Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

before Marju arrived, some papers still stuck out from a cushion. Honor snatched up the strays, put them on Kyle’s desk, and pulled a dining chair up opposite the sofa.
    Despite the fact that Marju was inches taller than Honor, she seemed almost fragile as she sat on the little couch. Her pale hands were laced together until the knuckles showed white. Her delicate feet were crossed at the ankles. Her long, elegant neck was bowed with jet lag or simply a lifetime of talking to shorter people.
    “Have you heard from Kyle?” Marju asked anxiously.
    “No. Have you?”
    “Oh, no.” Long lashes blinked rapidly. Tears hovered. “I had hoped,” she whispered. “He loves his family so . . .”
    “Certainly no more than he loves the woman he’s going to marry?”
    Marju smiled wanly. “You are kind, but I have much knowledge of men. They want a woman’s sex greatly but they love very little. Women love greatly and pray to be loved just a little in return for their sex.”
    Honor swallowed and tried not to think of herself and Jake. “Some men are different.”
    “Of course,” Marju said huskily. Tears threatened to spill. “I thought Kyle was such a man, once. He is not, yet I cannot stop my love for him.”
    A box of tissues appeared between the two women. The flowery pink design looked odd in Jake’s big hand.
    “Jones can’t make it through an evening without crying,” he said. “It’s the Lithuanian blood. Drama sucked in with Mama’s milk and all that.”
    Marju gave him a watery smile. “Ah, Jay, you still have not forgiven me for choosing Kyle.”
    “Are you kidding?” Jake said. “I’m down on my knees twice a day thanking my first wife.”
    “For what?” Honor asked sharply.
    “Teaching me that sex wears off about three weeks after the ink on the marriage license is dry. You still like your coffee with a shot of vodka, Jones?”
    “Please, yes.”
    “I’ll see if Kyle has any.”
    Honor tried to hide her reaction. She didn’t like vodka under the best of circumstances. In coffee it was unthinkable. But then, Kyle had always been attracted to the exotic. Blonde, dark-eyed, cat—graceful Marju “Jones” was about as exotic as it got.
    “Er, how did you and Kyle meet?” Honor asked.
    “At a beer hall. What the English call a pub. I was there with my cousin, who works in the amber mines. Kyle was there with Jay. Oh, such laughter they had. It was so artless, so confident, so American . I think I fell in love as I stood there.”
    “You wouldn’t be the first,” Honor said dryly. “Kyle has been knocking them dead—er, attracting the opposite sex—since he learned how to smile. Rather like you, I suppose.”
    “Please?”
    “Surely you know how you affect men just by walking into a room?”
    Marju shrugged. “It does not last.”
    “Must be fun while it does,” Honor said wistfully. “So you looked right past Jake to Kyle?”
    “Jake?”
    “Jay.”
    “Ah. He is tres magnifique , very much male, but next to Kyle . . . the comparison is not fair. No man can stand next to my sweet angel Kyle.”
    Honor blinked. “Sweet? Angel? Kyle? Are we talking about the same man who short-sheeted my bed, stuck a turtle down my T-shirt, and put honey in my braids?”
    “It is different for a sister, no?”
    “It is different, yes!”
    Marju laughed softly. “You are very like Kyle. So open. So kind. So . . .”
    “American?” Jake asked from the kitchen. “As in naive?”
    “Yes!” Marju said, clapping her hands. “Naive. It is perfect!”
    Honor eyed her enthusiastic sister-in-law-to-be and told herself that the woman’s grasp of American English wasn’t good enough for her to understand that naive wasn’t exactly a compliment. Puppies, kittens, and kindergartners were naive. Adults with those romping, innocent qualities were often described as stupid.
    “I guess Kyle wasn’t expecting you,” Jake said, handing Marju a cup of coffee. “No vodka.”
    Marju gave him a gentle, sad smile and sipped the coffee. “Ah, that has not changed, has it? You make fine coffee, even without the dear bite of vodka.”
    “Just one of my many charms.”
    Though Jake was smiling, Honor could tell he didn’t particularly care for Marju. Not too surprising. No matter what he said about being grateful not to have caught Marju’s eye, it still had to rankle.
    “Forgive me for being blunt,” Honor said, “but when was the last time you heard from Kyle?”
    “Four weeks ago.