Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

the need. Archer wouldn’t kill her while she slept. And a little catnap would be a wonderful thing.
    “Hannah? Hannah. Come back to me, sweetheart. Tell me where it hurts.”
    When her eyes shot open, a white light sliced into them. Quickly she tried to turn her head and shield her eyes from the flashlight, but she was still pinned in place by Archer’s weight and strength. All she could do was close her eyes again. “I’m not hurt.”
    “You fainted.”
    Her mouth curved in an off-center smile. “Not quite. It was so quiet and dark and . . . safe. I just let go. Next thing I knew, I sort of fell asleep.”
    Archer absorbed that while he checked her out. Her skin was flushed rather than bloodless. Her pupils both had contracted to black pinpoints beneath the relentless light. Smiling with a combination of understanding and amusement, he twisted the top of the flashlight, dimming the power. “Asleep, huh? On a cold tile floor with a falling roof for a blanket? You have to be one tired puppy.”
    “I am. And it wasn’t the roof covering me. It was you. That’s how I knew I was safe. You were protecting me, not trying to hurt me.”
    “Some protector. I nearly got you killed.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    “I took you for a walk in the dark. I won’t make that mistake again.”
    Archer rolled off Hannah in a clatter, grind, and clash of metal debris. Braced on his side, he waited to see if the motion would send anything else raining down. Nothing of any size moved. The metal storm was over.
    He shoved everything he could reach aside and came to his feet in a single motion. As soon as the adrenaline wore off, he would notice the cuts, bruises, and dents his body had taken when the roof fell, but for now all he cared about was that neither one of them was badly injured. They had been lucky.
    “Can you stand up or do you need help?” he asked.
    Instead of answering, Hannah scrambled to her feet. She winced once or twice, but didn’t stop or catch her breath in sudden pain.
    “See? No damage,” she said.
    “Stay here. I’m going to check outside.”
    “I’ll come with you.”
    “You’ll stay here. I’m quieter in the dark than you are. Don’t move around. I’d hate to take you down by mistake.”
    Hannah didn’t want to stay inside the shed alone, but she didn’t object. Being knocked to the ground and covered by his weight for her own safety was one thing. Being his target in the dark was quite another.
    Her fingers curled around a piece of metal-tipped wood that was as long and thick as her arm. She hefted its weight and felt better.
    “Hannah?”
    “Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll stay here.”
    “I’ll be as quick as I can. I know you don’t like feeling closed in.”
    She almost laughed. “There’s not enough roof left anymore for me to feel claustrophobic.”
    His smile gleamed faintly as he noticed the makeshift weapon in her hands. “I’ll warn you before I come back,” he said before he turned away. “I like my head right where it is.”
    “Archer?” she called softly.
    He spun toward her.
    “Be careful,” she said.
    Warm, callused fingertips brushed from her cheekbone to her mouth. Then he was gone.
    Archer waited in the dense shadow behind a leaning wall, listening, listening. He heard nothing but the murmur of ocean and the soft exhalation of cooler air displacing warm. He toed out of his sandals and went barefoot. Without hard soles to grate over sand and crushed shell, he made virtually no sound.
    After two complete circuits of the shed, he was convinced that no one else was nearby. He put on his sandals and went back inside the shed. All he could see was black debris standing raggedly against the slightly more pale sky.
    “Hannah?”
    A tiny, startled sound was his only answer, then a long sigh. “Here.”
    “Can you see me?”
    “Barely.”
    He held out his hand, a lighter shade of darkness. “Come on. There’s nothing out there but the wind.”
    She started to ask if he was sure, then almost laughed aloud. Of course he was sure. A man who could move that quietly, that quickly, must have eyes like a cat.
    “Now what?” she asked.
    “Now you get some real sleep. If I’m still curious, I’ll look over the shed again in daylight.”
    “Do you think . . .” Hannah’s voice died. Fatigue swam behind her eyes like another kind of night.
    “What?”
    “Was it intentional? Or did the wind just bring down more of the shed while someone was