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He swept his hand through his thick blond hair, and the wet waves danced in the slight breeze. “For the record, I sold that stupid urn for two hundred dollars.”
Wow. In my mind, I’d blown the value of that trinket to ten times that amount.
“You spent more than that on fuel driving my boat out here, by the way. And those two bottles of wine are worth much more. They’re all yours, Indy. So, what do you say? Do we have a truce?” He held his hand forward, and I studied it like he had a loaded grenade in his palm.
I glanced at Tyler, and although he seemed frozen in position, his expression begged for me to take Kane’s offer.
A chuckle worked its way up my throat. “You really don’t give up, do you?”
I shook Kane’s hand.
“Giving up is for pussies. Speaking of giving up, now that I’ve kept my end of the bargain . . .” He turned his gaze to Tyler. “Can you please arrange a meeting with Aria?”
Tyler nodded. “I think you’ve earned that meeting.”
“You’re not kidding.” Kane rolled his eyes to me. “You know I would have brought you out here, Indiana, right?”
Feeling like a dope, I shrugged.
Kane burst out laughing. “Well, I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, Tyler, because Indiana is one of a kind.”
“I have no idea, but I look forward to finding out.” Tyler wrapped his arm over my shoulder, pulled me to his side, and kissed the scar on my forehead.
Kane slapped his hands together. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving.”
We followed Kane to his galley, and as he made roast beef and Jarlsberg cheese sandwiches with pickled relish, Tyler hit Kane with a pile of questions about his treasure hunting. I mostly kept quiet because Kane’s stories were fascinating, and sometimes too incredible to be true, but that just seemed to add to his personality. With Kane, it was hard to tell fact from fiction. Especially when he said he’d spent four years working for the Navy. I could never picture him in a regimented military role.
Their conversation made for an entertaining hour, though, while we waited out our surface dive time. By the time we returned to the water, the currents had changed dramatically for the worse. The ocean tugged our bodies back and forth, and it took a lot of energy to scan around our first find for any more relics from the Siren’s Lure.
We came up empty-handed, yet none of us were surprised.
It was a miracle we found what we did.
The next two hours were taken up by cleaning and storing Kane’s equipment, and I couldn’t believe how pedantic he was about putting everything in its place. He wasn’t like the Kane Devlin I remembered.
The sun was on its way into the western horizon when we gathered around the tub with our salvaged bottles.
“So, now that you have that dive out of your system, Indiana, any chance you guys can get off my boat so I can get back to what I had planned to do today?”
Tyler and I both chuckled.
“Sure,” I said.
“And take those ugly bottles with you.” Kane nodded toward the bottles in the seawater.
I burst out laughing, and it was like the weight of the world was finally off my chest. Releasing a huge sigh, I offered to shake Kane’s hand. “Thank you.”
He shook my hand and flashed a smile that took me back to a time before our relationship went to crap.
“Before you go . . .” Kane marched away and returned a few minutes later carrying a bottle of champagne and a plastic bag. He handed the bag to Tyler. “Sorry, I don’t have much, given I hadn’t planned this trip, but there’s a few nice cheeses in there and some crackers.”
“Thanks, mate.” Tyler shook Kane’s hand.
Kane handed the champagne bottle to me. “Look after yourself, Indy. You deserve a break.”
“Thanks, and thanks for your help today.” I couldn’t believe I was saying that to the same man I’d had nothing but contempt for over the last few years.
Kane helped Tyler carry the tub containing our precious bottles onto my boat, and as I followed them, I scanned the deck. “Hey, this is a Border Force boat.”
