Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

of pearl farming.”
    Kyle looked at the screen, put the cursor on one of the icons, clicked, and waited. The information reappeared as a graph. He clicked again. The bar graph shifted. “Six years ago.” Click. “Four years ago.” Click. “Two years ago.” He whistled musically. “The Chinese are coming on strong. They’re going to own the pearl trade in the next decade.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Except,” Lianne said, pointing to one column, “here.”
    “The luxury trade,” Archer said. “The kind of gems Tahiti and Australia produce. Big. Very rare. Very expensive. The Chinese beat the Japanese at the freshwater pearl game and at the Akoya pearl game. Then they moved on to Tahiti for the high-end South Seas game. If you fish around in Len’s hard drive long enough, I’m sure you’ll find a projection for the future of pearl farming. It will be Chinese all the way.”
    “When you say the Chinese . . . ” Kyle began.
    “I mean the Chang family,” Archer finished.
    Discomfort forgotten, Lianne scooted around until she was sitting between both brothers. “All right. The Aussies have damn few export products worth as much as pearls. They’re worried about losing out to the Chinese. How would killing Len improve the Australian position in the pearl market?”
    “If Len had a covert alliance with the Changs,” Archer said, “the Aussies had good reason to fear that he would turn over the secret of the black rainbows to the Chinese.”
    “Which would give China a lock on all levels of the pearl trade,” Lianne said. “Good-bye Aussie leverage. But Len had to know the Chang family was screwing him. Why would he give them anything as precious as the rainbow pearls?”
    “He wouldn’t,” Archer said. “He would just let the Changs think he was going to. I’m sure he was dangling the same lure in front of the Aussies. Otherwise they would have driven him out of business years ago. Len was a big thorn in their jockstrap.”
    “Ouch,” Kyle muttered. “What about the Japanese? They can’t be happy either way.”
    Archer shrugged. “Japan doesn’t have any warm oceans to grow South Seas pearls in or any chance of acquiring that kind of real estate, short of World War Three. They’re hanging on to as much of their pearl sales monopoly as they can. Again, the high-end stuff is slipping away from them. Again, it’s the Changs who are taking over. If the Japanese knew about Len’s pearls, they’d want them.”
    “Who wouldn’t?” Lianne asked. “I love jade, but that pearl you showed me was extraordinary.”
    She leaned against Kyle’s shoulder and stared at the screen. The twins went into overdrive. She sighed and shifted again. This time she rested her round belly on Archer. Feeling the tattoo of life against his arm, he turned and smiled at Lianne.
    “Isn’t it time for their nap?” he teased.
    “In my dreams.” She grabbed his hand and put it on the most active twin. “Here, Uncle Archer. Soothe the savage beasts while Daddy slays the computer dragon.”
    Obediently Archer stroked over Lianne’s big belly, pausing to savor the bump and seethe of hidden life before he stroked again soothingly.
    Archer didn’t know that he had a small, almost dreamy smile on his face, but Hannah did. She stopped in the doorway to the suite and stared, frozen. The contrast between the hard planes of his stubble-shadowed face and the tenderness of his smile was shocking. The difference between his muscular body and the care of his hand soothing his petite and visibly pregnant sister-in-law was equally shocking.
    The child will know his or her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Most of all, the child will know me.
    Archer’s words echoed and reechoed in Hannah’s mind, making her dizzy. She had assumed he was threatening her because he was angry. Now she realized that he had simply told the truth. Whether she liked it or not, whether she trusted him or not, he would be a part of their child’s life.
    If there was a child.
    “Ah, see?” Lianne said, laughing softly. “The little devils are settling down. You’re in for a lifetime of baby-sitting, Archer.”
    “Doesn’t scare me a bit. When they get big and ornery, I’ll give them back to you.”
    Kyle snickered. “I’m going to teach your kids how to make mud pies in the linen cupboard.”
    “Is that the worst thing you ever did?” Hannah asked from the doorway.
    At her first word, Archer changed as he had in the gym,