Kitabı oku: «Her Passionate Protector», sayfa 3
Camille asked, “Did you find someone to look after your cat?”
“One of my students is house-sitting. She’ll spoil him.” Sienna paused. “Granger mentioned you thought you could find somewhere for me to store my car?”
“Brodie’s offered half of his garage to you while we’re at sea.”
Sienna turned to Brodie. “Thank you. I’ll pay you a rental—”
“You won’t. No problem.” His look dared her to argue.
“Well, thank you,” she repeated.
Camille said, “How’s your brother, Sienna? You stayed with him on the way up?”
“He’s fine. But my car was broken into in the night while it was parked outside his place, and my luggage got stolen. Including my scuba gear.”
Camille looked shocked, and both men stiffened, scowling. Brodie’s eyes searched Sienna’s face, his mouth going hard.
Rogan asked, “You reported it to the police?”
“Yes, but I had the impression they have more important things to worry about. They said if it was any consolation the thief was good at his job—he picked the lock without damaging the car. I filled in an insurance claim though I doubt they’ll pay out the full amount of the stuff that was taken.”
Brodie said, “I’ll fix you up with scuba gear, on credit if you like. Come and see me at the dive shop.”
“What a horrible thing to happen,” Camille sympathized. “Are you okay for clothes and stuff?”
“I bought some in Hamilton. Basics, and I won’t need much more on the boat. Fortunately I’d taken my laptop out of the car. I left it with my brother, since you said I can use the on-board computers.”
Rogan asked, “It doesn’t have information on it about our artifacts?”
“No, I’ve never kept that on the hard disk. I carry a password-protected disk in my bag that’s always with me.” Laptop computers were a prime target for theft, and Camille had impressed upon her how important it was to keep her notes confidential.
Even Aidan had no idea what was in them. When asking his permission to use the laboratory facilities, she’d told him she couldn’t talk about the work and had kept the artifacts in her own padlocked steel locker, only taking them out when she was alone after hours. But the burglar had made short work of the lock.
“I think,” she said, “after breaking into my car the thief tried to get into the house, but my brother heard something and scared him off. We didn’t realize the car had been tampered with until the morning.”
She’d been upset, of course, but thankful nothing irreplaceable had been taken. “I’ve sent Granger copies of my notes. I presume he’s keeping them in a safe place?”
Rogan said, “My big brother’s office is in an old bank building and he’s got a strong room with a steel door a foot thick where he stores sensitive records.” Perhaps to make some kind of amends for even vaguely querying her discretion, he asked, “You have an older brother too?”
“Younger. It’s thanks to him I learned to scuba dive. We were on holiday in the Bay of Islands when he was twelve and I was fifteen, and he was mad keen to learn, but my parents would only let him if I agreed to keep an eye on him.” Their last holiday with both parents—perhaps that was why she remembered it so vividly, every moment seemingly clear in her mind.
“You didn’t want to dive?” Brodie queried, disconcertingly closer to her than she’d expected as she turned to him.
“I wasn’t against the idea, just not crazy for it the way he was.” She’d been more interested in collecting shells and occasional bits of flotsam, wondering if some of the pieces of wood she picked up that had obviously been shaped by tools had come from shipwrecks or drifted from the shores of other lands. And how long they’d been floating on the wide Pacific.
There had been no hint that dreamy, untroubled summer of the cataclysm that was about to descend on their lives. Yet only a few weeks after their return, her father had announced that he was leaving to live with another woman who was expecting his child. Her mother too had seemed stunned, apparently having had no more clue than Sienna or her brother about their father’s secret life.
“If you’re planning to dive on this expedition,” Brodie said, “you’ll need a certificate of fitness.”
A little nettled—as if that were any of his business—she said, “I sent Granger a letter from my own GP, but he told me Rogan wants me to see a dive doctor here. I’ll do it tomorrow,” she assured the other man. It seemed Rogan preferred all the crew members to go to a doctor he knew and trusted. “I won’t need to buy an air tank, will I? Granger said they’d be supplied.”
“Yep—on the salvage barge there’ll be air and gases for scuba, as well as a surface-supply system for the helmet divers on the bottom and a decompression chamber.”
It sounded like a well-equipped expedition. Obviously some thought had gone into preparations to ensure efficiency and safety.
Not much later Sienna got up to leave, pleading tiredness.
Brodie said, “I’ll walk you back to the hotel.”
“I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.”
He said flatly, “Rogue’s dad got jumped not far from here.”
Surely that was different—she’d gathered that Barney Broderick had been carrying some clue to the treasure ship he’d found, so it had been no random mugging. But obviously Brodie wasn’t going to be put off by her protest, and Rogan and even Camille were looking approving. It seemed politic to give in rather than start a pointless argument.
Brodie leaped onto the wharf, now slightly above the deck level, and extended a hand that she couldn’t refuse without an obvious snub.
His fingers were warm and hard, closing firmly about hers before he hauled her effortlessly onto the old, cracked boards, steadying her with a hand on her arm.
“Thank you,” she said politely.
“It’s a pleasure.”
Sienna thought she detected ironic amusement in his voice, but it was dark now and she couldn’t see his expression. She began to walk and Brodie fell in beside her, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, his ambling stride tempered to her pace. Yet he seemed oddly alert, peering down a darkened alleyway as they passed and occasionally glancing behind them.
“Are you looking for someone?” she asked.
His gaze returned to her. “No.”
Moments later he said, “You don’t think it’s a bit odd that your lab was burgled and then your car?”
Jolted, she stared at him. “Theft isn’t that uncommon, especially from unattended cars left on the road, according to the police. And it was miles away from the burglary.”
“Hmm.” They walked around a curve and into an area that was better lit, where cafés were still open, a few hardy souls sitting outside although it was autumn. Brodie appeared to relax a bit. “Why did you take the job after all?” he asked.
“Well, because I…” She floundered, not about to tell him the real reason. “Because it sounds interesting. And as you said,” she added, “if I want to be sure the site is properly surveyed and not damaged, the best way is to be on the spot myself.”
“Rogan won’t go roaring in like a bull in a china shop. And with you and Camille both on board I’m sure you’ll make your views clear.”
Sienna muttered, “Camille seems to have sold out.”
“How do you mean? She’s the one who insisted on asking you to join the team.”
“I’m not insulting her,” Sienna assured him. “I just mean that…well, marriage has changed her.”
“It’s made her happier,” Brodie said bluntly. “Is that a crime?”
“Of course not. I’m happy for her. I suppose it’s inevitable.”
“What is?”
Sienna struggled to explain. “Her first loyalty now is to her husband. Before…well, it was different.” Both she and Camille had nursed their own reasons for being wary of the male worldview. Now Camille was happy and loved, and Sienna felt an irrational desolation. She hadn’t lost her friend, but things would never be quite the same.
“You think she’s gone over to the enemy?” Brodie asked.
“I’m not anti-man.” She knew all men weren’t like her father. Her own fatal weakness prevented her from establishing a relationship with one of them.
“You relieve my mind,” Brodie said. “Rogue’s changed too. I guess marriage does that to people. Alters their perception of life or something.” Thoughtfully he added, “I never thought he was the marrying kind of guy.”
“What kind of guy would that be?” she asked, and he laughed, not bothering to reply.
Not Brodie’s kind, she presumed. Camille had mentioned that Brodie owned his own house in Mokohina as well as the local dive shop and dive school. She’d gathered that Rogan’s friend had settled down, but he didn’t look at all the settled-down type to her. “Have you ever been married?” she asked. There had been no sign of a wife at the wedding.
He laughed again. “Do I look like it? No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What—that no woman would have me?”
“I’m sure plenty of women would have you,” she replied, “and probably regret it later.” As her mother must now. Her father too had been a man who naturally attracted female interest. Even as a teenager she’d known that other women envied her mother. Quite possibly the woman he lived with now hadn’t been the first to deflect his attention away from his wife. Perhaps the others had the good luck—or forethought—not to get pregnant.
Brodie grinned down at her, not noticeably insulted. “You could be right. I’m probably not great husband material. Have you ever been married?”
“No.” How had they gotten into this conversation? It was becoming too personal. Reaching the grass verge opposite the hotel, Sienna said hastily, “Thank you for seeing me back.”
She swung away, stepping onto the road as headlights suddenly swept over her, an engine roared and the car she hadn’t seen or heard leaped out of the darkness.
Chapter 3
A hard hand grabbed her arm, hauling her back onto the grass and clamping her against an equally hard male body, and Brodie let fly an explosive word that seared her ears.
The car, which had almost scraped her jeans, accelerated away. Still held against Brodie’s unyielding chest, her face pressed to his cambric shirt, her nose inhaling his warm male scent and the palm of one hand splayed against his hammering heart, Sienna trembled with reaction, her knees watery.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he demanded roughly.
Sienna straightened shakily away from him. “I just didn’t see the car coming. It was stupid.”
He released her, his gaze critical as she stepped carefully back, making sure she was still on the grass. “If you can’t be more sensible than that, maybe a dive expedition is no place for you after all!”
Her chin jerking up, she said, “I think Rogan is the proper judge of that. I made a mistake—it’s not a habit.”
“I hope not.”
“If it’s any business of yours—”
“It is.” The assertion was uncompromising and surely inappropriate.
She protested, her voice rising. “Even if I were a complete idiot—which I’m not, thank you, he was going way too fast anyway—does it have anything at all to do with you?”
“Of course it bloody does!” He was obviously angry too. “As dive master on this voyage—”
“As—what?” Her voice lifted another octave.
“As dive master,” he repeated with exaggerated clarity. “You didn’t know?”
Slowly Sienna shook her head, stunned. “Nobody told me,” she said. And then, “Don’t you have a business to run here in town?”
“I have well-paid, competent staff,” he said shortly. “I’m a partner in PTS—you didn’t know that either?” He peered at the shocked expression on her face.
Dumbly she shook her head again.
“And dive master,” he reiterated. “I’m the one who approves the dive team and I’m the one who has the say about who goes down, if and when, once we’re on the site.”
“I’m sorry.” She’d thought he was being overbearing and meddlesome and annoyingly male, but apparently he’d been at least partially justified. “I didn’t realize you were involved.”
“Up to my neck,” he said. After a small pause he conceded, “You gave me a fright. I guess you’re tired after your long drive, and that driver was gunning the engine.”
An apology of sorts for snarling at her, she supposed.
He took her arm again in a firm grip and checked for traffic on the road before guiding her across to the hotel. Clamping her lips together, Sienna reminded herself that the meek would inherit the earth.
She didn’t feel meek. She felt unsettled, dismayed and vaguely angry, as though she’d been deceived in some way, though of course that wasn’t so. Everyone had probably taken it for granted that someone else had told her of Brodie’s role in the new company. And it didn’t really matter. Only, she wished the dive master were someone less irrefutably…male, in a way that disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.
At the foot of the broad steps to the door he asked her, “Will you be all right now?”
“Of course. I don’t need a nanny.”
He grinned, his good humor apparently restored. Thrusting his thumbs into the belt of his jeans, his eyelids lowering, he said, “Good, ’cause I’m not one.”
No, she thought, looking up into his gleaming eyes. There was nothing nannyish about his earthy sexual magnetism.
She said hastily, “Good night, then. Thank you again for seeing me home.”
“See you tomorrow,” he promised as she climbed the steps.
When she reached her room she had an immediate sense of something alien in the air, a faint, indefinable feeling of intrusion. Looking around, she saw her replacement collapsible suitcase sitting open on the luggage rack with the so-far unworn clothes still neatly folded inside, just as she’d left them. Nothing seemed to have changed, except that the bed was turned down.
A staff member had entered in her absence, that was all. Relieved, she went to draw down the old-fashioned Holland blind, pausing as she noticed Brodie’s broad-shouldered figure mooching along the foreshore.
Something stirred inside her, a warm spiral of purely physical reaction. Uneasily, she recognized it for what it was—a sexual response.
Brodie Stanner, with his lopsided grin and frank appraisal of her face and figure, was going to be one of the team she’d be living in close proximity with—for perhaps months. And that bothered her. He spelled danger, large as life and twice as threatening.
He’d made no secret of the fact that he found her attractive. But by all the signs he found any personable woman attractive, and was one of those men who generously spread his favors around without discrimination. And without any particular thought. A here today and gone tomorrow sort of guy.
Mindless, meaningless sex wasn’t something that had ever interested Sienna. Sex for her had never been meaningless, although it had not brought her the security she’d once hoped for, when she was too young to understand her own need and looking for love in all the wrong places. She’d long ago given up on that futile search.
And she had little doubt that if Brodie Stanner had anything in mind, it was no more than a short, wild fling. That was not for her—and neither was he.
Sienna’s GP had already assured her she was fully recovered from her earlier sickness, although a bit underweight, but she was relieved to emerge from the dive doctor’s surgery with the necessary certificate in her hand.
The little town was quite busy, and when she reached the wharf the Sea-Rogue was abuzz.
Alongside a couple of other men Brodie was loading boxes and bags from a pile on the wharf into a forward hatch, his shirt discarded and his fit, lithe body bending and straightening in a rhythm of physical exertion that had a sort of primitive beauty. Rogan stood by with a clipboard, checking things off and occasionally examining a label.
Brodie stopped work for a second and lifted a hand in greeting. Rogan glanced up as she stepped aboard, and smiled at her. “Camille’s in the saloon. She’s expecting you.”
“Thanks.” Sienna jumped lightly into the cockpit, and descended to the saloon where she found Camille studying a computer screen incorporated into a bank of instruments.
The two women spent a couple of hours going over the documentation on the Maiden’s Prayer that Camille had collected from various sources and the information Sienna had garnered on the stolen samples.
Sienna said, “Can we transfer my notes from the CD to your computer?”
“Yes, that would be a good idea. We’ve been careful about it because the boat’s been burgled before, but we sail in a couple of days and the burglar alarm seems very efficient. You probably heard it last night, when we woke half the port.”
“Last night? I dreamed about a fire engine…” She’d forgotten about it, but now she recalled a vivid dream involving sirens and fire, a feeling of impending doom as flames licked behind her while Brodie Stanner climbed a ladder to her window and held out his hand. She’d hung back, afraid to take it, until he’d said commandingly, “Come with me, I’ll save you.”
Some chance, she thought now. From the fire to the frying pan…
Camille was saying, “It seems to have been a false alarm. Rogan shot out of bed and raced up on deck, but no one was there. The thing might have been set off by a line flapping in the wind, although it’s not supposed to work that way. It did show that if someone tries to break in now, judging by last night’s performance, it’ll bring people running from all the boats nearby.”
After transferring the information Camille handed the disk back, saying, “It’s a good idea to keep a spare, just in case.”
“I wasn’t able to find much really.”
“Still, you never know when something that seems unimportant or unrelated will match up with another fact and tell us something useful. You know how it is with research.” Camille hesitated. “I’m sure it’s all right to tell you, now you’re a member of the team. We have the ship’s bell, but we’re keeping that under wraps, so don’t mention it to anyone else. You’re the only one who knows apart from Granger and Brodie, Rogan and me.”
They lunched on deck with Rogan and Brodie. After delivering the stores, the other men had driven off.
“Did you get your doctor’s certificate?” Brodie asked.
She fished it from her capacious bag and handed it to him, along with her dive certification.
A man strolling along the wharf stopped at the Sea-Rogue. “Rogan Broderick?” he inquired.
“That’s me.” Rogan stood up.
The man was fiftyish, his brown hair thinning, eyes hidden behind trendy wraparound sunglasses. His casual shirt and slacks looked as though they probably sported designer labels. Uninvited, he leaped aboard and held out his hand to Rogan. “Fraser Conran,” he said. “And this is your brother?” He turned to Brodie.
“No.” Brodie denied it, not offering his name.
For a moment the stranger didn’t react, then he smiled thinly, and Camille said, “Do I know you?”
He shifted his attention to her. Then she said, “We met at James Drummond’s house,” her expression changing from uncertainty to hostility.
Jolted, Sienna recalled that Camille had spent time with Drummond before she discovered he was a crook and a killer.
Conran didn’t seem to notice the sudden chill in the air. “A bad business, that.” The smile fading, he shook his head. “I didn’t really know him well, but his antique stores seemed aboveboard—he was well known, respectable. Hard to believe…though, of course, he hasn’t been found guilty yet.”
“He’s guilty,” Rogan said curtly. “What did you want?”
Fraser Conran turned back to him. “I hope I’m not going to be tarred with the same brush because I knew the man. We were business acquaintances, that’s all.” He paused, but no one reassured him on that point. “I heard you were looking for investors for a…venture. I have some cash to spare. Perhaps we could talk?”
“You heard wrong,” Rogan said. “Our investors have all been by invitation. We don’t need any more.”
“Really? Treasure hunting is very expensive, I’m told—my understanding was you can hardly have too much capital.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m sure you can find other ventures to spend your money on. Probably less dicey ones.”
“But not so interesting.”
There was a silence, then Conran shrugged. “If you change your mind, here’s my card.”
Rogan reluctantly took the card the man handed over before climbing back onto the wharf. They watched him depart, strolling without hurry.
Brodie asked Rogan, “What do you make of that?”
Rogan shook his head and turned to Camille. “Do you know anything about him?”
“Not really. I didn’t recognize him right away, but he was with some other people who sailed up from Auckland for the weekend. I think James hoped to sell something to him.”
“Did you get the impression he tried to give us just now that he hardly knew Drummond?”
Camille chewed briefly on her lower lip. “It’s hard to say. James told me the people were business contacts.”
Brodie said, “He’s not the first one to come fishing, is he, since word of the new company got out?”
“No,” Rogan agreed. “And not the first who seemed a bit dodgy, either. Just as well we had Granger to rustle up investors he could vouch for.” He looked at the card.
Brodie asked, “What does he do?”
“Shipping agent, it says.”
“I guess Drummond knew plenty of those.”
“Some of them might have been legitimate,” Rogan allowed. “But I wouldn’t trust anyone who had anything to do with Drummond.”
Sienna and Camille helped to get supplies stowed neatly in every available storage space on the boat in preparation for their departure, and it was late afternoon when Sienna found herself being walked back to the hotel by Brodie again.
Along the way he said, “Camille told you we’re sure now the wreck is the Maiden’s Prayer.”
“She said you’d found the ship’s bell, but not to say anything.”
“Had you found any confirmation in the stuff Rogan brought up from the bottom?”
“There was nothing to refute it, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”
“Are you always so cautious?”
“Preconceived ideas are not good science.”
“Y’know,” he said thoughtfully, “I have the feeling you might have some preconceived ideas about me.”
“I don’t know why you should think that. And if I did, I wouldn’t let them interfere with doing my job.”
“You realize we’re all going to be living pretty close together for a few months?”
“I’ve never had a problem getting on with people.” Trying to sound serene and confident, she couldn’t help feeling that instead her voice was decidedly cool and a little snippy. Well, perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing. She’d hate him to guess the effect he had on her—the way his smile warmed her very bones and his blue gaze gave her pleasurable little shivers up her spine.
He seemed ready to drop the subject. “Does your brother still dive?”
“Sometimes. But he tends to master a skill and then go in for some new challenge. At university he joined the mountain-climbing club, and he’s still a member of a search and rescue team. When he moved to Hamilton to take a job as a mechanic he learned to fly. Now he’s working for an aeronautical engineering firm there and doing night classes to improve his skills. He seems to be showing signs of settling down.”
“You approve of that? Settling down?”
“Isn’t it what you did? Have you got bored with being a shopkeeper?”
He gave her a keen look. “I’ve never given up diving. I combine my shop and dive school with occasional commercial assignments. The shore work gives me a steady income and means I don’t have to scramble for jobs—I can pick and choose where I go and who I work with.”
“And you chose Pacific Treasure Salvors?”
He grinned. “Not too many people can resist the lure of long-lost treasure. Even you.”
Sienna didn’t bother to deny that. She knew most of the work would be tedious and painstaking, and much of the wreck’s cargo—maybe the bulk of it—might already be lost forever in the depths of the sea, buried under layers of coral, destroyed or scattered irrecoverably by time and tropical storms. Nevertheless she was excited at the prospect of being involved.
She essayed a wry smile of acknowledgment, and Brodie broke into an answering one that lifted her spirits in a way no other man ever had. Plenty of women would have fallen for him instantly. No wonder he seemed a shade piqued that she’d shown no inclination to do so. She mustn’t allow him to discover how fragile her brittle defences really were.
She sighed, assailed by a wistful longing that lately had recurred too often, and Brodie said, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m still a bit tired.”
He frowned. “Are you sure you’re up to this trip?”
“You saw the doctor’s certificate. There was a lot of work to do before I left, but I’ll have time to recover before we reach the wreck.” The exact location was confidential but she gathered it was at least a week’s sailing from Mokohina, and she knew from Camille that Rogan was concerned that, while he assembled his crew and equipment, looters might get to the site before they did. But also determined that the expedition was properly equipped and staffed.
Brodie cast another covert glance upon her but didn’t argue anymore.
Next day Sienna started out to find the dive shop, not in any particular hurry. On the way she dawdled over a display of local art for sale, mostly depicting seascapes or rural scenes, and at a shop-window mannequin wearing a rather nice jade-green stretch top.
A teenage boy in baggy shorts and T-shirt, with a knitted beanie hat pulled low over his eyebrows, was reflected in the glass, apparently looking too, but when she turned he ducked his head and mooched off to stare into the window of a nearby computer shop while she walked on.
She was turning a corner when something tugged hard at the bag she held, and she instinctively tightened her grip, swinging round as the beanie-wearing youth she’d seen earlier tried to wrench the bag from her hold, his brown eyes stark and wide below the hat.
Sienna kicked him hard in the knee, jerking the bag away from his loosened hold as he doubled up with a cry of pain, and a man and woman rounded the corner.
“Bitch!” the boy gasped, and then he saw the two people approaching, backed off and began to run, almost being mown down by a car as he dodged across the road.
The couple stopped, bewildered, and the man asked, “Are you all right?”
Sienna was breathing fast, her heart pounding. “Yes. He tried to snatch my bag. I’m okay.”
The woman exclaimed in disgust, “That sort of thing never used to happen in Mokohina. You ought to tell the police.”
“Yes,” Sienna said. But the boy had disappeared and by the time she reported the incident they’d have no hope of catching him. “Thanks.” If these people hadn’t come along she might still be tussling with the bag snatcher or been knocked to the ground while he made off with his booty.
After the couple walked on, she waited a few minutes to calm down and resume her normal breathing pattern, then continued to her destination.
When she entered the shop Brodie was helping two giggling young women choose gear for their first dive lesson. One of them looked up at him, pushing back a mane of shining dark hair, and cooed, “Will you be the teacher?”
Brodie’s glance at her held amused appreciation. “Sorry,” he looked regretful, “I’m not going to be available for a while. But we have several very well qualified staff members.”
The girl looked disappointed. “It’s your picture on the brochure we picked up at the motel.”
That, Sienna thought, would bring young women in droves to the dive school.
Brodie was saying, “I own the business. Don’t worry, Hemi will see you right.”
“Is he as good-looking as you?” the girl asked, casting him a sidelong look.
Brodie laughed. “Better. And he’s younger than me. You’ll like him.”
A female assistant, tall and fit-looking, her skin the light golden-brown of manuka honey, was suppressing a grin of her own as she left off arranging a display of snorkels and face masks and approached Sienna. “Can I help you?”
“I’m waiting for Brodie,” Sienna told her.
The assistant let the grin surface, her gaze sliding to her boss. “You might be waiting for a while.”
Apparently she’d been mistaken for one of his fan club. Sienna said crisply, “I’m the archaeologist for Pacific Treasure Salvors.”
At the sound of her voice Brodie had looked up. He motioned the assistant to him and said, “Take over here please, Jen.” Then, excusing himself from the girls whose wistful looks followed him across the shop floor, he invited Sienna. “Come with me.”
He led her into a roomy storeroom-cum-office, where he picked up a bulky jacket-type buoyancy compensator hung with all the necessary accoutrements. “I picked this out for you, a new model that’s tested well. It excludes sand, a plus when you’re picking up stuff from the seafloor. Try it.”
Standing behind her, he helped her into it, and then came round in front and adjusted the waist strap.
She could see the faint gleam of incipient whiskers on his chin as he completed the task. He pointed out the various instruments integrated into the system. “In the water it’ll give you greater freedom of movement than older systems and fewer hoses to manage.” He stepped closer again. “There are just two nice big buttons to press for gaining neutral buoyancy.”
Neutral buoyancy prevented a diver from sinking fast to the bottom or bobbing about on the surface; once achieved, it allowed full control of movement in the water.
Brodie looked up from checking the fit and met her eyes. For a moment she was lost in the blue depths of his, only aware of how intense the color was, and then of the sudden flare that lit them before he gave her a slow grin, his eyebrows lifting slightly in teasing, hopeful inquiry.
