Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

  He didn’t think it would take long. Every instant they were on the boat made it more obvious to him that she was fighting herself—and him—on the subject of fishing and small boats. Under other circumstances he might have found her stubbornness amusing. But knowing that some hard, crafty people were after the same amber treasure that could prove Jake’s innocence took all the humor out of the situation.

  Time was wasting, and Honor was the one wasting it.

  “Let’s try something really simple,” he said. “Go out on the stern.”

  “And jump overboard?” she asked sarcastically.

  “That comes later, when we do the ‘man overboard’ practice.”

  “Like bloody hell.”

  But she turned and went out the door to the stern. Jake joined her a moment later and continued driving the boat from the aft station.

  “Go to the stern cleat,” he said, gesturing to one of the bright chrome fixtures that was fastened to the gunwale.

  He cut speed, looked around, and let go of the wheel.

  “Tie your line on the cleat like this,” he said.

  With startling speed, the blue line formed into two figure eights lying neatly around the cleat.

  “Nifty,” Honor said approvingly. “That’s the first knot you’ve made that doesn’t look like half a can of worms.”

  Despite himself, Jake smiled as he took hold of the wheel again, throttled up, and looked over his shoulder. The knot was an easy one, but not as easy as it looked. The trick was in making the loops lie flat and parallel.

  Honor soon found that out for herself. Making the figure eights was easy. Making them pretty wasn’t. Especially when Jake was pouring a river of facts and instructions into her ear.

  “Twist the other way,” he said for the third time. “The second figure eight is supposed to lie flat around the first one.”

  “I followed the blue line exactly.”

  “Really? Then why did the knot fall apart?”

  “Don’t ask me. You’re the expert.”

  “Keep it in mind,” he shot back. “Now twist the line the other way.”

  She looked at the length of line in her hands. “Why don’t you teach me something useful?”

  “Such as?”

  “How to drive the boat.”

  “This knot is as useful as it gets,” Jake said. “It’s how you make sure your boat stays at the dock so that it’s there when you come back.”

  “Why didn’t Kyle buy a rowboat?” Honor asked under her breath. “Even twelve-year-olds run them.”

  “Big or small, if it floats you still have to tie it to the dock.” Jake looked over the stern at the other boats. Still following. Still too far back to see anything useful. “Try the second figure eight again.”

  She flipped a loop and yanked on the loose end of the knot. To her surprise the result lay in clean, obedient curves, just like the blue line.

  “I did it!”

  At first he didn’t answer. Then he said absently, “Sure you did, honey. Anybody who can draw the way you do can tie a simple knot.”

  Honey.

  Her head came up sharply. She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of men who used condescending nicknames for women.

  The words never got past her lips. He was staring over the stern. She turned to see what he was watching.

  A bright orange Zodiac was flying over the water, closing the distance between them.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t they have anything better to do?”

  “Guess not.”

  “What if I don’t let them aboard?”

  “Let’s keep on being good citizens. We might be glad to see them later.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Jake’s glance shifted from the approaching boat to Honor. The combination of anger and impatience in his eyes startled her.

  “You’re a bright lady,” he said. “Use that brain for something more than being stubborn.”

  “You sound like Archer, all-knowing and oh-so-superior.”

  “Screw your brother. Screw the whole damn family. You’re so busy looking over your shoulder to see if any Donovans are watching that you’re going to trip and break your stiff neck.”

  “You’re fired!”

  He let go of the wheel and stepped back. Unguided, the Tomorrow raced through the calm water, holding steady.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  “I’m tired of playing games.” He gestured toward the aft helm station. “It’s all yours, Ms. Donovan.”

  She looked from him to the helm. Whatever you called it, the helm looked like a steering wheel to her. The rest of the boat might be a mystery, but she knew about steering wheels and go-fast engines.

  Besides, she recognized a dare when it was flung in her face.

  She stepped into place behind the heavily chromed helm wheel. The first thing she learned was that boats and cars didn’t respond in the same way. The second thing she learned was the same as the first, underlined. She simply couldn’t predict what the boat would do next.

  The Tomorrow’s wake went from a straight, even line to a wildly uneven Z.

  “Throttle back,” Jake said. “The boys in the Zodiac are getting impatient.”

  With a muttered word, she grabbed the throttle lever and pulled back hard. The boat slowed so suddenly that she was thrown against the helm.

  Jake staggered once and caught himself. Knowing what was coming next, he spread his legs and flexed his knees. The Tomorrow’s own wake boiled up under the stern and bucked beneath the boat in a powerful wave.

  Honor gave a startled cry and hung on to the helm for balance.

  “Lucky for us this is a SeaSport,” he said curtly. “You can swamp most boats in their own wake stopping that quick. Take it out of gear.”

  Shaken, she reached for the black-knobbed lever and pulled gently. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. The lever moved a bit, but she could tell by the sound of the engine that it was still in gear. She gave the lever a good jerk. It slid past neutral and hung up halfway to reverse.

  The boat kept going forward.

  “You missed the gate,” he said. “Try again. No, not that way. Take the gearshift all the way up to the top, then back to neutral in the middle.”

  This time she found neutral. Instantly the boat stopped responding to the wheel. She turned the wheel frantically. Nothing.

  “What happened?” she asked anxiously. “I can’t make it go where I want!”

  “You’re in neutral.”

  “I know that! Why doesn’t the boat respond to the steering wheel?”

  “Unless the boat is under power the helm is useless, remember?”

  The look Honor gave Jake said she didn’t believe a word he was saying.

  The look she got back said he didn’t care.

  “Right now you’re on a very expensive piece of drifting junk,” he said bluntly.

  “But—”

  “The faster you go,” he interrupted, “the more responsive the boat is to the controls. The reverse is true, too. Remember?”

  Now she did. Before, it had been simply one of a thousand unrelated facts racing around her head.

  “No velocity means no steering,” she said shakily. “Got it.”

  The next thing Honor learned was that wallowing around on the choppy water like a pig on ice made her very nervous. Her stomach kicked.

  “I don’t like this,” she said abruptly.

  She snapped the gear lever forward and shoved up on the throttle. Obediently the SeaSport leaped forward, but it veered off at an unexpected angle because the wheel was still cocked from her previous efforts to get a response.

  “Watch it!” Jake yelled.

  He leaped forward, grabbed the wheel with one hand and Honor with the other, and spun the bow away from the Coast Guard Zodiac. Startled cries and angry shouts came from the smaller boat.

  Swiftly Jake
shut down the throttle, put the boat into neutral, and looked toward the Zodiac.

  “Everything okay?” he called.

  What came back wasn’t Coast Guard-approved language.

  “Sorry,” Jake said loudly. “Honor was trying out the controls. We’re ready for you to come aboard now.”

  This time Conroy was the first one over the stern. He came aboard alone and fast.

  “Another stunt like that and I’ll impound the boat,” he said furiously to Jake.

  Honor stepped around Jake and faced Conroy. She was still shaken by the near accident. Like most Donovans, she responded to that kind of adrenaline surge with pure, flaming anger.

  “No one is born knowing how to run a boat,” she said icily. “We were inspected yesterday and we acted like good little citizens. If you want to inspect us from now on, you’ll have to take my inexperience into account. I didn’t know that would happen. Hell, I still don’t know what happened.”

  “What happened was that you damn near rammed us!”

  “Yes, but I don’t know why!”

  Conroy looked from Honor’s pale, tight-lipped face to Jake, who nodded.

  “She’s as rank an amateur as ever took the helm,” Jake said simply. “She didn’t like the feeling of being adrift, so she shoved it in gear and hit the throttle.”

  “Without checking the wheel position first?” Conroy asked, his voice rising.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.” But there was understanding rather than anger in his voice. He turned back to Honor. “Ma’am, I’ve got a small thing to check on your registration papers. Do us all a favor. Let Jake handle the controls until I’m done and we’re at least a hundred yards apart.”

  “What ‘small thing’ are you checking?” she demanded.

  Conroy hesitated.

  She threw up her hands. “Oh, never mind. Just do it. I want salmon for dinner.”

  Jake waited until Conroy was inside the cabin before he turned to Honor. “Salmon? I thought I was fired.”

  “I get a little impatient when I’m stressed. I didn’t mean it.”

  “I did. I’m calling your bluff.”

  “What bluff?”

  “You no more want to learn how to fish or run this boat than I want to paddle a canoe to the moon. So what are you really after, Ms. Donovan?”

  Honor looked at Jake’s hard face and laser-clear eyes and knew he wasn’t going to budge. Even worse, her instincts were screaming at her that if finding Kyle depended on her ability to drive herself around the San Juans in the Tomorrow, her brother was well and truly lost.

  She had a choice. She could do as Archer wanted and design “gemmy little knickknacks” while waiting for the Donovan males to straighten things out or she could openly enlist a not-quite-stranger to help her. A man her instincts trusted.

  A man she wanted.

  “I—” she began, only to stop when Conroy emerged from the cabin.

  “Everything in order?” Jake asked him without interest.

  “Fine. Sorry to bother you,” Conroy said, not meaning it.

  “See you tomorrow,” Jake said dryly.

  Conroy shrugged. “Likely.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be around if I send up a flare?”

  The captain’s expression changed from irritation to interest. “Send it. I’ll come running.”

  “But whose side will you be on?” Honor asked ically.

  “The good guys, who else?” Conroy retorted.

  Jake waited until Conroy was in the Zodiac and speeding off before he turned to Honor.

  “Well?” he demanded. “What are you after? The amber?”

  “Kyle. Just Kyle. Beginning, middle, and end.”

  With an effort, Jake didn’t show his anger. So close and yet so far.

  She still didn’t trust him enough to let him all the way inside the Donovan family walls.

  “All right,” he said evenly. “I’ll lose our escort at twilight and pick your brother up. Which island is he on?”

  Honor stared at Jake as if he was crazy. “How would I know? He didn’t exactly leave a trail of bread crumbs!”

  “Shit. You’re not going to do this the easy way, are you? Where is your brother?”

  “Jake. Listen to me,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I. Don’t. Know.”

  He barely managed to swallow a torrent of Russian curses. It was such a satisfying language to swear in. And if ever a situation deserved cursing, this one did.

  Jake believed her.

  Neither one of them knew where Kyle or the amber was.

  “Okay,” he said, reassessing quickly. “What do you know that will help us find Kyle?”

  Honor let out her breath in a long, hidden sigh of relief. Us. Ever since she had admitted to herself that she could spend weeks learning the boat and not get any closer to Kyle, a chill had spread in her soul.

  She knew her brother needed help. She was certain of it. She just didn’t know how to give it to him. With Jake along, she felt a lot better about her chances of finding Kyle.

  “Then you’ll help me look for him?” she asked.

  “I insist on it,” he said ironically.

  “I’ll pay you, of course. Just like you really were teaching me how to fish and run the boat.”

  “I really will be.”

  “What?”

  “Teaching you how to fish and handle the Tomorrow.”

  “But I don’t want to know!”

  “Okay. I’ll give on the fishing, but not on the boat handling.”

  “Why?”

  “If something happens to me, you’ll have to run the boat. Deal?”

  Honor took a shaky breath and held out her right hand. “Deal.”

  The hand that took hers was slow, male, and very warm. So was Jake’s smile.

  “Congratulations, honey. You just hired yourself a fishing guide and boating instructor. Again.”

  9

  THIS TIME JAKE took the helm. Honor didn’t argue. But that didn’t stop her from asking questions.

  “Where are we going?”

  “A place called Secret Harbor.”

  “Why?” she asked, intrigued by the name. “Do you think Kyle might be there?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Then why are we going?”

  “To fish.”

  “What!”

  He almost smiled. “I thought you wanted a salmon dinner.”

  “I can buy it at the grocery store.”

  “This is better. Trust me.”

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?” she asked evenly.

  Jake’s hands held the wheel too hard. He didn’t like to think about that part of what he was doing. Honor was damned if she trusted him and damned if she didn’t.

  And so was he.

  He wished he had a soothing, charming, amusing response, but he didn’t. All he had was the cold comfort of knowing that, like Honor, he didn’t have much choice.

  “We’re going to Secret Harbor because the trolling line there is a long ellipse that will give us a chance to look over the competition,” he said. “Since Secret Harbor is also one of the places Kyle mentions in his log, we’ll scan the shore for anything that might have . . . washed up.”

  “Like what?”

  “The missing Zodiac, dive tanks, an anchor, anything that shouldn’t be there.”

  “What if we don’t find anything?”

  “Then we go on to the next place Kyle mentioned in the log. And the next. And the next. Unless you have a better idea?”

  “No. It’s what I was going to do once I learned how to drive the boat.”

  Jake grunted. “The good news is that no one else has a better idea.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If they did, they wouldn’t be following us.”

  Honor blinked. “So if we look around and no one is following, we know we’re on the wrong trail.”

  Jake wondered if he should tell her about his near certainty that K
yle had altered the chart plotter enough to hide or add routes. There was also a good chance that Kyle had decided to hide the route in plain sight and had wired some useless stuff into the computer to confuse anyone who came looking. It was the sort of double reverse that would have appealed to Kyle’s sense of humor.

  After a moment Jake decided to spend the day going over the stored routes and another night trying to hack into Kyle’s plotter by himself. He should have more than twenty-four hours before Ellen started whispering in Honor’s ear. If Ellen kept her word . . . . He smiled cynically. Ellen’s word wasn’t exactly cast-iron.

  “We’ll do the close-in spots first,” he said. “That way we’ll waste as little time as possible just getting from here to wherever.”

  The Tomorrow sped across the blue-green sound. A white, surprisingly flat wake unfurled behind the SeaSport. The other boats followed. Honor kept turning around to check on them. Jake didn’t. He was watching the radar screen for a fourth boat. One way or another, he really wanted to get a good look at the driver.

  “Rest your neck,” he said to her after a few minutes. “The radar will keep track of our escort.”

  “Good for it. I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way. Then I know what I’m looking at.”

  “I’ve set the radar screen at a quarter mile. That means each of those three rings on the screen covers about eleven hundred feet.” He began pointing to the radar screen mounted above the dashboard. “That ragged chunk of green to the port—left—is an island. That bright spot over there is a channel marker. That big ellipse is a freighter headed for the docks to pick up logs for Japan. Those three specks behind us are our admirers. The ferry off to the starboard—right—doesn’t show yet, but it will as soon as it gets closer.”

  Honor glanced from the screen to the water and back again. It took a little practice, but soon she began to associate the electric green blobs on the screen with the reality outside.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the screen, where it appeared as though the freighter was separating into two uneven pieces.

  “Looks like another boat was in the radar shadow of the freighter but is pulling away now.” He glanced outside. “A purse seiner. See it?”

  She stared out the side window and saw a ratty-looking commercial fishing boat pulling away on the far side of the freighter. The seiner’s paint sat on rusting metal like gangrene on flesh. The freighter itself was no prize in the glamour department—streamers of rust spilled down its sides. The name on it was Japanese. The name on the fishing boat was Russian.