what happened here. You’ll see it differently. It will be like a dream. A joyous dream,“ he whispered very softly. „Please, God, at least that.“
„What can I say to make you believe me?“ Janna asked in despair. „Nothing can change how we met. Nothing can change how I feel about you now.“ She spun toward Raven suddenly, eluding his grasp, not caring that he would see the tears on her face. „Raven,“ she said, her voice trembling. „Raven, let me love you. Let yourself love me just a little in return. Raven,
„Don’t,“ he said gently, covering Janna’s mouth with his hand. „I already hate myself for making love to you. Don’t make it any worse.“
Pain twisted through Janna, making her helpless. The realization that Raven regretted making love to her was devastating, taking the world out from beneath her feet, leaving her with nothing to hang on to but herself. Distantly she heard voices on the wind and thought that the rosy illusions were calling to her again, taunting her with the specter of things that would never be.
The voices dissolved into laughter. Angel and Hawk were coming up the beach, following the footprints of the two who had gone before. Angel, the woman Raven had once loved and lost and then finally loved again, but differently. Hawk, the man Angel loved in ways that she hadn’t been able to love Raven. Raven had not only accepted that, he celebrated it, loving both Angel and Hawk equally, enjoying the visible evidence of their love for one another. Janna had learned to enjoy it, too. In the past few days she had come to appreciate the intelligence and courage that existed beneath Angel’s honey-blond exterior. It was the same for Hawk, a gift for gentleness and laughter unexpected in a man of his hard good looks.
Yet suddenly Janna knew that she couldn’t bear seeing Angel and Hawk together, much less take pleasure from their nearly tangible love. Not now. Not when she had just been told that the man she loved regretted ever having touched her.
She closed her eyes for an instant, gathering her courage. She had promised herself a perfect day before she spoke of love and it either was returned or not. She had had the day, she had spoken of love… and she had heard the gate to Eden closing behind her, leaving her alone in a world without love. All that remained was to walk away before she embarrassed Raven any further with her pleas.
„Are there really illusions out here?“ Angel asked, coming up behind Raven.
„Delusions, actually,“ Janna said, her tone desperately normal as she opened her eyes. „There’s a difference, you know. Like the difference between gimble and gambol, wabe and wave.“
Angel went very still, sensing the pain in Janna even before she saw the evidence of spent tears. She looked at Raven. His face was hard, closed, as though he had been created from stone instead of flesh.
„Raven will explain it to you,“ Janna continued, looking through Angel. „He’s good at inexplicable explanations. If you want to hear a real jaw-dropper, ask him about the difference between gratitude and love. Educational, I can assure you. A regular dissertation on sneezing bandersnatches.“
„Janna,“ Raven said quietly. „You’re not making any sense.“
„Of course not. I left my brains at the bottom of an inlet.“ She looked around at the broad beach and the savage perfection of the land. „A pity this is Eden instead of the Ark. Two was a magic number for Noah and getting across water was no problem. But this is Eden and I have a ferry to catch. I’ll bet the captain’s name is Charon.“
Without another word Janna turned and began walking away from the others, going where no tracks marred the glistening surface of the sand.
„Where are you going?“ Raven asked.
„Across the river Styx.“
„It ran around hell, not Eden.“
„Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.“
