Page 381 of The Romance Adventure

We exchange a lingering kiss. However, I’m afraid it’s merely a matter of time before we have our last one.

CJ

CHAPTER 14

I do not doubt that some of what Jolie tells me is true. Her lips on mine felt very true when we kissed in the corner at the Halloween party. But there’s more to the story.

After she falls asleep, I employ the tech in my room under the garage. I’ve scoured every database available to me, from criminals to assets to officers, and I cannot find a match.

Leaning back in the chair, I clasp the back of my head with elbows wide, and think.

“Who is my wife?”

Assessing what we know and what we don’t know proves helpful, except right now it’s more of an annoyance. I want to know her identity because a real estate agent doesn’t throw axes and hit the heart of the target every time.

I’m just afraid that when I learn the truth, it’ll be my heart torn asunder.

Then I exhale slowly as the realization comes to me, confirming one cold, hard fact. If she’s not in any of these databases, that means she’s like me.

Sinking deeper into the chair, how very complicated this treasure hunt has become, makes me want to quit. But Chip wouldn’t. Chip didn’t.

He set out on this quest to right a wrong, to get his hands on what belonged to our family and honor his great-great or so grandmother.

Yes, she was a pirate and they aren’t known for their quarter. However, her husband was double-crossed by his brother, leaving her a young widow with five children across the world from the home she’d always known.

My grandfather found the stones, but then he hid them. “Why?” I ask out loud as if someone will answer.

Instead, a few others hit me rapid fire.

Would my brothers betray me as Adão did to his twin? No.

Would my wife? I don’t know.

She’s independent, somewhat stubborn, and relatively secretive. I have to admit, I love all those things about her. Whatever she’s doing is much bigger than an old man leaving his grandsons an adventure. What’s driving her?

The answer to my question about why Chip hid the stones comes to me. “He hid them so no one else would find them before we did. That means he knew someone else was looking.”

I frown. Royal and Ryan might be a tad bit concerned about Captain J, but I’m trained to assess legitimate threats. He’s not any more of one than Glandman is. They’re bravado and bluster, respectively.

But is Jolie a threat, or is it someone else?

The next morning, I make eggs, bacon, and toast, hoping to lure my wife out of a peaceful slumber.

When she gets downstairs, she takes one look at me and says, “You look like you need some coffee.”

“I already had two cups.”

“Rough night’s sleep?”

More like no sleep, but I keep that to myself. Much like when she revealed her strategy for locating the Cartagena Catch, which is real, by the way—I sourced any credible treasure hunters whom she may also have tailed. Interestingly, I was on the list, which I consider having scrubbed, but I’ve gone to great lengths to embed myself with certain groups of people—very bad people—and being on that list only helps, rather than hurts, my cover.

Setting down two plates, topped with breakfast, I say, “We have to talk.”

Jolie’s long lashes lift as she takes a sip of coffee. Kudos for not spluttering it. No one, married couple or agency operative, wants to hear those four words.

“About?”

“Why are you being so cagey?”