Love Song For A Raven

Chapter 9

On the last day of August Janna awoke slowly, rubbing her cheek against the resilient wall of muscle that was Raven’s chest. He made a sound of sleepy contentment, cuddled her even closer and fell back asleep between one breath and the next. Janna nuzzled Raven’s warm skin contentedly but didn’t go back to sleep herself. She hadn’t wanted to sleep at all last night after they had come back from their trip to the Yakoon River. She hadn’t wanted to waste a single instant of what might be her last hours with Raven.

Today she was going to tell him that she loved him. Today she hoped that he would accept her love rather than tenderly denying it. Today he would either love her in return or she would have to leave – for Janna knew if she stayed any longer with Raven she wouldn’t be able to leave him. She wasn’t even sure that she could go now. She only knew that she had to try. She loved Raven far too much to burden him with a woman and an emotion that he didn’t want.

Surely he loves me, if only a little, Janna thought, pressing her cheek into Raven’s abundant warmth. No man who didn’t love just a little could be so gentle, so passionate, so pleased just to be with me.

Raven made no secret of his pleasure in Janna’s company. Even though she had pointed out that Angel and Hawk had come to the Queen Charlottes to see Raven, not a strange woman, he had ignored Janna’s protests. He was rarely beyond her reach and was never beyond the sound of her voice. She fell asleep with the taste of him on her lips and the warmth of him within her, and she awoke to the feel of his heartbeat beneath her cheek and the heat of his body pressed full-length against hers.

She had sat in Raven’s lap and whispered frumious nonsense in his ear and had heard his deep laughter mingling with her own. She had gone to the legendary Tlell River and seen fishermen pull shining salmon from whiskey-colored water that was as clear and wild as a hawk’s eyes. She had seen gusts of wind swirl over river and sea, brushing the water’s surface with quicksilver designs. She had heard gulls wheel and keen on the leading edge of a storm, birds crying their need to the careless sky. She had stood on the banks of the Yakoon River and seen a spruce tree burning like a golden flame against the primeval green of the forest. There was no other tree of its kind on earth. Not one. Unique, alone, living in an untamed Eden. Janna had wept to see Raven and the golden spruce together, their power and their isolation complete.

And always, always, whether on the sea or in the forest, Janna had sensed in the primal silence the returning echoes of a raven’s lonely cry.

She knew only one way to reach into that isolation, to answer that searching cry. Yet each time she had tried to tell Raven of her love he had taken the words from her lips, the breath from her body and he had substituted his own sensual words, his own breath in her body until he became part of her once more and she could say only his name, feel only his power within her, know only him and the elemental ecstasy he brought to her.

The thought that she might never again know that shimmering flight in Raven’s arms made Janna close her eyes in silent pain. With a deep, slow breath she fought back the sadness, for she had promised herself that this day would be as perfect as she could make it. There would be no tears, no wounded dreams crying to be made whole. There would be only laughter and companionship and the haunting, bittersweet beauty of one final day in Eden.

And at the end of that day she would tell Raven that she loved him. At the end of that day she would know whether he loved her in return.

Janna kissed the muscular warmth of Raven’s chest, nuzzling the vaguely curly wedge of hair that tickled her nose. She discovered the dark disk of his nipple just within reach of her tongue. She circled the sensitive flesh, enjoying the taste and texture of Raven. It was delicious to have him all to herself, to slowly awaken him as he had always awakened her – deep within the hot, silken web of his sensuality, fully aroused by erotic sensations that were both dreamlike and very real, flying even higher as he merged with her and brought her the ecstasy that came only on the glittering black wings of a wild raven.

Now it was Janna’s turn to savor the sleeping power of the man she loved. She might never have another chance to awaken Raven with slow, hot caresses. She might never again know the pleasure of bringing him from sleep into ecstasy.

Janna eased aside the bedcovers and looked at Raven’s naked, beautifully masculine body. She knelt over him as her fingertips smoothed each ridge and swell of muscle, her touch soothing, encouraging him to remain within his dreams. He shifted beneath her caresses, responding even in his sleep, moving closer to the warm hands stroking him. Smiling, wondering what his dreams were like at the moment, Janna tasted Raven’s skin with slow, catlike touches of her tongue while her palms savored the heat and muscular lines of his torso. As she nibbled and softly nipped her way from his chin to his hips, she sensed him awakening. The tip of her tongue circled his navel and then filled it with hot, delicate caresses.

Beneath Janna’s hands Raven’s thighs were hard, corded with muscle, powerful even when relaxed. The dense thatch of hair that lay between was an irresistible lure to her. She eased her fingers into it, seeking and finding all the changing textures of his masculinity. The differences between his body and her own fascinated her. She cherished those differences with her fingertips, her palms, her hands holding and caressing him as he changed to meet her touch. His potency compelled her in an elemental way. She wanted to know him with the same searing, wild intimacy with which he had known her.

„You’re fishing in rocky waters again,“ Raven rumbled, his tone both amused and thick with arousal.

„Yes,“ Janna said, cradling his very different flesh in her hands, „I know. This time, I know.“

Raven smiled as he remembered the first time they had awakened in bed together, when Janna hadn’t recognized the distinctive male flesh rising hard and hot beneath her hand.

„I want to… touch you,“ she said softly, caressing him. „Do you mind?“

„Do I look like I mind?“ he asked, his voice gritty.

Janna looked from the heavy-lidded sensuality of Raven’s eyes to the hard flesh that she was caressing. „No,“ she agreed huskily, „You don’t look like you mind. But there are other ways of touching, ways that appalled me before I knew you.“ She smiled slightly, thinking of that shelf of books she had thrown away after her divorce. „There are whole chapters I want to explore. With you, Raven. Only with you. Would you mind that?“

She felt the sudden, savage tightening of his body as he understood what she was asking.

„Whatever you want, small warrior,“ Raven said, his voice dark, caressing, thick with anticipation. „However you want it.“

„‘For as long as you can take it,’“ Janna added, smiling, remembering what Raven had once said to her. „I’m glad you’re an unusually strong man,“ she whispered, bending down to him. „Very glad.“

The long, wide beach uncurled in front of Raven and Janna like an immense ribbon. The wind that had swept away clouds and mist alike had also stirred the ocean into a dark blue mass where whitecaps flashed and vanished only to reform again atop other metallic blue swells. Lines of breakers rolled toward the beach in creamy ranks, adding a rhythmic thunder to the deep baying of the wind. Neither picnic tables nor trash cans marred the sand’s pristine surface. There were no footprints, no people, nothing but the wind and the sea and the distant keening of gulls.

„I feel as though I’m trespassing,“ Janna said, looking behind at the tracks they were leaving in the sand.

„The tide will wash it clean again,“ Raven said. „It will be as though we were never here.“ He looked at the position of the sun in the sky. „We have some time before Angel and Hawk are meeting us. Want to explore?“

Raven caught the sensual, almost secret smile that came to Janna’s lips and didn’t know whether to laugh or swear at the sudden hot rush of his blood.

„I was referring to exploring the beach,“ Raven continued, „but I’m open to suggestion.“ Knowing he shouldn’t, unable to stop himself, he bent and kissed Janna slowly, savoring the taste and textures of her mouth. „In fact,“ he said, unzipping her wind shell and sliding his hand up beneath her sweater, „I’ve got a few suggestions of my own.“

Janna threaded her fingers deeply into Raven’s hair. „You know,“ she said, biting his lower lip with sensual precision, „I ought to call your bluff. Because after this morning, bluff is all it could be!“

„Wanna bet?“ he asked, smiling darkly.

Raven knew he should release Janna from the net of his sensuality. That was why he had come to the beach of illusions – to let her go. Yet his free hand was even now caressing her buttocks, kneading the firm flesh as he pressed her body tightly against him.

Janna’s breath came in swiftly. Raven was as hard and ready as though they hadn’t just spent the morning hours exploring his strength and endurance.

„Yeah,“ Raven said, smiling oddly when he saw Janna’s expression change. He moved his hand up to caress a velvety nipple that hardened beneath his fingers. „It’s the damnedest thing,“ he admitted „I never had this problem until I met you.“

„Neither did I,“ Janna said, feeling sensual heat rush through her as she arched her body against him in a long, intimate caress.

„So which one of us is going to be sensible about it?“ he asked.

„How do you define sensible?“

„Not making love on a public beach,“ Raven said succinctly.

„Oh.“ Janna sighed. „Damn.“

„Yeah. Damn.“ With a reluctance that almost undid his good intentions, Raven slid his hand out from beneath Janna’s sweater – but not before he saw the ruby nipple rising between his fingers. „Why am I always covering you up when all I want to do is run my tongue over you?“ he groaned, easing the sweater back into place on her body.

Janna laughed softly. „Covering me up? Since when?“

„Since the first time I saw that ripe berry peeking out from beneath a corner of the survival blanket, that’s when,“ he retorted. „All I wanted to do was take you into my mouth and feel you change as my tongue loved you.“

Suddenly Janna remembered the moment when Raven had tucked the blanket around her shoulders and she had been devastated, thinking that he was utterly indifferent to her as a woman.

„You wanted me then?“ she whispered, hardly able to believe it.

„I wanted you the instant I saw you fighting the storm,“ he said flatly.

„You should have taken me, Raven. I was yours the first time I heard your voice calling to me over the waves, telling me that I wasn’t alone. I was yours before I even knew who you were,“ she whispered. „I still am yours. I always will be. I love – “

Janna felt the heat and sweetness of Raven’s mouth as he kissed her, stilling the torrent of whispered words. It was a long time before he released her, laced his fingers through hers and led her farther down the untouched sands. For an instant Janna closed her eyes, walking blindly, trying to ease the pain of not being allowed to speak her love. The wind combed through her hair, freeing it from restraints, making it a soft cinnamon radiance around her face.

The doubts that faded each time Raven made love to Janna came back to her now with redoubled force. He was an honest man, a compassionate man, a kind man. If he didn’t love her, he would try very hard not to hurt her. And one of his kindnesses would be to make certain that she wasn’t left to hear her soft declarations of love echo unanswered. That was why he always kissed her words away, sparing her all that he could. He had proven to her that she was an endless fire in his body, but somehow she had left his soul untouched. Passion, not love.

Why can’t one person love enough for two?

No answer came to Janna’s silent cry, nothing but the wind keening over the unmarked sands.

Raven tried to look at the empty land and the wind-tossed sea but could not glance away from Janna for more than a few moments at a time. He sensed the sadness in her, a darkness that only made her smile more luminous, more achingly beautiful each time she turned toward him. It was her courage that had drawn him to Janna, even before he had seen her beauty and sensuality. He sensed that courage now, a determination to smile that was as great as her sadness. He ached to hold her but knew that in the end it would only make things worse for her, not better. Today he had to open his hands and return his gift from the gods.

„You’re walking like a man with a destination,“ Janna said, holding her voice so tightly that her throat ached.

„Am I?“

„Yes. All broad shoulders and long-striding purpose.“

Raven smiled at the image. „I just wanted to get up the beach before the illusions fade.“

Janna gave him a sideways, here-we-go-again kind of look.

„A little farther, where the beach curves away to the north,“ he explained. „That’s where they dance, but only on clear days.“

There was a three-beat pause before Janna said triumphantly, „Bandersnatches, right? And it’s ‘wanes’ not ‘days.’“

„No, it’s rose-colored mirages dancing between Eden and Alaska,“ he countered, stopping suddenly. „See?“

Janna felt the warmth of Raven radiating through her as he fitted her spine against his muscular chest. His powerful arm came over her shoulder as he pointed toward the northern horizon.

„There,“ he murmured. „See them dance?“

„Oh sure,“ she said agreeably. „Right next to the pink elephants tripping the light fantastic. They – “ Janna’s breath came in sharply and the hair on her neck stirred. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the rose-tinted distance. „Raven, there’s something out there.“

„Yes,“ he whispered. „Aren’t they beautiful? Everything man has ever wanted shimmering and dancing just beyond his reach.“

Janna couldn’t answer. The eerie, compelling illusions twisted and changed like pale rose flames, whispering to her soundlessly, haunting her. The rational, educated part of her mind calmly told her that the gently seething apparitions were simply a trick of light and atmosphere, like the mirages that had led so many desert explorers to madness and death; but the most primitive part of Janna looked at the illusions and saw pieces of her own soul calling soundlessly to her, telling her that everything she had ever dreamed of beckoned just beyond her fingertips.

The visions were drawn in flames of transparent silver and luminous rose, a world both dreamed and real. It was the sea and a deserted inlet and a single tree that was unique upon the face of the earth. It was a raven’s song sung in silence and answered in the beauty of a smile. It was a man and a woman created for this radiant instant that knew no time, created for this beautiful and savage Eden, created each for the other. They glimmered and intertwined between sky and sea, time and timelessness, being and dreaming.

Raven saw Janna’s face both haunted and radiant, sadness and ecstasy combined. He wanted to ask her what she was seeing in the enigmatic sky but knew that he had no right. Visions could only be shared, not demanded, a gift from one mind to another, one soul to another. He had taken too much from her already, more than he had any right to take. And he would pay for it in the torment of his memories when he touched again each moment of his days in Eden and thereby measured the immensity of his loss when he lived in Eden no longer.

Raven looked at the heartless, haunting mirages shimmering over the water; and he saw a time years ago, when he had been alone.

„The summer I built the cabin in Totem Inlet,“ Raven said quietly, „I was restless, lonely, a bird without wings, a fish without fins, nothing fit and nothing was right. I had been alone before, but never lonely.“ He hesitated, seeing again the summer that had begun so like this one and had ended so differently. „A few days after I finished the cabin I was restless again. I prowled through the forest, trying to wear myself out enough to sleep at night.“

For an instant Raven closed his eyes, remembering, seeing a green Eden that at the time had looked more like hell.

„I found a young doe trapped in a moss-covered deadfall. She was half dead from thirst and terror and pain. When I freed her, I saw that one of her legs was injured. If I let her go, she would die. Yet if I kept her, tamed her, made her dependent on me, then I would be dooming her to a different, even more cruel death when I abandoned her. Because I knew the summer would end, the winter would come and I would go. I knew this, but the doe did not. She only knew each moment as it came.“

Janna waited, feeling silence gathering like cold mist around her, chilling her. She sensed that she didn’t want to know the end of the story Raven was telling.

And she had no choice but to know it, to understand the man she loved no matter what the cost.

„What did you do?“ she whispered, forcing the words past the ache in her throat.

„I carried the doe to the cabin, bound her leg and wove cedar boughs into a fence upwind of the cabin. There was natural food, clean water and no bears to feed on her helplessness.“ Raven paused, seeing again the fragile, shivering doe who had calmed so quickly beneath his voice and hands. „It would have been very easy to win her trust. She was gentle, intelligent, adaptable as all young things are. She would have learned to run toward my voice, making me smile. She would have been company, and I was… lonely.“

Janna started to ask why Raven had been so lonely, but he was talking again.

„I left the doe alone behind the cedar fence. When I checked on her I made sure that she neither saw nor scented me. In time she didn’t limp anymore. She even chewed off the shirt I had used to bind her wound. The fence was high enough to restrain an injured doe, but not too high for a healthy one to jump. One day I came to check on her and found nothing there but silence and cedar.“

Wind breathed across Janna’s cheeks, cooling the tears that welled in her eyes. Raven saw the silver gleam and smoothed his palm very gently over Janna’s hair.

„There was nothing sad in her leaving,“ he said. „My reward for helping the doe didn’t come from winning her trust. My reward came when I saw her last graceful leap as she fled into the forest where she had been born. She never looked back. She never returned to the clearing or the cabin.“ Raven lifted his hand from Janna’s hair. „And that was the way it had to be. To have taken anything more from the doe in her helplessness would have made me less of a man.“

Janna bowed her head as she fought against tears and the realization that in some way Raven thought of her as he had the doe – something wounded, helpless, given into his care only long enough to be rescued, healed and then freed.

Like Angel. She had been another gift to be healed and freed. That was what Raven had meant when he said that he had finally realized Angel’s life was more valuable than his chance to win her love. He had gone to her, pulled her out of the trap of her rage and despair, shown her the way to heal herself… and then watched her slip from his hands without a backward look.

At least Angel had finally returned. But did that make it better for Raven, or worse?

„It was Angel, wasn’t it?“ Janna whispered. „That’s why you were restless the 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.“

And the last word I say will be your name.

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, please.“

„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.“

„It’s three miles to your cabin,“ Raven called. „Let Hawk take you home.“

„It’s all right, Raven,“ Janna said calmly, looking over her shoulder. „I’ll walk on the edge of the sea. When the tide turns, it will be like I never was.“

Raven closed his eyes, wanting to go to Janna, hold her, comfort her and himself. But it would be a cruelty, not a kindness. He had to be strong enough to be kind.

Janna watched Raven for a long moment before she turned away. She walked swiftly, cleanly, and she didn’t look back again.

Raven opened his eyes and watched her until he could stand it no longer. Then he closed his eyes against the agony twisting through his soul.

„Carlson?“

Raven flinched from the soft voice and softer touch on his arm. Deliberately he stepped aside, beyond Angel’s reach.

„Aren’t you going to go after her?“ Hawk asked.

„I never should have touched her.“ Raven’s eyes opened. They were black, wild, almost frightening in their intensity. „I couldn’t stop myself. I knew Janna was mine in some primitive, unspeakable way the first time I saw her. I knew it.“

„So did she,“ Hawk said. „She loves you, Carlson. It shows in every – “

„Gratitude,“ Raven interrupted in a harsh tone. „Not love.“

„How can you be so sure?“ Angel asked.

His sudden laughter was as dark and savage as his eyes. „Angel Eyes,“ he said gently. „Sweet, beautiful Angel Eyes. It’s so simple. I’m not the kind of man a woman loves. Of all people on earth, you should know that.“

Angel went pale. „Carlson,“ she said, throwing her arms around him, „I never meant to hurt you like that. It was my fault, not yours. There’s nothing wrong with you!“

„Don’t cry for me,“ Raven said quietly, stroking the burnished gold of Angel’s hair. „Even if I could, I wouldn’t change what happened in the past. I’m not the other half of your soul, and I never could have been. Hawk is. And,“ Raven murmured, „you aren’t the other half of mine. I know that now.“

„But Janna is,“ Angel said urgently. „She’s the other half of you.“

„I know,“ Raven said. „And I know that gratitude isn’t love.“

„You’re wrong about Janna,“ Hawk said quietly. „I was raised on gratitude, not love. I know what gratitude is and what it isn’t. It isn’t a woman’s eyes following you everywhere, her fingers touching you when there’s no need, her voice softening when she says your name, her smile more beautiful for you than for anyone else on earth.“

Raven couldn’t bear to hear any more words. He wanted to believe them too much. He no longer trusted himself to listen.

Abruptly he turned away and walked toward his car, letting his tracks mingle with the others, blurring all distinctions as to whom had gone out to the beach of illusions and who had returned. Yet still Hawk’s voice followed, carrying clearly on the wind.

„Janna looks at you the way Angel looks at me. The way I look at Angel. The way you look at Janna. Not gratitude, Carlson. Love!“

Overhead, gulls wheeled on a gust of wind, keening and crying to one another, and their calls became Janna’s name echoing in Raven’s mind. The breakers took up the cry, chanting in deeper tones, while the wind’s supple voice mourned in counterpoint. He saw Janna wherever he looked, tasted her on his lips, felt her in the heat of his own blood sliding through his veins. She was everywhere, a part of everything; but most of all she was part of his soul and he was crying her name within the silence that only she had ever touched.

Raven drove quickly to the Black Star, wanting only to pack up and get as far away from the Queen Charlotte Islands as possible. Once aboard he began stripping his clothes from lockers and drawers, throwing things haphazardly into a duffel bag. He opened the last drawer and froze. Angel’s sketchbook lay on top, the sketchbook that Janna had used in Totem Inlet.

Slowly Raven pulled the book out. He had never looked at Janna’s sketches. She had never offered to show them to him, saying that after seeing Angel’s stained glass creations, anything else would be a disappointment.

The sketches were like Janna herself – direct, often humorous, honest, and with an underlying sensuality of line and shading that made Raven ache with memories. He could hear her rueful laughter in the drawing labeled „God’s Own Washing Machine,“ which showed jeans and shirts slung over any handy railing while rain poured down over them, washing away salt and sand. He could see Janna’s honesty in the sketch of a totem labeled simply „Before.“ She drew the Haida icons without embellishment or softening, accepting without evasion the Haidas’ comfortless view of man in relation to the universe.

Page after page turned beneath Raven’s careful fingers until there was only one page left. He turned it and felt his scalp tighten in primitive response. At first the sketch looked like the others, but there were aspects of it that teased his mind until realization came. There were shadows that suggested a man’s watchful eyes, a seemingly random collection of curves that became a face superimposed on the sea, a mist-wrapped mountain that evoked a man seated, thinking, a very powerful man with black hair and granite strength and eyes that flinched from nothing.

And all of the men were Raven.

Raven’s features in infinite variations, his eyes and mouth repeated in forest and mountain, ocean and totem, Raven smiling or intent, asleep or in the grip of passion, calm or at the instant of hottest ecstasy, gentle or fierce – Raven, always Raven. It was as though nothing lived, not even the sea itself, that wasn’t animated by Raven’s own breath, his own life flowing into everything, becoming part of it.

He looked at the drawing until he could no longer see it, and then he put his face in his hands and wept, knowing that he had finally heard a love song for a raven.

Mist condensed with the falling sun, giving the land a mysterious gloaming that was as haunted as the vanished rose illusions. Janna had stopped a hundred yards from her cabin and turned to look at the long, wandering trail she had left on her walk out of Eden. She didn’t know how long she had been standing there watching the ragged black stitches she had left behind in the sand, stitches that were being unraveled by the returning tide. Now there was nothing left but shadowy hollows where spindrift gathered. The next wave would wash away even that, leaving nothing at all.

„If I could, I would paint sky and mountains, sea and forest, and they would all be you.“

The soft, deep voice sent shivers over Janna’s skin and made her doubt her sanity in the instant before she spun around. Raven was standing within reach, as though he had condensed from the primal night and her own dreams.

„If I could,“ Raven said, „I would have the wind calling your name in all times and seasons, and the mist-veiled forests would have been created just to match your eyes. But I’m not an artist or a god. I’m only a harsh-voiced raven flying over an empty Eden, crying for what I wanted so much that I was afraid to believe that it was finally mine.“ His big hands came up, framing Janna’s face, trembling as they touched her softness and warmth, „I have no beautiful songs to fill your silences, no worlds to remake in your image, no special way to tell you that you’re the other half of my soul.“

„Raven – “ Janna’s voice broke. „I don’t need special gifts or songs or anything but you. Just you, Raven. I love you.“

The words swept through Raven, transforming him.

He lifted her high in his arms and held her close, telling her with his strength and his gentleness and his whispered words how much he loved her, feeling his love returned with every touch, every breath, her vital warmth enveloping him as he held her.

Beyond them the last of the footprints leading from Eden dissolved into the mist and moon-silvered sea. Neither Janna nor Raven noticed. They had found the only Eden that mattered, and they would hold it forever in their arms.