The moon was high overhead when Jeanne emerged from the cabin, looking snug in a yellow and gray jog suit. Her hair, still wet from her shower, was combed back from her face. A lovely face, Gabe thought, one that lingered in his mind night and day since he’d met her. He couldn’t decide which feature he liked the most, that small upturned nose or her mouth, which could look soft and yielding one moment or drawn into a pout the next. And her eyes. Their glow was more intoxicating than any whiskey he’d ever tasted.
“Prim finally gave it up, eh?” His pulse quickened at her nearness.
Gabe had waited all day for this moment, a chance to be alone with Jeanne . . . or as alone as one could be on a vessel with others about. At the moment, Manolo was on the bow, trying the reception of a prepaid cell phone. He’d not spoken to his family since the weekend, and Marisol, his daughter, was expecting to deliver his first grandchild any time now. Gabe had tried to get him to go back with the Margarita, but he’d insisted on staying around.
“Our resident Midas is showering,” she chuckled, looking across the reef through the side door of the bridge to where the water churned white and lapped up on the narrow beach of Isla Codo. “You’ve been holding out on us.”
Gabe cocked his head in surprise. “Oh?”
“Keeping all this to yourself.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I can almost hear the rush of the water over the reef.”
“Just remember, the generator’s hum in Punta Azul means lights and warm water. If I hadn’t been topside, I’d have missed the patrol boat that came by earlier. Of course they stay far adrift of the reef.”
Gabe could smell the exotic scent of shampoo wafting his way on the evening breeze. It tightened an already acute awareness in the pit of his belly and radiated warmth from there.
“If I didn’t know that the island wasn’t much more than a mangrove swamp, I’d think Shangri-la lay just beyond the surf. Everywhere I go, I think God, it can’t get any better than this, and yet it does.”
Gabe knew exactly what she meant. “I also believe that God has a sense of humor.”
Jeanne glanced at him, chuckling. “I hope so, or I’m in big trouble.”
“Look at the sky.” He pointed to the full moon casting its silver light over the sea. “You are looking at a blue moon . . . the second full moon this month.”
“Oh! I didn’t . . . I hadn’t . . .”
The wonder on her face was more than Gabe could resist. He looked toward the bow where Manolo chatted on the cell phone while Nemo looked at the deckhand as if his words were for the dog’s ears only. “I’ve been waiting to do this all week.”
Turning Jeanne toward him, he claimed her lips with his own. She stiffened in surprise at first, but as Gabe continued his sweet plunder, resistance gradually gave way to surrender. Part of him raged to satisfy animal instinct, gnashing at the restraint he exercised so as not to ruin what he wanted to convey.
Not that Gabe was clear on that. All he knew was that Jeanne was a special lady requiring special handling.
He heard her small, shaky intake of breath as his lips left hers. At first he thought the movement of her uncrossing her arms, which had been pinned between them, was withdrawal. But when she wrapped them around his neck, he thought his knees would give way with the desire bolting through him.
“Is this real, Gabe?” she whispered, searching his eyes.
“If it were any more real, I’d melt in a puddle at your feet.” His voice didn’t even sound like his.
She ran her fingers over his temples, feather-light. “I don’t play games.”
“I know.”
His voice had grown hoarse. Games had been all he’d known until now. Playing for keeps scared him witless. His record hadn’t exactly been a winning one on that account. He’d blown so many chances to do something worthwhile, preferring to gamble his life away on what might be, pushing to the limit. But not this time. Not with Jeanne.
Clearing his throat, he gently moved her away from him. It was a monumental effort that left his body screaming in a mix of bewilderment and outrage.
“Which is why I’m heading for the shower . . . now.” A cold one.
He took a step backward, far enough that the night air rushed between them, making him painfully aware of the distance. Still, he was close enough to run his thumb across her lips once more, gathering their essence.
“I would love to spend the night with you in my arms, just holding you, kissing you.” He stopped there, not daring to think further. “But I’ll settle for this.” He pressed his thumb to his lips. “Good night, sweet.”
Such a simple gesture, yet it reduced Jeanne’s thoughts to a molten muddle. And she’d thought his kiss was her undoing. She hadn’t thought her body capable of more clamor than had been raised by his heady seduction of her lips. But that thumb . . .
It had to be the moon. A smile pulled at her lips. A blue moon. Pulling a sheet up over her shoulder, Jeanne rolled on her side, wide awake, despite the pleas of weary flesh and bone for rest. There on the opposite wall of the stateroom, its reflection formed a perfectly round globe of light. Blue moons were rare, and she’d never felt like this, her body at odds with her senses, senses at odds with reason.
Even in the midst of her prayers, her lips recalled the brush of Gabe’s thumb, leaving her blank, at least of spiritual thought. Not even planning the following day’s work, which usually plagued her evening transition from wakefulness to sleep, was resistant to that sexy, sense-riddling gesture. And then, with a husky “Good night, sweet,” he was gone. In body at least.
And she was left with a steam engine barreling through her veins.
Lord, I’m not even sure it’s on the right track.
Granted, she’d seen a subtle change in Gabe. He was friendlier to Remy. And he’d made an observation about God tonight. . . .
Or was she grabbing at spiritual straws?
With a moan of frustration, Jeanne closed her eyes, focusing on the rhythmic lap of the water against the side of the rocking boat and the hum of the generator. In desperation, she began to count lap after lap . . . thumb kiss after thumb kiss. . . .
All right, she’d count those, Jeanne decided when it was clear that the memory would not relent. Somewhere after two start-overs and three-hundred-twenty-something, she finally gave in to the toll of the long day.
Nemo’s bark penetrated the fog of Gabe’s sleep. And it was a fog. At first, Gabe could barely make out Manolo, on an air mattress nearby, chiding the animal. But something about the dog’s growl niggled Gabe into a slow, blurry awareness. If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn the usual café con leche nightcap, which the deckhand prepared for them just prior to turning in, had more than just milk and coffee in it. Gabe dragged himself upright.
Manolo now stood, wrestling with the dog, whose bark deepened into a low, threatening rumble that sounded warning bells in Gabe’s mind.
“What the devil—”
Gabe broke off as a voice sounded from the stern door. “Capitán Gabriel, I have waited long for this moment . . . since Señor Arnauld called me to watch you.”
“Arnauld? This isn’t his style, amigo.”
“You are right,” the intruder agreed. “The Señor, he gave up when you made your formal claim on the site, but not I. My interest was just beginning.”
His gaze narrowing, Gabe tried to make out the identity of the small, wiry figure in the bridge doorway. Recognition drove away Gabe’s stupor. It was the man from the fiesta—same white traditional shirt and pantalones, but minus the straw hat. Instinctively, Gabe shot to his feet, but the sight of a weapon in the man’s hand froze him on the spot.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
Not that it took a genius to figure out what the man wanted. He’d been watching them bring up the gold. Gabe had seen a light earlier that week.
“You do not know me?”
Nemo suddenly shifted his snarling attention to Gabe’s left, where two men entered the open bridge, both armed with guns. Gabe gave himself a mental kick. If his head were clear, he might have taken the one man before the others had boarded. And why was Manolo holding Nemo at bay? Why was he just standing there?
“Should I know you?”
“To answer your question is only fair. What I want is your treasure, how not?” The man waved the gun at Gabe, pausing for effect. “And, of course, your life.”
“My life ?” Gabe reeled with shock and a growing sense of betrayal. He shot a look of disbelief at Manolo.
“Uno momento,” Manolo objected. “You say nada about murder . . . only to take the gold.” He spoke directly to the intruder.
“I owe you no explanation, Barrera, although . . .” The man shrugged. “If you wish to remain loyal until the end with your friend, that is your choice.”
Manolo averted his gaze, acquiescing with not nearly enough protest to suit Gabe. “Lo siento mucho, Gabriel.”
“What’s the deal with murder anyway?” Gabe pressed the stranger. “Why not take the gold and split? No one on board will stop you.”
“Still you do not know me, eh, Gabriel?”
“The ghost of Christmas past?” he countered. So much for humor. “Okay, I saw you at the fiesta . . . following me.”
“Look closely, Gabriel,” the man snapped, jutting out his chin, face raised to catch the brilliant moonglow. “Do you not remember this?” He ran a finger along a white scar that ran from his left eye to his lower jaw.
Who was this guy?
Gabe glanced at his friend. As shock wore off, the betrayal cut deeper and deeper. He’d known Manolo for years now, been part of his family. The famous line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ran through his mind as he sought Manolo’s help.
“Manolo, can you at least tell me who this hombre is and why in heaven’s name you agreed to help him?”
“He is Raul Goya, the father of Julia Goya.”
Gabe groaned inwardly. Now he remembered. The man had come into a bar where Gabe once worked as a bouncer, livid because his daughter was pregnant and demanding that Gabe marry the girl. Except that Gabe was not the child’s father. Even at that time in his life, he’d had some scruples. Although Julia’d looked twenty, she was only sixteen and had a terrible crush on Gabe because he’d given her a stray kitten that had wandered into the cantina where he worked. If she’d been intimate with someone, it wasn’t Gabe.
“You ruin my daughter and give me this,” Goya said, jerking his thumb toward a long white scar on his swarthy cheek. His voice seethed with the same loathing that Gabe had seen in his eyes the night of the fiesta.
A fight had ensued when the drunken Goya, who would not believe Gabe, became belligerent. Goya pulled a knife, and Gabe had broken a beer bottle on the bar for self-defense. And that had been the end of it—or so Gabe thought then. It had been some years ago.
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of Gabe’s stomach. “Look, Goya, I’m not exactly proud of my past, but I never had relations with your daughter,” he declared. “And I’m sorry about that scar, although if you’d not attacked me with a knife, it wouldn’t have happened—”
“Sorry is not enough, mentiroso.”
Gabe shook his head. “I’m not lying, I swear—”
Goya jabbed the pistol at Gabe, sending Nemo lurching into a snarling, barking frenzy, straining against the hold Manolo had on his collar.
Gabe raised his hands in surrender. “Fine then . . . go ahead and shoot me, but let the others go. They’ve done nothing to hurt you.” The idea that something could happen to Jeanne because of him made his blood run cold.
“What in the name of thunder is going on up here?” Grumbling, Remy Primston emerged from the hatch. “That blasted dog—”
Before the professor finished, one of the thugs thumped him with the butt of a pistol. Remy collapsed like a rag doll. Rushing to his side, Gabe made a show of helping the dazed man up and onto the captain’s bench, but, using Remy as cover, he reached into the chart cubby next to the wheel for the pistol he kept there. It was gone.
“I am sorry, Gabriel,” Manolo told him when Gabe shifted an accusing expression to his former friend.
“After all I’ve done for you.” Gabe felt for the knife hilt beneath the captain’s bench. It was still there. Not that it would do much against a pistol. Make that three pistols, he thought bitterly. “What are they paying you, Manolo?”
“Enough to buy my own boat.” The deckhand shrugged. “My family needs the money, Gabriel. I am sorry.”
Remy groaned, coming to his senses.
“W-wha—”
“Tie them up,” Goya ordered the other men.
They’d come prepared. One wore a roll of duct tape on his arm.
“So what are you going to do, tie us up and shoot us?” Gabe stepped aside, hands raised as Remy was taken in hand.
“This is an outrage,” the professor grimaced, clearly in pain from the blow to his head.
Goya’s tobacco-stained smile was anything but reassuring. “No, I intend to take the gold and blow up your ship.”
Nemo practically foamed at the mouth, choking himself against Manolo’s hold as Remy was thrust to his knees and bound.
“What did you say?” he blustered in disbelief.
“I am going to blow up the ship, señor. It will look like an accident.” Goya’s smug look gave Gabe some hope. If they weren’t shot outright, there was a chance—
“You,” Goya shouted to Manolo, “take care of that animal, or I will shoot him. I will bring up the lady.”
“Goya, just take me and the gold with you and leave the others here on the Angel for the coastal patrol to find,” Gabe suggested as one of the two men grabbed his arms and forced them behind his back. “They’ve done nothing to you . . . nothing at all.”
Goya flashed an evil grin at Gabe. “They will have seen my face . . . and thanks to you, Gabriel, they will never forget it.”