Lover in the Rough by Elizabeth Lowell Page A

the office, talking as he came. “Boss, old man Mercer says—Oops. Sorry. Your door was open.” He turned to go.
    Chance muttered a pungent word before he smiled sardonically and stepped aside. Reba silently seconded Chance’s muttering before she turned to Tim.
    “It’s all right,” she said, her tone denying her polite words. Reba heard her voice and threw up her hands. “It’s all right even though it isn’t.”
    Tim smiled. “Umm, yeah, I get what you mean.” He held out his hand. Nestled in his palm was a tiny, shocking pink Chinese tear bottle. “Mercer thinks our price is too high.”
    Chance looked at the crystal bottle, then at Reba.
    “Go ahead,” she said.
    He plucked the bottle off Tim’s palm. After testing that the bottle’s tiny stopper was securely in place, Chance adjusted the high-intensity light on Reba’s desk so that the beam was behind the crystal bottle. A fine network of fractures glittered through, scattering and refracting light until the bottle glowed with a hot pink radiance that was characteristic of the mineral from which it had been carved.
    “Pala tourmaline,” Chance said, turning the bottle slowly, letting the beam illuminate each curve of the objet. “Beautiful specimen. Single piece of mineral. Just enough fracturing to ensure its legitimacy, not enough to endanger the integrity of the bottle itself. The color is superb. There’s no other rubellite—pink tourmaline—in the world to equal that found in north San Diego County. Absolutely unique.”
    Chance picked up a thick magnifying glass from Reba’s desk and resumed his informal appraisal of the brilliant crystal bottle in his palm.
    “I don’t know enough about Chinese carving techniques to date the bottle exactly. Latter part of the nineteenth century, most likely. The Empress Dowager of China had an obsession for Pala’s tourmaline. The entire output of Pala’s mines went to her. She had a world monopoly on pink tourmaline. When she died in 1908, the market for Pala tourmaline collapsed.”
    Chance bent and examined the carving on the bottle. “Nicely done,” he continued. “Original stopper, sharp edges on the carved design, symmetrical and elegant, not shopworn. Whoever owned this tear bottle took care of it. The others I’ve seen were all dulled by handling, chipped, or repaired in some way. This is the clearest pink I’ve seen, too.”
    Silently, Reba held out the appraisal sheet she had finished on the pink tourmaline tear bottle the day before. He scanned the sheet quickly.
    “A fair price,” said Chance. He smiled lazily as he handed the bottle back to Tim. “If your client doesn’t want it, I know a collector in Australia who’s almost as obsessed with pink as the Dowager was. Red Day will meet your price and thank you for the chance.”
    Tim grinned. “You’ve made my day. Mercer is a wealthy, loud-mouthed pain in the butt.” Tim left, pointedly shutting the door behind him.
    “My wonderful mine,” Reba said, her tone inviting Chance to share the joke on herself, “isn’t far from the mine that gave us this specimen. Same geography. Same geology. Not enough gem-quality pink tourmaline to fill a baby’s fist. All the Farrall women ever got out of the China Queen was hard work and danger for their men, and just enough crystals to give each succeeding generation tourmaline fever.”
    Chance’s expression changed subtly. His features sharpened, emphasizing the masculine angles of his face and the blunt strength of his chin. “Did you ever get tourmaline fever?” he asked with a lightness that belied the tension of his body.
    “Sure. I didn’t do anything about it, though. I haven’t been to the mine since Mother tried to open it when I was a kid. She’d saved enough money to pay for shoring up the entrance of the mine. The money ran out before she found anything more than a few crystals so badly fractured that they came apart in her hand. Junk.”
    “What about you? Have you