Blue Moon (9 page)

“Go on, Nemo. Fetch,” he ordered, pointing out a bait box with a target painted on it. As Nemo leapt away, the captain sat upright, brandishing a smile worthy of a
GQ
cover.

A glimpse of her hastily bound hair and makeup-free image on the water stalled her anger momentarily. Her ponytail looked like an exploded firecracker, and her eyes were still a little puffy from sleep. Why did everyone else have to look so magazine-perfect this morning?

“Good morning, Jeanne. I see you've heard the news,” he said, clearly mistaking—at least partially—the reason for her frown. He drained the last sip of coffee from one of two mugs sitting on the steps to the bridge. The second had danger-red lipstick on the rim, and the sight of it uncapped the steam built up in Jeanne's veins.

“I hope,
Captain
Avery
,
that you have a good reason for delaying—” Jeanne broke off in astonishment as Nemo drew away from the bait box dragging a long shining blade that was big and deadly enough to skin gators alive by its hilt. “Is that a
knife
?”

“Looks like it.” Gabe took the knife handle carefully out of the dog's mouth and gave him a hearty rub. “Good boy!”

“You're playing fetch with a . . . a bowie knife?” Crocodile Dundee was the extent of Jeanne's knowledge of knives, unless one counted a diver's knife. She wrinkled her nose as Gabe wiped the canine slobber from the handle on his shorts.

“A stick is too easy onboard and . . .” Gabe cast a meaningful glance at the water. “Too hard out there. Nemo hasn't perfected the swim platform, you see.” With a flip of his wrist, he let the knife fly again, sending it straight into the bull's-eye. “Fetch, Nemo!”

Delighted, the dog barked, taking off once again.

“Of course, I can't miss at such close range, but
he
doesn't know that,” Gabe said with a lady-killer wink.

Except that she was no man-crazy, spike-heeled bombshell. And she was angry, Jeanne reminded herself. Spanning the short distance between the boat and the dock, she stepped aboard.

“Well,
I'm
not as easily impressed, Captain. Pablo told me
you
decided that we weren't leaving until after the
Prospect
.”

Gabe waved her out of the way and threw the blade again at the target spray-painted on the side of the bait box. Dead center. “That's right.”

Without waiting for the command, the dog seized the knife by its hilt and, growling with the effort, wrung it free of the worn target.

Jeanne placed her hands on her hips. “As I recall, I am the director of this project. You work for me. Just who do you think you are, making that decision without even consulting me?”

His mouth thinning to a grimace, Gabe spoke to Nemo. “All done, boy. Put it away. Go on. Go on.”

Intrigued, Jeanne followed Nemo's progress up to the bridge deck, where he approached the captain's bench and dropped the weapon on the faded blue indoor-outdoor carpet.

“Good boy!” Gabe shoved up from the chair. “He hasn't learned to sheath it but, frankly, I'm rather proud of his progress to date.” Taking up both mugs, he motioned Jeanne up the steps. “If we're to have a discussion, I'd as soon have it in the privacy of the bridge.”

“What, you think Arnauld can read our lips?”

“No, but I'd like to have some more coffee. Join me?” Without waiting for her reply, he took the steps.

“Where's Manolo?” she called out, climbing to the bridge after him.

“Shooting the bull at the bait shack with Don Rudolfo.” Nemo at his heels, Gabe disappeared into the companionway leading to the galley.

Recalling the last time she'd been in close quarters with Gabe, Jeanne opted to wait for him to return to the salon. Spying the sheath for the knife discreetly mounted beneath the cushion overhang on the captain's bench, she used the hem of her T-shirt to grab the hilt and shove the knife into the sheath.

What kind of a man kept a knife like this practically hidden, much less threw it for recreation? And involved an innocent dog to boot? If Jeanne weren't so sure of Blaine's resources for checking out Gabe, she'd be having some serious second thoughts, instead of the
Lord, please make this work
desperation that knotted in her stomach.

“Here we are.”

Straightening, Jeanne rubbed her hands on the terry shorts she'd donned over her one-piece swimsuit and took the steaming hot mug of coffee that Gabe handed her. As she sat on the canvas-covered sofa, she examined the rim for any remnants of lipstick.

“Different cup.”

“What?” she asked, clueless at first until the captain's knowing look registered. Since he had her dead to rights, she might as well say what was on her mind. “Speaking of Pamela, I saw her leave a few minutes ago.”

Gabe took the seat beside her and nodded to a book sitting on bulkhead. “She dropped off that book for Primston to sign.”

If the captain was embarrassed by his errant insinuation from the previous night, it didn't show. But Jeanne wanted it to, enough to rub it in his face.

“So you were wrong about Arnauld. He wasn't just buttering Remy up. He actually did have the book.”

“The binding isn't even cracked.” Gabe chuckled as she checked the lift of her coffee to her lips. “Go on . . . have a look. It's a new copy, undoubtedly purchased after he had Genesis checked out. I tell you, Arnauld leaves little to chance.”

With a grudging sigh, Jeanne set the steaming cup down and stepped over to the bridge where Remy's book on the preservation of marine antiquities lay. Even as she opened the front cover, it cracked with newness. But that didn't mean that Arnauld hadn't read about Remy's work. And Gabe still had no right to set the schedule of the project.

“Which is why I am not leaving Punta Azul until the
Prospect
has cleared the area,” he added.

Jeanne tossed the book back on the carpeted dash. “To my way of thinking, you haven't given me one reason aside from your obvious dislike for Marshall Arnauld to believe he is anything but what he presents himself to be—a wealthy playboy and treasure hunter on his way to Belize because he lost a bet with his two”—she did a hasty edit—“
lady
friends.”

Gabe's fingers tightened on the mug handle, the only sign that she was getting through. “From the moment Pablo began to gather equipment for the project and make the appropriate contacts with CEDAM, Marshall Arnauld has been gathering information on you and everyone associated with this enterprise. He certainly knew enough about you and Remy to keep you two talking your heads off.”

Jeanne eased back on the sofa, her mind racing over last night's conversation. “But he learned nothing aside from the name of the ship we're after.”

“Keep on believing that, sweet.”

The sharp edge of Gabe's patronizing tone rubbed against an already raw nerve. “How would you know?” she demanded. “You were cheek-to-cheek with Pamela the Red half the night . . . or all of it, for all I know.”

Jeanne bit her lip, surprising herself as much as her companion by her outburst. It wasn't like her to take potshots at other women, no matter how they flaunted their sexuality. She'd always thought herself above catty behavior, but if this kept up, Gabe would have to serve her a saucer of milk.

A half smile—or was it a smirk?—pulled at Gabe's mouth, neither confirming nor denying her bold suggestion. He closed the distance between them until the coarse brush of his leg rubbed against one of hers.

“My dear Jeanne”—with the crook of a finger, he raised her eyes to the dangerous blue waters of his own—“from Pablo's scavenge and purchase of equipment and supplies, Arnauld knows what we are after, the depth of the water we hope to search, and the approximate square mileage of the site. From you and Primston he milked the ship's name and the type of objects you hope to recover based on comparisons to some of the other excavations you discussed, which also told him the type of boat and approximate age: a Spanish galleon called the
Luna Azul
, located in a five-square-kilometer range in a depth of twenty-five to forty feet, within a short traveling distance from our base at Punta Azul. Anyone with good charts—and Arnauld has nothing but the best—will be able to narrow those areas down with little effort.”

Jeanne recoiled inwardly from what Gabe told her, but the truth of it settled heavily on her shoulders. What had they done?

“And as for your suspicions regarding Pamela . . .” he continued, as he leaned his face down to hers. “Had she spent the night, she would not have left my bed so impeccably put together.” The Ps of his words drove Gabe's breath against her lips, a tidal surge before the storm gathering in his eyes. “But rather . . .”

Without preamble, the tempest broke; his mouth covered hers with a sense-scattering fury until her body began to feel as though it were no longer hers, but his. It was his breath that she breathed— a bizarre blend of black coffee and mint toothpaste. His arms that held her together. His pulse drove hers as he pressed her toward the sofa back.

Railing against this heady loss of control, Jeanne summoned her last bastion of resistance and shoved Gabe onto the floor with more strength than either of them anticipated.

Nemo, eager to participate in the perceived roughhousing, leapt on top of Gabe with an an explosive “Woof !” and showered him with doggy kisses.

Jeanne rose from the sofa as Gabe roared from the floor. “Nemo, get off. Bad boy!”

Shocked, Nemo shrank from the furious captain and slunk over to stand by Jeanne's feet, watching his master rise.

“It's okay, Nemo,” Jeanne cooed, leaning down to pet the dog's head and glowering at Gabe. “
Gabe's
the bad boy.”

She gave the animal an extra show of affection to give her rubber legs a chance to firm up. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind—several pieces, actually—but they fought with each other on her tongue.

“Don't you ever—! What did you think—? I am not—!” She broke off as Gabe stood, forcing her to look up at him. Gone was the storm and in its place a chill Jeanne could almost feel.

“Oh yes, you are, sweet.” Impassive, he reached across Nemo, who had wedged between their knees, determined to share in the experience, and traced Jeanne's lips. “Your lips are full with desire. Your eyes shimmer with it . . . you look like a woman who just spent a night of rapture in the arms of her lover. It's enough to drive a man crazy,” he finished quietly, flipping a renegade lock of hair that had escaped her scrunchie away from her face.

The cold, bold nerve of the man! Jeanne forced a laugh. “You are not only paranoid, Captain, but you are delusional. I
look
like I've been assaulted by a . . . a sexist bully. This is anger—no,
outrage
— that you see in my eyes. Our arrangement is strictly business. Don't ever make it personal again—do we understand each other?”

Jeanne tapped her foot, waiting for a reply, or some sort of reaction. Instead, Gabe merely stared at her. It was like trying to outstare a cat, a very big one capable of heaven-only-knew-what. Thankfully, Manolo Barrera spared Jeanne from finding out how long the contest would have lasted.

“Eh,
capitán . . . doctora
,” the
Angel
's deckhand called out from the stern of the ship. “The engine part is here. Says the
mecánico
, it will make one hour before the
Prospect
will quit itself from Punta Azul.”

“That's grand news, Manolo,” Jeanne answered, looking after Nemo as he bounded down to the stern deck and off the boat to greet his friend.

“If you wish to keep our relationship strictly professional, Jeanne,” Gabe hissed beneath his breath. “Then do not presume to comment on
my
personal business again.” He caught her arm as she started after the dog. “Do we understand each other?”

Jeanne glanced over her shoulder and nodded. “I think so. But be aware that decisions made that affect this project must either be validated by explanation or they will be disregarded. I will not let some personal peeve interfere.” Nearly missing the first of the three steps to the stern deck, Jeanne recovered by the time she reached bottom, steady on her feet . . . to the naked eye at least. “Be ready to leave in an hour, Captain, whether Arnauld has left or not. This equipment is going to be tested today.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Good thing we didn't go all the way to Isla Codo for this,” Stuart remarked later that afternoon. Self-conscious with Jeanne looking over his shoulder, he ran his fingers over his close-cut crop of reddish-blond hair and glared at the blank monitor connected to the magnetometer as though he could bully it into functioning.

Feeling for the lad, Gabe focused alternately on the Fathometer and the waters ahead, instead of crowing about the decision he'd railroaded through by pointing out the logic and logistics of testing the equipment closer to base. Besides, while their postponed start was reason enough to test closer to base and avoid leading Arnauld some two hours straight to Isla Codo, he'd pushed Jeanne enough for one day.