Eden's Spell (6 page)

Katrina stared out the window at the dead gray day. There was silence for a minute, then Jason—never good at keeping quiet—began to talk.

“Are you absolutely sure that you're not a spaceman? I had this dream—it was the neatest dream I've ever had!—about being in space. I had this thing called a star cruiser. R2-D2 was there, and Hans Solo, and you were in it too! Oh, not like you are now; you were in your space suit, of course! You were really from a planet called Vitrian, but you'd joined forces with Earth to help wipe out the deadly Odites, who were at war against the Federation. We all went into battle together—”

“And we won, I hope?” Mike inquired.

“Well, of course, we won!” Jason exclaimed happily. “It was just great!”

“And you remember it all—clearly?” he asked him.

“Clear as glass!” Jason laughed. He went on about the Odites while Katrina longed to tie a muzzle around his mouth. What had happened to him? Jason was a great kid—polite, but very wary of strangers. But to Mike, Jason was talking nonstop, just as if he'd known the man all of his life.

“Tell me everything, Jason. From the time I saw you at the pool. From the time you came to me.”

“Will you stop it! This is madness!” Katrina swung back around to face them, in a rage.

Both Mike and her son stared at her with annoyance, as if it were she who was completely mad.

Jason appeared perplexed. “Mom, it's okay—”

“Captain Taylor, may I see you? Alone, please!” Her eyes widened to stress the last word.

Mike and Jason exchanged a glance and a shrug, which irritated her even further. “Be right back, Jason,” Taylor promised; then he was on his feet. He bowed slightly—with definite sarcasm—to indicate that she might precede him out of the cabin.

Katrina did so. She didn't stop beneath the sheltered leeway, but stomped up the starboard steps to reach the deck, She didn't look at Mike, but gripped the wooden railing—both for something on which to vent the fury and strength that ripped through her arms, and because the yacht was dipping and swaying quite precariously.

She heard him behind her. He had sat down on the center rise that was actually the roof of Jason's cabin.

She didn't turn around. She didn't want to look at him.

“You know, Taylor, I really am trying to be calm about this whole thing. I still have no proof that you're not a maniac. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt because I have no choice. All right, you're Navy, and you're a doctor. And according to you we stumbled into your drug. But I won't be used! Nor do I want my son used. He is
not
one of your laboratory rats, and I will not have him become one! You're not going to sit there and pry and pick his mind! He's a little boy, not—not something for you to study!”

He didn't answer her. Katrina was forced to turn around, and as she did, the sea suddenly swelled, making the boat keel toward the port side.

She might as well have run to him, so cleanly was she swept from her position and catapulted into his arms.

And he was ready. Reflexes quick and attuned to the caprices of the sea, he caught her. Arms strong and sure and steadying as she landed within them, face first, into his chest. Katrina gasped against the surprising force of the elements, and as she struggled to regain the breath wrenched from her, hot sparks danced along her spine. When he held her … when she was close … it was there again. A sense of déjà vu, as if she knew him well. The nice, nice male scent of him, the ripple of his muscle. Even the tender amusement in his eyes when she raised her head and found him watching her….

“Oh! Let go of me!”

He released her, and she started to fall. Instinctively, she grasped for him again. And he smiled again, fingers curling around her arms as he led her down beside him.

“I think,” he murmured, watching her, “that we've a bigger problem at hand at the moment.”

“What could be—”

He rose very steady on well-trained sea legs. Staring off into the gray horizon, he shook his head. “I don't like this weather. Do you?”

For the first time Katrina really gave her attention to the day. Whitecaps were forming; rain was definitely in the air. She couldn't see the color of the clouds, because everything around her was dull gray, and darkening.

“We can't stay out here,” she said flatly. “If this isn't a true tropical storm, forming, it's at least going to be one hell of a severe gale!”

“I know,” he murmured a little absently. Then he was gone, back down the companionway. Katrina raced a little breathlessly after his long strides through the storage compartment, the sleeping cabin, and into the galley. He was at the chart desk, at the radio, identifying himself over and over again at 44DFS.

All he received in return was static.

An oath escaped him as he threw the earphones down on the desk, removed his cap, and threaded his fingers wearily through his hair.

Then he glanced at Katrina, as if just realizing that she was there, silently and warily standing behind him. “You got any kind of a safe harbor on that island of yours?”

“Just the beach—that's the most protected area.”

“It's surrounded by reefs.”

“Yes, it is,” Katrina said. “But if you know what you're doing …” She shrugged. “There is no dockage, though. All you can do is take her into the cove, anchor, and hope for the best.”

He seemed to mull over her words, watching her distrustfully. Then he stood, approaching her with a little smile. “Why do I get the feeling that you'd love to see the
Maggie Mae
in a thousand pieces?”

Katrina was tempted to back away from him. There was still a fury burning deep inside her; he'd no right to play God with them! And she still didn't know … didn't understand … everything that had happened.

She didn't like the feeling that she wanted to like him, to touch him, to laugh with him. She even had the wistful feeling that she would like to get to know him very, very well.

He was an attractive man, she reminded herself stiffly. Very attractive, and painfully beguiling to her, although she didn't know exactly why. Except that he was so tall, so nicely muscled, so lean. Everything about him spoke of the differences in the sexes, differences she had forgotten for years now, so determined had she been to live in the past.

James—who had been too young to die. James, whom she had loved from the very first time she had ever seen him, sitting astride his motorcycle, looking at her in such a way that her heart had seemed to melt, her insides to go ragged….

Katrina turned away from Taylor abruptly, tears stinging her eyes. What had she done to herself? she wondered with dismay. Set herself apart from life for so long that when this stranger abruptly tore into privacy and dreams, she had lost all sense of reason? Surely if she had just dated now and then, she wouldn't feel all these rather humiliating and rather desperate sensations now!

“I've no intention of hurting your precious ship!” she lashed out. She spun back around, ready again to do battle. “Nor am I your prisoner. There's definitely a storm brewing out there—strong enough to clog your pathetic excuse for a radio. If you want your ship safely in, I'll pilot her for you. If not, I'm taking my son back home so that we can batten down.”

“I'll take her in. Now,” he said stiffly. “And you're not running off with my dinghy, because I've things that have to be salvaged off this boat!”

With an abrupt and very militaristic about-face, he left her standing there and quickly clambered up the few steps to the deck. A second later she heard him swearing softly. Then he came down the steps, drenched.

He shot her one of his level silver glances—as if it had been entirely her fault that the rain had already started. He dug into a cabinet beneath the chart desk and procured a couple of yellow slickers, tossing her one.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Do you intend to let me know where these reefs lie, or not?”

She shrugged slowly. “Sure. But you should know that I still intend to sue you and everyone else I can think of, and to speak to every reporter I can find this side of the Mason-Dixon line.”

“Don't waste your time,” he told her briefly. “Go straight for the
National Enquirer.
They'll give you top billing.”

He was back on the deck again. Katrina followed him, staggering a little against the sudden force of the wind and the pelting rain. She hadn't been afraid before—now she was. She was accustomed to the weather; she had seen the water rise and churn many times before. But staring beyond portside, she could dimly see her small island, Rock Cay. The palms were already being flattened by the force of the wind.

It was difficult to stand. Katrina wound her fingers around the cabin door frame.

“It's bad!” she yelled out. “You need to hurry!”

He grunted something, busy winding the winch to pull in the anchor. Beneath the rain and the slicker she could see the workings of his broad shoulders, and for a moment a thought chilled her.

What if he had been a maniac? She had always felt safe and comfortable on the island, closed off in their own private world. There was no crime on Rock Cay; Jason went into Islamorada by motor launch for school, and they had friends there as well. There were the tourists, and there were the islanders, and everything was always easy.

But if this stranger had been a maniac, a criminal—what would she have done? she wondered with dismay. He was a head taller than she, and probably had a hundred pounds over her. She could have never fought him. And then, what of Jason?

Jason … still back in the cabin, alone.

Ignoring Taylor, Katrina raced back through the yacht and burst in on her son again. He was kneeling on the bunk, watching the weather with avid enthusiasm and a certain wisdom.

“Man, is it blowing! Is this going to be a hurricane?”

Katrina shook her head. “I don't know, Jason. But listen to me. We're going to try and get into the cove. Stay here until I call you, okay? Then we'll have to take the dinghy, or maybe even swim into shore. And, Jase, the water is going to be really rough. It—”

“Currents, Mom, I know.” He sighed with a patience that belied his years. Then he grinned at her a little crookedly, softening his words. “Quit worrying about me. I'm almost as big as you are and I'm actually a better swimmer.”

“Well!” Katrina said, but then she laughed, even if the laugh was a little nervous. “You may be the better swimmer, but you're going to listen to me, young man. You may be almost as big but you're not bigger than I am. And I am worried, so take heed—okay?”

He nodded. She started to hurry back, but he called her.

“Don't worry, Mom.
He's
here.”

“That's half of why I'm worried,” Katrina muttered, and Jason chuckled; the sound, again, was disturbingly old for his youth.

“I like him. We'll be okay.”

“How can you like him or dislike him?” Katrina asked irritably. “You've only known him a short time.”

“No,” Jason protested. “I conquered the Odites with him.”

“That was a dream, Jason.”

“Maybe. But you don't need to be with someone long to know if you like him or not. You just know.”

Katrina hadn't the time or energy to argue with such logic. She raised a brow, left the cabin, and clambered straight up the side stairs to the deck.

The
Maggie Mae
was a three-masted sailing yacht, but like most such vessels, she had been supplied with a motor. Her sails were all neatly furled and tied; Mike, bareheaded now against the lash of the rain, was already behind the round, wood-spiked wheel.

The motor was humming briskly, and they were headed toward the beach on the island.

Katrina had to cling to the mainmast to reach him. She had just sat down at his side before they keeled port again, sending her crashing against his shoulder.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded harshly, barely aware that she was straining to balance away from him.

“I went to see my son!” she snapped back.

He grunted out something, then said, “All right—we're almost there! What the hell am I doing?”

He was shouting; she shouted, too, in order to be heard above the growl of the motor and the howl of the wind and sea.

“If you'd just give me the damn wheel—”

“Nothing doing!”

“You admit you haven't the faintest idea of what—”

“I've been on ships since you were in grade school, lady! Now just point out the—”

“You've been on ships, but not here! Give me the wheel—”

She reached for it; too late. They both heard the long, tearing scrape against the hull, like the sound of nails scraping over a blackboard—amplified. It was a sound that would have assured even a complete landlubber that the
Maggie Mae
had been hit, and badly.

“Now look what you've done!” Katrina exclaimed.

“What I've done! Dammit! I should have known you were out to destroy everything!”

“Destroy! If you would have—”

“Oh, shut up—and get Jason!”

Oh, God, yes, Jason!

Katrina was up with one last, backward epithet for him. She was only dimly aware that he was up, too, headed for the port.

Jason—no fool—was already out of the cabin and scampering up the stairs. “We hit, huh.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah—” And Katrina had a few things to say about Mike being an idiot. The wind and rain swallowed most of her words as she grabbed his hand, the two of them slipping and swaying together as they hurried over the deck by way of grasping the mast.

She didn't see Mike anywhere; the deck itself appeared to be gray, the wind had risen to such a lash that the rain wasn't just falling, it was being hurtled at them in sheets.