Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

withdrawing into himself so completely that Hannah could almost hear the doors closing and bolts slamming home. He became again the man she feared, cool and ruthless, watching her with emotionless eyes.
    “Sorry,” she said, drawing back. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
    “No problem,” Kyle said without looking up from the computer screen. “You must be Hannah. I’m Kyle, and the beautiful Munchkin draped against Archer is my wife, Lianne. I’d introduce you to the twins, but we haven’t picked their names yet.”
    “Twins?” Hannah asked.
    She didn’t hear the wistfulness in her own voice, but Lianne did. “Two of them,” she said. “At least, that’s what my doctor is saying. At the rate I’m growing, I’m wondering about triplets.”
    “Bite your tongue,” Kyle said.
    She leaned over against him and whispered something that made her husband smile. He gave her a promising-remembering kind of look along with a grin. “I’ll take a rain check on that,” he said, “but not for long.”
    Archer didn’t say anything. He simply watched Hannah standing in the door with the elegance of a dancer and the mouth of a siren calling to her man. The travel-wilted clothes she wore couldn’t conceal the curves and hollows, the lure and the promise of her body. Distance couldn’t conceal the deep wariness in her eyes, the tension that radiated from her when she looked at the man she didn’t trust. The man she feared. The man who wanted her so much he had to remind himself to breathe every time he saw her unexpectedly.
    Motionless, Archer waited, praying that none of the emotions seething beneath his calm showed through. But they must have, because Hannah took another step backward. At her retreat, his eyelids flinched in a reaction that was as involuntary as it was painful.
    Deliberately he turned back to the computer, not wanting to look any longer at the woman he loved backing away from him.
    “If control of the high-end pearl market wasn’t motivation enough for Len’s murder,” Archer said neutrally, “our half brother had a talent for making enemies. Hannah could tell you more about that than I could. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Len is dead and the black rainbows are gone. Find them and you’ll find Len’s murderer.”
    With a smooth, powerful surge, Archer came to his feet. “That’s why I brought Hannah here. She needs protection while I find the pearls.”
    “Protection? Why?” Lianne asked, turning to Hannah.
    “Whoever killed Len thinks I have the secret of making the black rainbows,” she said. The words came out tight, almost harsh, so curt that Lianne frowned. “I don’t.”
    “Until Len’s murderer is found,” Archer said, “she’s at risk.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll be back by dinner.”
    “You better be,” Kyle said. “Dad will want to talk to you.”
    “Hannah knows more about Len than I do.”
    “What I know, your father doesn’t want to hear.” Abruptly Hannah fell silent, thinking of a graveyard in Broome, when Archer had asked her to remember the good things and let go of the bad.
    “I’ve already answered Dad’s questions about Len,” Archer said as though she hadn’t spoken. “There are more useful things for me to do than hash over a past neither one of us can change.”
    He walked toward the door as though Hannah wasn’t blocking it.
    “Where are you going?” she asked, watching Archer approach. Her voice was husky with memories and something she refused to recognize as hope.
    He stopped very close to her, expecting her to back away. She didn’t. “To see a man about some pearls.”
    “Len’s pearls?” she asked.
    “Possibly.”
    “Then I’m coming with you.”
    “No.” The word was smooth and cold, leaving no room for argument or interpretation.
    “You need me to—”
    “No,” he cut in. “Not now. Not ever. Not in any way.”
    Kyle and Lianne exchanged looks. They hadn’t ever seen Archer like this, leaving ice burns with a few deadly calm words.
    “Ah, Hannah,” Kyle said, trying to defuse the explosion he sensed coming.
    “If you think I’m letting you go after the Black Trinity on your own,” Hannah said in a low, savage voice, “you’re as crazy as Len was.”
    “Big as Len, cold as Len, and now as crazy as Len. Looks like your husband didn’t die after all.” Archer shrugged. “Too bad, Hannah. You’ll just have to trust me not to take the Black Trinity and leave you flat broke.”
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