Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

rejected by the oyster. Len was working on the problem. So is the government. As far as I know, no one has found a solution.”
    “So you’ve lassoed wild shell, pampered it, seeded it, pampered it some more, repeat as necessary. Now what?”
    “Now it’s around April, the water temperature is dropping with the onset of winter, and we’re letting the shells rest. That’s when engines are overhauled, hulls are cleaned, rafting equipment is checked out, and whatever has to be built or repaired is taken care of. In May it’s back to the grindstone, cleaning shells, turning them, checking the long lines and the cages for damage, gearing up for the harvest and seeding time, and so on. Before you know it, it’s June again, harvest time. Full circle.”
    “Sounds intense.”
    “It is.”
    “You like it?”
    Hannah hesitated. She had never thought about liking or not liking; it was just the way life was. “Pearl farming is relentless, but it kept me sane. Yes, I guess I like it. I know I needed it.”
    Archer heard the emotions tightening her voice, felt them in the tension of her arms beneath his hands. He wanted to pull her closer, soothe her, and then kiss her blind.
    Slowly he lifted his hands from her tempting flesh and looked past her to whoever was prowling through the ruined shed. Or had been. The sounds had slowly receded, as though someone had used their voices to cover any small noises he made retreating from the shed.
    Archer had heard that kind of furtive shuffling too many times before, in too many places where violence prowled in the shadows of civilization. He had vowed never to go there again.
    And here he was.
    Full circle.
    “Show me the shed where all this hard work paid off,” Archer said.
    Hannah stared at him for an instant, then turned away quickly. If she had felt cool when he took his warm hands from her arms, she was thoroughly chilled by the quality of his voice. It was Len’s voice, the voice of her nightmares, utterly neutral, inhuman in its absence of emotion.
    She stumbled over a piece of debris, caught herself, and hurried on. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know that Archer was following her. He was like Len. Nothing would turn him away him from what he wanted.
    And what Archer really wanted was Len’s killer, not Len’s widow. She would have to remember that the next time she found herself close enough to feel Archer’s heat, close enough to taste his breath, close enough to see his pupils dilate when her breasts brushed against his chest. Way too close.
    Not nearly close enough.
    Rather bitterly Hannah wondered if she shouldn’t have used Coco’s approach to sex—screw Archer on the ground, then jump up and dust herself off, ready to go back to whatever she had been doing before she was distracted by a clitoral itch. But it was too late to acquire the years of experience and nonchalance that Coco had. Hannah was stuck with being what she was, a woman who had had sex with only one man, and only for a few years.
    Her choice, she reminded herself. She paid her way out of the rain forest with her virginity. And while sex was exciting at first, it wasn’t worth the rest of it.
    Nothing was worth the rest of it.
    She stumbled over a broken board, recovered, and wished that she had thought to bring a flashlight.
    “What’s the rush?” Archer asked behind her.
    Only then did Hannah realize that she was all but running through the darkness toward the ruined shed, fleeing as though every mistake she had ever made was chasing her. She forced herself to slow down.
    “The door was here,” she said, pointing toward a gap in a wall.
    Silently he measured the distance from the shed to the place where the steel door lay crumpled next to the path. “That was one hell of a blow you had here.”
    “It was as big as I ever want to see. Actually, seeing is the wrong word. Once the rain hit, I couldn’t see beyond the porch. But I could feel it. The house shivered and jerked like a Tahitian dancer.”
    Hannah stepped through the gap that had once been a door leading into the shed. Even though almost half of the roof was gone and one of the corner pilings had sheared off, taking down most of the two walls nearest the door, she felt like she was stepping into a coffin. The claustrophobia that had begun with Len’s death rose up and filled her throat with raw fear. She froze, unable to take another step into darkness.
    To Archer, her sudden stillness was like a warning