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PROLOGUE

The fragrance of evergreen and holiday baking filled the air as the Madison family gathered around the table for the traditional Christmas dinner. Dr. Jeanne Madison sat between her brother Mark and mother, Neta, at one end of the table as Blaine, the eldest of the Madison siblings, bowed his head to ask the blessing at the other.

“Heads up, everyone,” he said, taking his wife, Caroline’s, hand on his right and their adopted son, Berto’s, on his left. At his signal, the rest of the gang linked hands.

“Heavenly Father, we thank You for this blessed day . . .” Blaine began.

As her brother prayed, Jeanne’s heart filled with thanksgiving that she was united with those at the table not only by blood, but by the spirit flowing in and among them. Joy bubbled in her heart, finding voice in her fervent “Amen” at the end of Blaine’s prayer. She loved Christmas, she loved her family, and she loved life.

“Okay, folks, let’s get this food moving before it gets cold.” Mark took up a platter of Neta’s roasted turkey and helped himself to a king-sized portion before serving his wife equally.

“Mark, I can’t eat all that,” Corinne protested, her blue eyes widening.

“You’re eating for two,” he reminded her.

“I have only one stomach.”

“I don’t want my . . .” Mark hesitated, scowling beneath the shock of sandy brown hair on his forehead. He and Corinne had decided not to know the sex of the next addition to the Madison clan. “My whatever,” he went on, “to come out malnourished.”

“No chance of that, Mark,” Caroline assured him. “You should have seen what she was packing away in the kitchen while we were dishing up the food.”

“Snitch,” Corinne accused her sister-in-law.

“Will you guys just get over it and pass the turkey?” Blaine’s daughter, Karen, exclaimed. “I’m starved.”

“Yeah, they don’t feed us this good at college,” her stepsister Annie chimed in.

“I’d rather have peanut butter and jelly,” Berto said to no one in particular.

“That’s why I made you this.” Neta Madison tugged a plasticbagged sandwich from the pocket of her apron and passed it down to her grandson.

“You are spoiling him, Neta,” Caroline chided, her smile belying any real admonishment.

“That’s what grandmoms are for,” Neta replied.

“So, Jeanne,” Mark said above the melee of food passing and intermittent conversations, “what’s the latest on the Blue Moon?”

Jeanne squirmed in her chair with childlike excitement. “We’re targeting a March expedition.”

“She’s going to miss the baby festivities,” Neta Madison told them, disappointment dampening her voice.

“Festivities?” Corinne echoed, glancing at her husband for an explanation.

“Mom makes a big deal over any baby. When Karen was born, she got showers and all this knitted stuff . . . enough to smother the kid once she was here.”

“Babies are special,” Neta said in self-defense.

“Was I special?” Berto asked.

Neta winked. “You got your favorite sandwich, didn’t you?”

At Berto’s bright-eyed nod, everyone laughed.

“Have you found a boat yet?” Blaine asked, bringing the family back to the topic at hand.

Leave it to Blaine, always the CEO, even at the dinner table. “I have a lead on one,” Jeanne answered. “The problem is, we can’t afford to hire out a ship as well-equipped as the Calypso was.”

“You mean you haven’t taken the ghost of old Jacques Cousteau on board yet?” Mark teased. “At the rate you’re going, the old man will rise from the dead just to be your deckhand.”

“Maybe my next expedition,” she shot back, modesty warming her cheeks.

“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Neta declared with a confidence only a mother could have in her child. “You’ve always had the industry of that Proverbs 6:6 ant.”

Mark groaned. “Don’t remind us. ‘Jeanne’s room is neat as a pin,’” he mimicked their mother, adding the scripture she brandished with the skill of a swordmaster. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”

“You, a sluggard?” Corinne teased. “I can’t imagine.”

Blaine gave her a wry grin. “That was before he met you.”

“But that is exactly what papa tells me to get me to pick up my toys,” Berto exclaimed, none too thrilled about ants or wisdom. “And I say that ants also bite.”

Jeanne snickered as Blaine ruffled his adopted son’s obsidiandark hair. She had worked hard, getting her doctorate by the age of twenty-six. But Jeanne knew that she was also blessed beyond measure. Mark’s finding the letters practically pinpointing the wreck of the Luna Azul and handing them over to her went beyond the pale of hard work, or even luck. And that was why she had no doubt that they would find and excavate the early-eighteenth-century galleon.

“It’s definitely a God thing,” Jeanne said. She knew it. At twenty-seven, with a fresh doctorate in nautical archaeology, the most one could typically hope for was to accompany someone like the late, famous Dr. Jacques-Yves Cousteau on such an expedition, not run it.

“Carlos Aquino told me that CEDAM is going to work with you,” Blaine said.

“What’s CEDAM?” Corinne asked.

“It’s an acronym for Conservation, Exploration, Diving, Archaeology, and Museums,” Jeanne answered. “It was formed to protect the artifacts pertinent to Mexican history, as well as garner interest in recreational diving in Mexican waters. Any treasure dives within Mexican waters require permission from them. But the biggest problem to date is the dive boat itself . . . and a captain, of course.”

Most of the charters cost five hundred bucks a day, a cost that would put Jeanne way over budget. The assets of the company she’d formed to finance the expedition had been modest, enough only to pay for the equipment leases and basic expenses.

“I’m hoping to find a captain who will put up his ship and services for a share of the findings.”

“You mean a captain with a penchant for gambling,” Blaine observed, not at all enthralled with the trait of gambling.

Jeanne nodded. “That’s my biggest hurdle. But Don Pablo, our CEDAM liaison, has someone in mind, someone he’s worked with before. In fact, Remy . . . er . . . Dr. Primston and I are flying down to Cancún after the new year to check him out . . . some guy from Bermuda who lives in Cancún and operates a charter fishing boat.”

“I’d better check him out first,” Blaine said. “I’ll have Carlos—” He broke off as his wife pinched his arm, a grin on her freckled face. “What?”

“Blaine, Jeanne is a big girl. If she wants help, she’ll ask for it— right, sweetie?” She turned to smile at Jeanne.

“It’s not just big brother protecting little sister, Caroline,” Blaine said in his defense. “Mark and I are investors as well. We have every right to check out who is on the team. The exception to getting what you pay for is a rare bird. I don’t want Jeanne stranded in the middle of her project.”

“Blaine’s right,” Jeanne said, torn between Blaine’s logic and her yearning to do everything herself. “I’d appreciate whatever he can find out, so we don’t have any surprises. But make it soon, because things are moving fast.” She resisted the childish urge to jump up and down with the excitement that launched her pulse into overdrive every time she thought about the expedition. “And I will have my cell phone charged and on for any news about you and the newest Madison,” she assured Corinne.

Blaine raised a goblet of the cranberry-citrus punch. “I’d like to propose a toast then.” He waited until Jeanne refilled Berto’s cup from the punch bowl behind her on the sideboard, and then spoke. “To the Luna Azul.”

“To the Blue Moon.”

Overwhelmed, Jeanne half-rose at the far end of the long dining table and stretched outward to add her glass to those her family raised. The goblets clinked lightly, glass to glass and glass to Berto’s plastic version.

“And to the best family a gal could ever hope for—the Madison gang.” She looked at each person in turn, imprinting their faces on her memory with each touch of her glass to theirs. She’d take them with her on this chance of a lifetime, the kind of chance that came along, well, once in a blue moon.