The ride to the beach was crowded until Ann, Mara, and Nick, who opted at the last minute to join the ladies on the beach with metal detectors, disembarked with their supplies. That left a sun-blocked Stuart to join Pablo, working the magnetometer’s portable recording device, with Pablo straddling the middle seat, using the remainder as a charting table. Gabe piloted the craft and checked their location with a handheld GPS unit, while Jeanne handled the line dragging the magnetometer fish unit.
Periodically Jeanne observed the trio on the beach scanning for any washed up treasure. She looked at anything—the dog, the boat, the beach, and the fish line—to keep from checking out Gabe. But it was impossible; she had to coordinate turns with him to keep her line clear of the propeller. And she felt the eyes hidden behind his sunglasses fixed on her.
“So what did you do before you became a treasure hunter?” she asked, summoning her nerve. “I know you went to college with Pablo . . .”
White teeth flashed a toothpaste-commercial grin. “We go back a long time.”
“And worked at BBSR.” At Jeanne’s mention of the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, the grin vanished.
“I worked and studied there.” End of story. Gabe didn’t say it, but his demeanor did.
She’d hoped that without Remy around to pounce, Gabe might have opened up a bit. “You seem to know a lot about the coral.” That was as lame a hint as she’d ever heard.
“Sounds to me like you’re trying to dig up my sordid past.”
Embarrassed, she nodded. “I suppose I am . . . curious, that is. Especially since you seem determined to keep it hidden.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Gabe teased, pulling the rim of his shades down and peering over them with a look of mischief that tickled every one of Jeanne’s senses.
Definitely time to change course. “And I’m wondering why you seem to have it in for Remy.” She braced, half-expecting him to blast her with mind your own business, toss her over the side, or both. But this was her business, at least where harmony among her crew was concerned.
Gabe winced. “The man is a very bitter pill . . . even if he is your friend.”
“As a favor to me, would you try not to provoke him?”
Gabe pressed his lips together, his forehead furrowed in a show of deep thought. He nodded. “It’ll cost you though.”
A twitch at the corner of his lips made her wary. “What?”
“Dinner . . . Sunday . . . Akumal, you and I.”
Jeanne’s heart thudded. “Like . . . a date?”
“Like . . .” Gabe mimicked the swing of her ponytail, flipping his short one with his fingers.
Jeanne laughed outright.
“What say we start as friends and see what the moon has in store.”
The moon! Smile freezing on her face, Jeanne groaned in silence. Her brothers had both found true love under the spell of the Mexican moon. Not that she was against finding the right person, but, sadly, gorgeous and charming did not mean right.
Gabe passed the looks and personality test with flying colors, but deeper issues left him short. Blaine and Mark had found matches for the heart and the spirit, the kind that last forever. And even if it broke her heart, Jeanne would settle for nothing less. But before she could put together an answer to Gabe’s invitation, Stuart shouted from the bow.
“Bingo! We’re maggin’!”
The Fallen Angel should have been nosing its way through the glittering silver-blue water toward Punta Azul as the sun dipped fast toward the western horizon, but the fever had claimed its crew. Ann, Mara, and Nick had struck it rich. Having found mostly silver and some gold coins along with a few belt buckles tossed in, Ann had stripped to her tank swimsuit and tied knots in her Bermuda shorts to make a bag to bring them back in.
“And I got some good video to boot,” she bragged, stepping into the rising and dipping boat with a cautious swagger.
The beach looked as if it had been shelled with artillery. There were holes and welts of sand everywhere.
“I think we must have been the first people on that island since Captain Ortiz,” Nick speculated, sifting his fingers through the sandy coins before handing them over like a cradled babe to Jeanne.
The banner results of their charting the reef forgotten, Jeanne took the half-filled “sack” of coins and put it on the floor of the half-beached raft between her and Gabe. While the trio babbled on and on about their adventure, she lifted a piece-of-eight between her fingers and brushed away the sandy residue, staring in sheer wonder at the date.
“Sixteen-seventy-eight . . . thank you, Jesus,” she murmured under her breath. “It could be.”
Gabe caught her eye as he picked up another piece of the treasure. “Sixteen-eighty-two. You’re in the right vicinity.”
As they dove into the pile, digging like kids for candy, Nick gave a smug laugh, diverting their attention. “The latest date we found was 1700,” he told them.
Jeanne gasped in delight. The Luna Azul had sunk little more than a year later. Her already pumping blood surged, fit to burst her veins.
“It’s my baby!” Shooting to her feet, hands raised to the heavens, she did a little dance. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Suddenly a swell lifted the rubbery deck beneath her. Before Jeanne, or anyone, could do anything, she flopped backward into the shallow water with a loud splash. As she came up for air, another swell smacked her in the face, but Jeanne was more concerned with the coin she’d lost. Spitting water out of her mouth and rolling on her knees, she began to dig furiously in the swirl of the surf, despite the indignity of the laughter from the crew.
“My coin! It’s got to be here,” she cried, clawing the shifting sand into which her knees sank more with each subsequent wave.
Suddenly, a steely arm hooked her about the waist, lifting her above the surf, arms and legs flailing.
“First lesson in a raft,” Gabe chided, hauling her over the rim of the rubber boat. “Never stand up and jump for joy. As I recall, only Jesus can walk on water.” Laughing, he deposited her, dripping water everywhere, on the seat.
But Jeanne didn’t care. She wanted her coin. “Give me that metal detector,” she told Ann.
At Ann’s expectant glance, Gabe nodded. “Might as well. She’ll not let us leave without it.”
By the time they boarded the Fallen Angel with the recovered coin and its mates, the horizon was streaked with the blue and orange remnants of the day. While Manolo and Gabe strapped the raft onto the roof of the galley section, Mara, Ann, Nick, and a drip-dried Jeanne separated the coins into plastic beach buckets according to date.
Although distracted by the presence of real gold, Stuart remained focused on printing out the readings from the portable magnetometer unit. “Holy moly,” he groaned, drawing the attention of the rest of the gold-dazzled crew.
“What?” Nick exclaimed.
“You’d better enjoy running your fingers through those coins,” Stuart warned, “because if our readings are any indication, the real cache is in the reef lagoon.”
Jeanne drifted back to earth from her heavenly daze. In the excitement, she’d almost forgotten the bad news.
Pablo looked up from where he’d packed the fish in its metal box. “It will be a problem, but not impossible.”
With a surge of hope, she nodded. “That’s right, amigos. Just remember, with faith, all things are possible.”
But it was hard to miss the skeptical expression Gabe cast in Pablo’s direction. “With faith and some engineering . . . maybe.”