Deep Blue (16 page)

“Speaking of whom, did the two of you enjoy yourselves last night?”

His gaze sharpened. She knew she was making him angry but she didn’t really care.

“For your information, I didn’t see Glory last night. She spent the evening with Joe. Apparently, she’s over her crush on me and now she’s after him.”

“Jealous, are we?”

Conn’s blue eyes hardened. He stalked toward her, caught her shoulders and hauled her against him. “I’m not a damned bit jealous of Joe and Glory. If anything, I’m grateful. The only thing I did wrong last night was not come over here and haul you into bed. You would have known exactly where I was and you wouldn’t have been thinking about anything but how good it feels when I’m inside you.”

Conn’s hands slid into her hair. Hope gasped as he tilted her head back and his mouth crushed down over hers. It was a wild, possessive kiss that still held a trace of anger. She was angry herself, furious that she cared what Conner Reese had done last night.

She tried to pull away, pushed against his chest, but he didn’t even budge. Instead, his mouth moved over hers, the kiss softened, and heat enveloped her. She found herself clinging to his shoulders, kissing him back as wildly as he was kissing her.

She didn’t resist when he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, settled her in the middle of the king-size bed. They made passionate love, then made love again. Afterward they lay naked, their legs entwined on the white eyelet comforter, watching the ceiling fan go around.

She felt pleasantly sated, her body completely relaxed. Sex with Conn was amazing. Incredible. Still, she couldn’t stop thinking of the woman who had rushed into his arms the day before. She kept seeing Richard with Sherry, thinking of the lies he had told, the awful betrayal she had felt.

The baby she had lost.

Conn was a man and he was only human. How long would it be before the same thing happened with him?

“I wish I could stay here all day,” he said, running a finger along her cheek. “But I think I hear the plane coming back, which means I’ve got work to do.” He leaned down for a last, lingering kiss, climbed out of bed, and padded naked into the bathroom. She heard the shower running. He was dressed when he came back out.

“You can stay in the villa another night if you want. Eddie doesn’t have anyone booked for this unit until tomorrow. The boat should be up and running this afternoon. We’ll work the rest of the day and all day tomorrow, then leave for Jamaica tomorrow evening to resupply. You can have Chalko bring you out before we go.”

“All right.” She smoothed the comforter, which she had climbed beneath. “Since this is possibly the greatest bed I’ve ever slept in, I’ll stay right here.” Besides, she needed some time away from him, needed to get her head on straight about where their relationship was going.

Nowhere,
she reminded herself. This was only a fling. She wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship and neither was Conn.

She watched him leave, heard the door close, and headed for the shower. She had work to do herself. She needed to get back to writing the second article in the series for
Adventure
magazine. A beautiful villa overlooking the Caribbean Sea was the perfect place to do it.

As long as she could keep her mind off Conn.

The boat was running again, the fuel problem solved. They ran the grid pattern all of the following day, but got no interesting mag hits, so that night they headed for Jamaica. Since Joe bunked in with the crew, Glory had decided to return on the plane—Conn silently thanked God for that—but she was meeting Joe when the boat got in.

Hope was back aboard, but it was clear he wouldn’t be spending any time in her cabin. It didn’t take a Rhodes scholar to sense her change of attitude where he was concerned, the distance she was determined to put between them.

Considering it would be a whole lot better for him if their relationship cooled down a little, the brain part of him should have been glad. But neither his body nor his brain was pleased, which had him worrying again.

Fortunately, he had plenty of work to do to keep his mind off Hope Sinclair.

They finished restocking the boat in Jamaica and returned to Pleasure Island late in the day. The following morning, they resumed their search, beginning at the spot on the grid where they had left off, moving south along the sandbar.

It was late in the afternoon when the magnetometer started pinging. Andy Glass came up on the deck to bring Conn the news.

“I can’t tell for sure, but I think we’ve found one of the cannons…maybe more than one.”

His adrenaline kicked up. “Let’s go take a look.”

They returned to the chart room, walked over to the sonar scanner, and sure enough, outlined on the monitor was an image shaped remarkably like a cannon. On the video screen, zeroed in on a spot a few yards away, there appeared to be another.

Cautious excitement filled him. “I’m going down.”

Leaving the chart room, Conn went in search of Joe. “Looks like we found something. Let’s get suited up and take a look.”

“Great. Any idea what it is?”

“Cannon, looks like.”

“How deep?”

“Just under sixty feet.”

“All right!” Joe smiled for the first time since they had left Jamaica. Conn didn’t ask what had happened to put him in such a dismal mood, but he figured it had something to do with his newest lady love.

Conn was standing next to Joe in front of the diving locker pulling on his wetsuit, when Hope and Tommy appeared on deck.

“I hear you found a couple of cannons,” she said.

“Could be. We’ll know more after we get a look.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

“Thanks.” Conn turned to Ron Keegan, who had come up on deck with Wally Short. “If those cannons turn out to be bronze, they’re likely off the
Rosa.
If that’s the case, I want you and Wally in the water as soon as we come back up. I want us to make a thorough search of the area.”

Ron grinned, obviously eager to look for treasure. Andy, Pete, and King worked directly for Captain Bob, who was paid a set amount of money per day for use of the boat and crew. The divers received a salary plus a percentage of any treasure they found.

“We’ll be ready,” Wally said. “Can’t wait to get my feet wet.”

The two men helped Joe and Conn put on their diving gear, using double tanks so they could stay down longer. Once they were set to go, Conn grabbed a handheld blower and the men made their way to the loading platform. Seconds later, they disappeared into the sea.

It was a scorching day, the hottest they’d had so far, the sun beating down relentlessly, not a cloud in the azure sky. Even the usual cooling afternoon breeze had deserted them. Hope stood at the rail, a wide-brimmed straw hat shading her face, protecting her head and neck, anxiously watching the flat, gleaming surface of the water.

Conn and Joe had been below for nearly an hour. For a while she had watched the video screen in the chart room, seen Conn use the blower to remove deep layers of sand from one of the cannons. The artifact seemed to be in surprisingly good condition, a huge artillery piece at least twelve or thirteen feet long. But the minutes had been slipping away and it was time for the men to surface.

Hope looked down at the water, saw the telltale air bubbles rising, and her heartbeat quickened. Conn’s snorkel broke the surface, his head and mask, then Joe popped up beside him. The men pulled out their regulators, raised their masks, and set them on the back of their heads. Hope’s excitement built when she saw both men were grinning.

“Wait till you see what we found!” Joe shouted, following the words with a great whoop of glee.

Hope, Tommy, Captain Bob, and the other two divers all raced toward the diving platform. Pete, Andy, even King poured out on deck to see what the men had found. Conn was still grinning as he held up his hand, and Hope could see the bright, unmistakable glitter of gold.

“Oh, my God!”

“Gold!” Pete shouted. “That’s gold he’s got there!”

There was excited conversation among the crew as Conn and Joe climbed up on the platform. They shed their fins, tanks, and the rest of their gear, then Conn held out his hand to reveal the most beautiful emerald cross Hope had ever seen.

“Incredible,” Captain Bob said.

The men came up on the deck and walked over to a spot on the stern where King laid out a dark green plastic tablecloth he brought up from the galley. All of them gathered round to take a closer look.

From a bag at his waist, Conn drew out a length of solid gold chain and a clump of gray, lead-looking matter Hope figured must be oxidized silver coins. He set them down on the plastic tablecloth and Joe set three gorgeous gold coins beside the rest of the treasure.

“Unbelievable,” Ron Keegan said almost reverently.

“Do you think you’ve found the mother lode?” Hope asked, using salvors’ jargon for the heart of the treasure.

“I don’t know.” Conn set the beautiful golden cross down next to the coins. “There wasn’t any sign of the ballast pile. But I think, once we put the suction dredge to work, we’re going to find a whole lot more stuff down there.”

“We saw lots of pottery shards,” Joe said excitedly, “olive jars, iron fittings, barrel staves, stuff like that.”

“I still can’t believe you actually found treasure,” Andy Glass said. “To tell you the truth, I never really thought you would.”

Tommy Tyler squeezed in between Hope and Ron Keegan, panning his digital camera over the artifacts set out on the table. Against the dark green background, the gold coins glittered in the sunlight as if they had a life of their own. The emeralds seemed to shimmer.

“I got a great shot of you coming out of the water holding up the cross,” Tommy said. “Jeez, what a fabulous piece that is.”

Hope looked down at the magnificent piece of jewelry, an ornately carved cross about five inches long, inset with huge emeralds interspersed with diamonds. The cross looked just as beautiful as it had the day it had gone into the water.

“I wonder whose it was,” she said, thinking of the people on the ship who had died that day.

“Someone with plenty of money.” Conn picked the cross up to examine it more closely. “This is sure going to make the professor’s day.”

“He’ll want to come out to the site,” Hope said.

“I don’t blame him. He’s put a lifetime into studying this ship. If it weren’t for Doc Marlin, none of us would be here right now.”

Conn phoned the professor, who was apparently over the top with glee, then phoned his partners, Eddie Markham and Brad Talbot. Markham had left the island on a business trip, but he was due back home in a couple of days.

Brad Talbot was ecstatic.

“I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised,” he told Conn. “I figured we had a shot, but I knew it was a definite gamble.”

“We haven’t found the ballast pile yet.” And since the real treasure, the heavy gold and silver bars and boxes of valuable coins, would have been stored in the hold, the ballast pile would likely be the site of the true mother lode. “But we’re bringing up some really good stuff. I’ll call you in a couple of days, give you an update.”

“The press is going to love this.”

A muscle flexed in Conn’s jaw but he made no reply. It was obvious Talbot couldn’t wait to spread the news, which was the last thing Conn wanted.

At the moment at least, Emperor Eddie wasn’t on the island, and Hope figured Talbot wasn’t likely to fly down unless they found a lot more than they had come up with so far.

Professor Marlin, however, arrived on the Pleasure Island plane the following afternoon. He was practically beaming when he came aboard the
Conquest,
pant legs flapping, so excited his thin feet barely touched the deck.

“You’ve done it, my boy. You found the ship and now you’ve found the treasure.”

“Some of it,” Conn corrected. “We aren’t sure just how much.”

“What they brought up so far is beautiful, Professor,” Hope said. “It’s absolutely amazing.”

“Still no sign of the ballast pile?”

“Not yet. This morning Ron found a small gold box that held a couple of gold-and-ruby rings. We’ve been finding some interesting artifacts as well. Joe brought up an olive jar that’s in nearly perfect condition.”

Conn led the professor along the deck to where the treasure had been laid out for him to examine, and Hope walked up beside them.

“You’re right, my dear. It truly is amazing.” Dr. Marlin spent the balance of the afternoon studying, cataloguing, and diagramming the treasure, then plotting where each piece had been found.

Meanwhile, the divers continued to search. Joe found another gold coin and so did Conn, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason, no real pattern to where they were discovered.

With the professor aboard, that night they celebrated their recovery of the first treasure off the
Rosa.
They were out of champagne, so they drank red wine and Red Stripe beer, and King came up with one of his usual great meals. The men were still laughing and joking when the professor slipped away, tired after such an eventful day.

Hope slid quietly out of the booth and left the galley. Sitting next to Conn was always a strain, more so after sharing his excitement all day. She had done her best to ignore him, fixing her attention mostly on the professor. But her glance kept straying and every time it did, he was watching her. He knew she was avoiding him, had been since her return to the boat. He wasn’t happy that after their time together on the island, she had decided to end their brief affair.

Conn wanted more of the hot, incredible sex they had shared, and part of her wanted that, too. But the other part kept seeing Conn with the blonde. He had said there was nothing between them, and she supposed it was true.

But the sight of him with another woman and its painful impact on her had forced her to see things the way they really were. She was getting too involved with Conn, getting in far too deep. He was making her feel things she didn’t want to feel, and the sooner she cut herself off from him the better.

In the darkness, heavy footsteps moved along the deck behind her. She turned at the sound of Conn’s deep voice speaking softly beside her ear.

“Out here wishing you were back in New York?”

Her guard went up at how close he was to the truth. She forced herself to face him. “Now, why would I be wishing that? According to the e-mail I got from my friend Jackie Aimes, it’s snowing and twenty-five degrees.”

“True, but if you were back there, you’d be safe. You wouldn’t have to deal with me.”

Her stomach instantly knotted. She hated his ability to read her so well. “What makes you think that’s a problem?”

“If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to stay away from me.”

“Really? You know, your ego is amazing.”

Conn just laughed. “Always so tough. You know what? I’m beginning to think you aren’t tough at all.”

She could feel herself going a little pale. The last thing she wanted Conner Reese to know was how vulnerable she really was.

“Look, Conn, we had a fling. We had a good time—now it’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be over. You’re still here and so am I.” He ran a finger along her jaw and goose bumps ran over her skin. “I want you and I think you still want me.”

Hope turned away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see that she was trembling. “This isn’t the time, Conn. It never has been.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is. But you can’t always pick the right time. Sometimes something special happens in our lives and we have to reach out and grab hold of it. If we don’t, if we let those special times pass, we miss out on some of the best parts of living.”

“Maybe. Or maybe letting them pass is the way we keep from getting in too deep.” She started to walk away, but Conn caught her wrist.

“I could make you want me. You know I could.” His eyes were blue and intense and they reflected the desire he felt for her. Her pulse quickened. Arousal swept through her. With it came a faint stirring of fear.

“Please don’t,” she said softly, feeling the unexpected sting of tears. “Please don’t, Conn.” Hope turned away, her chest squeezing.

In the darkness behind her, she heard Conn softly curse.

They searched the waters near the shoal for the next three days, recalculating the grid to stay in the area around the cannons. The professor had lectures scheduled at the college and was forced to return to Jamaica, but Eddie Markham appeared that third day, back from the States and grinning from ear to ear at the news of their discovery.

“I got your message. Congratulations.” He was wearing perfectly creased white Bermuda shorts, a flowered shirt, and a flat-brimmed Panama hat. A pair of Gucci sunglasses hid his dark eyes.

“Thanks.”

He turned to Hope. “Well, I guess you got your story.”

“Yes, I guess I did.”

“I can’t wait to see the treasure. Up until now, I’ve only seen pictures of stuff like that.”

“Come on, then. Follow me.” Conn led the way to the chart room, Hope and Eddie walking along behind him. The treasure was locked in the captain’s small safe. Conn took it out and spread it on a soft cloth on top of the teakwood table.

Eddie stared down at the beautiful artifacts they had found, his hands slightly trembling as he picked up the golden cross.

“The public will want to know about this.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a newspaper clipping. “I saw this in the
Miami Herald
when I was at the airport. I figured you’d want to see it.”

It was only a small article relaying news of the discovery; there weren’t any photos.

“Once they see a picture of this cross, the story will spread all over the globe.”

“I’ll be turning in my second article this week,” Hope said. “The photos Tommy took will be on
Adventure
’s Internet site a couple of days after that.”

A muscle tightened along Conn’s jaw. He didn’t like the idea, she knew, but she was there to do a job and she intended to do it.

At least Eddie Markham looked pleased. “That’s certainly a start. Where’s the Tyler kid now? I imagine he’s got some great stuff, right?”

“I heard that.” Tommy descended the ladder to the chart room. “And yeah, I’ve got some really great stuff, if I do say so myself. As word gets out, the wire service will probably be after some of it.”

“I’d love to see what you’ve got.”

“No problem. Come with me and I’ll show you.”

Eddie and Tommy left the chart room, leaving Hope alone with Conn.

“The more this story gets out,” he said darkly, “the more people we’ll have poking around here. I hope to hell this doesn’t bring us a shitload of trouble.”

Hope said nothing. For Conn’s sake, she hoped so, too.

Conn invited Eddie Markham to stay for supper but he declined. As good a cook as King was, it appeared the emperor preferred the gourmet food in his restaurant on the island. Conn watched the Sea Ray disappear across the water and turned to see Joe standing at the rail a few feet away. Joe also watched the boat, but he didn’t really seem to be seeing it.

Conn walked over and braced his hands on the rail. “You look like your best dog died. You must be having trouble of the female sort.”

Joe sighed. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

Conn pinned him with a look.

“Okay, so you know me as well as I know you.”

“Glory?”

“Yeah. It’s weird, man. I’ve been with so many women I’ve lost count, but those days we spent together—somehow it was different. I keep thinking about her, you know? I can’t get her out of my head. She’s just another woman. I don’t get it.”

“Glory wasn’t right for me, but I have to admit there was something about her. She struck me as kind of naïve, a little lost somehow, but really very sweet. Her family’s rich, but as a kid, I think they mostly ignored her. They travel all the time and none of them are close. I had the feeling she was looking for something—or someone. I wasn’t it. Maybe you are.”

“God forbid.” But Joe stared back out to sea and Conn figured he was still thinking of Glory.

Imagining the two of them together, Conn thought they might not be such a bad match. Deep down, Joe was kind of a loner, maybe even a little lonely. Glory seemed to need someone very badly and if Joe actually felt something for her, maybe it could work.

Of course, there was the problem of Joe being Cuban and Catholic and Glory’s family being Jewish. Her parents wouldn’t be keen on their daughter getting seriously involved with someone not of their faith.

Conn mentally shook himself. Glory and Joe had only spent a few days together. It was highly unlikely the relationship would ever get off the ground, and even if it did, anything of a serious nature was going to be way down the road.