“Well! Good morning, sunshine . . . or maybe I should say good afternoon,” Ann exclaimed the following day.
At least it looked like Ann through Jeanne’s sleep-fogged eyes. And it should be Sunday. The time between leaving the fiesta and awakening at that moment was a blur of freezing chills and smothering sweats, interspersed by doses of medicines, blindly taken, and dreams, incredible dreams.
“You’ve had quite a night,” Ann told her, coming into focus as she leaned over the cot and felt Jeanne’s forehead. “Damp, but cool as a cucumber, just the way I like it.”
“My ankle,” Jeanne thought aloud. She remembered Gabe’s examining her foot. It had been all she could do to keep from giggling until he pushed in on the sore spot. Scowling, she shifted the offending appendage out from under the covers. “I thought I’d put enough antibiotic cream on it.”
“Obviously you didn’t,” her friend responded. “When did it start bothering you?”
Jeanne tried to think. “It didn’t really. I had a little headache. It went away and then it returned with a vengeance. The rest is kind of fuzzy.”
Ann perched on the bottom of the cot. “Well, let me fill you in, sweet.”
Jeanne couldn’t help but smile at the use of Gabe’s endearment. She was the only one he called sweet.
“When the rest of us returned after the fireworks were over, neither you nor Gabe were anywhere to be found.” At the surprised lift of Jeanne’s brow, Ann went on. “Until Manolo told us that Gabe had taken you to the beach to try to get your fever down. And sure enough, we found him holding you in the water.”
So it wasn’t a dream. Jeanne had thought she was diving, except that she’d seemed to be floating on the surface . . . in Gabe’s arms. And he’d cooed the most tender words, gently washing her face with the seawater as he pressed her close to his chest, close enough to hear his heartbeat. Jeanne knitted her brow, trying to work out the logistics. Had she been in his lap?
“Some gals have all the luck,” Ann snorted, drawing Jeanne back to the present. “When I get sick, I wind up with an MD a breath short of retirement sticking a tongue depressor halfway to my appendix. Tall-dark-and-handsome stayed with you until I had you neatly tucked into a freshly made cot.” She glanced at her watch. “Time for meds. An antibiotic the size of a horse pill and two nonaspirin pain relievers for your headache.”
Jeanne blinked. “How do you know I have a headache?” She did. It was dull, but it was there. She threw the covers back and sat up, sending the room into a slow spin that stopped when she blinked. Her spare sleepshirt clung to her body, damp with perspiration. “Oh, man, I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
Ann poured out a glass of Gatorade and handed it to her with the medication.
“Look at the bright side”—she broke off, as though trying to think of something to complete the thought—“you got to play doctor with Gabe Avery.”
“You are wicked,” Jeanne told her. “Gabe was a perfect gentleman.” She finished the drink and put the glass on the bedside table. “And a good doctor.”
After rocking a few times to gather momentum, Jeanne lurched to her feet on the third try. Once again the room swayed, but stilled quickly. It surprised her that her foot wasn’t sore, but then it hadn’t been yesterday. Upon seeing her image in the mirror over the dresser, Jeanne groaned. “Aw, look at my new do. It’s stiff and icky with salt.”
“Is that the voice of the ill I hear?” Gabe’s voice sounded from outside the open window.
“Wait,” Jeanne called out, jumping back in the cot and covering up to her neck with one hand while trying to make some order of her hair. The jolt hurt her head, but vanity knows no pain.
“I’ve brought some soup from Lupita’s kitchen,” he announced.
“Honey,” Ann whispered, “you look a hundred percent better than you did when he and I tucked you in last night.” With an annoying smirk, she passed Jeanne and opened the door. “Yes, Gabe,” she said in a louder voice, “Sleeping Beauty is awake and ready to take nourishment.”
“I’ll probably be back to normal by tomorrow,” Jeanne told Gabe as he ducked under the low doorway to enter.
“As if she was ever normal,” her friend quipped.
Jeanne pulled a face. “With friends like you, who needs enemies.” “Actually,” Gabe began, “I’d have been here sooner, but I was held up at church this morning.”
“What?” Had she heard him right? Gabe at church?
An impudent smile claimed his lips. “I went there to speak to the reverend. I thought if anyone knew of a nearby doctor, he would.”
Jeanne’s elation collapsed. “So did you find one?”
“None in Punta Azul. The closest one is in Akumal. So I called the bloke, and he said if the infection did not respond to the antibiotic that I should bring you there on Monday.”
“You mean you’d postpone diving to take me to Akumal?” she asked, watching the slight jar of her suggestion on Gabe’s features.
But he answered without hesitation . . . and with a wry twist of those incredibly tender lips. “Fortunately, there’s no need for that, since you’ve declared that by tomorrow you will be normal . . . or some semblance thereof,” he added wryly as he handed Ann the thermos of soup.
It was all coming back to her now. Good heavens, Gabe had kissed her several times. Not the kind that burned with passion— she’d been burning with fever enough for them both—but with the most heart-melting tenderness.
Gabe placed a hand on Jeanne’s forehead. “Hmm, still a little warm.” He checked his watch. “Has she had her antibiotic?”
“Hey,” Ann replied with mock indignation. “I can play nurse just as good as you can play doctor, Captain.”
With a quirk of the lips, Gabe turned from Nurse Ann to Jeanne. “Would the patient be so kind as to stick out her foot, so I can have a look at it?”
Jeanne complied, humiliated that Gabe could look so good: freshly shaven, wet dark hair bound at his neck with a band . . . just squeaky clean and—okay, she’d admit it—hot, while she lay wilted beneath the covers. She focused on the bronze-rose nail polish on her toes, her fingers and toes about all that was undefiled by the fever.
“It looks much better than it did last night, but I suggest you soak it in salt water again.”
“Well, well, what have we going on in here . . . a party?” Remy Primston poked his head inside the open window. “Word has it that our good captain has somehow acquired a degree in medicine whilst we were not looking.”
Gabe’s congenial and concerned demeanor vanished. “This, from the king of the jacks?” He held Jeanne’s foot as though he thought Remy might try to take it from him.
Remy in the window, Gabe kneeling by her bedside, Ann looking over her . . . it was surreal. Shades of the wacky professor, Uncle Henry, Aunty Em, Jeanne thought, suppressing a giggle. Maybe if she clicked her heels together hard enough, she’d return to Punta Azul and some semblance of normalcy.
No wait. Gabe and Remy at each other’s throats? That was normal.
Remy handed Ann a grocery bag through the window. “As soon as I learned of your illness this morning, I drove to Akumal and bought you some Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and saltines.”
“I already brought soup, homemade,” Gabe replied. “But that was thoughtful, Prim. Late, but thoughtful.”
“I’ll have one for lunch and the other for—”
Remy interrupted Jeanne’s attempt at mediation with king-size indignation. “If that woman who deems herself a cook made it, I shudder to think what contamination might be in . . .”
Jeanne closed her eyes and shut out the rest of Remy’s reply. Mediation was beyond her today.
On Monday morning Jeanne was better, if not totally well. Fortunately, the antibiotics had kicked in; the swelling had gone down considerably, and she hadn’t run a fever during the night. After breakfast, she made her way down to the dock to the Fallen Angel. Next to it, a smaller boat was pulling up. Tex, wearing his traditional jeans, checked shirt, and studded vest, stood on the dock and caught the lines tossed to him by a giant of a Mexican, whose shaved head glistened in the early morning sunlight.
Jeanne’s heart skipped in recognition. It was the same behemoth who’d nearly taken Gabe’s head off with a table in the fight at the cantina. This was the extra help? Bar brawlers?
“Jeanne, I’m bringing along some canned tuna and more soup,” Remy called out to her, emerging from the bait shack. “Wait up.”
Hopefully Mr. Clean wouldn’t remember them, but just in case, Gabe should be warned.
“Thanks, but not now, Remy,” she answered, speeding up on the uneven planks.
But before she was halfway down the dock, Gabe leapt off the deck of the Fallen Angel, hurried over to where the giant had disembarked, and gave the man a bear hug.
“Big Juan! How’s the head, amigo?”
Jeanne cringed in midstep. Way to go, Gabe. Remind the man that you put the latest gash on his head.
But instead of hostility, Juan brandished a sheepish, snaggle-toothed grin at Gabe. “I did not know you, amigo.” He pointed to his head. “One too many fights, eh?”
“Oh, heaven spare us,” Remy moaned, catching up with Jeanne. “More hooligans.” He lowered his voice. “You do realize that our Tex”—the professor said the name as though it soured his mouth— “could be setting us up to grab the loot and run? If that giant doesn’t look like a pirate, I’m Mother Teresa.”
Still bewildered by this strange alliance, Jeanne nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t be ridiculous, Remy. I like Tex.”
But she wasn’t so sure about Big Juan. As she and Remy drew closer to the Angel, Jeanne saw another familiar face. Juan’s companion was the same young man who’d moved the van for them the night of the altercation in the Akumal cantina. It was Tito’s big brother. Rico, she thought.
“Buenos días, señorita!” Rico waved from the stern, where the name Margarita had been painted across the transom. “Mi hermano . . . my brother Tito, he asks me to say to you that he is remembering your kindness.”
“You actually know these people?” Remy whispered in her ear, incredulous.
“It’s good to see you again . . . it’s Rico, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Sí.” The young man’s head bobbed up and down, his bowl-cut black hair shimmering in the sunlight. “It is good of you to remember me, señorita.”
“Well, now that we’re all amigos,” Tex said, pulling on his vest. “How’s about me n’ Pablo ridin’ with my boys and meetin’ you folks at Isla Codo? That way they’ll be up to speed on what we need them to do.”
“It sounds good to me,” Pablo called from the bridge of the Angel. “Okay with you, boss?”
“Sure,” Jeanne answered, a bit intimidated. Granted, everyone deferred to her, but in reality, the project had taken on a life of its own. It was now running itself.
“Good,” Pablo said. “I’ll grab the detailed chart of the mound we want them to work on.”
Jeanne conceded that she felt better with Pablo accompanying the Akumal crew. And if Gabe trusted the lot, they had to be trustworthy, whether Remy agreed or not.
Lord, just help me to keep abreast of it all. As long as it’s in Your hands, I’m happy.
Once they were underway, Jeanne sat, foot propped up on the bridge sofa, reveling in the fresh air that swept through and the fact that she’d finally had the strength to shower that morning. Yesterday, she’d washed as best she could on potty runs to the ladies’ bathhouse, nursed the soups and mineral drinks, and slept.
Gabe’s occasional glance at her from the wheel worked better than the antibiotic to make her ready, willing, and able to get going again, although he’d already warned her that she ought to stay topside and help Remy and Mara, at least for today. Part of her hoped that they wouldn’t find the Luna Azul’s treasure today—because she wanted to see for herself the unveiling of a secret hidden for years beneath a coral bed. A more practical voice countered the sooner the better, with or without her.
Beyond the bow of the boat, Isla Codo appeared as a dark spot on the horizon. Gabe lined up the Angel with the buoys marking the entrance to the reef and cut back the speed of the engines. Behind, Tex Milland’s Margarita maneuvered into their wake. This was it. Within an hour, they’d be underwater—at least the others would—and perhaps just a few blocks of coral away from the Luna Azul’s treasure.
As Gabe steered between the two markers leading into the lagoon, Jeanne rose to join him at the wheel—when a terrible jolt vibrated through the boat, nearly knocking her to the deck. The grinding and scraping beneath them sounded as if the Angel had fallen into a giant garbage disposal. The boat shuddered as if it would fly apart.
Gabe shifted the throttle into reverse, churning up water all around them. Jeanne grasped the back of the captain’s bench to steady herself, her mind awash with shock-blunted questions. Were they on the reef? How?
She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Tex Milland veer away from them toward the deeper water. Almost simultaneously, his voice crackled over the radio with his call sign.
“What in tarnation is going on up there?”
Gabe was too busy to answer. Blanched beneath his dark tan, he urged the shaking ship away from the dangerous shallows with muttered words Jeanne couldn’t hear and growls of diesel power as the scraping and grinding continued to attack the hull.
Dear Father, please deliver us—
A wave lifted the boat and the props turned, thrusting it away from the reef.
Losing no time, Gabe maneuvered the Angel into shallower water near a bar, his eyes glued to the Fathometer.
“Manolo, drop the fore anchor!” he shouted. “Nick, get the back!”
“Do you think we’re sinking?” Jeanne asked. A reef played no favorites.
“Maybe. If we are taking on water, at least we’re in shallows.”
“Heavenly Father, please make it okay.” Jeanne didn’t realize she’d prayed aloud until she saw Gabe looking at her.
Instead of responding with his usual cynicism, he simply added, “Amen. It’ll take nothing short of a miracle.”