Love Song For A Raven

Raven looked down at Janna’s lather-streaked face and earnest, silver-green eyes. Her moist, slightly parted lips were the same raspberry color as the tip of her breast had been. The realization made heat and heaviness sweep through Raven’s body, settling in the part of him that was even now nestled against her lovely, firm bottom. He wondered what it would feel like to be naked with her right now, his hands rubbing through her hair, sliding over her body, arousing her until she opened herself and cried for him to come to her.

Even as the thought swept through Raven, he denied it, ignored it, discarded it. He had spent too many years torturing himself over a woman he couldn’t have. He wasn’t going to start all over now, not even in the smallest way. Janna was here by accident, not by choice. Under normal circumstances she would never have agreed to stay in the lonely inlet with a man who looked as rough as he did. Not if she had a choice. The storm had taken choice from her, stranding her with him in Totem Inlet’s isolation. If he took advantage of that and of the gratitude that softened Janna’s magnificent, silver-green eyes when she looked at him, he would hate himself. As soon as the storm broke, he would take her to Masset. They would stand on the dock and shake hands and smile rather uncomfortably as they parted, two people who never would have met under normal circumstances.

„Raven?“

He smiled sadly, slid one hand from Janna’s hair and picked up a nearby towel. With immense gentleness he held her still and wiped the lather from her face.

„Put this over your eyes while I rinse you off.“

Janna wanted to protest as Raven covered her eyes with the towel, but she didn’t. She wanted to ask if it was something she had done that had made him so sad, but she wasn’t going to do that, either. At least, she told herself she wasn’t going to, right up to the instant when she heard her own words.

„Is something wrong?“ she asked, staying Raven’s hand when he would have turned her.

„Nothing new,“ he said simply. „And nothing wrong, really. Turn around. If you get soap in your eyes, you’ll cry.“

„I feel like crying right now, and I never cry,“ Janna said, searching Raven’s midnight eyes.

His big, blunt fingertip touched her nose lightly. „That’s just the last echoes of the adrenaline from yesterday. It will pass.“

Gently, implacably, Raven turned Janna away from him. He stripped soap from her hair into the stream, moving with swift economy, no longer lingering to enjoy the sensual weight and texture of her hair in his hands. He rinsed her hair first with cold water from the creek, then finally with the bucket of water he had warmed on the galley stove and carried to the stream.

Janna let out a long sigh. „That feels wonderful.“

Raven smiled and continued to work the warm water through her hair, rinsing away the last traces of soap. AsJanna’s hair lay wet between his hands, it seemed almost sable, yet it gleamed with hints of mahogany and gold. He wondered what her hair would look like in sunlight. Would the long strands be reddish brown or richly cinnamon? Would they be as straight as his own or they would curl seductively around his hands?

With a silent inward curse, Raven caught his glittering thoughts once again in the net of his will. He squeezed excess water from Janna’s hair and began drying it with the towel. Her hair felt very soft, very clingy, and gleamed like wet silk in the stormy light.

„I can do that,“ Janna said, feeling guilty about causing Raven so much trouble. „You came here to be alone, not to be a lady’s maid.“

Raven removed his hands from Janna’s tempting hair and stood up in a surge of controlled strength. „I’ll wait for you on the shore. Do you like clams?“

„Nope. I love clams. Different thing entirely.“

Raven grinned suddenly. „Raw?“

Janna stopped rubbing her hair with the towel and looked up. Her face was flushed from bending over the creek. Her eyes had the brilliance of sun-shot mist. „Raw clams?“ she asked carefully, wondering if she had understood him. She loved clams, but had never brought herself to eat them raw.

„Umm,“ he said.

„Is that a rumble-yes or a rumble-no?“ she retorted.

Raven laughed. „Just a rumble. How about clam chowder with raw oysters on the side?“

„Sold,“ she said promptly, diving back into the towel, trying to ignore how she had gone weak just looking at Raven’s wicked smile. From the depths of the towel, she asked, „Are they any good raw?“

„Oysters?“

„Clams.“

„Raw?“ he asked innocently. „I don’t know. Are they?“

„Good?“

„No. Raw.“

Janna’s hands stilled as she heard the laughter vibrating in Raven’s voice. Surrounded by a cloud of flying hair, her face emerged from the towel. „Do you know my brothers by any chance? I used to have this conversation with them all the time.“

„Was it good?“

„And raw!“

„Then they weren’t clams.“ Raven’s smile flashed whitely, changing his face from brooding to amused in a single instant.

„Oh, help,“ Janna groaned, diving back beneath the towel.

„Thought you wanted to do that yourself,“ he said, reaching for the towel once more.

Janna’s answer was muffled beneath strategically placed folds of towel. Raven’s laugh wasn’t. By the time he finished with her hair, she was laughing, too. She stood patiently while he combed out tangles with a gentleness that kept surprising her in a man of his size. In his broad hand the comb looked like a half-scale toy. It seemed impossible that such a powerful man could have such precise control of his every motion.

„Braid?“ he asked.

„If I do, it will never dry. Sure you won’t let me use your knife?“

„Positive. How about blow-drying it instead?“

„Sure. And a manicure, too, while you’re at it,“ she retorted wryly, thinking Raven was teasing her again.

„Don’t know about the nail polish. Angel never used it.“

The way Raven’s voice softened as he said the word Angel told Janna more than she wanted to know.

„I take it that this Angel is of the wingless, two-legged, earthbound variety?“ Janna asked lightly.

He smiled. „So she keeps telling me. Never believed her, myself.“ He smoothed his palm over Janna’s hair. „I should have thought of it yesterday.“

„You were too busy rescuing me to think of angels.“

„I meant the box.“

„Help.“

Raven tugged very gently at a damp stand of hair. „Quit teasing me. Angel left some stuff on the boat last summer. I’d forgotten about it until I saw your hair shining beneath my hand.“

Silently Janna wondered if Angel was a summer resident like herself, here today and gone in September. Had Raven loved Angel only to lose her at the end of the summer? Was Angel coming back? Was that why she had left a box of things on his boat?