Fire in the Wind (10 page)

You didn't have to be in Canada very long to know that a yacht club with Royal in the title was going to be pretty exclusive, Vanessa thought. Jake parked the car near the clubhouse and pulled a duffel bag out of the back seat while she changed her shoes.

Near the end of a long dock he pointed out a beautiful sloop-rigged sailboat with a furled jib in deep burgundy. As they drew closer she saw that the boat, thirty-five or forty feet long and painted gleaming white, was trimmed with a long racing stripe in the same burgundy. Underneath the stripe on the bow was the name,
Skookum Sail.
The canopy over the cockpit was also burgundy.

As she clambered aboard after him, she asked, "That word Skookum. It was in the restaurant name. What does it mean?"

He was unlocking the padlocks on the main hatch and all the storage lockers in the cockpit. He moved around the boat with an easy economy that showed her how much at home he was on a boat.

"
Skookum
is a Chinook word meaning big, good or strong," Jake said. "
Chuck
is a body of water. The ocean, for example, is called
salt chuck
in Chinook jargon, and sometimes
skookum chuck—
'big water'.
Skookum chuck
also means 'strong water'
—
in other words, rapids. Take your pick."

The explanation delighted her. Vanessa laughed. "And I thought it was named after a man named Charles!"

"It is," said Jake. "It's owned by an old ex-fishing guide, ex-member of provincial parliament named Charles Catfish. Chuck is a very big man, and somewhere back in history he picked up the name Skookum Chuck."

Jake pushed open the cabin door and threw the duffel bag down inside.

"If you want to change, you'll find something in the forward locker," he said, and stood to one side to let her climb down into the cabin.

It was beautiful, and it had everything. There was a small galley, a bathroom with a shower, two large lounges that obviously converted into sleeping quarters at night—and quantities of teak panelling and trim. She found the locker without difficulty and sorted out a navy jersey and a pair of worn blue jeans that were large for her around the waist, but not too bad around the hips. They were obviously men's jeans and quite possibly Jake's, since he was slim-hipped for his height, and she had to roll them up at the cuffs. There didn't seem to be anything feminine anywhere in sight, even in the bathroom. Perhaps Louisa didn't like sailing?

The engine started while she was changing, and when she climbed back up on deck they were moving out between rows of parked sail and motor craft toward the open water of the harbour.

Jake looked up with a smile as she came through the hatch, and then his jaw tightened and his eyes went so dark she gasped; it was as though she had hit him.

"What's the matter?" she demanded, and Jake drew his brows impatiently together.

"Matter? Nothing's the matter," he said.

But she wasn't going to be put off. "What were you thinking of just now, when you looked at me?" she asked.

"What?" he asked irritably, bending over to prod a dial.

"What were you just thinking of?" she persisted.

After a moment, he said, "I was thinking that I like seeing you wearing my clothes—hardly a tragic thought."

No
, she thought
.
It isn't. So why were you looking at me as though you wanted to kill me
?

For some minutes they were on the motor, and she watched the magnificent trees of the park pass as Jake negotiated his way through the inlet and out into the open water of English Bay. When he shut off the engine, the silence of the ocean enveloped them, broken only by the luffing of the wine red jib and the calling of some distant gulls.

"Good day for sailing," Jake said quietly as his lithe body moved to adjust ropes and cleats, and Vanessa stood still and gazed until the mainsail was at its full height and the jib was hauled close and beautiful against the wind.

"Jake, it's wonderful," she breathed. "I'd forgotten how much I love to sail."

The sun was glinting on the curls that the wind stirred up in his dark hair and he was smiling, his eyes narrowed against the light that sparked off the water. He looked perfectly at home. It was an almost physical pleasure to watch the Vancouver skyline shrink behind his still, lithe figure.

"Do me a favour," Jake said briefly, glancing up at the sails and then to his compass. They were running straight out, away from the city toward the distant shapes of tree-covered islands dark against the clear blue sky.

"What?" she asked, expecting to be asked to adjust a rope or to get him something from the cabin.

"Take your hair down," he said. "I'd like to see it blowing in the wind."

It sent a little thrill through her, as though he had made verbal love to her. With hands that weren't quite steady Vanessa pulled out the clips that held her hair and slid them into the back pocket of the jeans. Her hair tumbled down, clouding around her shoulders in the soft silent breeze that caressed her face and forehead. With hands that were suddenly self-conscious she shook it loose, not daring to look at Jake Conrad.

"Did anyone ever tell you your hair is an absolutely unique colour?" he asked softly.

Many people had, but Jace was the one who had loved it. "All those days of not being able to see a thing," he had said. "And the first thing I saw when my eyes finally opened enough to let the light in was sunlight on your hair. I thought I was hallucinating."

"Jace told me about your hair," Jake said then, watching the memory steal over her face. "He said there's not a sight more beautiful in the world than your hair spread out on a pillow." He looked at her. "And I believe him," said Jake Conrad.

* * *

Colin's offering at the knitwear showing that afternoon was somehow lacking. Vanessa couldn't quite place what was wrong, but the collection was somehow uninspired. It was the first time she had been unimpressed by his work, and at first she didn't want to tell him so. Then she remembered Colin's own knack for dishing out the brutal truth and knew that he would not thank her for a comforting lie. They had been friends too long.

"What happened to the Colin James flair?" she whispered to him as a model whom she recognized as Alison disappeared through the curtains wearing the last sweater suit in Colin's line and they got up to move out to the lounge.

"The Philistine loves them, every one," Colin returned sotto voce, with every appearance of not giving a damn. "Just like television," he went on bitingly. "Pap for the mindless millions. Nobody has any taste any more."

Since Vanessa enjoyed quite a number of shows on television, she wasn't in entire agreement with this stricture, but she was used to sweeping sarcasm from Colin and put it down to his irritation at having had his Philistine in control of the designs. This lot looked as though it had been designed by a computer.

"Colin," she said when they had ordered coffee, "sometimes I hate your stuff and sometimes I love it. But I almost always know it's your design. J wouldn't have known today. What happened?"

Colin drank some coffee and said bluntly, "What happened is that I am sick of the Philistine and I'm going to quit. On Monday, as a matter of fact."

"Colin!" This was totally unexpected. "Where are you going? Who will you be working for?"

"Myself, darling," said Colin. "I'm going to open up my own business. Want to join me? I am serious."

"What?"

"You heard me, Vanessa."

"Colin, what would you want with two designers? You need an administrator. And what are you going to finance this with?"

"Darling, I have a wealthy friend," he said calmly. "I put a proposition to him and he thought it looked good. He knows I'm wasted on what I'm doing. That's why I had no time to argue over the Philistine's pronouncements. I've been planning this."

"What are you planning? Fabrics?" she hazarded. Colin's first love was fabric design.

"You got it," he said. "All kinds of fabric, from painted leather to crinkled cotton. In some instances I shall merely sell the design to the trade, but for some I will have the cloth made up. This is where you would come in. While I am designing the fabric, you might design items that are going to be made from the fabric. You know we would work extremely well together. What do you say?"

Vanessa was flabbergasted. "Well, but... good God, Colin!" she stammered. "I'd need notice of that. I mean, what would I be—a partner, an employee? I couldn't contribute any backing—"

"What about the Standishes?" Colin asked. "They'd back you fast enough."

There was no arguing that. Colin knew probably better than anyone how often the Standish family had tried to press money on her. "If it was a question of a
loan,
Vanessa, I thought you might feel differently about it. A business loan, to be paid back."

She bit her lip. "I'd have to think it over, Colin," she said, shaking her head.

They spent the afternoon and early evening discussing it. Colin was more enthused than she had seen him since college days, and by the time she left him to dress for dinner with Tom and the important buyer, Vanessa was almost as excited as he was.

She dressed in the simple black dress she had worn on Monday night, and noticed as she made up that her face had picked up some colour from her morning on the
Skookum Sail.

Jake had asked her out for dinner tonight, giving her an uneasy suspicion that he had decided to rush her. It had been almost with relief that she had explained about the business dinner with Tom.

"It won't run late, then, will it?" Jake had asked. "Call me when you come in, and come for a nightcap."

She had found herself weakly agreeing that if it wasn't too late she would call him, but she knew she'd be a fool if she did so.

And yet—she stood back from the mirror and looked at herself. The black dress, with its shoestring straps and fitted bodice curving low over her breasts and leaving her shoulders and arms bare, was perhaps the sexiest item in her wardrobe, and it wasn't what she had planned to wear tonight. And her hair was dressed in a way she rarely wore it, held back at the sides with combs, but cascading down her back in a cluster of curls.

She was dressing for Jake, she realized with dismay. Damn him,
damn
him! Here she was telling herself that she wouldn't call him when she got in, and at the same time unconsciously dressing in a way she knew would entice him. What a fool she was! She would have no one to blame but herself if she got hurt. Jake was not pretending to be in love with her now. He had told her what he wanted from her on day one.

And somehow she knew that, for some reason known only to himself, Jake Conrad was determined to get it.

The dinner was not a great success. That the important chain-store buyer was well used to being entertained by manufacturers trying to curry favour was evident, as was the fact that she didn't appreciate being in a party consisting of three women and one man. For Tom, who was more smitten than Vanessa had ever seen him, unless this was some elaborate act, had brought Margaret along, too. And he was paying altogether too much attention to her.

When the conversation veered to politics in the desperate way that conversations in danger of flagging often do, Vanessa nearly despaired. The Canadians she had met always seemed to be much more knowledgeable about American politics than she was about Canadian politics, and she was sure that Tom's lecture on the swing to the Right in America could only bore these women, in whose country they were, after all, guests. Surely she could think of
something
to ward off Tom's imminent lecture?

"Tell me," she heard herself saying to the disgruntled buyer, "do you think that the way the West was opened in Canada has an effect now on the level of crime you have here, compared to the States?"

"How do you mean?" asked the buyer, her eyes showing a glint of real interest for the first time. With a silent salute to Jake Conrad, Vanessa presented the theory he had outlined to her last night, complete with the Northwest Mounted Police and (hoping she had the name right) Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his dog, King.

"Sergeant Preston of the Yukon!" exclaimed the buyer, beginning to laugh. "Wherever did you hear of him? My God, it must be twenty years since I heard that name!"

Tom was looking at Vanessa in surprise, but the discussion of crime and law and order in Canada lasted for much of the meal and launched the important buyer and Margaret into a political discussion that kept the buyer happy, even if Tom and Vanessa didn't understand a word of it.

It was only eleven o'clock when she said goodnight to them in the lobby and headed toward the elevators. She had made up her mind. She wasn't going to call Jake tonight. She knew he would read a message into it if she did; she knew she would be walking into the lion's den.

Vanessa stepped off the elevator on her floor and walked slowly down the hall and opened the door to her room. There was a soft light burning beside the bed and the draperies were open. The lights on Grouse Mountain and Hollyburn Mountain twinkled in the surrounding blackness. Vanessa opened the window and breathed in the sweet sea-scented air.

Pity. She would have liked to tell him about how Sergeant Preston of the Yukon had won another battle tonight. She knew she could make him laugh with that, and with an imitation of Tom's self-important lecturing. She would have liked to thank him for telling her about Sergeant Preston and the Mounted Police. She might even have liked to tell him about Colin's offer, just to see what he thought of it....