Storm the Author's Cut (20 page)

Going up to the door of his office, her heart pounded in her throat. She didn't know what to say, or how to say it. But when she grasped the doorknob and found it locked, she felt bitterly disappointed. The truck was here, but Luke was out flying.

He might be gone for an hour or a day. There was no way of knowing. She sat in the Honda, waiting.

Almost an hour later a Beaver circled overhead and she ran down the ramp only to be disappointed when Gary stepped out of the plane behind the two passengers.

"Mornin', Miss Mather. Nice day."

"Yes," she agreed. The sky was blue, but she felt cold and lonely.

"Lookin' for Luke? He'll be along in about half an hour."

"Thanks."

She walked up to the road. Vicky's was open and she went in and bought a coffee. Once she had the cup in her hand, she sipped impatiently on the hot beverage. If she took too long, she might miss Luke. He could fly away... drive away.

In the end she left the cup half full and walked back to her car. On the dock she felt exposed, conspicuous, as if everyone knew she was waiting for Luke, that he hadn't invited her.

This time, when the Goose landed, she stayed in her car, parked where she could watch the seaplane float.

Luke got out first and opened the door for the passengers. Six men climbed out. Laurie left the car and walked slowly down the ramp as Luke handed out the baggage and the men moved away. They were loggers, out for a weekend of partying, and they passed her, walking fast up the ramp. Someone else passed her, running down.

She moved slowly, nervous, uncertain how to approach him. Crazy! She could walk up to any stranger with a microphone, but she was having trouble walking up to this man she loved.

The man who'd pushed past her called out, "Hey, Luke! Can you take me down to Cumshewa? Jake was supposed to drive me over on the logging road. The so-and-so left without me!"

"Sure, Wolf, hop in." Wolf climbed into the Goose, his pack in his hand. Luke was untying the plane, getting ready to leave.

She came up behind him, not quite daring to touch him.

"Luke?"

"Laurie?"

He'd known who it was before he spotted her. She saw something flash in his eyes and sudden tears welled up in her throat, choking her so she couldn't talk for a moment.

"Can I come?" she whispered.

"Hop on."

As she had once before, she climbed into the plane quickly, before he could change his mind.

Curnshewa was only moments away. Luke had hardly brought the Goose out of its climb before he began circling over the long inlet. He landed on the calm water and taxied up to the dock.

Then they were alone in the plane and Laurie slipped into the co-pilot's seat. Luke handed her the headset although he said nothing during takeoff. When he had leveled off from his ascent, there was still silence, except for the noise of the two engines.

"Luke, I—"

"Wait." He checked the instruments, threw a switch. "Take it around to a heading of two-seventy, then level off."

She looked at the compass, at the land below them. Two-seventy would take them north of Queen Charlotte, towards the west coast. She put the plane into a gentle turn, hoping Luke would stop her if she did something wrong. She had never touched the controls of the Goose before, only the smaller Beaver.

Luke wrote something in his log.

"That's good," he told her when he looked up. They were out over the open ocean now. The water was flat and calm as far as she could see. "Bring it around now in a gentle turn. You'll circle once, losing height slowly, then land." He pointed to the long beach they had just passed.

"The Goose is too big," she protested. "I can't land it."

"You'll be fine. Bank gently, she'll start losing altitude."

Moments later, when she came out of the turn, flying straight and level, losing height quickly, her hands started to tremble.

"Easy," he urged her. "Just let her down slowly, you've all the water in the world."

The water was glassy smooth, but she touched unevenly on one pontoon, then settled back into the water.

"Lovely!"

"It was a horrible landing! " But she had brought the plane down, all by herself. Luke hadn't touched the controls once.

"You won't be frightened next time." They were a long way out from the beach. Luke took the controls and revved the engines until they were roaring up on to the beach. The plane stood, dripping seawater, as they scrambled out.

He stood a few feet away from her at the water's edge, looking out over the ocean.

"Where have you brought me?"

"The edge of the world," he told her. "But you brought us. You landed here."

She could see no sign that any living person had ever been here before. Towards the ocean, the blue of the water and the blue of the sky stretched out to meet in a hazy, featureless horizon. There were no sounds except their breathing.

"It could
be
the edge of the world." Ever since she met him, she'd been on the edge of the world. "Luke..."

He turned swiftly towards her, his face strangely menacing.

"Don't make up your mind too quickly."

Sometimes, in the night, she thought of him gone, thought of the dreary, desolate sameness of the days stretching out—endlessly, like the sea in front of her.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about us. I'm warning you to be careful."

"I was careful last time we talked. That didn't work out so well."

She could feel the tension in him. She moved closer to him, to the edge of the water where he was standing. Carefully, she reached out to touch him. Luke moved away, hands still in his pockets, walking away from her.

Tightness clenched her throat. "Luke... Luke, a few weeks ago—on a beach on the other side of this island—you said you wanted to marry me." Her breath went short, her mouth dry so she could hardly get the sounds out. "Is it too late to accept?"

"Why?"

"Why? What gets into you? One minute I could walk into your arms and you'd welcome me, and the next you're ten miles away, cool and rational and telling me to cool down, be careful, take my time. Why, Luke? Do you love me? Do you want me, or don't you?"

"You weren't supposed to be real," he told her in a funny, strained voice.

"What?"

"I used to listen to you on the radio, before I met you."

"You told me."

"I didn't tell you how intimately I knew you."

"What?"

A slow wave surged up from the open ocean, climbing up the sand and ending in a soft flood of water along the beach.

"The first time I heard you on the radio, I was seven thousand feet up. You'll laugh, but I fell in love with you. You sneaked in, Laurie. You were a voice on the radio. You've no idea how well I got to know you, what I learned about you, just listening to you twice a day. It got out of proportion. Sometimes, I felt you were more real than anything else around me."

"I am real. I'm here."

"You've no idea what a shock it was when you walked up to me that night on the seaplane wharf."

"I thought you were angry. You glared at me as if I were an enemy."

"The only women I wanted around me were the ones that couldn't affect me too deeply. When you started talking to me I told myself you were nothing to do with the woman in my dreams. Then you came back the next morning, and I knew that wasn't true."

She remembered seeing a flash of fire in his eyes that morning. She had seen it and known he would let her fly with him.

"You terrified me," he said, "but I couldn't have sent you away."

"That night on Hot Spring Island you didn't avoid me." She met his eyes boldly now, not afraid any longer.

"I tried," he told her, laughter now in his voice. "I did try, but how could I resist such a seductress?"

"Seductress! I didn't—"

"You did." There was no doubt in his voice. Her face flamed, remembering how she had invited him into the water with her. "I thought I would die, holding you in my arms—like my dreams, but more. I wasn't really sane that night. In my mind, you'd been so close to me for so long. I thought you'd come to me, that you were mine."

She remembered his voice in the night afterwards, telling her he loved her. She had told herself it was a dream.

"The next morning, when you told me you were engaged, I—"

"I belonged to you even then," she insisted, needing to erase the memory of pain in his eyes. "You turned my world upside down. It took me a long time to realize what had happened."

"You've got to be sure."

"Why did you leave me alone so long? So many weeks?"

"Do you have any idea what it does to me when I hold you in my arms, make love to you, only to have you walk away from me afterwards? It's not enough."

Every time he left her, it hurt as if something tore away inside her. How many times had she stood in the doorway, watching him leave her?

"When I started working on the radio, John told me to talk to the person closest to me, so I wouldn't be nervous. I thought he was a dream man, not real. I pretended I loved Ken, but I didn't know what love was until I saw you. You were the man I talked to. I'm sure, Luke."

She reached a hand to touch him. He was only a step away. "I need you. I love you. Please don't ever leave me again."

"Laurie—"

She laced her hands in his hair. He was too slow, too cautious, this wonderful lover of hers, but his eyes warmed as she touched him.

"Are you planning to seduce me again?" he asked.

She lifted her lips to his. "Are you going to let me?"

He pulled her to him, bending his head to her for a long moment.

"I want more," she told him in a whisper.

"What do you want?"

She whispered, "To love, honor and cherish; until death do us part. In sickness and in..."

His lips smothered her words.

He kissed her deeply and she shuddered with desire. Her fingers clutched his hair as she strained against him, returning his passion. When he lifted his head, only his arms around her kept her from collapsing.

"I love you, Luke. It's taken me a long time to realize it, to stop being afraid of it. I thought what happened to us on Hot Spring Island was a part of the storm and the crisis, but I've realized it was us—the chemistry of you and me together. It's as if I've known you forever, as if I know all about you without your having to tell me. If I believed in reincarnation, then I would believe we had been lovers before."

"We have." His words were a breath on her lips. He explored her back with his hands.

"Everybody's been talking about us," she told him, moving her body against his. "Your truck at my house every night."

"What do you want to do about it?" He loosened her buttons and found the parts of her that she so badly wanted him to touch and love.

"I think we should get married. I already have the house for us to live in. I'll share it with you."

"Monday," he told her, drawing her away from the edge of the sea, towards the trees.

"We can't get married on Monday. You have to wait five days for the license and—"

He sank down on to the sand, pulling her down with him. "Not if you're getting married in California."

"California's a thousand miles away!"

"Six hours in the Goose. Now hush."

And he kissed her, touching her, loving her so that she couldn't have said a word if she had wanted to. And why should she? Flying to California to get married was just the sort of insane, impulsive idea she might have thought up herself.

There was no one to see them, only the ocean and the sky. She surrendered herself into his arms, eagerly.

The End

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Excerpt from

If You Loved Me

by

Vanessa Grant