WHEN TRAVIS came into Cat’s office carrying a cardboard carton, she was sitting at her light table sorting slides and trying to ignore her growling stomach. She looked up and smiled hopefully.
“Is that dinner?” she asked.
“Didn’t you eat lunch?”
She shook her head. “These slides should have been in the mail weeks ago. Tomorrow I’ll make time to go to the market.”
Guiltily Travis realized that he hadn’t been to the store for almost a week. He had been caught up in a new design for a hull, plus going on various assignments with Cat, and a round of negotiations for building a shipfitting and repair installation close to Laguna Beach.
And then there were the plans he had drawn up to refit one of the guest cabins on the Wind Warrior as a traveling photographic lab. Working with Harrington, and swearing him to secrecy, Travis had bought various pieces of equipment for Cat to use. He knew she wouldn’t be able to leave her work behind.
And he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay in Laguna all the time.
“I’ll bet you haven’t eaten since we had peanut butter and cocoa with Jason this morning,” Travis said.
Cat didn’t bother to deny it.
“You don’t know the first thing about taking care of yourself,” he said. “You work too hard. Damn it, if you’d just let me pay—”
Abruptly Travis shut up. The amount she worked was directly related to her need for money. Money was one subject he had vowed not to bring up until she did.
Cat hadn’t even hinted at it.
Silently she looked at Travis, knowing what he was seeing in her face. Shadows of fatigue surrounded her eyes. Her cheekbones were too sharply drawn. Her skin was too pale. She was tired, driven, relentless in her demands on herself.
She knew she was pushing herself too hard. Her weekly visits to the doctor were a brutal reminder. Her hips were bruised from iron shots and her ears were burned from Dr. Stone’s caustic remarks about endurance and exhaustion.
Yet Cat didn’t know what else she could do except keep pushing until January. She needed the money that came from her work, but she couldn’t deny herself time with Travis. She knew that someday he would leave her as suddenly as he had come to her.
Until that day came, Cat would beg, borrow, bribe, and steal every instant she could from the rest of her life, hoarding seconds and minutes and hours to give to him. And her only regret would be that there was never enough time.
Travis bent and kissed Cat in silent apology. “I’m sorry. I know I take up too much of your time.”
“No. Never that. I’m just . . . greedy. World enough and time.” She smiled ironically, rubbing her aching neck. “Not much to ask, is it? Just everything.”
This time his kiss deepened until it was just short of bruising, but he said only, “I’ll bring you something to eat.”
He reappeared in a few minutes, balancing a plate of pasta in one hand and a bowl of salad in the other.
“Did you steal Sharon’s dinner?” Cat asked, startled.
“Nope. The miracle of take-out pasta,” Travis said, smiling triumphantly. “A new place opened up on the highway.”
She eyed the mound of pasta, appalled at its size. “My God, Travis, it’ll take me a week to eat that.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I remembered that I hadn’t eaten, either.”
“How’s the hull design coming?” Cat asked, understanding exactly why he had forgotten to eat.
“Slowly. But it’s coming. It would be easier if a ship’s hull was as supple as a dolphin.”
“Swear to God,” she said dryly. “You don’t ask much.”
“Speaking of Harrington, how is he?”
“Ready to get on the next plane and pick slides for me if I won’t do it myself.”
“Swift and Sons is getting restless?”
“Big time.”
Travis sat at the small table Cat had set up in the corner of her office so that he would have a place to work on his hull designs while she pored over the endless boxes of slides.
“So let Harrington help you,” Travis said, handing Cat a fork.
“There’s a family crisis. A sister getting divorced. Very messy. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to hold my hand, too. Besides, the reasons I choose one slide over another can’t be put into words, but it does make a difference in the continuity of the show.”
“Eat,” was all Travis said.
Both of them attacked the food. Cat filled up quickly. When she couldn’t eat any more food no matter what Travis threatened, he calmly finished the pile of pasta, cleared away the dishes, and set a cardboard carton on the table.
“What’s in the box?” Cat asked.
“Whittling.”
She blinked. “Come again?”
“Carving. You know, sharp knives and pieces of wood.” Travis reached into the box and pulled out several blocks of wood that were bigger than his hand. “Do you think Jason would like dark or light wood better?”
Cat looked at the intelligence and warmth in Travis’s eyes and felt a familiar, sweet heat ripple through her. Her lips quivered slightly as she smiled.
“Dark, of course,” she said huskily. “Like the Wind Warrior. Is that what you’re going to do—make Jason a ship?”
Travis put away all but the piece of nearly black wood. Then he touched Cat’s cheek with a gentleness that made her ache.
“How did you know what I was going to do?” he asked.
“I just did. Jason worships you.”
“It’s mutual,” Travis said. He turned over the ebony block in his hand, looking for the Wind Warrior trapped within solid wood, and added absently, “I’d like a son like Jason.”
Cat closed her eyes, afraid that Travis would see the pain slicing through her. She knew that he hadn’t meant to wound her with his words. In any case, she was both proud and pragmatic enough to realize that even if she could have children, they wouldn’t be his.
In the time she had spent with Travis, she had come to understand that there was nothing personal in his refusal to love her. Love required trust. Travis required a certain level of wealth before he could trust a woman. Cat didn’t have that wealth.
It was a fact, like gravity. Nothing personal at all.
But that didn’t make the hurt any less.
Lost in thought, Travis turned the dark block of wood over and over in his hands. Cat didn’t interrupt his concentration. She gave him the same undemanding companionship that he gave her when she was absorbed in her own work.
Absently he fished a thin, razor-edged knife out of the carton. He turned on and adjusted the gooseneck lamp that arched shoulder high above the table. A shaft of white light poured over the rich wood. The same light that picked up hints of chestnut and mahogany in the densely grained block of wood turned the hair on his forearms into spun gold. The wood and his skin glowed against the deep tourmaline green color of his shirt.
Before Travis even touched blade to wood, Cat knew that she had to photograph him—his concentration, his exquisitely sensitive hands, his vivid eyes, the flow of light and shadow over his face.
Travis was so accustomed to Cat at work that he didn’t even notice the whirring of the motor drive or the occasional flash she used when the existing light didn’t please her. She worked with an intensity that equaled his, narrowing her world to the width of a camera lens, trying to capture the essence of the man she loved.
As minutes slowly built into hours, an image of the Wind Warrior emerged from the black wood. It was very difficult work, for ebony was almost too hard to be carved. Travis’s concentration never wavered, even when the knife inevitably slipped and nicked the backs of his fingers, leaving behind a hairline of red that bled freely. He didn’t stop carving until blood threatened to stain the wood.
“Damn,” he muttered, licking the backs of his fingers. “One more scar.” He stretched the tight muscles across his shoulders and flexed his cut hand ruefully. “I usually have a choppy sea to blame for my clumsiness.”
“Blame it on the hour,” Cat said, stretching as he had stretched.
Startled, he glanced at the clock.
Two in the morning.
He looked at her dark eyes and the litter of empty film containers scattered on the floor around the table, mute evidence that she had been working as hard as he had.
“Ah, Cat,” Travis said deeply, shaking his head and pulling her onto his lap, “I had other plans for tonight.”
She smiled and rubbed her mouth lightly over his. “It’s still tonight.”
“It’s late, and you’re so damn tired.”
“When I’m that tired, you can call 911. Besides,” she added, yawning delicately, then closing her teeth on his ear, “I’m going to make you do all the work.”
His hands hesitated, then moved knowingly over her body. “Are you sure, sweetheart? I can wait.”
“I can’t. I’ve been wanting you every second since you told me you were making a ship for Jason.”
Cat tugged at Travis’s shirt, needing to end this night as she had so many others, deep in his arms. There were times when she didn’t know which was the greater pleasure, sharing his mind or sharing his body.
She did know that nothing would be the same without him, that he had become as much a part of her as her own skin, her own dreams. She loved him as she had never thought to love any man. It had been hard not to tell Travis about her feelings, but she hadn’t. She wouldn’t. To say I love you is to ask that your love be returned, to ask for a lifetime together. She wouldn’t do that.
There was no point in asking.
She knew the answer.
Travis had told her in the first days of their affair that he would never be able to trust a woman who had less money than he had. Cat believed him. Not once in the nine weeks they had been together had he lied to her.
She hoped that in time he would change his mind about trusting her, but she sensed that time was running out.
Five short weeks until January. Just five. He won’t leave before then.
She told herself that over and over, but she didn’t believe it. Lately Travis had been watching the sea with the hunger of a sailor who had been too long ashore.
“Jason will be over the moon,” Cat said, touching the miniature Wind Warrior with reverent fingertips. She could hardly believe that Travis had finished the elegant sculpture in a night and a morning. “It’s so beautiful. I hope he’s careful with it.”
Travis looked up from the crumbs of the omelet Cat had cooked for them. They were in her kitchen, not his. They hadn’t made it to his house at all last night. They had simply fallen into her bed and spent the few remaining hours of darkness tangled first in passion and then in sleep.
The silky memories made him want to kiss her generous lips and stubborn chin, and then move on to the soft, pink-tipped breasts that hardened so quickly in his mouth.
“If Jason loses this in the surf,” Travis said, touching the little sailing ship, “I’ll make another one for him.”
“The surf! Over my dead body! This little beauty is going inside a glass bottle just as soon as I can figure out how to squeeze it past the neck.”
Laughing, Travis eased his fingers into Cat’s soft, autumn-colored hair. The scent of lemon shampoo and the warmth in her eyes intoxicated him.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said, caressing her scalp.
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh. Trust me.”
Cat smiled slowly at Travis, remembering just how exquisite it was to trust her body to his keeping . . . and to take his in return.
“You keep looking at me like that,” he said in a deep voice, “and Jason will find us naked on the kitchen table.”
She gave a delicious little shiver of memory and anticipation. “Don’t tempt me.”
“How about if I tease you instead?”
Travis’s hand slid from Cat’s hair to her breasts. The cotton shirt she wore was no barrier to sensation. Her breath caught, broke, and then became a ragged sigh when knowing fingertips circled one nipple.
A young voice called from the beach. “Cathy? Am I too early? Are you up?”
“I’m in the kitchen,” Cat called.
Jason’s footsteps drummed on the stairway outside. “Is Travis up, too?”
“Definitely,” Travis muttered. “Damn.” He caressed her hard nipple one more time and dropped his hand before the kitchen door flew open. None of his frustration showed when he turned to Jason. “We’re just finishing breakfast. Have you eaten?”
“Nah. The babies were screaming and Dad was on one phone talking to Boston and Mom was on the other phone talking to her sister in Georgia.”
Cat smiled, tucked the hand holding the toy boat behind her, and gave Jason a quick, one-armed hug. “You’ve come to the right place. I’ll scramble some eggs for you.”
“Make some for yourself, too,” Travis muttered. “You only had about two bites of the omelet you made.”
She ignored him, not wanting to argue over how much she did or didn’t eat. Her appetite had gone on holiday. Even after five hours of sleep, the smell of food didn’t appeal to her.
“I’ll do the toast,” Jason said eagerly.
“I’ll get the orange juice,” Travis said. “But first I get a good-morning hug.”
Delighted, Jason launched himself at Travis, confident from past experience that he would be caught and hugged back.
Cat took advantage of Jason’s distraction to hide the black boat in the refrigerator when she got out some more eggs. Before she had them cracked into a pan, the kitchen was full of Jason’s whoops of laughter. Travis had the boy up on his shoulders for a “pirate” ride.
Like a tyrant on a throne, Jason supervised the making of breakfast from his high perch. He would have eaten from there, too, but Travis drew the line at having toast crumbs dribbled down the neck of his T-shirt.
“Okay, tiger,” Travis said, lifting Jason off his shoulders and setting him on a chair to eat. “Time to come back to earth. When do you have to be ready for school?”
“It’s Saturday,” the boy said.
Cat and Travis exchanged a quick look. They both sensed the silent appeal that Jason was too polite to put into words; he wanted company, and everybody in his family was busy. She nodded slightly to Travis while she frantically rearranged her day in her mind.
Not enough time. Never enough time. But she would do it, somehow. January was only five weeks away. She could keep on juggling for five more weeks.
If Travis stayed that long.
She shoved the unhappy thought away. She couldn’t live in tomorrow. She could only live in today.
“No school, huh?” Travis said. “Then I think it’s time Jason saw a real-for-sure pirate boat up close.”
“Real-for-sure? You mean it?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool!”
“If it’s all right with your parents,” Travis amended quickly. “I’ll call them.”
“It will be forever before they’re off the phone!” Jason wailed, disappointed.
Travis smiled. “You and Cat eat breakfast while I run over and talk in your mom’s other ear.”
Jason was too excited at the prospect of going on board a real ship to notice that he ate Cat’s breakfast and his own, too. He just shoveled in food and talked about pirates and sailing ships and blood on the high seas.
By the time Travis came back, Jason was sitting in Cat’s lap while she cleaned jam off his hands, cheeks, and chin with a paper towel. It was tricky work, because the boy was still talking.
“Ready?” Travis asked. “We’ll take my cousin’s car. It needs a run or its battery will go dead.”
Jason shot out of Cat’s lap and raced for the back door.
“Hold it, tiger,” Travis said. “Use the front door and the sidewalk. The tide is coming in.”
Jason looked out at the waves. “Nah. It’s okay. The sidewalk is for babies.”
“Then I guess I’m a baby,” Travis said calmly.
The boy’s lower lip came out, but he didn’t say any more. He just headed for the front door. He had learned that Travis was like Cat—fun most of the time and adult the rest.
“Hide the boat in a camera bag and bring it along,” Travis said softly.
“Okay.” Cat stood on tiptoe, brushed her mouth over his, and smiled at the soft tickle of his beard around her lips. “You’re a sneaky, wonderful man, T. H. Danvers.”
“Comes with being a pirate.”
He grabbed her and kissed her quickly, completely, before going off to catch up with Jason.
By the time they parked and locked the car at the harbor, Jason was bouncing with excitement. “I’ve never been on a boat before. Not a real-for-sure one. Boy, that’s something babies can’t do!”
Travis smiled and swung the boy up onto his shoulders for the walk across the weekend-crowded parking lot. After a brief tussle over whether Jason would wear a life preserver—the boy lost—the ride in the Zodiac was a giddy adventure for Jason, one that left him round-eyed and laughing with glee. Diego was so taken with him that he extended the ride by going around the Wind Warrior twice.
Cat kept taking pictures of Jason and Travis and the transparent affection that flowed between them. Once they were aboard, Jason asked a thousand questions about the ship while he trotted around beside Travis, still wearing the bright red vest that was the price of being allowed on board a pirate ship.
Patiently Travis answered each question with as much detail as the boy wanted to absorb. He talked about the long nights on the sea, nights filled with a dazzling river of stars and storms that shut out all light. He talked about sunrise in the tropics, a sunrise that was another kind of storm, one made entirely of light and heat and color. He talked about the deep night silences broken by the hiss of the ship’s bow parting the sea, and about the sudden, gigantic breathing of a whale surfacing nearby in the darkness.
Cat heard all that Travis didn’t put into words, the aching hunger in him to be on the ocean again, to be free of land and smog and people, to be a captain with a good ship under his feet and a strong wind blowing through his hair, to have the past behind him and the future radiant with the endless miracle of the sea.
Working tirelessly, Cat caught it all on film, the longing and the love of the sea; the intelligent, earnest, excited child and the equally intelligent, earnest, excited adult. She tried not to grieve that she would never know the joy of sharing their own child with Travis, but the sadness was there in the images she took, a poignant shadow defining the brightness of the day, the dark certainty of future loss.
Hearing the elemental yearning for the sea in Travis’s voice, Cat knew that tomorrow was coming. Soon.
Too soon. January was too far away.
At least I have Jason to love, Cat told herself as she changed rolls of film. Until his parents move, anyway. I wonder if that’s what all the telephoning was about early this morning at his house.
I hope not. I’ll miss my bright little tornado.
Cat put away the thought of the future and the bitter losses that it would bring. She would grieve for both of them. She loved both of them. The love was very different, equally deep. Seeing the two men she loved so much enjoying each other made her want to laugh and weep at the same time, emotion overflowing her heart, breaking it and healing it in the same breath.
I love. That’s more than I thought I would ever have in my life. Each of them returns my love in his own way. That’s enough.
It has to be.
“Cat?”
She looked up from her camera and realized that Travis had called her name more than once.
“I think you have something, don’t you?” Travis asked. “In your camera bag?”
“Close your eyes, Jason,” Cat said, remembering. “And no peeking!”
Without a word the boy put his small, perfectly formed, and slightly grubby hands over his eyes.
Shielding the boat with her body just in case, Cat passed the carving to Travis.
“You made it for him,” she whispered. “You give it to him.”
“But I wanted you—”
“Go on,” she interrupted, folding his long, finely scarred fingers around the boat. “Okay, Jason. Look what your pirate made for you.”
The boy’s hands moved away from his face. His eyes grew big and then bigger still. Almost hesitantly he reached for the darkly gleaming boat. “For me?”
Travis crouched down on his heels, bringing his eyes nearly level with Jason’s. “Just for you.”
Jason threw himself at Travis and gave him a big kiss. “You’re the best pirate ever!”
Travis caught the boy and stood slowly, wrapping Jason in his arms, holding him tight. “And you’re the best boy ever.”
Then Travis saw the longing in Cat’s eyes as she watched the boy, tears that shimmered on the edge of falling.
And he found himself wishing he could give her a child.
In that instant Travis understood that he could fall in love with her. The realization was shocking. It told him how reckless he was. Despite the scars and savage lessons of the past, he believed that Cat was exactly as she seemed to be—a woman who loved without thought of money.
She isn’t like other women, scheming and lying in order to get a free ride for life. Cat is different.
She has to be.
Anything else was unthinkable.
At least this time, if I’m wrong, I’ll be the only one who suffers.
It wasn’t much consolation for the terrifying risk Travis was taking, but it was all he had.
Slowly he put Jason back on the deck of the ship. “Go show your new boat to Diego. He has a whole collection of carvings from all over the world.”
As soon as Jason ran off to show his trophy to Diego, Travis turned to the woman who watched him with pain and joy in her beautiful eyes.
“Tomorrow, Cat. Tomorrow we’ll go to sea together. Just for a few days. Please.”
She closed her eyes against the naked plea in his. She knew Travis was being pulled apart by conflicting needs. She was being pulled apart in just the same way.
She couldn’t go.
It was impossible.
There was too much to be done. January was coming down on her like an avalanche, fast and hard and furious.
Then she opened her eyes and looked at the face of the man she loved.
“Yes. Tomorrow I’ll go to sea with you.”