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every possible “treasure” trove—or sunken ship—location in fine, minuscule handwriting. “Here lyeth the Santa Margarita, the Ghost Galleon, sunk in the Year of Our Lord 1622, in the Eyes of a Storm, may she rest in peace.” The treasure recovered from the Santa Margarita had an estimated worth of about twenty million. She had sunk at nearly the same time as the more recently discovered Atocha, a ship that had yielded its own trove of treasure, both fiscal and historical.
    Closer to Seafire Isle, west of the south Florida mainland, was the mark for the Beldona, her father’s love, his great passion—the mistress of his life.
    The Beldona had, in the end, claimed him, or so it seemed. And without giving up a single one of her secrets. She’d gone down in 1722, also in “the Eyes of a Storm,” and she’d carried her crew, her prisoners and her treasure to a watery grave from which there had been no reprieve. She’d been something of a mystery ship from the very beginning, a British ship carrying secret documents as well as a doomed crew of Spanish privateers. No one had ever been able to tell a pirate tale like Justin Carlyle. No one. No one had ever been able to weave such a spell of magic, adventure and chills. And no one, perhaps, had ever been so caught up in the spell of his own lore.
    Justin had also been an excellent diver, strict regarding the rules of safety.
    But Justin had followed the Beldona. And he had never returned.
    Strange, for all his hard, contemporary tactics and cool determination, Adam had been as seduced by her father’s tales as any other man. He had sat up hour after hour with Justin, while they had drunk cheap whiskey together, laughing, imagining, weaving tales of what had happened the night of the storm. And they had speculated as to where the ship might have gone down. Yes, Adam and her father had been great together.
    She inhaled raggedly again, backing away from the map. Great. Just great. She had gone from wondering about Adam to agonizing over her father, and now she couldn’t stop remembering them both.
    No, she would never waste time on such a rotten bastard again, and that was that. She turned toward the kitchen, walking slowly at first. Then more quickly.
    Her walk became a run. She reached into the refrigerator and, more desperately than she wanted to, dragged out a bottle of zinfandel. She poured herself a glass, her hands shaking. She gulped down the wine.
    She shuddered, her entire face puckering. Wine was not meant to be guzzled. She poured herself a second glass, determined not to think about Adam. She decided, as she made her way into the bathroom to start hot water running into the massive Jacuzzi, that he had one hell of a lot of nerve, thinking that he could just walk in here and expect her not to betray him.
    Maybe she’d misread him and he really didn’t care if she betrayed him or not. Maybe he was really on vacation.
    No. Never.
    By the time the Jacuzzi had been filled, she had her third glass of wine at her side. She crawled into the tub and leaned back, determined to relax, to unwind. Impossible. She laid her head back, feeling the water pulse against her back, her neck.
    Damn him. What was he doing here now? Where had he been when things had gone badly for her, when her father had disappeared, when Hank had followed the exact same way? She’d been desperate enough then to write to him, to beg him for help, and he hadn’t shown up. Where the hell had he been, and what possible right did he have to come now?
    She sipped her wine, feeling its effects at last, soothing her body if not her soul. Great. She was guzzling zinfandel. Trying to get sloshed on wine. She hadn’t done anything so stupid since she and Jem and Yancy had been sixteen and downed a bottle of cheap burgundy they had gotten hold of in Freeport. Think how sick she’d been….
    No, she wasn’t going to make that mistake