Midnight in Ruby Bayou by Elizabeth Lowell Read Free Book Online Page B

I work for them.”
    She shot out of her chair, unlocked the door, and flipped the sign around. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    â€œSuit yourself, sugar girl,” he drawled, “but I’m taking these with me, where they’ll be safe.”
    He scooped up the box of rubies, grabbed his cane, and limped out of the shop without a backward look.
    Before he reached the curb, he was on the cellular to Donovan International’s security department. If those rubies were half as good as they had looked through the loupe, they opened up a whole new approach to getting around the Thai cartel’s stranglehold on the cut-ruby trade: Donovan International could mine old jewelry and thumb their nose at the cartel. The only problem was that when that kind of money and power clashed, danger was a certainty.
    You could die just as dead in a U. S. city as in the barren mountains of Afghanistan.

5
    F aith looked up as the shop doorbell buzzed. She had wondered who would take Walker’s place. Now she knew.
    Ray McGuire waited patiently on the other side of the locked door. He was second-in-command of Donovan security, and often guarded members of the family. Lately he had spent a lot of time in her shop. She had objected to Archer that it wasn’t necessary. He had pointed out that all the locks, alarms, and safes in the world weren’t any good when you locked the shop door behind you, walked to your car, and found a gun in your back. Then you had no choice but to turn around, unlock the locks, turn off the alarms, open the safes, and pray that the guy with the gun didn’t kill you. Better to avoid the whole problem in the first place by never leaving your shop except with an armed guard.
    She pressed the button that released the front lock, letting Ray into the shop.
    â€œYou must have run all the way,” she said, looking at her watch. “Walker hasn’t been gone ten minutes.”
    â€œI drove. I’m always glad to see you.” He smiled as he walked around the two small glass cases that displayed samples of Faith’s work. Curves of gold and the gleam of silver, flashes of sapphire and opal, diamond and topaz, ruby and tourmaline, pieces of God’s own rainbow. It always amazed him that such beauty could come from the ratty, burned workbench in the back of the shop. “You make the best coffee in Seattle.”
    â€œFlattery will get you a sixteen-ounce triple americano, no sugar.”
    Faith abandoned the design that she wasn’t making any progress on—she kept seeing lapis lazuli rather than the opals her client wanted—and went to the espresso maker she had installed at the back of the room.
    â€œYou remembered,” he said, wiggling his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. They matched his short salt-and-pepper hair. “Does this mean you’re going to run away with me after all?”
    Steam hissed as she worked the machine with the skill of a sidewalk barista . “Millie would have my head.” Millie being Ray’s wife of sixteen years.
    â€œMillie refuses to learn how to make espresso. Says French press is better.”
    â€œNo problem. I’ll teach you how to make espresso.”
    â€œMe?” he yelped in mock dismay. “What’s it all coming to?” he asked the ceiling. “Men learning to make fancy coffee. Women carrying guns. The last guard we hired was female , for God’s sake.”
    â€œReally? Remind me to ask for her next time.”
    â€œToo late.” He grinned. “The Donovan beat you to it.”
    Faith laughed. “That’s Dad for you. He’ll hover over his daughters like a helicopter and then turn around and hire a woman with a gun to protect him.”
    â€œHey, be fair. Your father hasn’t hovered over Honor lately.”
    â€œWhy bother? She has Jake now. He’s a world-class hovercraft.” Faith handed Ray his coffee. “Now, sit over there by the espresso