Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

mind and her instincts were locked in uncivil warfare over what to do about Jake Mallory, the thought of him being hurt made her want to throw herself into his arms and hold him close.
    And then she realized that he was already holding her, rocking her against his chest.
    “It’s all right,” Jake said. “I’m only going as far as the dock. I won’t leave you to face the wolves alone.”
    She barely kept herself from telling him that she wasn’t worried about herself. Giving that away would have been really stupid. She was in more trouble than he was.
    He wasn’t fighting himself along with everyone else.
    Honor went down the path to the boat beside Jake, hugging her wind jacket around her. The temperature was over sixty, but the wind made it seem closer to thirty. Jake didn’t seem to notice it. He was wearing a dive suit that fit like skin and a tank of air held on by a harness. Tight black gloves covered his hands. Big flippers and a mask dangled from his right fist. Hoses and a metal gauge lay over his shoulders.
    He should have looked awkward, but she kept seeing him as he was beneath the suit—nearly naked and sexy enough to make her forget all the reasons she shouldn’t be thinking about what she couldn’t help thinking about.
    “You must be freezing,” she said.
    “Not yet. That will come after I’ve been in the water for a while.”
    “So don’t go in!”
    He didn’t say anything.
    “Why do you have to look at the Tomorrow ’s hull? Has it sprung a leak?”
    “Just checking.”
    She waited, but he had no more to say on the subject of why he was going for a dive in a gale. It had been the same every time she brought it up in the past hour. Silence or a change of subject.
    “Why won’t you tell me?” she asked.
    “Because you have enough to worry about.”
    “And this is helping me how?”
    Jake sighed. “I figure by now the SEALs have used the Tomorrow for a training exercise. I’m just going to make sure they haven’t done any damage.”
    It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was as much as he was going to tell her. She was strung tight enough as it was. If she knew he was going to take Kyle’s boat out after dark, it wouldn’t help her nerves at all.
    “You think they sabotaged the Tomorrow ?” Honor asked, suddenly angry.
    “No. I’m just being careful.”
    “Paranoid.”
    “That too.”
    A gust of wind made Honor stagger. Jake steadied her with his free hand.
    “Go back to the cottage,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
    “ ‘I’ll be fine,’ ‘’ she mimicked savagely. “Like hell. You’re not supposed to go diving alone.”
    Jake knew that, but he was doing it anyway. Sometimes it was safer to break the rules than to be the only one playing by them.
    He walked out onto the dock. She was right on his heels.
    “Go back to the cottage,” he said again. “I won’t be long.”
    “Good. I’ll be right here the whole time.”
    “We don’t have a second suit. If I get into trouble, what could you do?”
    “Dance a jig on the dock.”
    “Want to be in on the kill, huh?”
    She shivered. The thought of him being hurt was bad enough. The thought of him dying made her cold all the way to her soul.
    “Sorry to disappoint you, buttercup,” he said, “but I am going to disappoint you on that one. No victory dance over my dead body.”
    “That’s not funny,” she said through her teeth.
    “Not for me. But I’m not half as mad at me as you are.”
    In a seething kind of silence Honor watched while Jake finished suiting up on the dock. Soon he was turning on the compressed air and checking the flow. Satisfied, he put in the mouthpiece. Moments later he stepped off the deep end of the dock and sank beneath the choppy water.
    Honor could barely follow the trail of bubbles for all the wind and froth. Every time she lost all sign of Jake, she thought about what it would be like if he didn’t surface at all, ever.
    “Get back up here, Jake Mallory,” she said to the dark water. “I’m not nearly mad enough at you yet!”
    By the time he finally surfaced, Honor had thought about many things, none of them guaranteed to make her feel all warm and squishy. Jake’s easy strength as he levered himself from the cold water onto the dock told her that he was doing better than she was. She could barely feel her fingers, and her toes were numb. She wasn’t dressed to be out in this kind of wind.
    “Did you find it?” she demanded as soon as he removed his