Blue Moon (2 page)

“You mean you haven't taken the ghost of old Jacques Cousteau on board yet?” Mark teased. “At the rate you're going, the old man will rise from the dead just to be your deckhand.”

“Maybe my
next
expedition,” she shot back, modesty warming her cheeks.

“Well, it wouldn't surprise me,” Neta declared with a confidence only a mother could have in her child. “You've always had the industry of that Proverbs 6:6 ant.”

Mark groaned. “Don't remind us. ‘Jeanne's room is neat as a pin,'” he mimicked their mother, adding the scripture she brandished with the skill of a swordmaster. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”

“You, a sluggard?” Corinne teased. “I can't imagine.”

Blaine gave her a wry grin. “That was before he met you.”

“But that is
exactly
what papa tells me to get me to pick up my toys,” Berto exclaimed, none too thrilled about ants or wisdom. “And I say that ants also bite.”

Jeanne snickered as Blaine ruffled his adopted son's obsidiandark hair. She
had
worked hard, getting her doctorate by the age of twenty-six. But Jeanne knew that she was also blessed beyond measure. Mark's finding the letters practically pinpointing the wreck of the
Luna Azul
and handing them over to her went beyond the pale of hard work, or even luck. And that was why she had no doubt that they would find and excavate the early-eighteenth-century galleon.

“It's definitely a God thing,” Jeanne said. She knew it. At twenty-seven, with a fresh doctorate in nautical archaeology, the most one could typically hope for was to accompany someone like the late, famous Dr. Jacques-Yves Cousteau on such an expedition, not run it.

“Carlos Aquino told me that CEDAM is going to work with you,” Blaine said.

“What's CEDAM?” Corinne asked.

“It's an acronym for Conservation, Exploration, Diving, Archaeology, and Museums,” Jeanne answered. “It was formed to protect the artifacts pertinent to Mexican history, as well as garner interest in recreational diving in Mexican waters. Any treasure dives within Mexican waters require permission from them. But the biggest problem to date is the dive boat itself . . . and a captain, of course.”

Most of the charters cost five hundred bucks a day, a cost that would put Jeanne way over budget. The assets of the company she'd formed to finance the expedition had been modest, enough only to pay for the equipment leases and basic expenses.

“I'm hoping to find a captain who will put up his ship and services for a share of the findings.”

“You mean a captain with a penchant for gambling,” Blaine observed, not at all enthralled with the trait of gambling.

Jeanne nodded. “That's my biggest hurdle. But Don Pablo, our CEDAM liaison, has someone in mind, someone he's worked with before. In fact, Remy . . . er . . . Dr. Primston and I are flying down to Cancún after the new year to check him out . . . some guy from Bermuda who lives in Cancún and operates a charter fishing boat.”

“I'd better check him out first,” Blaine said. “I'll have Carlos—” He broke off as his wife pinched his arm, a grin on her freckled face. “What?”

“Blaine, Jeanne is a big girl. If she wants help, she'll ask for it— right, sweetie?” She turned to smile at Jeanne.

“It's not just big brother protecting little sister, Caroline,” Blaine said in his defense. “Mark and I are investors as well. We have every right to check out who is on the team. The exception to
getting
what you pay for
is a rare bird. I don't want Jeanne stranded in the middle of her project.”

“Blaine's right,” Jeanne said, torn between Blaine's logic and her yearning to do everything herself. “I'd appreciate whatever he can find out, so we don't have any surprises. But make it soon, because things are moving fast.” She resisted the childish urge to jump up and down with the excitement that launched her pulse into overdrive every time she thought about the expedition. “And I will have my cell phone charged and on for any news about you and the newest Madison,” she assured Corinne.

Blaine raised a goblet of the cranberry-citrus punch. “I'd like to propose a toast then.” He waited until Jeanne refilled Berto's cup from the punch bowl behind her on the sideboard, and then spoke. “To the
Luna Azul
.”

“To the
Blue Moon
.”

Overwhelmed, Jeanne half-rose at the far end of the long dining table and stretched outward to add her glass to those her family raised. The goblets clinked lightly, glass to glass and glass to Berto's plastic version.

“And to the best family a gal could ever hope for—the Madison gang.” She looked at each person in turn, imprinting their faces on her memory with each touch of her glass to theirs. She'd take them with her on this chance of a lifetime, the kind of chance that came along, well, once in a blue moon.

CHAPTER ONE

The
norte
that met Jeanne and Dr. Remy Primston on their January afternoon arrival in Cancún drove tourists off the beaches and into the restaurants, bars, and enclosed shopping markets. Yet Jeanne refused to let the weather dampen her spirit. Two months from now, her dream would come true . . . provided one Captain Gabriel Avery agreed to sign on with the expedition on her terms.

Three hours, a warm meal, and a dry change of clothes later, she read aloud the sign suspended over a hodgepodge of local shops along the waterfront where Remy parked their rented car. “Marina Garza. This must be it.”

“Garza with a
g
,” Remy muttered, flipping through his Spanish dictionary at warp speed.

“
Garza
means gull,” she translated for her companion. Her high-school Spanish was coming in handy, even though it needed a thorough dusting off. “It's the address that Pablo Montoya sent us.” She double-checked the e-mail that she'd printed off, then tucked it back in her purse.

Far below the hotel zone on the lagoon side of the resort, the Marina Garza was definitely off the beaten path. Ahead of them, a single weather-warped dock protruded from a cluster of mostly closed shops on the grassy, scrub-dotted waterfront south of Cancún. Somewhere among the weathered and rusty boats tied up there was the one she'd prayed for—the
Fallen Angel
. Appropriately named, given Blaine's investigation that had revealed its captain as a renegade.

“This looks promising,” her companion drawled distastefully as he grabbed his umbrella from the backseat. “And I don't like the idea of gallivanting around Mexico after dark. You can't trust these people.”

“I just can't wait till tomorrow, Remy. This guy is our last chance,” Jeanne told him with a hint of apology. She linked her arm in his. “Remember, Blaine cleared the man.” Reluctantly, granted, but Captain Avery was okayed.

Jeanne realized that it was partly because her former professor and mentor, Dr. Remy Primston, would accompany her. A Boston blue blood, Primston was twenty years Jeanne's senior. Thanks to his support, Jeanne had done the incredible. She'd put together the financial backing for this expedition to search for an eighteenth-century Spanish ship that had sunk off the Yucatán coast with a cargo of gold and silver, according to the letters written by its surviving captain and crew. If—no,
when
—they found the treasure and artifacts, they would be split between the Mexican government and the investors.

“Your brother's report makes him sound like a last chance.”

“Just because Avery's made some odd choices in his life doesn't detract from the fact that he's a good captain and familiar with the waters. And his boat passed a recent inspection. That's all we need. Besides, you know we are on a tight budget,” Jeanne reminded him.

“Aren't we always?” Remy complained, digging in his jacket pocket. Withdrawing prescription nasal spray, he took a deep sniff in each nostril. “This weather is murder on my sinuses.”

Remy got out of the car and, stiff as a royal steward, opened it for her, holding his oversized black umbrella overhead to shelter her from what had turned to misting rain. That was Remy, always making her feel like a queen.

“
Señor
Montoya said that Captain Avery lives on his boat here at the marina,” she said upon getting out.

“Watch your step, dear.” Remy offered her his arm for support. “That dock looks none too safe when it's dry, much less when it's rain soaked.”

With the practical soles of her sandals clicking on the weather-warped planks, Jeanne started down the dock, but halfway down the length of the pier, they met a young Mexican fisherman who directed them to the only building in the cluster on the waterfront that appeared open—the cantina.

“Why don't we return to our dry hotel and see Captain Avery in the morning?” Remy suggested, looking askance at the neon-red sign that proclaimed CANTINA GAVIOTA
.

“Because he might be chartered for tomorrow, and I want—” Jeanne hesitated. “No, I
need
to know if he'll consider doing the job.”

“Well, I should think this Avery would jump at the chance after all his failed endeavors,” Remy muttered under his breath, ushering Jeanne past a rickety picnic table that sat beneath a sagging, sun-bleached awning that covered the front of the building.

“He found the
Gitano
,” Jeanne reminded him, undaunted. Her brothers had learned that Avery had made one big discovery, an eighteenth-century pirate vessel laden with treasure and artifacts— followed by others that nearly bankrupted him. It had lured him away from his marine biology studies just short of receiving his doctorate.

“And even his
failed
endeavors provide invaluable experience,” she added.

Despite the open windows along its stucco walls, the Cantina Gaviota was rank with cigarette and cigar smoke. Upon entering, Jeanne felt the interest of a dozen or so observers turning upon her and her companion. In his tailored jacket and silk tie, Remy stood out like a Rembrandt at a yard sale. As for her, even if she'd donned her casual jeans and T-shirt, her sun-lightened golden brown hair was a stark contrast to the raven black of the natives gathered there.

Aside from a voluptuous waitress who slanted dark-lashed eyes in Jeanne's direction, there was only one other woman in the place, if one could call the very young, doe-eyed waif that. Obviously pregnant, she watched a group of men play cards at a table covered with empty beer bottles and assorted currency. Between the card game and the next table where the young woman sat, a big black dog lay curled up asleep.

“Yes?” the waitress asked, breaking her long appraisal of Jeanne and her companion. “You want table? Beer?”

Jeanne shook her head. “No, we're looking for Captain Gabriel Avery. We were told he was here.”

The woman arched one of her pencil-thin brows, and with a jerk of her head, she nodded to the card table. “There. Eh,
Gabriel
!” she shouted across the room, rolling the last syllable of the name off her tongue as
elle
. “These peoples they wish to speak to you.”

“Oh, joy,” Remy murmured under his breath. “Isn't this just grand?”

Forcing down a quiver of anxiety, Jeanne watched as one of the men pulled a well-chewed but unlit cigar from the side of his mouth and shoved it in an empty beer bottle. Curiosity narrowing his gaze at her, he moved away from the table and rose . . . and rose.

Compared to the men at the bar, Gabe Avery was a giant—at least six foot three. His dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and a tattoo of some sort peeked out from under the tight sleeve of his dark T-shirt. Bronzed and nicely muscled, his was the kind of build that came from work rather than dutiful hours at a gym. He looked like a modern-day pirate—no doubt it was good for business— and it made Jeanne just a little nervous.

Turning, he said something to the expectant mother and folded some money into her hand. Jeanne couldn't help but wonder if she was his wife. If so . . . Revulsion swept through her. The girl looked to be in her teens, far too young and inexperienced for a man like

— Jeanne hit the mental brakes.
It's not my place to judge
, she told herself.

“Gracias,
Gabriel,” the mother-to-be said, casting a shy smile at him before retreating through a side door.

Stepping over the dog on the floor with the lift of a long, sturdy denim-clad leg, Avery closed the distance between them in three easy strides, the dog now at his heels, and peered down at Jeanne.
Make that six foot four . . . or more
, she thought, a little intimidated.

“I'm Gabe Avery. How may I help you?”

His British accent took Jeanne by surprise, though she knew that Avery was from Bermuda. “I-I'm Dr. Jeanne Madison, Captain Avery. And this is my colleague, Dr. Remy Primston.”

A rakish smile tugging at his lips, Gabe lifted Jeanne's hand to his lips. “Enchanted,
doctora.
”