Mitch smiled. “There’s nothing you taught me that I’ve forgotten,” he said dryly.
After the third cup of coffee, Stan rose with polite excuses and headed for the men’s room. Kay whirled in her chair with lips parted, prepared to cannon out four thousand questions, when Mitch said a quietly appreciative thank-you.
So much for the wind in her sails. As if she hadn’t just listened to an hour of incessant prattling on a subject she couldn’t fathom, she felt a soft quiet steal over her. Mitch’s eyes were warm. And as provocatively intimate as naked skin. Mitch gave her the feeling he could see through to bare flesh, at will. Like now.
“I thought you’d like the stories about Australia,” Mitch said quietly, “but I’d forgotten the way he takes for granted that everyone’s in the business. I’ll fill you in on the lingo later, Kay-but right now I just want to tell you I appreciate your patience with him. Not that I don’t like the old devil myself. But I find it almost impossible to concentrate, with his incessant talking, and a few minutes from now I’ll need every ounce of concentration I can beg, borrow or steal.” Mitch signed the check, handed it to the waitress and rose. “I’ll be a bit disappointed if he didn’t at least whet your curiosity,” he murmured as he steered her through the crowded restaurant lobby to the motel entrance.
She simply tossed Mitch a glance, as Stan ambled back into view. Why on earth should she be curious? Simply because a man flew in from a few thousand miles away just to have dinner? Simply because that same man rambled on about Cooper Pedy and potch and feathered culets as if such things should be familiar to her? Simply because the man didn’t seem to have two figs in common with Mitch? Simply because the men were now getting a key to a motel room?
“In for a dime, in for a dollar,” Kay muttered darkly as she felt Mitch’s palm at the small of her back, leading her inexorably toward room 114. Even the number had a sinister sound.
“Same room as last time,” Stan mentioned, as if that thoroughly satisfied him.
Kay smiled happily.
She continued to smile happily as Mitch opened the door to a bedroom, done tastefully in blues and greens. When the three of them were inside, Stan closed the drapes while Mitch locked the dead bolt. Kay couldn’t think of anything equally clever to do. She set down her purse. That took less than half a second. Not that she felt uncomfortable because the double bed took up eighty percent of the available space, but she just wasn’t used to business meetings in these particular surroundings. Now, with just Mitch alone, she might not have minded.
By the time she turned around, the standard motel desk was covered with a white velvet cloth. Mitch was unplugging a lamp and carting it over to double the lighting. Fumbling with the key to his case, Stan produced a small, collapsible ultraviolet light. A microscope appeared from nowhere.
Kay sat on the edge of the bed, not wanting to get in anyone’s way. Lascivious ideas obviously had no future here. The two men were rattling off terms like “cabochons” and “crystallized fossils” and “floaters,” and suddenly nobody was smiling. Stan’s face closed up tighter than a vain woman’s girdle. “I’ve got the best stuff you’ve ever seen,” he told Mitch gruffly. “But I never told you it’d be cheap.”
“I knew you didn’t come all this way to sell tiddlywinks.” Mitch took the desk chair and removed a small cylindrical magnifying glass from his jacket pocket, fitting it to his eye. “Kay?”
She sidled up behind him, still worried about being in the way. The bag came out of the zippered inside pocket of Stan’s case, and when he carefully emptied its contents onto the white velvet cloth, she no longer had time to worry about being in the way because she was too busy having heart failure.
Mitch started talking in low quiet tones, his words obviously meant just for her. “None of that jargon you heard during dinner could have made any sense to you, but now you’ll see what we were talking about, sweet. Opals are valued in terms of their fire-that is, the brilliance of the stone. A ‘potch’ is an opal too bland in color to be worth anything. A feather is a crack in the stone, a flaw. Cabochon is the facetless cut you use on stones when you want a smooth convex surface. Diamonds are never cut that way. Opals almost always…”
Kay certainly hoped Mitch wasn’t expecting her to hear a word he was saying.
There was only a handful of “stones” spread out on the table. Seven in all. Two of the opals were as big as a baby’s fist and had a milky, translucent background. The others were black opals, and prisms of color burst from their base of dark smoke.
The whole table seemed aglow. Rainbow crystals danced under the special light; the stone Mitch picked up to show her radiated a mesmerizing vibrancy from its center, as if light and brilliance were darting around within it.
Stan said something. Mitch didn’t answer him; he was staring at Kay, studying her response to the jewels with the most enigmatic expression. His features were statue-still, watchful. Worried?
Completely bemused, Kay opened her mouth to say something, but instantly forgot it. Shock was setting in, and for the next hour total silence reigned in the room. A fortune was clearly displayed on the white velvet cloth. Mitch appeared used to evaluating fortunes. And he turned to Stan only once, to hand him a stone.
Stan abruptly flushed. “I saw the flaw,” he said gruffly. “The stone will be good, though, if it’s cut right. You know that as well as I do.”
Mitch said absolutely nothing, but Kay could have made Popsicles in the coolness of his stare. Was this her big, gentle man, with his so-well-hidden shy side? The one who defined tenderness every time he touched her? She had expected to get to know him better tonight; instead, he was now more a mystery to her than ever.
Chapter Eight
By ten thirty, Stan was aboard his plane, his bag five stones lighter. Walking a half step ahead of Mitch, her arms wrapped around her chest against the freezing cold, Kay stared straight ahead as they made their way through the silent parking lot to Mitch’s car.
She hadn’t said a word since Stan had left, and didn’t intend to.
“Hemerling shows up about twice a year,” Mitch said from behind her, breaking the silence. “I don’t want you to think he’s typical of my business associates, Kay. Australian opals are the best, and if he’s half crook, he’s also one of the best stone peddlers around.”
Still she said nothing, waiting while he opened the car door so she could slide inside. Moments later, he stuck the key in the ignition, started the engine and sent her a sidelong glance. “You’re emitting a few frigid vibrations, honey,” he remarked.
“You’re one smart man,” Kay acknowledged.
Mitch paused, giving her an inscrutable look. “You’re not impressed with my line of work?”
“I wouldn’t care if you were a ditch digger,” she said, flatly.
“Then…?” His car was already swallowing up the miles. When she made no response, Mitch started talking again, his voice quiet and low, almost coaxing. “They’re fascinating, you know, some of the legends and superstitions about gems. In the old times, a man would wear a sapphire for wisdom, but he’d never give one to his lady for fear she’d turn into a jealous witch. And he’d wear a ruby himself, as a sign of nobility and authority, but for his woman he’d always choose a garnet. On her, the ruby symbolized stubbornness, whereas the garnet would guarantee her loyalty.”
He glanced at Kay, and when she still said nothing, he kept on talking. “The opal’s acquired a bad name in the last few centuries, but for thousands of years people believed it increased the powers of the mind. No other ‘lucky stone’ has more powers than the black opal-or so the stories say. Probably more men have been killed for that luck than for any of the more famous diamonds. Kay.”