Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

and dropped them on the bedside table. It was a long time before she fell asleep, holding on to herself because she had no one else to hold her.
    Fire all around and screams echoing. Len dumping Archer’s battered, bleeding body at Hannah’s feet. The shabby room vanished in Len’s laughter. She was in the center of a riot with blood all over her hands, her body.
    Archer’s blood.
    It was everywhere. She couldn’t carry him, couldn’t drag him, couldn’t get out of the violence that roared around her, black fire and red blood and screams like exploding glass. He had to get up, wake up, walk. Wake up! WakeupwakeupWAKEUP!
    His eyes opened. He looked at her, through her, stripping her to her soul; but he didn’t know. He was blind, living only in pain, blood everywhere.
    “I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t think you would be hurt. I thought you were too hard to ever be hurt.”
    Then he died and she screamed and screamed, her voice rising and falling, her hand clenched around a broken oyster shell while Len’s laughter rolled over her screams and midnight broke like thunder over her, destroying her.
    Hannah awoke in a rush, all at once, her heart hammering frantically, her own words echoing in her mind. I didn’t think you would be hurt. I thought you were too hard to ever be hurt. Cold sweat covered her. Tears blinded her. She couldn’t breathe. She shuddered wrenchingly, rolled onto her side, and fought not to throw up.
    “Just a d-dream,” she whispered through clenched teeth. Holding herself, rocking. “Just a bloody dream. That’s all. Len is dead and Archer’s alive and the pain in his eyes . . .” Her mouth went dry. Pain like that only existed in dreams. Nightmares. “Archer is all right. Just a dream.”
    After a few minutes she pushed out of the tangle of sheets and stumbled into the shower, afraid that it wasn’t a dream at all. Archer could hurt. Archer could bleed.
    She ought to know. She had seen the pain in his eyes.
    She had put it there.
    Damn you, you’re like Len! Great smile, great body, and underneath it all, as cold a bastard as ever walked the earth. It makes everything impossible, even the most simple affection.
    Sex and protection, that’s all you want from me?
    Yes. That’s all.
    Clammy, shivering, she reached for the water faucet. After a few fumbles she got hot water to rain down over her, washing away the icy sweat. Blindly she reached for the soap that hung on a rope around the shower head. A familiar clean fragrance curled around her. The soap smelled like Archer.
    She put her forehead against the cold tile and wept.

Twenty-four
    A rcher sat in the cheerful breakfast nook and watched the view outside the window as the city slowly, slowly awakened. He was dressed casually—running shoes, jeans, dark blue flannel shirt, and a lightweight waterproof jacket with a zipper running down the front. The only thing not casual about him was the nine-millimeter pistol digging into the small of his back beneath the jacket. It was a cold gun in every sense of the word. No serial number, no history, a leftover from the days he couldn’t seem to leave behind.
    Damn you, you’re like Len! Great smile, great body, and underneath it all, as cold a bastard as ever walked the earth.
    He picked up his coffee cup and drained the potent liquid without feeling the heat. Not feeling was another hangover from working for Uncle. Knowing when to cut losses and get out of the game was another. With Hannah, it was too late to cut his losses; he had lost everything of importance already. That left getting out of the game.
    Jake held up the coffeepot in silent question. As one, Kyle and Archer held out their cups. Kyle thought longingly of adding milk, but it went against his self-imposed rule: milk for the first cup, and if that didn’t get it done, go back to bed or drink it straight and black as hell.
    Lianne stared at the table as though it held a cage full of snakes instead of a sketch of the Dragon Moon’s floor plan, the surveillance gear that would let the men communicate with each other, and the two cellular phones which would keep her in communication with Archer.
    “Okay,” she said. “I’ll translate via cell if it’s required. But Archer, if something goes wrong . . .” She just shook her head and looked at him with worry and love in her cognac eyes.
    Archer’s hand closed over her much smaller one. “You’re right. I didn’t think of that. Someone else can