He looked at her incredulously. "You must be kidding. I don't have any tells."
"If you say so," she said, shrugging. "But the better your hand is, the faster your finger taps."
"If you'd told me that five years ago, maybe you could have saved me a couple of thousand dollars in Mexico last month."
"If you want to save a couple of thousand dollars, then maybe you shouldn't gamble," she said, arching a brow.
"Doc, you've got to lighten up a bit. Learn to have a little fun."
"Since I've known you I've almost drowned, been shot at, dangled from a cliff, fled from an active volcano, been pushed out of a helicopter, and been kidnapped. I'm not sure I could have more fun if I tried."
"Well, when you put it that way, I guess we have had some good adventures."
"Memorable for sure," she said, smiling.
And they'd made some amazing memories. There had been fun and excitement and passion. But there'd also been the quiet reassurance of love between two people who shared something unique and had mutual respect for each other's talents.
Maybe she had been the one who started to pull away. To see the faults in his personality, even though those same faults were things that had drawn her to him when they'd first met. Although she'd broached the topic, he'd never made it clear what he'd wanted for their future. Would it always be one hair-raising adventure after another? Would there ever be time to enjoy the things they'd worked for? To raise a family or leave a legacy? It hadn't seemed as if he'd been interested in planning for the future. She'd wanted a future with him, but not at the cost of their lives because the risk was as thrilling as the reward.
His arm brushed the side of her breast when he moved, and she gasped at the touch. He froze and stared at her, and the air became heavy with needs she'd hidden for two years. Blood rushed in her ears, and her heart thudded in her chest. And then she made the mistake of looking up at him--of seeing those dark chocolate eyes go black as want sizzled like electricity between them.
She put her hand flat against his chest, not sure if she was warning him to keep his distance or inviting him to move closer. But whatever the case, he moved toward her and she brought her other hand up to rest against his chest. She'd always been a tactile person, whether it be while examining precious artifacts or spending hours touching every ridge of muscle or scar on his body. Touch told a much better story than sight.
He moved in slowly, giving her time to react, but she didn't stop him. What they were doing was surely a mistake. His touch had always been addictive, but maybe the memories were better than the reality. Maybe she just needed to see if she'd been holding onto something that had never existed.
He didn't put his hands on her. Not yet. His lips hovered over hers, and the heat between them was palpable. Then he was kissing her, and old memories and thoughts of right or wrong vanished. This was the here and now, and it was better than anything she could've imagined.
His mouth slanted over hers--devoured--invaded--and her fingers curled into his chest as his tongue stroked against hers. It was then his arms slid around her, and his hands tightened at her hips.
Someone moaned, and she found herself moving closer, so there was no space left between them. Nothing else mattered at that moment but the feel of his hands and mouth on her. The desire was as strong as it had ever been--more so with the time they'd spent apart--and she didn't care that reality would soon set in. For this moment, she gave him everything she had and knew that he did the same. And if their circumstances had been different, she'd have let him take everything she was offering and more, and have no regrets, because she knew she'd never feel as whole as she did when they were joined.
It was Miranda who finally pulled apart. Their breaths were labored and their gazes intense as they held each other in a loose embrace. There was no need for words or explanations. That time would come.
"I've got an idea," Lucas finally said.
LESS THAN AN HOUR later, they heard the slam of car doors and knew the moment of their escape had arrived.
"You ready?" Lucas whispered.
Miranda nodded, and they took their places. They'd left the door to the cell wide open and empty so Damian's crew would think them long gone, but they had a couple of surprises up their sleeves.
Doyle was the first to cross the threshold, just as Lucas had hoped, and he gave the guy a quick chop to the brachial plexus, sending him to his knees. Lucas grabbed him under the arm before he could face plant and tossed him into the cell as he heard the blasting cap detonate once Ryan came into the room. The blasting cap wasn't enough of an explosion to do serious damage, but it sure as hell disoriented Ryan enough that Miranda was able to toss Ryan in the cell with Doyle. She quickly checked both of them for weapons and came out with a couple of pistols.
"Was it there?" Lucas asked like a boy looking under the tree on Christmas morning.
"Was what there?" she taunted.
"My gold coin? They took it after sucker punching me in the alley behind the bar." He rubbed his jaw with a crooked scowl.
Her smile beamed as gold twinkled between her thumb and forefinger. It spun across the creep of dusk that faded through the small window. He snatched it in midair.
"Come on in, Damian," Lucas said. "We've been waiting for you."
"I can see that," Damian said, smiling a snake charmer's smile. He was always a politician. Always polite, even as he raked the knife across an opponent's throat. "I'm not sure what you're planning to accomplish here, Lucas, but you know as well as I do that I'll always be one step ahead of you."
"If that were true, you'd know I found the Thanksgiving Treasure more than ten years ago."
Damian laughed, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "Now, there's no reason to lie. You and I both know if you'd found that treasure every media outlet in the world would've been alerted."
"You never did do research worth a shit," Lucas said, holding the gun on the other man. "Get into the cell." He reached inside Damian's suit jacket and pulled out the pistol he had holstered, like some modern-day mob boss.
"He's got a backup weapon too," Miranda said. "I can see the outline." She took the one from his waist and then patted his legs, taking one from an ankle holster as well.
Damian moved into the cell with the other two men, who were starting to stir, though they were both disoriented. Lucas closed the cell door and held it while Miranda chained and padlocked it again, then she broke one of the bobby pins she carried in the lock so they couldn't use the key once they escaped.
"You know you're making a huge mistake," Damian said, eyeing the rusted bed frame distastefully. "I was going to give you the opportunity to find the Thanksgiving Treasure on live television, and then you'd, of course, get a small portion of the find. Did I mention that I bought the little travel show you've been hosting? I think I'm going to have to fire you."
"Yeah, I've got to tell you I really don't care," Lucas said. "You'll run that show into the ground within a couple of months because you actually have to be a treasure hunter to keep people entertained. Your idea of being a treasure hunter is stealing what other people find."
Damian shrugged. "Semantics," he said. "But I have the name and the money to do exactly what I want to do, which is why you and the good doctor here are going to get that gold whether you want to or not. Your reputation will be in tatters by the time I'm through with you if you don't."
"We've been thinking of retiring anyway," Lucas said nonchalantly, though Damian's words bothered him more than he wanted them to. He'd worked hard to build a solid reputation as an explorer and treasure hunter, and a lot of his work came because of his experience. As had Miranda. She'd worked damned hard to be known as an expert in what was considered a man's field.
"Not to mention the fact," Lucas said, stepping back from the bars, "that even if the treasure were still available, I'd never help you take what rightfully belongs to the Pequot. Their tribe was essentially wiped out because of that gold. They deserve e
very bit of it and more."
"Give me a break," Damian laughed. "From one greedy son of a bitch to another. I've seen you on too many finds. You love the feel of fortune in your hands."
"Sure I do. But I also know when something greater is at work than stumbling across a mound of gold that's almost four-hundred-years old. Sometimes you do the right thing just because it's the right thing. Life doesn't always have to be a negotiation for the largest finder's fee."
"Those people have enough money," Damian spat, his anger finally beginning to show. "They're sitting on millions of dollars the government gave them out of pity. They didn't do anything for it."
"Except be murdered into near extinction," Lucas said.
"I would slit the throats of every last one of them if it meant getting my hands on that gold," Damian said.
"I know. Which is what makes us different. You would've killed Miranda and me after the Port Royal find, just to claim it as your own."
"In a heartbeat," he said, sneering. "People better than you have died on expeditions for me. Sometimes a sacrifice needs to be made for the greater good."
"The greater good meaning making you richer?" Miranda asked.
"We all have a claim to stake," Damian said. "And you and Fortune here are becoming more of a nuisance than a help for my cause. You can take it as a promise that your days are numbered."
"Interesting," Lucas said. "I'm sure the world would love to know that. And I'm sure the Pequot Nation would be very interested to hear that their lives are so expendable."
"Even better," Miranda said, "I'm sure the police would be interested in opening up any mysterious death cases involved during one of your expeditions."
Lucas pointed to the cellphone he'd rigged with dental floss in the corner of the ceiling and set to record. He climbed up and retrieved it and then handed it to Miranda.
"If you guys will excuse us, we've got plans tonight. We hope the rats don't give you too much trouble, but if I were you, I wouldn't go to sleep. They've been known to eat their young. I don't see why they'd pass up someone like you."
"Lucas, you bastard," Damian yelled as they headed out. "Let us out of here."
"I'm sure the police will be by ... eventually," Miranda said, wiggling her fingers in a goodbye wave. "Nighty, night."
"I NEED TO TELL you something," Miranda said, several hours later. She nuzzled closer and ran her hand down his chest to rest on his taut abs. The sheets were tangled at the bottom of the bed, and their legs were entwined.
"If you keep moving your hand, I can't promise I'll be able to listen."
She smiled and dipped her hand lower, so her fingers danced around his hipbone, but she didn't go further. She could already see the effect of such a simple touch, and she needed Lucas to hear what she had to say.
After they'd left Damian and his men in the cell, they drove to the closest casino on the Pequot reservation. It was only right to surrender a copy of the recording with Damian's confession to the tribal police authorities.
"Think they'll believe what you have to say about Damian's plot to steal their treasure?" She questioned.
Lucas grinned. His eyes cast a thousand-yard stare that signaled to her his thoughts were far from the current conversation.
"Yeah, they're pretty familiar with me."
"Did they catch you taking their Thanksgiving Treasure or something?" she jeered.
"No, they helped me recover it and secure it on their reservation." His smile glowed.
"You old softie." She brushed her palm across his rigid forearm.
They'd ridden the rest of the way in silence, the adrenaline rush fading and the desire building between them. There'd been no question where they'd end up. The question was what would happen after.
"I owe you an apology," she said, and she felt his inhalation, as if he were going to speak. "No, let me say it," she continued. "We were good at a lot of things during our relationship, but communication wasn't one of them. We were both so busy trying to prove to the other how capable we were that we didn't leave a lot of room for the imperfections and mistakes. And if I'm honest, you were starting to scare me a little with the chances you were willing to take during that last dive at Port Royal. I thought we were both going to die, and I wondered if that was your endgame. To go out in a blaze of glory with your name in the history books as one of the greatest treasure hunters of all time. And if that was your goal, it didn't seem like it left much of a place for me or our future."
His fingers tightened on her arm briefly, but he stayed silent and she wondered if their window had passed. If they were only reconnecting for the night before moving onto the next job.
Several minutes passed before he finally spoke. "I think I scared myself there at the end. Do you know how intimidating you are? You've got all those degrees tacked onto the end of your name, and you have that natural born intuition that makes you a hell of a partner. We were great together, but I was always afraid that you'd see me fail and that I couldn't live up to the kind of man you deserved."
"Well, that's just ridiculous," she said, lifting her head so she could look him in the eyes. "I wouldn't have stayed with you if I hadn't wanted to be there. But what I wanted didn't seem to be the same thing you wanted."
His look was serious as he slid a piece of her hair behind her ear. "And what was it you wanted that I couldn't give you?"
"Not that you couldn't give me," she corrected. "But I wanted all of you. I wanted to know that what we had was it. That our future would be together, no matter what."
"You wanted marriage?"
"Not necessarily," she said. "But I wanted commitment. I needed the words. And I needed to know that our futures weren't going to be a shallow grave in some foreign country and that we'd leave our children as orphans for someone else to raise."
"You wanted children?" he asked, his face going pale.
Miranda shook her head and closed her eyes, wondering why she'd decided it was important to communicate at this moment.
"No, never mind," she said, resting her head against his arm again, her body stiff.
"No, Miranda," he said, putting a finger beneath her chin and lifting it so her eyes met his. "Don't stop now. I want to know. I never thought you wanted those things. You always seemed so focused on your career and the writing you were able to do after our finds. I never wanted to take that away from you. To make you feel like I'd try to keep you from your dreams because I wanted marriage and family."
Her body relaxed into his and they lay in silence for several minutes, each in deep thought.
"So where do we go from here?" she finally asked.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm on vacation. I don't suppose you need any help finding the Fountain of Youth?"
Miranda grinned and continued the exploration of his body with her hand, and then she rolled on top of him and looked into his eyes as he slid deep inside of her.
"I thought you told Damian you were ready to retire?" she teased.
"How about I semi-retire?"
"Semi-retire?" Her gaze flitted back and forth between his expression and what he was doing with his hands.
"You know, avoid the dangerous jobs. More of a consulting partner."
"As it turns out, I could use a good partner," she said.
He grabbed her hips and then rolled them, so he lay on top of her, and she gasped as he hit somewhere magical inside her.
"A good partner?" he said.
"Great," she gasped as he started to move. "I meant great partner."
"That's better," he said, silencing her moan with his mouth and riding them both to ecstasy. "Much better."
Liliana Hart is a New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly best-selling author of more than fifty titles. After starting her first novel her freshman year of college, she immediately became addicted to writing and knew she'd found what she was meant to do with her life. She has no idea why she majored in music. Liliana can almost always be found at her computer writing, work
ing on various projects with her own real-life hero, spending time with her children, or traveling all over the world.
"I DON'T THINK THE fetal pig was gonna have such a great life, hon." Jerome glanced at his battered watch. Time to go.
Keisha side-eyed him and shifted her backpack from right to left shoulder. She'd turned thirteen in October, so she knew everything now. "It's barbaric."
Kids streamed into Walton Academy around them. A couple nodded or waved, other black kids mostly. He knew that tuition and tradition put private schools out of reach for a lot of New Yorkers who weren't from rich, white families. Being a private school black kid made for some weird dissonance. He knew that from personal experience.
Knife-slim in her red coat, Keisha crossed her arms. "Mom wouldn't have made me cut up some pig." Now she was stalling for guilt and rewards. She was right, though. If her mother had been there, some savory bait would have been dangled to get their daughter into the building before homeroom started. They both knew it. Fetal pig or not.
But her mother had been gone for almost three years, sick for two before that.
Keisha glared at him.
Powerless, Jerome shook his head and frowned at the sidewalk. Even from the grave, his wife had the last word. Olivia had always been better at negotiation.
"Then skip school, Keesh. You've got rehearsals anyway. Your call." His hands shook 'til he hid them in his pockets. "Fine by me." A lie and they both knew it.
She stilled, one eyebrow up. She didn't get many days off during the holidays. In general, October through December meant racing from Brooklyn Heights to school in the Village, then up to Lincoln Center so she could spend her downtime as a very acrobatic mouse in The Nutcracker.
"The fetal pig won't know the difference. You can always come to work with--"
She rolled her eyes at the idea of spending the day at the gym.
"--me."
"Dad. You're nasty." Just like that she was gone, floating through the crush at the door. When had she gotten so tall?
He blinked and called after her slim form, "I'll be here at three to run you to rehearsals." But she'd vanished through the doors.
The river of students began to thin out now, stragglers racing to beat the bell.