Her Passionate Protector. Laurey Bright

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СКАЧАТЬ you to open the door for me, but don’t you want to go back to your…companion?”

      For a moment he looked blank. Then he said, “I only just met her—she’s not likely to miss me.”

      Sienna might have disputed that. No woman could be immune to so much blatant masculinity, and the blonde had been quite clearly smitten.

      She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly on the table, and deliberately loosened them. “I’m all right now,” she reiterated. “Really.”

      He reached out and touched the back of his fingers to her cheek, bringing a quick, unexpected heat flaring under the skin, a tiny shock of pleasure setting warning bells off in her mind. “You’ve got a bit more color,” he said, “but you’re still pale.”

      “I’m naturally pale,” Sienna argued. “It comes with my hair.”

      “It’s fantastic,” Brodie said. “The color, I mean.”

      “Thank you.” The words came out clipped, and she pretended not to see the curious look he cast her. “Excuse me, Camille might need me.” He was altogether too attractive. Sienna knew to her cost how easily she could fall victim to compliments and concern. Especially when allied with such a good-looking face and a calendar-hunk body that even a formal suit couldn’t hide. She began to rise from her chair.

      Brodie’s hand immediately pinned hers to the table, his palm warm, slightly roughened and very firm. He glanced past her to the hotel. “Camille doesn’t need anyone but Rogue right now. They’re still talking to people. You should rest a while. You don’t want to go all woozy again.”

      He was actually right. Even her sudden movement had made her head spin a little.

      Despising the alarming melting sensation in her midriff evoked by his clasp on her hand, she tried to pull away, but he retained his grip and held her gaze until she stopped resisting, though her eyes showed her resentment.

      Brodie slid his hand from hers and said calmly, “Just relax, and tell me if there’s anything you want. A glass of water or something?”

      “Nothing, really.” Unsettled by his steady regard, she carefully turned her head to admire the blue-green water across the road and the boats riding at anchor in the harbor. Making conversation, she said, “Mokohina’s a pretty little town.”

      “I like it.”

      “You live here?”

      “I’ve knocked about the world a bit, but this is where I’m based. I own the local dive shop.”

      She might have known he was a diver. Not quite as tall as his friend, he shared Rogan’s broad-shouldered physique, and had the look of someone who spent a lot of time near the sea. She’d have guessed a surfer if it hadn’t been for his connection with the Brodericks.

      “Are you related to Rogan and Granger?” She supposed he could be a cousin or something.

      He shook his head. “Nope, but Rogue and I have been hanging out together off and on since primary school. He’ll look after Camille, don’t worry about that.”

      Her gaze flew back to him. How had he known she was concerned for her friend, who had fallen in love with a man Sienna couldn’t help thinking was all wrong for her? A man Camille herself had admitted was the very antithesis of what she’d thought was her ideal.

      He said, “There’s no news about the stolen shipwreck items?”

      She supposed if they were such old friends it was natural for him to be in Rogan’s confidence. She’d been asked to keep very quiet about the antique coins, jewelry and watches she’d been entrusted with. She’d explained when Camille enlisted her expertise that she’d have to take the head of the archaeology department partially into her confidence so she could use the university facilities, but she’d told no one else. “The police don’t seem to have any ideas.”

      She felt unreasonably guilty about the theft, although Camille and Rogan had been very understanding. It wasn’t her fault that the laboratory where she’d been painstakingly removing a century and a half of verdigris and various accretions from the artifacts recovered from a wreck site somewhere out in the Pacific had been burgled while she was in hospital. Fortunately not before she’d taken full sets of photographs.

      Other things had been stolen. Sienna’s students had been excavating a recently discovered pa site. The palisaded Maori village from which tattooed warriors had once defended their families against attack had long gone, leaving only a grassy terraced hillside. The dig had yielded priceless jade and bone ornaments and weapons to be studied before finding suitable homes with tribal descendants of the original owners or in museums. But these precious artifacts had now disappeared.

      “Nothing’s been recovered,” she told Brodie.

      “Well, I guess there’s more treasure under the sea, where Rogue found that lot,” Brodie said. “And Pacific Treasure Salvors will be back there as soon as the divers and equipment are ready, hopefully before anyone else gets to it.”

      Although the Brodericks had done their best to keep quiet about their discovery and refused to talk to the media, it was an open secret that the Sea-Rogue had found a treasure ship, and rumor was rife about the new company’s plans. Even the name they’d given it was a dead giveaway. She supposed they’d seen no point in trying to disguise its purpose, since the secret was out anyway.

      Sienna bit at her thumbnail, a frown creasing her forehead. Despite Camille’s assurance that the salvage would be carried out with due regard to the wreck’s historical importance, she wasn’t at all sure her friend hadn’t been dazzled by her dashing new husband into a false sense of security. Apparently the Broderick brothers’ father had been obsessed with finding a treasure ship, and Rogan looked to be following in the old man’s footsteps.

      “What’s the matter?” Brodie asked curiously.

      She dropped her hand. “I’m not sure about this company—disturbing a historic wreck.”

      Brodie folded his arms, his eyes assessing her. “You want the ship to remain on the bottom of the ocean, untouched, until it rots away?”

      “I’d just like to know that nothing of archaeological significance is lost because of ignorance or greed.”

      Brodie’s eyebrows lifted. He said in a deceptively mild tone, “Don’t you trust Camille to make sure that doesn’t happen? She’s the official researcher and a qualified historian.”

      “She’s in love!” Sienna shot back at him. “It tends to skew people’s thinking.” As Brodie cast her an inquiring look, she said hastily, “I’m sure she’ll do her best, but archaeology isn’t her specialty, and…”

      “And you’re afraid that Rogan will influence her.” Brodie appeared slightly amused. “Don’t you realize the guy is crazy about her? He’d do anything for Camille. She only has to lift her little finger.”

      “That may not last.” A shadow touched her heart, but she tried to keep it from reaching her face.

      His expression was quizzical. “Cynic,” he accused. “A bit young for that, aren’t you? Twenty-five?”

      “Twenty-seven.” СКАЧАТЬ