Donovans 01 - Amber Beach by authors_sort

around the cottage like a hungry cat hoping to be fed. She barely noticed. Chapman Piloting, Seamanship & Small Boat Handling had her full attention. The page she was reading, and rereading, described the “danger quarter”—how to find it, how to tell whether you and another vessel were on a collision course, and who had to give way under the law of the sea.
    “Only for you, Kyle, would I do this,” she said into the silence. “Only for the brother who talked me through endless variations of the old algebra problem about the train leaving at noon and averaging twenty-two miles per hour, and how long will it take me to catch up with the blasted thing at thirty-nine miles per hour.”
    She sighed and rubbed her forehead wearily. She hadn’t been sleeping well since she came to the cottage. In truth, she hadn’t been sleeping particularly well since she turned thirty and realized that the men she dated always turned out to be too . . . quiet. She came from an outgoing, rough-and-tumble, shouting and hugging and laughing sort of family.
    When she was growing up, the Donovan men often drove her nuts. Bigger, quicker, stronger, arrogant in the way of healthy animals, they were true believers in “might makes right.” After losing too many contests of strength to her brothers, she had vowed she would never go out with anyone who reminded her of the large, confident, forceful males of her childhood.
    She had kept her vow. Now she wondered if she had done the right thing.
    Twice she had made the mistake of taking one of her clean-shaven, quiet, reserved gentlemen home. The first time her brothers got her date so drunk he couldn’t find the floor with anything but his face. The second time Kyle had handled the intrusion alone. He quietly, relentlessly baited her date until the nice man fled in confusion.
    Honor hadn’t fled. She had stayed behind and ripped a strip off Kyle from heels to forehead. He had laughed and laughed until she was tempted to hit him with a skillet. Then he told her what she really didn’t want to know.
    You would have destroyed that jellyfish the first time you lost your temper. Try dating something from the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom. You’ll both enjoy it more.
    Nice doesn’t mean spineless!
    Hell, sis, I know that. When are you going to figure it out?
    With that Kyle had picked her up, hugged her hard, and told her what a great sister she was—and would she help him adjust the valves on his old Thunderbird?
    Anger, laughter, tears, love. So many memories of Kyle. Honor hadn’t known how deeply she was tied to her brother until she lost him.
    Instantly she corrected herself. She hadn’t lost Kyle. She was going to find him no matter what.
    Frowning, she forced her attention back to the “danger quarter” and the rules of the sea. Thinking about childhood and Kyle and men who were too nice for her own good wouldn’t help anyone. Finding her brother would.
    The Donovan males had the rest of the world covered. She had the entire group of San Juan Islands to search, and maybe Canada’s Gulf Islands as well. To do that, she had to be able to get herself around the islands. To do that, she had to learn how to drive a boat, because the local ferries stopped at only a handful of the major islands.
    It would have been easier to hire a boat, but she had decided it wouldn’t work. If Kyle was hiding—for whatever reason—approaching him on his own boat was the only way to get close. He might be too proud to ask his family for help in a private mess, but he wouldn’t run from them once they showed up.
    Yet in order to get close to Kyle in his own boat, she had to learn how to drive the boat. To do that, she had to spend hours reading about danger quarters and other arcane things that made her head ache.
    Sometimes she was afraid that what she was doing was more complicated but just as futile as flinging a symbolic lei of flowers on the sea where a ship had sunk, killing all aboard.