Page 26 of Austen

“He definitely cares about you,” Elise had said, leaving Austen in her stateroom.

And what a stateroom.Queen bed, private head, Italian tile, with a sitting area and port windows that overlooked the blue ocean, now dark and pinpricked with light.

Austen had washed off the salt of the sea, stripping off her wetsuit and warming her body.Had pulled on the yoga pants and T-shirt, wrapped herself in the bathrobe, and decided that maybe Stein didn’t know what he was talking about.

Criminal?Whatever.

Then, this dinner.Simple, and yet perfect.She sat across from Declan, watching the wind comb his dark hair, trying to understand what might be behind those blue eyes.

And then he’d changed the subject.Offered to drop her off in the DR, and maybe—probably—that was a good idea, given her brother’s inevitable frantic search.But according to Declan, he’d updated her brother, so...

So maybe she’d just stick around and...what?Sleuth through his private papers?Listen in on his phone calls?

And then he actually received a phone call, and she didn’t intend to eavesdrop, except he deliberately turned away from her and cut his voice low and...

Aw.See?Stein had put stuff in her head, and now everything Declan did seemed suspect.

Which wasn’t fair, and even as he spoke on the phone, she knew she had to prove it to Steinbeck.He was simply wrong.

Yes, by the time she got off this boat, she intended to prove that Declan was every bit the hero he seemed to be, right down to his core.

And maybe in the meantime she’d enjoy some of Camille’s French cooking and...

Okay, Declan’s company.

It wasn’t torture to sit out by his fire table, on a padded sofa, watching the stars float by, a balmy ocean wind caressing her skin.Even less torture to sit across from Declan, his back to the wake, the firelight warming his handsome face.A thin layer of dark whiskers added a ruggedness to his otherwise polished aura, and she could trace out the Marine in him.

The guy who wouldn’t give up looking for her.

So maybe the swell of affection hadn’t completely dissipated.

“Everything okay?”she asked, taking a sip of hot cocoa.It touched her bones, heated her, and the ordeal in the ocean faded to a distant nightmare.

“Yes.Just a business call.”He leaned back, his arms spread across the sofa, and crossed his leg, his ankle on his knee.

“It’s late for a business call.”Why did she ask that?Felt too...invasive.

But he shrugged.“I’m working on a project, and the guy in charge wanted to update me.So, you never told me what you were looking for during your dive.”

Was it suspicious that he’d changed the subject?Maybe not.

“I was looking for wreck debris from an old Spanish galleon that went down off the northern coast of the DR.It went down in the early 1500s, so the wreck’s been scattered all over the shoal.People are still finding silver coins, copper dishware, and even sometimes gold ingots.”

“Did you find anything?”

“A copper mug.But not what I was actually looking for.”She took a sip of the cocoa and watched as one brow went up in question.

“I’m trying to find a black marble statue of Santa María de la Paz.It was on the way to Santo Domingo when the boat went down.It was a gift to a monastery.”

“And you think it’s down there.”

“It’s what my college roommate, Margo, thought.Her father was a treasure hunter off the coast of Florida, and after he died, she took up his hunt.”She looked past him into the darkness, the moonlight tipping the waves.“After she died too, I just...”She swallowed.“It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“How’d she die?”He spoke softly, a small frown on his face.

Her mouth pinched, and she drew in a long breath.“A diving accident.”

And for a second, she was back on Alvaro’s boat, watching Margo collapse, her body shutting down right there in the aft deck, Alvaro shouting, Austen dripping wet, helpless.“She got DCS after her equipment failed and she did a fast ascent from sixty feet down.”

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