Her Passionate Protector

by Laurey Bright

  He took her lip between his with tender care, his hand cradling her head. She shivered, but not with cold, and his other arm came about her, bringing her close against him. He stroked his tongue across her throbbing lip, coaxed her mouth open and kissed her more deeply, surely—erotically.

  Somewhere her mind was feebly trying to make a protest heard but her body wasn't listening. It was absorbed in the new exciting sensations Brodie aroused with his lips, his tongue, and the hand on her bare back that held her against him.

  His other hand moved from her nape and pushed down the thin strap over her -shoulder, baring the upper slope of her breast. But when he took his mouth at last from hers and dipped his head, finding the burgeoning flesh, she somehow mustered a shred of sanity and the strength to say, "No!"

  Brodie's head came up, glittering blue eyes met hers and a crooked grin crossed his face. She shoved at him, her hands on his bare chest, resisting the urge to caress, instead putting some space between them as she panted, "Let me go!"

  Reluctantly he did, letting her move away. He raked a hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. "Okay." Something like curiosity mingled with triumph in his expression.

  Sienna could still taste him on her lips—a seductive maleness that was all his own. She scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand, and saw his eyes narrow, brilliant with something other than the naked desire she'd seen when she freed herself from him. He was angry.

  Dropping her hand, she said, "If you think you can persuade me to give in to your high-handed decrees by kissing me, you're way off beam!"

  Brodie stepped back, leaned on the closed door and folded his arms. "I might accuse you of trying to change my mind in the same way. It takes two."

  "I wouldn't do that!"

  "Neither would I." His face was hard. "I want you," he said bluntly, almost arrogantly. "And judging by what happened just now—and back on Parakaeo—it's mutual. You have a problem with that?"

  "Yes, I have a problem! I don't want to get involved. If I thought you did, I'd never have … it wouldn't have happened."

  "We won't have much chance while we're working on the wreck," he reminded her. "There's not a lot of opportunity."

  "Just as well," Sienna decided. Temptation was one thing, opportunity something else.

  As if in confirmation, there was a rap on the door and, even as Brodie moved away from it, Rogan came in.

  "Everything all right?" he inquired, glancing from Sienna's still heated cheeks to his friend.

  "Yes," she said. "I have to get changed."

  She brushed past them both and hurried across the deck to the Sea-Rogue, going down to her cabin and pulling on long cotton pants and a roomy T-shirt.

  Rogan turned inquiringly to Brodie. "What gives?"

  "Seems she had a touch of nitrogen narcosis."

  "At that depth?" Rogan looked skeptical.

  "Yeah, which means she might be extra-susceptible. I told her I don't want her diving again."

  "Uh-huh." Rogan's eyes didn't waver. "How did she take it?"

  "Reckoned she'd complain to you—I said you'd back me up."

  Rogan nodded. "So, you had a fight?"

  Brodie gave a faint grin. "You could call it that."

  "Sure you're not being overprotective?" Rogan looked at his friend curiously.

  "She had that illness before she came on board. Maybe she's not over it."

  "The doc gave her a clean bill."

  "Still, she's not putting on any weight. I don't want to take any chances."

  Rogan shrugged. "It's up to you. But I don't suppose she'll like it."

  "She doesn't." She'd made that clear, but moments afterward she'd been melting in his arms, letting him taste her soft, sexy mouth, even briefly allowing him to press his lips to her breast. His blood ran hot at the memory.

  Rogan's eyes lowered. His mouth twitched into a grin, and he said mildly, "I wouldn't go on deck yet if I were you, not until you … er … settle down."

  Brodie rubbed a hand over his forehead. "Yeah." He grinned back, trying not to look embarrassed. "I'll get me a cold shower."

  The divers recovered cooking utensils from what must have been the galley of the wreck, and some table knives, spoons and dishes from the main cabin. An intact box was hoisted up by the crane and opened on deck while everyone gathered around expectantly. The box contained spoiled, disintegrating clothing and shoes, and a rusty pistol.

  Sienna carefully removed everything and added them to her growing list.

  She was conscious of Brodie watching her as she tapped in the information. He watched her a lot, a constant reminder of her own weakness.

  Despising her reaction to that devastating kiss after he'd decreed she wasn't to dive again, she recalled that she hadn't even tried to resist despite her anger.

  Because anger had fatally mixed with another much more complicated emotion, once she'd seen that he was worried for her. All her determination to stand on her own feet and never, ever lean on a man again almost crumbled under the onslaught of that single thought—that he cared about her safety, her well-being.

  The moment he'd let her go she'd flown at him with an accusation, glad when she'd seen his passion replaced by anger, a much safer emotion to deal with.

  She clung to her own anger, letting the unfairness of his ban on her diving simmer under the surface of her civilized but deliberately aloof manner. If he thought she was sulking, fine. Better than him thinking he could seduce her again with his sexy grin, his knowing eyes, his breathtaking, too-experienced kisses.

  A complete skeleton was discovered in a broken doorway of the wreck, still wearing a leather belt. Two small bags lay under the belt, as if they had once been attached to it.

  There was sand inside the ship, half burying the skeletal remains. One bony hand rested on a small heap.

  As Sienna and Brodie watched, one of the divers lifted the fleshless fingers away, revealing a corner of dark wood, and excavated a small chest bound with discolored brass bands.

  The bags were carefully eased into plastic jars and brought to the surface along with the chest. Sienna took them into the workroom, where Brodie and Rogan flanked her as she examined the chest, finding it firmly locked.

  She studied the lock. "I don't want to break into it unless I have to. We should look for the key in the vicinity of the skeleton. He probably kept it on him."

  Brodie said, "Poor sod took the time to save his precious fortune when the boat was going down, and got himself trapped."

  Sienna couldn't help a slight shiver. "The gold would have weighed him down anyway if he'd jumped overboard with it."

  She picked up the first jar, noting its weight, and gently tipped it, letting the bag slide into her hand before she laid it down on a sheet of plastic she'd spread on the table. Using tweezers, she tugged gingerly at a plaited leather thong that held the neck of the bag, working patiently until it parted. Dully gleaming yellow grains and tiny shining flakes spilled onto the plastic sheet.

  Rogan let out a slow whistle, and Brodie slapped his friend's shoulder and breathed, "Yeah!"

  It was unmistakably gold dust.

  A wave of optimism swept the crew, and they worked with renewed vigor and cheerfulness. A metal detector uncovered a key within a few feet of the unlucky miner's bones, and after cleaning it and scraping sand and rust out of the lock Sienna was able to open the chest.

  Camille, Brodie and Rogan watched.

  The chest held gold nuggets—irregular, shining lumps, from thimble size to as big as hens' eggs.

  For a moment no one moved, then Rogan put an arm about his wife and kissed her, and Brodie exclaimed, "Eureka!" His hands cupped Sienna's shoulders, and he turned her to him, dropping a kiss on her mouth. It was so quick she had no time to protest, but a bolt of lightning seemed to shoot through her. Then he raised his head, his eyes aglow with a strange blue light, and stepped back, lifting his hands away.

  Next day the divers
brought up a gold chain with a diamond pendant, a pair of earrings to match it, a diamond-and-ruby ring, a brooch set with several kinds of precious stones and one of ivory intricately carved with tiny figures, buildings and trees set in a gold frame.

  Found in a small heap, they had probably been stored in a bag or box that had rotted away with time.

  "Some wealthy female passenger?" Brodie speculated, watching with Rogan and Camille as Sienna spread out the items on her table.

  "Or," Camille suggested, "gifts from a homecoming miner for his wife or sweetheart."

  Rogan said, "Possibly a saloon girl returning home with her due rewards from a grateful clientele."

  Camille gave him a reproving look. "I like my story much better."

  Brodie asked, "What's your theory, Sienna?"

  "Any of those." She picked up the brooch with the ruined painting. "Or the saloon girl married a miner who had made his fortune on the goldfields and decked her out in diamonds and rubies."

  "Happy ever after," Brodie murmured.

  "Not exactly," Sienna reminded him. "But maybe she died, before disillusion had a chance to set in."

  Brodie gave her a long, thoughtful look.

  "All this stuff," Rogan said, "looks like passengers' personal effects. We haven't got into the cargo yet."

  Within a few days, more bags of gold dust turned up. In the week following, scattered gold and silver coins were gathered, and a number of fob watches, some with chains attached.

  "My guess," Sienna ventured, "is that the ship sank during the night. The men would have removed their watches before going to bed." They must have woken to the grinding crash of the ship hitting the reef—perhaps the terrifying sound of water rushing into the gaping hole in the bow—and fumbled in the darkness to find their way up on deck, where the only alternative to going down with the ship was to jump into an inky black, probably storm-lashed sea.

  "What's the matter?" Brodie asked.

  "I was thinking about the shipwreck. All these things belonged to people who drowned that night. It does make me feel a bit ghoulish."

  "Yeah," he said. "But they're no use to them now."

  Later in the day Brodie, Tilisi and Joe went spearfishing near the reef, promising to bring something for dinner. Tilisi got a large, very ugly grouper that would make a good feed of fish steaks, Brodie speared a smaller fish and Joe grabbed a big lobster hiding in a rock cleft.

  They were about to return to the barge with their haul when Brodie thought he recognized their location. Signaling that he wanted to explore farther, he began to look for the skeleton he'd found when diving with Rogan.

  It was still there. He checked his computer, left Tilisi holding his catch and finned down, drawn by renewed curiosity. Joe followed him.

  Nothing seemed changed. He looked about futilely for a sign of the bullet he'd dropped, but it had probably been taken by the current as it sank, and could by now be deep in the sand almost anywhere along the reef. A metal detector might find it if it was still near the surface, but that was a slim chance.

  About to leave, he took one last look at the skeleton. The sand over the arms had thinned, revealing more of the whitened bones. He hovered over it, fanned some more sand aside, revealing the long, whitened bones of a hand—and a gleam caught his eye. Gold.

  Joe touched his arm, pointing upward.

  Brodie ignored him for seconds, staring down at the circlet of gold around the skeleton's middle finger.

  Joe was tapping his dive computer, signaling they'd soon be out of air.

  Brodie acknowledged that, agreed they should leave, but something compelled him to reach down and carefully draw the ring off.

  He felt like a grave robber.

  Back on the barge they handed over their fish and Rogan took the catch down to Camille in the galley.

  Pulling off his gear, Joe said rather grumpily, "You cut that a bit fine, didn't you, Brodie? Something special about that ring?"

  Brodie lowered his air tank to the deck. "Nah, it's gold, though. Must be worth something."

  Tilisi shook his head. "Bad luck." Most Parakaeoans had an aversion to touching the dead, even those whose bones had been under the sea for centuries.

  "Can I have a look?" Joe asked.

  Brodie handed the ring over, and the other man held it between thumb and forefinger, turning to examine it in the fading light. Somehow it flipped from his fingers, bouncing and rolling toward the edge of the deck, and he and Brodie both air-dived to reach it before it could fall into the water.

  Brodie's shoulder collided heavily with Joe's, and his fist closed over the ring.

  Joe swore, and Brodie said, "Sorry, are you hurt?"

  "I'm okay." Joe scrambled up. "Did you get it?"

  "Yup. I'll take it to Sienna."

  Followed by Joe, he sought out Sienna in her workroom and laid the ring down in front of her.

  There were no precious stones, but it had a half-inch black-enameled square that featured an exquisitely detailed gold urn and was framed by a gold snake, each scale carefully delineated.

  "Is this old?" Brodie asked as Sienna glanced at him and picked up the ring.

  "It's a mourning ring—probably Victorian, maybe even Georgian. They usually have a date inscribed on the inside." She peered at the inner surface, tilting the ring to the light, then lowered it again, and with a fingernail levered at the front. "Ah—it's one that opens."

  He leaned closer to look; his breath stirred a curling tendril at her temple, distracting him for a moment. He wanted to finger the little curl away and put his lips to the pulse he could see beating under her fine skin. He forced his eyes back to the ring.

  The tiny cavity inside the minutely hinged case was empty, but Sienna said, "There might have been a lock of hair in it at one time. Here we are." She read aloud from the back of the lid. "'Thomas Goudge died 16 May 1831 aged 45.'"

  "Eighteen thirty-one?" Brodie felt a surge of relief.

  "It's beautifully preserved. Which part of the ship did this come from?"

  "It's not from our ship. At least, not from the immediate area. I'll try to give you a fix on its position, but it could be from an earlier wreck." Still feeling unreasonably guilty about removing it from its owner, he didn't mention the skeleton.

  Sienna ran a finger over the gold design. "I'll make a note of this and put it in the safe on board the Sea-Rogue with the other jewelry."

  "Would it have been worn by old Tom's widow?" Brodie asked, straightening. Somehow he'd assumed the skeleton was male, but he was no expert. "In memory of her dead love?"

  "Not necessarily. Mourning rings were often distributed around family and friends at the time of the funeral. It might have been worn by a man."

  The divers began to haul boxes out of the hold that were hoisted to the surface. Many of them were damaged or rotting, their contents so badly decomposed it was impossible to tell what the boxes had originally held, but the rescued goods included copper and brass ware and some Chinese porcelain dishes.

  Camille went down on scuba to help salvage items that had been exposed when their containers broke or rotted away, and Sienna stored some sodden diaries and journals in the freezer for expert attention back on shore. They would be priceless treasures to historians.

  One box yielded dozens of exquisite jade ornaments packed among rotted silk. Sienna and Camille carefully unpacked them. "Someone must have picked them up in China," Camille said, "or bought them from one of the ships that had sailed that way."

  "Someone who knew a good investment when he saw it," Sienna commented.

  She almost forgot being angry with Brodie while they watched the salvage operations, swapping guesses about what might turn up next, sometimes almost reading each other's minds.

  The stern section was finally broached and Rogan was down with Joe on the last dive of the day when he reported, his voice coming strongly through the phone, "Looks like we've found the safe."

  Brodie's arm came around Sienna's should
er and his hand squeezed her upper arm as Rogan gave a thumbs-up. Catching the men's excitement, she turned to smile at Brodie, finding him grinning triumphantly at her.

  He pushed his mike aside and closed the small distance between him and Sienna, his mouth descending on her parted lips, a lingering, firm pressure that set her heart galloping and made her tingle all over.

  Then Rogan's voice crackled in, saying something Sienna was too hot and bothered to catch, and Brodie drew away.

  "Yeah," he said softly, his eyes capturing hers before he withdrew his arm and sat back in his seat, readjusting his headset. "Hey, Rogue!"

  The safe was big, and though crusted and corroded, still solid enough to resist their efforts to move or open it. The two men cleared away debris and sand, then reluctantly left it and surfaced.

  "It'll be a hell of a job to get it out from where it is," Rogan remarked as he stripped off his diving gear. "We'll have to remove some of the hull timbers first."

  Next day the winch wouldn't work, and the engineer spent all day trying to fix it, without success, his hands and arms black with grease, the air around him blue with curses. The divers confined themselves to retrieving small articles and shifting easily moved sand and debris.

  Frustration was rife. Finally the engineer gloomily reported a cracked part.

  "We could radio Tu," Brodie suggested, "and get him to send the tug out to us with a replacement part."

  "Supposing he can find one on the island," Rogan said.

  Brodie grinned. "If there's one within a hundred miles he'll find it and get it to us."

  After midnight, hot and restless and unable to sleep in the stuffy little cabin below, Brodie sat in the bow of the Sea-Rogue, contemplating the stars and thinking about Sienna.

  For weeks he'd tried like hell to maintain a neutral manner, to allow her some slack and not act on his frequent wild impulse to grab her and hold her, kiss her until she admitted that the growing need gnawing inside him wasn't all one-sided.