Pearl Cove (2 page)

You always hear rumors about under-the-table alliances among pearl farmers, Archer said.

Sometimes theyre true.

Sometimes. He opened Teddys case and gave the contents a quick, comprehensive glance. No
more Pearl Cove gems. But he wouldnt let Teddy go away empty-handed. The Hawaiian was too
good a source of gossip. Even outright misinformation intelligently processed could be
as revealing as a sworn version of the truth.

In any event, Archer planned on buying that black rainbow pearl. He just didnt plan on
making Teddy rich in the process.

Youve been busy, Archer said.

The interest in his voice was a balm to Teddys pearl-trading soul. He smiled and leaned
forward over the table. So, what do you see that you like?

That orange pearl. The one from a Vietnamese conch. Teddy looked surprised, then laughed
ruefully. Damn. I was hoping to stump you on that one, too. Too? Like the black pearl.
Archer looked at the pearl, night-dark, yet brooding in all the colors of the rainbow.
Nothing is like

that pearl. It was the type of gem men killed for.

Know you, perchance, how that poor formless wretch The Oyster gems his shallow moonlit
chalice? Where the shell irks him, or the sea-sand frets, He sheds this lovely lustre on
his grief.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

Sunlight hammered down on the land. Even the Indian Ocean lay flattened beneath the weight
of the summer sun. The water was a shimmering turquoise stillness unmarked by any wind,
any breeze, any stirring of air. Nothing moved but sweat sliding over flesh in oily
silence.

Hannah McGarry didnt notice the brutal heat or the slickness of sweat on her own skin or
the weight of the Chinese child she held in her arms. Len McGarry was dead. Victim of a
cyclone.

No one else from Pearl Cove had been killed, though a few other men had been hurt by
flying debris and such. Qing Lu Yin had the worst of it: deep bruises, a nasty gash on his
chin, a black eye. But he insisted on working anyway. So did the rest of the men. They
knew that Pearl Cove was their living.

Despite the ruin of the rafts and sorting sheds, only a few cottages had been damaged. No
children had been so much as scratched. For that she was greatful.

Shifting the childs weight on her hip, she ignored the vague ache in her lungs and the
lukewarm salt water leaking out of her short hair, residue of her most recent dive to the
bottom of the shallow cove. Diving was hard work, but she loved it. Suspended in the
shimmering, translucent water, she was free.

She wasnt diving now. She wasnt free. She was trapped in sunlight, struggling to keep her
face from giving away her thoughts. She couldnt afford to show any fear, any anxiety, any
of the violent emotions seething just beneath the fragile lid of her self-control.

Sad sad? the four-year-old asked.

Terrified was the word that leaped into Hannahs mind, but she smiled down into the childs
beautiful, innocent face as though nothing was wrong. Just thinking, darling.

Thinking, he repeated carefully.

Good, Hannah said automatically. Of the seven workers children she gave English lessons
to, Sun Hui was the quickest. The storm damaged hurt many things.

Hui nodded solemnly.

From the direction of the workers cottages came a spate of Chinese. Hui turned, looked,
and said, Mama.

Okay, darling. She kissed his golden cheek and was kissed in turn. Reluctantly she
released his vital, eager weight. Of all the disappointments her marriage had brought, the
lack of children was the most painful. Off you go. Careful! Theres a lot of debris junk
left by the storm.

Junk. Storm. Yes!

Dark blue eyes narrowed, Hannah watched until Hui vanished into a cottage. Only then did
she turn back and concentrate on the wreckage that had once been Pearl Cove. Broken things
were hopeful; they could be fixed. There was a lot that needed fixing right here, right
now.

A ruined dock jutted out from the sand like broken teeth. Rafts that had once supported
thousands

BROOME, AUSTRALIA November

upon thousands of pearl oysters in various stages of growth lay washed up on distant
beaches or sunk where no eye could see. Boats for harvesting and seeding sat on the watery
bottom of the cove.

The damage wasnt limited to Pearls Coves floating equipment. Flung by a savage wind, the
main sorting sheds door lay drunkenly alongside the path to the house. The metal roof
gapped and curled around the edges. Wrenched, crumpled, useless, the windows remaining
steel shutters guarded a gutted building. The shed itself sagged where footings had been
undermined by the furious waves.

Even Lens cyclone-proof pearl vault hadnt stood against the violence of the storm. The
winds greedy fists had battered the metal until something exploded, strewing pearls
everywhere. And everywhere, someone had been there to scoop them up. Or maybe many hands
had grabbed the iridescent wealth. Hannah didnt know. It was important that she not know.
Or at least, not appear to know.

Len was dead. But it wasnt an accident.

Whoever had killed her husband could just as easily murder her. More easily, probably.
Even in a wheelchair, Len would have been dangerous. He knew too many ways to kill. It was
what he was best at. Destruction.

But that didnt mean he deserved to die.

Deserve.

Fair.

Hannahs mouth twisted in a bitter smile. She hadnt known that much of the missionary child
still survived in her twenty-nine-year-old mind. The world was what it was. She was what
she was: a woman who could die if she trusted the wrong person.

Or even if she didnt.

Fair had nothing to do with it. Survival was the only thing that mattered. To be or not to
be wasnt the question for Hannah. How to keep on being was.

Len had played his power games with too many dangerous people. He had won millions of
dollars. Then he had lost his life.

Cherie?

Cocos soft, husky voice slid through Hannahs concentration. As always, the beautiful
Tahitian woman was just on the edges of whatever happened, watching and listening and
waiting for whatever it was she waited for. Hannah didnt know.

She didnt care. Len valued Cocos eerie skill in seeding oysters. When it was Cocos
delicate hands working on the oysters, the pea crab that lived within each shell survived.
Without that pea crab, the oyster died.

Yes? Hannah said. She turned toward the sound, confident that none of her bleak reverie
showed on her face. Living with Len had taught her how to hide everything, especially
fear. It was a simple matter of survival. Not easy. Just brutally simple.

You come inside, yes? Coco said lazily. You not born to stand under this sun at noon.

Was anyone?

My mama is. Cocos smile flashed whiter than any pearl against the rich brown of her skin,
legacy of her half-Polynesian mother. My papa isnt. Sun finally burned him down. She
stretched her hands toward the sun. Sun wont hurt me. I am born for it. My half sister is
same.

Hannah would have smiled at Cocos confidence, but she was afraid that her smiles had
become more and more like Lens, a feral warning to the world to keep its distance. Not
that she would, or could, hurt Colette Dupres of the smooth skin and cat-graceful body.
Even Len in his blackest moods hadnt ruffled the Tahitian. She simply had laughed and
walked away, giving him an eyelevel view of the best ass in Western Australia.

Ian come soon, Coco said, watching the other woman closely for a response at the mention
of Ian Changs name. There was none. She gestured to the dive fins, mask, and snorkel piled
at Hannahs feet. Shower and dress nice for him, yes? You look like a diver after twelve
hours down.

Only one in my case, and I wasnt really diving.

Find anything?

Whats to find? Hannah answered, turning aside the question. More wrack and ruin?

Is bad, but not as bad as it looks.

Its worse. But Hannah didnt say it aloud. She wanted to trust Coco, wanted to believe that
her beautiful tan hands hadnt been among those scrambling after stolen pearls.

Hannahs mouth thinned into a savage smile when she listened to her own foolish thoughts.
So much of the child still surviving. Still hoping. Still stupid.

It could be the death of her.

Even if bad, Coco added with a casual, Gallic shrug, Ian fix everything for you.

Why would he do that?

Cocos laughter was as sexy as her voice. Know why.

He got over wanting me years ago.

Small white child, Coco said, smiling and sounding much older than thirty-seven, men never
get over woman they no have. Now your husband dead. You no married.

Ian is.

What?

Married, Hannah said succinctly.

His wife, she no care.

I do. I was raised by Christian missionaries. Marriage matters.

Oui. Len talk sometimes when he drink, Coco said, yawning and stretching to her full
height, which put her almost at eye level with Hannahs five feet nine inches. Your... How
you say? honor?

Hannah grimaced. Oui, honor, Coco said. He smile at that. Sometime he even laugh. I know.

The thought of the innocent, sexually ripe teenager she had been no longer made Hannah
wince with shame. She had wanted out of the rain forests of Brazil. She had gotten out.
End of one life. Beginning of another. It hadnt been the life she expected. No surprise
there; she had been painfully naive when she formed her expectations. Life went on anyway,
and the living went on with it.

A boil of red dust from the road leading to Pearl Cove announced Ian Changs arrival. The
cyclones twenty-three inches of rain had long since run back to the sea. Western Australia

s relentless summer sun quickly sucked all moisture from the ground, leaving behind the
paradox of red

dust in a humid desert.

Changs car vanished into the scrubby mangroves that lined the sparkling white sands of one
of the tidal creeks. The creeks held fresh water during the monsoon and filled with salt
water at every high tide year-round. Given the flatness of the land, the tidal creeks ran
miles inland. So did salt water. Even without help from storms, Broomes tides went through
a thirty-five-foot swing at their peak. It was great for feeding the oysters and hell on
anything that tried to occupy the shoreline. Rock, mud, and sand were the rule. Only palm
trees and the improbably hardy mangroves survived the tides of abuse.

And man, of course; that clever, adaptable, lethal primate.

Broome and its outlying areas were home to a racially varied population that was as tough
as mangroves. They were survivors who relished their own survival. They were the gently
crazed and the fully mad. Drunks and teetotalers, celibates and satyrs, saints and Satan
worshipers. Broome was at peace only with extremes.

Chang fit right in. Extremely intelligent, extremely ambitious, extremely rich. His family
was worth more than all but a few Third World nations. He walked up to Hannah with the
confidence of a man who is respected by other men and sought by many women. He was wearing
the Outback uniform sunglasses, shorts, and sandals. Since the occasion wasnt formal, he
hadnt bothered with a tank top.

Hannah, darling, even in this sun youre too pale, Chang said.

He took her hands and leaned in to kiss her. She slipped through his grasp with the grace
of long practice. It wasnt anything against Chang. In the past seven years, she had simply
lost the habit of being touched. If she decided to get back in the habit again, it wouldnt
be with a married man.

Because Hannah didnt want to see Chang didnt want to see anyone, actually she had to
concentrate to smile politely. Gday, Ian. There was no need for you to drive out from
Broome in this heat. You could have called.

The phone lines are still down.

Next time use the cellular number. Or the radio. Theyre battery powered.

I wanted to check on you, Chang said. You lost more than power during that cyclone. You
lost a husband and most of Pearl Cove.

Fear crawled beneath Hannahs skin, making her feel cold despite the burning sun. Chang
didnt know the half of it. I know what I lost.

Are you grieving for the man or the pearl farm?

Silently Hannah watched Chang with eyes so deep a blue they were like a twilight sea, dark
and luminous at the same time. The contrast between her indigo eyes and her sun-streaked
brown hair fascinated him, as did her slender, oddly voluptuous body. He wanted to believe
she had worn the string bikini to entice him, but he knew better. Obviously she had been
snorkeling. Probably she hadnt even remembered he was coming out to see her.

Irritation prickled over him like a rash. Well?

Is that what you came all the way out here for? Hannah asked in a neutral voice. To find
out if I cared more for Pearl Cove than for my husband?

Dont try to tell me that you and Len were close. I know better. Len was a snake. The only
thing he was close to was his own skin, and he shed it once a year just to prove he could.
Chang gave Coco a look. Leave us.

Coco glanced at him. Then she turned away, moving slowly enough to let him know that she
didnt jump for anyone, even one of the richest men in Australia.

No, Hannah said. Coco stopped. We were just going to the house for some tea, Hannah said
to Chang. You can join us.

We need to talk privately.

I have no secrets from Coco or anyone else.

This is Chang family business.

Hannahs dark brown eyebrows lifted. She knew Chang well enough to understand that family
business was entirely separate from whatever personal lusts he might have.

All right, she said. Coco, would you call and see if Smithe and Sons can expedite delivery
of the building materials? Especially the spat collectors.

They want money.

Theyll get it, Hannah said with a confidence that was utterly false. The Black Trinity was
gone.

Chang started to object, but didnt. Hannah would know soon enough that rebuilding Pearl
Cove was beyond her means. With Len dead, no one would lend her money. If someone tried to
the Aussies would step in. But the Australian government wouldnt take on the family of
Chang. Not yet, anyway. Everyone was still pretending to be partners in the development of
Pacific Rim assets.

Automatically Chang reached for Hannahs arm to escort her to the house. His irritation
spiked when he realized that she was already walking away from him with the easy, lithe
movements that never failed to arouse him.

Coco saw his expression, laughed, and asked in French. Did you think it would be that easy?

Call Smithe. Chang spoke in French even though his voice was too low to carry as far as
Hannah. I ll own Pearl Cove before the bill comes due.

The Aussies, they will not like that.

They can get stuffed.

Mmm, sounds like fun. She stretched again, arching her back and pressing her full breasts
against the thin fabric of her bikini top. At the height of her stretch she knew she had
Ians full attention. Smiling, she let her fingertips trail lightly down his bare chest.
You going to get stuffed tonight?