Vortex (Cutter Cay)

by Cherry Adair

  Overreaction?

  Fear?

  Jesus. Was she afraid of him? What the hell had happened to her to make her react this way?

  Her hair was a sexy tangled mess from his fingers, her cheeks flushed. The peaks of her erect nipples showed clearly beneath the thin gray cotton of her T-shirt, which was hiked up beneath her breasts, the fabric twisted.

  She looked down at him with dark, flashing eyes. “I told you. I appreciate your hospitality for letting me stay on board, but I won’t pay you back with benefits.”

  She yanked the bottom of her shirt down over her midriff, but not before Logan saw the three-inch scar on the velvety, vulnerable skin just below her navel. His gut went cold. The thin red line was recent. Not as recent as yesterday, however. Had she been in a car accident? Surgery? Could be a burn, or a bad scrape …

  He cupped the back of his head with both hands to keep himself from reaching for her. The temptation to haul her back into his arms, to cradle her, to stroke her and pet her, was ridiculous.

  Like encouraging a porcupine to sit on his balls.

  “Did you completely make up the story about the guy on the fancy ship mauling you,” he asked conversationally, “or was that fact?” Because if it was fact, he was going to find the son of a bitch and swab the deck with his dick.

  “There’s always a mauler on a fancy ship to contend with,” she said sweetly. “It wasn’t that much of a stretch. Do you want Malcolm to stay with you, or can he come to bed with me?”

  The dog made a low rumbling noise in his chest, as if to disagree with that name too. She glanced down. “Sorry, boy. Did I hurt you?”

  “He’s fine. To err is human, to forgive, canine.” She didn’t crack a smile. “Dog needs to take his evening constitutional. I’ll bring him to your cabin when I turn in.”

  * * *

  Logan saw no point in wasting time. He roused Jed before dawn and they took the chopper to Punta de Bombon, stopping briefly to refuel en route. Upon arrival, they chartered a boat and headed out to the site indicated by the emerald map. En route, he called Wes to tell him that the team could have an extra day of R&R in Lima. Jed overheard him and raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re getting soft.”

  Logan shrugged. “If this turns out to be the right place, they’re not going ashore for a long time. May as well let them stay in Lima, instead of coming back to the Wolf to sift more sand.”

  It was Jed’s turn to shrug. “We’ll see. What about Annie?”

  “What about Annie?”

  “She’s going to wake up and find us gone.”

  “I left her a note.”

  “But—”

  “Are we there yet?” The subject was closed.

  “Almost. Get out the fish.”

  The fish was actually a metal detector on a long line. Logan got it set up and they dragged it back and forth across the area, looking for hits. It was a painstaking process, but one they were both accustomed to; they knew how to wait. This time, it paid off. There was definitely something below them. A something large enough to be the La Daniela or one of the other gunships. The map had been off by several miles, but considering the location and the centuries of tides and winds that had passed, that was literally a drop in the ocean.

  Logan called Piet and told him that the dive team was spending the extra day in Lima, and to get ready to move. No way that he was giving any details via a cell phone; the signal was too easy to intercept, something he’d learned the hard way. He resisted the urge to ask about Annie, said he’d be back that night, and rang off. Whereupon he had to deal with some uncomfortable facts.

  Logan knew he’d never have found the frigate without the bowl. And never would’ve known what the bowl was telling him, without Annie.

  And, he reluctantly acknowledged, her imbecile cousins.

  When he returned that night, Logan holed up in his office, making calls and sorting out paperwork. He wanted every i dotted and t crossed. He still had a business to run.

  Family first. His youngest brother Zane was planning an island wedding to Teal. No surprise. But they wanted to get married as soon as possible because Sam, Teal’s father, was seriously ill.

  Fortunately, Sam seemed to have a new lease on life since Teal had come back to Cutter Cay, and right now he was doing great. Zane and Teal wanted her father to walk her down the aisle. A fine sentiment, Logan thought. He liked both of them, and he was happy to see Zane relaxed and happy, and not trying so damned hard. Teal, well, Teal was practically his little sister anyway. She’d grown up among the Cutter boys, so he was glad to have her back in the family again.

  Nick had landed himself a princess, and added a new brother to the mix. The whole dynamic of the family was about to change. Logan wasn’t sure he liked it, but change, like shit, happened. He’d roll with it.

  Speaking of shit happening, he put in a call to Nick to fill him in on the amusing message he’d gotten from the company’s insurance agent, who’d heard about Nick blasting his own ship to hell. The man was only amused, Logan was sure, because his company didn’t have to foot the bill for a new ship. The “friends” Nick had been helping had deep pockets, and they were the ones paying to replace the Scorpion. It was a good story, though.

  * * *

  Daniela woke up to the sound of Dog scratching at the door. She looked at him blearily for a moment, then realized that he needed to get out of the cabin.

  “Give me a second, Dog.”

  She got up, let him out, and headed for the bathroom, stretching and yawning. She woke up in a hurry when she saw that a note had been taped to the bathroom mirror.

  “What the—?”

  It was from Logan. Short, to the point. He and Jed were checking out the site, he’d be back by night, she was to relax.

  Well, gee, thanks, buddy. And how the hell had he put that note in there without her knowing? She’d have a word with Dog later, the turncoat.

  So, what was she going to do all day? It suddenly struck her that it had been entirely too long since she’d been able to answer that question with a firm “Nothing.” Not only was she beyond Victor’s reach for the moment, she didn’t have to worry about keeping her guard up around Logan. Those blue eyes saw far too much, and she didn’t mind having a break from being observed so closely.

  She yawned again. She could even go back to bed. And the more she thought about it, and the more she relaxed (although part of her rebelled against following Logan’s order to relax), the more tired she got. She’d been in constant motion for what seemed forever, and this was the first time she’d stood still long enough for everything to catch up with her. The bunk looked like heaven.

  Six hours later, she woke up, went to the galley and got a bite to eat, and then sacked out again. As she drifted off to sleep, she decided she could get used to this life.

  * * *

  Logan stood at the rail near the dive platform, the noonday sun hot on his shoulders, the cloudless sky a brilliant robin’s egg blue reflecting in the gentle swell on the smooth surface of the water. A good dive day. Although he and his team considered just about every day a great dive day.

  Yesterday would have been a good day for diving, too, but they’d had to be patient as the Sea Wolf made its way down to the new site. After they’d gotten back from Lima, early in the morning, the crew had passed the time checking, cleaning, and fine-tuning their gear, getting ready for the next series of dives. To Logan’s surprise, Annie had spent most of the day in her cabin, sleeping, coming out only for a light meal midday. The bruise on her forehead was healing, turning some fabulous colors, and he realized that her sudden exhaustion was most likely a delayed reaction to all of the trauma she’d been through. Just as well, he thought; one less distraction, and he had Dog’s undivided attention again. Fickle beast.

  Morale was high, anticipation thrumming through the entire ship, dive team and crew alike. Everyone eager to grab their piece of the pie.

  He shaded his eyes and looked out
over the water for signs of his nemesis, Rydell Case’s Sea Dragon, and/or the mysterious redheaded owner of the Sea Witch. They were each, in their own way, a pain in his ass. All he saw in every direction was sparkling blue water with an occasional whitecap.

  Sea Witch had put in her two cents in the last few months with both Nick and Zane. It was his turn next, he was sure. Logan was surprised the redhead hadn’t already shown up on his dive. He suspected as soon as she found out he’d changed locations, she’d be on him like white on rice. Everyone on board knew to look out for her small, sleek black boat. Woman had sticky fingers, and a liking for the small and sparkly.

  Although she’d made off with some prize museum-quality pieces over the years, she was more a yippy dog than a real menace. Still, over the years she’d swiped some valuable treasures from under his family’s noses. If she became more of an issue, Logan would find a way to force her to back off.

  Rydell Case, however, was a different matter. While not particularly confrontational, Logan would like it a hell of a lot more if he knew what the fuck Case’s problem with him was. Unlike the Sea Bitch, who didn’t play favorites with who she stole from, and who she annoyed, Case targeted the company, not each of the brothers specifically. If it was a Cutter Salvage dive, he muscled in to take what he wanted. And damn it to hell, the man wanted it all.

  Not only had Case stolen multimillions of dollars, he’d interfered with investors and the public perception of Cutter Salvage. When he came poaching, he adhered to the one-mile rule—staying within the proximity of the legal limit, barely. It was his frequent challenges of Cutter’s salvage rights and/or ownership rights that tangled them up in lengthy legal battles, tying up several locations, in some cases for years.

  Over the last ten years, Cutter Salvage had spent a fortune in legal fees and exorbitant amounts of money paying publicists to keep shit out of the paper. The irony was, Case was so fucking clever, the stories he planted were mostly true, but so twisted, so diabolical, that even Logan sometimes had trouble sorting fact from thinly veiled fiction.

  They’d taken Case to court five times. Cutter Salvage had won three, Case two. The legal fees alone were in the multimillions. Logan was throwing enough money at the South African lawyers to ensure he won that skirmish, too.

  Case hated Cutter Salvage, and it seemed damned personal to Logan and his brothers. And because of his actions over the years, Logan disliked him right back.

  Logan had been raised on lies and chaos. Now he liked everything planned and organized, be that paperwork or people. Of course, life rarely cooperated, but he tried to foresee some of those bumps along the way like a good tactician or savvy chess player.

  That Case would normally show up on this dive like a bad penny was a given. Logan expected it. Even more so, now that they were turned around and headed south. Too bad Case was tied up in the legal system a world away.

  Not prone to flights of fancy, Logan still had a positive feeling about finding his treasure now. His heartbeat accelerated with anticipation, all his senses attuned to the water and the slap and slosh of the wavelets frothing against the hull. At his side, Dog yipped at a seagull wheeling overhead.

  “She kick you out of the kitchen? Or did you get confused with all the names?”

  Dog glanced at the dive platform, and back up at him.

  “You don’t give a shit what anyone calls you as long as you get to go in the water, right?” Dog’s tail waved frantically. “Go get your vest then.”

  Dog bounded off in the direction of the platform, tail and tongue waving.

  “Hey, Wolf?! You coming or not?” Jed yelled, already suited up and waiting below on the dive platform. He unhooked Dog’s vest and lifeline from the equipment rack and started getting him set up to swim. Hard to do when Dog’s entire body wagged with anticipation.

  “Yeah. Give me a minute.” He breathed in deeply of the hot, salt-tangy air. Ahh. This was the life. Salt. Sun. Sea. The anticipation was almost—almost—as thrilling as the actual score. He wanted just a few more minutes to savor the thrill. For these few minutes he could picture the treasure waiting for them beneath the hull. He could almost feel the cool glide of the gold and silver against his skin.

  That feeling never got old. He remembered having had the same sense of excitement when his father had taken all three of the boys out for their first salvage dive, years before. They were all sure they’d find something immediately; it was just a matter of who’d score first. That bond of joyful competition was still part of their lives; nothing beat going back to Cutter Cay with a hold full of treasure and a head full of stories to tell. For a moment, he was hit with a wave of missing his brothers. Maybe Jed was right; he was getting soft.

  Zane and Nick seemed to have found their feet, and Logan would be glad to see the shadows chased from their eyes. He wanted them to be happy, to move away from who and what their dickhead of a father had been and realize that who they were had little to do with the man who’d fathered them.

  His brothers were the most important people in his life. They always would be. He’d always wanted his brothers to find love, and peace, and a happiness that had never seemed attainable as they got older, no matter how fast they danced around it.

  Logan was grateful he hadn’t been destroyed on any level by his father’s actions. His lie-dar had been fully operational from an early age. What you knew, however unpalatable, couldn’t hurt you. His brothers hadn’t known the half of it, and they’d both, in their own ways, been altered by the experiences.

  Having a spare brother had come as no surprise to him. His father never had been able to keep his dick in his pants. Logan was fully prepared to accept Jonah, if the guy turned out to be telling the truth—that he’d only kept his identity hidden out of fear that the family wouldn’t accept him. Of course, he’d still put Jonah through hell for the lies he’d perpetrated on a too-trusting Nick.

  Seemed as though his zero-tolerance policy for liars was two for two.

  “Jesus, that is one scary look on your face,” Jed said, coming up beside him. He was clearly impatient to dive. “Someone piss you off?”

  Logan took his dark glasses out of his front pocket and put them on. “Just thinking what kind of initiation I can put my newly acquired brother through before I welcome him to the family.”

  “Sounds like a decent enough guy.” Jed looked out over the water, his too-long sun-streaked hair drifting around his shoulders in the breeze. “Are we diving soon, or are you going to stand here and solve the world’s problems for the foreseeable future? Dog’s getting hot in his vest.”

  Logan pushed off the rail, then gave his friend a look over the top of his sunglasses. “You aren’t another long-lost brother, are you?”

  Jed laughed. “If my mother had ever met your father, she would’ve clocked him with a cast-iron skillet while he wasn’t looking. And my dad would’ve helped her bury his body.”

  “What I thought.” Logan grinned. He enjoyed Jed’s folks, and they’d traveled with them a dozen times over the years. “Let’s go find ourselves a fortune in gold and emeralds, my man.”

  “God. I thought you’d never ask.”

  They jumped down the short ladder to reach the dive platform, and Jed waited while Logan suited up. Dog lay in a patch of shade, his paws bracketing his water bowl as if someone was going to confiscate it. The minute he saw that Logan was getting ready, his tail beat a tattoo on the deck. But he was smart enough to stay put, knowing he wasn’t allowed in the water until he was attached to a line.

  “Where’s your mermaid this morning?”

  His chef had reported earlier that Annie had shown up right after breakfast, ready to work. “Galley, helping Hipolito with lunch, apparently.” Logan plunked his weight belt on the deck and stepped over it, then bent down, raising it to his hips and securing it.

  “The woman looks like that and she can cook? Holy shit, Cutter. Marry her!”

  Logan double-checked his tank valve, then strapped
it to his buoyancy compensator and hooked his regulator to the tank without commenting on Jed’s matrimonial advice. He’d long since realized that it was unlikely he’d ever marry. Wasn’t as though he hadn’t thought about it once in a while over the years. But … marriage wasn’t a situation he wanted to deal with. The occasional attractive woman as a bed partner when it suited him, his fist when it didn’t, and a contented life doing what he loved was enough. He liked no one rocking his boat. “I have no idea if she can boil water or not. We’ll see.”

  Logan pulled up the BC, flipped it over his head, and secured the straps into place over his chest. The others, as eager as he and Jed were, came out to hang out under the awning and wait their turn.

  She’d been spooked the other night, and while he didn’t think every woman he made a pass at should fall into his lap—although that was exactly what she’d done—Logan suspected Annie’s issues went far deeper than an innocuous kiss.

  He walked to the edge of the platform, Jed and Dog beside him. “Hey, Galt, keep an eye on Dog—we’re going in.” He turned to his friend. “Ready?”

  Six

  Much as she had needed that lengthy break, Daniela discovered she wasn’t cut out for lazing around day after day. She was used to working long hours. The gallery kept her running from morning to late at night. The concept of leisure time had been appealing, until she found herself bored out of her mind. Worrying, fretting, and anticipating the worst should be a full-time job. But right now she needed to get her mind off what she couldn’t fix.

  Hipolito had put her to work when she introduced herself and reported for duty in the galley. A small Mexican man with a shock of black hair and a boxer’s nose, Logan’s chef welcomed another pair of hands—or so he said—and immediately gave her rapid-fire instructions.

  He was almost as wide as he was tall, but he moved with the grace of a dancer, keeping time to the salsa music in the background as he moved about the state-of-the-art stainless steel kitchen, a spotless white apron tied around his ample middle. Humming tunelessly under his breath, he was constantly in motion.