“The hilt that gave me a total history-nerd boner,” Alex agreed. “Which is why we’ve been killing ourselves mapping and excavating the area. All to no avail. So what if that cutlass ended up stuck back there on that little reef because of currents or wave action? What if the captain even threw it back there?”
“Why would he do a thing like that?” Romeo asked.
She rolled her eyes. “How would I know? I’ve given up trying to figure out why you men do anything. But stick with me here. All this time, we’ve been assuming Vargas did what he said he was going to do. What if he didn’t?” She looked around at the faces staring back at her. “Or what if he couldn’t?”
The more she laid out the argument, the more she knew she was on to something. There was a feeling in her bones. The same feeling she’d had when she realized the “ringed island” mentioned in the old texts was, in fact, Wayfarer Island and not the Marquesas.
“Imagine you’re Captain Bartolome Vargas,” she continued. “You’ve been tasked by your king, your holy monarch, a man you revere only slightly less than God, to bring back a ship full of riches unlike anything the Old World has seen.”
In her mind an image of the ghost galleon bloomed, and her heart rate kicked up. Of course, with Mason so close, she couldn’t be sure if her excitement was due to the wreck and the mystery of theSanta Cristinaor to him.
“Riches that would pay for your country’s military might and continued expansion into the New World. And now imagine you’re caught in a terrible hurricane. You can’t make it back to home port. And for whatever reason, you don’t think you have time to sail around to the leeward side of the island. What do you do?”
The three men exchanged a knowing look. But it was Romeo who said, “Scuttle her. Somewhere shallow enough to make salvage possible.”
“Bingo.” Alex’s nod was quick as she pointed a finger at Romeo’s nose. “And where on Wayfarer Island would that be?”
For a couple of seconds, no one said a word, and the air inside the room grew heavy with expectation. Alex could see the answer slowly dawning in their eyes.
“The reef beyond the lagoon.” Mason’s deep voice made the fine hairs on her arms stand up. Anytime he opened his mouth, she imagined him dressed in muck boots and hauling lobster pots from the sea.
“Got it in one.” She winked at him.
“Cut that out,” he grumbled irritably.
“What?” She cocked her head.
“The tongue. The hugs. The winking. Don’t waste your flirting on me.”
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “If your ego gets any bigger, you might need to have it surgically removed.”
For one long moment, they glared at each other. Then, a corner of his lips twitched and he gifted her with a little chuckle.
Just that easily, her rancor leached out of her.
Why did he have to have such a wonderful laugh? All deep and seductive and so rare that when she managed to pull even the tiniest chortle from him, she felt like she’d won the lottery?
Now her girl parts weren’t just giggling; they were howling and singing “Let’s Get It On” at the tops of their lungs.
Chapter 3
8:15 a.m.
“Did you get a look at him?” Izad asked, and then watched the face of his youngest son, his onlylivingson, contort around an expression of disgust.
“Yes,” Kazem spat out. “He is overgrown, smug, and entitled. Like all of them.”
“English, please,” the American said in that long, lazy drawl that reminded Izad of America’s forty-third president. Good old George W. Bush. The cowboy who ran into Iraq, guns blazing, looking for WMDs that were never there when his true enemy, al-Qaeda, was being funded by a country he considered his ally.
Izad could have told George the Saudis were not to be trusted. That they would stab a man in his back as easily as they would shake his hand.
That one rash decision George made had led to incalculable pain and death in the Middle East. It had brought about the rise of ISIS. Which had created the conflict in Syria. Which had morphed into the terrible and bloody proxy war between Izad’s homeland and Saudi Arabia, both nations vying to be the ultimate power in the region.
But Izad cared little for the machinations of nations now. Following the senseless deaths of his older sons, he had resigned his post as commodore in the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and focused on one thing and one thing only.
Revenge.
There had been many years of dead ends and wrong turns, but it looked as if he mightfinallyget what he was after.
