Page 1 of Obsession Under the Southern Stars

Chapter One

Zoe

“So, have you decided whether you’re coming?” While he waits for me to reply, Joel studies me with enough amusement to tell me he made that double entendre on purpose.

Joel Bell is my best friend Elora’s older brother. I’ve known him for a couple of years, and over that time we’ve developed a strange friendship. He’s always trying to discombobulate me. In return, I tease him to distraction. It’s what we do. It remains to be seen which one of us will drive the other mad first.

Some people might call it flirting, but he’s nothing like my usual type. I like older guys, often in their thirties. Lawyers, doctors, and accountants. Tall, big, suave businessmen in suits who are erudite and knowledgeable about hedge funds and capital gains tax, who can hold discourse on music, art, and literature, and who play rugby at the weekends.

Joel is twenty-eight. A tad over six foot. Lithe. Muscular. And a maritime archaeologist who likes to wear wetsuits that leave nothing to a girl’s imagination. I call him the Diving Bell, because I like the way he rolls his eyes at me when I say it.

He’s exceedingly scruffy, with hair that looks as if he’s been dragged through two hedges and a couple of fields backwardsandforwards, permanent stubble because he can’t be bothered to shave every day, and he clearly doesn’t possess an iron, as his current navy shirt looks as if it dried in a ball.

He’s also not the sort to wax lyrical about the arts, science, politics, or anything really, except archaeology. Trying to get his opinion on anything is like trying to get liquid out of a hard inanimate object. He doesn’t like crowds, or gatherings, or people in general. He once said he’d rather spend the day in theocean in the company of fish than go to a party, and I don’t think he was joking.

But he is gorgeous. And since I broke up with my ex, Charles, two months ago, he’s asked me out precisely fifteen times. It’s taken every ounce of willpower I’ve possessed to say no.

I want him. But I know if we sleep together, I’m going to want more. And I don’t want more. Not with him. Not with anyone right now. I’m the Ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail. Full of yearning, and yet denying myself in equal measure. It’s a never-ending cycle.

We’re in the apartment I share with Joel’s sister, Elora, having finished an impromptu dinner party we’ve held for Linc, an old friend of theirs who’s visiting New Zealand. Elora and Linc are talking quietly by the door. Joel’s brother, Fraser, is saying goodbye to our friend and colleague Hallie. It means Joel and I have a moment to talk, and although I’ve been thinking about his offer non-stop since his text suggesting it this morning, irritation rises within me, because I can’t decide.

To cover it, I pick up my glass of wine, smirk, and finish off the last mouthful. “You really have to ask?”

He grins and leans on the breakfast bar. “I meant did you want to come to the Bay of Islands with me so we can find you an artifact for the exhibition?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I scoff, opening the dishwasher and sliding my wine glass into the top tray. “Stop pretending to help. You just want to get in my knickers. Go on, admit it.” I send him a mocking glance.

He shrugs. “I’m not denying it’s a factor. But I swear my motives are ninety percent honest.” He purses his lips as I send him an amused glance. “Maybe eighty-five.”

I giggle. Then I say, “Thanks, but I’d better not.”

“Why?”

“I have a job, remember? Fraser needs me.”

“He won’t mind letting you go for a week,” Joel scoffs. “Come on, you know you want to. It’d be terrific fun. Just you, me, and Nemo and all his friends.”

“I’m not sure I want to dive twenty thousand leagues down. I’m not that great a swimmer.”

“I was talking about Finding Nemo and Dory.”

That makes me laugh. I close the dishwasher drawer then straighten, nibbling my bottom lip. The truth is that I love the idea of taking part in a maritime excavation. I love my job working in conservation, but every archaeologist loves the chance to get their hands dirty.

“I am interested,” I admit eventually, “but I’d need to ask Fraser.”

“Need to ask Fraser what?” Joel’s older brother walks over to us, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. They’re corduroy, for Christ’s sake, and his tweed jacket has professor patches on the elbows. All he needs are the hat and whip and he could easily double for Harrison Ford inRaiders of the Lost Ark.

“Joel thinks he’s found the Relentless,” I tell him. “He’s asked if I want to take part in the excavation in the Bay of Islands this week to see if we can find an artifact.”

Fraser is the director of the National Museum of New Zealand, where Hallie, Elora, and I work. This morning he told us that he wants to hold a Valentine’s Day exhibition called Love Under the Southern Stars, and he’d like the three of us to source artifacts to display in it.

Hallie joins us at the breakfast bar, her eyebrows rising. “The Bay of Islands? I thought the Relentless sank somewhere in Whangarei Harbour?”

I’m not surprised that Hallie has heard of the ship. It’s famous amongst Kiwi archaeologists because, when it sank in 1851 on its way back from Sydney, its hold supposedly containeda large chest of the first opals mined in Australia, including a rare opal necklace the captain had bought for his wife. Countless surveys have been done around Whangarei Harbour where it was thought to have foundered, but nobody has ever found a single plank of the ship.

“It never made it to Whangarei,” Joel says. “I found this letter in the City of Sydney Library written by the captain, Gilbert Mair, to his wife.” He extracts a sheet of paper from his pocket. It’s a copy of the original, written in what must be Mair’s hand, and at the bottom is a sketch of the necklace. It’s beautiful, the large opal held securely in a gold frame.

“It says he’s calling in at the mission station in Kerikeri to deliver a cargo of potatoes and pork, and then he’ll be home,” Joel points out. “Nobody knew about that last port of call. We surveyed the Kerikeri inlet and found it off Moturoa Island, on the Black Rocks. The reefs are fairly shallow there, so it’s not too deep to dive. We’ve cleared a good portion of it already, and we’re about to excavate the hold.”

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