Blue Moon (5 page)

“What happened to your second stateroom?” she asked.

“I converted it to storage, which I needed more than a second pair of beds.”

Leaving the near-empty water glass on the counter, Gabe started down the forward corridor, combing his hair off his face with his hands. As he bound it at the nape of his neck, Jeanne closed the open stateroom door and turned into him, her upturned nose slamming into his breastbone.

“Oh—”

Gabe caught her by the shoulders as she fell back. “Whoa, doc. No traffic lights here, so proceed with caution,” he teased.

Color sufficient to match her shorts outfit climbed to her cheeks as she backed away into the open door of the forward cabin. “It-it's just perfect.” She cleared the nervousness from her throat. “I mean, we don't need staterooms, since we're operating from the base at Punta Azul. And the extra room will be perfect for storing artifacts when we find them.”

“When?” She was confident, Gabe would give her that.

“When,” she replied, jutting a stubborn chin in the air. “‘If ' is not an option.”

Gabe placed a hand over her shoulder, leaning against the bulkhead. “What makes you so certain?”

Shoving her hands in the pockets of her shorts, she examined the unmade bed in the vee of the bow as if the answer were there. When she met Gabe's skeptical appraisal, she decided to just jump in.

“Because a chance like this comes along once in a blue moon, and while it may sound crazy to you”—she took a deep breath—“I know it came from the hand of God.”

Gabe straightened and backed away. “Next I suppose you'll declare yourself to be on a mission.”

“Every day is a mission, Captain,” she told him. “I'd rather think that going after the
Luna Azul
is a leap of faith.”

“More like a calculated risk,” Gabe said with a skeptical snort. “At least to your sponsors.”

Suddenly at ease, Jeanne folded her arms across her chest. A gold cross hung from her neck, catching the light through the porthole as though to jump in the face of the cynicism that had riddled Gabe's thoughts the night before . . . until he'd drunk away the silk of Jeanne's voice whispering over and over in his mind:
We might
find more than a ship. All things are possible.
Given a choice, he'd have opted for that
We are both passionate
comment
.

“And what is this expedition to you, Gabe Avery?”

A smirk pulled at his mouth. “My redemption, golden girl. But not the kind you and your likes are so fond of. It's the redemption of my career as a treasure hunter. It's like you said”—he looked at the cross against her collarbone—“a chance like this comes once in a blue moon, and I'm going to take it all the way to the bank.”

To his surprise, his companion laughed, soothing to the ear and abrasive to the ego. “You might have more faith than you think, Captain.”

With that, she sidled past, brushing against him in the narrow confines. Why Gabe didn't show the doctor just how wrong she was and wipe that I-know-something-that-you-don't grin from her lips with a kiss was beyond him. It's not as if he wasn't tempted, he thought, watching the sway of her retreat and the bounce of her ponytail as she bounded up the companionway to the bridge.

As Gabe reached the galley, Jeanne reappeared in the companionway. “And you're sure you can meet us on the fourteenth of March at Punta Azul?”

Had they discussed a date? Regardless, Gabe nodded. “Aye, aye, doc.”

She grinned, an annoyingly happy show of white against a healthy tan. As Gabe moved toward her, Jeanne held up her hand. “No, no . . . finish your nap. Remy and I can see ourselves off.”

That was the best idea he'd heard all day. Going out into the sunlight again could be the catalyst that blew his head to smithereens. “
Hasta marzo,
then
.
”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Until March, Captain Avery.
Adiós
.”

Gabe heard his visitors' retreating footsteps and felt the slight dip of the
Angel
as they disembarked.

March
.

A deep growl rumbling in his throat, Gabe grabbed the water glass from the counter and emptied it over his head. At least the pain would be gone by then.

CHAPTER FOUR

Two months later, in mid-March . . .

The jungle on either side of the road from the coastal highway leading to Punta Azul seemed poised to swallow it as Genesis's rented Chevy Suburban struck another pothole on the unpaved but hard-packed section of the road—the largest of many since the turnoff.

“And one for the road,” the students in the rear cheered, as the vehicle bounced toward the village coming into view ahead through the jungle-bound tunnel of roadway.

“And the end of civilization as we know it,” Remy sighed at the wheel.

“Not quite, Remy. It'll be like a fun campout in paradise.” Jeanne's stab at seeing the bright side brought a hint of smile to her mentor's face.

“Even so,” he said, “I prefer camping out in a suite at a beachfront Hilton.”

“Man, I can't believe we're here,” Texas A&M senior Stuart Wilson marveled from the rear seat he shared with fellow student Nick Chandos.

“Definitely beats the midterm blues,” Nick chimed in.

Tall, thin, and gangly, with reddish-blond hair, pale blue eyes, and freckles, Stuart was the opposite in build and coloring from his Hispanic-American colleague. Both young men had jumped at the chance to take part in the expedition as volunteer workers for credit toward their degree in nautical archaeology.

“You two just want a chance to play,” Mara Adams piped up from the far rear of the vehicle, where the slim blonde grad student from A&M's Archaeological Preservation and Research Laboratory was packed like a sardine along with luggage and equipment.

Nick turned around, leaning on the cooler wedged between him and Stuart, and wagged a playful finger in her face. “Just remember, Adams, without Stu and me bringing up the artifacts, you geeks at the APRL wouldn't have anything to preserve.”

“Yeah.” Stuart produced a toothy grin. “We're the expedition heroes.”

Shoving her black-framed glasses up on her nose, Mara looked up from the book on Spanish artifacts that she'd been reading on the morning-long drive from Cancún and tucked a strand of straight white-blonde hair behind her ear. “Dream on, Stuart.”

“Now,
whom
does that remind me of?” Remy said under his breath as he slowed to ease around two men, a young one clad in Western shirt and jeans and a much older one in the traditional white jacket and pants, a flat serape folded over his shoulder.

“Me?”

At his nod, Jeanne smiled. She didn't recall being so single-minded in her ambition to get her doctorate, but her brothers probably would've concurred with Remy that she had been. Her zeal had made her the professors' pet—all of them, not just Remy. But Remy was special, despite his pessimistic view of life. He'd gone above and beyond to see her arrive at the right place at the right time.

“Holy moly!” Stuart exclaimed, his glasses pressed to the Suburban's electric window.

“My feelings precisely,” Remy echoed as the road became part of the town's
zócalo
. A scrawny, filthy pig took its time crossing the street that led from the shaded square toward a side street next to the town hall, forcing him to brake. Through the park, where men and women congregated in gender-specific groups, Jeanne saw the time-darkened stone of a large and ancient Catholic cathedral.

On the other side of the Suburban, Remy took a deep breath from one of his assorted inhalers and sprays. As he recapped it and dropped it in the pocket of his tropical-print shirt, he leveled an
I
warned you
look across the hood. “Paradise, eh?”

“Now,
this
is paradise.” Gabe Avery placed a folding deck chair next to the deployment arm that he'd had remounted on his boat at a Cancún dockyard the week after Dr. Jeanne Madison's visit. Bolted to the deck next to the bridge bulkhead was an air compressor. Both had been removed and stored after his last shipwreck venture forced him to give up the quest for gold and take up one that paid off in pounds and dollars—charter fishing.

Taking a seat, Gabe propped his feet up on the stern rail of the
Fallen Angel
and raised a bottle of beer to his lips to offset the heat. Beyond the rise and fall of his chest, glistening with sweat and a combination insect repellant and sun lotion—a basic need for any
gringo
in the tropics—he sat motionless as he watched a heron dip into the turquoise water and emerge with its lunch. Putting the Corona down on the deck, he felt a long wet tongue lap at his hand and the bottle, knocking it over.

“Nemo!” Gabe bolted upright and stamped the spilt liquid into a piece of faded indoor-outdoor carpet, while a large mix of black Lab and who-knew-what-else suckled what still poured from the bottle. “You're too young to drink.”

Gabe knew it was a mistake to take the dog with them, but he'd grown attached to it since the puppy showed up at Marina Garza, half-starved and smelling like a rotten fish from rummaging in garbage. A year old now, Nemo had developed a taste for Corona and anything else he could swallow.

“Manolo'll be back soon with some food . . .
alimento
,” he said, petting the hot fur on the dog's black head. It was a wonder the sun didn't cook its brains, but an old mestizo had once told Gabe that what kept out the cold, kept out the heat too. He grabbed the dog by the ears and wriggled its head. “Thermos-brain,” he teased as he held out his hand. “Gimme your paw, buddy.”

Ears perking, Nemo cocked his head at Gabe, ignoring his hand and wriggling fingers. It was hopeless. Nemo had a mind of his own. He still did what he pleased, when he pleased.

At the end of the rickety dock where a bait shop and market conducted a fair business with the local fishermen and two wooden charter boats, a delivery truck distracted Gabe. When the sport fishing and nature boom spread from the Boca Paila peninsula to Punta Azul, it would ruin the place in Gabe's opinion.

From his vantage, Gabe could see the large thatched roof of the ecolodge, recently replaced after a hurricane caved in the old one. It protruded from the thick green jungle surroundings. The rectangular building, constructed on raised pilings to protect it from a prospective storm surge, contained the office, kitchen, and dining room. A wooden bridge crossing a small pond led to a dozen guest cottages, which were scattered around a central bath and shower house containing facilities for men on one side and women on the other.

Gabe could envision settling down in a place like this, off the beaten path—with a good hot water heater, of course. Maybe—

The
beep
of a horn drew Gabe's attention to the dirt road leading to the village. A dark blue SUV braked for a mother hen and her chicks to scurry into the lush thicket. Loaded inside and out, the Chevy Suburban crossed the cleared lot behind the bait shack and market and headed toward the Las Palapas lodge. The vehicle had hardly come to a stop when its doors swung open, spilling out passengers—on the side facing Gabe, a skinny kid with glasses and Dr. Jeanne Madison.

Clad in khaki shorts, a red tank top, and a baseball cap, the lady PhD stretched the kinks out of what had been a long ride from the northeast, reaching for the treetops and then bending down to touch her toes.

“Now, there's a sight for sore eyes,” Gabe muttered to his tail-wagging companion.

As she straightened, Jeanne placed her hands firmly at her waist and surveyed her surroundings as though ready to take on the world.
And undoubtedly the world would be taken,
Gabe mused, scratching Nemo's head. If there was a snowball's chance in the Yucatán that this gig would pan out, it was definitely with her.

Gabe had done his homework on Dr. Jeanne Madison and Genesis Corporation. She could have been the son
his
parents wanted, an overachiever to whom fate seemed to bow. Not many had a doctorate at the age of twenty-six, and fewer still managed to put together an expedition like this on their first year out. And no one ever got the Mexican government to cooperate fully with her plans in six months.

With a swing of a golden brown ponytail, the subject of Gabe's attention met his gaze with her own. Recognition burst on her face like the sun on the eastern horizon, and Jeanne waved with unbridled enthusiasm.

“Captain Avery!”

Mistaking her excitement as intended for him, Nemo lunged forward before Gabe could stop him, leaping across the short span between the ship and the dock. With a throaty “Woof!” he answered, his big paws thundering down the dried, warped planking landward bound.

Seeing Jeanne's expression waver at the sight of seventy pounds of slobbering flesh intent on an exuberant greeting, Gabe suddenly came to. “Nemo!” he shouted, taking a similar leap for the dock in hot pursuit.