“Doctor Dupré is an expert on this particular wreck. She’s our antiquities and preservation specialist and will be handling any of the material or data you bring back up with you from our surveys and dives.” He took a step back and let her have the limelight.
She glanced at him, her fingers fidgeting nervously with the hem of her T-shirt. He’d never thought of her as the nervous type. For the short time he’d known her she’d always seemed to know precisely what she wanted. Then again, this was important to her. Hell, if what she’d said was true, she’d wrapped her whole life around trying to bring up this wreck. She pinched the small mermaid pendant on her necklace and ran it back and forth along the delicate gold chain around her neck.
Bella swallowed hard, let go of the necklace, and tried to focus on the back of the room, rather than the sea of faces looking expectantly at her, or at the distracting presence of McCormack to her right.
Speaking in public wasn’t one of her strong suits. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, just that she preferred not to since she had so little filter to begin with. Whatever was on her mind generally came out of her mouth resulting in a lot of moments where she wished she could take back what she said, rewind it, fix it, and then replay the edited version.
She forced her hands to her sides and lifted her chin. Deep breath. You can do this. “Good afternoon. I’m sure that Captain McCormack has explained to you that our project is a historic shipwreck. A brig, one hundred and fifty feet in length with two main masts, an extended gaff off the bow, and a copper-sheeted hull. I’ve got some images that might help.”
Bella pulled the USB drive from her shorts pocket and glanced back to see if there was a video unit attached to the screen so she could show them some of the data and images she’d collected. McCormack took the USB from her hand, the contact of his skin on hers rolling straight through her like a warm beverage on a cold day. Her knees wobbled a bit. The plain royal blue screen behind her transitioned to a black and white ink drawing of the ship she’d found in an archive of early-American naval vessels.
“This is approximately the shape of the ship we’re searching for. Prior to the War of 1812 it was used as a merchant vessel but was turned privateer by the captain, looting English, French, and Spanish vessels in the Gulf during the war. From the research I’ve done, it was said to have a good deal of Spanish silver aboard, as well as several cannons, so a magnetometer survey may be of use in locating the main body of the wreck once we find any outlying debris.”
A rumble of excited male voices filled the conference room, and it was only then that she realized she might very well be the only female on board. Her heart pounded a little harder.
Tucker stepped closer to her, and she reactively stepped two steps to the right to avoid having him brush up against her. He leaned forward, his hands spread flat on the conference table in front of him. “Now that you’ve seen what we’re looking for, we need to get a recon dive in before dinner. We’ve already seen on the prelim side-scan sonar survey that we’re still looking for the outlying debris field. Today we’ve got Scott and Williams on the ROV team, Lupopo and Barclay on sonar 1, and Reeves and Guereaux on magnetometer. Everyone else is on support. Get your stations prepped after lunch and ready to go. I want everyone on point in an hour.”
Chapter Four
The conference room began to empty as men pushed back their chairs and headed either down the stairs or out the double glass doors to their assignments.
Bella caught Tucker staring at her. She turned crossing her arms. “What?”
“I’m kind of surprised, that’s all.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
“You made it clear you weren’t interested in working with me, then you showed up to the meeting when I haven’t apologized yet.” He pulled her USB from the port on the video unit and held it out to her.
Bella unfolded her arms and took it. The call on the satellite phone with Harry had been worthless. The contract spelled it out in black and white. She was stuck with McCormack and his crew. And he knew it, which somehow pissed her off even more. “There isn’t exactly a taxi to take me back to shore. I’m stuck out here, and I decided that as long as I was here, perhaps something useful could come out of this.”
“So you still don’t want to work with me.”
“Want, no. Have to, yes.”
His lips curled into a smug smile that made her want to scream. “You don’t have to seem so damned pleased about it.” As soon as the words left her lips, she realized how shrewish she sounded and wished she could reel them back in. She was irritated with the situation as much as being forced, once again, to compromise to get to her end goal.
“I’m sorry if this isn’t what you expected. I’m not the enemy here, Bella. We’re on the same team. We both want to recover what’s down there.”
She nodded. “True, but I intend to fully participate in this operation. I refuse to be relegated to some consultant or footnote. You may be getting half the credit, but don’t forget that everything we find is because of the sacrifice and years I put into locating it.” She locked gazes with him.
“Duly noted. Anything else?”
“As a matter of fact, there is.” She squared her shoulders. “I still want my apology.”
“I’ve already said I was sorry. Look, I know you’re not happy about how this is turning out, but perhaps other things are more important, like getting to this wreck and making history.”
She nodded. “True.”
“Now, if on the other hand, you wanted me to make it up to you in some other way—”
She stopped him short. “Nothing is going to happen between us, so you can get any ideas of that right out of your head.”
He held up his hands, but the outline of the smug smile remained, and she could tell he wasn’t taking her warning seriously. “Fine, but don’t blame me if you can’t handle the sight of me stripping out of a dive suit without your bikini going up in flames.”
She sighed. “You really think I can’t resist your charms, don’t you?”
He stepped closer, purposely invading her air space. A wave of body heat, seasoned with sea salt, sunshine, and something totally male and way too appealing made her breath catch.
“I don’t have to think it, Doc. I know.”
“You know,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Simple science.” He reached out, a single fingertip caressing her cheek, brushing back a stray strand of hair and tucking it behind her ear. His voice lowered a fraction making her insides curl with heat. “Your pupils dilate when I get too close. Your breathing changes. Add that to that pink hue that starts to color your skin like strawberries covered in cream, and the way you shiver when I barely touch you, and yeah, I know. Say whatever you want, but there’s chemistry between us.”
Bella turned away from him and walked over to the window to look out at the sea. Her hands were shaking. “The only chemistry we’re going to be exploring while I’m aboard this ship is electrolysis to clean the encrustation off our finds.”
“You make cleaning sound so sexy.”
“You keep to your part of the operation, and I’ll stick to mine.”
“What exactly are you afraid of?”
She spun around. “I already told you. I don’t trust you. You’re a McCormack.”
He sighed and shook his head. “My big bro must have been a bigger dick to you than I thought.” He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
She crossed her arms. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
McCormack chuckled, stepping closer to her, the presence of him invading her space and making her body tingle. “See, that’s where you’d be wrong. You made it my business the moment you stepped on this ship. We have to be able to trust and rely on one another to stay safe out here in the middle of nowhere. We have a strict no-fraternization policy aboard this ship, so you’re safe from the crew and from me. A
nd before you go making any more assumptions that could jeopardize this operation, let’s get one thing straight, you’re not the only person here who’s been screwed over by a McCormack. So have I.”
His words stopped her, cutting down the anger swelling inside her. She swallowed past the tightness building in her throat as she realized he was right. They’d both been hurt by the McCormack family—possibly him more than her in the scope of things. She had no right to continue to hold his family against him. Hell, she hadn’t even really given him a chance.
“I’m sorry.”
He held up a hand. “Unlike you, I’m not looking for apologies. I just want to work. How about we get back to business with a clean slate between us? I told you I wasn’t like them; perhaps you’ll believe me, and we can just start over from square one.” He held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Tucker, nice to meet you.”
Bella couldn’t help but smile. The gesture was juvenile, but endearing. Honest. She took his extended hand and shook it, trying to ignore the zing of energy his touch caused which made her breasts tighten in response. “I’m Bella.”
He smiled, and she could sense a shift in the air between them. Rather than the crackle of animosity, there was a spark of something else, something sensual. She had no idea where it might lead, but since they were on the adventure together, she decided she might as well find out.
“You ready to see what’s down there?”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it.”
He laughed. “No, we’re here to gain fame and fortune. Are you in?”
“Absolutely.”
Sunshine sparkled on the endless flat of blue water. It was hot enough out in the sun that Bella had stripped off the T-shirt over her swimsuit to catch some of the breeze off the water. They watched together at the rail on the edge of the ship as the ROV was lowered by the heavy-duty winch into the blue water lapping against the hull of the Discovery.
Unexpected butterflies of anticipation flitted and swooped in her stomach. After having worked and waited for so long, the idea that she’d actually be able to see the wreck via the ROV had her buzzing.
“Sure it’s out here?”
She glanced at him. “Considering my ancestor was the captain who went down with the ship, yeah, I’m sure.”
“And is that how you came up with the manifest?”
She paused, biting her bottom lip. If they were both coming clean, there had to be total transparency between them. “There is no manifest, exactly.”
He crossed his arms and raised one dark brow. “We’re doing this on a hunch?”
“No. Like I said, I’ve done extensive research. He was a privateer during the War of 1812. The cargo changed depending on which ships he took while in route to port. But he detailed several items in his last letter home that alone would make it worth our while. The silver I mentioned in the briefing was confirmed in the port documentation before his last voyage.”
Tuck leaned a hip against the rail. “Let me get this straight. We’re spending a huge chunk of cash to sit out here and find your great-times-six grandfather’s grave and hope it’s loaded?”
Bella crossed her arms, then realized in the bikini top her right breast was perilously close to popping out of the little triangle of striped fabric and forced her arms down to her sides. Being close to Tucker made her more aware of her body. “That’s one way of looking at it; however, I prefer to take the stance that due to a string of unfortunate events for my family, we have insider information on our side that any other crew searching for the Rapid wouldn’t.”
“I can go with that,” he said.
The man Tucker had referred to as Barclay came up the steps to the second deck outside the conference room. “Captain, they’re ready to send down the sonar, magnetometer, and ROV. Did you want to watch from the control room?”
“No, patch video through to the conference room monitors. We’ll track the team from there. Wait fifteen minutes after the sonar and magnetometer are down and scanning before you send out the ROV to investigate the anomalies we saw in sector G3 yesterday.”
Barclay gave a short nod and conspicuously avoided making eye contact with Bella. Maybe news that Bella was off-limits would get around the crew faster than he anticipated.
He turned back to Bella, deliberately walking around the far side of the table, grabbing the microphone remote, and selecting a seat on the opposite side of the conference table so she’d feel more at ease. “You might as well get comfortable. Once they get the equipment submerged, the video link to the ROV camera and sonar images will feed directly in here. I thought you might like to monitor the images with me to see if there’s anything you notice that could help narrow our search field.”
She hesitated. He saw it in the slight tremor in her hand before she pulled out a chair and sat down. “How many dives have you already done?” Her tone was casual enough, but he knew women well enough to hear the waver in her voice. Bella might want to be all business about this, but she was fooling neither of them.
“So far three with the ROV to investigate areas that looked promising on the side-scan sonar passes. We were waiting to spot outlying debris before we committed more resources to the search. The more information you can provide us, the more effective we can be in narrowing the search grid in this area and finding the main body of the wreck.”
As if on cue, the large screen split into black on one side and a black and white image of little black dots on a big white field in the other.
“That’s the sonar image. Anything that sticks out of the seabed is going to leave a black mark. Harder objects, like metal, pottery, or rock, will reflect the sonar best. Less dense materials, like degraded wood from the hull, will give off a weaker signature.”
For fifteen minutes they sat in silence until the other side of the screen lit up with an image of blue water. In the distance was a swirling ball of silver flashes, as a school of fish moved away from the ROV. As the ROV descended, a curtain of effervescent bubbles obscured their view for a moment. The deeper they descended the deeper the blue color grew.
Tuck activated the mic communicating with the ROV team with the push of a button. “What’s our visibility?”
“About a hundred feet, captain.”
“Williams, take it down to about two fifty, and start scanning the sea floor along the shelf.” He turned to Bella and found her looking eagerly at the large screen in front of them as the ROV dove deeper and the sea floor came into view. “The coordinates you gave us pinpoint the edge of the shelf. We don’t know for certain if the wreck is on the shallower plain, or if it fell down to a deeper plateau from storm movement through the area.”
Bella tapped an index finger against the surface of the conference table. “I took that into account when I did my calculations. The Rapid should be in the shallows. Storms, especially higher level hurricanes, like those we’ve had in the last decade, should have pushed it in further on the shelf rather than pulling it out into the deeper trench. Are you sure you haven’t seen any outlying debris?”
Half of the screen looked as though it were a giant aquarium, a large square of dark blue water. Down this far there wasn’t much sunlight filtering through, making everything outside of the halo of light from the ROV look the same ubiquitous blue. There was a silver, shimmering flash as another school of fish darted out of the way of the ROV, a shadow or two of the larger wahoo fish that lingered waiting for prey, and the ever-shifting bottom of the ocean, an unbroken undulating surface that disappeared out of the edges of the ROV light, but little else.
“Barclay, start a sonar sweep on the next section of the grid.”
“Aye, captain.”
She knew they had a lot of equipment aboard, but she hadn’t realized before how high-tech the recovery operation would be. “I bet all this fancy equipment set you back a pretty penny.”
He glanced at her and gave a lazy smile. “Right tool for the job makes all the difference. Most of what’s recovered these days
is in deeper water. You can’t count on scuba diving for it anymore.”
“How’d you get into this?”
He hesitated, his jaw flexing, and she could tell he was holding something back. “Let’s just say I worked my way up the food chain.”
Bella wasn’t surprised he was so tight-lipped about it. Considering how he’d grown up, his level of trusting people was probably on par with her own—next to nothing.
For a while they watched the screen in silence, each of them fixated on finding the one thing out of place that might indicate the direction in which the wreck lay. A solid line of dark dots appeared on the sonar image.
Bella sat forward in her chair. “Hey, what’s that?”
Tucker tapped his mic. “Williams, pinpoint the image on sonar now.”
“Sectors K11 and 12, Captain.”
“Barclay, get me an ROV image of those sectors.”
“Aye, Captain.”
He glanced at her. “You’ve got a good eye.”
“Pfft. Watch a pretty much blank screen long enough, and anything different sticks out like a giant neon sign.”
He cracked a grin. “Guess that’s one way to put it.” He tapped his mic again. “Williams, we have any acoustical images that are clearer of that line?”
“Just a sec.” Bella could hear the click, click, click of keyboard keys. Her palms were growing damp and her heart beating a little harder. Please, please, let it be something, she silently prayed. The sooner they found what they were looking for, the sooner she could restore her and Min’s finances, and the sooner she could get out of the way of temptation in the form of Tucker McCormack.
A grainy image of the shape came up on screen. Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. It was too straight to be a rock formation.
“What’s the ETA on getting an ROV image, Barclay?”
Her Sworn Enemy (Men of the Zodiac) Page 5
