Midnight in Ruby Bayou (5 page)

He disconnected and looked at Faith. She met his eyes with a stubborn kind of defiance. “Was that Tony?” Walker asked bluntly.

“It was a wrong number.”

Walker grunted, not believing a word of it. “Take your niece. I've got to run across to headquarters and get a package.”

Archer came into the living room just as Summer was handed off. He looked from Walker to Faith. “Trouble?”

“No,” she said coolly. “Summer's wet. I'm going to change her.”

Walker didn't believe that, either, but he didn't say anything.

Archer waited until Faith was out of sight and said softly, “Who called?”

“Mitchell was the second call. I'm going to pick up a package of ruby rough from a new contact in Burma. I'm betting the first call was her ever-lovin' ex.”

“Son of a
bitch
.”

“On his best days, maybe,” Walker said. “Otherwise Tony is pure chicken shit.”

Archer raked long fingers through his short hair.

“She's handling it,” Walker said.

“I'd rather do it for her.”

So would Walker, but as he wasn't even related, it wasn't something he was going to say aloud. His attraction to Faith was at best unfortunate. At worst it could be a disaster.

With a final curse, Archer put Tony out of his mind. “Go to Faith's shop, check out those Montegeau rubies, and get back to me.”

Walker's eyebrows lifted, but all he said was, “When?”

“Yesterday. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“What about that batch of ruby rough you're expecting from Africa? Still want me to appraise it for you?”

“Damn.” Archer raked his hand through his hair again. “Do it first thing tomorrow morning. Then get over to Faith's shop. I want you to stay close to the shop until I arrange for a full-time guard for her.” Frowning, he mentally juggled various Donovan projects and their particular needs. Lately it seemed as though he spent most of his time hiring guards, and he still didn't have enough people he trusted. Not with his sister. He wouldn't say the world was going to hell in a handbasket . . . but he wouldn't say it was going to heaven, either. “In fact, plan on going to Savannah with her. I need someone I can trust not to fly off the handle.”

“Besides Tony,” Walker drawled, “is anything in particular bothering you?”

“Kyle. He's still got a bad feeling about those Montegeau rubies.”

“How bad?”

“Really bad. Getting worse.”

Walker whistled softly. Kyle had had a really bad feeling about Walker's recent trip to Afghanistan. Walker had gone anyway.

He had nearly died there.

“A
million bucks for thirteen rubies?” Walker's nearly black eyebrows rose skeptically. He shifted his grip on the cane. He didn't really need it, but the old-fashioned wooden cane reassured people that he was harmless. It also reminded him how close he had come to being totally harmless, as in dead. It would be a long time before he was that stupid again. “I'd have to see the rubies before I'd sign the check.”

“You won't be signing anything,” Faith said shortly. Then she looked at the workbench in front of her as though to remind Walker that he was interrupting her. “It has nothing to do with you or my brothers.”

Walker's glance followed hers. The thick, rough wood of the U-shaped bench showed the nicks, gouges, and burns common on a jewelry designer's work surface. Pliers of all sizes and shapes, rat-tail files, soldering equipment, goggles, awls, clamps, polishing wheels, a metal block for hammering, a leather-covered mallet, and other less easily identified pieces of equipment were laid out in a pattern that looked random to him, but he had no doubt that Faith could lay her hand on anything she needed without searching. Anyone who used tools to make a living knew how to take care of those tools.

With barely veiled impatience, Faith ignored Walker's scrutiny and turned to the sketches of a jeweled suite she had been working on—necklace, bracelet, earrings, brooch, and ring. The loose papers covered with pencil drawings were held down by an expensive chunk of lapis lazuli. She stared at it—the stone was the exact shade of Walker's eyes.

The thought annoyed Faith. After her disaster with Tony, she had sworn off men, yet Walker kept sneaking into her awareness.

She switched her attention to the large, discreetly wired front window of Timeless Dreams, her combination studio and jewelry store. Her social life might be a disaster area, but she was very proud of what she had achieved professionally.

Beyond the glass, Pioneer Square's mix of street people, artists, shop owners, and shoppers swirled through the raw early February afternoon. Last fall's leaves had long since been ground to brown paste and licked away by winter rain. Tourists, even the hardy Germans, wouldn't arrive for months. The rain was still at work washing streets, buildings, and pedestrians with the insistence of a mother cat grooming a dirty kitten.

And Walker was still waiting for Faith's attention.

“Damn,” she muttered.

Walker just kept waiting. He was good at it. He had learned patience the hard way, as a boy hunting salt marshes and black bayous in order to add protein to the family table. But Seattle was a long way from the torrid Low Country of South Carolina, Walker was a long way from his boyhood, and Faith had fewer survival instincts than the most innocent prey he had ever hunted in the haunting, primeval swamp. Walker knew the high cost of such innocence, even if Faith didn't.

“What do you want?” she asked bluntly.

“Are the Montegeau rubies insured at all?”

“My shop insurance covers them while they're on the premises.”

“Then you must have some kind of an appraisal.”

“Oh, sure. But it's informal. The man who owns the rubies gave me a written description of the stones and his estimate of their worth.”

“Do tell. What are his qualifications to judge rubies?”

Faith glanced at Walker through narrowed, silver-blue eyes. “The customer's family has been in the jewelry business for two centuries. Satisfied?”

Satisfied.

Now, there was a word Walker tried not to use when thinking about Faith, much less when he was standing close enough to smell her sweet, heady fragrance, like a summer garden at dawn. He wished that Archer Donovan had assigned somebody else to guard his sister's shop. Anybody else. Walker could see he irritated Faith, and she made no attempt to conceal it.

Considering what a loser her ex-fiancé was, Walker was insulted by Faith's dislike. He was also far too aware of her as a woman. A desirable one. Unfortunately she was also the younger sister of his boss. Way off limits for a South Carolina marsh rat.

He rubbed his short, nearly black beard and then the back of his neck. It was his own way of counting to ten or twenty or a hundred. Whatever it took to keep his temper.

“Does Archer know you've started trading in unappraised gems?” Walker asked finally. His voice was an easy drawl. Hiding his own emotions was another thing he was good at. It went right along with the patience of a hunter.

“I'm not trading in these gems. All I'm doing is designing a necklace for them.” She rubbed her temples. “It's a rush job for an old college friend. Mel was my first roommate. The university thought it would be a good idea to separate the Donovan twins.”

Walker followed the elliptical conversation with surprising ease. “Mel is the one with jewelry in the family for two centuries?”

“No. That's her fiancé, Jeff. The necklace is a wedding present from her future father-in-law. It's a surprise. She's six months pregnant and they just decided to get married. She's truly happy for the first time in her life. I couldn't refuse to design her a necklace. Besides, it's one of the best things I've ever done. I want it to be in the Savannah show.”

The twinge in Walker's left leg became an ache. Old friends sometimes turned into new problems. Dangerous ones. “Are you buying the trip insurance and the show insurance?”

Faith looked at the ceiling. “Did you take lessons from my brothers or are you just naturally nosy and bossy?”

“Lessons, huh?” The drawl slowed and deepened. “Now, there's a thought. I'll be sure to take it up with Archer.”

“He's too busy with his new wife.”

“She's a woman to keep a man busy,” Walker agreed, smiling faintly as he thought of last night's dinner with the Donovan family. Hannah's edgy Australian slang was as surprising as her quiet stubbornness. She was every bit as hardheaded as the man she had married. Good thing, too. When the occasion arose, Archer could be a ten on the Mohs' scale, right up there with diamonds.

“Archer isn't complaining about Hannah,” Faith pointed out quickly.

“I noticed. It's a burning wonder how quick the Donovan men took to leg shackles.”

“Leg shackles! What a way to describe marriage.”

“You must have felt the same or you would have married that pile of road apples you were engaged to.”

Faith tried not to snicker at Walker's description of Tony Kerrigan. The best she could do was choke laughter off into a strangled cough. She saw the slight upward curve of Walker's mouth and knew that she hadn't fooled him a bit. That was another way he was like her brothers—quick.

“About that insurance,” he said. “Who bought it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Only if something happens to the rubies.”

“No one would dare. Someone—like you, right now—has been all over me like a rash every time I leave the shop and a lot of the time I'm here.”

“Complain to my boss.”

“It wouldn't do any good. Besides,” she said with a shrug, “I'm not fighting it. The cops can't be everywhere.”

“The muggers can. The last one was two doors down and twenty-one hours ago.”

She grimaced. It was the rash of muggings, robberies, and assaults that had made Archer decide to assign a Donovan International security guard to Timeless Dreams, and her. Today he had informed her that Walker was her new shadow. When she had retorted that she couldn't see how much good Walker would do leaning on a cane, Archer had just looked at her and then gone back to trying to sort out Donovan International contracts in a world where national boundaries changed with the six-o'clock news.

“About that insurance,” Walker said again.

“I'm checking out the cost of separate insurance for the necklace, just for the Savannah show and the travel out there.”

“No one will handle it without an appraisal. A real one, from a GIA-certified lab or one of equal reputation.”

Silence.

“Are the stones with an appraiser now?” he asked.

“No.” Reluctantly she added, “I haven't found a qualified appraiser who could guarantee getting them back to me in time to set them in Mel's necklace for the Savannah show.”

“Archer wondered about that.” So had Walker, but he wouldn't earn any points mentioning it.

Faith's mouth flattened. Her brother had done more than wonder about it. He had quizzed her almost as thoroughly as Walker and a lot less patiently. “I told Archer I'd take care of it.”

“No problem. I'll appraise the rubies for you.”

“You're a certified appraiser?” she asked, surprised.

“I know rubies. If I say they're worth a million, Archer will insure them for a million with Donovan money.”

“I didn't know you were a ruby expert.”

“There's a lot about me you don't know,” Walker said neutrally.
And thank God for it.
“Where are the rubies now?”

“Right here.”

As she spoke, she opened one of the belly drawers in the long workbench and pulled out a small cardboard box. It held a bunch of slim, neat little paper packets stacked on edge. Each jeweler's packet held a single gemstone.

“Judas Priest,” Walker muttered. “No wonder Archer told me to practice being your skin until you handed the necklace over. You don't even keep the damn rubies in a safe.”

“I have to work with the damn rubies,” Faith pointed out with transparent sweetness. Her smile was a double row of hard white teeth. “That's what I do. Design and execute jewelry. Contrary to what my brothers think, I'm a big girl who is quite capable of running her own business. Handling valuable gems is part of that business.”

“Most people with a million in loose gems have an armed guard at the door.”

“I have a man with a cane.”

“Sure enough, you do. Ain't it grand.”

This time Faith didn't miss the steel buried in his gentle drawl. “I'm glad it's good for someone,” she said under her breath.

Walker heard. “And that someone isn't you?”

“It's not the first time the man had all the fun.”

“Are you comparing me to a certain pile of road apples?”

“Road apples don't have lapis lazuli eyes.”