When I Wake

by Rachel Lee

  “Harvard MBAs don’t usually wind up in places like this.”

  “Oh.” He lifted one dark brow. “Snobbery?”

  “No, just curiosity.”

  “I got here by way of Wall Street. You could say my, um, principles weren’t flexible enough.”

  It took her a few moments to be sure she’d heard him correctly. “They wanted flexible principles?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  He laughed. “It’s all about power and money. Nothing else matters. At least not in business.”

  That was cynical, but his opinion was probably justified. She certainly had no experience with the world he spoke of that might make her think otherwise. “So how did you come to be here?”

  “Oh, I decided to become a beach bum.”

  “A beach bum?”

  He spread his arms, as if to tell her to look at him.

  She couldn’t resist saying wryly, “It didn’t quite take, did it?”

  “Apparently not.” He laughed again, an engaging sound that made her smile. Whatever else she might not like about him, she did like his self-deprecating sense of humor.

  “I’m happy,” he said. “I don’t have to work any harder than I want to.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but he refused to admit it. “And I’ve got everything I want.” Well, mostly. “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Why did you become an archaeologist?”

  “I never thought about doing anything else.” And that was true. She’d grown up with an archaeologist father, and had spent her summers accompanying him on digs all over Central America. And then there had been her mother. Nearly forgotten, because women of thirty didn’t have very many memories of being five, but she’d grown up knowing her mother had been an archaeologist, too.

  “Why not?” Dugan asked. “Why didn’t you ever think of anything else?”

  The question made her uncomfortable, although she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because it sounded so dull to have only wanted to be one thing in one’s entire life? “I don’t know,” she said finally. “It’s just what I always wanted to do.”

  “Fair enough. I was just wondering if you felt pressured to follow in your father’s footsteps.”

  “No, never.” And for some reason she didn’t resent the question, although she felt she should have. But the way he offered it seemed innocent, and not at all critical. Just curious. Well, she was curious herself, about him.

  The waiter appeared with the conch fritters and offered to bring them fresh drinks. Dugan shook his head, and Veronica was relieved that he didn’t have another beer. It made her nervous now when people drank too much. He looked at her questioningly, and pointed to her drink. She shook her head.

  Reaching out, she took a fritter, dipped it in hot sauce, and bit into it.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Dugan said, watching her expression. “If I ever had to leave here, I’d have to find a way to get these things shipped to me.”

  She could understand why. Just then a blond man with a moustache came up to the table, pulled out an empty chair and sat. He was talking rapidly to Dugan and grinning, and Veronica couldn’t catch more than a word or two of what he said.

  Dugan must have seen the confusion on her face, because he spoke to the other man, then said, “Veronica, I’d like you to meet your other diver.” Then he added something she didn’t quite catch.

  The man turned and beamed at her. “You’re the boss lady?” He stuck out his hand and she shook it.

  She forced herself to say, “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Tam. Just call me Tam.”

  “Tam?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Veronica is . . . hard of hearing,” Dugan said. “Try speaking slowly and clearly, Tam.”

  “Sure, okay. No problem.” He looked at her ears, and Veronica felt a pained flush coming to her cheeks. Then he said something else she didn’t quite catch. His moustache wasn’t helping a whole lot.

  “Look, Tam,” Dugan said, making sure his face was turned so Veronica could see his lips. “We’ll talk later, okay? Veronica and I have some business to discuss.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Tam smiled at her. “Nice meeting you, boss.” Then he rose and walked away.

  “Sorry,” Dugan said, when Veronica’s gaze was once more on him. “Tam’s . . . exuberant. Actually, I think he’s still living in the sixties.”

  She laughed. She had to laugh. “He’s too young.”

  “I know. But I think he’s been crushed ever since he realized he missed Woodstock. Speaking of which . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you know about your pilot tomorrow?”

  “Butch Wilson? Just that he’s very good. Drew thinks highly of him. Why? Is something wrong with him?”

  “No. No. I just wondered.” He turned his head to look at the sky. Streams of high clouds were beginning to glow golden as the sun nearly touched the water.

  The dock was crowded, the buzz of voices loud in Veronica’s ears. Almost in spite of herself, she felt the growing anticipation, too. There was something almost surreal, she thought, about a place that took time every day to celebrate sunset. Something pagan.

  But there was no disapproval in the thought, only a kind of admiration for the vivacity and vitality of it all.

  Dugan looked at her again, catching her eye. She waited. “Why three months?” he asked. “Why that time limit?”

  “My father’s not well.”

  “I can see that. How bad is it?”

  “He finished chemo a month ago and seems to be in remission. But there’s no telling how long that will last. I don’t have a whole lot of time to do this because he doesn’t.”

  Dugan nodded understanding. “But . . . he must know as well as anyone how unlikely this search is.”

  Veronica shrugged. She was getting tired of people telling her this probably wouldn’t work. She knew that. But unbeknownst to the people who kept telling her that, she had twenty years of her mother’s research behind her. All she had done was interpret it somewhat differently. It wasn’t as if she was coming to the search out of nowhere. “In three months he has to go back for tests. In three months we might find out he’s sick again. There is no more time.”

  “I see.” He reached out then, startling her by covering her hand with his.

  The touch affected her more than she wanted to admit. She wasn’t used to being touched anymore. It was as if her deafness had locked her up inside a bell jar. She could see everything around her, but she couldn’t hear it . . . and she couldn’t touch it. Not when it came to other people. Her father was the only one who touched her anymore.

  She wondered why that was. She’d always been a touching sort of person, and was used to exchanging hugs with her friends when they met. But these days, on the rare occasions when she met her friends, they seemed reluctant to touch her at all, as if they were afraid she was too fragile. Or as if she might be contagious. She couldn’t explain it. She just knew in that instant, as Dugan’s hand covered hers, that she had missed this kind of human contact.

  His palm was warm, dry, and surprisingly rough. He must, she thought, do something besides sit at a computer all day. His were hardworking hands.

  She looked down at the hand on hers, noted the fine fair hairs that dotted the back of it, noted assorted small scars and a deep tan. The feelings his touch was giving her were scaring her, though, because they were making her want things she’d sworn never to want again. She was about to jerk her hand away when his fingers closed around it, holding it snugly.

  Her startled eyes flew to his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “About your dad.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She was sorry, too. But her paramount need just then was to break physical contact with him, because it was disturbing her.

  He glanced over his shoulder, still holding her hand, then looked at her. “Do you want to watch from here, or would y
ou like to take a stroll?”

  “Let’s walk.” It would be safer, she reasoned. Safer to be moving through the crowds than thinking about how barren her life had become in the last year. It was a mark of how empty she had become that a simple touch could affect her so deeply. Time to be wary, because she had just discovered an unexpected weakness in herself.

  He rose and helped pull her chair back. Then, before she could think of a reasonable objection, he tucked her arm through his and began guiding her away from the Sunset Dock toward Mallory Square.

  And she was instantly at war with herself. Having her arm tucked through his gave her a sense of security in the crowds, and she hated feeling that way. There had been a time when she would have walked here all by herself without a single qualm, but that confidence had been stripped away from her, and she hated the weak need to lean on someone else emotionally.

  But however much she detested her own weakness, she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t make herself do it. It was as if having him beside her surrounded her with a protective shell. If someone spoke to her, she wouldn’t be at a loss. Dugan would hear them. If she had trouble understanding, he would explain to her. He buffered her against normal, everyday things that shouldn’t have frightened her. But they did.

  And more than frightening her, they stressed her. The influx of sounds through her hearing aids was overwhelming and irritating. Trying to understand the speech of other people was exhausting. Casual conversation had become an obstacle course for her, and being among strangers had become a threat.

  When they reached the square, he found a low stone wall where they could sit and watch the sunset. The clouds were turning darker shades of rose, and the sun’s fiery ball had half sunk into the water.

  Mingling with the sounds of people talking and laughing, she detected bagpipe-and-flute music.

  Dugan looked at her, smiling. “Even after ten years I still love this.”

  “It’s like a carnival.”

  “It sure is. So why is this search so important to you?”

  It took her a few moments to get what he’d said. The subject change was abrupt, and she didn’t fully hear the question, so she had to piece it together.

  “I’m an archaeologist.”

  “And I’m not buying it.”

  She stiffened and inched away from him. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not here on a grant.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Your dad, when he said you wouldn’t run out of money in this lifetime.”

  “Oh.” She looked away, reluctant to pursue this conversation. It was really none of his business.

  But he tucked a finger under her chin and turned her face back to him. “That’s cheating,” he said, but there was a humorous glint in his eye. “If you want me to shut up, just say so. But don’t shut me out by looking away.”

  Her cheeks grew hot, and she was sure a bright blush must be staining them. She hoped he thought it was the red glow from the sun, which was almost gone.

  “So why is this so important that you’re spending your own money on it?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to be rude enough to tell him to butt out. She didn’t know why, because she was usually quite capable of telling people to get their noses out of her business.

  But so much about her had changed since the accident, and she didn’t know if it was her loss of confidence that kept her from being rude to him. Or maybe it was having his finger under her chin, a gesture that was almost lover-like.

  Finally, she pointed to the southwest. “Out there is a small island.”

  “There are lots of small islands out there.” He said it humorously, but he dropped his finger from her chin, and waited intently.

  “There was one small island in particular. A tribe of people lived there until 1703. They’re mentioned briefly in some of the records of the time, but almost nothing is known about them.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “A hurricane wiped them out. The same one that sank the Alcantara.”

  “Okay. Why do I think they’re connected somehow?”

  A moment of almost forgotten impishness overtook her. “Maybe because I mentioned them when you asked about the ship?”

  He laughed, that warm, wonderful sound that plucked something deep inside her. “Okay,” he said. “Go on.”

  “Anyway, they were a Stone Age culture in terms of artisanry. They didn’t build stone monuments; they lived in dwellings made of cane and thatch. The most anyone’s found of theirs is some basketry, some shards of unfired pottery, and flint and stone tools. Nothing else is left but some fire pits. Because they didn’t have any gold, they weren’t of interest to the Spaniards, and they were pretty much left alone. So basically we don’t know anything at all about them.”

  “Where does the ship come in?”

  “About 1700, the Spaniards started to take an interest in the island, with the intention of converting the inhabitants to Catholicism. Some monks arrived, and with them a few soldiers. One of the soldiers married a holy woman of the tribe and later they had a child. After a couple of years of marriage, the soldier persuaded the priestess to come to Spain for a visit.”

  “And they were on the ship?”

  “Yes. Along with the only major artifact ever made by this culture, a mask that the holy woman wore during religious rites. It was made of solid gold.”

  He nodded, rubbing his chin, thinking over what she’d said. The sun had vanished, and the sky was deepening toward indigo. He looked at her. “I take it this mask would be more valuable than all the gold on the ship.”

  Veronica shrugged. “I don’t care about that. I just want to find the mask.”

  “So you really are looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “I guess so.”

  He shook his head, chuckling. “And I thought it was going to be hard to find a whole boat. Now I’m looking for something hardly bigger than a human face?”

  “It’s bigger. I have a description of it. The face itself is surrounded by a halo of filigree that’s supposed to represent the winds. The mask is supposed to be the face of the Storm Mother, the force that controlled the hurricanes. The story is that when the mask left with the priestess for Spain, the Storm Mother grew angry, wiping out both the island and the ship.”

  “How do you know that? I thought everyone was wiped out.”

  “Basically. There were a couple of survivors.”

  “Well, that’s some story.”

  She watched him think about it, wondering what his impressions were. The story had become so familiar to her over the last six months that she had forgotten the freshness of it all when her father first shared it with her.

  “It would be a real coup,” he said presently. “A real coup.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “However, when I consider the size of that mask and the size of the water out there . . .” He shook his head.

  She didn’t say anymore, because it really didn’t matter what he thought. She was paying him to do a job, and he would do it. She didn’t need his opinions.

  “What the hell,” he said finally, looking straight at her. “It’ll be a fun way to spend a few months.”

  Fun? He thought this was going to be fun? She didn’t know if she liked that. It indicated a less-than-professional attitude toward what was certainly a professional task from start to finish. This was an archaeological exploration. It had to be conducted methodically, painstakingly, with utmost care. Not like a beach holiday.

  Remembering Tam’s brief introduction, she felt her first serious qualms about the search. What had she gotten herself into?

  Then he said something that caused her heart to sink to her toes.

  “Lighten up, Veronica. We’re going to have a great time.”

  She didn’t want to have a great time. She wanted to get a job done as quickly as she could. Looking at the way he was grinning at her now, she realized she had made a huge mistak
e.

  He was going to have fun. Whether she liked it or not.

  Oh joy.

  Chapter 5

  Butch Wilson didn’t look like a man who preferred life on the edge, but appearances could be deceiving. He was spreading slowly into middle age, and the only remnant of his sixties’ rebellion was a gray ponytail. He was a soft-spoken man with a manner that didn’t invite other men to play rooster games with him. Not that he needed to prove anything. From things Butch had said when he had too much tequila in him, Dugan suspected he knew more ways to kill a man than Dugan wanted to think about.

  Before the flight, Veronica unrolled some charts and showed the two men the area she was particularly interested in.

  “How did you come up with this area?” Dugan asked her.

  “Drew made a computer model based on the eyewitness report of the ship’s breakup. Assuming I’m right about where the witness saw the ship break up, and the conditions at the time, this is probably pretty close.”

  Dugan nodded, although he had some serious qualms. There were a lot of assumptions in that statement she’d just made. But what the hell. It was her dime.

  “Okay,” said Butch. “Let’s go.”

  “No barrel rolls,” Dugan said as he climbed into the seat beside Butch. Veronica had opted to sit in the back, behind Butch, so she could perch her GPS receiver on the seat beside her. Butch had the same equipment on his control panel, so it was a definite redundancy.

  “I wasn’t planning any,” Butch answered serenely.

  “No nose dives, no sharp climbs, just make it straight and easy.”

  Butch laughed, and Veronica looked questioningly at them. Dugan turned on his seat to face her. “I told him not to give us a circus ride.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  She took the headphones Butch handed her and put them on. “How can you hear?” Butch asked her in the microphone.

  “Okay. Not perfect, but okay.”

  Dugan, watching her face, got the distinct impression she wasn’t hearing well at all. Well, how could she? The headset wasn’t going to help her hear consonants any better than her hearing aids could. He was going to get an awfully stiff neck from turning around to speak to her in this too-small plane.