Part 13 (1/2)

For a moment Hannah could only stare at Archer's face, her thoughts scattering like moonlight on water. His fingers squeezed gently.

”Start with winter,” he suggested softly. ”What do you do then?”

”I we ” She took a breath. ”Um, in June, July, and August, we harvest sh.e.l.l that was seeded two years ago.”

”Why do you harvest in winter?”

”Because nacre is laid down thin in colder water, and thin nacre has the greatest l.u.s.ter.” She fell silent.

”How was the harvest this year?”

”I don't know. Len always handled that end of the job while I seeded new oysters. He didn't trust anyone but me with his experimental babies. And sometimes Coco.”

Adrenaline licked in Archer's blood. Experimental. Maybe those oysters held the secret of the extraordinary melted rainbows s.h.i.+mmering beneath black gla.s.s. But that wasn't a conversation he wanted to share with whoever was cat-footing through the ruined shed right now.

”Two years from seed to pearl?” he asked, as though he didn't know.

”Right. It can be done faster some of the j.a.panese Akoya oysters are harvested after only six months but to get a top-quality pearl, the nacre has to be thick enough so that ordinary use won't dull the pearl's l.u.s.ter. That means the ratio of nacre to the bead has to ”

”Bead?” Archer cut in, trying to slow the nervous rus.h.i.+ng of her words.

”The round piece of American mussel sh.e.l.l we use to 'seed' the oyster is called a bead once it's surrounded by nacre. That is, once it's a pearl.”

He made a small sound of understanding and waited. Hannah didn't take the hint and resume talking. He squeezed her arm again, silently asking her to focus on the here and now, rather than on whatever shadows haunted her voice, her mind. ”The ratio of nacre to the bead...?” he invited. ”Um,” she said, distracted by the gentle pressure of Archer's fingers on her arm. They felt firm, warm, almost caressing. The contrast between the tenderness of his touch and the remote mercury sheen of his eyes was disorienting. ”The, um, the nacre should be ten to fourteen percent of the total diameter of the pearl. Natural pearls are one hundred percent nacre, of course, except for the original irritant. The finest, most costly cultured pearls have forty to fifty percent nacre. Those pearls are worth much, much more than a pearl of similar size and shape that lacks the fine orient that only many layers of nacre can give.”

Lightly Archer stroked his fingers over Hannah's smooth skin, telling himself he was only soothing her and at the same time reminding her to keep talking.

He didn't believe it. Fooling himself was something a smart man didn't do. But his fingertips kept on moving anyway, sipping lightly at the silk and warmth of her skin.

”If an extra eighteen months in the water makes for high-end pearls,” Archer said calmly, ”why doesn't everyone just leave the oysters in the drink and make a lot more money?”

”The longer you wait to harvest, the greater the chance that you'll get a pearl that is blemished or off round in shape. Two years is what Len decided was the best return on our investment.”

”Which still makes Pearl Cove's harvest a very high-end product,” Archer said.

”The ” her voice hitched ” best.”

Gooseflesh rippled up Hannah's arm and s.h.i.+vered down to the pit of her stomach. Archer was making tiny, tiny circles on the sensitive underside of her arm. She would have pulled away, but she couldn't move. She was having enough trouble just breathing. It had been a long time since a man had touched her so gently.

Even as the thought came, she knew it wasn't true. It hadn't been a long time. It had been forever. She hadn't even guessed a man could have such tenderness in him.

Breath held in something that was closer to antic.i.p.ation than anxiety, Hannah looked up to Archer's eyes. He wasn't watching her. He was watching tropical night sweep over the land in a dark, silent rush of extinguished light. The intent stillness of his body told her that he was waiting for... something. If it hadn't been for the slight, continuous caress of his fingertips, she would have said that he didn't even know she was there.

”Keep talking,” he said very softly.

Hannah filled her lungs as though she was going to dive below the warm surface of the sea to the shadowed depths. ”After we seed and harvest, and even during, we're constantly turning all the oysters in their cages.”

He made a sound that meant only that he was listening.

She didn't doubt it. She just wondered what he was listening to, because she didn't think it was her. At least, she hoped not. In the darkness and reflected light, Archer's eyes looked predatory.

Then Hannah heard a small noise from the shed she had turned her back on. Fear raced icy over her skin and slicked her spine with sweat.

Eight.

”No,” Archer said softly.

But even before he spoke, his hands clamped around Hannah's upper arms, preventing her from turning toward the sound.

”There's some ”

”I know,” he cut in, his voice still soft. ”Talk to me. Tell me about Pearl Cove. Or else I'll have to kiss you. Either way will work as a cover for standing around out here, but it's your call.”

Hannah realized two things at once. The first was that Archer had known a prowler was in or around the shed from the moment he asked her to talk about Pearl Cove. The second was that the idea of kissing him sent heat chasing after the chill of fear. She told herself she was losing it, that the last thing she needed in her life was another Len.

Yet she wanted Archer's kiss. She wanted the heady combination of his gentle touch and dangerous eyes, his cool restraint and a body that radiated vital heat.

I'm crazy. Absolutely crackers.

Hannah took a deep breath and began talking. Fast. ”We turn the oysters to improve our chances of getting a round pearl. We also clean the sh.e.l.ls to get off whatever is clinging to them. Later, in October, we move the rafts so that the water temperature will stay as close to ideal as possible.”

”How big are your rafts?”

”Standard size.”

He gave her a look that reminded her to keep talking or start kissing.

”A raft is made up of ten parts,” she said hurriedly. ”Um, each part is about twenty by twenty feet, and has a hundred separate baskets which hold a thousand oysters total. Ten per basket.” She swallowed and thought quickly. ”The rafts are held in place by anchors and kept afloat by big metal drums.”

”A regular farm,” he said, telling himself that he wasn't disappointed by her choice of talking over kissing. It was better this way, much better. He forced himself to look past her to the shed. ”Do you feed your oysters, too?”

”The ocean takes care of it for us. The huge tidal s.h.i.+fts send a lot of water over the oysters. That's why the west-coast oysters are so big. Lots of nutrients. Oysters are filter feeders. All they have to do to eat is suck the tasty bits out of the big salt.w.a.ter smorgasbord that rushes by them as the tide moves in and out.”

Archer smiled slightly, a white gleam in the night. Hannah thought of the kiss she had turned down and told herself she didn't regret it.

”After the operated sh.e.l.l um, the oysters we just seeded rest for about a month,” she continued huskily, ”we move the survivors to the growing-out area.”

”Survivors? Do you lose a lot?”

”The norm is somewhere between twenty and thirty percent, but Pearl Cove loses only eleven percent. Coco and Tom are very, very skillful. It's rare for them to injure the tiny pea crab that lives inside each healthy oyster.”

”So you've seeded and the crabs are happy. Now what?”

”Prayer,” she retorted. ”Oysters would much rather reject foreign bodies than make pearls. That's why we slip in a tiny bit of living mantle tissue from a donor oyster of the preferred color. It grafts onto the mantle near the seed and ” ”You lost me. Color?”

Hannah doubted she had lost Archer, but she wasn't going to argue the point. Not when his eyes were narrowed, intent on something over her shoulder. She cleared her throat against the fear that kept crowding in.