Chapter 5 Come back to Me
“I can’t believe you’re doing this!” Camila handed Desi her mask and crossed arms over her chest. “You made a deal with Briar, and now you’re going ahead without him.”
Desi glanced at the turquoise sea stroking the Sea Starr and longed to plunge beneath its waves where peace reigned. And where the sound of Camila’s nagging voice would fade into oblivion.
Ethan seemed to know what she was thinking as he smiled at her from the helm where he’d just locked the wheel in place and ran up the dive flag.
Slipping the mask on, Desi adjusted the straps. “I’ll only be gone a few minutes. I need to make sure the site is safe before I bring anyone else down there.” It wasn’t a lie, but not the truth either.
“His men are experienced divers,” Camila countered.
“Good. Then there won’t be any problems.” Desi slipped the regulator in her mouth, checked the pressure gauge, and let herself fall backward off the gunwale.
“It wasn’t part of…” Camila’s complaint was muffled by the rush of warm seawater caressing every inch of Desi.
Her first mate’s figure blurred and distorted through the water as the bubbles from her regulator sped upward.
She allowed herself to float for a minute as she sank into the deep, enjoying the soothing sounds of the sea that always washed away the troubles of life above.
Maybe she was meant to be a mermaid, after all.
Turning, she kicked her fins and swam deeper, the water cooling slightly and enfolding her like one of those weighted blankets that made you feel secure.
Corals in every imaginable shape and color spread over the ocean floor in a painting that would put the best artist to shame—a living, breathing painting full of bright, vibrant fish.
Desi could stay down here for hours watching them. But she was on a mission.
Moving forward, she approached the drop-off, flipped on her light, and headed down.
Sunbeams slanted through the turquoise water like ghostly fingers, illuminating the outline of the ancient vessel imbedded in the seafloor.
If possible, she needed to discover the name of the ship.
But she also wanted to find that Ring again.
It could be worth something. It could be a clue to the ship itself.
Yet more than that, it intrigued her. Frightened her a little, if she were honest.
She needed to know if what she’d seen was merely her imagination, a hallucination, or maybe just nitrogen narcosis. Or…?
She shook her head. Or what, Des? What else could it be?
But something within those deep blue eyes, his eyes, lingered in her thoughts like an unfinished melody.
Swimming deeper, she hovered over the spot where the main deck would be, now covered by coral and time, and carefully brushed away centuries of silt. And there it was again. The Ring.
It glistened unnaturally beneath the water, as if untouched by time. Heart pounding, Desi reached for it.
The moment her fingertips grazed the golden band, a flash of blinding white engulfed her. The sea rippled, expanding, contracting, pushing, pulling. Gripping the Ring tight, she started for the surface.
And then—
Wind roared in her ears. Salty spray slapped her face. The sharp crack of cannon fire split the air.
She stumbled, drenched and gasping, onto solid wood. The deck of a living, breathing ship.
Sails billowed overhead against a storm-gray sky. Crewmen shouted orders as the ship pitched beneath her feet. Cannon smoke drifted across the deck like spectral hands.
She tore out her regulator and gasped, then coughed as her lungs filled with smoke.
Men dashed about in a frenzy, some leaping into the shrouds, others shouting obscenities and raising their fists at something across the water.
Desi clung to the railing and followed their gazes to a Spanish galleon looming off the starboard side, its black and gold hull cutting a fierce silhouette against the horizon.
A stream of fire burst from its hull. A boom thundered across the turbulent sea.
What was happening? Desi barely had time to find her footing before a cannonball slammed into the bulwarks, splintering wood and firing knife-like shards in all directions.
Two men dropped to the deck, screaming in agony.
“Starboard guns, ready!” a deep voice shouted—one she recognized even above the chaos.
He was there, coat billowing like a flag in the wind, eyes flashing across the deck. They locked onto hers, wide with both disbelief and recognition.
“You!” he bellowed, striding toward her through the smoke.
She opened her mouth to speak, but words vanished in the deafening crack of another broadside.
“All hands down!” he barked.
Desi stared at the oncoming shots. This can’t be happening! I’m not here!
The man threw his body on top of hers as the ship trembled beneath two more blows.
Screams blared. Shouts ricocheted. But all Desi could feel was the strength of the one who sheltered her from harm.
His chest heaved, his breath showering her, and his scent of salted leather and smoke flooding her nose.
Then he was gone.
“Get her below!” he ordered one of his crew as he marched off. “Rourke, Haines, take the injured to Brandt.” His intense gaze traveled from their enemy, then to the churning sea, and finally to the gray sky above.
“Well, burn and sink me, ne’er saw the likes o’ that!” one sailor shouted.
“Indeed.” The captain glanced back at her before issuing further orders. “Alden, raise all canvas to the wind! Prepare to tack. Shorty, three points to larboard.”
“Are we runnin’ away like yellow bellies, Cap’n?” one man complained.
“To fight another day. A better day.” Wind gusted over them, whipping away some of the smoke and flapping the captain’s coat. “Keg, fire stern guns when ready. Let’s give them our best farewell!”
Two sailors scrambled toward her and grabbed her arms. Struggling, she tried to free herself, but it was no use as they dragged her across the deck toward a hatch.
The ship heeled hard to port as another volley roared overhead. Smoke, fire, salt, and steel surrounded her.
And all Desi could think was:
This is no dream.
The Sentinel, Caribbean, 1718
Desi was no stranger to fear. Once she’d caught her ankle in the cleft of a sharp reef and nearly run out of air before her companions found her.
Then there was the day the men in black suits came to their door to inform her mother that her husband was lost at sea and presumed dead.
Desi had spent the next week listening to her mother sob hysterically while she and her sister huddled upstairs in their bedroom.
Not six months later, Desi watched her mother scream in agony as she breathed her last, leaving Desi and her sister alone in the world except for an eccentric old man they hardly knew.
Now, she lived in terror of losing Ocean’s Echo and worse, losing her sister to an incurable disease.
But this…whatever was happening, spun such horror through her that she could no longer feel her fingers or toes, could no longer form a rational thought.
The sailors shoved her into a tiny room.
With their mismatched, tattered clothing and long, stringy hair, they looked more like musicians from a defunct 70s rock band than seamen.
They lingered, staring too long, licking their lips as if they’d never seen a woman before.
Then the door slammed, the lock snapped shut, and she was alone.
Everything was so real. The feel of the planks beneath her bare toes, the slant of the deck as the ship made its turn, the deafening rush of wind and water against the hull, and the hard cot beneath her bottom as she dropped to sit on it before she fell.
She must have lost her fins and oxygen tanks above deck, though she couldn’t remember removing them.
Could she really have been transported back in time?
Was that even possible? Opening her palm, she stared at the Ring.
The ravages of the sea and time no longer marred its beauty.
A brilliant crimson jewel glistened in a ray of sun oscillating through the window.
Strange ancient writing framed the edges.
It was heavy too, as if it contained all the secrets of the universe.
A drop of water fell from her wet hair onto the Ring and oddly, instead of sliding off, the jewel absorbed it.
Of course it did. Nothing made any sense. Her thoughts and heart spun into a cyclone of confusion and fear. Maybe if she closed her eyes and pressed on the Ring, she’d end up back in the sea off the coast of Miami, hunting for treasure.
Taking a deep breath, she held the Ring against her chest.
But all she heard were footsteps pounding the deck above, the creak of wooden beams, the snap of sails, and the orders of a captain with deep blue eyes and the chivalry to protect a strange woman who appeared on his ship out of nowhere.
And this Ring was somehow the key. But how…? Why…?
Dropping her head in her hand, she forced back tears.
She was not a woman who cried. Not even when her mother died.
The devastation and loss had sliced her heart like a thousand knives, but she had to be strong for her sister.
She had to put up a confident front, giving the illusion that everything would be okay.
Even though she knew deep down that it never would be again.
The ship settled into a gentle roll. Though sails still cracked in the wind and footsteps still pounded the deck, the men’s shouts carried less fear, desperation, and intensity.
They must have evaded the galleon. A small consolation, but one she’d take rather than be blasted to bits in a world and time in which she did not belong.
If any of this were true.
Her wetsuit clung to her like a second skin, the only evidence of her own time. The only thing that tied her to the real world and kept her from going insane.