Treasure in the Sand

by Jill Monroe

  “Awwww…how romantic.” Deanna was such a softy, her expression already dreamy and wistful.

  “Maybe it was.”

  Deanna arched a brow. “Are you actually conceding a point that not all romance ends badly?”

  “Well, you haven’t heard the sad end to this story. After the fire, Isabel wore the Le Cœur Surveillé as a signal to him. A true sign of her love.”

  “Didn’t the name of the jewel maybe clue her in that showing off their love might not be such a good idea?”

  Molly shook her head. “The name only came after this next part. The king found out, and that was that.”

  “So manskank can take on any number of hos but the wife can’t have one lover?”

  Molly laughed. “You hung out in the halls of the high school too long—you’re starting to sound like a teen.”

  “Let me guess what happened. The king banned him from court. Married him off. Sent him away.”

  “None of those, in fact, the poet conveniently ended up dead.”

  “That’s terrible. How?”

  “Apparently, just stepping out of a carriage can be very hazardous to your health in the court of King Philip IV. Anyway, Isabel locked the jewel away in a case and she and it officially became the guarded heart.”

  “So sad.”

  “It didn’t show up again for nearly fifty years, but then it was in Colombia. A military officer destined to be governor of Cartagena brought the necklace with him. He planned to give it to his bride when she joined him, but she balked at the port in Spain and the marriage never took place.”

  “Nevermind. Don’t look for it. I’m beginning to think that jewel should remain hidden. Except…” Deanna’s eyes grew a teensy bit calculated. “How much is it worth?”

  “By now? Probably priceless.” And while she’d heard stories of doom surrounding the jewel from her grandparents since she was a little girl, she longed for just a fraction of the money Le Cœur Surveillé could garner to fix up Brecon and keep giving Gram the top-notch therapy she needed.

  Deanna’s mouth hung open for a long moment, then she took another swig of her margarita. “So how did your family get involved?”

  “Like all good stories, what I’m about to tell you is more than likely all lies,” she said with a sigh.

  Deanna shrugged her shoulders. “I worked with teenagers all day. To tell you the truth, with assignments and homework, sorting through lies is what I did most of the day.” Then she winked.

  With a snap of her finger, Molly launched into the rest of the story. “So fast forward to 1714. We’re still dealing with a King Philip, but now it’s the fifth. The jewel as well as chests full of gold were on their way back to Spain from Columbia when bam—hurricane—and all the ships sink.”

  “Bad luck for the king.”

  “Well, the eighteenth century citizens apparently liked to hang his portrait upside down so…maybe he got what he deserved. Anyway, there’s a military officer named Rafael del Olmo, the sole survivor of the shipwreck. Some versions of the story say we’re descended from him, others say a relative sailed a pirate ship and only saved del Olmo from drowning so he would reveal the location of the sunken ships.”

  Deanna laughed. “It’s the pirate one. For sure. You make too good a drink. There has to be rum in your pirate family tree.”

  Molly tapped her margarita glass. “Except now we’ve switched to tequila.”

  “So are you sure there ever was a treasure? Could it all be just some fun fairytale?”

  “I wonder about that myself. Jewels weren’t required to be listed on ship manifests, although to this day, random gold coins will wash up on the beach. Then of course the hurricane churned up a lot of debris, which began this new resurgence in Le Cœur Surveillé. Supposedly someone in my family found the whole treasure, buried it for safekeeping here on this island, and then lost its location.”

  Deanna rubbed the bridge of her nose. “That’s almost too painful to hear. All that money lost.”

  “Like you said, most people on the island don’t believe it ever existed. But according to my grandfather, we’re not the losers of a vast fortune in jewels and gold, but the ones who keep it safe.”

  “I think that’s the version I like best.” With a smile, Deanna drained the rest of her glass.

  “Well, grandpa had a way with spinning a tale.” Molly’s heart warmed as she remembered the kindness of his smile and the love for her and her grandma that had always shown from his green eyes.

  “No desire to find it yourself now that you have a little more motivation and opportunity?”

  Molly shook her head. “If any Waiter would have found the treasure, it would have been my grandfather. He was the only one not obsessed enough to go after it, and the only Waiter in history to be happy. The grove was his passion. Mine, too, which is why people pay me the big bucks to stick prongs in the dirt, dowse the ground with rods and fly over it with radar.”

  “Still the idea of breaking that curse… You have to admit it, it’s kind of romantic.”

  Molly began to laugh. “I think that very thought is how almost every Waiter before me wound up miserable and alone. Besides, I doubt there’s a man worth the risk.”

  * * *

  Cooper Overton should be used to jetlag now. He’d flown around the world too many times to count. Or care at the moment. His career and everything he’d built was about to come tumbling down. Tumbling? More like collapsing under the weight of his own stupidity. And ego.

  The Toasted Pelican wasn’t much, but dive bars were the perfect place to scout the locals and get some intel. But here in the shadows he wasn’t learning a thing. It would take him out of the dark, but maybe he could find out more at the bar. How the owner managed to water down bottled beer, Coop would never know, but the dive had the procedure mastered. He slid a ten across the bar and then tugged his hat low to avoid being recognized. The place wasn’t crowded tonight as he leaned against the counter, two empty stools beside him. Peeling plastic sunblock on the windows couldn’t hide the fading reds and yellows of the setting sun while the Mimosa Key townies drank cheap wine and munched on nachos.

  “Hey, are you that guy?” asked the sultry voice of a woman.

  Cooper fought to hide his cringe. He shook his head. Then brushed a hunk of his brown hair out of his eyes. The crew in hair and makeup would be furious at how scraggly he’d grown.

  But the body belonging to that voice ducked and she met his eyes under the bill of his baseball cap. She bit at the corner of her lip as she examined him in the dim light. He’d played this scenario in any number of taverns that littered the beaches of the gulf. She wore a bright pink bikini top with some kind of swatch of material wrapped low around her hips. Then she hit him with a bright smile. “It is. You are that guy.”

  “No, I—”

  “Kylee, c’mere,” she shouted across the room, grabbing the attention of another bikini topped woman, who sat bored and texting on her phone. Pink Top motioned her friend over. “Come get our picture.”

  “Taylor, what—” Kylee’s eyes brightened. “Hey, you’re that adventure guy from TV. The one who’s always finding stuff.”

  Yep, his life’s work boiled down to…finder of stuff.

  Kylee turned her back, so she’d be included in the picture. She held her phone up and out and gave it a little pout. “Smile.”

  The phone flashed. Within the hour, the photo would appear all over social media. So much for keeping a low profile.

  “Thanks,” Taylor said, not bothering to remove her arm from around his waist. “Let us buy you, and your gorgeous brown eyes a drink. I just love your show. Maybe we could, you know, party.”

  There was an art to turning down a beer, one he hadn’t fully mastered. Usually he came off looking like a dick. Okay, sure he didn’t kick a free drink to the curb often, so not a lot of practice.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk—” Uh, what was her name? “—Taylor?”

  Her lau
gh was throaty and provocative. “And what if I am?” she challenged.

  He flashed her the smile the gang in PR said was his bank. “Sadly, tonight has to be all about work.” He looked from side to side, and then leaned toward the women. “In fact, I’m here on the down low, so that picture you took…”

  Taylor smiled. “Of course. Our secret.”

  And twitter. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Snapchat. Kylee was already working her phone fast and furious. As he’d built his career on social media, Coop guessed it was fitting the Internet would find a way to bring him down.

  His phone buzzed, and he slipped it out of his pocket. Rick. His agent. “’Scuse me,” he said to the ladies. He pressed the button to accept the call. “Hey,” he said, injecting as much humor and excitement as he could muster.

  “Hey? You’ve been off the grid for two weeks and when I finally get you to answer your damn phone—this is the twentieth time I’ve called by the way—all you can say is ‘hey’.”

  “Been busy,” Coop said, taking a swig of the crappy beer.

  “I’m factoring in missed calls into my commission.

  “Coop, how about that beer?” Taylor called.

  Over half a country away and Rick’s disgusted sigh rang through loud and clear. “Hell. Tell me you aren’t partying.”

  “Why would you think I was partying?”

  “Because you’re always partying these days.”

  “Have to keep up the image. You should be thrilled. It’s the one you created, after all.” Cooper downed the rest of his beer, because crappy beer was still beer, and left the empty bottle on the bar with a tip. “Relax. It’s just a restaurant,” he muttered.

  “With a bar. And probably models.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who always says I must be nice to the fans.”

  Coop pointed to his phone, made a regretful face in Kylee and Taylor’s direction and headed for the door. The humid air of Florida smacked him in the face, thick even for the spring. But he’d been in worse. Thrived in worse. Somewhere past this blink and you’ll miss it town was sand, and waves. He followed his nose and aimed his feet in what felt like the right direction.

  “That production assistant made good on his threat.”

  Coop wiped the back of his neck. The beer soured in his stomach as it pitched and rolled. “Damn it.”

  Seven years ago he was just a guy with a camera phone and a blog bumming his way through coastal towns picking up the odd job. After working all day hauling nets and busting his back on a shrimper, the owner of the boat offered him cash or a chance after his hard day’s work. He took the chance. Now he had his own show, a book deal and a line of merchandise with the catch phrase he’d made up and, for some inexplicable reason, had taken off. Was it really all about to come crashing down? Show cancelled? Fame and women and the good times gone? Shit.

  The sound of the waves grew stronger as he walked. “What’s out there?” Coop asked, his voice little more than a growl.

  “Just a few stills of the same artifact discovered twice and one twenty second video of production redoing the shot, but it will only be a matter of time before it’s picked up by some of the bigger media outlets. We can still pay the money.”

  His breath came out in a hiss. “Screw that.”

  In a break of the line of palm trees, Coop spotted sand and cresting waves. Home. He propped his shoulders against the trunk of a tree and let out a sigh. He squinted against the setting sun, as the waves crashed not twenty feet away. This was all he’d ever required. The sound of the surf and the feel of sand beneath his feet. The salty scent of sun-heated ocean air. How had it become such a cluster of handlers and PR and creating the perfect exploit? He liked life messy—not this sanitized and sterile version of living.

  “Cooper, are you listening to me?”

  “It’s TV, man. Sometimes you have to film things twice. To make it perfect.”

  “You can get away with that kind of stuff with the bachelor shows and the cooking stuff but not with The World Overton. Not when they’re squawking words like fake and fraud.”

  “It’s reality TV. C’mon. No one thinks it’s real just because it’s called reality.”

  “Do yourself a favor and don’t get into writing. That line is horrible.”

  He never should have let his indifference creep into the show. Coop used to oversee every single part of the production. Mr. Micromanagement they called him. He’d allowed press junkets and marketing to take over time. He’d grown sloppy. Glossed over shortcuts.

  “What’s the thing that PR guy is always saying? Give them something to tweet about? Let them speculate on my partying. Or my women. I’ll take one for the team.”

  “Coop, it’s serious this time. You can’t smile and sweet-talk your way out of this. The execs need someone to blame for the breakdown of the show and you’re the big target. Your likeability factor is in the basement.”

  “I’m likeable, damn it.”

  “Your persona is likeable. You, my friend, are not. You’re what they call driven. People will excuse you griping out an intern on TV when it’s over something like safety or preserving a relic. But the public won’t stand for it when you’ve lost your credibility.”

  “You mean asshole.”

  “And an asshole who no one believes is the worst, but I have a plan. The corporate honchos must have a scapegoat. We give them someone to blame for the reshoots and the mistakes. A fall guy that is not you.”

  Unease twisted in his gut. “That’s just too skeevy. Even for me.”

  “Coop, it’s the nature of the business. Someone always has to take the fall, and you do whatever is necessary to make sure it’s not you.”

  “Call it Plan B, but I may just have an ace up my sleeve.”

  Rick gave him a theatrical groan. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Ever heard of Le Cœur Surveillé?”

  “No, should I?”

  “It’s an obscure legend about a necklace once worn by Queen Elizabeth. The first one,” he clarified. “Although some doubt it even existed. There’s no portraits where she wears it and some wonder if several stories have been wove—”

  “Coop, we’ve talked about these historical tangents you go on. Save it for the show.”

  Cooper smiled and gripped the phone. His pulse began to race. “I’m taking it, and I’m doing it old school. With just my phone and my blog. The way I found my first sunken ship.”

  “Could work. But we don’t have the time.”

  “A week.”

  “Fine. Do whatever. No, strike that. Do whatever, but no women.”

  Chapter Two

  Cooper followed the directions of his rental’s GPS to the residence of the last known Waiter. GPS? When had he grown so soft? He’d found the San Santos using a copy of a two hundred year old map he’d scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin.

  He caught his first sight of Brecon, and whistled between his teeth. Damn. The hurricane had done a number on this place. Uprooted trees were all that remained of…hell, he had no idea what the large clearing used to be. No one had bothered to remove the leaves and other debris left by the receding waters. Coop parked on the gravel drive leading to the cottage. Hope, and a whole lot of prayers, was probably the only thing holding together that house. Most of the railings that surrounded the wraparound porch must have been ripped off in the storm and boards still covered the windows. A light shone above the door. At least that was new, cheap but sturdy, so some poor soul still lived here.

  All the better for his plan.

  He glanced down at his quickly scrawled notes he’d tossed on the leather seat of his rented Aston Martin. He’d managed to learn only a few details. Joel Waiter. Last known caretaker of the map. Deceased. Abigail Waiter—widow. Sole occupant on the property.

  Well, Abigail Waiter, I’m about to change your life. You’re welcome.

  Mrs. Waiter possessed the map that would lead Cooper to the location of Le Cœur Surveillé.

>   According to some, they were the guardians of the priceless jewel—a noble and self-sacrificing clan destined to protect the treasure since it carried not only a curse but also a hefty dose of bad luck. But Cooper could guess the real story. No one was so altruistic. Somewhere along the line, some fortuitous ancestor had lucked upon the jewel only to lose it and the rest of the fortune. Otherwise the necklace would be out on the market and the Waiter family wouldn’t be living in this dump. No, they possessed nothing more than a useless piece of old, crumbling paper.

  Just not useless to him.

  Going by the state of this crappy place, he’d bet Abigail Waiter would take the money he offered, shove the map in his hand and never look back.

  A screen door slammed against the side of the house, and a woman walked out into the waning sunlight. She didn’t waste time, turning to her left and walking down a path without ever spotting him. Legs. He’d never considered himself a leg man—he loved all the beautiful and amazing parts of a woman equally—but this woman’s legs were stunning. Lean and lightly tanned, even in April, they drew his eyes for a second look. And a third. Supple and caressable thighs perfect for hiking around his hips.

  Wait. He glanced down at his notes again. By his records, Abigail was somewhere in her seventies. Who the hell was this? Someone trying to swindle the map out of a defenseless old lady?

  Aren’t I trying to swindle the map from a defenseless old lady?

  Hell no. He was offering money. Like a gentleman.

  “Back off, Legs,” he muttered. “No one’s getting a hold of that map but me.”

  The car alert dinged when he swung open the door and stood, but the woman in front of him was too far up the path to hear the sound. Gravel crunched under his feet as he stepped toward her. He moved in her direction, only pausing outside the screen door where Legs had emerged. Soft lamplight lit a sparsely furnished room boasting only a folding chair and computer propped up on a milk crate. But no sign of the elderly Abigail Waiter.