The Devil and the Deep

He could only imagine how Stella must feel.

Stella shrugged, feeling again the mutual despair that had added an extra depth to their bond. She fell into the empathy that shone in his luminescent gaze. Sometimes it was hard to reconcile the impulsive, teenage bad-boy of her fantasies with the hardworking, responsible, compassionate man in front of her.

‘I hate it,’ she whispered.

The truth was Stella hadn’t seen her father regularly since she’d started university and joined the workforce.

Become a grown-up, as her mother would say.

A flying visit at Christmas, the arrival in the mail of a single perfect shell he’d found on a beach somewhere that always made her smile, an occasional email with pictures of him and Rick and some amazing find at the bottom of a sea bed.

But just knowing he was out there doing what he loved, following his wild boyhood dreams of sunken galleons, had kept her whole world in balance.

And now he was gone, nothing was the same.

‘I know,’ he murmured, putting his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into his chest. ‘I hate it too.’

And he did. He hated doing what he did without the one person who truly understood why by his side. He hated turning to tell Nathan something and him not being there. He hated the absence of wise words and Nathan’s particular brand of bawdy humour around the dinner table.

Rick shut his eyes against the loss he still felt so acutely and sank into her, enjoying the familiarity of having her close. He liked how she tucked into him just right. How her head fitted perfectly under his chin and how his chest was just the right height to pillow her cheek and how she always smelled liked coconut.

As kids he’d been the pirate and she’d been the mermaid and they’d played endless games revolving around sunken treasure. Not very politically correct these days, he supposed, but they’d amused themselves for countless hours and forged a bond that he still felt today.

Of course there’d been times, during their teenage years, when their games had taken a certain risqué turn and while they’d never indulged, they’d diced pretty close.

Holding her like this reminded him just how close.

‘Okay, okay, you two,’ Diana teased, pushing a glass of red wine into Rick’s hand. ‘No maudlin tonight. That’s the rule. Eat, drink and be merry tonight.’

Rick forced himself to step away, grateful that Diana was here to ground them in the present. He’d thought a lot about Stella since Nathan had died, more than usual.

And not all of those thoughts had been pure.

He accepted the wine. ‘Good plan,’ he said, clinking glasses with them both.

Stella indicated the lounge chairs huddled around the fireplace and watched as Rick shrugged out of his navy duffle coat to reveal well-worn jeans that clung in all the right places and a thick turtle-neck, cable-knit sweater.

Even off the boat the man looked as if he belonged at sea.

Diana lounged back against the cushions, inspecting him dispassionately, her wine goggles making the job a little difficult. She pointed at him over the rim of her glass.

‘There’s something familiar about you,’ she slurred.

Stella didn’t like the look of speculation on her friend’s face. She’d seen that dogged look before and didn’t want to give Diana too much latitude.

‘Yes, you met him at the funeral,’ she said, hopefully redirecting her friend’s thoughts that tended to fancy after several glasses of red.

Diana narrowed her eyes. ‘Nope,’ she said as she shook her head. ‘I have this feeling I know you beyond that.’ Even at the funeral all suited and polished he’d looked vaguely familiar to her but now, looking all lone-wolf-of-the-sea, there was definitely something she recognised about him.

Was it his eyes? Or maybe his hair?

Rick chuckled. ‘Maybe I look like your great uncle Cyril?’

Diana burst out laughing as she sipped on her drink and Stella even envied her that. She had a jingly laugh that sounded like Tinkerbell waving her magic wand. Stella had no doubt that red wine would be pouring out of her nose had she tried that same manoeuvre.

Diana wagged her finger. ‘Good try but you don’t look like anyone’s great uncle Cyril.’ She narrowed her eyes again and nudged the side of her nose three times with her index finger. ‘Don’t you worry. I will remember. I may just need—’ she looked at her almost empty wine glass ‘—a while.’

Rick saluted. ‘I look forward to the final outcome.’

Diana nodded. ‘As well you should.’

Rick looked over at Stella sitting quietly watching the byplay. The firelight spun the escaping tendrils of her long blonde hair into golden streams and he was once again reminded of their childhood games when she’d been the mermaid singing his ship onto the rocks. How many times had he snorkelled over reefs with her, her long blonde hair flowing behind her just like the mermaids from ancient mythology?

‘So,’ he said when the silence had stretched enough. ‘Did you get it?’

Stella frowned at him. ‘Get what?’

‘Your half.’

‘My half of what?’

Rick grinned. ‘The map?’

Stella shook her head. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she asked.

Rick’s eyebrows drew together in a frown to match hers as he placed his half-empty glass on the coffee table. ‘You should have received it early last week. I posted it ages ago.’

Diana rolled her eyes. ‘She probably has. She’s just not been responding to any correspondence.’

Stella blushed at her friend’s astuteness as Diana made her way to the hall stand. Unopened mail oozed all over the edges of the sturdy eighteenth-century oak and Stella felt her cheeks grow warmer. She’d been avoiding any attempt at communication with the outside world—particularly from her editor. She didn’t open her mail unless it had a window. She screened all her calls. She didn’t go to her inbox.

Diana quickly riffled through the mound of mail, letters and other miscellaneous items that had made it through Stella’s front door, some of it spilling haphazardly to the floor. She pulled out a large flat yellow envelope with enough stamps to start a collection.

‘This it?’ she asked holding it up.

Rick nodded. ‘Arrr,’ he said in his best pirate accent. ‘That be it.’

It was Stella’s turn to roll her eyes. Rick had perfected the pirate vernacular as a child, lending an authenticity to their imaginary games.

Diana laughed as she rejoined them, thrusting the envelope at Stella. ‘Ooh, you speak pirate?’

Rick grinned. ‘Aye, my lovely.’

‘Forget it,’ Stella murmured absently as she turned the envelope over and over in her hands. There was a variety of colourful postal stamps and airmail stickers adorning the front. ‘Diana’s a Jack Sparrow fan. You’re wasting your time.’

Rick look affronted. ‘Are you saying I’m not Captain Jack material?’

It was on the tip of Stella’s tongue to say that he was a thousand times sexier than the iconic film character. He was broader and taller with better oral hygiene and more scruples.

‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ Diana mused. ‘I’m sure a little more scruffed up...’

But Stella wasn’t listening. Her father’s distinctive handwriting had drawn her gaze and she touched the letters with great reverence as if they could somehow bring him back.

Rick glanced at Diana as Stella’s continuing silence fell loudly around them. She shrugged at him hopelessly and he could tell that Stella’s grief touched her too.

‘Where did you get this?’ Stella asked.

‘I finally got around to cleaning out Nathan’s desk. It was in a drawer. There was one for me as well.’

Stella nodded absently at his response. It was strange receiving something from her father six months after his death. Like a hand extending from the grave.

‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ he asked quietly.

Stella looked up at him through the blonde stripes of her half-up-half-down fringe. ‘Do I want to?’

He grinned and nodded. ‘If it’s what I think it is you do. You really do.’

Stella doubted it but she turned the envelope over and neatly sliced open the back. A sheath of loose papers lay within and she pulled them out after another encouraging nod from Rick. A brief note from her father was paper-clipped to the front.

Stel,

Inigo’s treasure is there, I just know it.

You and Rick go find it.

Make me proud.

Daddy.

Stella swallowed hard and for a moment the bold vertical slashes blurred in front of her eyes. Finding out on autopsy that her father had been riddled with cancer and wondering if the scuba-diving accident had really been an accident had been hard to come to terms with.

But this seemed to confirm that he’d known his days were numbered and chosen to go in his own way doing what he’d loved most.

She glanced at Rick. ‘You got the same?’

He nodded and she looked back at the documents, leafing through the rest. A hand-drawn map was at the very back.

Or half a map to be precise.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, not quite comprehending her father’s frenetic squiggles around the margins.

‘The other half of this,’ Rick said, pulling out a folded page from his back pocket, unfolding it and laying it on the coffee table.

Diana sat forward. ‘Is that a...treasure map?’

Rick grinned. ‘Sort of. It shows the potential resting places of Captain Inigo Alvarez’s ship, La Sirena.’

Diana scrunched up her face, trying to remember her schoolgirl Spanish. ‘The...?’

‘The Mermaid,’ Stella supplied.

‘Oh my,’ Diana said. ‘How exciting! Inigo Alvarez...’ She rolled the name around her tongue. ‘He sounds positively dishy.’

Rick laughed. ‘He was. A late-eighteenth-century pirate known as the Robin Hood of the seven seas. Robbing the rich to give to the poor.’

Stella blasted Rick with a down-boy glare. ‘Robin Hood of the high seas,’ she tisked, shaking her head in disgust. ‘That’s all just anecdotal and you know it. Do not encourage her.’

‘Drat,’ Diana mused.

‘Okay, maybe he was as bloodthirsty and marauding as the rest of them but there’s heaps of historical documents citing his and The Mermaid’s existence,’ he said calmly. ‘You used to believe,’ Rick reminded her.

They both had. Everyone in the salvaging industry seemed to have a story about the mysterious Captain Alvarez and as children they’d listened to each one until he’d grown large in both their imaginations. Rick picked up the papers that had accompanied the map, the same ones that had been in his envelope. Years of Nathan’s research into a character that had captured them both.

‘What happened to him?’ Diana asked.

Rick looked at a captivated Diana. ‘He just disappeared off the face of the earth. There were rumours at the time that The Mermaid went down laden with stolen booty during a vicious storm.’

‘Where?’ Diana whispered, sucked in even if Stella was sitting back in her chair, refusing to be drawn. ‘Here somewhere, right?’ she asked, picking up Stella’s half of the map and joining the two pieces together on the coffee table.

Rick shook his head. ‘Nathan obviously thought so. He’s drawn this up from his research over the years so I guess it would be hard to be sure. But he was the best damn intuitive treasure hunter I’ve ever known and if he thinks Inigo’s ship is here somewhere, then I’m willing to bet it is too.’

‘So why didn’t he go after it himself?’ Stella demanded, getting up off the chair and heading for the kitchen sink. When she got there she tipped out her almost-full glass of wine. She was suddenly angry with her father.

If he’d known he was dying, why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t he got treatment? Why hadn’t he come home?

‘When did he have the time, Stel, with so many other projects—sure things—on the books?’

Stella looked up at the reproach in his voice, feeling suddenly guilty. They’d both known Nathan’s plans had always involved finding Inigo’s treasure...one day...when he retired...

‘Why on earth did he give us half a map each? He must have known I was just going to give you my half and let you have at it.’

She’d loved her father and he had given her a magical childhood filled with sunken treasure and tropical waters but it had been a long time since she’d been a little girl who believed in pirates and mermaids. And the romance of that world had always warred with the realities of her life—divorced parents, divided loyalties.

Rick stood and walked towards her. He could tell she was struggling with the same emotions he had when he’d seen Nathan’s handwriting again and the memories it had stirred.

‘I think he knew his time was drawing to a close and maybe it was his way to keep us connected? I think he wanted us to go and do this together and I think it would be a great way to honour his memory. What do you say? The long-range weather forecast is good. You want to come on a treasure hunt with me?’

Stella glared at Rick as his not-so-subtle guilt trip found its mark. Well, it wouldn’t work. ‘Are you crazy? I can’t go gallivanting around the bloody ocean. My editor would have apoplexy. My book is way overdue and I have probably the worst case of writer’s block in the history of written language, don’t I, Diana?’

She looked at her friend for confirmation, who did so with a vigorous nod of her head.

‘Well, this is exactly what you need.’ He grinned, unperturbed. ‘Nothing like the open ocean to stimulate the muse.’

Stella stared at him askance. ‘Don’t you have other salvage jobs on the go?’

Rick shrugged. ‘Nothing the guys can’t handle. Besides, it won’t be a salvage job, just a recon mission, see what we can find. A few weeks, four at the most. Just you and me and the open ocean. Salt, sea air and sunshine. You could get a tan,’ he cajoled as he took in her pallor. ‘It’ll be just like we were kids again.’

Stella shook her head against the temptation and romance of yesteryear, which appealed to her on a primal level she didn’t really understand. She dragged her gaze away from his seductive mouth.

They weren’t kids any more.

‘I can’t. I have a book to write.’

‘Come on,’ he murmured, feeling the longing inside her even if she couldn’t. ‘You know you want to. You always wrote like crazy whenever you were on the Persephone. Remember? You were always scribbling away in that writing pad.’

She remembered. She’d either had her head stuck in a book or she’d been writing something. He’d teased her about it mercilessly. She should have known back then she was destined to be a writer. ‘I can’t. Can I, Diana?’

Diana looked at Stella. Then at Rick. Then back at her friend. If anyone needed a change of scenery it was Stella. These four walls were obviously becoming a prison for her despite the view—maybe mixing it up a little would get the juices flowing again.

And if the open ocean was where she was most creative...

Joy would have a fit but Diana had a hunch that this was just what her friend needed. She bloody hoped so because her head would be on the chopping block if Stella returned tanned and still bookless.

She stood and joined them in the kitchen. ‘I think you should go. I think it’s a great idea.’

Stella blinked. ‘What?’ she said as Rick’s grin trebled.

‘This,’ he said, slipping his arm around Diana’s shoulders, ‘is a wise woman.’

‘Thank you.’ Diana beamed at him.

‘Come on, Stel. I dare you.’

Stella rolled her eyes. As kids their relationship had thrived on dares and one-upmanship, Stella hell-bent on proving she could keep up with a boy.

Dare you to swim through that hole in the wreck. Something expressly forbidden by her father. Dare you to bring a coin up from the bottom. Also forbidden. Dare you to touch that manta ray. Just plain stupid.

It was a wonder they’d both survived.

She remembered when the dares had stopped. That evening on deck when she’d dared him to kiss her. She wondered if he remembered. His eyes glittered back at her—all bad-boy blue—and she knew he remembered.

‘Tell you what,’ Rick said as he pulled himself back from that ancient memory that still resonated in his dreams, ‘don’t decide now. Sleep on it first, okay. I bet it won’t seem as crazy in the morning.’

Stella was willing to bet that in the cold light of day and stone-cold sober it would not only seem crazy, it would actually be crazy.

Utterly certifiable.

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, then winked at Diana. ‘Can I crash here?’

Stella felt like a child between two grown-ups. ‘What, no girl in this port, sailor?’ she asked waspishly. The man had never lacked for company on shore.

Rick chuckled. ‘Not one who can make pancakes like you.’

‘Ah,’ she said, realising she was being churlish and making an effort to get them back to their usual repartee. ‘So you only want me for my pancakes.’

‘And your half of the map.’ He grinned. ‘I’m beat. I need a shower. Then I need to sleep for a week. Towels still in the same place?’ he asked as he left them, not waiting for an answer.

Diana watched him go. ‘Wow.’

Stella nodded. ‘Yes.’

She turned to face the sink, leaning her elbows against the cool steel as she looked out of the large bay window into the bleak dark night. Diana joined her, still sipping at her wine.

‘Does he wear contacts?’ she mused. ‘It’s quite striking to see a man with such dark colouring have such blue eyes.’

Stella nodded again. She’d been captivated by them for as long as she could remember. ‘Yes, it’s really quite mesmerising, isn’t it?’

‘Which room are you in, Diana?’

Both women started guiltily as the voice from behind them had them straightening and whipping around to face Rick. He was naked except for possibly the world’s smallest towel around his waist, clutched at the side where it didn’t quite meet. His blue eyes looked even bluer with less of anything much to detract from them.

‘The one on the left,’ Stella confirmed after a quick glance at a gawking, mute-looking Diana.

‘Great, I’ll doss down in the other.’ He smiled at both of them. ‘See you in the morning, ladies.’

Stella and Diana watched him as he swaggered away, the towel slipping as he gave up on trying to keep it on. They caught a glimpse of one naked buttock just before he disappeared around the corner.

A buttock adorned with a very sexy, perfectly round, dark brown birthmark, right in the middle of a very sexy dimple.

Diana gasped as suddenly everything fell into place. Bronzed colouring, piercing blue eyes, long shaggy hair, a mouth made for sin and a very cute blemish in a very specific place.

‘Oh, my God!’ She looked at Stella. ‘That’s why he’s so familiar. It’s him—he’s Vasco Ramirez!’

CHAPTER TWO

STELLA blushed furiously. ‘Shh,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t be preposterous.’

Diana laughed. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’

Stella turned back to the sink, busying herself with washing out her wine glass. ‘There are some similarities...’ she admitted.

‘Similarities?’ Diana hooted. ‘I knew I knew him...I just couldn’t figure out where from. I mean, hell, let’s face it, if I’d met him somewhere before I’d hardly be likely to forget him—the man’s a total hottie. And, I have to say—’ she nudged Stella ‘—looks like a total sex fiend.’

‘Diana!’

She shrugged. ‘In a good way.’

‘Well, don’t look at me,’ Stella muttered. ‘You know I’ve only ever been with Dale.’

Diana tisked. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never gone there...well, I mean you’ve obviously thought about it because you wrote an entire three-hundred-and-seventy-five page sexual fantasy about the man—’

‘I did not,’ Stella denied, picking up a tea towel and briskly drying the glass.

Diana crooked an eyebrow at her. ‘Stella, this is me. Diana. Who knows you.’

Stella looked into her friend’s eyes and could see that she knew the truth. She sagged against the sink. ‘Okay, yes,’ she sighed. ‘Rick was the inspiration for Vasco.’

Stella hadn’t set out to write a book with Rick as the hero but Vasco had taken on Rick’s features in a totally organic way. She hadn’t even been truly aware of it until she’d written the first kiss.

And then it had been so blindingly obvious she’d wondered why it had taken her so long.

‘Hah! I knew it!’ Diana clapped delightedly.

Stella rolled her eyes. ‘This is between you and me, Diana,’ she said, placing a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Promise?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Diana said, waving a dismissive hand, ‘your secret is safe with me.’

‘Thank you,’ Stella said, releasing a breath as she shuffled away from the sink and headed towards the fire.

‘Well, there’s only one thing for it now,’ Diana said as she followed Stella and plonked herself down on one of the lounge chairs. ‘You have to go with him.’

Stella looked up from her log poking. ‘What?’

‘The man obviously inspires you to write. You need inspiration. You need to write. Problem solved.’

‘Joy doesn’t want another Vasco Ramirez, Diana.’

‘Yes, she does,’ Diana said. ‘That’s exactly what she wants. Vasco sold like hot cakes. Vasco is king. Of course she wants you to do another Vasco.’

Stella gave her friend an impatient look. ‘You know what I mean.’

Diana sighed. She didn’t want to pull out the big guns. ‘Babe, things are going to start to get nasty. And trust me, you don’t want to be with a publishing house that plays hard ball. There’ll be lawyers. It’s time to quit the whole writer’s block nonsense and write.’

Stella felt Diana’s words slice into her side. ‘You think it’s nonsense—that I’m making it up?’

Diana shook her head. She knew Stella’s instant fame had compounded her already entrenched second-book syndrome and her father’s death had just aggravated everything further. She totally got that Stella’s muse had deserted her. But...

‘The lawyers will think it is, babe.’

‘I just need a little more time,’ Stella muttered.

Diana nodded. ‘And you should take it. Absolutely. Go with Rick, get inspired. Come back replenished.’

Stella glanced at her friend. She made it sound so easy. She shook her head. ‘It’s crazy.’

‘Why?’ Diana challenged. ‘Because you have a thing for him?’

‘I do not have a thing for him,’ Stella denied quickly. A little too quickly perhaps. ‘He’s an old, old friend,’ she clarified, not bothering to keep the exasperation out of her voice. ‘We’ve known each other for ever. There is no thing.’

Diana looked at her friend. Oh, there so was a thing.

Even better.

Lord alone knew, if she hadn’t had sex for almost a year on top of fairly pedestrian sex for the previous five she’d be looking at a way of fixing that pronto. And if it so happened that the man of Stella’s fantasies was there at the precise moment she decided to break the drought, then surely everyone won?

‘So it shouldn’t be a problem, then?’ Diana asked innocently. She held up her hand as Stella went to speak again. ‘Look, Rick’s right. Just sleep on it. I know it’s a lot to consider but, for what it’s worth, I think you’re mad if you don’t.’

‘But the book...’ Stella murmured in a last-ditch effort to make Diana see sense.

Diana shrugged. ‘Whatever you’re doing here on good old terra firma ain’t working, is it, babe?’

* * *

Stella went to bed determined to wake up in the morning and tell both Rick and Diana to go to hell.

But that was before the dream.

She dreamt all night of a mermaid following a pirate

ship. No...

She was the mermaid and she was following the pirate ship. Inside the hull a lone, rich, tenor voice would occasionally sing a deep mournful song of lost love. It was a thing of beauty and she’d fallen in love with the man even though she’d never laid eyes on him. But she knew he was a prisoner and she knew with an urgency that beat like the swell of the ocean in her breast that she had to save him.