Blue Moon by Linda Windsor Page B

Jeanne had beat him to the punch, he’d recognized in Jeanne a kindred spirit, someone he could work comfortably beside, someone who might—just might—bring a breath of inspiration back to his just-getting-by life. He’d seen a bit of himself in her, the man he was before he’d become jaded by the sea’s fickle sense of fair play and the calculated avoidance of it by men like Arnauld.
    â€œI have complete faith in every one of my crew,” she said, leaning over Stuart’s shoulder as he worked his magic on the keyboard.
    After this morning, Gabe somehow doubted that he was included in that statement. More confounding, it bothered him enough to curdle the brief but warm connection he’d felt with the undergrad. Why couldn’t women simply take a warning at face value? Was it some kind of gene passed down from Eden that determined they had to swallow the whole apple because the details hadn’t been explained? Not that Gabe equated himself with the Almighty, but he did know more than Jeanne about this business and the assorted miscreants that frequented it.
    The gall he’d doused with antacids the night before rose again with the recollection of Arnauld’s treachery. Like a video replaying in his mind, Gabe saw the stampede of a news crew forcing him out of the way as he’d made his way through the courthouse with proof that he’d found a seventeenth-century galleon off the coast of Florida. When he’d arrived at his destination, Marshall Arnauld—holding a large gold coin above his head—was announcing to the cameras and reporters that he had just secured the rights to dive for one of the biggest finds off the Florida coast since Mel Fisher’s Atocha.
    â€œWhat’s the name of the ship?” one of the reporters had shouted.
    Gabe’s stomach clenched the same way as it had when Arnauld looked straight through the crowd at him, like a cat that had just swallowed the canary—Gabe’s canary. “The Mariposa, ” Arnauld had replied, dashing Gabe’s hope of recovering the money he’d invested in finding and documenting the Mariposa.
    There was no way the artifact had come from the Mariposa site because Gabe had been working it, while Arnauld circled like a cat around the birdcage, looking for its opportunity to strike. But the first to provide an artifact—which proved a wreck had been found—won the excavation rights. And there was also no way that Gabe could show, without doubt, that Arnauld’s artifact had come from another wreck. It would be the word of an all-but-bankrupt fortune hunter against that of an American billionaire. The authorities leaned toward the money.
    â€œI’m going to break out Lupita’s lunch,” Jeanne announced to no one in particular. “It’s already after one.”
    Stepping around Nemo, who lay curled by Gabe’s feet, she braced herself against the motion of the vessel and headed for the companionway leading to the galley. But before she could reach it, the dog leapt from what appeared to be a sound sleep and beat her to the steps, where he paused, tail wagging.
    â€œDon’t tell me he knows the word lunch .” Her friendly smile washed over Gabe’s guilt-clouded humor like a breath of sunshine.
    It was the first time since their departure that she’d spared him more than obligatory attention. It wasn’t that she’d been aloof, just busy. Now she faced him as though she’d forgotten the brutish display of anger and exasperation that had fouled his humor and, since, plagued his conscience.
    â€œNot quite.”
    She’s for real , he realized in wonder. There was not a hint of grudge anywhere in the transparency of her expression. Gabe took up a can of what was now flat soda from the cup hanger next to the wheel, glad that he had no tail to wag in betrayal of the sudden leap of elation in his chest. “He knows the galley is