Real Men Do It Better (33 page)

Jock nodded. “He’s got a point. You used to love diving.”

“I’m out of practice.”

“But you’re in good physical shape. It’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget how to dive and Duncan will look after you.”

That’s exactly what she was afraid of.

“Just think of it, Annie. How proud your folks would be if you found her. Just imagine. The Siren’s Call. At long last.”

“But look at the map again. See where the underground cave is located?”

Jock took a second look. “Dead Man’s Island.”

“Right. You know how the locals believe it’s haunted by the ghost of men forced to walk the planks of pirate ships.” She sounded ridiculously superstitious, and Eric would be angered by such an argument, but she was grasping at straws, trying to do anything to stay out of the water with Duncan. “We’ll have a hell of a time trying to find anyone to ferry us out to the dive site.”

“I’ll find someone,” Duncan assured her.

“What if you can’t?” she challenged.

“Duncan will take care of it,” Jock reiterated.

“I’ll have to close the dive shop,” Annie warned, knowing how much Jock hated to shut down the store. “Maybe for two or three days.”

“But it’s for the Siren’s Call. What better cause?”

Sighing, Annie remembered how passionate her parents had been about the artifact. She recalled the late nights they’d stayed up with their friends, speculating where the fabled mermaid idol might be hidden. Plotting their dives. Doing the research. She would often stand in the door in her pajamas, watching them, feeling left out. They’d been obsessed to the point of neglecting their only child. It was her first lesson in the power of obsession.

Nervously, she fingered her chin. Her second lesson in the danger of obsession came from her own passion for gymnastics and the obsessive need to push herself to the limit—a passionate obsession that had ended in an accident on the balance beam.

And her third bitter lesson about obsessive desire, the lesson that had finally sunk in, had come from the man sitting at the foot of the bed.

She thought of the pain Duncan could wield like a sword because she still cared about him. Annie thought of the Siren’s Call and its seductive promise of sexual potency. She thought of her parents, who’d made finding the idol their life’s work and how they’d died in the pursuit of it. Damn. She wanted that idol, but not the complications that went along with possessing it.

Then she looked into the eyes of the man who’d raised her after her parents had died. The man who himself might not be long for this world, and she knew there was no way around it. She had to team up with Duncan Stewart and go after the damned thing.

“What do you say, Annie?” Duncan winked in that irritatingly charming way of his. “Is it a go?”

Sucking in her breath, Annie wrenched out the words she did not want to say. “All right, I’ll go.”

*   *   *

Duncan watched Annie flounce away in a whirl, her pink skirt giving him a provocative peek at her upper thighs. He knew this was not a dress she wore in Wall Street boardrooms. She’d bought that sexy little number right here in Florida. Her heart was longing to come home, no matter how much her head might deny it.

“We got her, Dunc.” Jock laughed and rubbed his palms together. “Our girl’s back for good.”

“I’m having trouble lying to her, Jock. It’s a cheap shot.”

“Cheap shot it may be, but you know how stubborn she is. Nothing else was going to work. When you told me about finding the real Siren’s Call on the
Lorelei,
I knew it was the ace in the hole you needed to win her back from Hammond. Unfortunately, my dancing a jig on the dock was what landed me here.” He swept a hand at his hip. “But you know what? It was worth it.”

“You really love your granddaughter.”

“No more than you do.”

They stared at each other.

“Damn, Jock,” Duncan said. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

Duncan’s throat clogged. “We wasted a lot of time.”

“I’m sorry, boy, for how I treated you,” Jock said. It was a magnanimous statement, coming from the old sailor. He was a bold, salty man who rarely admitted to weakness or mistakes.

“Me, too.”

“I should have given you the benefit of the doubt with Annie. It’s clear as the nose on your face you love her deeply. I don’t know what happened between you five years ago, but she needs you now, Dunc. If we don’t do this she’s going to end up married to that peckerhead corporate lawyer and spend the rest of her life denying who she really is. And you’ll go to your grave regretting letting her get away.”

“You’re dead right and I know it, but what happens if she can’t forgive me when she learns we’ve tricked her?”

“It’s up to you to convince her. Dig down inside your heart. You’ll find a way. Bring our girl home for good. Do what you should have done five years ago, you scoundrel.” Jock grinned. “Marry her.”

4

Annie and Duncan slipped into the ocean together, leaving the man he had hired to ferry them out to the dive site just off Dead Man’s Island waiting for them in the boat.

The waves rose and fell in a sleepy, heavy way, and beyond her tightly fitting dive mask all she could see was a vast swell of plankton green sea. The water encompassed her. It was around her, in her, swallowing her like a lover’s embrace. Annie felt fluid and free and flawless in a way she never felt on dry land. She glanced over at Duncan and he was smiling at her. He loved the water, too, delighting in the way it rolled over him.

God, how she’d missed diving. How she’d missed Duncan. She hadn’t realized until now how empty her life had become without both.

He caught her by the elbow and spun her through the water. He was frowning, and she realized she’d been diving too far, too fast. More commanding than Neptune himself, he shook his head and signaled for her to slow down. Behind his mask, black eyes simmered with strength and sexuality.

He took her deeper. The coldness at this new depth startled her face and hands. The tension in the water was sharp. He felt it, too, she knew. The swells waved through her. Up and down.

Duncan tugged on her elbow. She followed the direction he was pointing and then she saw it, what she had forgotten. The reason they were here. The entrance to the underground cave. The mystery of the legend drew her like a magnet. For the first time she understood her parents’ fascination. She was compelled to enter the cave, no matter what the risk.

He motioned for her to stay back while he went in first. A contrary part of her wanted to argue, but she realized he was the expert and to contest his authority was foolhardy. He unclipped his flashlight from his weight belt and switched it on.

Treading water, she watched as Duncan slipped between the rocky crevice and disappeared into the murk. She felt a momentary tug of panic when she could no longer see him, but assured herself he was a highly trained salvage diver. He knew what he was doing.

Yes, and your parents had known what they were doing, too, and they’d still been killed by decompression sickness
. But they’d been diving much deeper than this fifty-foot depth.

It was easy to get disoriented to time and place underneath the water. It seemed a half hour had passed but she checked her watch and saw it had been less than a minute. Just when she was about to go into the cave looking for him, he reappeared, waving for her to join him.

The beam of his flashlight barely illuminated the blackness. She stayed behind Duncan, mindful of the jutting rocks. One wrong move and a jagged shard could pierce her oxygen tank.

Fear and danger accelerated her sense of adventure, and at the same time bumped up her awareness of how dependent she and Duncan were upon each other. She could feel history pressing in on them, could easily imagine ghosts of men forced to walk pirates’ planks prowling the ocean depths, protecting their treasure.

The hush was deafening.

She heard nothing except the sound of blood whooshing through her ears. She checked the time again. They had another twenty minutes of air, including ascent time.

She tugged on Duncan’s arm and when he turned to look at her over his shoulder, she tapped the face of her watch. He nodded, but gestured for her to follow him. Curiosity seized her as he guided her deeper into the cave. It was total black except for the thin beam of light from his diving lantern.

Eerie. Annie’s pulse leapt.

The underground cave expanded into a narrow room. He directed the light over the walls and stopped when it lighted an alcove in the rocks.

They swam closer.

Duncan handed Annie the light and reached into the alcove. When he hauled out a locked trunk coated in alga and gunk, she stared at it, incredulous. She was about to hold the Siren’s Call in her hands. She thought of her parents and her heart swelled with sadness and anticipation. It was an odd sensation.

Duncan took out his utility knife and went to work on the hasp. She had to remind herself to inhale. It was surprisingly easy to forget to breathe in the dark wetness, in the excitement.

A couple of hard hits with the utility knife and the rusted hasp fell apart. Duncan raised his head and met her gaze. Even in the shrouded gloom, with only the flashlight for illumination, there was no mistaking the triumph on his face.

You do the honors,
his eyes spoke. They’d shared glances weighed with meaning before, but nothing to match this. They were making history.

To tell the truth, she was scared. What would happen once she finally held the Siren’s Call? Would she learn that the idol possessed magnetic qualities more powerful than any aphrodisiac? Or would she discover that it was all make-believe? Did she really want to debunk the myth?

Bracing herself, she grabbed hold of the corner of the lid and raised it up. Duncan played the flashlight beam over the contents and it hit the carved face of a beautiful woman. Awestruck, Annie sucked in oxygen. She reached inside, picked up the idol, and then let the box tumble to the floor of the cave.

The mermaid idol was a foot long, made of glass and shaped in a phallic design. It weighed much less than she expected. A star-shaped lodestone was embedded in the mermaid’s breast—her attracting, magnetic force. The damned thing looked like some kind of exotic dildo.

Annie cradled the Siren’s Call in her palms. Felt the energy of it vibrating up her arms, through her shoulders, and into her chest. Rippling, tingling, moving through her. The sensation was so strong she thrust the Siren’s Call away from her and let go.

Duncan caught it before it fell away in the dark water and held it out to her.

Nervously, she touched it.

They were both touching it.

From behind their diving masks, their gazes met, fused over the idol. The cold heaviness of the water surrounded them, but Annie had never felt so hot and light. Longing, regret, shame, sadness welled into a potent cocktail of emotions. They’d shared so much, lost so much, and now they were back together again. But it wasn’t a fresh start. This was the ending she’d needed for a long time. Closure. Both for her parents’ death and her ill-fated relationship with Duncan.

I want,
she thought.
I want, I want, I want.

God, how miserable this feeling. She’d trained herself not to want. To instead go after what she needed. To ignore her passions, sublimate her desires with practical, sensible things. Instead of the degree in anthropology she’d wanted, she’d chosen an MBA in business. Instead of the exciting man who made her blood sing, she’d settled for a staid corporate lawyer who never did anything unexpected. She’d chosen safety over adventure.

Her breathing was raspy as everything she’d sacrificed for a dependable life grabbed her heart and squeezed. This idol was truly wicked. Making her want so fiercely all the things she’d forsaken.

She let go of the Siren’s Call again, but Duncan held on to it. Annie glanced away. She felt confused, upset, and anxious. Her goal was accomplished. She’d found what she’d come for. And if she wasn’t careful, it would destroy everything she’d built.

Duncan slipped the mermaid idol into the mesh bag clipped to his weight belt. Annie didn’t wait for him. She had to get out of this place. She slipped out the way they came, Duncan shining the light from behind her.

In the darkness she banged into the rocks, heard her tank scrape ominously against the wall. Out, out, she had to get out.

Don’t panic. The worst thing you can do on a deep-sea dive is panic. Diving lesson 101.

She kicked harder, found the cave opening, and popped out into open water. She turned her head, searching for the boat’s anchor line, but she couldn’t find it.

Where was the anchor?

Was there a second opening in the cave and she’d come out in the wrong place? Puzzled, she looked behind her and signaled to Duncan with a pulling motion.

He shook his head.

The water was murky, thick with plankton. Visibility was less than a foot in front of their masks. Duncan motioned her to the right and he swam left. They made a circle and came back to meet in the middle, unable to find the anchor line.

Had the driver of the boat pulled up anchor?

But why would he do that? She tried not to worry, drew strength from Duncan’s calm demeanor. He pointed.
Let’s go up to the surface and have a look.

He went first and she followed, ascending slowly, even though she wanted to rip off her weight belt and let herself bob to the top like a fishing cork. It seemed to take hours, but in reality was little more than five minutes. Her head was achy from not breathing enough. She inhaled more oxygen, trying to shake off the feelings that had gripped her inside the cave.

At last they broke through the water, and Annie wasted no time in ripping her mask off. Her eyes burned from the rush of salt water. She blinked, looking for the boat. She spied dark storm clouds collecting on the northern horizon, but nothing else.

“Where is he?” she asked Duncan, who’d also peeled off his mask. “Where’s the driver? Where’s our boat?”

But he didn’t have to answer. She understood.