Hunting His Jewel E-Book

Ember Casey

• Herausgeber: Ember Casey
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The hunt. The adventure. The desire.
Love has never been this dangerous...or this thrilling. 

Leonardo “Leo” Moretti is breaking all the rules. 
After an injury puts him on the sidelines during the hunt for Vincent Rinaldi’s fortune, he’s determined to get back in the game. Defying orders, he follows a clue that leads him across the wild tropics of the Caribbean. But his plans go awry when he meets the beguiling, doe-eyed Ruby.

Ruby Whitlock is on the honeymoon from hell. 
After kicking her cheating fiancé to the curb, she decides to take their honeymoon cruise alone. But even a vacation to the Caribbean can’t lift her spirits—or convince her that all men aren’t scum. At least until she meets the sexy, mysterious Leo during one of her trips ashore. Suddenly, she finds herself an accidental participant in his dangerous, thrilling mission.

Caught up in an exhilarating adventure that spans the Caribbean, Leo and Ruby soon find themselves entangled in each other—in more ways than one. But the second piece of Rinaldi’s treasure isn’t the only thing at stake. Burdened by secrets and heartache, Leo and Ruby must risk both their hearts and their lives. But how far are they willing to go to claim the ultimate prize?



MEET THE DEVIL'S SET: Treasure hunters. Adventurers. Bad boys. 

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Books by Ember

Poem

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Books By Ember

About the Author

Hunting His Jewel

THE DEVIL’S SET

Book 2

EMBER CASEY

Copyright ©2019 Ember Casey

All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover designed by Cormar Covers

You can contact Ember at [email protected].

Website: http://embercasey.com.

BOOKS BY EMBER CASEY

THE DEVIL’S SET

Claiming His Treasure

Hunting His Jewel

Protecting His Prize

Defending His Heart

THE FONTAINES

The Secret to Seduction

The Sweet Taste of Sin

The Lies Between the Lines

The Mystery of You

The Thrill of Temptation

THE CUNNINGHAM FAMILY

His Wicked Games

Truth or Dare

Sweet Victory

Her Wicked Heart

Take You Away

Lost and Found

Completely (short story)

Their Wicked Wedding

A Cunningham Christmas

Their Wicked Forever

STANDALONE NOVELS

The Billionaire Escape Plan

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O’er the lands and o’er the seas

The Devil’s set of hunters goes

In search of gold and jewels like these;

The treasures that will tempt men’s souls

PROLOGUE

It was chilly for September. Even for Chicago.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, bracing himself against the crisp wind that blew in off the lake. A couple of blocks away, someone was leaning on their car horn. The street he was on was quiet, though. Asleep. The only sounds were the rustle of dead leaves blowing across the sidewalk and the tread of his boots against the cement.

He was breathing too fast. If he wanted to pull this off, he couldn’t look anxious. He clenched and unclenched his hands in his pockets, trying to redirect his nervous energy. The gun he had tucked in the back waistband of his jeans felt rough against his clammy skin. He didn’t like carrying a gun. But it would be stupid to face Niko without one. It was stupid to face Niko at all, but at least this time he’d be prepared. This time…

Leonardo Moretti woke with a start, reaching instinctively for the gun he always kept in the back of his pants.

It wasn’t there.

With a growl, he leaped to his feet, toppling the chair where he’d fallen asleep. His gaze jerked around the room, his hands curling into fists as he prepared himself for an assault. His right arm twinged, but he ignored the pain.

“Easy. It’s just me.” There was a hint of amusement in that sweet voice.

Leo turned. Charlotte—or Charlie, as she preferred to be called—stood just inside the room, near the doorway to the bedroom she’d been sharing with Jackson North, Leo’s teammate and closest friend. They weren’t in Chicago, and he wasn’t striding down some dark road toward a meeting he thought he’d buried far beyond reach in his memory. They were in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in a guest house Lucas Roth had rented for the Devil’s Set about half a mile outside Dubrovnik’s Old Town.

Charlie had clearly come straight from bed. She was wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top, and her hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head, but her eyes were alert and awake.

Leo didn’t let his gaze linger on the way her skimpy top clung to her breasts. Charlie was Jackson’s girl, and pretty as she was, that meant she was off limits. In the past week, she’d also become an honorary member of the Devil’s Set, another reason to place her firmly in the “friend” box in his brain. Leo knew how hard it had been for Jackson to agree to let her stay, but even in the short time she’d been around, she’d proven to be a valuable asset to the team. Not to mention that she was good for Jackson. Leo would just have to find some other pretty girl for himself…once this hunt was over and things stopped being so dangerous. He’d never let a woman he loved get caught up in something like this. That was something he’d promised himself long ago.

“What are you doing out here at this hour?” Charlie asked him, shuffling forward.

He rubbed his eyes then glanced at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning, Central European Time. “I could ask the same of you.”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking about these riddles.”

Leo glanced down at the table where he’d been sitting—or sleeping on the job, more accurately. The entire surface of the table was covered with books and maps of various shapes and sizes. At the center of it all were nine small scraps of paper, each containing a ridiculous poem. “Riddles” was entirely too generous a term.

Everything here was part of their search for the fortune of Vincent Rinaldi, the eccentric billionaire who’d passed away last year. Unbeknownst to the greater public, he’d hidden his riches all over the world, creating a massive treasure hunt in the process. And as career treasure hunters, the members of the Devil’s Set had leaped at the chance to find it.

Unfortunately, their team had only some of the clues. And those they did have were…unorthodox. The Set was used to scouring maps and historic reports for information. They were less skilled at interpreting some crazy old man’s haikus. That’s where Charlotte had come in handy. She seemed to understand how the late Vincent Rinaldi thought.

She seemed to understand how Leo thought, too, unfortunately. She was eyeing him with a wry look.

“Your arm bothering you?” she asked.

Leo froze. He hadn’t even realized he was twisting his shoulder, trying to mitigate the twinging pain in his upper arm.

“It’s fine,” he told her. “I was just stretching.”

Her look held a mixture of sympathy and mild reproach. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

“It’s true,” he said, sinking back into his chair. “Honestly, I don’t know why everyone’s making such a big deal out of it. I’ve had paper cuts that were worse.”

Okay, that was a lie. But for a bullet wound, he’d gotten off easy. It’s not like he’d been hit in the liver or anywhere important. He’d been stitched up, and he was healing—that was that. He could still do his job, even if the rest of the team wanted to treat him like an invalid.

Roth was the worst about it. And unfortunately, as the leader of the Set, Roth’s word was law. He wanted Leo out of the action, “recovering,” until further notice.

They’d had quite the argument about it this evening. Leo had a strong respect for Roth—the man had practically saved his life, recruiting him when he did—but tonight he’d used a few words toward his leader that he probably shouldn’t have. He’d be lucky if Roth gave him the time of day now. An actual assignment was out of the question at this point.

The look in Charlie’s eyes told him she’d heard the entire thing. Everyone here had, probably. But they all knew better than to question Roth, especially when so much was at stake. Rinaldi’s fortune promised to be the biggest haul of their careers. Donovan estimated that the necklace Charlie and Jackson had found on the island of Hvar was worth at least a million, and that was just the start.

“Have you figured anything out?” Charlie asked him, taking the chair across from his.

Leo shook his head. He’d been sitting here since his argument with Roth, determined to do something useful if he was going to be confined to this guest house, but no matter how many times he read Vincent Rinaldi’s silly poems, he couldn’t make sense of them. He didn’t have a head for riddles or rhyming couplets. He’d fallen asleep trying to imagine whether Rinaldi was insane or secretly some sort of genius.

Charlie drew the loose scraps of paper toward her. She had her phone out, and she scrolled down the screen a couple of times while she examined them one by one.

Nine ridiculous riddles. Each referencing some important moment in Rinaldi’s relationship with his fiancée, Alyssa Berry. Each, theoretically, leading to a piece of the fortune. The Set had a handful of Rinaldi’s old journals, and his well-loved atlas—which had proven to be an invaluable resource—but it wasn’t enough. To people who knew little about Rinaldi’s relationship with Alyssa, these were only pieces of clues.

Leo grumbled to himself, reaching for the beer he’d been drinking before he fell asleep across the table. It was warm, but he forced himself to choke it down. Earlier tonight, after his argument with Roth, the other members of the Set had gone off on their various assignments. Roth and Cruz were on their way to the auction house in London where they’d initially acquired Rinaldi’s atlas and journals. They’d get their hands on any personal effects that hadn’t sold off already, or at least see if they could get the names of those who’d bought them. Anything might be a clue.

Donovan and Toshi, meanwhile, had gone off in search of Sloane. No one had heard from her in almost three weeks. As she was the only official female member of the team, Leo—and the others, he knew—couldn’t help but feel extra protective of her, though she’d kick their asses if any of them even suggested that she needed any sort of special treatment. She’d proven time and again that she could take care of herself, which made her radio silence even more troubling. She’d either betrayed them or she was in deep shit, and he couldn’t picture her going over to another team.

Tavish, on the other hand…

Leo took another long swig of his beer. Tav, by all accounts, had betrayed them. Information was as valuable as gold in the treasure hunting world, and there were plenty of people who’d pay good money for intel that led them to a big haul. Vincent Rinaldi’s hidden fortune wasn’t common knowledge in the treasure hunting community—not yet, anyway—but the Set’s biggest rivals, Cyrus Nash and his team, had somehow learned about it. There was only one way that could have happened, and many members of the Set suspected Tav was the leak. He’d disappeared around the same time as Sloane, after making it loud and clear that he was unhappy with some of Roth’s recent decisions. Leo didn’t want to give up on a teammate, but Tav had always been a bit of a wild card. It was hard not to blame him for the trouble they’d encountered on this hunt, including the bullet hole in Leo’s arm.

Across the table, Charlie was talking to herself and flipping through Rinaldi’s atlas. It sounded like she was repeating “pinpricks of light” under her breath, but he had no idea what that meant.

Charlie was remaining here in Dubrovnik to continue working on these clues. As was Alexei, the closest thing the Set had to a cryptographer. And Jackson and Xavier had orders to stay close and act as additional protection, in addition to finding out what they could about Nash’s team and their potential whereabouts in the area.

Leo would be staying here as well, with the orders to “rest” and “recover.”

What a load of bullshit. The rest of his warm beer disappeared down his throat. He’d always been a man of action. He got restless when he was forced to sit still.

“Oh my God.”

Charlie’s voice pulled him out of his head. She was holding one of the scraps of paper up to the lamp that dangled above their heads. While he was watching, she tossed down the first riddle and grabbed another, holding it up in the same way.

“Light shines through,” she said, her eyes shifting to him. “It’s a pattern!”

“You’re going to have to explain a little more than that.”

“Look at this.” She spun the atlas around to face him. “Look at these stars he drew.” She tapped a pattern of stars drawn on the corner of the page. “There are little drawings like this throughout the atlas. I knew they must be constellations, but I didn’t know enough about astronomy to identify them offhand. I’ve been researching for days. Unfortunately, even with all the fancy astronomy apps available these days, it’s impossible to search by some random drawing.”

Leo scratched his head, wondering if he was missing something. “Okay…”

“I finally figured it out,” she said proudly. “They’re the Heavenly Waters.”

“What’s the ‘Heavenly Waters’?”

“It’s a group of constellations—nine constellations. In the note we found on Hvar, Rinaldi said he’d made good on his promise to capture the stars for Alyssa. These constellations are the key. Once I identified them, I knew these constellations had to relate to the riddles we have. Nine constellations and nine riddles—that couldn’t be a coincidence.” She grabbed one of the riddles off the table and shoved it into his hand. “Hold it up to the light.”

Leo did. When he moved the weathered paper in front of the bulb overhead, he noticed that the light shone through a series of minuscule dots that had been poked into the paper behind the poem.

“In his journal, Rinaldi once described stars as ‘pinpricks of light’,” Charlie told him. “In this case, I think he literally created these patterns using a pin. Alexei and I had written off all these little holes as just weathering, or maybe a result of that scuffle up on the cliff when we found them. I didn’t even think to compare them to the constellations Rinaldi drew in the atlas until I made the Heavenly Waters connection. That’s the constellation Delphinus you’re holding.”

He lowered the clue. “And what does that tell us?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out, but I can tell you this—Delphinus is the constellation he drew on this page.” She tapped the atlas. It was open to a map of the Caribbean, and sure enough, the pattern of stars drawn in the corner matched the pattern of pin-dots on the piece of paper in his hand. “I bet the others have matches, too.”

Sweet Jesus, she might be onto something. Something huge.

“Of course, that’s only a start,” she pointed out. “Even if this is telling us that the riddle you’re holding has something to do with the Caribbean, that’s still a huge area we’re talking about. The poems will probably lead us to the exact locations where his fortune is hidden.”

Leo reread the poem on the slip of paper in his hand.

The first time I declared my love

I said it from across the sea

With pen and ink I could reveal

The words my tongue could not set free.

He sighed. “I don’t know what this has to do with the Caribbean.”

“All the clues deal with Rinaldi’s relationship with Alyssa, right? This one is obviously talking about the first time he declared his love for her. This constellation is, at the very least, a strong suggestion that that happened somewhere in the Caribbean. Alexei and I have each read through Rinaldi’s journals a couple of times, and I don’t remember him mentioning the Caribbean, but it’s worth another look. And maybe Roth and Cruz will be able to find more journals at the auction house.”

“He left these clues for his fiancée. Shouldn’t she know the answer to this riddle without all this star nonsense? Wouldn’t she remember where he first declared his love for her without having to identify Delfin-whatsit?”

“Delphinus.” Charlie smiled. “And yes, theoretically, she should know the answer already. But remember who we’re dealing with here. Rinaldi loved all these clues and riddles. He was having fun with it, creating these over-complicated puzzles for his own amusement.” She shrugged. “Besides, think about what we know of Alyssa. This is a woman who, by all accounts, wasn’t very happy to discover that her wealthy older fiancé hadn’t left her any liquid assets when he died. A woman who turned around and sold all of his things immediately, without even considering that Vincent might have done something like this for her. Maybe, deep down, Rinaldi suspected she wouldn’t remember some of these special moments in their relationship without a little help.”

“Poor old chump.” Leo shook his head. “Can you imagine going through all this trouble for the person you love only to have them throw it away? He was a loony, but even loonies deserve love.”

Charlie nodded, looking almost sad. “She obviously meant the world to him. It’s awful that she didn’t feel the same way.” Her fingers smoothed one of the clues, which was threatening to roll up into a little scroll again. “Do you ever wonder if—”

Her voice cut off at the sound of a footstep.

“What are you guys doing?” came Jackson’s voice. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom he and Charlie were sharing, rubbing his head as he eyed them groggily. “Why aren’t you in bed, Goose?”

“You’ll never believe it,” she said, jumping to her feet. “I figured it out. The constellations are the Heavenly Waters. And they may have narrowed down our search areas. Come look.”

As she excitedly explained her discovery to a sleepy-eyed Jackson, Leo rose from his chair, stretching—and stubbornly ignoring the stab of pain in his arm as he rolled his shoulders. This was exciting news, sure, but it didn’t keep him from feeling imprisoned here. He was still just as useless as before.

“I’m going to bed,” he told them. “Make sure you guys get some sleep eventually.”

Judging by the energy in Charlie’s voice—and the growing excitement in Jackson’s eyes as she forced him to look at one of the constellations made of tiny pinholes—that wasn’t going to happen.

He was almost to his bedroom when he realized he was still holding that poem in his hand, the one supposedly tied to the Caribbean. He reread it again, looking for some hidden meaning he’d missed before, but he came up empty. It seemed straightforward enough, but without more information, it was still mostly useless. Especially halfway across the world. Maybe if they were actually in the Caribbean, they might be able to make some initial investigations and—

“Does no one in the Set sleep anymore?” came a voice from over his shoulder.

Leo jumped and, for the second time tonight, reached for a gun he wasn’t wearing. His arm throbbed as his shoulders tensed.

But it was only Xavier, one of the other members of the Set stationed here in Dubrovnik for the time being. He was still wearing his street clothes, clearly just come in from his patrol. He also had an open can of some sort of Croatian soda in his hand. Xavier had a mild addiction to orange cola, and no matter where they were in the world, he always managed to find a fix.

“You’re jumpy tonight,” Xavier said with a chuckle.

“We’re all jumpy these days.”

“True.” Xavier ran his free hand through his blond hair. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said to Roth earlier, and I think you’re right.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that we shouldn’t be wasting any time or manpower.” Xavier’s eyes were sharp. Most people didn’t suspect how intelligent he was at first glance—he looked like a typical California surfer dude, complete with messy blond hair and a perpetual tan—but he was one of the smartest members of the Set, and among these guys, that was saying something. He was also a total adrenaline junkie, something that could be either an asset or a liability depending on the situation. Leo had always liked him. “Roth likes to play it safe. But in this case, I think he’s wrong. Nash’s guys have been on our tail since the moment we started this hunt. We know they have information, but we don’t know what. We might have those little poems, but Nash is sharp. He won’t wait around while we’re trying to come up with a plan. He’ll be trying to beat us to the punch in whatever way he can.”

Leo snorted. “You could have said that earlier when Roth was tearing me a new one.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.” Xavier shrugged. “Even the two of us together couldn’t change Roth’s mind. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do.” He glanced down at the slip of paper in Leo’s hand.

“What exactly does that mean?” Leo asked him. “And how much of that stuff in the kitchen did you overhear?”

“Enough.” Xavier shrugged again, one side of his mouth tipping up in a crooked smile. “And all I mean is that if you get any ridiculous ideas to run off somewhere and do something productive… Don’t do anything crazy before talking to me, okay?” He clapped Leo on the shoulder. “You’re going to need backup.”

CHAPTER ONE

Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands

This was a terrible idea.

Ruby Whitlock walked down the cruise ship’s gangplank, trying to psych herself up for the third day of her honeymoon from hell. Her first glimpse of the island of Grand Turk looked promising—or at least exactly like the pictures in the brochure—but even the turquoise water, white sand, and cloudless blue sky couldn’t stop her from plotting Jamie’s murder as she followed a crowd of shuffling octogenarians toward the huge “Welcome to Grand Turk” sign at the end of the cruise pier. To the left of the pier, the beach was already crowded with people, most taking shelter in lounge chairs under big green umbrellas.

She’d been working on her murder plan for four days now, ever since her cruise ship had left Fort Lauderdale. First, she’d lure Jamie back to her apartment, promising him the chance to “explain himself” that he’d been begging for since the day she found out about his dirty little secret. She’d been racking her brain for a way to bait Sophie back there, too—thatsleazy homewrecker—but she hadn’t quite worked out that part yet. Either way, once Jamie was there, she’d—

“Whoa!” Something slammed into her back, and cold liquid sloshed down her sundress as she stumbled forward. She nearly tumbled right off the edge of the pier, but she caught herself at the last second, recapturing her balance before she could fall face-first into the water below.

When she turned around, a guy in a baggy wife beater and neon board shorts was sprawled across the wooden planks of the pier, still clutching his can of cheap beer. A couple of his friends were struggling to get him back on his feet. All three of them looked like they’d come straight from a frat party—their upside-down visors were the icing on the cake—and they smelled of liquor and cigarettes.

The fallen frat boy blinked at her as his friends tried to haul him up by the arms.

“Did I do that?” he slurred, pointing at the side of her dress.

Ruby glanced down. She was going to smell like crappy beer for the rest of the day. “Yeah. That was you.”

“Whoops. My bad.” His friends had finally gotten him back onto his feet, but he still looked a little unsteady. “Wait. Are you from the ship? I’m pretty sure I’d…hiccup…I’d remember you.” He punctuated that last bit with a leer and a waggle of his eyebrows.

Ruby glanced behind him toward the open water. There were two cruise ships docked here today—the one she’d just come from, the Queen Aquaria, and then the Ocean Jamboree, which featured a tangle of water slides on the main deck and was blaring electronic dance music so loud that she could hear it from here. She had an idea where these guys belonged.

“Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I’m on the Queen Aquaria.”

“No way,” one of the other frat guys said with a laugh. “That’s the old person cruise.”

She shrugged again. At the time, booking her honeymoon on the Queen Aquaria had seemed like a good idea—she’d thought she’d rather spend those romantic first few nights of marriage on a quiet, peaceful ship, rather than one that encouraged wet T-shirt contests. But things had changed last week when she discovered her now ex-fiancé was cheating on her. Maybe she would have been better off getting plastered and playing Bikini Limbo.

“You going to the beach?” one of the guys asked. She wasn’t sure which one—all three of them looked and sounded the same.

The breeze tugged at her hat, and she grabbed the brim so it wouldn’t fly off her head. “Actually, I was thinking of exploring the island a bit.”

“If you change your mind, come find us.” That was the first guy again, the one who looked like he could hardly keep himself upright.

“I’ll think about it,” she replied, giving them a noncommittal nod before turning and continuing down the pier. Spending her honeymoon alone wasn’t exactly a barrel of fun, but spending it talking to drunk frat boys wasn’t any better.

But hey, they were flirting with you. In their way, she told herself. It proves you aren’t some hideous beast. That fear had crossed her mind once or twice since discovering her fiancé of two years was sleeping with someone else. Was there something wrong with her? Some horrible defect she couldn’t see? Having her whole world destroyed two days before her wedding—and not seeing it coming—had screwed her up in the head, and in the days since she’d found herself questioning everything.

Maybe it would be good for her to go back and flirt with those guys some more. Or meet up with them later and let them ply her with alcohol. Heck, she might as well go all the way and sleep with one of them—or all three!—just to prove to herself that her life wasn’t over, that there were still men out there who wanted her.

Tears burned in her eyes, but she fought them down, burying them beneath the anger she kept smoldering in her chest. Fuck men. Fuck all of them! Today was about enjoying herself. About exploring a beautiful Caribbean island and forgetting about the shitshow of a life she’d have to return to next week.

She realized she was clutching her grandmother’s ring, a simple gold band that she wore on a chain around her neck. Her grandma had given it to her three years ago, just before she died, and it represented everything Ruby had once hoped for in her life. Now, it was an almost-painful reminder of what she’d just lost. What Jamie and Sophie had taken away from her. Taking a deep breath to force the lump out of her throat, she released her grip on the ring and continued down the pier.

The cluster of white-roofed, pastel-colored buildings at the end of the pier boasted the usual selection of cruise-port shops: souvenir stores with everything from shot glasses to Christmas ornaments, jewelry shops with “special deals” for Queen Aquaria passengers, and of course restaurants with margaritas as large as her head. As tempting as one of those margaritas sounded—it was only ten in the morning, but that didn’t matter when you were on cruise time—Ruby was in search of something a little less...tourist-y.

She found what she was looking for behind the row of buildings—a van offering rides for five American dollars into Cockburn Town, the capital of the Turks and Caicos. Happily handing over the money, she climbed into the backseat and waited for the other passengers to scramble in behind her. The sooner she got somewhere interesting, the sooner she’d get Jamie and Sophie and those skeevy frat boys out of her head.

Her eyes had stopped burning by the time the van pulled away from the curb, but the lump remained in her throat. The driver was friendly and knowledgeable, generously sharing information about the island as he taxied them down the narrow road toward the capital, but it was hard to appreciate it when she was struggling to keep herself together. She tried to pay attention to the things he pointed out—the salt flats in the distance, the wild donkeys roaming everywhere, the different species of low, scrubby trees—but it wasn’t until they came to a stretch of ruined buildings that she snapped out of her daze of self-pity. The driver explained that the damage had been caused by the hurricane that hit the island a couple of years ago.

Ruby stared out the window at the ruins. The roofs of the buildings were gone, leaving only slivers of timber pointing up at the cloudless sky. A couple of the other tourists were snapping pictures with their phones, but she didn’t feel right documenting the destruction in that way.

Even as the van continued on, she noticed lingering evidence of the hurricane everywhere. Nearly half the buildings they passed were missing walls or roofs, and some were mere shells of what they’d been before. It was an eye-opening reminder that even though it felt like her life was over, there were bigger problems in the world. Spending the rest of her life moping and feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to solve anything. But it felt like an impossible hole to claw her way out of right now.

Eventually, the van pulled to a stop in front of a row of tourist shops.

“This is Cockburn Town,” the driver told them.

For a “town,” and especially for a capital, it was much smaller than Ruby had been expecting. On the opposite side of the street, stalls selling T-shirts and local art stood nearly on top of the sand, and the turquoise water of the sea glittered behind them. In every other direction, low-roofed buildings—often with brightly colored shutters—lined the narrow road. Some of the buildings were boarded up, and others bore visible hurricane damage. But there was an energy here, and she found herself eager to explore.

She wandered down the street, clutching her hat to keep it firmly on her head. The breeze felt stronger here, and the sun did, too. Her dress was already dry again, and the exposed parts of her skin were baking in the heat. The low buildings offered little shade, and the few trees she saw were stubby and short. Without her hat, she’d burn to a crisp within minutes out here. She’d inherited her dad’s dark hair but her mom’s paler-than-a-ghost skin—which was great for whenever she wanted to be a vampire for Halloween, but not so great for Caribbean vacations. Even SPF 60 didn’t always do the trick. But she’d survive, and she knew firsthand that there were worse things than a sunburn.

Her sundress fluttered around her legs as she strolled down the road, taking it all in. It was quiet here. Peaceful. Apparently most tourists didn’t bother venturing outside the cruise port, and many of the visitors that had arrived in the van with her had already disappeared into the air-conditioned shops. Across the street, a handful of people were crowded around a small, open-air bar advertising cold beer. Ahead of her, two men walked purposefully down the road, away from the shops. She didn’t recognize them from the van, but they didn’t strike her as locals, either.

Maybe there’s something interesting this way, she thought, pulling out the map of the island provided by the Queen Aquaria. A little red icon indicated there was a museum up ahead, and that seemed like as good a place as any to begin her explorations.

Especially since Jamie never would have wanted to go with you. The bitter thought rose unbidden, and she smothered it as fast as she could. She was not going to make this whole trip about that scumbag. But she might as well take advantage of her new-found freedom, even if “freedom” was a funny word for the sick, stabby feeling that had taken up permanent residence in her gut.

Fortunately, she didn’t have very long to dwell on the past. She only had to walk for a couple of blocks before she came upon a white building with cerulean blue shutters and a bright red-orange roof. Out front, a weathered whitewashed sign declared it the “Shipwreck Museum of Grand Turk” in cheerful red letters. It was less than half the size of what she’d been anticipating, but from the outside, it was certainly charming.

The men she’d seen walking ahead of her were no longer in sight. Since there wasn’t much else at this end of town, she suspected they’d probably gone inside the museum.

After snapping a few pictures—including a smiling selfie in front of the museum sign, since it was important that she prove to all of her friends and family back home that she was not only surviving, but “having fun”—she went inside.

The front door of the museum led into a small room where a woman in her mid-sixties sat behind a wooden desk. The plastic nametag pinned to her shirt said “Marian.”

“Welcome,” the woman said, turning away from the rack of postcards she’d been straightening. “Would you like to buy a ticket to the museum?”

Ruby happily paid the woman the admission fee, peering past her into the room beyond. She thought she heard voices elsewhere in the building, but by all appearances, she and those two men were the only visitors today.

“Each room features a different shipwreck,” the woman behind the counter told her. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll just be here.”

“Thank you,” Ruby replied with a smile. She walked around the desk and into the room beyond, ready to distract herself from her feelings with a little history.

And it looked like she’d hit the jackpot here. She lit up when she saw the displays in the next room, many of which contained remnants of what the museum claimed were some of the oldest excavated shipwreck remains in the western hemisphere. Her heart fluttered in excitement as she went from display to display, inhaling every little bit of information. She was the only one in the room—the other visitors had already moved deeper into the building—which meant she didn’t feel the least bit guilty about taking as much time as she wanted staring at everything.

Yeah, Jamie would have hated this.

Along one side of the room, a waist-high barrier marked off one of the displays. She leaned slightly over the railing, trying to get a closer look at the giant cannon hanging on the wall. The cannon was apparently around five centuries old. That was almost unfathomable to her.

A small clink drew her attention downward. With a start, she realized that the necklace with her grandmother’s ring had fallen off, right down into the display.

Cursing to herself, she leaned farther over the barrier, reaching for the chain. Her arm wasn’t quite long enough, though.

“Here,” came a deep voice from just behind her. “Let me help.”

She hadn’t heard anyone else come into the room. But a man leaned past her, easily reaching down and grabbing her necklace from among the shipwreck artifacts on display. When he straightened again, her heart fluttered.

He was hot. Like panty-melting, world-momentarily-standing-still hot. As he held her necklace out to her, she couldn’t help but notice how tall he was, or how his shoulders were so wide the fabric of his T-shirt could hardly contain them. His hair was dark and just long enough to hang down into his eyes. He pushed it back as he looked at her, his nearly black eyes smiling as he pressed the necklace into her hand.

“Thanks,” she said, her throat suddenly dry. Her fingers curled protectively around her grandmother’s ring.

“Anytime, bella.”

“Oh.” She felt a flush creep up into her cheeks. He had to be one of the men she’d seen up ahead of her out on the street. If she’d known one of them looked like this, she would have done everything in her power to catch up with them sooner. “Where’s your friend?”

“He’s still taking the grand tour.” The man gestured toward the next room. “Just between you and me, I prefer to explore on my own.” He winked at her.

Her face got even warmer. Was it just wishful thinking, or was there something flirtatious about the way he was speaking with her? And the way he was looking at her? She was so out of practice that she wasn’t sure. She’d been dating Jamie for the past four years, and she couldn’t remember how to flirt anymore.

Either way, this was the first time since walking away from Jamie that she’d even felt a spark of anything but anger and resentment toward men. She decided to embrace it.

“Thanks again for getting my necklace,” she told him, hooking the chain back around her neck. “This ring belonged to my grandmother. I’d die if I lost it.”

“My pleasure, bella.”

Okay, he was definitely flirting with her. Why would a guy bring out that sexy Italian accent unless he was interested? Either way, she was feeling ballsy. And a little like having sweaty revenge sex with a mind-blowingly hot stranger.

“Are you here on the Queen Aquaria?” she asked, crossing her fingers. “Maybe we could meet up for a drink later. So I can thank you properly.”