Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

small. Just right for his hands. Just right for his mouth. Just right everywhere.
    Too bad she was a Donovan. Jake was long past the age of screwing a female he didn’t trust.
    Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember the last time a female interested him as much as this one did. Besides, there were few better excuses to stay close to a woman than a new, red-hot affair. And he intended to stay close to Honor every step of the way to finding Kyle and the stolen shipment of amber.
    Jake looked back at her and smiled.
    “Comfortable, huh?” he said. “Well, if I get wet, I’ll know where to find a dry sweat suit.”
    “Hold your breath. I’m more likely to get wet than you are.”
    “Standing on the dock?”
    She sighed and looked at him. As soon as she went down into the boat, she would be looking up at him again. And bouncing around. With a silent prayer, she took the long step off the dock—and promptly caught the heel of her running shoe on some unexpected part of the gunwale.
    Jake caught Honor as easily as he had stepped into the boat himself. He looked into her startled eyes, smiled slightly, and released her much more slowly than he had grabbed her.
    “Thanks,” she muttered.
    “You’re welcome. There’s a place in town that sells deck shoes.”
    “Good for them.”
    “Better for you. When the deck gets wet, you’ll think you’re ice-skating unless you wear deck shoes.”
    “Wet! The deck isn’t supposed to get wet. That’s why I hired you.”
    “Water is wet. Boats float in water. Boats get wet.”
    “There goes your tip.”
    Jake snickered, then shook his head and laughed out loud. Whatever her bad taste in siblings, Honor Donovan was someone he could like.
    The thought sobered him instantly. The last thing he needed was to like Kyle’s kid sister. Just because she obviously had inherited a full dose of Donovan charm was no reason to like her, much less to slide downhill into trusting her. At the end of that slippery, treacherous slope was the kind of rage and disappointment he had felt when he discovered that Kyle was as crooked as he was good company. Jake’s corporation would be years recovering from the damage Kyle had done, if recovery was even possible.
    It had been a long time since Jake had misjudged a human being so badly. As far as he was concerned, hell would freeze solid before he made such a mistake again.
    People died making mistakes like that.
    “I’ll survive without a tip,” he said. “Get deck shoes when you get the fishing license.”
    Honor stared at him, surprise clear on her face.
    He forced himself to smile and reminded himself that whatever else Kyle’s sister might be, she wasn’t stupid. She read him far too clearly for his comfort. And for hers, apparently. She didn’t look happy with whatever she had seen in his eyes.
    Nothing new in that. A lot of people got uncomfortable when he looked at them a certain way.
    Jake held out his hand.
    “I thought you didn’t expect a tip,” she said.
    “Keys.”
    Without a word she dug into the pouch pocket of her sweatshirt and brought out a simple floating key chain. There were only two keys on it. One looked a bit like an old-fashioned skeleton key. The other looked like an overgrown luggage key.
    “I don’t know how to start the engine,” she said.
    “I do. That’s why you hired me.”
    He took the old-fashioned key, inserted it into the door leading into the boat’s cabin, and turned the handle. The door opened easily. Its big tinted glass panel flashed in the sunlight.
    “Why don’t you sit in the pilot seat for now,” he said.
    “Uh, sure. Where is it?”
    “Up front on the port—left-side,” Jake said, “directly across from the helm seat. The helm is the thing that looks like a steering wheel.”
    “There’s one of those right behind you.”
    “That’s the aft station. I want you inside.”
    Honor didn’t move. “You’re supposed to teach me how to run the boat. I won’t learn anything sitting in there while you’re busy out here.”
    “You’re serious about that part of it?”
    “Very.”
    Jake looked into her level, golden-green eyes and didn’t doubt her words. Whatever lack of interest she had in fishing, she wanted to learn how to operate her brother’s boat.
    Both relief and disappointment coursed through him—disappointment because she was part of Kyle’s scheme, whatever that was, and relief that she wasn’t as clueless as she had sounded on the phone with