Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) (9 page)

Her hair slid across his face as she nodded, looking where he pointed as he leaned across her and breathed in her scent. Was that her shampoo, or a particularly enticing perfume? She whispered, “It looks beautiful, wild and—”

“There’s Dixon Entrance,” he pointed, leaning across her until his other arm came curved around her back. For a second she seemed to lean back against his arm. His voice was husky as he went on, “It’s the stretch of water between the Charlottes and the Alaska Panhandle. You’ll be crossing there from Ketchikan when you come south. It’s big and damned near empty. You might not see another boat all day when you cross. It can be blue and beautiful and gentle, but—” His hand gripped hers again, loosened when she winced, “—but it can be nasty when it wants – black and stormy and deadly! You know my mother’s people are from the islands?”

“Yes, I knew that.” She turned, her eyes looking into his, her lips parted, only inches from his. He had to concentrate on what he was saying.

“This is where they make their living, fishing these waters. My uncle and his two sons disappeared out here – the boat and all three of them. They were fishing and a winter storm blew up. Years ago when the herring fishery was big, the fishermen used to fish through the worst of the winter storms, hiding out when they had to, fishing when they could. Uncle Daniel and his boys just disappeared. They were never heard from, never found. Some wreckage washed up on Rose Spit, but—”

Below them, the blue water was streaked with white from the wind.

“Jake—”

“I don’t want to terrify you, just make you careful. I want you to promise you’ll leave word every step of the way.”

He’d managed to get through her anger. She was watching him, saying earnestly, “Leave word where?”

“With me. Phone from Ketchikan – does George’s boat have a radiophone?”

“Yes. George called me on it yesterday.”

“All right.” He sensed her slight movement away from him and dropped his arm, giving her more room. “Phone me when you’re leaving. Tell me your planned route, your expected arrival at the next port – Masset, will it be? On the Charlottes?”

“I’m not sure.” She was frowning, drawing herself back into that shell.

“Then find out, and call me. Promise?”

“All right,” she agreed, then her eyes met his briefly. “Yes, I promise.”

“And when you get to Masset – if it is Masset – you’ll call me again. Tell me you’ve arrived safely.”

She nodded, promising him, but drawing her reserve around her, avoiding his eyes and trying not to look out the window as they banked to land.

“And— Jennifer?”

She refused to turn back, but he said it anyway. “If you do change your mind, please don’t hesitate to come back. Any time.”

When the plane landed, he stayed in his seat, watching her make her way up the aisle, her bag slung over one shoulder. She didn’t look back, and he tried to tell himself it didn’t matter.

He flew back to Vancouver on the same flight, earning a curious, laughing look from the stewardess.

Jennifer called the next day, ringing through when he was just coming out of his morning shower.

“Radio on line,” the automated voice announced.

“Jennifer? Where are you?” he stood, dripping on the carpet, listening to her voice tangled with a noise like a boat’s engine.

“Ketchikan,” she said, sounding happy and excited. “We’re just leaving Ketchikan.”

They were overdue. She should have called him yesterday, reported their safe arrival on the Queen Charlottes. Just a day.

Where were they?

Jake swung away from the television, losing patience waiting for the weather broadcast, picking up his telephone and dialing the Coast Guard weather station.

“Why don’t I take a taxi home?” Monica picked up her purse from the table, dropping in her cigarettes and snapping it closed.

Good idea
, he almost said, quickly changing it to, “I’ll drive you.” How was he going to find Jennifer?

Monica threw him an angry glance and insisted, “No, stay here. You’re already dialing that number, whatever it is. I’ll take a taxi home and we’ll try this evening again when you’re in a better mood.”

He saw her clearly suddenly, saw the hurt in her eyes. “Monica, I don’t think—” he began, but stopped, realizing he was in no state to do a decent job of telling her their affair was over. If he admitted the unpleasant truth to himself, Monica’s main appeal had been a futile hope of getting a reaction out of Jennifer by dating her roommate. Futile was right! Jennifer hadn’t even blinked when he’d said he was probably going to marry Monica.

She was smiling when she left, but he knew she was angry, and she had reason. He should have gone after her, insisted on taking her home, kissed her and— and told her goodbye.

But Jennifer Winslow was somewhere out on the water, in a flimsy fiberglass sailboat, somewhere between Ketchikan and Masset.

And he was in Vancouver, almost helpless.

The man at the Rescue Coordination Center was very efficient about taking down the details of the
Lady Harriet
, overdue on a trip from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Masset on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Two people on board.

There was nothing more he could do from this far away. He dialed Hans and unknowingly interrupted a passionate interlude with a girl Hans had been pursuing for over a month. The girl got her blouse buttoned up and her coat on while Jake recited a long list of instructions to Hans, then hung up without saying where he was going, merely, “I’ll be back in a few days. I’ll call you.”

As he had expected, the next flight to Sandspit airport on the Queen Charlottes was not fully booked.

Chapter 5

They had a tremendous sail across Dixon Entrance. The wind was on their beam, sending
Lady Harriet
scurrying across the whitecaps. Jenny spent most of the trip on deck, with the hood to her cruiser suit tied tightly around her face and her hands deep in the suit’s pockets. Bundled up like that, only her face felt the spray as it flew over the boat.

It made her feel like an adventurer, a seafaring explorer, at one with the wind and the waves. When George leaned out of the cockpit and shouted something, Jenny pulled back her hood and leaned closer to listen.

“What did you say?” she shouted.

“Jenny, is that boat coming our way? I keep altering course, but he keeps heading towards me no matter what I do.”

The large workmanlike fishing vessel loomed up on their port side. It passed behind them and circled to come up alongside on their windward side, keeping pace with them.

“He’s blocking our wind,” shouted George. “I hope he knows what he’s doing. What does he want?”

Jenny went back out on deck in time to hear the loudhailer from the fishing boat.

“
Lady Harriet!
Can you turn on your radio?”

Jenny shook her head and shouted “No!”

“Wave both arms in the air if you have no radio!”

Jenny braced herself against a stay to keep from falling on the moving deck. She lifted both arms and waved at the fishing boat.

“
Lady Harriet!
” boomed the fishing boat, “We’re responding to a Coast Guard report that you are overdue at Masset. Do you want me to tell Coast Guard that you’re okay and on your way into Masset?” Jenny signaled a ‘yes’ and the loudhailer boomed, “Roger! I’ll relay that you are okay! Heading for Masset! I have
Julie II
calling me on channel sixteen. I’ll relay your status to her as well.”

And with that the big fishing boat pulled away in a long curve until it was heading east again. Jenny ducked into the cockpit.

George was smiling as if at a private joke. “Someone seems to have declared us overdue.”

“Jake, of course.” Jenny made a futile attempt to wipe the rainwater off her face with a wet hand. “He insisted on knowing when we’d be in Masset. Darn the man! He’s had everyone looking for us!”

“We’d be glad of it if we were in trouble.”

“I guess. I suppose we should have planned more time to get to Masset.” Her hands were soaking wet. She rubbed them against the damp nylon of her suit.

George said, “We couldn’t be expected to know the weather would turn so foul. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered if the radio hadn’t gone kaput.” George spun the wheel. “You could have called someone and said you were okay, and your guardian angel would have relaxed. What’s this about telling Julie we’re all right? Who’s Julie?”

“You’ve got me. I don’t know what he was talking about. I thought he said he’d notify the
Julie II
. Another boat, maybe? Jake’s started a terrible fuss over our being just three days late!”

“Don’t knock it, Jenny. I wish I had someone to worry about me.” George turned away swiftly before Jenny could see her face. “Take the wheel, would you? I’ll make us some coffee.”

After two years, George still wasn’t over Scott. In two years, would Jenny still be missing Jake? Ever since she’d left Vancouver she had felt as if a part of herself had been torn away. She kept turning to say things to him, tucking away small comments for the next time they were together.

Ever since she talked to him on the radiophone from Ketchikan, she’d been looking forward to being able to call him again once they arrived in Masset. Somehow she had to find the will to break even that small contact. She couldn’t deny that it made sense to have someone following their progress, someone who could press the panic button if they disappeared, but from now on it would have to be someone else. She had to get Jake right out of her life before she could succeed in forgetting him.

She was in love with him, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been in love, so she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Once she stopped seeing Jake, stopped talking to him – then, eventually she would stop wanting him, needing him.

What if they
had
been lovers? She would be dependent on Jake for her happiness… Then, one day, there would be the moment when she reached for him with need… and found him gone.

It would happen to Monica one day. Maybe Jake
would
marry her, but eventually…

She went back outside, taking the mug of coffee with her, standing in the wind and staring ahead at the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Lady Harriet
moved carefully as they approached Masset Inlet.

“We’ll go round once,” suggested George as they approached the wharfs. “If it looks easy to get in, we’ll go in. If not, we’ll steam back out and think it over before we try again.”

The whole thing went like a charm. Jenny got the lines in her hand and hovered at the side of the boat until it came close to the wharf, then she stepped off just as if she’d been doing it all her life.

Her smooth motions turned suddenly awkward and stiff as she sighted the big man in a floater jacket and captain’s hat.

Jake!
Here!

He stepped up and took the aft line from her. She let go the line with a jerk, as if his hand had carried high voltage. She went forward to tie her line to the float while he tied the one at the back. George cut the engine and there was silence except for the sound of waves lapping against the wooden floats.

Jenny fiddled with the knot she was tying, her fingers numb and her heart thundering. At one point, out in the pounding waves, she’d had a brief fantasy that he would be here to meet them. She’d discarded it as nonsense.

Why was he here?

A grizzled fisherman in high boots and a sou’wester stomped up to Jake and said something. Jake stood up and pushed a lock of wet hair back under the captain’s hat.

In the city, in city clothes, he looked like he belonged there – if you didn’t look at his eyes and see the controlled hint of the untamed man; if you didn’t look too closely at the harsh lines of his face.

Here, standing on a wharf on an island a few miles south of Alaska, talking to a tough-looking fisherman, Jake seemed to fit in perfectly.

The two men exchanged a few words that Jenny couldn’t hear, then nodded at each other. Jake’s nod was as abrupt as the fisherman’s, but Jenny sensed somehow that they were friends.

The man stomped on, staring at Jenny as he passed, saying gruffly, “See you made it all right. Crazy woman, tearing around in a plastic boat!”