Page 63 of Passion's Wicked Torment

Hunter was behind her, holding the major bulk of the coil, spinning it out as he backed toward the cabins, A circular life preserver hung from the cabin on sturdy metal hooks. Hunter threw the life preserver into the flaming sea. Then he pulled the line as taut as he could and wrapped the coil around the metal hooks. He tied a knot.

“All right,” he called to Kristin. “Let go!”

She released the line. It hung in the air, stretched between the two ships. McShane, on his end, had secured the line to the forward anchor crank.

Kristin knew what Hunter had in mind, and she was frightened. His eyes, as he came close to her, showed that he understood her fear. But there was absolutely no choice. They would have to cross over to the Kristy on the line above the blazing flames that leaped up from the sea. If they lost their grip for even a second, they would fall and be burned to death.

“Trust me, babe,” Hunter said.

“I trust you.”

“Liar,” he said, grinning at her crazily, his face sweating. Then he kissed her passionately.

“Hurry!” shouted McShane, his voice carrying for the first time on a gust of wind. He yelled something else, but most of the words were drowned out. Kristin knew he had made some comment about what would happen if the ships drifted farther apart. The line would snap.

“Babe, I want you to put one arm over my right shoulder, one arm under my left, and hook them together in front of my chest. You’re going to be behind me. Hold me as tight as you can, and don’t let go.”

“You can’t carry both of us!” Kristin protested.

“It’s a strong line.”

“But your shoulder! You’re still bleeding!”

He brought his face close to hers, his expression commanding. “Do as I say.”

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. There was no other way for her to get across, and Hunter knew it. She had never had the experience of hand-walking along a rope. It was simply not something that could be done without practice and skill.

He got up on the railing and grasped the line firmly in both hands. “Now,” he said to her over his shoulder. She got up on the railing behind him, wobbling dangerously, and put an arm over his shoulder, another under his opposite shoulder. She locked her hands in front of his chest as tightly as she could.

A thought entered her mind just before they pushed off. Hunter seemed to read her mind, for he said to her over his shoulder, “Don’t you dare let go to lighten the load. If you let go, I let go. It’s the two of us from now on. Or nothing at all.”

He jerked his legs up sharply and hooked them around the line. They were up in the air now, over the sea. Hunter’s powerful hands were gripping the line, his legs hooked over it farther back. He pulled himself forward toward the Kristy, headfirst. Kristin’s arms were locked around him, her legs swinging freely out over the sea. The billowing flames reached high up, and she could feel the intense heat beneath her. The smoke was all around them.

“Come on! Come on!” Men from the Kristy were shouting frantically, urging them on. They were all gathered at the bow, reaching out, waving them forward. Most of them were Kristin’s friends from her days as part owner of the ship.

Kristin did not see how the two of them could possibly make it. And yet Hunter kept inching forward, his mighty hands grasping the line, pulling, regrasping and pulling again, his legs pushing for added aid. With her arms around him, Kristin could feel his hard muscular chest. She could see his powerful arm and shoulder muscles bulging with the strain. Hunter was sweating so profusely, Kristin thought she might lose her grip due to the slickness of his chest. She held on tightly.

Then—thank God!—hands reached out and touched her. An instant later arms were locked around her waist and chest, pulling her forward. “Let go of him!” came a command. It was McShane’s voice. He had her firmly in his grip and wanted her to swing free so he could pull her over the Kristy’s railing. She would not let go though—or could not, she was not sure which. Her arms remained frozen in place around Dallas Hunter’s mighty chest.

Then arms reached out and grasped Hunter, too, as he came near, and finally the two of them were being hauled aboard over the edge of the railing. Their legs touched down on firm decking. A triumphant cheer went up from the men around them.

Hunter turned around within the circle of Kristin’s arms to face her. His face was slicked with sweat, smudged by the black smoke that clung to his features. He grinned that familiar, wonderful, powerful Hunter grin, which made Kristin want to melt with love. “You can let go of me now,” he said.

“Never!” she cried.

His arms closed around her in a crushing embrace, and he kissed her passionately. The world dissolved into swirling, soaring emotion. Kristin heard McShane’s jubilant voice—not at all petty or jealous—as if from a great distance, declaring, “I told you I’d be there when you needed me!” But she could not focus on it, for nothing seemed to have any reality but Dallas Hunter’s lips upon hers, and her overwhelming, all encompassing love of him.

She seemed to actually become her love of him, to cease to exist physically and to be transformed in that magic instant into love for Dallas Hunter—and he into love for her. The two of them became as one.

“My love,” declared Hunter, his lips brushing her ear. He crushed her in a magical, transcendent embrace, and Kristin’s heart and soul soared. She could not stop crying tears of joy.

EPILOGUE

When Kristin came back into the living room with the baby’s cereal, Sean McShane was still bouncing little Sean on his knee. The baby was loving it, smiling and gurgling, but Kristin was concerned. “Hey, be careful,” she said. “He’s only six months old, you kno

w.” “Listen, lass, don’t you be telling me how to treat my godson,” Sean laughed. “Me and little Sean here, we’re in training. The way I figure it, if he sticks to the program, we’ll make a Mountie of him yet—in twenty years or so.”

“Well, maybe. But in the meantime, you quit jogging him up and down so I can give him his dinner.”

McShane settled the baby down on his knee and held him, while Kristin began spoon feeding him his food. Dallas Hunter came in from the back porch, where he had been cooking steaks on an outside grill. “They’re almost ready,” he said. He looked at Kristin and Sean on the couch, feeding the baby. He grinned. “Now there’s a domestic scene if ever I saw one. And you’re supposed to be such a rough, tough Mountie.”

“Yeah, you should talk,” said McShane, partly defensively. He knew Hunter was teasing him, but still, he prided himself so much on his full-time commission as a Mountie that he felt called upon to counter Hunter’s aspersions. McShane had given up his casino ship shortly after the rescue of Kristin and Hunter a year and a half ago, and he had returned to Yukon. He was once again the law in that backwoods city, which he loved and where he was greatly appreciated by the townspeople. He had always loved being a Mountie, though he never admitted it. Kristin had guessed long ago though.

His reverence and respect for the uniform had been a dead giveaway.

“You’re the domestic one,” McShane chided Hunter. “Kristy here tells me you’ve given up your job as a T-man since the last time I come to visit. What are you doing now?” he asked with good-natured humor. “Selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door? I’ll bet that’s it, eh? Or something of the like.”

Hunter grinned. “Something just like it.”

“Now, you stop that,” Kristin scolded McShane. “I had a hard enough time making him give up that dangerous federal agent work now that he’s a family man. I think it’s a very thoughtful, considerate thing that he did it too.” She held out her hand and touched Hunter’s supportively. She turned back to Sean. “Don’t you be teasing him about being a softy. Or he might want to go back.”

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