"Broome."
Hannah didn"t ask why. She knew.
Len McGarry.
five.
Before Hannah called the children, someone knocked on the front door. Reflexively Archer stepped to the side and stood deep in the shadows, invisible against the brilliance of the light outside.
Uncertain, Hannah looked at him. He jerked his head, silently telling her to answer the door. She went through the front door, crossed the verandah in a few steps, and opened the screen door that offered a thin, useful shield against the blazing light.
"Christian," she said, surprised. She noted the cuts, sc.r.a.pes, and bruises on his arms. Fighting with sunken oyster cages wasn"t easy work. "Is something wrong?"
"h.e.l.lo, luv." Christian Flynn looked her over thoroughly. Cutoff jeans, a tank top the color of a peach, and full lips to match. Eyes a blue so deep it slid off into purple. b.r.e.a.s.t.s that would just fill a big man"s hands. Bare, narrow, arched feet. "Pretty as a pearl. How do you do it?"
"I sleep with oysters."
She retreated across the verandah into the relative coolness of the house. He followed her without waiting to be asked. His sandals made faint slapping sounds just behind her heels. With his tall, athletic body, quick grin, and rugged Outback blond looks, he went through women like a home-grown Australian flu.
Hannah found Flynn almost amusing, as long as he wasn"t turning those cobalt blue eyes in her direction. Of course, there could be another, more sinister reason that Flynn was watching her with predatory interest. Two days ago he had offered to find a buyer for Pearl Cove. She had refused.
The thought that she might be in danger from the genial Aussie made Hannah"s stomach twist, so she concentrated on doing what she was good at: keeping a man at arm"s length without making an enemy of him.
"You want your usual mud tea?" she asked neutrally, leading Flynn away from the front door and toward the kitchen. "Or are you ready for a "beer?"
"Tea or beer, whatever is cold."
"Is something wrong?" she asked again. "More injuries?"
"Nothing new. I came to see how you are."
"She"s fine," Archer said from behind them. With a smooth, balanced movement, he stepped out of the shadows by the front door. "Anything else on your mind?"
Flynn spun around, half crouched in a fighting stance, weight poised on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. The sight of a big, handsome, confident male in Hannah"s house made the Aussie"s blue eyes narrow. "Who the devil are you?"
"Hannah"s partner," Archer said calmly. He hadn"t missed the automatic movements of someone trained in unarmed combat. Beneath that charming grin and shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair lurked a fighter. Archer knew how bad his mood was when the thought of testing the young Aussie"s fighting skills appealed to him.
"Partner!" Flynn"s head snapped around toward Hannah. "Did you sell to this bloke?"
"No. Mr. Donovan has been a partner in Pearl Cove since it was founded." She looked at Archer. "This is Christian Flynn. He manages the water end of Pearl Cove."
"Len never mentioned a partner," Flynn said. His voice was even less welcoming than his expression.
Archer just stood there, taking in the good-looking, angry Australian. He wondered why Len had put up with having the muscular young stud around Hannah. Len hadn"t wanted Archer within seventeen thousand miles of his wife, and had said so in words that still echoed bleakly deep in Archer"s mind.
Get the h.e.l.l out of my life and stay out. All the way out. You think you can have her now that I"m paralyzed, but you"re wrong. You come near her and III get even. Not with you. With her.
At the time Archer had told himself it was just the drugs, just the fear, just the rage of a newly paralyzed man speaking. He had tried to get through to Len, to rea.s.sure him that he had no intention of seducing Hannah. All he wanted to do was help his brother.
Len hadn"t listened. The harder Archer tried, the more wild Len become. So Archer did as his brother asked. He got the h.e.l.l out of Len"s life. All the way out.
"There was no reason to talk about having a partner," Hannah said warily, sensing the currents of tension coiling between the two men. "Archer wasn"t an active partner."
Something shifted in Flynn"s stance. "Archer? Would that be Archer Donovan?"
"Yes," she said.
"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," Flynn muttered. Anybody who knew anything about buying pearls had heard of Archer Donovan. The man was a legend. He had a shrewd understanding of pearls, people, and the marketplace. Unhappily Flynn kneaded his neck with his left hand while he thought about how Archer"s presence changed an already fluid situation. None of the possibilities made him smile. But he turned to Archer anyway, smiled, and held out his right hand. "Sorry if I was rude, mate. I"m short on sleep. After the big wind, things are a right b.i.t.c.h around here."
Archer smiled from the teeth out and took the other man"s hand. "No worries. I"m short on sleep, too."
The ridges of callus on Flynn"s hand told Archer a lot about the other man"s training. Whether he could put that training to effective use in face-to-face combat remained an open question.
The sudden flare of speculation in Flynn"s eyes told Archer that his own calluses had been noted.
"How long before Pearl Cove is up and running?" Archer asked, distracting the other man.
Flynn looked sideways at Hannah. She was watching Archer. It rankled the Aussie.
"I don"t know," he said carefully. "We had just moved the newly implanted oysters to the grow-out areas. Some of those rafts broke loose and sank. We repaired the floats and lines and have been stringing up the cages as fast as we find them. We"re losing sh.e.l.l, though. Too much jigging around."
"How much of this year"s sh.e.l.l is a total loss?"
Again Flynn looked uneasily at Hannah.
"Tell him," she said without looking away from Archer.
"Sixty-five percent. Maybe more."
"How much more?" Archer asked.
"Worst case?" Flynn asked.
Archer smiled like a wolf. "It"s the only case that matters, isn"t it?"
"Ninety-five percent," Flynn said.
Hannah made a harsh sound. She had been told fifty-five percent loss, sixty percent tops.
"Total loss, in other words," Archer summarized.
Flynn hesitated, looked at Hannah"s drawn face, and wished Archer Donovan was the kind of man who could be intimidated into not asking uncomfortable questions.
"It could be a write-off," Flynn admitted finally. "Frankly, we"re not recovering as many of the rafts as we hoped."
"Why?"
Archer"s cool, neutral question made Flynn wish that Hannah"s partner was someone else. Anyone else. He was certain his bosses would feel the same way. The cyclone had seemed like such a perfect solution to a sodding impossible problem.
"b.l.o.o.d.y big wind, b.l.o.o.d.y big mess," Flynn said, his voice clipped. "This one was a destructive b.i.t.c.h." He looked at Hannah. "Sorry, luv. I didn"t want to tell you until I was certain."
"What about next year"s oysters?" Archer asked. "How did they fare?"
"We haven"t finished our recce yet, so we don"t know."
"Guess."
The cool command irritated Flynn. He started to push right back in automatic response to another man testing him. Then he looked at Archer"s measuring eyes and remembered the ridges of callus on the side of his hand. It might come to a fight with Archer, but before it did, Flynn would have to have permission from his own bosses. The thought grated worse than crushed sh.e.l.l.
"They"re probably better off," Flynn said. "The worst hit were the rafts of experimental sh.e.l.l. I told Len we should put them in a less exposed place, but he wanted them close enough to watch. He was a paranoid b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He heard his own words and winced. "Sorry, luv. I "
"Hannah knew her husband better than you did," Archer cut in. "What of the pearls in the sorting shed?"
"There"s an American book," Flynn said with a thin smile. "Gone With the Wind."
"Pearl Cove isn"t Tara. I find it hard to believe that every last pearl vanished in the wind."
"Believe it anyway."
"Oh, I believe the pearls are gone," Archer drawled. "I just don"t believe the wind took them."
"What do you think happened?" Flynn asked angrily.
"I think they"ve been... salvaged."
"Are you trying to tell me something, mate?"
Hannah touched Flynn"s arm. "Archer isn"t accusing anyone."
The Australian looked at Archer with unfriendly eyes. "It doesn"t sound that way to me."
"I"ll need a written summary of what was lost, what was found, and what you"re doing about the missing," Archer said.
"I don"t have time for "
"Make time," Archer cut in.
The command took Flynn right up to the edge of his self-control. Archer watched the process with cool interest. Even eagerness.
"I don"t take orders from you," Flynn said. He turned to Hannah.
"Wrong," Archer said. When Hannah would have intervened again, he confronted her. "Changed your mind?"
"What does that mean?" she demanded.
"You made a call. I came. I can leave just as fast."
Anger snapped along nerve endings that were already frayed raw. Hannah started to tell Archer to leave if he wanted, and go to h.e.l.l while he was at it. Then she glanced at her foreman and saw his barely concealed satisfaction.
Divide and conquer. The oldest game of all.
Because it worked.
Hannah faced Flynn with a smile that would have frozen fire. "The Yank is a bit overbearing, but he has a point. I"ll need that report for my own records. By supper should do it."
"By supper?" Flynn said in disbelief. "I can"t do a proper job in that short a time!"
"Then do an improper one. You had answers quick enough when Archer asked."
"That was different."
"Because he"s a man?" Hannah"s smile widened to show lots of teeth. "No worries, mate. I wear pants, too. I"ll see you before supper."
Flynn made a rough sound and stared down at his employer. Whatever the situation might have been when Len was alive, Hannah was in charge of Pearl Cove now. And she knew it. Flynn hadn"t expected things to turn out this way when he dropped by to console the s.e.xy widow.
"Right," he said. "Supper."
The front door and then the verandah door closed behind Flynn. Hard.
Hands on hips, Hannah turned on Archer. "Why were you so rude?"
"Any manager worth his pay would have had a report on your desk within twenty-four hours of that cyclone."
"But " A knock at the verandah door cut off her protest. She spun around, expecting to see Flynn again. "Oh, Tom. Come in."
Archer watched as Tom Nakamori opened the verandah door and then the front door. He was wearing the uniform of the day: shorts, tank top, sandals. In his case, all of them were a faded navy blue. His hair was thin and white. His eyebrows were a startling midnight black. A thin scar went from his collarbone to his chin. His knuckles were enlarged, but the hands themselves were still flexible. Like most of the workers, he showed the nicks, cuts, and bruises of trying to save Pearl Cove from the cyclone.
Nakamori paused to make certain that the screens closed gently. He moved with the care of a man who had spent too many years dangling from a dive rope being towed over sh.e.l.l beds. If the physical labor itself didn"t get you, nitrogen bubbles in the blood would. Sooner or later, the bends crippled most divers. A special few, it killed.
"Forgive the upset," Nakamori said, half bowing. "The Perfect Pearl repairs better. With permission, I take divers and search lost sh.e.l.l early tomorrow."
"Of course," she said quickly. "But check with Christian first. He"s preparing a report for me, so he might want you to start in a particular area."
Nakamori nodded and tilted slightly forward again.
Archer had two distinct impressions. One was that English wasn"t Nakamori"s preferred language. The second was that the wiry, barrel-chested j.a.panese didn"t care much for Christian Flynn.
"Is there room for another diver?" Archer asked Nakamori.
He hesitated, then nodded. "Hoi. Okay."