Page 23 of Pirates in Calusa Cove

“It means we talked.” Trinity sighed. She wasn’t one to kiss and tell. It wasn’t anyone’s business, and she didn’t think Keaton would appreciate it. She wouldn’t like it if he went and blabbed it to all his buddies, though she figured, if asked, he wouldn’t lie. Nor would she, but she didn’t have to spell it out. “We understand each other better.”

“That makes no sense.” Mallary narrowed her stare. “He’s always in your face, telling you how?—”

“He didn’t mean it exactly how I took it.”

“Oh my God. You slept with him, didn’t you?” Mallary’s face hardened as if she’d swallowed cement. Or maybe Botox. Either way, it wasn’t an attractive look.

Trinity said nothing.

“Have you no shame?”

“Now that’s uncalled for,” Trinity said. “I misjudged him as much as he did me. He’s willing to help, and none of them have to. Nor do they believe what everyone is saying. They want the truth as much as we do.”

“Or their version of it.” Mallary leaned against the side of the boat. “I’m not going to tell you who to take as a bed partner, but mark my words, he’s not good enough for you—and seriously, what about Fenton?”

“Fenton? Are you kidding me right now?”

“No, actually, I’m not,” Mallary said. “He loves you and hasn’t done anything wrong, but you’re too stubborn to even listen.”

“He cheated on me and only wants my father’s money.”

“You’re letting your past experience rule your future,” Mallary said. “Fenton is none of those things. He doesn’t deserve this. Trust me when I say, Keaton doesn’t care about you, and I can’t believe you don’t see that.”

“Why are you so mad at me? And about this? About Fenton, of all things. Why does it matter to you?”

Mallary covered her face and sobbed. Her shoulders bobbed up and down, and she made ugly crying noises. The kind that made her sound like a dying sea cow.

Trinity loved Mallary. She really did. But this was the one part about Mallary’s personality that grated on her nerves. The woman could go from zero to sixty with her emotions faster than Trinity could run in her heels. And Trinity could run a marathon in those suckers, if she had to.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know. I’m just… I just…” Mallary waved her hand. “I got my hopes up. I really thought we’d find the boat and find that there were no jewels down there, so we could prove my brother did nothing wrong except for being a stupid idiot for being out here alone at night.”

Ouch. Trinity had been out there alone. What did that say about her? She wasn’t going to ask that question out loud.

“Come on. Let’s start our safety check, and we can go down one more time,” Trinity said.

“Do we really have to? I mean, we’ve done it twice already.”

Trinity scowled. “Every time you go under, you do a safety check. Don’t ever forget it. That’s how mistakes are made, and people die.”

Mallory sighed. “All right.”

Trinity made her way to the cockpit and found her cell. Barely a signal. But she’d send a text to Keaton anyway. She’d promised, so she quickly shot one off and tucked her phone into the glove box.

The next fifteen minutes were pure hell. All Trinity did was listen to Mallary scoff. She honestly hoped Mallary would never go scuba diving again after all this. She wasn’t cut out for it.

Trinity set her spare tank on the back seat. It was less than half full. She gave the thumbs-up to Mallary and fell back into the water with a splash. The second she hit the ocean, her world felt lighter. Freer. If she could live underwater, she would. It was the most intoxicating thing, next to sex with Keaton.Where the hell did that come from?

Once had been orgasmic. But the second time in the shower, when he’d brought her a mug of coffee? Well, that had been cosmic. He’d been so tender. So thoughtful. So sweet and romantic.

Not at all what she’d expected from a man like Keaton. She’d half expected him to bark out orders during their escapades, not ask if she liked what he wasdoing. As if her moaning and calling out his name hadn’t given him enough of a hint.

She pushed those thoughts from her mind, flicked on her light, and waved to Mallary. She needed to keep that woman on a short leash.

Speaking of which, she tugged at the one attached to her diver’s buoy. Every so often, she cleared her ears and reminded Mallary to do the same with a hand signal. The deeper they went, the darker it got.

The first few times she’d gone over a hundred feet, she’d thought for sure it would be pitch-black, but much to her surprise, it hadn’t.

She pulled out her compass, checked the surface, and dove deeper. The ocean floor was a little over two hundred feet deep here. This was about five miles from where the Coast Guard had pinned where they believed the boat to have gone down. Seven miles from where she thought she’d seen it.

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