Beneath the table Lianne’s small hand settled on her husband’s thigh and squeezed with surprising strength, silently asking him to use his head on this one instead of his balls. Slowly the tension seeped out of Kyle’s clenched muscles.
“We’ll try it your way first,” Kyle said finally. “If that doesn’t work—”
“You’ll do whatever it takes,” Archer finished, hearing his own words from the past, seeing some of his own dark shadows in his brother’s eyes. Silently Archer held his hand across the table, but he held it as someone looking for contact rather than a handshake.
Kyle took his brother’s hand. They both gripped hard.
“Thank you,” Archer said simply. He slid out of the booth, turned to Lianne, and brushed his fingertips over her cheek. “You’re good for him, little sister. For us.”
Kyle watched his brother walk out of the warm yellow light of the kitchen. When he turned to Lianne, he was surprised to find tears in her eyes.
“Hey, it’s all right,” he said. “Donovans fight and then it’s over. Not like the Tang family, where no one fights and everything festers.”
Lianne thought of her father’s family and shook her head. The difference between Chinese and American families wasn’t what was bothering her. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“Archer’s eyes,” she whispered. “What happened before I knew him?”
“He worked for Uncle Sam in a lot of ugly places. Then he quit. Now he’s Donovan International’s troubleshooter.”
“I think . . . ” Her voice died.
Kyle bent down, licked a faint shadow of syrup from one corner of her mouth, and settled his big hand over their children. “What do you think, sweetheart?”
“I think Archer has shot enough trouble in his life.”
* * *
Hannah was staring at the computer when she heard a car pull up in front of the house. Fear and anger battled within her. Anger because it might be Ian Chang, back to press his offer of business partnership and a much more intimate relationship. Fear because she didn’t know who was out there.
With tight motions she closed Pearl Cove’s accounts and shut down the computer. It was pointless to stare at the screen any more. She was so tired she was seeing double. She hadn’t slept in days, hadn’t even dozed in the fifteen long hours since she had talked to Archer Donovan. She kept hearing his voice, seeing the past . . . .
She pushed away from the computer and headed for the living room. Before she got there, a knock came from the front door. She froze. She knew the verandah floor near the front door creaked, yet she hadn’t heard footsteps. When she looked through one of the gauzy front curtains, she saw the silhouette of a man. A big one. Her heart squeezed in fear.
“Hannah? It’s Archer Donovan.”
Relief was so great it left her momentarily lightheaded. Until that instant she hadn’t realized just how much she was running on sheer nerve. Four days, five. She didn’t know how long it had been. She only knew that finally she could look at another human being and trust him not to kill her.
And if Archer’s voice also made her cold with memories of the most brutal hours of her life, she would just have to get over it. Swallowing hard, she gathered herself.
“Just a moment,” Hannah said.
Her voice was too hoarse, too strained, but it was the best she could do. She felt like a doll stuffed with sand, and now the sand was running out at every seam. She fumbled with the bolt as she opened the door.
And then she could only stare. She had forgotten Archer’s dark male beauty, the intelligence in his light, changeable eyes, his height and physical power, the sensual promise of his mouth. Her husband had been a wild blond Viking. Archer was a dark angel who made a woman want . . . everything.
Unnerved, she stepped back and said, “Come in.”
When Archer walked forward, other memories knifed through her. The controlled way he moved, the bleak clarity of his gray eyes beneath the sharp black arch of his eyebrows, the quickness of his hands as he shut the door—all of it reminded her too vividly of the night seven years ago when Len had almost died.
And now Len was dead anyway.
Slowly the rest of Archer’s appearance registered on Hannah; the fine lines at the corner of his eyes, the shadows brought by lack of sleep, the worn jeans, the slate-gray dress shirt with the cuffs rolled to his elbows, and what looked like coffee splattered across the front and forgotten.
“You must be exhausted,” she said. “Coffee? A drink? Food?”
Archer raked his fingers through his hair in a remembered gesture that sent odd echoes through Hannah. The beard was new, as were the scattered strands of brilliant silver that gleamed in his thick black hair. But his mouth was the same, thin and contained, always on guard against . . . everything.
“Coffee sounds good,” he said. “Food, too. Whatever you would normally have now.”
“But it’s not lunchtime where you came from.” She tried to think across time zones and the international date line. She couldn’t. “Is it?”
White teeth gleamed in something less than a smile. “No, but don’t worry. I’ve learned to live wherever and whenever I am. Lunch is fine.”
Hannah walked to the kitchen, aware every step of the way that a man was following her. A big, quiet-moving man with quick hands and cold eyes. She wondered if Archer ever really smiled. If he did, it never had happened when she was watching. But then, she had seen him only twice before. He hadn’t smiled the first time, at her wedding—she wouldn’t have, either, if she had known what lay ahead. Nor had he smiled when he had arrived at her door covered in blood and ordered her to pack.
No smiles, yet he had been everything she needed to survive.
Her hands fumbled as she reached into the refrigerator for fresh fruit and cheese and the roast beef Christian Flynn had brought to her. Every movement was an effort. She was caught between the nightmare of the past and the one in the present. But she wasn’t terrified anymore. Smiling or not, Archer was here, bringing with him a sense of safety that was dizzying.
A chunk of cheddar banged against one of the metal racks and thumped to the floor. Silently she cursed her clumsiness and reached for the cheese.
It wasn’t there. Archer had already picked it up. He had moved so quickly, so silently, she hadn’t even suspected he was that close to her. Her fingers shook as she teetered on the edge of her strength and self-control.
“Unless you’re planning to eat off the floor,” he said, scooping up everything she held in her hands, “I’d better take this stuff.”
“I’m all right. Just—”
“Swaying like a tree in a hurricane,” he cut in impatiently. “Sit down before you fall down. When was the last time you ate?”
She closed her eyes, then opened them instantly. She didn’t like the images that lurked in darkness, waiting to be played on the back of her eyelids: Len’s body, wasted legs trailing in the water like ribbons, one fist clenched around the murder weapon.
Yet nobody had mentioned murder. Not when his body was found. Not afterward. They talked about the storm and freak accidents, and they watched her when they thought she wouldn’t notice.
Hannah made a low sound and swayed again. Without warning, strong hands closed over her arms, supporting her before she even knew she was falling.
“When was the last time you slept?” Archer asked, remembering what she had said on the phone. I’m getting . . . sleepy.
“I’m fine,” she said, her jaw clenched.
“And I’m the Easter Bunny. Sit down.”
The back of a chair pushed against Hannah’s knees. Hard. They buckled and she sat. Archer shifted his hands and held her upright until he was sure that she could do the job herself. Only then did he turn back to the food he had put on the table when she went into her exhausted trance.
“When was the last time you slept?” he asked. “And I mean real sleep, not catnaps.”
“I
haven’t slept, really slept, since I saw the broken oyster shell buried in Len’s chest.”
Four
Archer’s hands hesitated for an instant before he resumed making lunch. He had wondered how Len died. Now he knew, for all the good it would do Len or himself. He wanted to ask more questions, to know the cause of the shattered darkness in Hannah’s eyes, but he knew better than to bring up the subject. She was on the edge of falling apart. He needed her strong.
“What do you usually drink with lunch?” he asked.
“Iced tea.”
He went back to the refrigerator, bypassed the bottles of beer, and grabbed a pitcher of tea. A few minutes of rummaging in the cupboards produced glasses and plates. Silverware was in a nearby drawer. Even the butter knives were lethally sharp. Len’s touch, no doubt. Years ago he had never been happy with less than three weapons strapped to various parts of his body. If that wasn’t enough, he had always had a gift for turning ordinary things into deadly tools.
Archer wondered if an oyster shell had been one of them. He didn’t ask. A sideways glance told him Hannah was in one of her waking trances again, hanging on to consciousness by sheer force of will. She had had that same will when he met her ten years ago—a beautiful, innocent teenager determined to escape from a stifling existence of living, working, and sharing cooking pots with the monkey-eating Yanomami of Brazil.
The determination, the smoky-husky voice, and the indigo mystery of her eyes were the only links Archer could see between the teenager of his memories and the shocky, exhausted woman who was sitting at the table, swaying like grass in a long, slow wind.
Silently Archer sliced fruit, cheese, and beef that looked range fed rather than grain pampered. Without asking her preference in mustard, ketchup, chutney, and the like, he assembled sandwiches. As he put a plate in front of her, a corner of his mouth kicked up. Lately it seemed his mission in life was to feed siblings.
Not that he felt brotherly about Hannah McGarry. He never had. Not at first glance. Not now. It had been the final wedge driven between himself and the half brother he had admired and befriended before he discovered the deep fracture lines in Len’s soul.
Archer had been a lot younger then, able to give trust and love without understanding the inevitable consequences if he chose wrong. His half brother had been a big part of the painful, inevitable, and nearly lethal experience called growing up.
“Start with this,” Archer said, holding out a juicy, deep gold chunk of fresh pineapple to Hannah.
She jerked as something brushed her mouth. “What?”
He slid the piece of fruit along her lower lip as though he was feeding his niece. Automatically Hannah opened her mouth to catch a drop of juice. Before she realized what had happened, the fruit was on her tongue. Her salivary glands squeezed painfully in response to the tart-sweet taste.
“Chew,” he said. “Even as sweet as pineapple is, it won’t melt if all you do is suck on it.”
She chewed. Gooseflesh rippled over her in pure pleasure at the taste.
“Cold?” Archer asked, looking at her tank top. Her nipples had risen to press hard and tight against the thin cloth. He jerked his eyes back up to her face. “Hannah, are you cold?”
“No.”
“You’re shivering.”
“It tasted like paradise.”
Hannah’s simple abandonment to her senses brought Archer’s sexuality to full alert. Irritated at his unruly body, he sat and tucked his chair underneath the table so that he wouldn’t shock her by his outright lust.
He wasn’t surprised by the urgency of his body; he had always responded to her this way. But he was angry about it. He didn’t want to need her this fast, this hard, this deep. Wanting like that made a man lose control. An out-of-control man was in trouble up to his stiff, stupid cock.
“Eat,” Archer said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. We can’t do it in the shape you’re in now.”
The tone of his voice straightened Hannah’s spine. She reached for her fork, only to send it sliding and clattering across the table when her fingers slipped.
He grabbed the wayward silverware. He didn’t remember her as being clumsy. He remembered her as having an unconscious, bone-deep grace that made watching her entirely too hot an experience for his comfort.
“Sorry.” Hannah drew a bracing breath. “I’m not usually so awkward.”
“Your nerves are shot. Your body isn’t any better off. You need food and sleep.” Archer stabbed a piece of pineapple, slid it over her lower lip, and said, “Try again.”
This time when Hannah shivered with pleasure, he kept his eyes on the food.
After a few minutes, she picked up her sandwich and began nibbling on it. When she reached for her glass of tea, he almost stopped her. He was pretty certain it would end up in her lap. Or his. That thought kept him from interfering. A lap full of ice water was exactly what he needed to get his mind off her nipples and quick tongue.
Cautiously Hannah lifted the glass with both hands. Her teeth clicked against the rim and tea sloshed over her hand. With a quick motion of her head, she sucked liquid off her skin before any could drip onto the table.
Pure lust shot through Archer, increasing the force of his erection until he could count his heartbeats in his own dick. Disgusted with himself, irritated with her for no better reason than that she turned him on and never knew it, he ate his sandwich in savage silence.
The silence stretched even after he was finished eating. He stared through the kitchen window, across the sheltering verandah, out to the hammered-silver brilliance of the sea. He didn’t look back at Hannah until his arousal had subsided to an aching memory.
She was watching him with eyes the color of twilight, blue and purple, bruised, edging into night.
“Thank you,” she said. “You were right. I needed food. I just didn’t think of it.”
“Adrenaline.”
Her glossy brown eyebrows lifted.
“It kills the appetite,” Archer explained.
She looked at his plate. Nothing was left of the two sandwiches he had made for himself. Ditto for the fruit and cheese. He had eaten everything but the pineapple spines and the plate itself. She watched him slice more beef and cheese, slap mustard on bread, and throw in some mango chutney for good measure.
“Guess you’re not on an adrenaline jag,” she said.
“Guess not.” He took a big bite out of the third sandwich. The bread was white, stale, and tasteless, but he didn’t stop eating. He needed fuel. “You ready to talk about it?”
Hannah didn’t want to. It showed in her face, in her eyes, a withdrawal like shutters closing and bolts slamming home against the coming storm. She hugged herself, running her hands restlessly up and down arms tanned golden by the sun.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said finally.
“Who found Len?”
“I did. After the storm.”
“Where?”
“At the beach.”
“Was he still alive?”
“No. Dead. Very, very dead. Cold. Like an oyster.”
“Was he stiff?”
Hannah bit down hard on her lip, forcing all blood from it, leaving bright red marks behind when she opened her mouth again to speak. “No. His legs were like ribbons. On the water. Floating and swaying . . . ”
Archer saw the nerves quivering just beneath Hannah’s skin and wanted to pull her into his lap, rock her, hold her, just hold her until the horror went away. But that would be stupid. There was a time and a place for sympathy. This wasn’t it. A kind word would make her collapse like a puppet with cut strings. That wouldn’t help anyone.
He stood up, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and turned away from the table. The house was airy, modest, and, like most things in Western Australia, slightly Asian in flavor. Rattan furniture, colorful cushions, low tables. A hammock hung to catch the cross breeze. The only unexpected touch was a wood sculpture the size of a violi
n. The sculpture had the sinuous, sensual power of a wave on the point of breaking. Within the wave was a shape that suggested a woman; the breaking of the wave would free her or destroy her. Archer didn’t know which. He only knew that the tension and sensuality of the piece were riveting.
It was the last thing he needed to look at.
He turned his eyes to the filmy curtains and beyond, to the beautiful, brutal tropic world that surrounded the house. Sky and land, heaven and hell combined, waiting just beyond the verandah’s silvery screens.
And silence behind him.
“Were you alone when you found him?” Archer asked curtly.
Hannah jumped, licked her dry lips, and took another drink of tea. “Coco was with me. The others were searching the mangrove side of the headland.”
“Coco?”
“Colette Dupres. She’s worked here for years.”
“Doing what?”
“She’s our best technician. The oysters she seeds have a seventy percent better survival rate and more spherical pearls than anyone’s except Tom Nakamori.”
“A great asset.”
“Great ass, period,” Hannah said without thinking.
Archer’s left eyebrow rose in surprise or amusement, Hannah couldn’t tell which. Then she replayed her own words in her mind, hearing them as he must have. She would have laughed if she had the energy. But she didn’t. Archer was going to get the truth from her, without any frills or civilized flourishes. She simply didn’t have the strength to be polite, much less coy.
“What did Coco think when she saw the oyster shell in Len’s chest?” Archer asked.
“She flinched. Then she laughed.”
“Nerves?” He knew that violent death affected people in many ways. Hysterical laughter was one of them. Throwing up your toenails was another.
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “She kept on saying, ‘Perfect. So fucking perfect. Done off by the shell he worships.’ ”
“Done off?”
Pearl Cove Page 5
