Donovans - Pearl Cove Part 15

"What happened to the best pearls?"

"Nothing left but the drawers. Empty."

"That was one busy cyclone."

"Greedy, too."

The corner of Archer's mouth turned up. "Where's the ladder you used to reach the high drawers?"

Her hand closed over his wrist, pushing the flashlight in another direction. "There, along what's left of the wall, behind that stack of shutters I thought might be saved."

Though the feel of her fingers sent heat licking through Archer, all he said was, "I a.s.sume Len had a room somewhere in the shed."

"Yes. It's over there. Or was."

Archer looked at the emptiness of a destroyed wall. He could just make out twisted bits of plumbing sticking out of the floor. Turning away, he concentrated on what the storm had left behind rather than what it had taken.

He crossed the shed, examined the shutters leaning against the ladder, and began shifting them to the side. There was no way to do it quietly. That made him uneasy, like the rising kick of the wind. Soft, furtive sounds would be buried in the background noise.

The wind gusted in a long exhalation that made the shed creak and debris settle in a slightly different way. Archer froze, listening. He would have sworn he heard footsteps rushing with the wind.

"Get out," he said to Hannah.

"But-"

"Now." Archer grabbed her and began running for the door.

It was too late. A wall buckled and the metal roof came hammering down.

Nine.

Before Hannah understood what was happening, she was facedown on the floor with something heavy covering her from head to heels. Even as she realized the weight was Archer, metal thudded and clanged around them.

She tried to look up. She couldn't. She was completely wedged beneath him. There was barely enough room left over to breathe. Claustrophobia swept through her in a wave that stiffened her whole body.

"Easy, Hannah. Don't fight me. I won't hurt you, but what's left of the roof sure as h.e.l.l might."

The calm voice rea.s.sured her at a level too deep for words. She made a questioning sound that wasn't quite fear.

"It's raining big chunks of metal," Archer said against her ear. "I'll let you up as soon as it stops. Okay?"

She nodded.

"Sure?" he asked.

"Yes. Sorry. I-"

"You have nothing to apologize for."

It was the brush of his mouth against her ear more than the words that silenced her. Like his fingertips had been, his lips were warm, gentle, demanding nothing of her. She let out a broken breath, and with it, most of her fear.

She waited, listening. The gritty tile beneath her body was cold and hard. The man covering her was hot and supple. The contrast was as disorienting as being thrown to the floor while the roof came down around her ears.

Archer shifted slightly on his elbows. Debris clattered and slid off his back. A piece of metal the size of a dinner table groaned. He arched his back, testing the weight of junk covering him. Metal grated against tile.

Footsteps retreated at a dead run.

It sounded like only one person, but Archer couldn't be sure. For an instant he considered jumping up and running down whoever was fleeing. He shoved the impulse aside because it was the result of adrenaline, not thought. If he chased the intruder, Hannah would be left alone. Vulnerable. A woman who smelled like cinnamon and sunshine shouldn't be left to face the darkness alone.

"Archer?" she whispered.

"Not yet."

Silently she waited while he listened and listened and listened. She felt suspended, almost dazed. Then ridiculously-sleepy. Sliding down a long slow tunnel, darkness going by at a greater and greater speed. Distantly she supposed she should be afraid, but she couldn't work up the strength. Except for her nap earlier today, fear had kept her from sleeping more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time since Len had died. She simply didn't have the energy to be afraid anymore.

Or 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 sneaking around trying to hear what we were saying and he panicked and ran?"

"If it wasn't the wind, a.s.suming that it was could get us killed."

She tried to frame another question, but the cool gusts of air distracted her. Suddenly it was just too much effort to think, to walk, even to stand. It was all she could do to breathe the dark, wet air.

And then she was breathing that other kind of night, speeding down a long tunnel, freefalling into the deep sleep her body demanded.

Archer caught Hannah when her knees buckled. She didn't wake up when he carried her into the house, put her on her small bed, and covered her with a sheet. She didn't even stir while he took her pulse, counted the steady beat of her life, noted the warmth of her skin, and released her wrist with a slow caress.

"If you have dreams," he said softly, "don't remember them."

Quietly he walked out of her room, checked all the locks in the house, and set up some simple mechanical alarms at the doors and windows. Then he sat in the darkness.

Listening. Thinking. Planning.

Two hours pa.s.sed in silence before Archer went to the cell phone that still lay next to Len's computer. The data had long since been transmitted to Kyle. Archer doubted that his brother would have found out much more this quickly, but any information was better than none.

Archer punched in a string of numbers. The encoding function blinked.

Two seconds later Kyle answered. "Our recently deceased half brother was a paranoid son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Archer grunted. "Problems?"

"Not with the wife. Hannah didn't have any trapdoors or shunts or guards or cookies or anything at all on her computer, not even for banking," Kyle said. "Her pa.s.sword is 'Today.' After that, it was in the clear all the way."

Archer didn't ask how his brother had teased private information out of the virtual world. The last time Kyle had tried to explain, Archer had listened, and listened, and listened, and come away as much in the dark as before. The talent Kyle took for granted was a mountain Archer could admire, but never climb.

"Our half brother is a different matter," Kyle continued. "There are some boring files on Pearl Cove, a few scrambled files on pearls as the new miracle cure for everything from cancer to a limp d.i.c.k, and then nothing but blank walls. He had lots of trips, traps, and bombs laid on for anyone trying to tiptoe through his virtual tulips. Completely toasted two hard drives before I gave up. Anyone who accesses his stuff will have to be a lot better than I am or have more than his entry code to work with. Can Hannah help?"

"She didn't even know his entry code. Len wasn't a sharing kind of partner."

"No s.h.i.t." Kyle's voice was ripe with disgust. "You sure he wasn't working for Uncle Sam?"

"Recently?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you ask?"

"There are some very fancy ciphers out there, and Uncle has a lock on most of them. One of Len's looked kinda familiar."

"Have you been playing with Uncle's ciphers?" Archer asked dryly.