Deeper Than The Ocean by Julie Ann Walker
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Shot Across the Bow
The Deep Six book 5
by Julie Ann Walker
Chapter 1
Present Day
8:45 PM…
Tactical awareness…
It meant knowing all the exits in the bar. Having a close approximation of how many people were inside making merry. And recognizing that the two guys in the corner drinking whiskey and wearing ten-gallon cowboy hats carried concealed weapons in calf holsters under their Wranglers—Texans, ya gotta love ’em.
For Spiro “Romeo” Delgado, tactical awareness also meant knowing the very instant Mia Ennis walked in.
The hair along his arms stood up. His stomach tightened. And the oxygen in the room was suddenly reduced by half—quite a feat considering Schooner Warf Bar was open air along three whole sides.
They were nothing new to him, these physical manifestations caused by her mere presence. They’d been happening ever since she’d been hired to oversee the excavation he and his former SEAL Team brothers and current Deep Six Salvage partners were doing on the legendary Santa Cristina.
The state of Florida stipulated that a site with any sort of historic significance must contract a trained and certified professional to document the salvage process. And since there wasn’t a more historic relic in all of the Caribbean than the grand ghost galleon, enter Mia Ennis, renowned marine archeologist.
But back to the fractious arm hair, rebellious stomach, and insufficient O₂ levels…
No two ways about it, they happened because Romeo was hot to trot for the brainy strawberry blond.
Which wasn’t surprising considering she had an athletic figure, creamy skin that always held a hint of a blush, and the most fascinating amber-colored eyes he’d ever had the pleasure to get lost in. Lioness eyes was how he thought of them, and like those big cats that roamed the Serengeti, Mia moved with an innate agility and grace that hinted at the kind of lover she would make.
And while he was no stranger to attracting and being attracted to the opposite sex—hell, that’s how he’d come by his nom de guerre of ‘Romeo’—never in his life had he found himself plagued by incessant thoughts of one woman.
Mia was like a damned earworm that spun endlessly inside his head. Only instead of catching himself humming, he often caught himself dreaming about kissing her perfect, rosebud lips.
Dreaming about, but never daring to actually do it because, on the one hand, she was way, way too classy and sophisticated for a reformed gangbanger like himself. And on the other hand, they were friends. Pals. Amigos.
Ugh.
Glancing away from Doc and the black-haired woman sidled up next to him, Romeo watched Mia weave her way across the little dance floor to find an empty table under a palm tree. Mason and Alex followed hot on her heels.
“Hey, bruh.” He tapped Doc on the shoulder. “The others just showed up. I’m going to join them.”
Doc barely glanced in the direction Romeo pointed before waving a distracted hand and turning his attention back to the dark-eyed Venus pressing her boobs against his arm. Doc was on a mission to drown his sorrows in a pitcher of beer and the willing ministrations of any woman who’d have him.
Considering the guy stood six and half feet tall, with shoulders about that wide, there were plenty of ladies to choose from. The buxom beauty who’d introduced herself as Candy had simply been the first to respond once Doc deployed his patented Dalton “Doc” Simmons sexual allure arsenal.
Grabbing his glass of Don Julio straight up—because that’s how his abuela had taught him to drink it—Romeo slipped off the barstool and began making his way toward his friends. The warm, moist air was ripe with the smell of spilled beer and the slightly fishy aroma wafting in from the nearby marina. A three-man band played sea shanties on the little stage in the corner. And outside, the stars sparkled like cut diamonds across the black underbelly of the night sky.
Key West…ain’t she grand? Never once could Romeo remember having a bad time while visiting the island. The Conch Republic had a way of forcing a person to kick off their shoes, shove their toes in the sand, and slow way, way down—preferably with a drink in hand.
Speaking of…
He took a sip of his tequila and welcomed the soft bite of the liquor on his tongue. He had to sidestep a drunk who tried coaxing a recalcitrant woman out of her seat onto the dance floor.
By the look on the woman’s face, the last thing she wanted was to cut a rug with the arrogant asshat. But neither did she want to make a scene, so she was trying to politely tell the guy to row, row, row his boat gently the fuck on out of her line of sight.
The fairer sex always knew when a man was coming at them from the wrong side of the road. As far as Romeo could figure, the drunk wouldn’t know the right side if it jumped up and bit him on the ass.
Not your business, he told himself because he had a bad habit of starting shit with bombed-out dickwads who thought downing a half-dozen shooters gave them a good excuse to act like pigs. Besides, the woman had four friends with her. And if life had taught Romeo anything, it was that there was nothing more terrifyingly capable than a group of queens out enjoying a ladies’ night.
Between the five of them, they can more than handle Señor Shitfaced, he thought with a smirk as he continued toward the table beneath the palm.
Mia must’ve felt him headed her way. She turned to look at him, and the instant those fascinating golden-brown eyes of hers collided with his, some invisible bastard slugged him in the gut. Still, he managed what he hoped was a friendly smile and thanked her when she pulled out a chair in wordless invitation.
“You done playing Doc’s support brah?” Alex quipped after he’d taken a seat.
Alexandra Merriweather was the diminutive historian and expert in procesal—the script used on the old Spanish Colonial documents—who’d been key in helping the Deep Six Salvage crew find the final resting place of the storied vessel. She was also a bookworm, a motor-mouth, and a wunderkind when it came to random bits of trivia.
Romeo had grown to love her like a little sister. And he couldn’t be happier she’d finally convinced Mason to take a second chance on romance.
“The key to being a great wingman,” he told her with a wink, “is knowing when to fly away.”
She snorted. Then her brow wrinkled as she glanced toward the bar. “What’s up with Doc anyway? He’s not himself. He couldn’t even wait until we had dessert before going on the prowl.”
They’d all been enjoying dinner at Pepe’s Cafe. But when their waiter came by to ask if they wanted slices of Key lime pie to finish off their meal, Doc had pushed back from the table and declared his intention to head to the bar to, quote, “find a lovely lady who’ll want to add my banana to her fruit salad.”
Since the disappointed look on Mia’s pretty face had told Romeo she’d been looking forward to some pie, and since he’d needed a breath of fresh air after having spent the entire meal with his knee touching hers under the snug little table, he’d volunteered to head out with Doc while the others indulged their sweet tooth.
Now he told Alex, “He’s just trying to distract himself. Today’s the anniversary of his wife’s death.”
“Ah.” She nodded solemnly. “What’s the story there anyway? No one ever talks about how—”
She was cut off when one of the women at the table behind them said in a strident voice, “Look, pal, she said she doesn’t want to dance. So buzz off.”
“Someone should tell that guy that being a dick won’t make what he’s packing in his pants any bigger. It doesn’t work that way.” Mia’s voice was soft and husky, but irritation flashed across her face as she observed the scene.
Romeo felt his lips curve into a wide grin. The thing about Mia Ennis was that she was incredibly circumspect. Some might even call her closed-mouthed. In fact, for the first few weeks she’d worked with them, he wasn’t sure she’d uttered more than a dozen words.
Which meant discovering her salty wit and dry sense of humor had been more exciting than unearthing long lost sea treasure.
Or at least he thought it was more exciting. He couldn’t say for sure since they’d yetto locate the Santa Cristina’s mother lode.
After carefully picking over the submerged remains of the vessel, they’d determined her cache of riches was missing. Then, working on the hunch that some of the galleon’s crew must have survived the wreck in order to liberate the ship of her booty, they’d turned their attention to searching Wayfarer Island with metal detectors. That little endeavor had proved that yes, indeed, some of the Santa Cristina’s crew had survived. But still…no treasure. Finally, in a last-ditch effort, they’d used ground penetrating sonar and jackpot!
Well, not jackpot jackpot. They hadn’t found the treasure, but they had identified a plot of old, unmarked graves. And in one of those graves they’d uncovered the remains of the Santa Cristina’s famous captain. The metal buttons found alongside the bleached bones and stamped with the Vargas family crest had told them as much. But more important than the bones or the buttons had been the captain’s journal.
Someone had buried it with the man and had done their best to preserve it by wrapping it in oil cloth before placing it inside an old iron box. The delicate ledger had contained little more than the ship’s logs…except for the last page. Written not in ink, but in some sort of substance that had faded to a faint pink, were words that had caused everyone’s heart to leap with hope when Alex had translated and read them aloud to the group that very afternoon.
“Tell me again what you read in the journal,” Romeo said to Alex now, needing a diversion from the drama unfolding at the table behind him. He was this close to jumping into the fray, and he really, really wanted to keep his knuckles unbruised.
Then again, the pleasure of planting one in Ol’ Boy’s teeth might be worth a sore hand for the next day or so.
Alex cleared her throat and closed her eyes as if she could see the words written on the backs of her eyelids. In a voice filled with portent, she quoted, “Alas, the mighty ship has gasped her final breath. But despair not. Her enormous life force remains. If you are a true son of Spain, you will know where to find it.”
Opening her eyes, she shuddered and rubbed her arms as if to flatten the goose bumps there. Romeo felt a chill steal up his own spine. It was as if Vargas himself was whispering across the centuries, telling them they were close.
Below the words in the old journal had been printed a series of careful symbols that Alex had instantly recognized, although she hadn’t been able to decode them.
“It requires King Philip of Spain’s encryption device,” she’d told them breathlessly. “I’ve read about the ciphers used between the king and his sea captains, but as far as I know, no samples of the code have ever been found. Until now…” She’d rubbed a reverent, featherlight finger over the delicate page.
“Please tell me the device is housed in a museum somewhere,” LT had said while squatting beside the deep, sandy grave of the once-acclaimed sea captain.
Alex had shaken her head. “I don’t know. But if it still exists, its location will be listed in the Archives.”
The Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain, affectionately known as the Spanish Archives, were the somber repository of all the old documents dating back to the time of the Santa Cristina’s wreck.
“What time does your flight leave in the morning?” Romeo asked Mason now.
As soon as they’d realized the key to decoding Vargas’s journal lie in the Archives, it’d been decided Alex and Mason would get their asses to Spain ASAP, so Alex could put her procesal prowess to work. Romeo had agreed to fly them to Key West in his prized single-engine, high-wing amphibious plane where they could book a flight to the mainland. He’d needed to pick up supplies to take back out to Wayfarer Island anyway, and Mia had volunteered to tag along because she’d needed to file some paperwork regarding their findings with the state. As for Doc? He’d jumped at the chance to spend the night in a place that afforded him diverting amusements.
“We catch a puddle jumper to Miami at oh-eight-hundred,” Mason said in his thick, Boston accent. “Then hop a flight to Madrid around noon.”
“Perfect.” Romeo nodded. “That high-class lawyer is supposed to land here at oh-nine-hundred, so we can all head to the airport together. We’ll drop you guys off and pick her up without having to make multiple trips.”
“Fuck The Man,” Mason muttered. Talk of the lawyer naturally brought to mind the certified letter they’d received direct from Uncle Sam.
After Mel Fisher had found and excavated the Atocha, he’d spent years battling lawsuits brought by the state of Florida and the federal government regarding who had the rights to the sunken treasure. Thanks to Mel’s doggedness and determination, the courts had finally sided with him and determined that riches found both inside state waters and outside state waters fell under the Admiralty Law. Which, without going into too much detail, basically meant finders keepers.
However,the federal government officially owned Wayfarer Island—they had simply been leasing it to LT’s family for the last hundred and fifty years. So as soon as the Deep Six crew moved their search from the waters around the island to the island itself, the government had been quick to point out that the question of whether Admiralty Law still applied was up for debate.
If Romeo and his partners found the Santa Cristina’s mother lode on land, it was going to be a fight over who could lay claim to the wealth. LT had decided to get out in front of the battle by hiring on an expert in the matter.
According to those in the know around the treasure-hunting world, no one came more highly recommended than one Camilla D’Angelo, Esq.
“Let’s not jerk a knot in our jockeys just yet,” Romeo cautioned his friend. “Hopefully you and Alex will find King Philip’s cipher device, and then we’ll decode the journal only to discover the crew of the Santa Cristina brought up the treasure simply to dump it in the sea somewhere else. All this posturing by the Feds will have been for nothing then, eh?”
Mason twisted his lips, broadcasting his skepticism.
Romeo couldn’t blame him. From the very beginning, nothing about their undertaking had gone according to plan.
But that’s treasure hunting for you and—
His thoughts were cut off by the slurred voice of the drunk. “—gotta act like a bunch of bitches.”
“Wow.” Alex scowled. “That guy is the human version of period cramps.”
“Yes,” Mia agreed. “Painfully annoying and horribly unwelcome.”
“Okay.” Romeo pushed up from his chair. “I tried to let it go. I really did. But I can’t take it a second longer.” Turning toward the asshole, he couldn’t keep the contemptuous edge from his voice when he said, “Look cabron, the ladies have asked you nicely to fuck off. I, on the other hand, won’t be so agreeable.”
“Mind your business.” The drunk rolled his eyes. His ruddy cheeks matched the tip of his nose, letting Romeo know he was no stranger to getting cork high and bottle deep.
“Go on and keep rolling your eyes, dickhead. Maybe you’ll find some brain cells back there somewhere.”
That got the drunk’s attention and he turned to give Romeo the once-over.
Romeo didn’t spend ninety minutes each morning running on the beach, swimming in the lagoon, and lifting weights simply because he was health conscious. He also did it so when he ran into A-holes like Señor Shitfaced, he had the mass to back up his mouth.
Of course, when Mason, who was built like a shorter version of John Cena, stood from the table, the drunk proved he was smarter than he looked and quickly stumbled out onto the long, wooden dock that ran the length of the marina.
Romeo watched to make sure the bastard was gone and then dipped his chin at the table of ladies who thanked him for intervening.
“And on that note…” Alex stood and wrapped a hand around Mason’s bulging bicep. “I think I’d like to skip the after-dinner drink and head back to the hotel. I read somewhere recently that the tongue is the most powerful muscle in the human body.” She pushed her tortoiseshell glasses higher on the bridge of her freckled nose and grinned at Mason. “How’s about you and I go find out whose is the strongest, huh?”
Mason shook his head at her, but Romeo could tell the big man was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Putting a hand at the small of Alex’s back, Mason bid Romeo and Mia a good night, and then quickly ushered his saucy little girlfriend out of the bar.
Oh, sweet Mother Mary,Romeo thought. And now it’s just the two of us.
It was easier to fake nonchalance and comradery toward Mia when they were surrounded by friends and colleagues. But it was almost impossible when he found himself alone with her. When there was nowhere to look but at her tempting mouth and nothing to smell but the scent of the expensive lotion wafting from her warm skin.
Chronic masturbation…
It was another physical manifestation that was caused by her mere presence.
Girding himself for the impact of her eyes when he retook his seat, he was relieved when she kept her nose buried in her phone.
Wayfarer Island was smack-dab between Key West and Havana, Cuba. A spit of sand and mangrove forest that grew out of the sea. As such, it boasted few modern conveniences, least of all, cellular service.
Pretty much everyone who lived on the island had given up their phone plans—why pay for something you can’t use? But not Mia. She’d kept hers active, and anytime she found herself in civilization, the damn device buzzed nonstop.
“Your cousin again?” He hitched his chin toward her lighted screen. “More family drama?”
From what little she’d revealed to him—and it had been very little—it sounded like she’d had a tough childhood that had morphed over the years into a dysfunctional family dynamic.
I can definitely relate to that, he thought, taking another quick sip of tequila.
“He’s curious how long we’ll be in Key West,” she said. And then slowly, as if she measured her words, she added, “As for the family drama…always.”
As the band started in on their version of “The Drunken Sailor,” an awkward silence stretched between them. Romeo wasn’t used to being awkward around women. In fact, he’d spent most of his adult life being the opposite of awkward around women. Doc didn’t dub me Rico Suave for nothing. But something about Mia tied his tongue.
Seizing on the first thing that came to mind, he asked, “You want something to drink? A gin and tonic?”
Yes, he knew her usual. He also knew she loved avocados, fiddled with the diamond studs in her ears when she was thinking, and forgot to breath anytime she got nervous.
“No, thank you.” She shook her head. “I think I’ll follow Alex and Mason’s lead and head back to the hotel. The air-conditioning is calling my name.”
“I’ll walk you.” He tossed back the last of his tequila and rose to pull out her chair.
“It’s only a couple of blocks,” she told him. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
“I’ll walk you,” he said again, his tone brooking no argument.
She grinned softly, but didn’t try to dissuade him a second time. They were outside, the warm sea breeze running gentle fingers through her hair the next time she spoke. “You up for a couple chapters from In Darkness and Dreams?”
Not long ago, they’d discovered they shared a mutual love of P.J. Warren’s Night Angels paranormal romance series. Ever since then, she’d been reading aloud to him from the newest novel.
The BUD/S O-Course, one of the training segments required to make it as a Navy SEAL, was a study in physical pain. It was intended to make anyone going through it suffer as much as humanly possible. But it was child’s play compared to sitting beside Mia while she read aloud in that smoky, film-noir voice of hers.
Which was why he was surprised when the words, “Sounds good,” came out of his mouth.
He shouldn’t be surprised, he supposed. Considering that never once had he managed to say no to her. About anything.
Something his first recruit division commander said to him echoed through his head. “When someone keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, they’re no longer mistakes. They’re habits.”
Mia Ennis had become a habit Romeo couldn’t break.
Most troubling of all? He didn’t want to.