Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

end of the job while I seeded new oysters. He didn’t trust anyone but me with his experimental babies. And sometimes Coco.”
    Adrenaline licked in Archer’s blood. Experimental. Maybe those oysters held the secret of the extraordinary melted rainbows shimmering beneath black glass. But that wasn’t a conversation he wanted to share with whoever was cat-footing through the ruined shed right now.
    “Two years from seed to pearl?” he asked, as though he didn’t know.
    “Right. It can be done faster—some of the Japanese Akoya oysters are harvested after only six months—but to get a top-quality pearl, the nacre has to be thick enough so that ordinary use won’t dull the pearl’s luster. That means the ratio of nacre to the bead has to—”
    “Bead?” Archer cut in, trying to slow the nervous rushing of her words.
    “The round piece of American mussel shell we use to ‘seed’ the oyster is called a bead once it’s surrounded by nacre. That is, once it’s a pearl.”
    He made a small sound of understanding and waited. Hannah didn’t take the hint and resume talking. He squeezed her arm again, silently asking her to focus on the here and now, rather than on whatever shadows haunted her voice, her mind.
    “The ratio of nacre to the bead . . . ?” he invited.
    “Um,” she said, distracted by the gentle pressure of Archer’s fingers on her arm. They felt firm, warm, almost caressing. The contrast between the tenderness of his touch and the remote mercury sheen of his eyes was disorienting. “The, um, the nacre should be ten to fourteen percent of the total diameter of the pearl. Natural pearls are one hundred percent nacre, of course, except for the original irritant. The finest, most costly cultured pearls have forty to fifty percent nacre. Those pearls are worth much, much more than a pearl of similar size and shape that lacks the fine orient that only many layers of nacre can give.”
    Lightly Archer stroked his fingers over Hannah’s smooth skin, telling himself he was only soothing her and at the same time reminding her to keep talking.
    He didn’t believe it. Fooling himself was something a smart man didn’t do. But his fingertips kept on moving anyway, sipping lightly at the silk and warmth of her skin.
    “If an extra eighteen months in the water makes for high-end pearls,” Archer said calmly, “why doesn’t everyone just leave the oysters in the drink and make a lot more money?”
    “The longer you wait to harvest, the greater the chance that you’ll get a pearl that is blemished or off round in shape. Two years is what Len decided was the best return on our investment.”
    “Which still makes Pearl Cove’s harvest a very high-end product,” Archer said.
    “The—” her voice hitched “—best.”
    Gooseflesh rippled up Hannah’s arm and shivered down to the pit of her stomach. Archer was making tiny, tiny circles on the sensitive underside of her arm. She would have pulled away, but she couldn’t move. She was having enough trouble just breathing. It had been a long time since a man had touched her so gently.
    Even as the thought came, she knew it wasn’t true. It hadn’t been a long time. It had been forever. She hadn’t even guessed a man could have such tenderness in him.
    Breath held in something that was closer to anticipation than anxiety, Hannah looked up to Archer’s eyes. He wasn’t watching her. He was watching tropical night sweep over the land in a dark, silent rush of extinguished light. The intent stillness of his body told her that he was waiting for . . . something. If it hadn’t been for the slight, continuous caress of his fingertips, she would have said that he didn’t even know she was there.
    “Keep talking,” he said very softly.
    Hannah filled her lungs as though she was going to dive below the warm surface of the sea to the shadowed depths. “After we seed and harvest, and even during, we’re constantly turning all the oysters in their cages.”
    He made a sound that meant only that he was listening.
    She didn’t doubt it. She just wondered what he was listening to, because she didn’t think it was her. At least, she hoped not. In the darkness and reflected light, Archer’s eyes looked predatory.
    Then Hannah heard a small noise from the shed she had turned her back on. Fear raced icy over her skin and slicked her spine with sweat.

Eight
    “N o,” Archer said softly.
    But even before he spoke, his hands clamped around