Amber Beach (12 page)

The dripping of fog onto the roof was the only answer Honor got. Rubbing her arms against a cold that existed more in her mind than in the cottage itself, she paced through the small rooms – bedroom, kitchen-dining room, living room, kitchen-dining room, bedroom, and back again.

When the sound of her own footsteps began to get to her, she did what she should have done in the first place. She picked up her sketch pad, a pencil, and the piece of amber Jake had rescued from a hard landing on the floor that morning.

Soon she forgot her fears, her worries, and the empty sound of dripping water. Since Kyle introduced her to amber a few months ago, she had become fascinated by its unique physical characteristics – an organic gemstone created by once-living trees rather than the more usual gemstone created by geological processes. Amber was the only gemstone that was also a fossil.

It was also beautiful in a mysterious, satiny, sensuous way. The piece she was holding now had been rounded by time, a distant sea, and the very nature of fossilized resin itself; the fist-sized lump of amber was both a window on the past and a tantalizing glimpse of the future sculpture that lay concealed within the translucent golden mass.

Honor had been studying the amber in her apartment in Laguna Beach, California, when Archer called and asked her – ordered her, actually – to Kyle’s cottage. The idea of her fiercely self-contained older brother’s actually needing something from her had been so startling that she simply had swept the recent shipment of amber into a suitcase along with some clothes and grabbed the first plane out of John Wayne International Airport to SeaTac.

The days that followed were so hectic and unsettling that there had been little time for work. Yet she and Faith had a show to prepare for in Los Angeles in less than six weeks. All of the jewelry and decorative art for the show already was designed, created, polished, and ready to display. All of it was in the traditional, inorganic gemstone material she was accustomed to working with.

But ever since Honor saw the recent shipment of Baltic amber from Kyle, she had been haunted by its possibilities.

There was something within this one piece of amber. Something remarkable. She was certain of it. She just hadn’t been able to discover it.

Amber in her left hand, pencil in her right, Honor stared at the shifting lines of light and shadow within the ancient resin. Shadow and light twisted, turned, twined, slid achingly close to becoming… something.

A knock at the door made her jump. A vision of new, strong dead bolts
replaced
the elusive
image
in the amber. Her heartbeat doubled. She swallowed in a throat suddenly gone dry and licked equally dry lips.

“Who is it?” she asked in a raw voice.

“It’s
Jake Mallory.”

With a long sigh Honor set aside the amber and closed her sketch pad. She shouldn’t feel relieved that Jake was here, but she did. His solid, if sometimes overpowering, masculine presence reassured her in a way she couldn’t put into words. Instinct, hunch, she didn’t care. She simply knew that he wasn’t the type to make scary, one-sided telephone calls to women.

She walked quickly to the door, opened the locks, and gestured Jake inside with a smile that was too bright, too brittle.

“A fishmonger who delivers”, she said. “I’m in heaven.”

“Wait until you taste these beauties.”

He reached into a paper shopping bag and pulled out one of the “beauties” for her to admire. She stared at the huge, rust-red crab dangling from his hand. Half a crab, actually. A ragged half.

“What happened to it?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Crabs in the shell come whole, with their legs tucked so
that they can crouch neatly on your plate. What you’re holding looks like the loser in a crustacean demolition derby.”

“That’s because I cleaned it before I steamed it.”

“That makes a difference?”

“A big one. No belly flavor.”

“Belly?”

“Guts. I clean the crabs after I kill them,
rather than
boiling them alive, guts and all, the way most people do. You clean everything else before you cook it, why not crabs?”

“Ugh. I’m sorry I asked.”

“Supermarket predator, huh?”

“Devoutly.”

He smiled. “Have any plates?”

“I’ll get them.”

“Where do you want me to put the Chapman?” he asked. Honor glanced at the big, open book that covered half of the table. “It would make a heck of a tablecloth.”

“It makes a better reference. It’s saved my butt more than once. Besides, this table doesn’t need protecting. Look at those scars. It’s been through wars you’ve never even heard of.”

She glanced from Jake’s scarred eyebrow to the scar on his lip that was almost hidden beneath his mustache.

“Like you?”

He gave her a sideways look and wondered if Archer had called his sister
again and
started comparing notes on her “fishing guide.” Kyle had always called him Jay
rather than Jake,
but that was no guarantee that Archer wouldn’t put the two names together and come up with
one J. Jacob Mallory. Ellen’s deadline was bad enough, but he might be able to talk her into an extension, especially if he was getting closer to the truth about Kyle. The instant Honor knew what Jake was after, the game
was over. He had to make sure Hono
r di
dn’t find out the truth too soon. Despite the female interest in her eyes when she watched him, he had no doubt that she would slam the door in his face as soon as she found out what he really wanted.

Without seeming to, Jake watched Honor pick up the big reference book and put it on the kitchen counter. He liked the way she moved, no hurry, no fuss, no fluttering. He liked the way she looked when she stripped off the man-sized sweatshirt. The blue-green knit top fit over her like a hungry man’s hands. The curve of her black jeans told him what he had already guessed: with Honor, a man would have a soft landing and a snug, hot fit.

Damn it,
Jake thought angrily, looking away as his body leaped with hunger. Honor turned him on like he was a teenager
again,
but her last name was
Donovan.
He had to remember that. The Donovans stuck together and let everyone else
go hang.

“Here”, she said, handing Jake plates and silverware. “Put these on the table while I do the bread.”

Watching her from the corner of his eyes, he started setting the table. She surprised him by wetting her hands and running them over a loaf of French bread.

“Do you have some kind of clean fetish”, he asked, “or are you part raccoon?”

She gave him a blank look.

“Not many people wash their bread before they eat it”, he pointed out.

“French bread crust is more crunchy that way.”

“Washed, huh? Well, that’s a new one.”

Honor had a feeling that not many things were new to Jake. There was a seasoned look about him that went deeper than the scars and the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. It should have warned her away. Instead, it lured her.

“You’ll need something to crack the crab shell”, he said, looking at the silverware he had put out.

“Two crab crackers, coming up.” She began sorting through a drawer of kitchen tools. “I hope.”

“I can get by without one. Dungeness shells aren’t that
hard. Red rock crabs are different. You have to take a hammer to them to get the meat.”

“I’m sure Kyle has something in this rat’s nest. He loves crab as much as I do.”

Jake’s mouth flattened at being reminded of her brother but all he said was, “I’ll open the wine.”

“It’s in the freezer.”

“Of course. Wash the bread and freeze the wine. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You’re too conventional?” she retorted.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m too conventional.”

He pulled the wine bottle out of the freezer, peeled off the foil, upended the bottle, and whacked the bottom with the palm of his hand until the cork
came
halfway out. He pulled it the rest of the way with a quick twist of his fingers.

Honor stared. “I suppose you catch bullets in your teeth, too.”

“I don’t catch any bullets I can avoid.”

“Could you teach me to?”

“Avoid bullets?” He looked at her, startled.

“Open a bottle of wine without benefit of corkscrew”, she said with exaggerated patience.

“Why? It’s easier with a corkscrew. I just didn’t know where one was.”

“I’d like to see Kyle’s jaw drop. Archer’s, too. Maybe even the Donovan himself.”

“Who?”

“Dad”, she said, handing Jake an empty wineglass.

“Sounds like you come from quite a family.”

“Quite a family.” She laughed without humor. “That’s one way of putting it. Five large, overbearing males. Faith and I had to leave home to keep from strangling them one and all in their sleep.”

Jake just shook his head. He knew what it was like not to get along with your family, to barely tolerate your parents
and siblings, much less love or even like them. For all of Honor’s supposed trials with the men in her family, her voice
softened with affection when she spoke of the Donovan males.

It didn’t surprise Jake. He had learned the hard way that Donovans stuck together like wolves in a pack; and J. Jacob Mallory had been the dumb lamb nominated for the slaughter.

“No mother?” he asked, pouring wine, fishing as always
for information about the Donovan wolf pack. Know thy
enemy was one of the oldest rules of survival.

Honor took the glass of pale gold wine he held out to her and waited for him to pour his own.

“Mom is incredible”, she said. “The woman barely comes up to my shoulder, but she manages to do exactly what she wants, when she wants, and not ruffle masculine egos in the process.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“I’ve tried it. Doesn’t work for me. Mom has this kind of cast-iron nonchalance. No matter what roadblocks the men throw up, she just kisses them on the cheek, gives their hairy chests a pat, and goes on her merry way.” Honor shrugged. “Maybe it comes of being an artist.”

“Artist?” he asked, picking up his own wine.

“Painter.”

“What kind?”

“Good.”

Laughing quietly, Jake clicked his wineglass against Honor’s, and said, “To learning how to fish.”

She grimaced. “To learning, period.”

He raised his glass in silent salute, drank, and made a sound of surprise. “I didn’t know Australia had a good white
wine.”

“Kyle told me about it. Avoid the pure Chardonnays and
head straight for the blends.”

No new information for Jake in that. Kyle had been able to find decent wine in some of the most desolate rat holes in Kaliningrad. Then the two men would go back to what passed for a hotel, open tins of fine caviar and stale crackers, and discuss sex, politics, religion, loneliness, and how to negotiate long-term deals in a country that was even younger than the wine they were drinking.

Kyle Donovan was as close to a friend as Jake had had in a long time. Too bad Kyle had turned out to be a con man, a thief, and a murderer. It would have been better if he were simply a fool whose brain was being run by his dick. Jake could understand that. He had been a fool from time to time himself. But Kyle had never struck Jake as the foolish sort.

That left the crooked sort.

“When will the bread be dry?” he asked.

“Dry? Oh, hot. A few more minutes. What do you want on the crab?”

“My mouth.”

“The man is hungry.”

“The man is ready to eat shell and all.”

“You want it with lemon or seafood sauce?”

“Both. I’ll make the sauce.”

By the time Honor had salad on the table, the sauce was ready. They sat down and began eating. There was an intimacy about the informal meal that surprised her. It was hard to be standoffish with someone while sucking tidbits of crab from your fingertips.

“You’re right about the bread”, Jake said, crunching into a piece.

She had her mouth too full of crab to answer.

“Isn’t that the sweetest crab you’ve ever eaten?” he continued.

She nodded vigorously.

“Next time I’ll show you how to kill and clean it before you cook it”, he said.

Her hair whipped from side to side with the force of her silent, negative response.

Laughing silently, he cracked crab legs between his fingers and picked out the meat using one of the smaller claws. With surprising speed a mound of succulent white meat grew on
his plate.

“I thought you were hungry”, she said.