The deck shifted gently beneath his bare feet as he sipped from a steaming mug of Wil iams·s excel ent French Roast. The susurrus of wavelets lapped musical y against the hul , and faceted, pale gold light danced and shimmered across the surface of the water. They were almost a hundred nautical miles east off the coast of St. Maarten. Out of the path of cruise boats and day-trippers. The tiny green smudges on the horizon were the smal islands of Anguil a, Saba, St.
Barts, and St. Eustatius, but for miles in every direction was nothing but smooth, clear turquoise except for the tel tale lacy white froth as the surf crashed against the coral reef just beneath the smooth surface of the water.
The same reefs that the
Vrijheid
had crashed on back in 1622.
The thought of showing his prize to Teal was just as enticing as seeing it again himself.
Unobserved, he watched her chatting with his friend. She wore creased black cargo pants, scuffed sneakers without socks, and an oversized yel ow-and-blue striped man·s soccer shirt. Efficiently covered, once again, from top to toe.
Her moppy hair hid most of her face.
He·d never met a woman with so little regard for her appearance. She dressed like she·d grabbed the first thing to hand. Zane wished to hel he didn·t h ave a mental image of a bed while watching her move efficiently around the smal gal ey.
Those butt-ugly shorts last night were starting to have a starring role in his fantasies.
He conjured, instead, an enticing image of treasure chests spil ing with eme ralds the size of dinner plates. He thought about swimming through cool turquoise water, he thought of her naked swimming beside him « damn it! Wrong image. Wrong woman. Wrong time. Wrong place. And yet «
He·d pigeonholed her and didn·t want to have his mi nd changed. Not now. Not when being
un
-attracted was the whole point of her presence. If there·d been a guy to hire with her qualifications, Zane wouldn·t be thinking about his mechanic in shorts. Logan had done the research, and she had the experience as wel as a sterling reputation. She knew her stuff.
That·s al he required.
It wasn·t only her surprisingly gorgeous long legs and sassy mouth but what lay behind those big, serious brown eyes and bad attitude that intrigued him.
Nobody was that defensive and adversarial without a root cause. He was a nice guy.
Women liked him, for God·s sake! None of them had ever treated him as if he were the devil incarnate.
She rubbed the back of her neck, and he bet she felt him watching her, but she didn·t look at him. She had an intriguing face. Not quite plain, but not exactly pretty.
The combination of large eyes, generous mouth, straight nose, and a scattering of golden freckles was surprisingly striking. Her chin -length dark hair was slicked back off her face, stil damp from the shower she·d taken after breakfast while he and Ben had cleaned up the gal ey. She looked a little on the pale side. Zane hoped to hel she wasn·t getting sick. He needed her expertise with the engines as much as he needed a fourth diver.
There was absolutely no artifice with her. No makeup and no bul shit. It appeared that Miss Wil iams was also flirt proof. Zane grinned inwardly. He·d see about that. His middle name was Í·l take that bet.µ
Carrying his coffee mug, he casual y strol ed over to join her and Ben. ´Thanks for fixing breakfast.µ
´Don·t expect that every morning,µ she warned waspishly. Í·m here to work on the engines and to dive. That·s
it
.µ
Zane was charmed by her in spite of himself. Jesus, she was an odd, prickly little duck. ´Yes, ma·am.µ He took a sip from his mug, then paused to flash her a mock scowl. ´This isn·t poisoned, is it?µ
´Quick-acting.µ
Í·ve already had two cups.µ
She shrugged. ´Must·ve used the slow-acting potion today.µ
Ben laughed. Ányone for a refil ?µ he asked, eyes twinkling as his gaze went from Zane to Teal and back again as if he were watching a tennis match. Zane shook his head and with another chuckle the older man went inside.
This required perfect timing, Zane thought. Wait too long and she·d bolt, go in too early and
« he bit back a smile³she·d bolt. ´When was the last time you were on top of something amazing?µ he asked, keeping his tone light.
Éxcuse me?µ
´The
Vrijheid
is directly below us. Want to go down and take a look at my sweetheart?µ He set down his mug on a nearby ledge.
Antagonism forgotten³or at least on hold³Teal turned luminous eyes on him.
Álready? I·d love to.µ
Zane heard that slight breathless quality to her voice. God. He wanted her to look at him
exactly
like that. He wanted that luminosity for himself. He wanted her to look that thril ed.
Excited. He wanted her in his bed. Under him. Around him.
Ah,
shit!
What the hel had happened to not attractive? It was like waving a red flag at a bul . Every hunting instinct inside him rose up and howled.
He had to ignore the prey-drive. Ratchet back, buddy. Í·ve already checked the tanks.µ
Ánd I·l check mine again, but thanks.µ
´Good girl,µ Ben came outside in time to give her a high five. Á good diver always checks their own equipment.µ
What had made her so self-reliant? No³he·d met self-reliant women before.
This was different. Teal was adamantly self-reliant, which meant that someone, somewhere had let her down. Who besides her mom and Sam? Someone else she·d cared about? Sam wouldn·t win a father-of-the-year award, but this seemed to go even deeper.
Maggie came outside wearing a green swimsuit and her ubiquitous cowboy hat. Ćolson·s doing some research for me, and Saul·s giving him a hand. What are we waiting for?µ
Ŕyan·s going to join us in a minute.µ Zane gestured to the ocean. Ĺet·s suit up. I·l take you al on a mini tour to whet your appetite.µ
Í don·t have a wet suit,µ Teal said regretful y, her yearning gaze going to the water.
Í have extras.µ Maggie came to her rescue. She sized Teal with her eyes.
´You·re tal er, but we can·t be that much different in size. Come on, let·s go to my cabin and see what we can find for you.µ
Ryan stepped aside to let the women through the doorway. He took a moment to admire the view from behind before joining Zane and Ben on deck. Zane made a mental note to give him a hands-off warning when they were alone.
Ńot the first time you·ve brought a woman with us,µ Ben mused. ´But Teal·s different.µ
´Yeah. Contrary and with an attitude,µ Zane said dryly. ´Wil iams isn·t a girlfriend,µ he pointed out in case the guys g ot the wrong message. Śhe·s the mechanic Logan hired to take over from Sam.µ
´Yeah. Maggie mentioned that.µ Ben drank his coffee. Śhe·s got that quiet sort of beauty that takes a man by surprise.µ
´Haven·t noticed,µ Zane muttered. Śhe·s just a member of the crew.µ Like hel .
Ben gave him an innocent look. Ĺike Ryan here, or Maggie?µ
Ńo.µ Zane glanced at his watch. Śhe·s less experienced.µ
´Doesn·t look like either Ryan or my Maggie in that swimsuit.µ
Turning around to look was knee-jerk. Big mistake.
Every pale, silky inch of Teal was revealed in a modest, black one -piece swimsuit as she carried Maggie·s borrowed wet suit out on deck. She had long
gorgeous
legs, a slender body, and smal , high breasts. Al lovingly displayed in a thin layer of ny lon. Zane just about swal owed his tongue. He instantly felt himself go hard as stone, his erection so swift and painful he had to turn to the rail and shift his weight to ease the discomfort of it.
That didn·t stop him from looking, and taking his fil , however.
Her clothes had been a pretty damned effective camouflage for a spectacular, athletic body.
It took a second for him to notice that she wasn·t at al comfortable being so exposed.
Unfortunately, for him, now that he·d seen what she·d hidden benea th baggy clothes and a bad haircut, he wasn·t sure he·d ever be able to see her other than as revealed as she was now.
Seeing his stare, Teal lifted her chin and gave him a ´fuck offµ look that should·ve singed his eyebrows. Zane grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. She looked away.
Good. He couldn·t think about seeing her in little more than one thin layer of stretchy fabric.
Instead, he concentrated on getting geared up. He pul ed the stretchy neoprene suit over his shoulders and zipped it as Teal and the others did the same. They c hecked the O rings on the tanks, slid the regulators over the top and tested the mouthpieces for airflow, then strapped their tanks onto their buoyancy compensators, or BCs.
Zane turned, standing his tank toward him, then reached down, slipping his arms t hrough the BC, and slung the whole contraption smoothly up and over his head to land on his back.
The wet suit did interesting things to her tal slender body. Zane·s heart did a pleasant little tap dance in his chest as he secured his weight belt and seat ed his diver·s knife on his thigh.
There were three other divers waiting to go in the water, but the only one he saw was Teal.
Ŕeady?µ
´God, yes.µ
They adjusted their masks in unison, put their regulators in their mouths, and stepped off the dive platform, holding their masks in place.
Sometimes, Zane thought, being under the water was almost better than sex.
Almost.
Teal stayed beside him as they descended into a silent world of stunningly clear turquoise water, dappled by the filtered gold rays of the waking morning.
Fingers of shifting light speared like honey to highlight the tips of the two clearly visible ribs of the
Vrijheid
as she came into view. Zane and the Berlands had already noted the last time they were here that the scatter pattern of the wreck site was erratic. The frigate had split into half a dozen pieces against the reef, her contents spil ed across the sand for what seemed like miles.
They·d done a rough grid, but now Saul would lay it al out on a software program for more accurate readings³fortunately, that particular program stil worked fine. The ship·s navigation and detection equipment tended to go on the fritz when they hit these waters, but he·d manage to map the area in spite of a few technical bugs. First, they·d drop buoys and bring in sophisticated metal detectors.
Then they·d see just how far the scatter pattern real y was. Al part of the discovery process.
Zane loved it al . His chest swel ed with contentment as Teal touched his arm to indicate a smal school of blue tang darting like swiftly moving blue confetti between
Vrijheid
·s ribs.
Mostly buried by sand and time, the almost four -hundred-year-old bones of the
Vrijheid
lay broken and scattered in a pale, sandy depression dappled with filtered sunlight.
Seeing her again was almost a religious experience for Zane. He hung in the water, just above her, letting the BC hold him neutral lik e a fish, swaying with the surge of the current.
Eighty people had died here. Men with families, men who·d loved and been loved. Families had mourned their passing. As thril ing as the discovery of a new wreck was, he never forgot that the site was also a graveyard.
Teal reached out and touched his arm, her eyes saucerlike behind her mask as she stretched out her arms to indicate the size of the wreck. Her hair, stick straight in the water, fanned around her head like a black halo. She gave him a double th umbs-up.
Zane winked. Sliding his hand down her arm, he laced his fingers through hers and tugged her along with him as they glided through the water together closer to the wreckage.
Trenches would have to be dug, sand blown out of the way. There were ho urs and hours of backbreaking work both under the sea and on board. The cleaning, cataloging, the removal of
Vrijheid
·s treasures³but there wasn·t an aspect of salvaging that Zane didn·t relish.
Just anticipating the hard work that would soon be involved with exposing al of her secrets fil ed him with intense pleasure. Christ, she was magnificent. Her glory was in no way diminished by the hazy blue of deep water. Decorated in the gaudy colors of coral and the moving ornamentation of smal , brightly colored fish, she was like a partial y unwrapped present just waiting for Christmas morning.
The
Vrijheid
had been alone when she·d been hit by the hurricane. A smal piece of flotsam in a vast ocean. She hadn·t stood a chance against Mother Nature. Her manifest boasted of the gold and silver, of a king·s ransom in emeralds, but the personal wealth of both the passengers, and the seamen who·d assisted in the loading of the loot, would have been kept secret.
Al secrets untouched until now.
He took Teal on a slow circuit around the fal en frigate, pointing out the square piles of conglomerate, the hard material formed by centuries of chemical reaction.
The shape indicated that the redwood boxes, used to transport the contents, had been eaten away by teredos³shipworms³hundreds of years before. He saw a glint of gold on the sand and tugged her along as he swept it up in his hand. He peeled open her fingers and pressed the gold coin into her palm. It was as bright and shiny as if it had been freshly minted. Teal·s eyes glittered behind her mask, and she twisted the coin between her fingers in awe.
Scattered unnoticed at her feet were piles of charcoal gray lumps that looked like smal loaves of bread. Silt had covered them the last time he·d been down. The hair on the back of Zane·s neck rose with excitement.
Silver bars.
Dozens and dozens of silver bars.
He couldn·t wait to come back. It took everything in him not to start fanning the sand for more right that second.
Patience, he reminded himself. Everything would stil be there at the end of the week when they come back.
The huge timbers of the
Vrijheid
had broken apart over the centuries, but if one had a good imagination, one could see the shape and size of her. Most of the timbers had been eroded away by time and teredo worms, and shifted out of whack by hurricanes and storms over the centuries. To Zane, she was absolutely beautiful.