Helen Brenna - Treasure

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and fiddled with the seventeenth-century gold coin he carried everywhere. His first real find, the coin had always seemed to help him center and refocus his priorities. Turning the coin over and over between his fingers, he contemplated the aerials and the stack of research she’d accumulated. The idea of a landlocked museum curator putting together pieces of a puzzle that had stumped hundreds of men for hundreds of years was absurd.

She had a secret. Jake glanced at her face. Eyes that sparkled with mischief. Features that grew prettier every time he looked at them. Most likely, she was another amateur treasure hunter with big dreams.

A stranger, an archaeologist, a woman. And those lips… He’d be crazy to bring her onto his boat. Then again, for a chance at the Concha, he’d be crazy not to.

The coin warmed in his hand. This one was for Dad. And Sam. “When can you be ready to head out?”

Dear Reader,

I had so much fun writing Treasure. The idea for it came to me after I read a newspaper article about a tenacious and visionary man named Mel Fisher. After many years of searching, he, his family and his crews finally discovered the real mother lode of all Spanish galleons, the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, that sank off the coast of Florida close to four hundred years ago. The Atocha eventually yielded $450 million dollars worth of gold, silver and gems. Wow!

But the more I researched, the more I realized that Mel Fisher’s discovery hadn’t come without a price. He devoted sixteen years of his life to this venture, and near the end lost his son and daughter-in-law in a tragic accident. No doubt I’ve oversimplified the treasure-hunting process and pushed the limits of poetic license, but I hope I’ve succeeded in giving you the sense that treasure hunting is an all-consuming, complicated and dangerous undertaking. This is Jake and Annie’s world. May they become as real to you as they are to me.

I’d love to hear what you think of my first book. You can e-mail me at helenbrenna@comcast.com, check out my Web site at www.helenbrenna.com, or chat with me and several other well-established authors on ridingwiththetopdown.blogspot.com.

Enjoy,

Helen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Helen Brenna grew up the seventh of eight children in central Minnesota. Although as a child she never dreamed of writing books, she surely assimilated the necessary skills from her storytelling brothers.

With a B.S. in accounting, she started career life as a CPA and thought she’d end career life as an old CPA, but the decision to stay home with her kids made all things possible.

She lives near Minneapolis with her husband, two children, two dogs and three cats and would love hearing from you. E-mail her at helenbrenna@comcast.com or send mail to P.O. Box 24107, Minneapolis, MN 55424.

For Mark, my moon

No writer is an island. I can attest to that more than most. My sincerest appreciation goes out to everyone who has ever supported and encouraged me along this decade-long, often boulder-strewn road.

In the beginning there was Susan Kay Law, Connie Brockway, Taylor Kristoffe Jones, Judi Phillips and Nancy Leonard. They taught me how to write and, boy, did I need them. Then along came the princesses, Rosemary Heim, Becky Klang, Christine Lashinski, Monica McClean, Mary Strand, Tina Plant, Katie Quay, Roxanne Richardson, and Sara Tieck. They taught me how to enjoy writing and help me enjoy life.

I’d also like to thank Rosalie Brenna and Connie Lillibridge for their unflinching support through the years and for being good liars. If they’d told me the truth about my first amateurish, awful attempts at writing you wouldn’t be holding this book in your hands.

Big, sloppy thanks to my agent, Tina Dubois Wexler, and my editor, Johanna Raisanen, for believing in my work. You two are the best!

A lot of research went in to writing Treasure. If I’ve made any mistakes with the scuba diving details, you can blame Kurt Wahl. He won’t mind. Any other mistakes are solely mine.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

“BLOOD,” the Aztec prince whispered in the twilight. “The gods will require it.”

I knew then his intention to make a sacrifice.

Annie Miller, a curator at Chicago’s Field Museum, sat at her desk engrossed in the Spanish soldier’s nearly four-hundred-year-old diary. A group of coworkers approached the hall outside her office, and she prayed they wouldn’t stop to make the requisite once-a-month lunch invitation. Though they tried including her in their outings, even amidst this group of introverts Annie was a bit of an oddity.

She leaned over the ancient book, letting her long brown hair fall like a privacy fence over her face. Thankfully, they passed by, and, in no time, the office white noise all but disappeared. She was lost in the wild jungles of Veracruz, Mexico. 1621.

The right place. The right time.

“Huitzilpochti!” The prince softly summoned his god of war and raised his arms to the sky. “Hear me. Defend your people!”

Hidden amidst the brush, I was both mesmerized and frightened. Duty demanded I stop the prince, and yet had I not borne witness to the heinous crimes perpetrated against his people? Native boys and men, beaten and slaughtered. Women, raped and enslaved. Did this man not deserve a measure of revenge?

“Make all who would have this gold,” the prince cried, now uncaring as to who might hear him, “those greedy of heart and wicked with intent, know your wrath and die! Make them suffer as they have made my people suffer!”

Annie swallowed. All these years she should have known. She might not be dead, but in looking at her life she might as well be.

I watched in horror as he set his shoulders and dug a sharp rock across each wrist. Thick, menacing clouds swirled above my head as he poured his lifeblood over a golden cross. His blood oozed over the pearls and emeralds set within the cross’s frame, casting the largest, clearest stones I had ever beheld in deep, red glory.

Gold. Pearls. Emeralds. Annie’s neck tingled with dread. The Santidad Cross. It had to be. She wasn’t crazy after all.

Having heard the disturbance, several guards came quickly to find the prince collapsing to the ground. Lieutenant Sanchez kicked over the dying man and seized the cross. The storm gathered strength. Rain fell hard and fast. Lightning split a nearby tree, scattering the guards, but I remained rooted to the spot, watching as a large limb sundered from its trunk and crushed Sanchez, the cross still in his grasp.

The gods had listened.

Annie closed her eyes. Gripping the diary in her shaking hands, she remembered another time, another place. Other deaths. The curse was real, and this proved it. She picked up the diary, drew a small, heavy box from her briefcase and went in search of the head curator. He had to see this.

“Aaron!” She knocked on the way into his office, a large, white space filled with artifacts, book after oversized book and curious pieces of what most normal people considered junk. “I need to show you something from these newest acquisitions.”