Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

sleeping bag, and drew her so close he couldn’t take a breath without tasting her. It was the same for her, breathing him in, tasting him, holding him. With a long sigh, she slid into sleep.
    She didn’t fear her dreams now.

Twenty-six
    T he ringing phone dragged Archer out of deep sleep. After a moment of fumbling, he realized that he and Hannah were cocooned in a down comforter. He wriggled until he could free an arm and reach blindly for the phone. Hannah murmured and followed the heat of his body until she was covering him like a second blanket. As he lifted the receiver, he decided that he really liked the feel of her snuggled against him from his chin to his heels. The only thing that would have been better was being inside her at the same time.
    “Yeah?” Archer said into the receiver.
    “Slick, we need to talk.”
    Archer didn’t need to ask who was calling. Only one person called him slick in just that impatient tone of voice: April Joy. His mind cleared instantly. “When and where?”
    “What would you say to green tea at the Dragon Moon?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “No shit.” She laughed curtly. “My office. Now.”
    “My office,” Archer corrected. “Thirty minutes.”
    “Your office. Fifteen minutes. Bring Hannah McGarry.”
    April hung up. Hard.
    Archer put the receiver back in its cradle without disturbing Hannah, who was still lying on top of him like a cat on the hood of a warm car. And, catlike, she was watching him with big, curious eyes.
    “Who was that?” she asked.
    “The person who supplied us with passports and clothes in Australia.”
    Hannah blinked. “And now?”
    “It’s payback time.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Much as I’d like to be ravished again, I’m afraid I’ll have to go.”
    She smiled slowly, remembering just how much fun it had been to have him at her mercy. “I’m going with you.”
    “I want to keep you as far away from Ms. Joy as possible.”
    “You know what Len used to say?”
    “No.”
    “Put your wishes in one hand and piss in the other and see which fills up first.”
    Archer smiled thinly. “Vintage Len. All right, Hannah. Get dressed. April Joy mentioned bringing you. She’ll be in a better mood if I look like I’m cooperating.”
    Hannah started to slide off him, then stopped when his big hands fitted themselves to her buttocks. He gave a deep, slow squeeze that had her breath wedging and fire licking out from her core.
    “Kiss me,” he said. “Hard and fast. Then run like hell for the shower.”
    Even though Donovan International’s headquarters in Seattle was the twin building across the courtyard from the residential condos, Hannah and Archer were late. She hadn’t stopped with one kiss.
    He hadn’t stopped at all.
    “Good morning, Mitchell,” Archer said to his assistant. Mitchell Moore had worked for Donovan International for fifteen years. Ten of those years had been as a field supervisor on various mines around the world. After a mine caved in on him, he was given a choice between retirement at disability pay or using his organizational skills as Archer’s assistant. Two years ago he had been offered a promotion to coordinator of overseas mining. He refused, saying that working with Archer was as close to exciting as desk jobs got. Archer had been so relieved that he gave Mitchell a 50 percent raise. “Did your wife like the opera?”
    “Good afternoon, sir, and yes, thank you. Verdi is a favorite of hers.” The emphasis on hers was just enough to tell everyone that Verdi wasn’t Mitchell’s favorite way to spend an evening.
    “Is it afternoon?” Surprised, Archer looked at his watch. “So it is. Next time the tickets will be for a Sea Hawks game.”
    “There is a god,” Mitchell said under his breath.
    Hannah bit her lip to keep from laughing. Archer’s secretary winked at her. The wink transformed him from a proper martinet into a rogue wearing a pale blue shirt, a conservative maroon tie, and a stainless steel watch with a mirror face.
    The fax machine beeped a delivery warning. Mitchell spun his wheelchair and reached for the sheets that were piled up in the receiving tray.
    “A Ms. April Joy is waiting for you downstairs,” Mitchell said as he scanned the first page of the fax. “She claims she has an appointment. As you weren’t expected to come in today, I told her I couldn’t guarantee your presence. She wasn’t happy.” He dropped the page back into the tray. “The fax will wait