Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

minutes, she picked up her sandwich and began nibbling on it. When she reached for her glass of tea, he almost stopped her. He was pretty certain it would end up in her lap. Or his. That thought kept him from interfering. A lap full of ice water was exactly what he needed to get his mind off her nipples and quick tongue.
    Cautiously Hannah lifted the glass with both hands. Her teeth clicked against the rim and tea sloshed over her hand. With a quick motion of her head, she sucked liquid off her skin before any could drip onto the table.
    Pure lust shot through Archer, increasing the force of his erection until he could count his heartbeats in his own dick. Disgusted with himself, irritated with her for no better reason than that she turned him on and never knew it, he ate his sandwich in savage silence.
    The silence stretched even after he was finished eating. He stared through the kitchen window, across the sheltering verandah, out to the hammered-silver brilliance of the sea. He didn’t look back at Hannah until his arousal had subsided to an aching memory.
    She was watching him with eyes the color of twilight, blue and purple, bruised, edging into night.
    “Thank you,” she said. “You were right. I needed food. I just didn’t think of it.”
    “Adrenaline.”
    Her glossy brown eyebrows lifted.
    “It kills the appetite,” Archer explained.
    She looked at his plate. Nothing was left of the two sandwiches he had made for himself. Ditto for the fruit and cheese. He had eaten everything but the pineapple spines and the plate itself. She watched him slice more beef and cheese, slap mustard on bread, and throw in some mango chutney for good measure.
    “Guess you’re not on an adrenaline jag,” she said.
    “Guess not.” He took a big bite out of the third sandwich. The bread was white, stale, and tasteless, but he didn’t stop eating. He needed fuel. “You ready to talk about it?”
    Hannah didn’t want to. It showed in her face, in her eyes, a withdrawal like shutters closing and bolts slamming home against the coming storm. She hugged herself, running her hands restlessly up and down arms tanned golden by the sun.
    “I don’t know where to begin,” she said finally.
    “Who found Len?”
    “I did. After the storm.”
    “Where?”
    “At the beach.”
    “Was he still alive?”
    “No. Dead. Very, very dead. Cold. Like an oyster.”
    “Was he stiff?”
    Hannah bit down hard on her lip, forcing all blood from it, leaving bright red marks behind when she opened her mouth again to speak. “No. His legs were like ribbons. On the water. Floating and swaying . . . ”
    Archer saw the nerves quivering just beneath Hannah’s skin and wanted to pull her into his lap, rock her, hold her, just hold her until the horror went away. But that would be stupid. There was a time and a place for sympathy. This wasn’t it. A kind word would make her collapse like a puppet with cut strings. That wouldn’t help anyone.
    He stood up, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and turned away from the table. The house was airy, modest, and, like most things in Western Australia, slightly Asian in flavor. Rattan furniture, colorful cushions, low tables. A hammock hung to catch the cross breeze. The only unexpected touch was a wood sculpture the size of a violin. The sculpture had the sinuous, sensual power of a wave on the point of breaking. Within the wave was a shape that suggested a woman; the breaking of the wave would free her or destroy her. Archer didn’t know which. He only knew that the tension and sensuality of the piece were riveting.
    It was the last thing he needed to look at.
    He turned his eyes to the filmy curtains and beyond, to the beautiful, brutal tropic world that surrounded the house. Sky and land, heaven and hell combined, waiting just beyond the verandah’s silvery screens.
    And silence behind him.
    “Were you alone when you found him?” Archer asked curtly.
    Hannah jumped, licked her dry lips, and took another drink of tea. “Coco was with me. The others were searching the mangrove side of the headland.”
    “Coco?”
    “Colette Dupres. She’s worked here for years.”
    “Doing what?”
    “She’s our best technician. The oysters she seeds have a seventy percent better survival rate and more spherical pearls than anyone’s except Tom Nakamori.”
    “A great asset.”
    “Great ass, period,” Hannah said without thinking.
    Archer’s left eyebrow rose in surprise or amusement,