Treasure

by Helen Brenna

  Jake brought another forkful to his mouth and glanced around the table. It probably couldn’t hurt anything at this point, and it might help in locating the wreck tomorrow. “I’m sure you’ve all been guessing it, so I might as well confirm it. We’re here to find the Concha.”

  “I knew it.” Ronny’s face turned blotchy. “You’ve done some pretty stupid things in the past, all bent on finding the mother lode. What makes you think it’s this far from where we found the rest of its flotilla?”

  “Annie has some…research supporting her theory.” Jake bit a hunk of sausage off the end of his fork.

  “Doesn’t that take the cake?” D.W. smiled at Annie. “Sorry, sport, but I don’t think the Bahamas makes any sense.”

  All eyes turned toward her. She stuffed her mouth full of pasta, making it clear she was either unwilling or unable to add anything.

  “I say we head back to Miami.” Ronny tossed his fork onto his empty plate. “What about you, Simon?”

  Simon glanced up, a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face.

  Ronny leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “The storm’ll be here in a day, maybe two if we’re lucky. We should stay ahead of the weather.”

  “Last time I checked, I was captain of the Mañana,” Jake said quietly.

  “Look, Jake. I don’t want any trouble.” Ronny held out his hands. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk based on nothing more than some hoity-toity resear—”

  “Ten years ago,” Annie interrupted, her voice cracking, “my parents found the Concha, right here off the coast of Andros. They died in a diving accident before they were able to salvage any part of it.”

  Only stunned silence met that statement.

  Jake glared at Ronny and said, “Mike and Lucy Miller. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”

  “No shit?” D.W.’s eyebrows arched upward.

  “I remember reading about that accident. Jake, your parents went to their funeral.” Claire reached across the table and covered Annie’s hand with her own. “I’m so sorry, Annie.”

  “How do you know it was the Concha?” Ronny wasn’t letting it go.

  D.W. and Simon waited expectantly. Even Claire seemed intent for an answer.

  “None of your business.” Jake dropped his fork on his empty plate. Though his own questions came back to haunt him after the fruitless day of diving, it didn’t sit right listening to Ronny give Annie the third degree. “The Concha’s here at Andros. We’re staying. End of discussion. Whose turn is it for cleanup?”

  “Yours.” Ronny glared at him.

  “Fine.” Jake pushed away from the table. “Unless you want to do your own dishes, finish up and get out of here.”

  In a matter of minutes, Jake was alone in the galley. The crew hightailed it below deck. Smart crew. Right now, he needed to feel alone on his boat. Closing himself off in his cabin wouldn’t have cut it. Not tonight.

  He turned off the radio to wash the dishes in total silence. Damn, but he was sick of this boat. Thirty-five years old and he’d never before tired of being on the water. Tonight, he would have given about anything to be back in Miami, alone in his own house, stretched out on his cushy sectional couch, a glass of red wine in one hand, the remote control in the other and a game on his big-screen TV. He missed sleeping in his king-size bed, reading the morning paper on his deck with the incredible view of the Atlantic crashing onto his beach and the simple task of driving in his car.

  Having Annie along for the ride held a definite appeal. He could see himself holding her hand, see her tucked in front of him on the couch, spoon style, see her quite clearly in his bed. But what would happen when it was time for him to head back out on the water? Where would that leave her?

  He was beginning to really hate this life.

  After finishing with the dishes, he flipped off the Mañana’s running lights and all the lights in the galley, except for a small one above the sink, and stepped out onto the stern deck into near total darkness. Cloud cover kept the moon and stars from illuminating the nighttime water. The boat hung, suspended, on a wavy carpet of black. He walked to the rear rail and reached for the set of binoculars in the under-seat storage compartment. Up one side and down the other, he searched the west side of Andros for Westburne. Nothing.

  Westburne had obviously switched off his running lights, too, but he was out there. Jake had seen him first thing this morning before he’d hit the water. By day’s end Westburne had moved a little closer. Jake lowered the binoculars an inch or so and closed his eyes, letting the wind buffet his face. Something was on the air, something he hadn’t noticed when he’d first stepped outside.

  Annie. On deck. Whether it was the scent of her on the evening breeze or the soft hush of her breath some part of him sensed, he couldn’t say for sure. There was no denying the way his body reacted to her presence. His skin turned sensitive, expectant. His hands suddenly felt oddly empty. Nothing that holding her close wouldn’t fix.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Behind you.”

  He found her stretched out on a bench seat, the faint light from the galley casting a silvery sheen on one long bare leg.

  Nodding at the binoculars in his hand, she asked, “Looking for Westburne?”

  Funny, everyone else on board knew better than to engage him on a night like this.

  He nodded. “Wanted to know if he’d moved again. See what he’s up to tonight.”

  “He’s trying to find the Concha before we do.”

  The water swirled below him not unlike the desperate questions once again swirling in his mind. What if the Concha’s not at Andros? Or worse, what if I don’t care?

  As if sensing his doubts, she dropped her feet on the deck. “You don’t think it’s here, either, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “You’re the only person in the world who knows I have the cross.” She stood and confronted him. “You, of all people, should believe me.”

  Though he could see only the right side of her face, he could have traced every inch of her from memory. The idea of it incensed him, this ability she had to take him off task. He latched on to the anger, fueling it with any fodder he could find. Hadn’t she callously used him to bring the Santidad Cross back, believing there was no treasure? What if there was more to her game?

  “Why? Why should I believe you?” he asked. “First off, you hid your true identity. Next, you faked research to get us to come here. And, finally, you kept the fact that you had the Santidad Cross to yourself. Do you have any more secrets you need to get off your chest?”

  “I don’t blame you for doubting me,” she said, “but I’ve told you everything there is to tell. We found the cross and the Concha’s main cargo hold here at Andros. I may… In fact, I’m sure I have the wrong site. We might have been out farther, or in farther, I don’t know. It was a long time ago. It’s hard to remember the exact angle and distance from the island.”

  “Ten years ago, and you were in a state of panic. You admitted so yourself. How do you know for sure you were at Andros? How do you know you weren’t at another island in the Bahamas, maybe Great Abaco, or Mayaguana? They all start to look the same after a while.”

  “I was in a panic after they died. I couldn’t tell you what hotel I stayed at, or what island the fishermen brought me to after they’d found me. But I was at Andros with my parents diving that site for several days before they died. I knew where we were. You have to believe me.”

  Her pain and frustration were palpable. He didn’t like causing the feelings any more than he didn’t like being able to soothe them away. One touch of his hand and, like him, she’d forget all about the Concha and the Santidad Cross. For her own good, he had to get her off this boat, away from him.

  He didn’t need Annie to find the Concha. The best thing to do would be to come back with the other boats and survey the area, dragging magnetometric meters several feet below the surface. If there was anyth
ing here to be found, he’d find it. Without Annie.

  “Tomorrow we’d better find the Concha site. Or you’re going back to Miami.”

  “You said you’d give me two weeks. Why are you doing this?”

  Because she felt perfect in his arms. Too perfect. And he didn’t trust himself to do the right thing. To let her go.

  “Make no mistakes, Annie. I want the Concha.” He brushed past her toward his cabin. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  CLAIRE WRAPPED a towel around her dripping hair and stepped out of the head. When she bumped into someone in the dark hall, sure hands reached out to steady her. “Sorry,” she whispered. By the dim streak of moonlight filtering from the upper deck, she could barely make out D.W.’s face.

  He bent toward her and took a deep breath. “I love the way you smell when you come out of a shower. Or when you come up from a dive. Or in the morning, when your hair’s all ruffled from sleep.” He smiled. “Guess I just like the way you smell. Any old time.”

  She’d moved closer, missing him. Since their revelations in her cabin, he’d withdrawn, not to the degree that anyone else on board would have cared, but enough so that she’d noticed.

  “Can you come into my cabin and talk?” Tentatively, she reached for his hand.

  He drew back. “No.”

  She grabbed his hand again and fiddled with his fingers. “I don’t want to lose you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “I said I’d wait, and I meant it.” He withdrew his hand. “But on the sidelines. You drag me out onto the field, and I’ll want to play the whole game. A couple quarters won’t cut it.”

  “I miss you. Can’t we just talk?”

  “Claire, honey, we know each other better than most married couples. Talking’s not enough anymore.” He took her hand and spread it against his chest, laid his own hand over hers and held her there. “Do you feel that? Do you feel what you do to me?” His chest rose and fell with fast, shallow breaths. His heat, bone-deep and satisfying, emanated through her hand. It was feeling his heart thudding that gave her pause. “There’s only one thing left for us to do,” he whispered.

  “Let’s do it.” She pulled him toward her door. “If that’s what you want, let’s go. Right now.” When she stepped into her cabin, he wouldn’t budge from the hall.

  “You sure? You’re ready?”

  She tugged a little harder and then dropped his hand. Embarrassed and humiliated, emotion tightened her throat.

  “I didn’t think so.” D.W. smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. He curled a finger around the chain at her neck, brushing the back of his hand against her skin. “I miss him, too.”

  “I know.”

  “Bet there’s one thing you didn’t know.”

  She looked up.

  “Sam knew I loved you.”

  “You told him?”

  “Didn’t have to.”

  “He never got mad? Jealous?”

  “Oh, I think he did a couple times.” D.W. shook his head. “More than anything I think he understood exactly how I felt.” He turned away. “And he trusted me. Though sometimes I wish he hadn’t. Sometimes I wish he’d been an asshole about it. I might have told you about my feelings, tried getting between you two.”

  “Sam was never an asshole.”

  “No, he wasn’t. In fact, one day, years ago, he said to me…I can still hear his voice, deep and slow…‘If she wants you, it’ll break my heart, but I won’t stand in her way.’”

  “He said that?” D.W. nodded. He dropped Sam’s chain and let it fall back into place around her neck. Before he walked away, he said, “Don’t put Sam where he wouldn’t want to be, Claire.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SUNNY DAYS WERE OVER. Annie had only one day to finish what she’d started, and unlike the previous mornings, this one dawned with ominous clouds filling the sky, foretelling heavy rains. But while the edge of the tropical storm system was upon the Mañana and its crew, a personal storm surrounded Annie as she came to grips with Jake’s parting comments the night before.

  I want the Concha. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  The fact that the demons driving him happened to be the shadows of a younger brother and a father didn’t change a thing. She’d still never known a man more bent on attaining a goal. Well, maybe she’d known one, but he was more than bent. He was dead. She had to do this. Alone.

  Right after shoveling breakfast down her throat, Annie left a curious crew in the galley and stomped a determined beat to the helm. A few large drops spattered her wetsuit along the way. She ignored them, flipped on the control systems, started the engine and pulled up the anchors. Squeezing the helm between her palms, she took a deep breath. The Mañana was a big boat, bigger than any her parents had owned, bigger than any she’d ever navigated, but it would all come back to her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Jake appeared in the doorway, his jaw set and his eyes flashing darkly.

  “Finding the Concha.” Annie moved the throttle forward. She turned the helm too quickly and had to shift her legs to compensate.

  “I hope you have a spare couple million in your bank account,” he said. “You break it, you bought it.” Barefooted, in a white T-shirt and black swim trunks, he leaned casually against the door frame looking sexy as ever.

  Doing her best to ignore him, she directed the Mañana about a quarter mile west and concentrated on the Andros shoreline. She studied the look of the land, how it dipped in and out of the lagoon. The placement of tiny islands and sandbars. The curve of shoreline. The steeply banked slopes of Morgan’s Bluff in the distance.

  Standing at the helm, she sifted through all of it, combining it, shuffling it, comparing it, until what she was seeing finally matched one frame in her memory. This was close. It was worth checking out. She dropped the anchors, brushed past Jake and stalked to the stern. While the crew stood by watching, she strapped on her diving equipment. Jake followed suit.

  “I don’t need you down there with me,” she said.

  “No diving alone.”

  “I’ll be back in five minutes.” She fell into the water before Jake was fully equipped.

  After a quick look below, she realized she’d brought them too far in on the reef because the water was too shallow. Before Jake could dive in, she surfaced and climbed aboard.

  Everyone kept their distance and watched her. Except Jake. Dive-ready, he sat calmly on a bench adjusting his wrist monitor.

  “This isn’t it.” She blew dripping water from her lips, took off again for the helm and clamped down on the panic rising in her throat. One day was enough to find it. It had to be.

  “What did you do to her?” she heard Claire say on her way toward the bow.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jake mumbled. “She knows where the Concha is, and she’s going to find it.”

  She restarted the engine, moved another hundred yards east and fifty feet farther out to sea, and dove in to check the site. That spot didn’t look right, either. Still too shallow. After two more unsuccessful attempts, the entire crew took to waiting on the benches, eying her speculatively. She headed for the helm.

  From the periphery, she saw Claire stand. “Someone’s got to stop her.”

  “Leave her alone,” Jake ordered.

  “We’re supposed to find the Concha with her leading the way?” Ronny’s voice carried after her. “She’s crazy.”

  “Shut your—” She didn’t hear the rest of what Jake said above the rumble of the engine. As she was taking them farther out, he came to the helm doorway again. “Enough, Annie.”

  “You want your precious Concha. You’re going to get it.”

  “This isn’t the way to go about it.”

  “It is if you have only one day.” She tried glaring at him. Instead, the hurt squirmed its way outward to play with her growing sense of panic, most likely spoiling the effect.

  “I acted like an ass last night. I’m sorry.” He stared straight into her ey
es for one long moment. “You should want off this boat. You should want to get away from me.”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do? We find that wreck site and I’m out of here.”

  He looked tired, worn out. “Fine. If you really want it, you’ve got your two weeks back. Now stop the boat, and take a good look at where we are.”

  She stiffened. “Why should I?”

  He reached around her, cut the engine and dropped the anchor. “Because if you keep at it like this, you might get hurt. Believe it or not, I don’t want that to happen. I’m trying to do what’s best for you. Get that?”

  She stubbornly refused to analyze what he’d said. Looking away, she studied the shoreline. The trees looked right. The jagged inlet to the west seemed familiar. A sick, nauseous feeling replaced the panic in the pit of her stomach. This was close to where she and her parents had been anchored. Close to where they’d died. “This is good,” she whispered.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She pushed past him and dropped into the water. The familiarity of the site struck an eerie chord. She headed for the ocean floor and studied the layout. After only a moment, a particularly straight line of coral captured her attention. She swam the few feet toward it and hesitated before reaching out and brushing away the thin layer of sand.

  A matchlock musket. Furiously, she pushed and brushed, dug and eased. She didn’t know how her parents had missed it, but they did. This was it! She clutched its metal barrel and swam triumphantly toward the surface.

  “I found it!” she exclaimed, holding the gun high above her head and swimming as fast as her flippers would carry her toward the boat.

  Jake took the musket from her and handed it behind him before helping her aboard. The barest hint of a smile curved the corners of his mouth, but it was the look of relief in his eyes that captured her attention. “Congratulations.”

  Excitement, heady and contagious, coursed through her, like when she’d been a kid. Everyone grew animated, even Simon. They couldn’t get their gear on quickly enough.