Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

her what she really didn’t want to know.
    You would have destroyed that jellyfish the first time you lost your temper. Try dating something from the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom. You’ll both enjoy it more.
    Nice doesn’t mean spineless!
    Hell, sis, I know that. When are you going to figure it out?
    With that Kyle had picked her up, hugged her hard, and told her what a great sister she was—and would she help him adjust the valves on his old Thunderbird?
    Anger, laughter, tears, love. So many memories of Kyle. Honor hadn’t known how deeply she was tied to her brother until she lost him.
    Instantly she corrected herself. She hadn’t lost Kyle. She was going to find him no matter what.
    Frowning, she forced her attention back to the “danger quarter” and the rules of the sea. Thinking about childhood and Kyle and men who were too nice for her own good wouldn’t help anyone. Finding her brother would.
    The Donovan males had the rest of the world covered. She had the entire group of San Juan Islands to search, and maybe Canada’s Gulf Islands as well. To do that, she had to be able to get herself around the islands. To do that, she had to learn how to drive a boat, because the local ferries stopped at only a handful of the major islands.
    It would have been easier to hire a boat, but she had decided it wouldn’t work. If Kyle was hiding—for whatever reason—approaching him on his own boat was the only way to get close. He might be too proud to ask his family for help in a private mess, but he wouldn’t run from them once they showed up.
    Yet in order to get close to Kyle in his own boat, she had to learn how to drive the boat. To do that, she had to spend hours reading about danger quarters and other arcane things that made her head ache.
    Sometimes she was afraid that what she was doing was more complicated but just as futile as flinging a symbolic lei of flowers on the sea where a ship had sunk, killing all aboard. On a map the islands looked so small, so accessible, so easy.
    But they weren’t.
    They were rank upon rank of fir-covered rock thrusting up from a cold sea. Wrapped in rain and wind, sun and night, the islands were isolated and starkly beautiful; many of them were also inaccessible to the point of mystery.
    Don’t think about it all at once, Honor told herself for the thousandth time. Just think about the next step. Then the next. Then the next. If you can’t do that, then just go buy flowers and stand on the shore and snivel about Kyle while you throw petals into the sea. What you’re doing might not seem like much, but—
    The phone rang, scattering her unhappy thoughts. She picked up the receiver and spoke eagerly. “Archer?”
    “Jake.”
    “Oh. Hi.”
    “Like I keep saying, you should work on your siasm.”
    She smiled and straightened in the chair. Matching wits with her unexpected fishing guide had proved to be a great antidote to fear. Energy sparked through her.
    “Give me something to be enthusiastic about,” she challenged.
    “Have you had dinner?”
    She looked at her watch. It was after seven. No wonder her stomach was growling. “I haven’t eaten since lunch, if you call half a cheese sandwich lunch.”
    “Do you like crab?”
    “No. I adore it. I worship at its crabby little altar. I would kill for—”
    “Not necessary,” Jake interrupted. “I already did. After dinner I’ll show you the basics of the fishing gear we’ll be using.”
    “I just lost my appetite.”
    “You’ll get it back.”
    “Do you really have fresh crab?” she asked piciously.
    “I really do. Two Dungeness crabs, eight inches across, pulled out of the water by yours truly this morning, cooked, and put on ice for dinner.”
    “You’re right. I’m hungry.”
    “My cabin or your cottage?”
    “Where’s your cabin?”
    “Close to Deception Pass,” he said.
    “Oh. I assumed you lived in Anacortes.”
    “Not anymore. The San Juans are my getaway place, not my home.”
    She hesitated and thought about the call from Kyle she kept hoping to get. “I’d better stick close to my phone.”
    “Okay. I’ll be there in half an hour. How are you fixed for bread and salad?”
    “I can manage that.”
    “Wine?”
    “That too.”
    “Have you figured out how to avoid a collision at sea yet?”
    “Stay on land.”
    “Wrong answer. Look under ‘danger quarter.’ “
    “Why look for trouble?”
    “Beats having it sneak up on you. See you in thirty.”
    Smiling,