Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

rep there had a bad appendix.”
    He waited for some sign that Honor was listening. If she was, she didn’t respond to the lure. He made a disgusted sound, reined in his temper, and asked in a voice dripping with reason, “How can we settle anything if you won’t talk to me?”
    “What’s to settle? I need you to teach me about the boat and you need me to get to Kyle.”
    “What about last night?”
    “Was it good for you, too?” she asked with a total lack of interest.
    “It was the best I’ve ever had.”
    “That’s nice. Why isn’t the outdrive gauge showing dead center?”
    “It’s not supposed to be. Honor, I’m not going to let you turn your back on last night.”
    “Should I be worried about those clouds? It’s getting really black along our course line.”
    Jake didn’t even bother to look at the weather hanging low over the San Juans. “Talk to me.”
    “I am, but you aren’t listening. Those clouds go all the way to the water.”
    “We’re like a frog’s ass. Waterproof. How long are you going to make me pay for not cutting my own throat and telling you everything the first time we met?”
    “A watertight frog butt. Now there’s a thought.”
    “You were a Donovan and the Donovans got me kicked out of the Russian Federation.”
    Honor held on to the wheel and her own temper. She had always thought that Kyle could talk anyone into anything. Now here was Jake with his earnest whiskey-and-velvet voice, his razor-edged mind, and a body that had taught her things about herself and overwhelming pleasure that she would spend the rest of her life trying to forget. Or duplicate.
    Even worse, she kept going over and over it in her mind. Not just the sex, the whole mess. She hadn’t been honest with him. He hadn’t been honest with her. But she damn well hadn’t slept with him as a means to finding her brother.
    Jake couldn’t say the same.
    Why else would he have been so careful to give her the kind of incredible pleasure he had? She had made it pretty plain that he attracted her; he had followed up in a way that was guaranteed to keep her happy about having him around.
    She was a fool. She had been a fool since Jake walked into her life, a life that was already thrown off balance by her brother’s disappearance.
    Silence expanded until it was a living, smothering presence in the cabin.
    Jake watched Honor for any sign of response to his words. All he saw was increasing tension and a disgust she couldn’t quite hide beneath her careful lack of expression.
    “Is it so impossible,” he asked through his teeth, “that Kyle might, just might, have gotten in over his head with Marju and done something really stupid?”
    “You know her better than I do.”
    “She’s about the sexiest thing since Eve.”
    “Kyle is hardly a kid. He’s been chased by experts.”
    “Marju is different.”
    “This will come as news to you, but we’re all different.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “No, I don’t,” she said, staring out through the increasing rain. “I do know that asking me to choose between my brother who has never betrayed me and a man who has just betrayed me isn’t very bright.”
    “I didn’t betray you!”
    Rain poured down, drenching the Tomorrow in transparent sheets of water.
    “You didn’t betray me,” she said indifferently. “Right. Where are the wipers on this thing?”
    “Here.” Jake’s hand shot out and slammed on all three wipers at once. Then he let out a seething breath and tried sweet reason again. It wasn’t very successful. His voice was more angry than sweet. “I didn’t betray you and you damn well know it.”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “Shit.”
    “Another point of agreement. See how easy it is?”
    Jake took several slow breaths and another, hopefully better, grip on his temper. Honor’s newfound habit of agreeing with him and not meaning a word of it was sawing away at his self-control. It was impossible to argue with someone who was so damned agreeable.
    The computer cheeped, signaling a way point successfully passed. Honor watched the radar screen until it completed a sweep of the circle and put the new course in place. She corrected the wheel, looked where her new course would take them, and instantly changed her mind about staying on it.
    One of the massive Washington State ferries was barreling toward them out of the rain. In addition to the Tomorrow and its three watery shadows, there were three more small craft to keep an