Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

mpatiently Hannah stared at the café doorway as she tapped her short, buffed fingernails over the forest-green Formica of the table. Two tall double Americanos sent heat and fragrance up into the air. Archer was halfway through his. She had taken only a few sips. Espresso was a taste she hadn’t yet acquired.
    “Why don’t we just invite them over to have coffee with us while we wait for Yamagata?” she asked irritably.
    Archer didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know who Hannah was talking about. The Feds were discreet but hardly invisible. They were parked just inside the front door of the small café, sucking up prime caffeine with the gratitude of stakeout cops who were more accustomed to muddy sludge than the kick-butt espresso of good Seattle coffee.
    Outside the warm little café, wind blew clouds and rain sideways. Though it was only two o’clock, the streets were dark slices of autumn-to-winter gloom. The interior of the café was bright, colorful, and painfully retro. Neon light fixtures arced down the wall to end up in pots whose tall plants were made of welded junk. Vintage Rolling Stones pounded out of speakers the size of fists. Two espresso machines screamed and frothed, slamming steam through darkly aromatic coffee.
    He glanced at his watch. If Teddy didn’t put a hustle on, they would be late for the party that The Donovan had rescheduled when his oldest son left so abruptly for Australia.
    “Do Feds always work in pairs?” Hannah asked.
    “Except when they work in fours, sixes, eights, and more.”
    “Is that your government’s answer to unemployment?”
    “It’s your government, too.”
    She blinked. “It’s been so long that I forgot. Tell me again why my government is following me.”
    “To see where you go.”
    “Right. Why can’t I remember that?”
    When she saw the small smile tugging at Archer’s mouth, she wanted to lean forward and brush her lips over his. Then the smile vanished, leaving behind a man with remote gray-green eyes and a midnight stubble accenting the hard lines of his face. That was the face he had showed her since last night: cold, hard, distant. If he touched her, it was as impersonal as rain. About as warm, too.
    She told herself it was better that way.
    And knew she lied.
    She wanted his incandescent sensuality again. She wanted to feel her body ignite, to burn from the inside out, to be drawn on a rack of passion until she shattered into a million bright pieces of ecstasy . . . and then to sleep tangled with him, certain that he felt as she did. Complete.
    She hadn’t known that kind of pleasure existed between a man and a woman. Knowing, she couldn’t forget, couldn’t ignore, couldn’t stop wanting more.
    Tonight, she promised herself. Tonight I’ll get past his pride. I know he wants me. His eyes are controlled, but his body isn’t. Not always. I can raise his heart rate just by leaning against his arm. He can raise mine just as easily. We’re adults who owe nothing to anyone. There’s no reason not to be lovers.
    Unbidden, memories of Summer flicked through Hannah’s mind. The relaxed, satin weight of the child resting against her arm and her hip. The sweetly drooling smile. Clear gray-green eyes watching her, glinting with laughter and intelligence.
    Archer’s eyes.
    If you wanted a child without complications, you should have gone to a sperm bank.
    He and Len were alike in so many ways, it irritated Hannah that they couldn’t have been alike when it came to children. Len hadn’t worried when she miscarried. If anything, he was pleased; he didn’t want children. Ever. After her miscarriage, she agreed with him. She would have no more children, not with a man who was too ruthless to be trusted with a child’s fragile heart. She had taken great care not to become pregnant. After Len’s accident, the question of children was answered. There would be none. Ever.
    Then Len had died and she had fallen headlong into passion with another man who was too ruthless to be trusted with a child’s heart; enjoying a niece wasn’t the same as having the patience and generosity of spirit to raise a child.
    Bitterly she wondered if there was something wrong in her, if unsuitable men would be the only kind she ever responded to sexually.
    Beneath her bitterness was fear, the growing certainty that whatever man she finally chose as her mate, the passion she felt with Archer was unique to him. Even before Len’s spine was severed, her