“Frank.” He turned to look at her as he spoke.
“My grandfather? You’re doing this because of my grandfather? Not because of the treasure involved?”
Adam smiled at the disbelief in her voice. “Frank Jinkowsky is a legend. One of the best treasure hunters in the business, better even than Mel Fisher. Most divers, myself included, consider it a privilege to work with him.”
“I had no idea,” she admitted. “I guess, being an outsider, I never saw him that way.” That sounded dumb even to her own ears. How could a family member be called an outsider?
He stared at her for several moments, then asked, “Would you like to have dinner tonight?”
“Me?” Could I sound any more dorky?
Adam winked at her. “Yeah, you. What do you say?”
Veronica could see the interest in his eyes, especially when they perused her from face to toes, then back up again. He likes what he sees. Holy moly! A sexy, eligible man finds me attractive. Oh. Is he eligible? Her eyes shot to his left hand. Okay. No ring.
He saw where she had glanced and laughed. “No, I’m not married.”
“Ever been?”
He shook his head. “Almost. Once.”
“Sure. I’d love to have dinner with you,” she said before she could bite her tongue. “I’m staying at the Starlight Motel. What time should we meet?”
“Hey, I’m staying at the Starlight, too.”
She might be rusty at dating, and she’d never been that good at understanding men (otherwise, she wouldn’t have been married and divorced four times), but she knew exactly what was on this man’s mind.
Oh, boy! He’s thinking more than dinner now. I can tell. Maybe that was his agenda all along. Can I handle that? Yes. I’ve got to handle that, if I’m going to change my life. Jake’s not here. He’s apparently gone on with his life. I need to do the same. “Eight o’clock, then?”
“Great! We’ll go to Dirty Doug’s, unless you object. It’s a local bar that serves great grilled oysters and good music.”
“Dirty Doug’s, huh?” My grandmother would choke if she knew I was going to a place with that name, she thought. Good! “I take it casual attire would be appropriate?” Body armor and a chastity belt come to mind.
“Yep. See you about eight, then. I’ll come to your room?” His eyes arched in question.
“No, I’ll meet you there,” she replied quickly. “I have a little . . . uh, shopping to do first . . . on the way . . . at Wal-Mart.”
He wasn’t buying her hedging at all. Still, he nodded his agreement. But, just before he left to return to diving practice, he turned and said, “By the way, Ronnie, you look hot in diving gear.”
Veronica smiled for the next five minutes, relishing his compliment. But then the usual reservations set in.
What am I doing?
Getting on with my life.
But . . . am I ready for a new relationship?
More than ready.
I don’t know how to act around anyone but Jake.
Learn.
But what if . . . ?
Stop questioning every little thing. Go with the flow. Relax.
Relax? Hah! I’m so nervous even my toes are shaking. What if he wants to have sex? Who am I kidding? He wants sex, all right.
Why am I making rash judgments about the man? Where did the sex idea come from?
My libido, of course. My rusty libido.
When was the last time?
One year since a date. Two years since sex.
Am I pathetic, or what?
Jake wasn’t the only man Veronica had slept with, but she could count them on one hand. There was an expression, “Once burned, twice shy.” Well, she’d been burned four times, and shy didn’t begin to define her hesitation to be involved with men.
But, son of a gun, I’m going on a date.
I better shave my legs.
No, no, no! It’s just a date. No sex. Just a friendly dinner with a nice man.
Ha, ha, ha!
Then her traitorous thoughts turned once again to Jake. She shouldn’t feel guilty about dating other men—even having sex with other men. But she did. Would Adam be the one to help her finally put Jake in her past? A fling, that’s what it would be. Nothing serious. Her heart simultaneously wept and rejoiced at the possibility. It was for the best. She knew that. Her heart didn’t, but it would . . . in time.
Brenda walked in then, gave her a head-to-toe survey, and said, “Girl, you’ve got more nerve than I do.”
They both burst out laughing. And continued to laugh while they struggled to get Veronica out of the tight garment. She was covered with sweat by the time they finished, and sweat acted like glue in a rubber suit.
“I need to buy some food supplies for the trip,” Brenda said over a cup of coffee that Veronica had brewed on the ancient coffeemaker. She planned to buy a new one before she came in tomorrow morning. “Can you give me some cash or a card?”
“How much do you need?”
“Hmmm. We’ll be out at least a week. I figure at least five men—Frank, Adam, Caleb, John, and Steve or Tony—and three women, if Flossie comes along. She told me she might, just for the fun of it. How about five hundred? There’s a pretty good-sized freezer on board, and I already have lots of canned goods.”
Veronica did a quick calculation and decided there would be enough in the business checking account to cover that amount. She handed her the Jinx, Inc., debit card, then asked, “Did you get the motor fixed?”
“Nope. I sent Frank into Manahawkin to get some parts. Looks like we might not be able to head out till Wednesday.”
“Is it safe? I mean, will it be safe to go out on the ocean with a patched-up motor?”
“Oh, it’ll be safe enough. Worst thing that could happen is the motor won’t turn over and we’ll have to call the Coast Guard for a tow. Of course, that would be disastrous in terms of keeping the site secret. Every deep-sea treasure-hunting boat on the East Coast tuned in to the Coast Guard radio will head there then like a swarm of sharks.”
“How much would a new motor cost?”
“For a boat that size, I’m thinking ten thousand or more. I haven’t priced them lately.”
Out of the question, then, Veronica decided. With Frank’s reduced circumstances, she couldn’t see any way to manage that kind of money. Besides, she still needed to ask Frank how he planned to pay all these people—or if he planned on paying them at all. Maybe they just got a share of the profits.
All these people. A thought niggled at Veronica. Then she knew what was bothering her. “You said three women. I sure hope you mean Rosa is going along. And not—”
Brenda grinned. “Yep, you.”
“Oh, no!”
“Frank said you’d be going, that he needed you.”
“For what?”
“Computer work. Deckhand. Assistant diver.”
“I do not know how to dive.”
“No problem. You cook, and I can help dive. Maybe I could lose a few more pounds that way.” Brenda was a medium-height blonde, about five-six. She was not overweight, but by the standards set by women’s magazines, she could lose ten to fifteen pounds. As a result, Brenda, like many women over thirty, was always on a diet.
“I don’t know how to cook very well, either,” Veronica said. “Certainly not for a group that size.”
“Make sandwiches. They won’t be fussy.”
“I am not going out on a boat,” Veronica emphasized, “and definitely not for five days.” I wouldn’t be able to carry enough Pepto or Dramamine to last that long.
“We’ll see,” Brenda said with a laugh. “Frank can be persuasive.”
Yeah, like a sledgehammer. Time to change the subject. “Are you married, Brenda?”
Immediately, Brenda stiffened.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get personal.”
“No problem,” she said, relaxing her shoulders. “I’m divorced. Three years now. And I’m still healing th
e wounds.”
Veronica knew how that felt. “Do you see him . . . ever?” Of course, Veronica would ask such a dumb question, with her history.
“Not if I can help it. Lance Caslow was the husband from hell.”
“Lance Caslow? The race car driver?” Veronica wasn’t a NASCAR fan, but even she recognized that name.
“None other. Have you ever met any race car drivers?”
Veronica shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“Aside from being miserably moody when on a losing streak, Lance doesn’t understand the word fidelity. I suspect he’s nailed every groupie within a five-mile radius of every racetrack in America.”
“Nice guy!”
“Hey, his favorite expression is, ‘NASCAR drivers know how to jump-start a car—and a woman.’”
“Modest, too.”
“Drivers are the most narcissistic men in the universe. They think their dirty underwear ought to be bronzed. Do you know, Lance once made me give him a blow job while in his car going a hundred twenty miles per hour?”
Veronica’s eyes widened at that image.
“Defies believability, doesn’t it?” Brenda said with a laugh. “And he didn’t even reciprocate. Not that I would have wanted him to, especially not in a car. Well, anywhere for that matter. He was a lousy lover, or at least that’s what I like to tell people. Plus, he has a needle dick. I tell everyone that, too, just to annoy him.” She grinned impishly.
Way more information than I need to know!
“I’ve embarrassed you. I’m sorry. Sometimes I’m too candid. It’s just that Lance makes me so mad.”
“No, no, that’s all right. I wasn’t embarrassed.” Much.
“Yeah, right. How about your ex?”
I should have known this conversation would lead to Jake. Can I talk about him? Hah! Why not? “It wasn’t a sex problem with us,” Veronica revealed with more candor than usual. “Sex does not a marriage make, though.”
Brenda appeared unconvinced about that. “Even so, girl, what were you thinking, marrying and divorcing the same man four times? If he was good in the sack, he must’ve been a world-class two-timer.”
“Actually, I don’t think Jake ever cheated. While we were married, anyhow. He had plenty of women in between, though.”
Brenda tilted her head at her. “Who left who?”
“Jake always leaves. Yeah, I do a bang-up job of provoking arguments and prolonging them, but, dammit, he should stick around until we can resolve things. The arguments were mainly about his poker. But also about me and . . .” Her words trailed off. She really didn’t want to talk about Jake.
Brenda seemed to understand and dropped the subject. “Anyhow, I have a five-year-old daughter, Patti. So, one good thing came out of all that pain.”
“A little girl? How wonderful!” Veronica frowned then.
Brenda read her silent question and answered, “She stays with my mother in Perth Amboy when I’m out of town.”
Veronica was seeing Brenda in a new light, and she liked what she saw.
“Gotta get back to work,” Brenda said, draining the last of her coffee and standing up. “By the way, did I see Famosa coming out of here a while ago?”
“He asked me to dinner tonight.”
Brenda wagged a forefinger at her. “Be careful, toots. Famosa and my ex come from the same hound dog mold. Womanizers to the bone. And you know exactly which bone I’m talking about, don’t you?”
Yeah. She did.
Chapter
9
Laying it on thick, Cajun style . . .
John LeDeux sat in a booth at Dirty Doug’s with Adam Famosa and Caleb Peachey, trying to be heard over the three-piece band blasting out country rock ballads.
He and Caleb were drinking cold beers and inhaling roasted oysters—a house specialty cooked on the barbecue pit out on the deck. Adam was waiting for Ronnie to arrive for their dinner date. Brenda had gone home to be with her daughter overnight.
While Adam and Caleb—also known as Peach, a nickname from his Navy SEAL days—talked about some diving expeditions they’d been on in the past, John looked around the tavern and sighed. What the hell am I doing here?
John was a Southern boy, Cajun to the core. He felt out of place, disoriented, here in the North. Anywhere, for that matter, when he was away for long from the bayous he loved. Oh, there was a good reason for his being this far North; well, not so good, but a reason just the same. He’d lost a bet with his best friend from college, Harry “Hoot” MacTavish, who had demanded as his prize that John take a job as a stripper for two weeks. Since Hoot lived in Jersey, he had a friend of a friend with connections to a casino in Atlantic City. Never one to back down, John had agreed.
He was there two weeks as one of the “Ten Dudes from Dallas,” not that any of them were from Dallas, except the manager of the group. To his surprise, he had already become bored, despite the female attention, something he usually lapped up whenever he could get it. Hey, he was twenty-two years old; testosterone was his middle name.
Then Tante Lulu had shown up, with great timing, to drag him off the premises. When he’d seen her in the Oasis club walking through all the women waving five-dollar bills, he’d about swallowed his tongue. Tante Lulu was a real corker, and he would do anything to please her; everyone in his family felt the same way. So it wasn’t a shock that he’d gotten this summer job on a diving boat due to her contact with Henri Pinot, who had been hired as captain, until he had developed some medical problems.
Which all led to his point of confusion. He had graduated recently from Tulane with a degree in criminal justice. But he had no clue what he wanted to do next. Get a job on a police force somewhere in Southern Louisiana. Apply for the FBI’s training program. Or go to law school, like his half brother, Luc. The stripping had been only a lark. The diving would be a fun diversion. But his future . . . ah, his future . . . That required a serious decision. And yet he was currently buried in a cloud of uncertainty.
Everything moved too fast here in the North. The music, for example, was nothing like the Cajun and zydeco songs of his culture. Yankees didn’t understand ordinary daily expressions like “Sit a spell” or “Over yonder” or the bawdy “Shuck me, suck me, eat me dry,” which everyone knew referred to crawfish. The people were always in a hurry, unlike his Southern comrades who knew there was no point in rushing. The food was bland, not enough spices or Cajun lightning. And they talked too fast. A slow, Southern drawl was much more attractive—and effective, with women, in his experience.
“Rhett, you are so full of it,” Famosa said, jabbing him with an elbow. “Like a drawl is going to get you jack shit with a woman . . . any woman over the age of sixteen, anyhow.”
Apparently, he spoke that last thought aloud, which was a mistake, of course. These two guys, who were ancient—in their thirties, he would guess—liked to tease him about his age and his Southern roots. At least, Famosa did. Peach probably thought it.
“Enough with the Rhett jokes. I live in Louisiana. Gone With the Wind took place in Georgia.”
Yankees, Famosa in particular, couldn’t care less whether he came from Tara or Tallahassee; it was the same thing to them.
“You guys think you know so much just because you’re older than me. Well, let me tell you, we Cajuns know stuff from the time we grow hair in our armpits, stuff that makes us more virile than the average Yankee man.”
Peach just shook his head, but Famosa asked, “Yeah? Like what?”
“Most men don’t like to dance. We Cajuns do. Women love men who can dance.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Peach remarked. “I used to be in the Navy SEALs. Women are drawn to them like ants on a”—he grinned—“peach. Didn’t matter if the men could walk straight, let alone dance.” Peach didn’t talk much, and John was surprised that he’d volunteered so much information.
“If dancing is all you Southern boys know how to do well, Bubba, I’m not impressed. Besid
es, Cubans aren’t bad dancers.” Famosa was speaking now.
“Tsk-tsk-tsk! Bubbas come from Texas.”
“Redneck, then,” Famosa razzed him. “Or cracker.”
John shook his head. “Nope, those are usually from Arkansas or Alabama,” he replied with a straight face. “Anyhow, back to Cajun expertise—I didn’t want to say anything, but there is other stuff we Cajun men have that the rest of you don’t.”
“You’re pulling our legs,” Famosa scoffed, but then repeated his previous question, “Like what?”
“Like JuJu tea. Whoo-ee, a daily dose of that and you are one happy stud.”
“I’ll probably regret this, but what is JuJu tea?” Famosa asked him.
“It’s a secret. Honest, ask anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line if Cajun men are sex personified. Some people claim it’s ’cause we eat so much crawfish, fat and all, but we know better. You’ll never find a Cajun man taking Viagra, I’ll tell you that. Yep, JuJu tea.” He sat back, took a long swig of beer, and just waited.
“Are you bullshitting us?” Peach piped in.
He grinned. “My sister-in-law’s family mass-produces the stuff. Ships it out by the truckloads. I can get you some if you want.”
“I don’t need it,” Famosa bragged.
“Me neither,” Peach added.
But John could tell they were interested. They’d probably Google it on their computers when they got home tonight.
“Actually,” Peach offered, “I’ve always thought the best aphrodisiac for a man is a naked woman.”
They all agreed on that.
“Let me ask you this,” John said, and took a long draw on his beer to make sure he had their attention. “Do you know what a woman says after her fifth orgasm?”
Peach stifled a grin, sensing what was coming next. But Famosa said, “What?”
“You have to ask? You mean, you don’t know?” John laughed. “My point exactly. Yankee men could learn a lot from us Cajuns.”