Heather Graham - The Vision

“Cool,” Bethany murmured, offering him her generous smile.

Thor felt restless, anxious to be out on the water. He found himself studying Genevieve Wallace, who was staring straight ahead at Sheridan, her face betraying not so much as a flicker of emotion. The woman was fucking weird. She walked out in a nightshirt and jumped into the water?

While all kinds of noises were coming from her cottage?

“Raccoons,” he heard someone whisper.

Victor Damon was leaning casually against the edge of the next table over. He wasn’t listening at the moment; he was grinning as he looked at Bethany.

“Excuse me?” Lieutenant Preston snapped.

“Sorry, sir,” Victor said. “Bethany heard some kind of commotion last night. She forgets just how many cats and raccoons we have around here.”

“Well, they won’t be under the water!” Preston reminded him.

“Right, sir, absolutely not,” Victor agreed.

Sheridan cleared his throat. “I think it’s important that you all understand the full history of this wreck. The Spanish settled Florida in the early 1500s—St. Augustine is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in the United States. The English got nervous about the Spanish being so close, and the French were trying to get a piece of the action, too. In 1763, Britain gained control of Florida in exchange for Cuba. Then came the Revolutionary War, and Florida remained loyal to the mother country. In 1784, the Spanish gained control again as part of the peace treaty that ended the American Revolution, but in 1821 they ceded Florida to the United States.”

Alex yawned. He caught the others staring at him and sat up straight.

“Hey, sorry, but I grew up here. I learned all this stuff in school,” he said.

“Yeah, but were you listening then?” Victor asked.

“This is important,” Sheridan said impatiently. “It explains why our ship is where it is. During the American Revolution, the French helped the U.S. Unofficially, the Spanish helped the French give us help. Before he was a pirate, José Gasparilla was in the Royal Spanish Navy. He knew these waters from his military experience, and he continued his career as a pirate until he died in 1821. Rumor has it that before his ship could be taken, he cast himself overboard with weights tied to his feet—one of his favorite ways to do away with prisoners. But shortly before his death, he heard of the Marie Josephine.” He paused dramatically.

“An English ship, despite her name,” Genevieve said into his silence.

“Yes, and Gasparilla was loyal to Spain. Unless, of course, there was a good Spanish ship to be attacked.” He laughed, then continued. “At any rate, he heard that the Marie Josephine was nearby, having taken a late exchange of prisoners to Cuba, and heading back to jolly old England laden with the ransom that had been paid,” Sheridan said.

“He probably felt he had a right to steal it,” Marshall said with a shrug.

“Exactly!” Sheridan agreed.

Thor was startled when Genevieve disagreed. “I don’t think that was it at all. Gasparilla had fallen in love with the captain’s daughter, Anne, who had managed to travel with her father and the prisoners to Cuba, because she wanted to be with a young Spanish nobleman they were exchanging. He and Anne had both been Gasparilla’s prisoners previously—that’s how they’d met—and had been ransomed together by the English, who then made the young Spaniard, Aldo Verdugo, their own prisoner. Rumor has it that Anne tricked her father and managed to become a passenger on the ship once again to remain with Aldo. And Aldo, who should have been safely in Cuba, had stowed away on the ship so he could remain with his beloved Anne. Gasparilla, however, had also fallen in love with Anne when she was his prisoner. He had returned her to the English because of the ransom, and his fellow pirates wanted the money. He, however, wanted her back. That’s why he went after the Marie Josephine.”

Alex snorted. “Gen, that’s nuts. Let’s see…all that ransom money—in gold—or a woman. Come on! Women would have been a dime a dozen to a pirate.”

Genevieve waved a hand in the air dismissively. “He wrote letters about his love for her,” she claimed.

“Where are these letters?” Sheridan demanded, frowning.

“Your university,” Genevieve said. Everyone was staring at her. “Hey, I made a trip up and studied everything in the library about the Marie Josephine, Gasparilla, the storm, everything. I was cross-referencing, and that’s when I found the letters.”

“Come on, you can’t put a romantic spin on pirates,” Victor teased her. “They were dirty, nasty thieves.”

“You should have read the letters,” Genevieve said. “Even a nasty, dirty pirate can fall in love.”

“He could have had tons of women,” Victor insisted.

“Yes, but she was the one he wanted. Who knows why someone falls in love. Or maybe it was only an infatuation. The one he couldn’t have. Anyway, he wrote about her in those letters, and he said he was in love.”

“Leave it to a girl,” Victor countered, rolling his eyes and sighing.

Genevieve laughed. “Leave it to a girl to beat the pants off you,” she countered lightly.

Thor sensed camaraderie in their teasing. It was apparent this group knew one another well, that there was a deep underlying friendship between them. He realized that he envied it. He had a damned good crew, but they didn’t always work together. Zach and Lizzie were totally reliable, but they were too close as a married couple to bond with anyone the way Marshall’s people were bonded, even when they were teasing and testing one another. He’d thought he liked it when business was business, but there was something approachiing an actual family relationship between Marshall’s divers, and it not only appeared to be fun, it clearly worked.

“Hey, baby, please don’t beat me up,” Victor said in mock fear. “Hey, Alex, watch out. Our Gen is tough.” He paused, grinning and sliding closer to her on the bench to set an arm around her shoulders. “Except, of course, when she’s seeing things in the water.”

Genevieve shook off his arm and smiled sweetly in return. “Eat shit and die, Victor.”

“Hey, hey! Knock it off, all of you. This is serious business,” Marshall said.

“Hey, I meant it,” Victor protested innocently. “She’s the best. Ouch, Gen! That wasn’t nice.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, staring at him sharply with those mercurial eyes that could so easily light with laughter, then narrow on a dare. “I did my homework.”

“Of course. Obviously…I haven’t read everything in our archives,” Sheridan said. Thor had the feeling the man would be finding the letters immediately on his return to the university.

“If Gen says they’re there, they’re there,” Victor said, suddenly dead serious.

“Come on,” Marshall said wearily. “It doesn’t matter why Gasparilla attacked the ship, only that he did. And right as he was savaging her, a storm came through. Gasparilla got away, but the Marie Josephine went down. He purportedly came back to find the treasure, but the storm had shifted the sands and he couldn’t find her, so the ship remains at the bottom of the sea with her complete treasure, or so we imagine.”

“Yes, well, that’s about it,” Sheridan said, sounding somewhat huffy. He’d always been a nice-enough guy, if a little geeky, but it was obvious he hadn’t liked being shown up by a diver. “The letters I do know about were left by one of his men, and from his descriptions of their position while awaiting the Marie Josephine, and calculating the currents, the effects of the storm and the natural shifting due to time, I firmly believe I have you exactly in the right area. But you need to find proof positive of the ship’s final resting ground before we allow any disturbance of the reef.”