Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

cool, silky weight of the pearls and the feeling of solving a fascinating puzzle, she sorted the gems. Like a Chinese merchant working an abacus, her fingers flew over the rows of pearls. Unlike an abacus, the pearls were free to jump up or down in the parallel rows.
    When the sleeves of the jacket draped over her shoulders kept getting in the way, Archer removed it. She didn’t even pause in her work. In fact, he doubted if she even noticed what he had done. She was wholly caught in the spell of the pearls and the challenge of matching them one by one.
    When she was finished, she stepped back. Only seven of the hundred pearls had survived the sort. She had placed them side by side on the top row of the tray. The rest were lined up on the rows below in order of diminishing acceptability of the color match.
    “My God,” Fred said, staring.
    “Incredible,” Becky agreed. She stepped forward and bent over the tray. “You’re very good, dear.”
    “The pearls in the next row are an acceptable match,” Hannah said, “particularly if you’re looking for a bracelet or a brooch to go with the necklace. But I sorted first for the necklace, because that’s always the most difficult.” Rather wistfully she looked at the table where other pearls waited to be sorted.
    “Go ahead,” Archer said quietly. “I don’t think the Linskys will mind.”
    “Mind?” Becky laughed in disbelief. “You’ve accomplished more in a few minutes than any of us have in hours.”
    “You had already done the initial sort on that lot,” Hannah pointed out.
    “Don’t bother to be modest,” Becky retorted. “I’ll bet you could have done the first sort buck naked and standing on your head.”
    “I’ve never tried it that way.” Hannah smiled as she added, “Standing on my head, that is.”
    Fred laughed and his brown eyes glinted with a wicked male light.
    Archer swallowed hard. The thought of watching her naked in a room full of pearls made heat settle heavily in the pit of his stomach. The smooth texture of her skin would rival that of the pearls. The flush of passion would be more beautiful than any pearly luster . . . and her sleek heat would be a delicious contrast to the cool heaviness of pearls.
    “But it’s too cold to work naked here,” she added, “so I’ll do it the hard way.”
    She turned to the next table, where groups of pearls were spread out flat. With amazing speed she moved pearls around in the first group, following clues only she could see. Very quickly she divided the group into two piles. The first she simply pushed aside and didn’t look at again.
    “Do you have more trays or should I use the one on the other table?” she asked without looking away from the pearls.
    “We have more,” Becky said.
    “Coming up,” Fred said.
    Nodding vaguely, Hannah moved on to another unsorted pile. When the trays appeared at her elbow, she put them to use without a word. The only sound in the room was her soft humming. The tunes were a mixture of Australian folk songs and the hymns she had been raised with. Though the speed of the music varied, her concentration didn’t.
    Archer watched every move she made. He was fascinated by her skill, her quickness, her agile fingers. He considered himself a good pearl sorter, but she was better. Much better. Even in Mikimoto’s huge sorting rooms, he had never seen anyone work with her speed and precision. No wonder Len had demanded that she match the Black Trinity for him.
    Rows of pearls formed with dazzling speed on the sorting trays. Once the gems were lined up, the subtle color variations that separated one line from the next became more obvious. Sometimes it was simply a matter of surface perfection. Most often the differences lay in the orient, beyond man’s ability to touch or change. Orient was the soul of the pearl, the mystery of it, and the primal magic; the god seed that mankind had worshiped for thousands of years.
    Hannah looked at the finished trays, stepped back, swapped several pearls among the trays, and brooded over the result. One tray held only twelve pearls. Each one had the same silver-white, moon-goddess sheen. She turned back to the first tray she had sorted, picked up the seven gems from the top row, and mixed them in with the twelve other pearls.
    The match was perfect.
    Archer’s skin prickled in primal response to the gift Hannah took for granted. It was one thing to color-match while looking at the pearls; it was quite another to