Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(105)

Leo stopped, looking expectantly at Alex. “Right. Marquesas Keys. Those are the only islands in the Keys that form a ring. We know that’s where—”

“No.” Alex shook her head, taking the binder from him and tucking it under her arm. It was about as big as she was. “The timing doesn’t make any sense. If the captains decided to split the armada one hour after sunrise and Captain Vargas turned the Santa Cristina for home directly after that, he should have made it much farther than the Marquesas Keys by the time the hurricane hit in late afternoon.”

“But my father found cannons and pieces of eight around Marquesas Keys.” He lifted the coin around his neck as proof.

“Yeah”—Alex frowned, narrowing her eyes—“that’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. Unless the cannons fell overboard somehow. A rogue wave, maybe? Or else it’s possible the crew of the Santa Cristina tossed them to try to lighten their load in heavy seas.”

Olivia glanced back and forth between the two of them. Feeling the excitement radiating off Alex. Seeing the confusion in Leo’s eyes. Her Leo’s eyes. Holy hell! It felt so good to say that, even if the words were only in her head. Her Leo. Her Leo. Her—

“I don’t get it.” He shook his head, running a hand over his beard stubble and the scar that cut through the dense hair. “Are you sayin’ there’s more than one ringed island in the Keys?”

And now Alex was positively sparkling. She pointed out past the lagoon where waves piled up and swirled atop the underwater reef. “Four hundred years ago, sea levels were lower. Low enough to have that reef line sticking above the water. To anyone looking at Wayfarer Island circa 1624, it would’ve looked like a ring instead of a crescent moon.”

Leo became perfectly still, his hazel eyes zeroed in on the ocean beyond the reef. When he swallowed, Olivia heard his throat stick. Her heart was pounding, the hair all over her body standing straight as she laced her fingers through his. He squeezed her hand and said, his voice hoarse, “A-are you sayin’ you think the Santa Cristina is out there?” He pointed his chin in the direction of the salvage ship and the gently undulating waves beyond.

“That’s exactly what I think,” Alex squealed, biting her lip and clapping. “And I have more to show you as proof if—”

Neither one of them heard what she said after that because they only had eyes for each other. Leo was breathing heavily. So was Olivia. The excitement of the hunt for sunken treasure, combined with the thrill of new love, was almost too much to bear. “I don’t know what you had in mind to do with your time now that you’ve quit the—”

“I hadn’t gotten that far,” she admitted.

“So then what do you say to helping me search for the holy grail of ghost galleons?” he asked her, his deep voice full of awe, full of hope, full of happiness.

And she knew he was asking her more than the question implied. He was asking her to stay. Here. With him. He was asking her to build a life with him and share his dreams. He was asking her for forever. She said the only four words she could. “I say hell yeah!”

He pulled her into his arms, lifting her off her feet, laughing and spinning her around the beach. She laughed with him, sharing in his joy, his delight. And as she hugged him tight, her chin over his shoulder, she glimpsed the edges of his tattoo peeking from the neck of his T-shirt. Not All Treasure Is Silver and Gold. She’d never known truer words. Because she’d found her treasure in a brave, loyal, wonderful man. And the orphan in her had finally, finally found a home…





Epilogue


May 26, 1624…

He was drowning. No, he had drowned. He was sure of it. He had let the raging sea drag him and his beloved Santa Cristina to their watery deaths. But somehow, inexplicably, he was drowning. Again. Drowning still.

Could it be this was the price he was doomed to pay? Had the good Lord considered his final act not one of sacrifice, but one of suicide? Was this hell? Was he condemned to relive his last moments again and—

“Breathe, Captain!” a voice from afar yelled. A hard hand landed on his back with the force of a kicking mule and suddenly…

“Uhhhh!” He dragged in a ragged breath, coughing and hacking up great mouthfuls of seawater when someone pushed him onto his side. For a moment, his whole existence revolved around breathing, sucking in lungfuls of delicious salt-tinged air, expelling the lingering water from his chest and throat. Breathing, coughing, breathing… And then, little by little, the world came back to him. And it was a world of chaos, of madness. A world being ripped apart at the seams.

The wind shrieked like a crazed demon, howling in his ears until he wanted to raise his hands and cover them. The smell of briny water and stirred-up silt mixed with the sour pungency of sweat and fear on his skin. He opened his eyes to see waves roaring to shore, hurtling themselves over the sand like great frothing beasts. A clump of palm trees near the beach lay over on their sides, struggling to retain their grip on terra firma as el huracán refused to give them quarter. One, then another was ripped from its precarious perch, and they surrendered themselves to the sea, rolling and breaking against the force of the waves.

His coat was missing, as was his dagger. A deep, agonizing burn told him he had sustained a wound to his thigh. A shooting pain when he dragged in another breath made it clear he had cracked a rib. But he was alive. Blessedly alive. Gracias a Dios! And so was Rosario…