Vortex (Cutter Cay) (10 page)

“No.” Her gaze flickered to the screen, then back to him. Her lashes were long and dark, spiky shadows on her cheeks, which were sprinkled with intriguing pale gold freckles “I’m fine. Really.”

Logan put his bare feet up on the table, ankles crossed, then laced his fingers over his belly, letting his gaze drift over her. She was sitting too still. The kind of still a rabbit sat when a wolf was at the door. But her dark eyes didn’t look fearful as she tilted her chin and met his gaze unflinchingly.

The woman had
cojones
, he’d give her that.

He followed her gaze to the flickering TV, where a London bobby was shoving some guy into the back of a paddy wagon. “What magazine did you say had that article that gave you the idea the bowl was a map?” The scene switched to the London anchor, then switched to news from around the world. Her head moved before her eyes followed to look at him as he talked. What was so fascinating about the news? Something she wanted to catch, or was it a way to not have to look at him? “I’d like to read it.”

The pulse at the base of her pale, slender throat throbbed, as she said evenly, “It was fascinating. Sorry, I don’t remember. Some magazine I picked up in the doctor’s office a while back.”

Logan leaned his head against the back cushion on the sofa. “If you remember the title or author, I can do a bit of research online.”

“Ah—Mary or Molly Edwards or Edmonds, maybe … Sorry, I don’t really remember. It was months ago…” Her voice trailed off, then she rubbed her hands over her mouth and cheeks, and gave him a tortured look. “Oh, damn it,” she whispered roughly, shutting her eyes, then opening them again. “I can’t do this, it’s nerve-wracking!”

“Watching television? I admit the reception isn’t g—”

“I made that up.”

He rolled his head to look at her straight on. Her posture might look relaxed, but every nerve and tendon in her body was poised and ready for flight. “You made up the magazine article?”

“Well, yes. That too. I lied about reading about the bowl for starters.”

Logan’s brow shot up. That he hadn’t expected. “You lied?”

“I didn’t need to read about it. I’ve heard the story of the treasure of
La Daniela
my whole life. My great, great, however many greats, uncle was a seaman on board
La Daniela.
He was forced to accompany the men back to Spain with the treasure. He was on the gunship when she was hit by the storm.

“He was one of two survivors. The other man died a few years later. According to family history,
Nuestra Señora de Garza
was really a decoy. The treasure was switched to
La Daniela
after they left port, and were far out to sea. The big ship headed north with two of the smaller ships,
La Daniela
went south…”

Logan swung his feet to the floor, turning fully to face her. So she had lied. It pissed him off that he was disappointed, even though he’d known. He hadn’t wanted to be right.

He cut to the chase. “Are you saying you believe the smallest gunboat carried the treasure, ostensibly back to Spain, and she was the ship that sank down the coast?”

“That’s the family story.” She toyed with Dog’s ear, something he usually hated; he didn’t even twitch.

Despite his fascination with her story, and trying to sort out truth, half-truth, and outright bullshit, Logan wanted her hands petting
him
. Crazy shit. He dragged his attention back to her cockamamie story. Or what could be the truth, if he listened to his gut.

His lie-dar wasn’t giving him an accurate reading. She was good, Logan thought, watching her, his own expression neutral. Very good, in fact. She displayed just the right amount of hesitation and eagerness. Just the right amount of calm curiosity. Maybe it was part of the truth. Not all of it. If Logan had been less intuitive to the liars of the world, he might even have been fooled by her. Oh, she was still lying all right. He just didn’t know about what.

“
La Daniela
was long gone when the storm came up, and then the pirates attacked
Nuestra Señora de Garza, San Isidro,
and
Conde del Mar
. The story goes that my great-great-uncle was pressed into service, and when the storm hit, driving
La Daniela
against the rocky reef, he and another sailor jumped ship and somehow made it to shore.”

She rubbed between Dog’s ears, and the animal groaned his pleasure.

Crap. He was jealous of his dog.

“The two men made it back with the biggest piece of the treasure they could carry,” she continued. “The emerald. Apparently the other guy was a woodworker, and he carved the map. He died. I suspect my distant great-great-uncle got his hands on it and returned to scoop up the rest of the treasure that nobody knew about. But when he went out in his fishing boat the water was too deep, and he couldn’t get to it. The story was passed on. Of course, we never believed it for a second.”

“We?”

“My mother’s side of the family going back several generations.
La Daniela
’s treasure has always been a bone of contention in my family. Sort of the line in the sand between the good guys and the bad,” she added wryly as her attention, strangely, returned to the television. Some Kennedyesque DC politician spouting something with utmost sincerity, tears in his eyes.

Logan returned his attention to her. “Were you behind the guy who sold me the bowl?”

She shook her head, then gave him a worried frown. “No. I was an unwitting participant because my cousins couldn’t get you to turn around.”

“Turn around?”

She was distracted by the news, which was always the same crap. Logan clicked it off and the screen went dark, plunging the room into the amber glow of the one lamp by the window. She blinked at him like a sleepwalker.

“Do these cousins have names?”

“Look,” she said earnestly. “I don’t want you to report them to the authorities. They haven’t done anything—yet, and hopefully you can do a better job than I did of dissuading them from swooping in and stealing you blind.”

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “Names?”

She let out a breath. “Piero, Angel, and Hugo—” she hesitated, and he encouraged her with a hard look. “Apaza.”

At least it wasn’t Rydell Case. Logan committed the names to memory. “They the ones who hit you and tossed you overboard?”

“They told me we were coming out to your ship to tell you about the bowl. Once we left the harbor, we had … a difference of opinion.”

He felt a sudden fury churn up inside him, and said savagely, “Your life vest was improperly fastened.”

She gave him an unhappy look. “I’m fortunate they put one on me at all.”

“Yeah. Fortunate. Why has no one bagged the treasure already? They’ve had the map for hundreds of years. Surely someone in all that time must’ve had the smarts and wherewithal to dive for it?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Apparently, at the time of the wreck no one had the capability of diving so deep. That’s why they carved the map out of the emerald, so that they’d never forget the location. It was no use knowing
where
if they didn’t have the technology to get at it. Then the emerald seems to have disappeared for a century or two. I suppose it’s possible that their branch of the family—like mine—thought it was all a big myth.”

“Why didn’t these cousins dive themselves?”

“They couldn’t afford the equipment, not to mention, they had no idea how to go about a salvage of this magnitude,” she said dryly. “Plus it’s so much easier to let you do the all work and go to the expense. They plan to stroll on board and grab it after you’re done.”

“So, that’s been the plan all along? I go south, find the treasure, then the Three Stooges swoop in and relieve me of it?”

“Apparently. I’m really, really sorry.” She looked sincere, But that could be part and parcel of the whole con. “I tried reason and threats. But they’ve waited all their lives to retrieve the treasure.”

“Unfortunately,” his voice was cold, “they’re shit out of luck, since I claimed the treasure as my own a year ago and did it all legally. They should’ve thought of that. The papers are signed and sealed, and as official as death.”

She gave a small two-shoulder shrug. “They think they have a right to take it.”

“It’s a popular misconception held by several people in my line of work. Their thinking is erroneous.”

Her fingers flexed, digging into Dog’s ruff. “What are you going to do?”

Logan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Casual enough, but it brought him closer to her. “Talk to my lawyers, then go find the treasure. Your cousins and I will iron out the details first, however.”

Her eyes widened a fraction. “You’re going to make a deal with them? I hate to sound un-family-like, but these guys are crooks.”

Logan couldn’t help but grin. Exactly what did she think he’d been doing as a treasure hunter and salvage operator, paperwork? Danger didn’t scare him. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“No, seriously. My side of the family hasn’t spoken to their side of the family in over thirty years. I’d never even met these guys until a week ago. If there’s an easy way for them to do something, believe me, they’ll take the low road. These are
not
nice people.”

Logan pinned her with an unwavering gaze. “And you think I am?”

Five

He had a smile like a shark. How had he pulled the story out of her when all he’d done was sit there, watching her like a lazy, blue-eyed predator? A smart woman would dive overboard and start swimming back to Lima. But a smart woman was damned if she’d run from a man ever again.

She’d made her line in the sand. Logan Cutter’s ship just happened to be straddling it.

His seductive superpower was his unwavering disregard for bullshit. Unlike her ex, Victor, who oozed fake charm and faux emotion, Logan let her know exactly how he felt. If what she read in his eyes was true, then Cutter still thought she was a big fat liar, and he made no pretense otherwise.

Daniela felt bad enough about the situation already. His look just summed up what she’d been feeling since she’d been pulled from the sea. Guilt. The great motivator. Father Morgan would be so proud. No wonder she’d leaked her story like a broken faucet.

Victor had his own methods of persuasion. Humiliation. Cold mockery. Disdain. Cutter’s stillness was just another form of coercion. The ding to her conscience came from the fact that she was still lying by omission. But one step at a time.

“How dangerous are these guys?” His even tone suggested he wasn’t particularly concerned. There was a lot of him, and most of it was a lot naked since he was only wearing loose-fitting gray shorts.

His skin gleamed like smooth bronze in the far-too-intimate lamplight. His dark hair was a bit shaggy and looked as if a woman had spent a happy hour or two running her fingers through it. And if she allowed herself to go down the—Holy crap, look at the man’s rock-hard six-pack, and the crisp dark hair on his pecs, and …

Mouth dry, Daniela dragged her gaze up his flat belly, passed his pecs, and moved up the strong, tanned column of his throat. Her gaze landed on a pair of inquiring cobalt eyes. Really, the man was a whole other kind of lethal. He should be forced to wear sunglasses. And a shirt.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, willing her galloping heartbeat to slow down before she passed out. “They’re petty criminals. Certainly they’re lazy and greedy. They struck me while I slept and threw me overboard, so I suspect that, yeah, they might be more violent than I gave them credit for.”

No wonder her mother always crossed herself when she mentioned her older sister Jimena and her husband, who was in prison more than he was out. And her mother had never met her three nephews either. Even Lady Clairol wouldn’t be able to prevent her from turning gray then.
Be safe, Mom. Please be safe.

Daniela’s speech was slower than usual, because while she was talking, she was thinking, God. She’d stood up to the world’s most devious, terrifying intimidator, and Cutter, without lifting a finger, or making a threat, had managed to get her to spill her guts without even trying.

“I certainly don’t trust them. That said, I don’t know them.” At all. She’d met the Three Stooges a week ago. And what she’d seen of them she didn’t like. Liked them even less for hitting her and tossing her into the ocean. It was a mixed blessing that she’d been in flat-out panic mode from the moment she’d hit the water. To say she had an aversion to having her face in water was the understatement of the century. Daniela masked a full-body shudder by stroking both hands down Dog’s back.

“You don’t consider them violent?” he asked incredulously. “They struck you hard enough to almost kill you, and dumped you overboard like yesterday’s garbage.” Strangely, he sounded furious. Or as furious as a cold-blooded shark could sound.

“Well, yeah. You have a point there,” she said tightly. He’d need more than sexy feet and impossibly blue X-ray eyes to get her real motivation out of her. But talking about her cousins was better than telling him why she’d hooked up with them in the first place.

Three words.

Senator. Victor. Stamps.

She had just about had a coronary seeing his handsome, oh-so-sincere-politician’s face on the big screen right before the commercial break, with the crawl that he had an important announcement to make. The press might think he was about to announce his bid for the presidency. But Victor was smarter than that. He knew how powerful anticipation was. He wasn’t going to declare for two more weeks.

No, he was going to say something about
her.

They’d give him a sound bite, and probably flash her photograph up beside him, as he wept crocodile tears for his missing fiancée. Thank God Cutter had turned off the TV in the nick of time.

Daniela felt as though she’d had the most narrow of escapes. Surreptitiously, she wiped her sweaty palm on Dog’s thick fur. He lifted his head and licked her wrist. Foolish tears stung her eyes. She looked up just in time to see the muscle jump in Logan’s jaw.