The following morning Gabe rose from his chair without thinking when Jeanne entered the dining hall, looking fresh as the dew-kissed orchids growing wild beside the compound pathways. Her polite smile of greeting sent him on a pretense of coaxing Nemo away from the kitchen door as she took a seat with the girls opposite Nick, Stuart, and Remy.
Last night, after their discussion had turned personal, she’d sealed up like a clam, trapping all that warmth and vitality inside. Hardly wet from a quick dip in the water, Jeanne had left the company and headed for her cottage as though a piranha was nipping at her heels.
Bemused, Gabe retrieved the dog with the temptation of a bite of huevos rancheros wrapped in a piece of tortilla and resumed his seat next to Pablo Montoya.
“Perhaps you should take moonlight swims more often,” Pablo suggested under his breath as Gabe sat back down beside him. “It reminds you of your lost manners. You are even clean-shaven this morning.”
Across from Gabe, Manolo grinned. As a man of few words, Gabe appreciated his deckhand even more at the moment, although his expression seconded Pablo’s insinuation by volumes.
Lupita spared Gabe from a reply by waltzing in with a tray of hot corn muffins lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar. As Gabe helped himself to one and broke it open to cool, Remy shoved his plate aside.
“Would it be remotely possible to get a decent meal of eggs over easy, some sausage, maybe even ham?” he asked the cook. “I’m up to the brim with corn this and bean that. And haven’t you people heard of sliced bread?”
“Now I know why he teaches,” Gabe grumbled to Pablo. “Turned down by the diplomatic corps.” Gabe was still disgusted with Primston for endangering Jeanne’s life.
A few chairs away, Lupita leveled her dark-eyed gaze at the professor and nodded stiffly. “I have heard of it. I have even to eat such.”
“Lupita,” Jeanne cut in before Remy could take the issue and run. A Pretty Woman smile that lightened the room formed on her lips.
That was whom Jeanne reminded Gabe of . . . with less prominent teeth. Not that he’d admit it to anyone, but he was a sucker for that movie. Except in reality, Jeanne was the one with class. As Pablo had implied, Gabe had long since left his behind for treasure.
“Is there someone in the village that would be willing to do laundry? I have a feeling that by the week’s end, we are going to be so busy with work that we won’t have time to drive to a laundromat at Akumal.”
“Expecting the big find, eh?” Gabe asked. He had to admire her optimism, ingenuous as it was. And the way a streak of morning sun coming in through the open window turned her light brown hair to gold. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . .
“I’ve no reason to doubt it,” she replied, holding his gaze for a moment.
Gabe felt a twinge of . . . of something. Half-giddy, half-jolting.
“Do you cook anything except beans and tortillas?” Remy insisted, drawing Jeanne’s sparkling hazel-eyed gaze away.
Lupita ignored the professor. “Oh, sí, señorita. I would be delighted to do your laundry. I am very particular,” the cook assured her. “You can build on it.”
“My kingdom for a cheeseburger,” Stuart chimed in with the professor. “Maybe we can drive to Akumal and get one this weekend.”
“I have seen those,” Lupita told the young man proudly.
“Wonderful,” Remy exclaimed. “I would settle for a cheeseburger.”
“But not in Punta Azul.” Lupita held up her hand to Remy and crossed the room to the adjoining office cubicle. When she returned, she handed him a brochure printed on pale green paper. “See,” she said, putting her finger on a section of the print. “It says ‘come live and eat like the natives,’ not ‘come and eat like a gringo.’”
“B-but I have a gringo’s stomach,” Remy whined. “Beans do not agree with it.”
Lupita’s eyes grew hard. “You do not agree with me, but I still feed you like the rest. Pues. So it is. Perhaps there will be this cheeseburger at the fiesta.”
“What fiesta, Lupita?” Jeanne called after her.
The cook reappeared in the kitchen entrance. “Why, the Fiesta de San Lucas del Pez.”
“St. Luke of the Fish? Never heard of him,” Stuart remarked, shoving his glasses up on his nose.
“Me neither,” Nick chimed in, echoing Stuart’s thought. But then so many of the villages had their own patron saints.
Mara frowned, nose twisting in such a way as to set her glasses atilt. “Wasn’t St. Luke a physician ?”
With a look that suggested the students had the IQ of one of St. Luke’s fish, Lupita approached the table with a determination to remedy their ignorance.
“Pues, from time when, the fish do not always come to the nets of our grandfathers. So the good priest of our catedral’s name, San Lucas, meets them on the shore, and he tells them to put the nets over al otro lado del barco.”
“The other side of the boat,” Mara translated, still skeptical.
“Not only will she not cook decent food, she’s a plagiarist,” Remy muttered to no one in particular.
Lupita’s expression flashed. “What is this plagiarist?”
“Remy is saying that your story sounds like the Bible story of Jesus and the disciples,” Jeanne explained. “The fishermen had caught nothing, and Jesus told them to cast their nets on the other side of their boat.”
“So I say of our San Lucas,” Lupita answered. “San Lucas remembers what Jesus says and does the same.”
“And your grandfathers caught fish?” Nick asked.
“Cómo no? How not?” Lupita’s face lit up with her faith. “There were so many fish that the people come from inland and along the coast to give thanks.”
“And they had a fish feast?” Jeanne asked. “Fiesta del pez?”
“Cómo no?” Lupita said. “And that is why we celebrate.”
“Sounds like an American Thanksgiving with a fish fry,” Gabe observed, his mouth twitching with suppressed humor.
“Will there be music and dancing?” Mara asked.
“But of course,” Lupita answered. “What is fiesta without music and dance . . . and church, of course.”
“I, for one, can hardly wait.” Rising on that note of sarcasm, Remy addressed Jeanne. “Since you are not likely to be bringing up any artifacts today, I think I’ll drive to Akumal to do a little shopping for real food. If that’s all right with you, my dear.”
“It’s fine with me, dear,” Gabe preempted her. He couldn’t help himself. The man was a grappling hook in Gabe’s side and should be in hers, if she weren’t so God love the world tolerant.
Nick sniggered, earning himself a withering look from the professor.
“I’d thought you above such juvenile amusement,” Remy told the young man.
Jeanne ignored the barbed exchange. “Maybe a day ashore will help restore that chipper spirit. You haven’t been yourself.”
Chipper spirit? Gabe nearly choked on his last sip of coffee. The only thing chipper about Dr. Remington Primston was his ability to chip away at one’s nerves.
Chairs scraped up and down the table, signaling the end of the meal. As Gabe coaxed Nemo away from the kitchen door again, Jeanne linked arms with the professor, speaking in terms that seemed more familiar than those used by mentor and student.
“What can she possibly see in that man?” Gabe grumbled to his Mexican companions, following the couple out.
“Primston is a bit, how do you say, stuffy ?” Pablo replied. “But he is a genius when it comes to artifacts, Spanish in particular.”
“She is enamored of his knowledge then?”
“Jeanne is one of those special people who sees the best in all of us,” Pablo explained.
Gabe frowned, recalling their conversation last night. Not all. She’d thought he’d impregnated Manolo’s daughter and, lecher that he was, intended to seduce the innocent Mara as well.
“Don’t make it so hard for her to think as highly of you, amigo. Perhaps if you were less critical of her friend,” Pablo suggested.
“I get it. I get it. I’m in the doghouse.” Gabe exhaled a heavy breath and let go of Nemo’s collar for the dog’s last run before boarding for the day. “Keep an eye on him, Manolo.”
“Hola, Nemo!” Manolo shouted as the dog made straight for the lagoon, scattering the birds gathered there to drink. “You bad dog!”
Feathers in combinations of red, black, yellow, turquoise, and green flew in all directions, like a colorful, flapping cloud lifting off in a chorus of cheeps and caws.
“That animal should be caged,” Remy ranted from the other side of the pond, rushing to where he’d set up his video camera.
“But I have my reasons beyond the foxy doctor for disliking Primston’s ilk,” Gabe said, watching Manolo cross the bridge to meet the black Lab, who swam toward Remy and his camera with the iron determination of its breed.
“You are supposed to fetch dead birds, you idiot,” Remy fumed, fumbling with his equipment.
“I’d hate to see the same thing that happened to me happen to Jeanne,” Gabe observed, humor at Nemo’s antics fading. “You know what I mean, Pablo.”
Unable to accept that anyone could think ill of him, a dripping wet Nemo made straight for the man scolding him and cold-nosed Remy’s knees in anticipation of a head-scratching.
But Remy kicked at him. “Get away, you beast!”
Pablo Montoya nodded, giving in to a soft laugh as Nemo backed away and shook himself dry, showering Remy with lagoon water. “Aye, amigo,” he replied, sobering. “I remember it well. Good reason.”
“But on the bright side,” Gabe said, imitating Jeanne’s ebullience, “Imagine . . . a whole day without our chipper professor. Maybe San Lucas and that statue in the church are working after all.”
By midafternoon, the Fallen Angel was ready to cover the last quadrant of the charts. Having served as a graduate intern on several nautical archaeology expeditions, Jeanne understood the growing apathy among the crew. It was par for the course on this sort of project.
But now it was gone. Process of elimination made this the one. Jeanne, Mara, and even Ann peered over Stuart’s shoulders as the young man eagle-eyed the zigzag on the graph recording the magnetometer’s readings.
“Come on. You gotta find something,” Stuart admonished the equipment in frustration.
“Not necessarily,” Gabe countered, a picture of stoic man against the sea at the wheel.
Pablo nodded in agreement. “The whole wreck site could be in the first quadrant we searched. After all, it was a summer storm that blew the Luna Azul on the reef with winds from the south.”
“But there should be more debris than we found, if that’s the case,” Jeanne thought aloud. “Unless—”
A shout from Manolo at the bow prompted Gabe to back down the engine with such suddenness that Jeanne nearly lost her footing on the jerking deck. Shoving the Angel into reverse, Gabe backed the boat through the water, crabbing sideways with the current.
“What is it, amigo?” Gabe called out to the deckhand on the bow.
“The coral, it grows an arm.” Manolo jabbed his finger ahead.
“All right, folks, that wraps up this quadrant as far as the Angel can go,” Gabe announced. “If we chart anything else, we’ll have to do it in the inflatable.”
“What do you think?” Jeanne asked Pablo. “Should we start diving where we found significant debris or finish mapping this quadrant in the raft?”
“I vote for diving,” Nick said. “I’m hunch-backed and blind from watching that needle.”
“You are,” Stuart challenged, rubbing his back. “I may never sit straight again.”
“It does sound good.” Jeanne wiped a film of perspiration from her brow with her arm and resisted the sweet temptation to cool off. “But we haven’t finished mapping the grid until we scan this edge of the reef.” She turned to the rest of the crew gathering about.
“Group consult,” she announced. “Nick and Stuart want to dive the southwest quadrant. Who wants to go with the raft and finish our work?”
Don Pablo raised his hand, followed by Gabe.
Jeanne turned to Mara and Ann. “You two, what’s your vote?”
Ann scrunched up her sun-pinkened face in thought. “I’m just a photographer . . . but if you guys take the boat, could you drop Mara and me off at the beach with the portable metal detectors? I mean, it beats just sitting around reading.”
“Yes, that would be fun,” Mara seconded.
“Do you think it will be safe on the island?” Jeanne asked Pablo and Gabe.
“If they load up on insect repellant, use common sense, and don’t go inland, I see no problem,” Gabe replied.
“Sí, it’s primarily a bird sanctuary,” Pablo affirmed.
Ann jumped to her feet. Adapting a piratical swagger, she put both hands on her hips. “Well, hardee-har-har, mateys, let’s get to it then.”