Amber Beach (37 page)

Honor looked at the laughter and shadows in Jake’s eyes and knew he was telling the truth. Before she could think better of it, she found herself whispering a kiss across his fingers. Whatever his motives for answering her ad, he had protected her as much as he had used her; and he had been a hungry, generous lover who made her feel like the most desirable woman since Eve.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” he asked huskily.

“It means… I don’t know what it means.” But she was afraid she did. It meant she was an idiot. She cleared her throat. “It means we need each other until this mess is cleared up, so we might as well bury the hatchet.”

“Damned by faint praise
again.
But I’ll take it. It’s better than the deep freeze and a razor tongue.”

A knock on the door saved Honor from having to answer. She opened the door and started to say something, then she simply stared. Though Marju was not conventionally beautiful, there was something about her that was electrifying. Charisma, sheer animal presence, whatever – the woman radiated on every band of the sexual spectrum.

Honor’s stomach sank. She could understand all too well how her brother could have lost his head over this woman.

“Come in”, Jake said dryly to Marju. “Don’t worry about the silence. Honor will get her tongue back real quick.”

“Jay? Is it really you?” Marju asked. Her huge, dark eyes opened wide. The flecks of gold that rimmed each black iris exactly matched her burnished blond hair. A small, pale hand closed around Jake’s wrist. “Where is Kyle? Is he well?”

“Yes, yes, I don’t know, I don’t know.” He led Marju in
and closed the door. “Honor Donovan, meet Marju. I’d give you her last name but you would hash the pronunciation so badly there’s no point. Call her Jones. It worked for Kyle. Marju, the awestruck woman is Kyle’s sister.”

Honor held out her hand. “Hello, Marju. Susa would kill
to paint you.”

Marju shook hands briskly despite looking confused by
what Honor had said.

“Susa is my mother”, Honor explained. “All the kids call her Susa. She paints. Landscapes usually, but she makes exceptions for exceptionally interesting faces.”

Marju smiled uncertainly. “Oh. This is good?”

“If you don’t mind holding still for her, it’s great. Come in and sit down. You’ll be my first sister-in-law. As soon as we find Kyle, of course. Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”

Long, natural lashes swept down over Marju’s eyes. Again, she smiled uncertainly.

Jake sighed and began translating. His Lithuanian was marginal, but his Russian was excellent. So was Marju’s.

Honor’s Russian was zilch. She waited with increasing
impatience.

“Okay”, Jake said finally, turning to Honor. “Marju speaks four languages, including English, and understands three more. But school talk and real talk aren’t the same. Slang is a problem for her.”

“Got it”, Honor said. “Er, that is, I understand.”

“If it would not trouble you”, Marju said, smiling, “a cup of coffee would be welcome.”

“I’ll get it”, Jake said. “You two get acquainted.”

“What about you?” Honor asked him.

“Jones and I already know each other.”

“Biblically speaking?” Honor muttered before she could stop herself.

He didn’t answer.

Marju settled gracefully onto the worn sofa and crossed
her elegant legs. Though Honor and Jake had picked up the worst of the mess before Marju arrived, some papers still stuck out from a cushion. Honor snatched up the strays, put them on Kyle’s desk, and pulled a dining chair up opposite the sofa. Despite the fact that Marju was inches taller than Honor she seemed almost fragile as she sat on the little couch. Her pale hands were laced together until the knuckles showed white. Her delicate feet were crossed at the ankles. Her long, elegant neck was bowed with jet lag or simply a lifetime of talking to shorter people.

“Have you heard from Kyle?” Marju asked anxiously.

“No. Have you?”

“Oh, no.” Long lashes blinked rapidly. Tears hovered. “I had hoped”, she whispered. “He loves his family so…”

“Certainly no more than he loves the woman he’s going to marry?”

Marju smiled wanly. “You are kind, but I have much knowledge of men. They want a woman’s sex greatly but they love very little. Women love greatly and pray to be loved just a little in return for their sex.”

Honor swallowed and tried not to think of herself and Jake. “Some men are different.”

“Of course”, Marju said huskily. Tears threatened to spill. “I thought Kyle was such a man, once. He is not, yet I cannot stop my love for him.”

A box of tissues appeared between the two women. The flowery pink design looked odd in Jake’s big hand.

“Jones can’t make it through an evening without crying”, he said. “It’s the Lithuanian blood. Drama sucked in with Mama’s milk and all that.”

Marju gave him a watery smile. “Ah, Jay, you still have not forgiven me for choosing Kyle.”

“Are you kidding?” Jake said. “I’m down on my knees twice a day thanking my first wife.”

“For what?” Honor asked sharply.

“Teaching me that sex wears off about three weeks after the ink on the marriage license is dry. You still like your coffee with a shot of vodka, Jones?”

“Please, yes.”

“I’ll see if Kyle has any.”

Honor tried to hide her reaction. She didn’t like vodka under the best of circumstances. In coffee it was unthinkable. But then, Kyle had always been attracted to the exotic. Blonde, dark-eyed, cat-graceful Marju “Jones” was about as exotic as
it got.

“Er, how did you and Kyle meet?” Honor asked.

“At a beer hall. What the English call a pub. I was there with my cousin, who works in the amber mines. Kyle was there with Jay. Oh, such laughter they had. It was so artless, so confident, so
American.
I think I fell in love as I stood there.”

“You wouldn’t be the first”, Honor said dryly. “Kyle has been knocking them dead – er, attracting the opposite sex – since he learned how to smile. Rather like you, I suppose.”

“Please?”

“Surely you know how you affect men just by walking
into a room?”

Marju shrugged. “It does not last.”

“Must be fun while it does”, Honor said wistfully. “So you looked right past Jake to Kyle?”

“Jake?”

“Jay.”

“Ah. He is
tres magnifique,
very much male, but next to Kyle… the comparison is not fair. No man can stand next to my sweet angel Kyle.”

Honor blinked. “Sweet? Angel? Kyle? Are we talking about the same man who short-sheeted my bed, stuck a turtle down my T-shirt, and put honey in my braids?”

“It is different for a sister, no?”

“It is different, yes!”

Marju laughed softly. “You are very like Kyle. So open. So kind. So…”

“American?” Jake asked from the kitchen. “As in naive?”

“Yes!” Marju said, clapping her hands. “Naive. It is perfect!”

Honor eyed her enthusiastic sister-in-law-to-be and told herself that the woman’s grasp of American English wasn’t good enough for her to understand that
naive
wasn’t exactly a compliment. Pupp
ies, kittens, and kind
ergartners were naive. Adults with those romping, innocent qualities were often described as stupid.

“I guess Kyle wasn’t expecting you”, Jake said, handing Marju a cup of coffee. “No vodka.”

Marju gave him a gentle, sad smile and sipped the coffee. “Ah, that has not changed, has it? You make fine coffee, even without the dear bite of vodka.”

“Just one of my many charms.”

Though Jake was smiling, Honor could tell he didn’t particularly care for Marju. Not too surprising. No matter what he said about being grateful not to have caught Marju’s eye, it still had to rankle.

“Forgive me for being blunt”, Honor said, “but when was the last time you heard from Kyle?”

“Four weeks ago. The night I gave him with my own hands a panel from the Amber Room.”

Honor didn’t know what to say.

Jake did.
“Shit.
I told Kyle that you were trouble.”

“It is I who have trouble”, Marju said, weeping soundlessly. “He said he would sell the panel and we would live in Brazil, where we would be warm and safe for the rest of our lives. I believed him! I betrayed my family, my people, my country. All of them. For him.” She crossed herself quickly. “May God forgive me, I still love him. I still believe he will telephone me…”

With a disgusted sound, Jake shoved a wad of tissues into Marju’s hand. “Here. Wipe your nose.”

Honor just closed her eyes and tried to balance Marju’s description of Kyle with the brother she had always loved.

It was impossible.

An irrational anger burned through Honor, a primitive hatred for the beautiful stranger who was damning Kyle with every word, every tear. In that instant she understood completely why tyrants killed messengers who brought bad news. Right now Honor hated everything about the divine Miss “Jones”.

“Who was Kyle going to sell the panel to?” Jake asked as Marju’s tears subsided.

“He did not tell me.”

Jake grunted. “How did you get your hands on this supposed piece of the Amber Room in the first place?”

“‘Supposed’? There is no doubt!”

“Bullshit. There’s always doubt.”

“If you could see, you would not doubt”, Marju said.

“How did you see it?” Honor asked before Jake could
say anything.

“There is an old patriotic group known as the Forest Brotherhood”, she began. “They began in the…”

“Forget the history lesson”, Jake said impatiently. “How did they get the Amber Room?”

“History is necessary”, Marju countered, her voice cracking with anger. “Only Americans live in a world that is new each day. The rest of us live with the past every moment!”

“Yeah. And then you spend the future rehashing wars your ancestors lost”, Jake said.

“You are so American!” Marju said, throwing up her hands in despair.

“Thank you.”

Honor cleared her throat. “About the Forest Brotherhood and the Amber Room…?”

For a moment longer Marju glared at Jake. Then she turned back to Honor. “At the end of World War Two, the Germans tried to steal the Amber Room from Russia. Some of the Forest Brotherhood worked loading German ships at Konigsberg, what we now call Kaliningrad. The Brotherhood told others, loyal Lithuanians in the Russian navy, which ship to sink. Afterward, they salvaged the Amber Room from the sunken ship and hid it deep beneath the altar of an ancient church, in the catacombs. They waited for Lithuania to become free once more.” Her mouth turned down bitterly. “But the Russians conquered.”

Honor looked at Jake. He shrugged and didn’t say anything. He had heard similar stories about the Amber Room for so many years that it was impossible to say which one was more or less plausible than the others.

“How did the Brotherhood keep a secret for so long?” Honor asked Marju. “Especially one that big.”

“Dead men do not gossip”, she said simply. “The Russians slaughtered all but one or two of the Brotherhood. Knowledge of the Amber Room came down through the men of my mother’s family. A cousin told me.”

“Why?” Honor asked.

“He wanted me.”

Honor didn’t doubt that. “And you ran to Kyle with the good news.”

“I did not know Kyle very well at that time.”

“Too bad it couldn’t have stayed that way”, Jake said sardonically. “When did you tell him?”

“Six weeks ago. That is when he talked of love and marriage and Brazil. Poor fool that I am, I b-believed – that he loved m-me!”

Honor ripped a tissue out of the box and stuffed it into the other woman’s hand. “Blow.”

The brisk sympathy steadied Marju. She blew into the tissue, wiped her nose, and blotted her widely spaced, incredible eyes. Part of Honor took a mean pleasure in the fact that even
an exotic like Marju couldn’t cry and get away with it entirely. The red nose definitely detracted from the rest of the package. Marju gave a shuddering sigh, sipped coffee, and collected herself.

“How big is the panel?” Jake asked.

“Perhaps one by two meters”, Marju said.

“Heavy?”

“Not in the way of stone. But the wood backing, the frame, made the whole awkward to handle.”

“Who helped you?” Jake asked.

“No one! I could trust no one but my very own love. Yet I should not – should not have – t-trusted him.” Her breathing fragmented into tears.

Jake handed her another round of tissues and waited impatiently for the storm of weeping to end. He had never understood how Kyle had put up with Marju’s tears and tirades. Among Baltic peoples, Lithuanians were famous for their low flashpoint and keen sense of personal drama. For Jake it was a wearing combination.