Full Throttle

by Julie Ann Walker

  On cue, Romeo turned to Leo, snapping his fingers, a worried frown pulling his black eyebrows into a V. Leo hid a smile as he reopened the cooler and dug around inside until he found a bottle of water. Tossing it over the fire, Romeo caught it one-handed. Then Mr. Slam-dunk-ovich made quick work of exchanging the blond’s beer with the H2O. “Try this, m’ija,” he crooned, really laying his accent on thick before leaning to whisper something no doubt highly suggestive into her ear.

  Blondie giggled, obediently twisting the cap off the water bottle to take a deep slug.

  “We don’t own the island, darlin’,” a deep voice called from up the beach. Leo turned to see his uncle coming toward them. The old man was dressed in his usual uniform of baggy cargo shorts and an eye-bleeding hula shirt. His thick mop of Hemingway hair and matching beard glowed in the light of the moon, contrasting sharply with skin that had been tanned to leather by the endless subtropical sun. Bran Pallidino, Leo’s best friend and BUD/S—Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL—swim partner, had once described his uncle as “one part crusty seadog and two parts slack-ass hippie.” Leo figured that pretty much summed up the ol’ coot in one succinct sentence. “My great-great-I’ve-forgotten-how-many-greats-grandfather leased it for one hundred and fifty years from Ulysses S. Grant.”

  “President Grant?” the brunette squeaked, coughing on beer.

  “The one and only,” Uncle John said, plunking himself into an empty plastic deck chair, stretching his bare feet toward the fire, and lifting a tumbler—it was filled with Salty Dog, John’s standard grapefruit, vodka, and salted-rim cocktail—to his lips. Ice clinked against the side of the glass when he took a healthy swig. “You may not know this, Tracy,” he said—Tracy. Leo snapped imaginary fingers and endeavored to commit the name to memory—“but ol’ Ulysses smoked ’bout ten cigars a day. And my great-great”—he made a rolling motion with his hand—“however-many-greats-grandpappy happened to be the premier cigar-maker of the time. In exchange for a lifetime supply of high-quality Cubans, great-grandpappy secured the rights to make a vacation home for himself and his descendants on this here little bit of paradise for a century and a half.” Uncle John’s familiar Louisiana drawl—the same one Leo shared, though to a lesser extent—drifted lazily on the warm breeze.

  The Anderson brothers, Uncle John and Leo’s father James, originally hailed from the Crescent City. Like their father before them, they’d trained to be shrimp boat captains in the Gulf. But a chance discovery during a simple afternoon dive off the coast of Geiger Key had changed everything. They’d found a small Spanish gunboat equipped with all manner of archeological riches from muskets to daggers to swords, and the treasure-hunting bug had bitten them hard. The following year, when Leo was just eight years old, they’d moved to the Keys to use their vast knowledge of the sea to search for sunken riches instead of plump, pink shrimp. Unfortunately, they never found another haul that could compete with that of the gunboat. Uncle John gave up the endeavor after a decade, settling in to run one of Key West’s many bars until his retirement six months ago. But Leo’s father had continued with the salvage business, splitting his time between jobs and hunting for La Santana Cristina until he suffered a heart attack during a dive. Leo took solace in knowing his old man had died as he’d lived, wrapped in the arms of the sea.

  “Ulysses S. Grant? So that had to have been, what? Sometime in the 1870s?” the brunette asked.

  “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? For shit’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 1870s.”

  “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 La Santa Cristina by 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 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 figured right. 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 meant isolated. The nearest cell tower was almost fifty nautical miles away. Which begged the question: What the ever lovin’ hell had 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 been feeling 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 established using the satellite he mounted to the top of the house. Because while he and the guys may’ve been fine to forego 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 had Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse not been able to Skype with his bazillion loving relatives back in Oklahoma. And the satellite was one more reason Leo’s savings account and the savings accounts of the others now read in the low triple digits.

  God, we need a salvage gig. A big one. Because they only had enough funds left to fuel the search for La Santa Cristina for 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 a name for 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 just bad.

  Pushing his cash problems and the long list of things he still needed to accomplish aside, he got back to the point at hand. The historian he’d been emailing with.

  “Like I’ve told you twenty times before, the guy’s name is Alex Merriweather,” he scolded his uncle, forgoing pointing out the fact that John had no trouble remembering the names of Sophie and Tracy, two women he’d just met—the lech
erous old fart. “And he assures me if there’s anything new to discover in those documents, he’s the man who’ll find it.”

  Treasure hunters die old and broke. It was an old saying he 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 they say 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’ve got any details. The sorry sons-of-bitches have been stuck on a trans-Atlantic 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 all 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 said, bolting 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. And then 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 so she can, uh, fall on yours.”

  Always quick with the brainy comeback, Leo replied, “Fuck you very much, man. I don’t need your hand-me-down pity lays.”

  “If memory serves, you pushed her off on me. Which makes her your hand-me-down pity lay.”

  First point goes to Doc. But that didn’t change Leo’s mind about Sophie. And maybe he really was getting too old, or maybe he just had other things on his mind—not Olivia, not Olivia…okay, it was probably Olivia—but he just couldn’t force himself to feel any enthusiasm about the prospect of another meaningless one-night stand. “Believe me when I say she’s all yours if you can get her.”

  “Don’t you worry.” Doc winked, pushing up from his seat, throwing the toothpick into the fire and turning toward the rambling old house. “I’ll get her.”

  Yessir, Leo figured he probably would. After all, a woman had once told him Doc was the spitting image of some big, French actor. And though Leo hadn’t the first clue who she was talking about, from her dreamy expression he figured the comparison was meant to be a compliment. “Me and Uncle John will hang out here. Give you all some time to do your wooin’.”

  “If that’s the case, you may be here all night,” Doc boasted. “My wooing has been known to last—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Leo waved him off. “Get lost, will ya? I’m tired of lookin’ at your smug face.” And sure enough, Doc’s expression became even more…well…smug. Leo grinned because he knew just what to say to get rid of it. “Besides, you stay here too much longer and you may give Romeo time to convince dear, sweet Sophie that going in for a little two-for-the-price-of-one action could be lots of fun.”

  Doc’s grin melted away as he called Romeo a foul name beneath his breath. But to Leo’s surprise, he didn’t hightail it up to house. Instead he tilted his head, his eyes searching Leo’s face over the glow of the fire.

  “Well?” Leo asked. “What are you waitin’ on?”

  “It, uh…” Doc lifted a hand to scratch his head.

  “What’s up, bro?” And, yes. More than his men, or his friends, or even his crew, the five guys who’d hitched their wagons to his mule were his brothers. In every way that counted.

  “You know, the, uh, the way I see it,” Doc said haltingly, “part of our pledge included no more pussy-footing around when it comes to going after the things we really want.” Leo watched Doc subconsciously rub the tattoo on the inside of his left forearm. “And it’s been obvious since day one that you want Olivia Mortier.” Damn. Just hearing her name spoken aloud made the hairs along the back of his neck stand up. “So, why don’t you send her an email, huh? See if she’ll take some time off from The Company to come down here for a little visit.” And now that smug smirk was back on Doc’s face. “Maybe after she’s wobbled your knob a time or two, you’ll stop mooning around like a lovesick teenager.”

  Sonofa— Sometimes it sucked ass living in such close quarters with a group of men trained and tested in the fine art of observation. It made keeping secrets impossible. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to evade the subject. “Wobble my knob? What are you? Thirteen?”

  “Avoiding the question?”

  Damnit. “For the record,” he growled, “I don’t want her, as you so eloquently put it, to wobble my knob.” A voice inside his head instantly shouted liar, liar, pants on fire!

  All right. So, if he were being totally honest, he would have liked to see where things with Olivia were headed. He would have liked to know if all those not-so-subtle flirty looks and that one ball-tightening kiss could have turned into something more—knob wobbling included. Unfortunately, Fate had intervened in the form of the goatfuck of all goatfucks, which had precipitated his exit from the navy and negated all chances he’d ever again work in the same arena as one oh-so-tempting Olivia Mortier.

  He was a civilian now. And civilians and CIA field agents weren’t exactly known to find themselves in a position to mix it up. So even if he could convince her to take a vacation from missiles and mayhem, it’s not like there was any real chance at a future for them. After all, the woman was all about the adrenaline high, and he was…well…retired.

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  Acknowledgments

  It should be no big surprise at this point that the first round of thanks goes to my husband. Sweetheart, being married to me means you have to deal with my over-caffeinated deadline hijinks, my neurotic mid-manuscript meltdowns, and my questionable hygiene during debut week. But you do it beautifully. With that cute, dimpled smile on your face. And I can’t thank you enough for that. XO!

  I also have to give a shout-out to my badass agent, Nicole Resciniti. Nic, you’ve expertly guided me (and sometimes dragged me kicking and screaming *wink*) through this minefield known as publishing. I wouldn’t have done any of this without you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. A million and one thanks for your steadfast support and counsel.

  Next up, my thanks go out the two editors who h
ave made the Black Knights Inc. series what it is today. Leah Hultenschmidt, you took a newbie author and through hard work, sweat, and a few tears (hopefully all mine) you made me into a bestseller. There aren’t enough words in the English language to describe how grateful I am to you for that. And Deb Werksman, you were forced to take on the role of pinch hitter. But, baby, you stepped up to the plate, straightened your ball cap, and swung for the frickin’ fences. I hope we write dozens of books together.

  And I can’t forget Penni DePaul, real-life author, Facebook friend, and unwavering fan of Black Knights Inc. Thank you so much for championing this series, Penni. And thank you so much for lending me the use of your name! I hope the character does you justice in some small way.

  And last but certainly not least, a resounding thank you to our fighting men and women, those in uniform and those out of uniform. You protect our freedom and way of life so we all have the chance to live the American Dream.

  About the Author

  Julie Ann Walker is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Black Knights Inc. romantic suspense series. She is prone to spouting movie quotes and song lyrics. She’ll never say no to sharing a glass of wine or going for a long walk. She prefers impromptu travel over the scheduled kind, and she takes her coffee with milk. You can find her on her bicycle along the lakeshore in Chicago or blasting away at her keyboard, trying to wrangle her capricious imagination into submission. For more information, please visit www.julieannwalker.com or follow her on Facebook www.facebook.com/jawalkerauthor and/or Twitter@JAWalkerAuthor.

  In Rides Trouble

  Black Knights Inc.

  by Julie Ann Walker

  Trouble never looked so good…

  Rebel with a cause