Tempestuous Eden (24 page)

He held on to the mainmast as he sought out the problem, his sinewed strength a seemingly implacable power against the pelting rain and ravaging wind that hissed and shrieked around him. Huddled miserably by the crank, Blair felt her fingers turning numb, and yet he appeared to find it all no more than irritating.

He shouted something at her that she didn’t hear. Narrowing her eyes against the sodden moisture that was blinding her, she yelled back, “What?”

Then to her horror she realized that the crank was spinning madly, and that she hadn’t the strength to make it stop. Craig pounced back to her side, shoving her away as he caught the crank and line, slowly bringing both under control. Still it was loose. Something knotted somewhere. The boom was reeling starboard and port, out like the massive arm of an inebriated giant. “Get down!” Craig hissed to her, finally finding the tangle and bringing tension back to the crank.

But he was just a fraction too late. Just as the tension caught, the boom took its last swing and caught Craig neatly at the base of his skull.

He went down without a sound.

It had been like a horror picture to Blair, a scene in which slow motion had been used for full effect. She had been powerless to do a thing. Now the boom was steady, but Craig lay immobile, his complexion ashen, the arm he had thrown up to shield her draped limply over her legs.

She sat still in stunned stupefaction for only seconds. Then she secured the crank and knelt beside him, desperately praying that he was alive. She found a pulse. Was it faint or was it just that nothing could feel strong against the fury of the elements?

“Oh, God, Taylor,” she groaned feverishly, blinking against the downpour. She had to get him down to the cabin, but his weight was tremendous. “Taylor!” She sent up the anguished cry, praying that he would open his eyes, that it would be a joke ….

But it wasn’t a joke. His rugged profile was perfectly still beneath the onslaught of drenching rain and screaming wind. His flesh was growing so terribly cold.

What if he had a fracture, a concussion? Blair knew under normal circumstances that she shouldn’t be moving him, but she had to move him. The boards beneath her feet were sodden. The boat was heaving even within the harbor of the cove.

“Help me, God,” she prayed aloud, grabbing Craig’s arms at the shoulders and taking a deep breath. What if he were dead. God, no! He couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t even consider it. He would be all right. She had to get him down below. “Oh, dear God, please help me.” Her prayer was lost to the wind. If there was a deity present, it was Neptune, and the god of the sea was angered. Her pleas seemed to go unheeded.

Then suddenly she was able to budge him. Straining with everything that was in her, Blair found herself able to drag him. It was tedious going. Blair clenched her jaw with the effort, panting and halting every few inches, finally growing immune to the deluge of the rain. Every muscle in her body pained her until she found that the battle of straining against Craig’s dead weight was totally exhausting her. She stopped periodically to wipe rain and plastered hair from her face, but each time she continued again, coming closer and closer to the hatch.

Once there she was faced with a new problem—how to get him down.

She couldn’t lower him; she would definitely drop him. With tears of perplexity starting to form in her eyes, she knew she had to move fast. Her strength would only hold out so long in the driving rain.

Finally she crawled onto the ladder herself and once again began to drag him. He would still fall; she wouldn’t be able to support his weight once she had pulled the balance of his form in, but she would be prepared and buffer the fall for them both.

Heaving and half sobbing and half grunting, Blair pulled him after her down the ladder. With her feet firmly on the floor, she gathered her forces for a final, drastic tug, bracing herself as best she could. Craig’s weight came through the hatch, sending them both sprawling to the rough planking, sodden heaps piled atop each other. They landed with Blair partially sitting, Craig’s head caught upon her lap.

Struggling up, Blair cupped her hands beneath Craig’s head and began to slip her legs from beneath it. It was then, gasping for every breath, limbs still shaking, with exertion, that she glanced into his face. And saw his eyes. Open. Staring at her. Seeming to pierce her soul with a strange light that was both knowing and curious.

For seconds Blair stared at him incredulously while her shaking and chattering became that of rage. “You bastard!” she hissed, dropping his head like a hot potato and eliciting a wince and an “Ouch!” from him. “You were faking, you son of a—”

“Hold it! Hold it!” Craig protested, lifting a hand in defense, fully aware that she would find a new source of energy with which to tear his hair out if she gathered any more steam. “I wasn’t faking anything! I just opened my eyes this second and saw your face, and if you please wouldn’t yell, I have one hell of a splitting headache.”

Blair clamped her lips tight with uncertainty and pushed a straying tendril of bedraggled hair from her face. She saw him wince again and knew that he was in pain. “Can you move, do you think?” she asked cautiously. “I barely got you down here. I don’t think I can get you to the bed.”

He nodded, skin stretching tight across his features with another wince, and started to rise. Just then, though, another swell hit and lifted the boat, sending him sprawling again. “Wait!” Blair cried as he immediately set forth on a new attempt to rise. Ducking her frame beneath his shoulder, she supported him, managing to sloppily walk him to the bed before the next swell hit, but then losing her balance and falling flatly on top of him. His arms immediately came around her, a protective, reflex action despite his own infirmity.

And for a moment Blair was happy to be there in his arms, against his warmth, cradled by his security as the sea howled around them and the waves played havoc with the boat. She would gladly leave it all to him, trust in him, give herself over to his unwavering strength and shelter out the storm in his arms.

But she couldn’t, not now, she told herself harshly. She had to come up with a little strength of her own. Gently extracting herself, she peered back into his face. “I have to get something for your head,” she murmured, balancing back off the bed and holding on to the wall as she made her way to the galley. Grabbing a sponge, she flooded it with fresh water and swayed back to the bed, willing herself to think.
If he has a concussion, he shouldn’t be allowed to sleep.

Maneuvering him into the bed, Blair again met yellow eyes that were staring at her with a curious mixture of humor, affection, and pain. He had to be all right, she thought fleetingly, his eyes were too keen and bright for anything to be seriously wrong, or so she desperately hoped.

Straddling over him, she very gently lifted his head and set the cool wet sponge beneath it. She started when a hand, surprisingly strong, vised around her wrist. Once again she met his eyes.

“I’m all right, Blair,” he said gruffly. With his own fingers he began to test his lower scalp. “Nothing irrevocable,” he said, trying to grin. “Get the first-aid kit,” he instructed her.

Although he had used it on her several times, Blair had no idea where he kept it. “Where is it?”

He pointed weakly in the direction of the cabinets by the table. Staggering, but growing more accustomed to the constant rough motion of the boat, Blair hurried to do as directed.

She found it in the cabinet closest to the floor, but as she reached for the box, her hand brushed a latch in the back. A second door sprang open.

Revealing a gun. A nine millimeter.

Stunned, Blair stared at the lethal metal, her heart pounding. Why was she so surprised? she wondered. She knew him to be a criminal; criminals carried guns. God, how she hated guns.

But she couldn’t relate the weapon to the man. She couldn’t believe that the prone figure behind her had ever meant her any harm. At every stage of the game he had been there to shelter and protect her, to care for her.

She slammed the secret latch and hurried back to the bed with the first-aid kit. Craig pulled himself to an elbow as she returned, and grasped the box from her fingers, lifting the lid himself.

“Would you lie back down?” Blair demanded irritably. “I can get what you want—”

He already had his fingers around a large plastic capsule. It snapped beneath his grasp and a strong scent of ammonia filled the area, making Blair avert her head with a gag. Apparently, though, it just worked the trick for Craig. Whatever faculties he had been lacking were restored. He pulled himself to a full sitting position and burrowed back through the box again. Finding a container of pills, he dropped two into his hand, dry-swallowed them, shrugged, and reached for another two. That completed, he tiredly dropped his head back to the pillow, adjusting the sponge beneath his neck. His eyes lit upon Blair again. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she demanded, disturbed by the stare that seemed to fathom all the secrets of her soul.

“For saving me,” he said briefly.

Turning away, Blair bit her lip. Not really. It had been her fault that the crank had slipped, that the boom had fallen. “You could have left me and tried to escape when the weather cleared.”

Blair shrugged indifferently, determined he not read the depths of her feelings. “I just want to make it through the storm, Taylor. If I’m going to escape—or be returned, as you promise—I’d just as soon be alive at the time.”

He raised a brow, but allowed the subject to drop. His next statement took her completely by surprise.

“Get your clothes off.”

Blair instantly froze to rigidity. “Really, Taylor—”

“At the moment,” he snapped, “I can truthfully promise that I’m not after your delectable body. You’re drenched. You’re drenching the bed. The rational thing to do is warm up. There are blankets in the back—”

“I know where the blankets are,” she interrupted sharply, rising to tread her drunken sea stagger to the far aft once more. By the cabinets she paused hesitantly, then turned her back and shed her clothes, shrugging into a blanket cocoon before returning with a second for Craig.

He stared up at her, his lion’s eyes glimmering a true gold. “I’m drenched myself, you know,” he informed her.

He was clad only in his usual sailing cutoffs, but they certainly were soaked

“So?” Blair murmured awkwardly.

“So,” he said impatiently, “I need some help.”

Exhaling a long sigh of exasperation, Blair shimmied to the foot of the bed, trying desperately to keep her own blanket around herself while the boat pitched and heaved. She tugged at the legs of his pants while also trying to keep her eyes lowered. It was a miserable process. She felt the warmth of his body, each instinctive reaction of his flesh as her fingers brushed it. “You really better have a headache,” she grated harshly as he raised his hips to allow her to pull his pants from beneath him. Despite the circumstances Blair could feel blood rushing hotly to her face. He might have claimed that he wasn’t after her body, but he hadn’t told
his
body that was the case.

With his cutoffs freed from his body, Blair tossed them to the floor and dumped his blanket over him unceremoniously. His response was a soft chuckle, which she ignored.

“What now?” she queried briskly.

A half grin which he attempted to squelch slipped onto his features, and he lowered his lids over teasing eyes, holding back an answer to the wide-open but innocent question. “See if you can get one of the casks of wine back here,” he said simply.

“Wine?” Blair protested. “You should have something hot.”

“Granted,” he agreed, “but you can’t even boil water with the boat keeling like this. Just get the wine and we’ll try to get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” Blair echoed unbelievingly. “How could we sleep with this cyclone going on. Besides, you might have a concussion. You shouldn’t sleep.”

“This isn’t a cyclone. It will pass within the hour. And I haven’t got a concussion: Just a terrible headache. Now, would you just do as I say?”

“How do you know you haven’t got a concussion?”

“Because I’ve had one before, and it was much worse than this. Now, please? If I can sleep off the pain and the pills, I’ll be just fine.”

“You shouldn’t drink with pills,” Blair said firmly.

“Oh, Lord, woman!” His voice suddenly thundered impatiently. “I just want a cup of wine. I’m not going out on a beer bust with the boys! I’ve managed pretty damn well the past thirty-eight years without your help, Mrs. Teile. I know what I’m doing!”

“All right!” Blair hissed, this time wavering her way forward. She was able to secure the primitive cask of wine from the galley with no difficulty, but on her return trip the boat took a severe port keel and in grasping for the paneled wall for balance, she succeeded in losing her blanket. Muttering her staunch opinion of the entire situation, Blair grabbed her blanket and secured it around herself, floundering the last few steps back to the bed with irritation and impatience.

Craig had managed to prop up his pillow and he watched her return, unable to hide the amusement in his eyes. She tried so hard to maintain her air of propriety, he thought somewhat wistfully. And yet it was all such a waste on her part. Years from now, with his eyes closed, he would be able to conjure up the image of her naked body, every curve, every plane, every silken inch of tantalizing flesh.

“Laugh at me, Taylor,” she snapped warningly, “and I can promise you won’t get another bit of assistance from me.”

“I’m not laughing!” he protested.

Blair began to fumble with the cork on top of the wooden cask, but she hadn’t the force in her fingers to work it loose quickly. Craig watched her efforts for a second, then grabbed the wine from her. It was Blair’s turn to watch, mentally noting with both unease and a shiver that was nothing less than sexual, the power that lay in his hands. Twisting the cork out only high enough to pinch, Craig grabbed it between two fingers and it gave immediately.

Oblivious to her confused survey, he glanced up and smiled. “You forgot the cups.”