by L. A. Fiore
“Willow, you will want to show what you’re finding as you bring it up to entice the collectors,” Dad insisted.
“When did you get here?” I asked because I wasn’t aware my parents were onboard.
“Not too long ago. This is your first dive, but your mom and I have been doing this a long time and we know what we’re talking about. You cannot run a dive like this without showing people what you’re finding. They’ll lose interest.”
I looked around and didn’t want to have this conversation with an audience. “Let’s talk inside.” I passed Noah and reached for his hand. I took them to my room and waited until the door was closed before I addressed their concern. “I’m not doing this for buyers. I’m doing this to find a necklace so I can give a family closure.”
“That’s a little naive, don’t you think? This dive is costing your grandfather money hand over fist. Aren’t you concerned about replenishing his savings so he has something to retire on.” Dad’s comment felt like a slap. “We’ve a few collectors interested, but they want to see progress.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Mom clarified, “We’ve got a few buyers on the line.”
“You have what?”
“Buyers.”
“Why would you have buyers lined up for a treasure you’re not even involved in?”
“It’s a Blakeley funded dive. Of course we’re involved in it and we have more experience and contacts than you. Once the treasure is found, we’ll get it sold.”
“And you were planning on sharing this with me when?”
“You’ve just been so busy, sweetie, we thought we could help you with the more intricate parts of a hunt,” Mom added.
I had thought all these years my parents were in their business for the find, the hunt, but they were in it for the money. “It was hard enough being second to your treasures, but it fucking sucks to realize it was never the hunt. I came second to money. Granddad isn’t funding this.”
I enjoyed their looks of shock. “What do you mean he isn’t funding it. Who is?”
“Noah and his crew.”
Dad’s eyes shifted to Noah and assessed him. Noah stared back dispassionately.
“Would you like us to pimp the treasures, pit collectors against one another to make you more money?” I asked Noah.
“No.”
I looked back at my dad. “Conversation is over. And your presence is no longer required.”
“Willow, we’re just trying to teach you how it’s done.” Mom sounded annoyed with me.
“You aren’t thinking about me at all, you never have. How did you know about Isabella anyway?”
“Decker called us.”
That took me completely by surprise. “Decker?”
“Yes. We would have thought you would have.” A reprimand from my dad on courtesy. Seriously.
“Really, like you called me to share that you found the King’s Mirror.”
Mom looked contrite. “We should have. It was just crazy times. Decker was excited for you.”
“How do you even know Decker?”
“We don’t really, but when our daughter’s boss calls to tell us she’s stumbled onto a major find, of course we’re going to drop everything to be there for her.”
“And if there hadn’t been a find, I bet money you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Willow.”
“You need to leave.”
They made no move to do so. Noah put himself between my parents and me. His expression gave nothing away, but I knew he was pissed. “Do you want me to escort them off the ship?”
The back of my eyes burned, but I would not give them that. “Please.”
“We are your parents.” Dad had the nerve to say that.
I snapped back, “You’ve never acted like it, so let’s not start now. Enjoy your trip back to wherever the hell it was you were before you crashed my dive.”
Noah held the door open. “I’ll see you to your boat.”
“Willow? This is a family matter.”
That comment from my mom set me off. “Noah is more family to me than you ever were. Don’t make a scene and just leave. You’ve ignored me my whole life, let’s go back to that.”
Both were pissed at me, but I didn’t care because they were leaving and that was all I wanted. Them gone. Noah started to follow them when he got a look at me and the tears that were threatening. He radioed Zeke to ask that he see my parents off the ship, then he closed the door and pulled me into his arms. He said nothing, just held me while I cried.
“Why didn’t you tell me you called my parents?” I found Decker on the dive platform. He had just been down with Isabella.
“I had thought to surprise you. You’ve been looking for this for so long. I knew you’d want to share it with them. I didn’t realize they would try to take over. I’m so sorry, Willow.”
“How did you even know how to get in touch with them?”
“Harry. He isn’t on the crew, but he still has friends he stays in touch with. I really thought it would have played out differently.”
I couldn’t argue with him because I never would have believed my parents would have behaved as they had. It was definitely eye opening. “I appreciate the thought.”
“I’m sorry, Willow.”
“Don’t be. Your heart was in the right place.” I gestured to the water. “So how was she?”
He flashed me a smile. “Well, since you asked...”
“I knew your parents were self-serving, but I didn’t realize they would be so with their own daughter. Puts a new spin on all those crazies that come out of the woodwork when they do find something.” I filled Granddad in on the bizarre conversation with my parents. He was pissed to say the least.
But his comment made me wonder. “Do you think it’s possible some of those crazies weren’t so crazy?”
“Before today I would have said no, now I’m not so sure.”
“I can’t believe they thought to step right into the middle of this without even discussing it with me or you or anyone. They’ve been missing my whole life and the one time they actually show up they think to take over. It’s the only reason they came, isn’t it? They saw an opportunity despite the fact it was their own daughter they would be taking advantage of. She warned me, you know. Told me to be suspicious of people that just show up in my life. She was talking about herself.”
“I wish I could argue these points. I wish I could make their behavior understandable, but I can’t. I’m so sorry, Willow.”
“Silver lining, things won’t be any different except now I won’t miss them.”
We were a week into the excavating; Noah worked at my side as we used the hoses to reveal the rest of the hull of the Isabella. It was slow going but we were definitely making progress. My parents left without incident and shock had faded as did anger. I settled on sad for a bit, but then they had never been parents to me. An occasional phone call did not make them parents. I had finally let them go because they would never be what I needed them to be.
Noah touched my arm and pointed. A ray moved along the shelf, gliding just over the ocean floor. I turned back to him, but his focus was on the ship. I followed where he was looking and saw what had caught his attention. Holes along the hull, four of them. Jagged, as if something had punched through it. Cannon fire. His eyes found mine, excitement danced in his. We had just figured out how Isabella sank.
We ascended and signaled for the next team as we swam to the dive platform. Noah pulled himself out, then me. He yanked my mask off and kissed me hard on the mouth.
“Cannon fire,” he said against my mouth.
“I know.”
“Four hits along the starboard side.”
“Yep.”
“Interesting that she came to rest as she did.”
“Unless there are holes on the other side.”
“Possibly, but that seems like overkill.”
“You’re right it does. Unless whoever attacked, l
ike say pirates, knew what was onboard.”
His grin was wicked. “That was fucking amazing.”
“Wait until we start pulling stuff up.”
“I get it now, why pirates have hunted treasure for as long as time. What a fucking ride.”
“You’re good too. A natural.”
He answered by kissing me again.
I stood in the clean room watching the conservation experts at work. A week after Noah and I made the discovery about how the Isabella sank, the cannon balls were retrieved. I wanted to personally see them to Mérida, Mexico where Grandfather had arranged for a team to catalog and research as well as continue the cleaning efforts.
Noah joined me, his focus on the cannon balls. “I get it now.”
“What?”
“Your passion for the story. Those cannon balls took out the Isabella. Who fired them? Why? And the fact that we are staring at those over two hundred years later is extraordinary.”
His eyes connected with mine. I smiled then said, “I just might make a treasure hunter out of you after all.”
There was the slightest softening of his expression.
“We’re hoping for markings that will tell us where those cannon balls came from, which will help us piece together how and why they ended up in the hull of the Isabella.”
“I’m coming with you to Mérida.”
“I wouldn’t have gone without you.”
“Before you go.” One of the conservation team said and placed an artifact on the table, one that was wrapped. “This will be heading to Mérida as well but I thought you would like to see it.” He unwrapped it.
It was a spyglass. I couldn’t describe what I felt seeing Alejandro’s spyglass.
“Have you authenticated it?” Noah asked.
“We’re in the process. It was engraved, most of the words have eroded, but we put what’s left into the computer and ran a program to extrapolate using the cursive that is visible as the benchmark.”
“And?” Even I heard my excitement.
“We think it says, ‘So you can always see home. Love, Isabella.’”
I couldn’t contain the small gasp or the tears. Noah’s arm went around my waist and he pulled me up against his side. I touched the spyglass because it was a link to both of them. It was confirmation. I already knew we had found Isabella, but this was confirmation.
Noah knew it too, when he pressed a kiss on my temple and whispered. “You really found them.”
I leaned into him, but my focus stayed on the spyglass. We really had.
WILLOW
Mérida, Mexico was beautiful. Our first stop was the annex of the museum where the team awaited the cannon balls. As soon as they learned anything, they promised to call. We stood outside the museum. Noah slipped on sunglasses. It reminded me of the first time I had seen him.
“You were wearing sunglasses that first day in Cancun.”
He looked down at me, and though I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew they were smiling. He reached for my hand. “What do you want to do first?”
“There’s a place not too far from here where flamingos migrate. Have you ever seen a flamingo in person?”
“No, and I can die a happy man if I never do.”
We had just taken a step when I stopped. “Was that a joke? Did you just make a joke?”
“Focus, Willow. What do you want to do now?”
I wanted to bask in the glory of Kace Noah Mayes telling a joke. Instead I said, “I could eat.”
There were so many eateries in the area. We settled for one where we could eat outside. The menu was insane.
“Have you ever had the cochinita pibil?” Yucatán style barbecued pork, smoked in banana leaves. How could it be bad?
“I have. It’s delicious.”
“We should get that. Oh, and the lime soup. And a margarita. I would like a margarita.”
Noah lowered his shades. “Anything else?”
“Well, whatever you want. We can share.”
The waitress had trouble taking our order, writing things wrong, forgetting what she was writing, her eyes lingering on Noah while giving him the look. You know the look, the ‘is he freaking for real?’
When she departed, I chuckled because I thought I had been bad when I first met him.
He removed his glasses and raised his eyebrow in question.
“I thought I was bad that day at my hideaway.”
“Your hideaway?”
“The house where your car broke down.” My eyes narrowed. “Your car didn’t really breakdown, did it?”
“No.”
“How did you know about my hideaway?”
He gave me that look again, the ‘why do you ask questions you already know the answers to’ look.
“How long were you on the island before you made yourself known?”
“A week.”
“So you watched me.”
He didn’t confirm that, but he didn’t have to.
“How did you know I lived in St. Croix?”
“Same way I knew about your grandfather’s museum.”
“I thought you were Kace, even though you looked different, because of that punch of attraction...I only ever felt that with you.”
“Do you know how fucked up it was that I was jealous of myself?” He leaned closer. “Taunting me with myself. I should have put you over my knee.”
My margarita was delivered. I took a healthy sip because I kind of liked the idea of him putting me over his knee.
I studied him from across the table and had trouble seeing the boy on the streets he had been. He was so elegant now in a seriously masculine way.
“If you don’t want to answer, I get it, but what was it like for you growing up on the streets?”
He reached for his glass of wine, his focus elsewhere, remembering that time in his life. “In the beginning, it was really hard. No shelter, no food, always looking over your shoulder. Winter was difficult, nights on the streets in below freezing conditions. It’s why we stay in tropical areas; none of us want to feel the bite of winter again. Had a friend who froze to death. I hear it’s not a terrible way to go. Painful at first but then you just go numb. I hope that’s true. He was a good kid.”
His eyes lifted to me and there was a vulnerability about him I had never seen. I sat spellbound and heartbroken as he so clinically shared a life that was so much worse than I imagined.
“I learned the trash schedule so I could eat. For two years, most of my meals came from a dumpster. I would pretend I was eating in a fancy restaurant, but I was so hungry it tasted just fine to me. Another friend stole drugs from a dealer, in return the drug dealer kidnapped, beat and starved Snake and me and then when we were too weak to fight back, sold us to a rich pedophile.” His expression went cold, void. “He was the first man I killed, the pedophile. While he tried to fuck my best friend, I strangled him with his own belt. Later, after Cancun, we killed the drug dealer.”
I couldn’t move, even though I wanted him to stop, didn’t want to hear the horror he called his life, I was riveted that the boy he described now sat across from me as the man he became. “Was there no one who showed you kindness, who gave you a little piece of home?”
“One. He was the one who taught me to sail. An old man who for months came to the marina where I worked at the time and sailed his boat. He talked about his wife nonstop. Brought me lunch from home. I learned his wife had died right before he started coming to the marina. He died too, a broken heart I think. I only knew him for a few months, but he was the closest to a father I ever knew.”
My eyes stung and my heart hurt. I had thought life was terrible with absent parents, but I had had a home, food, love. He had had none of it, had to claw his way out of hell. He had said he didn’t make excuses for who he was, that he no longer would bend to the will of others. I understood now why. I reached for his hand and pressed a kiss in his palm. “Best day of my life when that clown plowed into me in Cancun.” My voice broke a bit,
tears filled my eyes because the one I wanted most, the one I wanted to choose me...I didn’t want him to choose me, not if it meant he had to bend again. “I understand why you’re telling me this.” I wiped at my eyes and reached for my glass. “Don’t bend, Noah, you’ve done enough of that.”
NOAH
She was trying on hats, an entire rack of hats. She had no intention of buying any of them and yet she had to try every single one on. She turned to me to get my opinion. I couldn’t help the smile because she was just so alive, so genuinely happy. At lunch when she told me not to bend, I knew she knew what the crew intended and she was telling me it was okay. A part of me was pissed that she would give up her dream so easily and part of me was humbled that she would do so for me.
“Noah, look at this.” She lifted a brass birdcage and sitting on a swing in the center was a stuffed parrot. “I’m getting this for you. Your ship’s parrot.” Her eyes were sparkling. “But no messy clean up.”
“You do remember who I sail with, right?”
She hit a button and it started to talk, ridiculous pirate sounds. “Oh this is a keeper,” she said as she headed toward the register.
The lightness behind my ribs I could only assume was love. It was a feeling I had never felt and one I could get used to feeling.
“Look what else I got you? A Jolly Roger flag.”
Fucking adorable.
It was going to be hard as hell leaving her, but I was and soon. I pulled her to me and kissed her on that smiling mouth. Surprise shifted to submission as she kissed me back.
Willow had just fallen asleep when my cell went off. Slipping from bed, I took the call on the balcony.
“Snake. What’s up?” The crew, who were not diving, had gone off to find some trouble because they had been going a little stir crazy.
“Hawk just called.”
I leaned against the railing, feeling almost jovial. Amazing what a good woman and a good fuck could do. “Did the jackass find the ship? Tell him not to get comfortable because we’re coming for it.”