“You know your presidents, Sophie.” Uncle John winked, taking another draw on his cocktail.
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.Leo really should have paid more attention to the introductions. I mean, seriously? What was his problem? If a woman’s name wasn’t Olivia Mortier, it just went in one ear and out the other?Forshit’s sake!
“I teach history at the Girls’ Academy of the Holy Saints High School in Tuscaloosa.” She hooked a thumb toward her friend. “Tracy teaches home ec.”
Leo nearly spewed his beer. It wasn’t high etiquette, but it was damn close.
“Ah.” Uncle John nodded sagely. “Well, that explains it. And you’re right. It was in the eighteen seventies.”
“So then”—Sophie’s lips pulled down into a frown—“you’re kicked out in, what? Five? Ten years?”
“Eh.” Uncle John shrugged. “We can’t really get kicked out because it was never really ours to begin with. Besides, this crew will have found theSantaCristinaby then.” John had moved out to Wayfarer Island under the auspices of “helping” Leo search for the ship. But really Leo suspected the old codger was just bored with retirement and looking to take part in one last hoorah. “And,” he continued, “they’ll have enough money to buy whatever house or island they want. Am I right, or am I right?”
“Hooyah!” Doc and Romeo whooped in unison, lifting their beers in salute.
Leo didn’t join in. He wasn’t a superstitious man by nature, but the ghost galleon brought out the avoid-the-black-cat, throw-salt-over-my-shoulder in him, and he didn’t want to jinx their chances of finding the wreck by treating it like it was a foregone conclusion. He also didn’t like to think that in a few short years he and his uncle would lose the lease on the island that had seen generations of Andersons for spring breaks and summer vacations, for Fourth of July weekends and the occasional Christmas getaway. It wasn’t until Leo arrived with his merry band of Navy SEALs that anyone had attempted to live on the island permanently; it was just too isolated.
“And speaking of the crew…” Uncle John said.Crew. Leo rolled the term around in his head and figuredright. I reckon that’s a label I can work with. “The other half of ’em just called on the satellite phone.”
Because when Leo said isolated, he meantisolated.The nearest cell tower was almost fifty nautical miles away. Which begged the question: What the ever-lovin’hellhad Tracy and Sophie been thinking to let Romeo sail them out here? They were damned lucky Romeo was a stand-up guy and not some ax murderer. Had Leo felt more obliging, he’d have given the women a well-deserved lecture about the ill-advisedness of hopping onto a catamaran for a four-hour sail with a dusky-skinned gentleman sporting a too-precisely trimmed goatee. But right now, he had more important things to discuss.
“What’d they say?” he asked his uncle, referring to his three friends who’d spent a week across the pond in Seville, Spain.
“They said they finished photocopyin’ and digitizin’ the images of the documents in the Spanish Archives yesterday afternoon and sent all the data to What’s-his-name, that historian you’ve been talkin’ to online.”
Online via the Internet connection Leo had established using the satellite he mounted to the top of the house. Because while he and the guys might’ve been fine to forgo cellular signals, there would have been serious mental and emotional fallout had Mason “Monet” McCarthy not been able to watch his beloved Red Sox play on their lone laptop or Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse not been able to Skype with his bazillion loving relatives back in Oklahoma. And the satellite was onemorereason Leo’s savings account and the savings accounts of the others were barely in the black.
God, we need a salvage gig. A big one.Because they only had enough funds left to fuel the search for theSantaCristinafor two, maybe three more weeks. And that wasn’t going to be enough.
Of course, before they could start advertising their services, they needed to actually incorporate their fledgling business. Which meant paperwork and opening accounts and coming up with anamefor their company. Leo was not happy with Romeo’s suggestion that they should call themselves Seas the Day Salvage. I mean, he enjoyed a play on words as much as the next guy, but, come on now, that was justbad.
Pushing his cash problems and the long list of things he still needed to accomplish aside, Leo got back to the point at hand. The historian he’d been emailing.
“Like I’ve told you twenty times before, the guy’s name is Alex Merriweather,” he scolded his uncle, not pointing out that John had no trouble remembering the names of Sophie and Tracy, two women he’d just met—thelecherousoldfart. “And he assures me that if there’s anything new to discover in those documents, he’s the man who’ll find it.”
Treasurehuntersdieoldandbroke. It was a saying Leo sure as shit didn’t want to see come true for him and the guys, which meant he was exploring every possible avenue he could. Including hiring an overpriced historian to go through all the old documents that pertained to the hurricane of 1624 and the fate of the Spanish fleet.
“Hmmph.” His uncle made a face. “I doubt some library nerd is goin’ to be able to tell you anything more than—”
“So what else did they say?” Leo interrupted, not willing to engage in that argument.Again. “After receivin’ the digitized copies, did Alex gave ’em any indication that—”
“Hold on there, Leo, my boy.” Uncle John raised the hand not wrapped around his cocktail glass. “Don’t let your mind go runnin’ around like a gnat in a hurricane. First of all, they didn’t go into any detail with me. Second of all, I don’t think they’vegotany details. The sorry sonsofbitches have been stuck on a transatlantic flight all day long. They just landed in Key West a little while ago. They’re goin’ to rack out there for the night and head here first thing tomorrow mornin’. You’ll have to hold your questions until then.”
Leo sat back in his chair, frustrated by the delay but comforting himself with another long pull on his beer.
“I need to run to the little girls’ room,” Tracy suddenly announced. “Want to”—hiccup—“come with me, Sophie?”
After a quick look at Doc, Sophie pushed up from her lawn chair. “Of course,” she said, giving the back legs of her Daisy-Duke-style jean shorts a quick tug. It didn’t do a damn thing to cover the lower curve of her ass cheeks peeking from beneath the frayed denim.
“I’ll show you the way.” Romeo bolted up from his chair. The guy knew an opportunity to move things along when he saw one. “You coming,vato?” he asked Doc, one black brow raised meaningfully.
“Be there in a sec,” Doc said. The three of them still seated around the fire watched, heads tilted, as Romeo herded the women across the sand toward the house.What?They were all healthy, red-blooded, heterosexual males, and the sight of long, tan legs and sweet, heart-shaped derrieres was not something to be missed.
“Hey, LT,” Doc said, taking the toothpick from his mouth, “if you’ve changed your mind about Sophie, I’ll gladly hara-kiri myself.”
“You’ll what?” Leo turned away from the view.
“You know,” Doc snickered. “I’ll fall on my sword soshecan, uh, fall onyours.”
