It wasn’t the best lighting in the world, but they were now able to see the exotic speleothems that lined the ceilings and sides. Like magical icicles, some of them were. Others were shaped like animals, even stars. And they weren’t all white or crystal clear. Many of them appeared to be pink, all different shades of pink.
“I guess we know what this chamber will be called,” Famosa mused. “The Pink Palace.”
“Sounds good to me,” Mark said.
Claire was wiggling her way farther through the hole, the Jinx camera in her hands, clicking like crazy.
“Be careful,” Caleb warned her.
“Dontcha worry,” Tante Lulu told him. “I gots a hold of her belt.”
“Oh, that makes me feel better,” he muttered.
“Tante Lulu, don’t you dare come in here,” LeDeux warned his aunt.
“’Course I ain’t comin’ in there. Do ya think I’m crazy?”
No one responded to that.
“I wonder if this pool could be drained.” Mark’s head, where it could be seen through the opening, was peering from right to left with excitement. “It would make another great chamber if we decide to make this a tourist attraction.”
“Definitely,” Famosa said. “We could have Claire’s semi-fiancé come check for underground streams, maybe even join the team.”
Not in my lifetime. He glanced over at Famosa and saw him grinning. Am I that transparent?
“We’ll know better once we get down there,” LeDeux remarked.
“Right,” Caleb agreed. “Is it standing water? Is there an ingress and egress? What’s the content of the water we want to pump out, and would it harm the outside environment? That kind of thing. Did you get the water samples, LeDeux?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
The wily Cajun no more considered him his boss than he considered God a Yankee.
“When we dive tomorrow for the pearls, we’ve got to be really careful about stirring up the bottom,” Famosa told him and LeDeux. “Visibility will be shit if we run a rake. So we should try to determine the pearl location before we attempt recovery.”
They all agreed.
“What say we finish surveying this cavern, get all the measurements down pat, then go back and check on our diving gear?”
“Sounds good to me,” Famosa said.
“Me, too,” LeDeux said.
“There is one glaring thing we’re all dancing around here,” Caleb pointed out. “The outlaw’s stash mentioned in those letters.”
“I didn’t want to say anything,” Claire said from up above.
“Maybe it never was here, or more likely, it was recovered sometime in that last two hundred years,” Famosa speculated.
“I think it’s down in the water with the pearls,” LeDeux said.
“Huh?” the rest of them said.
“Think about it. If it had been sitting on this inner ledge anywhere over the years, but especially during the Agnes flood, it would have been jarred off its perch. Anyhow, that’s my theory, and I’m stickin’ to it.”
“I like John’s theory.” Claire and the Cajun exchanged smiles.
“It’s a possibility,” Caleb conceded. “Especially since I just noticed this.” He pointed to a short length of half-rotted rope, attached to the sharp edge of a part of the ledge, two feet away from the hole. The ends of it, extending about three yards down, were frayed, as if it had broken long ago.
“Looks like something could have been hanging from that rope at one time and fell off.” LeDeux said what they all were thinking. Maybe there really was a hidden outlaw’s treasure.
“Yippee, I allus wanted ta find a pirate’s treasure, like Jean Lafitte. This is almos’ as good,” Tante Lulu said.
“Hey, guys, this calls for a celebration,” Mark announced. “The beer’s on me at the Trout Tavern. Wednesdays are limbo night.”
“Limbo?” he and Famosa and LeDeux exclaimed as one.
“Isn’t that a little bit old fogey?” LeDeux wanted to know.
“Hey, you’re in Spruce Creek, not Los Angeles.” Mark laughed as he began to ease himself out of the hole.
“Besides, we don’t have anything to celebrate . . . yet,” Caleb told him.
“Hah! I think breaking through that freakin’ boulder is enough cause for celebration.”
“We haven’t found the treasure yet. No cause for a victory celebration,” he pointed out.
“A semivictory celebration, then.” With those words, Mark’s face disappeared.
Tante Lulu squirmed back, too, and the only one left was Claire.
“Are you going? To the tavern?” Caleb called to Claire, who was speaking into a small tape recorder in between taking pictures.
“What? Oh. Maybe. Yeah, I guess.”
He smiled then, and he wasn’t thinking about limbo music, or a boulder-breaking celebration. He was thinking cold beer.
And hot as hell, screaming, adrenaline sex.
Chapter 7
Line dancing: the ultimate dumb man joke . . .
A gang of them entered the Trout Tavern later that night to celebrate their semivictory.
The Pearl Project’s routine wrap-up meeting of the day lasted two hours because of the excitement and not-so-routine details to be worked out for tomorrow’s schedule. It should be a red letter day, if all went as planned.
Because there were eight of them—and possibly more coming, according to Abbie—the waitress seated them in a separate room. They could still see the band and dance floor through the wide archway, but they were removed enough from the blasting country music and rowdy barroom conversation to be able to hear each other talk. The band was playing a medley of Toby Keith songs, including right now, “I Love This Bar,” following on “Get Drunk and Be Somebody” and “How Do You Like Me Now?” Many of the tavern patrons, true-blue country fans, sang along with the band.
Lizzie sat on Caleb’s right side and Tante Lulu on the other. Next to Tante Lulu was Abbie. Tante Lulu and Abbie had chosen—though only God knew why—to dress in similar outfits, but in different colors. Abbie wore white polyester pants with a red blouse, and Tante Lulu wore red pants with a white blouse.
Claire and LeDeux were opposite him, with Mark and Famosa at the ends.
“Don’t you dare order an alcoholic beverage or take a sip from anyone’s glass,” he warned his sister. “By all rights, you shouldn’t even be in an establishment that serves liquor, but Abbie promised the owner you would behave.”
Lizzie raised her chin with affront. “Dontcha be givin’ me lectures, Caleb. I know how ta behave.” The saucy look she gave him implied that he, on the other hand, might not . . . know how to behave, that was.
Lizzie was wearing a little pink T-shirt that missed the waistband of her hip-hugging jeans by about three inches. No prayer cap for Lizzie tonight. Nope, she’d curled her blonde hair into a style that would better suit Jessica Simpson. And she was wearing makeup. Not a lot, but she had enough eyeliner on to make a randy raccoon get a hard-on. His father would have a stroke if he saw her. And blame him.
Oh, well. I’m already in deep shit with the old man. May as well go for broke.
“Thank ya for helpin’ me, though. I just couldn’t go back home. Not yet.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
Perfume, too. Lord help me! “You should be with Jonas. His lifestyle is more like the Amish than mine.”
“Jonas won’t have me.”
“Whaaat?”
“Oh, I’m welcome in his house and fer babysittin’, but he lives too close to Dat and Mam. They’d be over there pesterin’ him all the time ta send me home.”
“You don’t think they’ll be on my tail, too?”
“They might, but I figure we’ll be far away soon.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I never said you could come live with me. Hell, Lizzie, I don’t even have a real home.”
“Ya could get one. New York City would be nice. Or Los Angeles. Oooh, oooh, ooh, I know . . . Nashv
ille.”
Caleb’s eyes about went cross-eyed at that prospect.
Lizzie started talking to LeDeux then. The Cajun was into all kinds of music, and Lizzie seemed to be knowledgeable about the modern artists he mentioned.
Caleb turned to Tante Lulu. “Did you have to buy her such suggestive clothes?”
“Huh? Who? Me? I doan know what yer talkin’ ’bout. We dint get a chance ta go to the mall today. Those clothes are her doin’. If I was the one what gussied her up, she’d be wearin’ brighter colors. And sequins.”
“That’s just great.”
“I bin workin’ on yer hope chest.”
“Oh, God!”
She smacked him on the arm. “Dontcha be swearin’. St. Jude doan answer prayers fer swearin’ folks.”
“I’m not Catholic.” In fact, I’m not anything anymore.
“Not to worry, hon. St. Jude is one of them ecumenical kinda saints. All ya gotta do is be hopeless.”
Hopeless? That’s me, all right. “How are you working on a hope chest when you’re here helping Abbie at the B & B?”
“I gots a cell phone, boy. I ain’t an old fuddy-duddy, ya know. I was a wimmin’s libber afore Gloria Stain-ham was a gleam in her daddy’s eye. Nope, I called the wood craftsman who makes the hope chests fer me and told him ta send two of ’em up here. One fer you and one fer yer brother. Actually, between you and me, I told him ta make one up fer Mark, too.”
Caleb glanced down the table where Mark was nursing a beer, forlorn and miserable. He was the one who’d suggested this outing and seemed now to have regretted outing himself from his self-imposed isolation.
“Pssst. Kin I tell ya a secret?” Tante Lulu pulled him down so she could whisper in his ear. “Me and Abbie has a plan fer Mark. Wait till ya see what’s gonna happen. Whoo-ee! I do love a surprise.”
They both glanced at Mark then.
Mark noticed their scrutiny and squirmed uncomfortably to be the cause of their attention.
He should be uncomfortable.
Should I warn him?
Nah!
Turning back to Lizzie, he noticed that she was still engrossed in conversation with LeDeux. He flashed LeDeux one of those black looks, the kind that said “Touch my sister and you’ll be minus a cock.” In the past, he’d been the recipient of that same look whenever introduced to sisters of his fellow SEALs. Who knew he’d be doing it himself one day?
LeDeux noticed his glower and grinned.
Caleb thought about jumping over the table and wiping that grin off his face.
“John says he can help me with my singin’,” Lizzie said to him. “He has a brother who plays in a band. Maybe we could move to Louisiana. I wanta be ready to try out fer American Idol next time they have auditions. Ain’t that wonderful, Caleb?”
Caleb must have looked as poleaxed as he felt, because Claire reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry, Caleb. Things have a way of working themselves out.”
He didn’t think so, but then he forgot about Lizzie. Watching Claire did that to him. She was dressed like a Lenape maiden. She gave new meaning to the term “Native American”. Probably the first green-eyed, redheaded Lenape Indian in the world. The only thing missing was a feather sticking up out of a headband. Or a tomahawk. No wonder people called her crazy.
Her hair was pulled back off her face into a single long, thick braid, tied with a leather thong, leaving her neck bare, further exposed by a white blouse edged with some kind of weird embroidery, probably Indian. The blouse had an elastic neck—the kind that could be tugged off the shoulders if one were so inclined.
He was.
The whole business was tucked into a short buckskin skirt, fringed at the hem, that bared about two miles of finely sculpted legs. The skirt was cinched in at the waist with a thick woven belt, also Indian, no doubt. Moccasins adorned her bare feet.
The ensemble was what Frogman, one of his old SEAL buddies, used to eloquently call a “fuck me” outfit, which was not to be confused with hooker or slut clothes. When a dozen or so guys were out on a special op, with only themselves for company for a week and more, they tended to talk about crap like that. Of course, a “fuck me” outfit was in the eye of the beholder. While he considered Claire’s attire hot, hot, hot, some other guy might prefer, oh, let’s say, Jessica Simpson in a pair of Daisy Dukes.
Frogman also had a theory called the Trifacta Factor, which essentially said that all men had three things they homed in on women, usually tits, ass, and mouth—Froggie’s exact words—but there were also men who went for hair or feet, of all things, even belly buttons—innies or outies—eyes, knees, voice, personality. In his taste, it was breasts, legs, and the small of a woman’s back. And man oh man, Claire had his Trifacta Factor in spades.
If that wasn’t bad enough, a set of bigass feather earrings dangled from her ears. They looked like gobs of fly-fishing lures, except he was the one being lured because of the interesting fantasies he was having about what he’d like to do with those feathers—and it wasn’t catch fish.
“Caleb. You’re staring,” Claire hissed at him.
“You bet your ass I am.” He winked at her.
Her face pinkened just a little bit, but he noticed that the flush spread over her neck and down to her chest. The lady was as turned on by him as he was by her.
He had a pretty good idea where this game between the two of them was headed. He wondered if she did, too. Or was it just a game to her? Like that ticking-clock/sperm-donation remark of hers was probably just intended to ward him off. Hah! He wasn’t that easily intimidated.
She returned his gaze for a long moment. But then their food orders arrived, and they all dug in. Barbecued ribs. Hot wings. French fries. Coleslaw. Warm French bread.
It was a lesson in erotica just watching Claire eat a rib. First she licked off the sauce, up one side and down the other. Nibbled off the meat. Then sucked on the bone.
He glanced down at his crotch, then over at her.
Claire watched Caleb watching her.
She knew exactly what she was doing, turning him on. A part of her brain had gone on meltdown the first time she’d seen him, and she’d been behaving like a wanton teenager ever since. There was no explanation, other than the fact that he attracted her. A lot. And yeah, she would like to have a baby someday, while she was still able, but this chemistry thing had gone way beyond that. At the moment, she’d take him any way she could get him. Even a one-night stand had growing appeal, and Claire did not do casual sex.
Until now.
No, I wouldn’t do that.
Well, maybe.
“You’re talkin’ to yerself, chère,” John said in her ear.
She saw Caleb’s nostrils flare at John’s close proximity. It was the only betrayal of his emotions before he took another draw on his bottle of beer. So of course, Claire reciprocated by whispering in John’s ear, “Be careful. Caleb looks as if he wants to castrate you.”
John chuckled and whispered back, “The guy’s got the hots fer you.”
“Really? You think so?” she whispered back.
They both laughed then.
Adam, on her other side, asked, “What’s the joke?”
“No joke. John is just trying to annoy Caleb.”
Adam smiled with understanding. “My favorite thing.” He put an arm around Claire’s shoulder and squeezed. “Save the first slow dance for me, baby,” he said, loud enough for Caleb to hear.
Caleb made a low growling sound before standing and stomping off to the men’s room.
“Oh, my God! You didn’t!” Mark’s exclamation surprised everyone. He was standing, his one hand braced on the table as he glared at his grandmother, then pivoted to glare at a young woman approaching their table. She wore a sky blue spaghetti-strap sundress, and her long black hair hung to her butt. About five-three, and thin, she was pretty . . . and staring at Mark with her heart in her sky blue eyes.
“Hi, Mrs. Franklin. Hi, Mar
k.”
“Lily, what the hell are you doing here?” Mark snarled out, leaning forward over the table.
Lily flinched, about to burst into tears.
“Stop being a horse’s hind end,” Abbie told her grandson and waved for Lily to sit down next to her, across from Mark.
Ah, this must be the ex-girlfriend, the one Mark ditched once he got home from Afghanistan.
Mark sat back down.
Abbie ordered a screwdriver, heavy on the orange juice, for Lily, without asking. Presumably, Lily was older than she looked, of legal age to drink.
Mark gave serious attention to his beer.
“I’m Louise Rivard, but ya can call me Tante Lulu, like ever’one else,” the Cajun lady introduced herself. “So, how’s the strippin’ bizness these days?”
Claire about choked on her own screwdriver.
Lily raised her chin haughtily and said, “Just fine.”
“What a crock! You’re no more a stripper than I’m a . . . gymnast.” Mark gave Lily a condescending once-over, which even Claire found offensive.
“Hey, I used to be a stripper,” John said to Lily, speaking around Claire and Famosa. “Maybe we can trade dance moves.”
“You was only a stripper fer two weeks, till I dragged ya out of that casino,” Tante Lulu reminded him.
“Sure,” Lily replied to John. “Can you shimmy?”
“Can I shimmy? Oh, baby!” John said. “They practically named the bump ’n’ grind after me.”
“Back off, butthead,” Mark told John.
“You ever heard of dog in the manger, man? You know, you don’t want her, but you don’t want anyone else to have her?”
“Shush!” Tante Lulu told her grandson. “Yer messin’ things up.”
“What things?”
“Shush!”
Claire gaped at John. A stripper? “I thought you were about to be a cop.”
“I am.”
“Cain’t a cop be a former stripper?” Tante Lulu asked, as if Claire were dense.
“You are not a stripper, Lily. No way!” Mark was back to addressing Lily.
“How would you know, Mark? You haven’t talked to me in nine months. I could be dead for all you know.”
Mark propped his elbow on the table and put his chin in his palm, staring at Lily. Instead of laying into her, he now gazed at her with such sadness. “You know why, Lily.”