Love Song For A Raven

Chapter 5

By the time Janna had finished rummaging through the galley in order to find ketchup and horseradish, she had regained some of her normal common-sense outlook and with it her usually easygoing temperament. As she reminded herself, it wasn’t Raven’s fault that he was drawn to tragic blond angels. Nor was it his problem that she was finding it harder and harder to be close to him without touching him in a decidedly unangelic fashion.

And the storm just kept calling wildly over land and sea.

From what Janna had been able to understand between the bursts of static that had come whenever Raven tried to pick up a station on the radio, they had at least two more days in Totem Inlet before the wind died down enough to make the ocean safer for small craft.

Just two days. Surely she could keep her yearnings to herself and her sense of humor intact for a mere two days.

Gloomily Janna put out the box of oyster crackers she had found in the cupboard. After a moment of frowning at the innocent crackers, she decided to sort through the Black Star’s spare cooler. She knew there weren’t any lemons in the small galley refrigerator, but she had high hopes for the storage cooler. She hadn’t found a lemon there yet, but then she hadn’t really looked, either. It wasn’t the sort of thing you did on a whim.

The cooler was little more than a long, deep plastic container set below waterline and shaped to conform to the curve of the hull. A hinged section of the counter lifted to give access to the cooler. Janna lifted the lid and looked in. No lemons had grown there since the last time she had looked, but she could swear that she smelted fresh lemons beneath the pervasive odor of onions and oranges. She stared down into the darkness at the small bags crowding against each other. Getting to the bottom of the cooler was going to require a flashlight and an ability to hang her head down in an enclosed space while balancing her weight on the edge of the counter and bracing her feet at floor level on the opposite cabinet.

That was exactly what Janna was doing when Raven came into the cabin. The sight of her long, naked legs stretched diagonally across the aisle brought him to a complete stop. Muffled thumps came from the cooler as Janna shifted potatoes, onions, carrots, oranges and other durable fresh foods from one side of the cooler to the other in her quest for lemons.

Raven barely noticed the sounds. He was fighting to control the impulse to run his hands from Janna’s ankles to the smooth curve of her hips… and from there to let his fingers slide into the shadowed feminine secrets he knew were waiting.

It would be easy to do, a few seconds, no more, and he could peel away the dark blue lace briefs that even now peeked from the edge of the oversize shirt. Or he could take longer. Much longer. He could learn every smooth bit of Janna with his teeth and his tongue, nuzzling closer to her secrets as he slowly, slowly, eased the lacy briefs down her beautiful legs.

Raven’s hands were actually reaching for Janna before he realized it. „What the hell do you think you’re doing?“ he muttered roughly to himself.

An answer floated up from below the counter. „Looking for lemons.“

„Lemons,“ he repeated thickly, watching his own shirt climb higher and higher up Janna’s body as she wriggled backward up and out of the cooler’s depths. When he saw the sweet flex and shift of Janna’s hips beneath blue lace, his whole body tightened. „Oh God,“ he gritted.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds and tried to control his own hunger. It didn’t work. Desire poured in red-hot torrents through his blood and pooled urgently, rigidly, between his thighs.

„Lemons,“ Janna said, her voice becoming clearer with each instant as she emerged from hanging upside down in the cooler. „You know – something to sweeten my disposition.“

Raven laughed almost helplessly and then swore in the same way, but silently. He had been expecting to have a tense dinner with an angry woman and had walked into the cabin to find Janna’s sexy bottom tempting him and her sense of humor restored. Now, if he could just do something about the raw, hard desire that was riding him, they might get out of the inlet before he took her down onto his bunk and ate every sweet inch of her.

And then again, they might not, especially if he didn’t stop watching her hips move. Now. Right now.

With a groan Raven forced himself to look away from the inviting curves of Janna’s bottom. By memory alone he found a plate for the oysters and retreated to the stern, shutting the cabin door behind. Using great care he stacked oysters on the plate. When he looked over his shoulder through the cabin window, Janna was head down in the cooler again. Grimly he rearranged the mound of oysters on the plate. Three times.

„I found some!“

„Thank God,“ Raven said with real feeling, turning toward the cabin.

He opened the door and closed it, balancing the heavy oyster plate in one hand. One look told him he had come back a few seconds too soon. Janna was just now wriggling onto her feet. Her face was flushed and her hair was tousled from hanging upside down for the past few minutes.

And her shirt was bunched at her waist.

Janna noticed the cloth, too. As her hands were full of lemons, she restored the shirt to its proper place with a quick shimmy of her hips. The tantalizing motion made Raven groan.

„Raven?“ She turned toward him. „What is it? Did you stab yourself with the oyster knife?“

No, but only because I wasn’t holding it. God, woman, there should be a law against movements like that.

Raven had just enough control left to keep the thought to himself. He took a deep breath – and smelled hot tennis shoes.

Janna smelled them at the same instant. She dumped the lemons in the sink, yanked open the oven door and pulled out her forgotten jeans and shoes. Raven set aside the oysters just in time to snag a pair of flying jeans before they wrapped around his face. Janna tossed the shoes from hand to hand, muttering to herself.

„If I’d known you were this hungry, I’d have tried for some cod,“ he said, examining the jeans with deadpan distaste.

„Who was it that I heard earlier singing paeans of praise to baked jeans?“ retorted Janna, dropping the hot but otherwise unhurt shoes to the deck.

Raven chuckled and folded the rapidly cooling jeans. Janna saw his big hands linger almost caressingly on the worn cloth of the seat and shivered, wishing she were wearing the jeans.

„Talk about hot pants,“ she muttered.

„What?“

„Er, are they cool enough to wear?“ she asked quickly.

„Are you cold?“

Janna opened her mouth, thought better of it, and said, „No you don’t.“

Raven gave her a slow, sideways look. „No I don’t what?“

„Sucker me into another one of those open-ended free-association conversations.“

Smiling, Raven sat on his heels and poked cautiously at the tennies. He looked up and said gravely, „Give ‘em another ten minutes while we have oysters on the half shell. The shoes should be tender by then.“

„Good idea.“

Before his astonished eyes she tossed the shoes in the oven, cranked the control up to high and slammed the oven door. She turned and began mixing cocktail sauce as though nothing had happened. He waited. And waited.

And waited.

Suddenly Raven’s deep, warm laughter filled the cabin. He bent over, shut off the oven and whisked the shoes out.

„You’d have done it, wouldn’t you?“ he asked, still laughing.

„Damn straight,“ she assured him, fighting the smile that insisted on shaping her lips into an amused curve. „The first thing a little sister learns is to out-stubborn brothers who are bigger, stronger and tougher than she is.“

„Small warrior,“ Raven murmured, touching the cinnamon fire of Janna’s hair so lightly that she didn’t feel it. „Did they torment you?“

Janna started to agree emphatically, then realized that it wasn’t quite true. „Sometimes, but they loved me in their own way. And I was a little witch to them. Sometimes.“

„But you loved them all the time,“ Raven said, watching the softness that memories brought to Janna’s mouth.

„Yes,“ she whispered. „They always tried to protect me. They used to drive me crazy vetting my dates, sending some of the boys running and scaring the others so that they were afraid to hold my hand. The only one they would let near me was the boy next door. They liked Mark. He never came on strong.“

Janna’s smile slipped. If only they had known why Mark wasn’t aggressive with their nubile little sister. But it wasn’t fair to blame them. Mark hadn’t known, either. Not really.

„Mark? Your husband?“

„Once. No more.“

„Why?“

Janna’s hands paused. With deliberate motions she scraped the cocktail sauce into a small, shallow bowl. „We were all wrong for each other.“

„What do you mean?“ Raven asked, sensing something more than the usual things that pulled marriages apart.

She hesitated, then shrugged again. „Mark saw me as a friend, a companion, a sister, sometimes even a mother. But not a lover.“ Janna’s voice was even, but all the softness was gone from her face and memories. „Do you want your lemon in the cocktail sauce or on the side?“

Raven looked at Janna for a long moment, wanting to ask more questions about her and the man she had once loved enough to marry – a man who apparently hadn’t loved her.

„On the side,“ he said finally, asking none of his questions because Janna’s eyes were jade green, no passionate silver, no emotion turning in the depths, nothing to tell him whether she had been sad or happy or indifferent when her marriage had ended.

A companion, a sister, a mother, not a lover.

Raven winced inwardly. No wonder Janna had stiffened when he had praised her in terms of her gentle hands and smile. He wondered if she had wanted her husband as a lover rather than a child. Even as the question came, he knew the answer; she had wanted a lover and had gotten a child.

„Your husband must have been blind,“ Raven said flatly.

„How gallant of you to say so,“ Janna said. Her full lips formed a smile that was as emotionless as her eyes. „But unnecessary and untrue. Mark was a pilot. He had superb vision. Do you have a corkscrew for the wine?“

„Did you love him?“

„Of course not,“ she said. „I marry every man who asks me out more than twice.“

„Janna…“ Raven began.

„Corkscrew?“ she asked, smiling at him again, a smile as cool as her voice. „My brothers showed me how to take out the cork just by hitting the bottom of the bottle with my hand, but I’m not as strong as they are. I bruise my palm every time. You’d be good at it, though. Strong and hard. Like them.“

„Do you still love him?“

„Did anyone ever tell you to mind your own business?“

„Yes. Do you still love him?“

„Why does it matter to you?“ Janna asked through clenched teeth, feeling her careful veneer of dispassion disintegrating.

„I won’t let you waste your life looking over your shoulder,“ Raven said quietly.

„You won’t let me.“ Janna’s teeth clicked as she shut her mouth and stared at the big, immovable man in front of her. „You aren’t responsible for my life. I already have a father and three older brothers who are almost as big and every bit as overbearing as you.“

„Do you still love Mark?“ Raven asked relentlessly.

„No! I haven’t loved him since he cried himself to sleep in my arms because he couldn’t bring himself to have sex with me!“

„What?“ said Raven, disbelief clear in his voice.

„He married me because he had always liked me, and he wanted children and thought I’d be a great little mother. He thought if any woman could turn him on, it would be me. He was wrong. I couldn’t have turned him on with a blowtorch! He was gay and hadn’t been able to admit it!“

Janna heard the words echo in the small cabin and was appalled. She had never told anyone about that terrible night when she and her husband had both realized that he was living a lie. She wouldn’t have said anything now if Raven hadn’t pushed so hard. She took a long, ragged breath, wishing she could crawl under the counter to avoid Raven’s dark, compassionate eyes.

„There. Feel better now?“ she asked, her voice shaking.

„I was just going to ask you the same question.“

„I’ve never felt worse in my life. Next time, leave me at the bottom of the inlet. The cost of being saved by you is too damned high!“

Raven made a low, involuntary sound, as though he had been struck. „Funny,“ he said finally, „that’s the same thing Angel told me.“

Raven’s lips twisted into a sad smile that tore at Janna’s heart, telling her that somehow she had wounded him more deeply than she had imagined possible, far more than he had hurt her with his questions. Abruptly the anger drained out of her.

„I’m sorry,“ she whispered. „I didn’t mean to-“

„It’s all right,“ Raven interrupted, turning away. „You didn’t know. And even if you did, I had it coming.“

„If I had known, I wouldn’t have said it. I’m not that cruel.“

Raven turned toward Janna. „Small warrior,“ he said, smiling slightly as he stroked her cheek with his calloused palm. „Haven’t you learned? Sometimes kindness doesn’t get it done.“ He turned away, opened a galley drawer and pulled out a corkscrew. With a few easy, powerful motions he took the cork from the wine bottle. „Glasses are in the cupboard to your left.“

Numbly Janna reached for the cupboard. She pulled two wineglasses from their restraints and faced Raven again. As he filled the glasses she could see his nostrils flare in silent appreciation of the wine’s fragrance. He poured the pale golden liquid into the glasses, leaving room for the wine to be swirled by a deft movement of his wrist as he dipped his head to inhale the bouquet. The gesture spoke of a sophistication very much at odds with his rough shirt and jeans.

„What was Angel looking over her shoulder at?“ Janna asked, surprising herself. She hadn’t meant to ask Raven any more questions.

„A dead man.“

Janna paused in the act of setting cocktail sauce on the table. „She loved him?“

„He died the night before their wedding. Her parents died in the same car crash. She survived. She was too badly injured to move. She could only lie there and listen to Grant’s pain until he died.“

Raven’s voice was matter-of-fact, which only made the words more terrible.

Janna closed her eyes, unable to repress the shiver that took her at the thought of what Angel must have gone through. She felt ashamed of herself for lashing out at Raven. However sad and painful the end of her marriage had been, it hadn’t been like watching the man she loved die and being helpless even to touch his hand.

„Angel came out of it, finally.“ Raven continued, putting the plate of oysters on the kitchen table.

„And you comforted her,“ said Janna, thinking aloud, seeing in her mind a slender blonde taking refuge from pain and grief in Raven’s strong arms.

He looked sideways at Janna’s pale, tight face and wondered at the sadness he saw there. „Angel had Derry – Grant’s brother – to comfort her. She needed something tougher, something that would let her pour out all the rage she had at life for taking away the man she loved. The rage was destroying her. She had to get rid of it before she could cope with the despair that was the other side of rage.“

Janna’s eyes opened wide as she understood. She faced Raven and saw echoes of pain in the tight lines bracketing his mouth. She remembered what he had said: Sometimes kindness doesn’t get it done. Now she understood his words. „You deliberately made yourself a target, didn’t you?“

There was a heartbeat’s pause before Raven’s deep voice said, „Yes.“

„And she hated you for it.“

Raven nodded.

„Didn’t she ever understand why you did it?“

„She understood right away,“ he said, setting plates, forks and oyster crackers on the table. „Forgiveness took longer. Years.“

„You loved her,“ Janna said. She was motionless, watching Raven intently, and she was afraid in a way that she didn’t understand.

„Yes.“

„You still love her.“

Raven smiled gently to himself as he shifted oysters onto Janna’s plate. „Of course. Angel loves me, too, now. You’d like her,“ he said, looking up. „Like you, she’s a warrior of the heart. She fought her way against terrible odds and won life and love. A beautiful woman in every sense of the word.“

Janna looked into her wineglass and wished it were a sea deep enough to drown in. The fear and despair she felt were worse than they had been at the moment she had found herself trapped beneath the sinking boat. Her body had been cold then. Now the cold went all the way to her soul.

Fear. She was very much afraid that she had fallen in love with Raven, a man who loved someone else. Knowing the source of her fear didn’t make her any less afraid. It simply made her understand her fear. She had lost something before she even had a chance to win it.

„Why aren’t you married to Angel?“ Janna asked flatly.

Raven gave her a swift, sideways look, then smiled. „Canada takes a dim view of bigamy.“

„You’re married to someone else?“ Janna asked, her head snapping up, shock clear on her face.

He laughed and shook his head. „No. Angel is though, and very happily.“ He sipped the wine before adding quietly, „Derry and I helped Angel to survive, but it was Miles Hawkins who truly healed her. As she healed him. They brought out the best in each other. They still do.“

The affection and admiration in Raven’s voice when he spoke of the man Angel loved puzzled Janna. „Most men in your shoes would hate Angel’s husband.“

Raven’s massive shoulders moved in a shrug. „Hawk gave Angel something no other man had been able to give. She gave him what she had given to no other man. They are as deeply interlocked as the sea and the shore. To hate one would be to hate the other.“

Janna listened and wondered deep within herself if she would ever be able to accept the loss of love as generously as Raven had. „You’re an unusual man, Carlson Raven,“ she said huskily. „Angel must have been blind to choose someone else.“

His teeth flashed in a white smile. „You haven’t met Hawk. Tall, dark, handsome, sophisticated. Wherever he goes he turns heads. Women’s heads. I’ve never seen anything like it.“

Janna looked at Raven. „Pull my other leg,“ she said sardonically. „It’s shorter.“

„Believe me, Hawk is the most – “

„He can’t be a patch on you,“ she said succinctly, interrupting. She took a drink of her wine and then stared down into it gloomily. „My God, I’ll bet there’s an epidemic of female whiplash every time you walk down the street.“

Raven sat at the table and cocked an inquiring black eyebrow at Janna. „Are you one of those women who can’t take a sip of alcohol without getting delirious?“

With an impatient sound Janna put her wine on the table and scooped a lemon out of the sink. „Don’t bother to be modest,“ she said, quartering the lemon with knife strokes that were just short of vicious. „Surely you’ve noticed the women piling up around your feet like autumn leaves.“

Raven stuck his large feet out into the aisle and looked at them curiously. „Nope. Not a one.“

„Of course not,“ she shot back. „You have two.“

„More than six and a half, actually.“

Janna blinked. „Help.“

„Feet,“ he added blandly. „As in tall.“

Smiling, shaking her head, Janna gave up. The last of her anger fled as she looked at Raven’s dark face animated by inner laughter. For a tearing instant she wondered why life was so unfair as to give Raven everything she had ever wanted in a man – and then to place him beyond her reach. Sudden tears came in blinding counterpoint to laughter, threatening to choke her. She tried to speak, to explain, but all that came out were fragments of Raven’s name.

„Hey, it wasn’t that bad a pun,“ Raven said gently, coming to stand beside Janna and blot up her tears with a napkin.

Head down, leaning against his strength, Janna fought not to cry. After a minute she succeeded.

„Sorry,“ she said, drawing a deep breath. „I never cry. I don’t know what’s wrong.“ She sighed and reluctantly drew back from Raven’s body.

„You had quite a scare a few days ago,“ Raven said quietly. His hand hesitated before he permitted himself the luxury of stroking Janna’s gleaming cinnamon hair. The smooth warmth of the crown of her head made his palm feel as though it was caressing fire. „It’s not surprising you’re still feeling the emotional aftershocks.“

Janna felt Raven’s touch all the way to the soles of her feet. She wanted to turn her head and catch his hard palm against her lips. Even as the impulse came, she had given in to it. Her lips brushed over his warm hand.

„You’re very kind,“ she said huskily. „Whoever Hawk is, whatever he is, Angel took second best.“

Raven watched as Janna turned from his arms and slid into the booth seat along the table. Her honesty and vulnerability to him made him ache with tenderness. And hunger. He knew that she wanted him. He knew how much he wanted her. Silently he cursed the circumstances that had brought them together and at the same time made it impossible for him to accept what she offered. He couldn’t take a woman who came to him out of a combination of misplaced gratitude and primitive survival instincts.

And that was all Janna was feeling now – gratitude and the emotional aftershocks of almost dying. She would have been equally drawn to any man who had saved her life and then cared for her.

Too bad he wouldn’t have been equally drawn to any woman he had fished out of the sea.

Grimly Raven’s big hand closed around his wineglass. He took a quick swallow, then another, as though the beautiful Chardonnay were medicine. And, in a way, it was. If he drank enough of it he might sleep tonight instead of lying awake so frustrated and aroused that he could count his own pulse in the rigid stirrings of his sex.

With an abrupt movement Raven sat down, concealing his physical turmoil beneath the opaque barrier of the table. A hard smile tugged at his mouth as he eyed the oysters heaped on his plate. If folk tales were true, right now he needed saltpeter a hell of a lot more than he needed oysters.

Janna reached for the oyster crackers, shook out a handful and offered Raven the package. He took it without a word. She wondered what he was thinking that had etched such an odd smile onto his lips. When she realized that she was watching those same chiseled lips with breathless intensity, she looked away, flushing guiltily.

„What do you do when you aren’t fishing tourists out of Totem Inlet?“ Janna asked, seizing the first words that came into her mind.

„I used to be a commercial fisherman.“ Raven squeezed lemon onto an oyster and forked it into his mouth. „Not bad,“ he said thoughtfully, appreciating the acid tang of fresh lemon.

„The oyster?“ she asked, pausing in the act of reaching for one of her own.

„The lemon.“

Janna blinked. „Don’t you usually have it with oysters?“

„No.“

„Then why did you have all those lemons on board?“

„Angel likes fresh lemonade. We were going to cruise the east side of Moresby Island for a few days until Hawk got back from Tokyo. Hawk got in early, though.“ Raven smiled crookedly. „Married nearly four years and he still hates being away from Angel.“

„Maybe he didn’t want to tempt fate by leaving Angel alone with you,“ Janna said dryly.

Raven smiled even as he shook his head. „Not a chance. Pass some of that sauce over this way,“ he said. „I’ll try it next.“

„Haven’t you ever had this kind of sauce on your oysters?“ she asked, nudging the dish full of cocktail sauce closer to him.

„Nope,“ Raven rumbled.

„Then why did you have ketchup and horseradish on board?“

„For my roast beef sandwiches.“ He dipped an oyster in the dish, chewed the succulent flesh and cocked his head thoughtfully. „Not bad. Kind of saucy.“

Janna winced at the awful pun. „How do you usually eat your oysters? Cooked in a stew?“

„Just the way I find them. In the raw.“

„Must be kind of chilly,“ she said, reaching for her third oyster.

„What?“

„Finding oysters in the raw. Most people wear shirts and jeans and…“

Janna ducked a casual swipe from Raven’s massive hand. When she straightened again, his fingers returned to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

„We’re going to have to find you a scarf the color of your eyes.“

The gentleness of Raven’s touch made Janna’s heart stop and then beat with redoubled speed even as she told herself it was just a casual gesture that meant nothing. And even though it had made her go all shivery, it certainly hadn’t affected him. He was picking up his glass of wine as though nothing had happened.

Raven drained his glass in a single motion, cursing himself for touching Janna at every excuse – and knowing that he was just waiting for another tendril of silky hair to escape so that he could touch her again. He looked at his wineglass. Empty. Janna’s was almost empty, too. He refilled both glasses and wished that he and Janna were as naked as the oysters gleaming within their pearly half shells.

„To oysters in the raw,“ Raven said, lifting his wineglass.

His slow, very male smile sent frissons of awareness through Janna. She touched her wineglass to his and drank quickly, deeply, grateful for the excuse to look away from Raven’s midnight eyes. If he smiled like that again, she was afraid she would crawl right into his lap and beg to be kissed.

The thought shocked her. She took another quick swallow of wine and felt a different kind of warmth spread through her. Belatedly she realized that wine probably wasn’t what she should be drinking; alcohol wasn’t noted for enhancing self-control. On the other hand, the wine was absolutely delicious. Probably far too delicious.

„Do you still fish commercially?“ Janna asked, firmly trading wineglass for oyster fork.

„I own several commercial boats,“ Raven said. „My cousins have fished them for the last three years while I took Hawk’s money and saw the world.“

„Hawk must be as generous as he is handsome.“

Raven smiled crookedly. „Technically the money’s mine, but Hawk is the one who made it for me. The man’s a bloody genius with investments and land. Not long after he and Angel met, I gave him a few thousand dollars. A year later he gave me back a few million.“

„I lost most of it the following year,“ Raven said matter-of-factly. „Storms and fickle fish. Hawk just laughed and showed me how to make it all over again.“

Janna waved her wineglass in a vague circle that took in the Black Star. „Looks like you’re doing a good job of it.“

Raven shrugged and dipped another oyster in the thick sauce. „Like Hawk says, money’s just a way of keeping score. It’s nothing to build a life around. Angel is, though, and he knows it. Smart man, Hawk.“ Raven chewed the oyster thoughtfully. „Still a bit saucy.“

„Is that what you’re doing?“

„Being saucy?“ he asked innocently.

But Janna didn’t smile. Questions were crowding her tongue, reckless questions fueled by frustration and potent wine. „Are you building your life around Angel, too?“ she asked, forking up another oyster.

The smile vanished from Raven’s face, leaving behind the silence and blunt strength that was his very core. „I’m not a fool, Janna,“ he said quietly. „Angel will never love anyone but Hawk. He feels the same way about her.“

„And so do you,“ Janna said bleakly.

She drank more wine, hoping that it would finish the job of numbing her brain that the first glass had already begun. Her tongue, however, wasn’t yet numb. She had drunk just enough wine to say whatever came to her and let the chips hit the fan. Vaguely she realized that wasn’t quite what chips were supposed to do. Well, the chips would just have to look out for themselves. She lifted her glass in a mocking toast.

„To love,“ she said. „The best antidote to happiness yet devised by man.“

The bitterness in Janna’s voice surprised Raven. His eyes narrowed as he saw the unhappiness the wine had revealed beneath Janna’s humor.

„You aren’t drinking.“ she noted.

Raven said nothing.

„Ah well,“ said Janna carelessly, shrugging, „not everyone likes the truth. There are times when I sure as hell don’t.“ She drained her glass.

„And what is the truth?“ he asked in a deep voice.

„You’re hung up on Angel.“

„There have been other women in my life.“

„But only one Angel,“ Janna retorted recklessly. „The perfect willowy blond, green eyes full of mysteries and tragedy. Meanwhile the rest of the women in the world can forget it. Whatever they have to offer you isn’t wanted.“

„That’s not true.“

Janna muttered something succinct and contradictory beneath her breath as she reached for the wine bottle. It was empty. Startled, she looked at Raven’s glass. It was also empty.

„More wine?“ he asked smoothly. „This is getting interesting. In vino Veritas to coin an old phrase.“

„I have just enough brains left to know that more wine would be a really dumb idea for me,“ Janna said, stabbing an oyster so hard that her fork grated on the shell. „But don’t let that stop you. I’ve been on a roll lately. One dumb thing after another. Next thing you know I’ll be bleaching my hair and learning the harp and shopping for paper wings. Sure, bring on the wine. Fantastic idea. Should have thought of it sooner. Does wine make you tragic and mysterious, too?“

„What in hell are you talking about?“ Raven asked in a mild tone.

„Wining and dining,“ Janna said, waving an oyster at him.

„Was that with or without an h?“ he asked blandly, but his eyes gleamed with suppressed laughter.

For an instant Janna didn’t understand. Then she heard the echoes of her own bitter words coming back to her. „Whining,“ she whispered too softly for Raven to hear.

„Of course,“ he continued, „most oysters do tend to complain when dining with a walrus. From their point of view…“ He saw the brittle animation suddenly leave Janna’s face, revealing the pain beneath. He curled his hand comfortingly over hers. „Janna? I was joking.“

„Yes, of course,“ she said automatically. She looked at the big hand covering her own and knew that she couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. Her hand slid from beneath his.

„Excuse me,“ she said carefully. „I’ve had about all the comfort I can handle for one night. I have some sketching I should do while the images are still fresh in my mind.“

Without waiting for Raven’s answer, Janna grabbed the tablet and pencil from the counter. She retreated to her bunk in the bow, shutting the small door behind her, leaving her words to echo in Raven’s mind.

I’ve had about all the comfort I can handle for one night.

Raven didn’t know that his hand had clenched into a fist until he heard the sudden shattering of the wineglass. Slowly he opened his hand and let the glittering fragments fall to the table. Absently he wiped the bright dust from his palm. He should have known better than to buy such fragile glasses. He wasn’t any good with fragile things. Too damned big. Too damned strong. Too damned brutal. The really fine things of life were invariably crushed within his grasp. Like Angel.

And like Janna.

Raven leaned his head back against the bulkhead, closed his eyes and swore tiredly.