Season of Storm (12 page)

Johnny Winterhawk followed her immediately and went to the wheel. He reversed till they cleared the dock, then rammed the engines into forward and swung the big boat around to the east.

Smith sank onto a seat and looked at him, her heart beating more with terror than exertion.  

"It's my father, isn't it? My father is dying."

"No," he said.

"Or dead," she prompted, feeling the tears press up in her throat and the back of her eyes.

"No," he repeated shortly, then turned his dark gaze onto her stricken face. "As far as I know," he added, "your father is fine."

"Then why are you taking me home? What's changed?" she asked, not sure whether to believe him or not.

Johnny looked at her with a speculative look, then looked to the dark water ahead. He bent to peer at the speedometer, then pushed the throttle, wanting more speed, but it was already as far forward as it could go.  

Fear crept from its hiding place in her mind and settled in her stomach, a horrid dead weight that made her ill.

"You...you are taking me home, aren't you?" she stammered. The water here in Georgia Strait was cold and deep. She looked down at the golden deerskin moccasin on one foot, soft and bright in its newness, and pictured it washed up on a pebbly beach somewhere, sodden and grey.

If she had read about it in the safety of her bed at night it would have been hard for her to believe that someone like Johnny Winterhawk would kill anyone, especially someone he had talked to and laughed with...and kissed passionately the day before. He seemed so sane and warm and real, and in spite of what was happening she instinctively trusted him. If she had been reading all this, she would not have believed that trust could so easily turn to gnawing fear and mistrust.

But what did she really know about him? Nothing. Nothing...except that her presence was a threat to him. Except that she would have virtually the power of life and death over him if he set her free. The sentence for kidnapping would be a long one. And she could imagine that for a man like Johnny Winterhawk—for anyone—life behind those cold concrete walls would be death in life. Worse, much worse. Her imagination could not compass it.

The unconscious realization that she herself would do nearly anything rather than go to a life like that was the root now of her fear of Johnny Winterhawk.

"Yes, I'm taking you home," he said, and his jaw tightened. "I've done some stupid things in my time, but nothing I've done compares with the monumentally self-destructive idiocy of kidnapping you in the first place." He looked at her. "Well, I'll have a long time to think about it, no doubt."

Smith swallowed against the hope that was flowering up inside her. "I promise I won't say anything," she said, standing up and crossing to where he stood at the wheel. She laid a tentative hand on his arm. "Truly, I promise," she repeated. "You haven't hurt me, Johnny. I—I couldn't send you to prison."

His glance found hers and locked with it. He bent and brushed her lips lightly with his own, and a soft, melting warmth flowed through her.

"Thank you," he said. "Your father is a strong, ruthless man even in a hospital bed, and he might inspire the police to be very tough with you. If you do decide to press charges against me, Peaceable Woman, I'll deny everything." His dark eyes gazed into hers. "I'll be calling you a liar. There'll be no evidence to corroborate your testimony. I'll do my best to make you look like a woman with rape fantasies." He smiled apologetically at her. She knew he was warning her, trying to prepare her for the ugliness that he foresaw. Smith blinked against the unexpected tears that burned her eyelids. His gaze was full of concern for her, and it had caught her off guard. She swallowed and stared helplessly into the depths of those eyes.

Without warning the odd, compelling force was between them again, making her feel that her whole being burned into his through her eyes. Johnny Winterhawk muttered a curse and turned away as, with a barely perceptible unsteadiness, his hand moved out to the switch of the portable radio behind him. The voice of the news announcer filled the air of the cockpit.

"... police, who were at his hospital bedside when the call came. Shulamith St. John has been missing since early yesterday morning. Police refused to comment on whether the ransom demand would be met."

Smith stood at shocked attention, gazing at the radio.
"Ransom demand!"
she repeated. "Who...but...."
 

"Find another station!" Johnny Winterhawk commanded, and with fumbling obedience her fingers spun the dial to CBC.

The national newscast, unlike the local one, had led with a political story, which was just finishing. Then, "In Vancouver this evening, a startling development has apparently confirmed that Shulamith St. John, the lumber heiress missing since the early hours of Sunday morning, has been kidnapped. The kidnapping now appears to be linked to the battle being waged by the Chopa Indian band against Cordwainer St. John, her lumber-baron father. Mr. St. John, who suffered a heart attack early Sunday morning and thereafter reported his daughter missing, received a phone call at his bed in the Royal Georgia Hospital today, demanding that he call off planned lumbering operations in Cat Bite Valley as the price of his daughter's safe return.

"The Chopa band's court appeal for a temporary injunction against lumbering in the area, their traditional hunting and fishing grounds and the subject of an inquiry by the federal government, was turned down by the British Columbia Court of Appeal earlier today. Coincidentally, two officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were at St. John's bedside when the kidnapper's call came through. Mr. St. John was unavailable for comment."

Johnny Winterhawk cursed softly and steadily, his low voice pulled tight against violent anger. Smith stared at him. "How—" she began, but he cut her off.

"Too late," he said, and swore again.

Smith sat motionless, gazing at him. Ahead in the distance the skyline of Vancouver was silhouetted against Grouse Mountain. As she watched, Johnny Winterhawk turned to the wheel, and the city slipped slowly around the starboard bow, and then to the stern. Vancouver was behind them in a moment, and with the late-afternoon sun in her eyes, Smith knew they were facing back in the direction of the island.

Eleven

With a cry of protest Smith twisted her head around and saw the city beginning to recede in the distance. Her hands tightened into fists. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and moved to stand beside Johnny Winterhawk at the wheel.

"What are you doing?" she cried, though somewhere in her being she understood that the radio broadcast had changed her life. "Where are you taking me? We were nearly there!"

His eyes were haunted. He looked at her as though she were someone in his nightmare. "I'm sorry," said Johnny hoarsely. "I wasn't quick enough. I should have hired a helicopter, but I didn't think they'd move so fast."

"But why....take me home, Johnny!  Why is it so important? I'll say it isn't true! I told you that!  Please take me home!"

The wheel did not move under his fingers, and the speedboat slapped steadily through the waves towards the west. Johnny Winterhawk said nothing, just stood and watched the waves, his brow furrowed, his dark eyes squinting against the sun.

"
Please
, Johnny—" she was beginning, when he interrupted her in a flat, calculating tone.
 

"When I found you in my study you were phoning someone. Who?"

"Oh!" Funny, she had forgotten. And now it seemed as though an age had passed since then. She gave an incredulous little laugh. "I was calling Rolly Middleton, my father's vice president of operations. It's a stupid title, really, because my father still runs everything. And Rolly—"

"Did you get through?" he interrupted.

"Only for a second. Then you—"

"What did you tell him?"

"I didn't tell him anything! You were there before I had a—" Smith broke off, biting her lip. What a fool she was! She should have said she'd told Rolly everything.

"Did you tell him who was calling?"

"I...no." Hadn't he heard anything of what she was saying before he cut her off?

"Would he have recognized your voice?"

Oh, God, what was the right thing to say? If he thought Rolly had recognized her voice, would he keep her safe, or kill her?  

"Yes," she said breathlessly at last, with a certainty she did not feel. "Yes, I'm sure he recognized—"

Johnny Winterhawk interrupted again. "Is he your lover?"

Smith choked. "Is he
what
?"
 

"Your lover," Johnny repeated, his voice rough. "You called him when you could have called the police, and you're sure he recognized your voice." He looked at her from hooded hawk-like eyes. "And he has a sinecure in your father's business."

It was no sinecure; her father was not the man to suffer fools for any reason. Rolly was simply very, very different from her father and therefore sometimes despised by him. He was also forty-three years old and his wife had just had twins.

"No," Smith said. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts. Johnny Winterhawk was right: she could more easily have called the police than Rolly. She was aghast now, to think that she had broken into his office, not to call for rescue, but to try to save Cat Bite Valley from her father's chain saws! What on earth had possessed her? What had she been thinking of?

"No," she repeated slowly, "he isn't my lover. I was calling him because with my father in the hospital, it would be his decision to send a logging team into Cat Bite. I was calling to...to tell him not to."

Johnny Winterhawk went still, as though his whole body were listening for some distant sound. He turned with a look that riveted her.

"Why?" he asked after a long moment during which she forgot to breathe.

"We heard on the news that they wouldn't grant you an injunction, and I—I thought I could try to delay cutting until the commission reports." She took a deep breath, still feeling threatened by her own foolishness. "Rolly doesn't like making decisions—not that kind. I knew he'd be grateful if I took the responsibility."

Johnny Winterhawk wasn't saying anything, he was just looking at her. "My father won't give in to that demand," she whispered urgently, indicating the radio with one hand. "He hates anything like that—blackmail or ransom. He hates anyone telling him what to do. He'll tell you to kill me and be damned."

Johnny Winterhawk's gaze was steady, his voice firm. "I doubt that," he said.

"You don't know him," she persisted. "Please don't take me back to the island. What difference does this ransom demand make? I can stop the cutting more easily if you let me go, I swear."

"I'm sorry, Peaceable Woman," Johnny Winterhawk said, as, away in the distance, she saw the small dark shape that was the island. "But an hour ago there was no evidence to corroborate your story if you told it. It would have been your word against mine. Now the hotheads who decided on this course of action have given you all the corroboration you could want."

"I would deny it all," she said with emphasis. "Why can't you believe that? My father couldn't browbeat me."

He smiled and shook his head. "You're an innocent," he said. "You have no idea of what they would do to you to get that information. Believe me, this is not the time for me to let you go."

"When will it be the time?" she demanded harshly.

"I don't know," said Johnny Winterhawk. "But I'll find a time and a way to let you go, Peaceable Woman. You've got my word."

Smith snorted. "Your word!" she snapped. "What good is your word when you obviously can't even keep your cohorts in line? You knew they were going to pull this today, and all you could do was try to forestall them! You couldn't
stop
them, could you? That's obvious. What good is your word going to do me when my father starts cutting down trees in Cat Bite Valley? And he will, as sure as you're standing there. Because, I told you before, my father doesn't care about me! He will certainly care one hell of a lot less about my life than he will about giving in to terrorism! That's a principle, you see!"
 

Her voice was growling with emotion and sounded deep and unnatural. "What good is your
word
going to do me when your friends decide to deep six me in revenge for their lost hunting grounds?"
 

His hand closed around her wrist, and he snapped her close to him so that her breast was moulded against his upper arm and her thigh pressed his. When she looked up at his profile, his jaw muscles were tight.

"My friends are fools, but they are not murderers," he said, watching the water. "No one is going to
deep six
you, no matter how many spy novels tell you otherwise. Please try not to panic. I'll take you home as soon as possible, whether you think my word is good or not."
 

His calm voice and the touch of his body were soothing the frightened animal in her; involuntarily Smith heaved a sigh and her breathing calmed. She was half conscious of a desire to bury her face against his chest and howl out all the pain she had ever known.