Read Midnight in Ruby Bayou for Free Online

his estimate of their worth.”
    â€œDo 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.
    â€œDoes 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.
    â€œI’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?”
    â€œNo. 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?”
    â€œLessons, huh?” The drawl slowed and deepened. “Now, there’s a thought. I’ll be sure to take it up with Archer.”
    â€œHe’s too busy with his new wife.”
    â€œShe’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.
    â€œArcher isn’t complaining about Hannah,” Faith pointed out quickly.
    â€œI noticed. It’s a burning wonder how quick the Donovan men took to leg shackles.”
    â€œLeg shackles! What a way to describe marriage.”
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œAbout that insurance,” he said. “Who bought it?”
    â€œDoes it matter?”
    â€œOnly if something happens to the rubies.”
    â€œNo one would dare. Someone—like you, right now—has been all over me like a rash every time I leave